Part 4

“How funny you are!” June’s cheek was a flame. But he spoke so impersonally, delicately weighing each word before a passion of sincerity gave it birth, that any effective form of rebuke was out of the question.

“Miss June,” this amazing fellow went on, speaking for all the world as if she were a picture whose signature he was looking for, “when you came here, you brought the sun of beauty. Colour and harmony and grace, you brought those too. If only I knew how to paint,”--he sighed gently,--“I could never rest until I had put you on canvas just as you stand at this moment.”

It was clear that he had forgotten completely that this was the niece of his employer. She also forgot that no young man had ventured yet to speak to her like that. This was William the wonderful who was addressing her, and his voice was music, his eyes slow fire, his whole being a golden web of poetry and romance.

“You oughtn’t to give away such a thing,” she persisted, but with none of her usual force. “It’s valuable; and I oughtn’t to take it.” The sound of her voice, she knew only too well, was thin and strange.

“Please, please take it, Miss June,” he quaintly entreated her. “It will give me more pleasure to know that you are caring for it, and that its beauty speaks to you than if I kept it all to myself. I love it, but you love it, too. If you’ll share the happiness it brings me, then I shall love it even more.”

Shadows of the evening were now in the room. His face was half hidden, and the wildness of her heart scarcely allowed his voice to be heard. She thought no longer of the worth of the gift, nor was she now concerned with the propriety of its acceptance. Her mind was in the grip of other things. Was it to herself he was speaking? Or was he speaking merely to a fellow worshipper of beauty? To such questions there could be no answer; she trembled at the daring which gave them birth.

His mere presence was a lure. She longed to touch his hand very gently, and would perhaps have done so, had she not been cruelly aware that even the hem of her sleeve would defile it. She was cheating him, she was cheating him outrageously. The only excuse she had was that it was all for his own good; such, at least, must now be her prayer, her hope, her faith.

X

THE next morning Foxy Face, true to the appointment he had made with S. Gedge Antiques, came at ten o’clock with a friend. A quarter before that hour William had been sent to the King’s Road, Chelsea, in quest of a Jacobean carving-table for which his master had a customer.

June, in anticipation of the event, took care to be busy in a distant corner of the shop when these gentlemen arrived. As on the occasion of Louis Quinze-legs’ previous visit, Uncle Si lost no time in going himself to fetch the picture, but his prompt return was fraught for June with bitter disappointment. By sheer ill luck, as it seemed, his stern eye fell on her at the very moment he gave the picture to Mr. Thornton’s friend, a morose-looking man in a seedy frock coat and a furry topper.

“Niece,” sharply called S. Gedge Antiques, “go and do your dusting somewhere else.”

There was no help for it. June could almost have shed tears of vexation, but she had to obey. The most she dared venture in the way of appeasing a curiosity that had grown terrific was to steal back on tiptoe a few minutes later, to retrieve a pot of furniture polish she had been clever enough to leave behind. Like a mouse she crept back for it, but Uncle Si flashed upon her such a truculent eye that, without trying to catch a word that was passing, she simply fled.

Fear seized her. She felt sure that she had seen the last of the picture. Her distrust of S. Gedge Antiques had become so great that she was now convinced that money would tempt him to anything. Twenty miserable minutes she spent wondering what she must do if the picture was disposed of there and then. She tried to steel her heart against the fact, now looming inevitable, that she would never see it again.

At last the visitors left the shop. June then discovered that her fears had carried her rather too far, and that for the time being, at any rate, Uncle Si had been done an injustice.

He shambled slowly into the kitchen and to June’s intense relief the picture was in his hand.

“Niece,” he said, threatfully; “understand once for all that I won’t have you hanging about the shop when I am doing business with important customers.”

The sight of the picture was so much more important than the words which came out of his mouth that June felt inclined to treat them lightly.

“I’m telling you,” said the old man fiercely. “Mark what I say. I won’t have females listening with their mouths open when I’m doing business. And don’t laugh at me, else you’ll have to pack your box. Here!” Uncle Si handed her the picture with a scowl. “Take this back to where it came from; and just remember what’s been said to you, or you’ll find yourself short of a week’s pocket money.”

Adjured thus, June was a model of discretion for the rest of that day; and yet she was the prey of a devouring curiosity. She would have given much to know what had taken place in the course of the morning’s traffic with Louis Quinze-legs and his friend. It was not until supper-time that she was able to gather a clue, when Uncle Si mentioned the matter to William. He was careful to do so, however, in the most casual way.

“By the way, boy,” said the old man gravely balancing a piece of cheese on the end of his knife, and fixing June with his eye as he did so; “that daub of yours--I’ve had Mr. Thornton here to look at it.”

“I hope he liked it, sir,” said William, with his eager smile.

Uncle Si pursed his mouth. Then he went through the rest of his performance, which on this occasion ended in a noise through closed lips like a hornet’s drone, which might have meant anything.

June felt an insane desire to give the old wretch a punch on his long and wicked nose.

“What did he think of the cloud?” asked William. “And the light of the sun striking through on to the water?”

“He says it’s very rough and dirty, and in bad condition, but if I could buy it for two pounds he might be able to show me a small profit.”

“I should think so,” murmured June, holding a glass of water in suspense.

Uncle Si laid down his knife and looked at her.

“You _think_ so, niece,” he snarled. “Have the goodness to mind your own affairs, or you and I will quarrel. That’s twice to-day I’ve had to speak to you.”

June covered a retreat from the impossible position strong feelings had led her into by emptying her glass in one fierce draught.

“You see, boy,” said Uncle Si, turning to William with a confidential air, “this--this _picture_.”--It seemed a great concession on his part to allow that the thing was a picture at all--“is without a signature. That makes it almost valueless.”

William smiled and gently shook his head.

“Beg your pardon, sir, but it is signed in every line.”

“Rubbish. No theorising--this is a business proposition. And I tell you that without the signature, this bit of pretty-pretty just amounts to nix.” The old man gave his fingers a contemptuous snap. “That’s what it amounts to. But as you’ve taken the trouble to bring it all the way from Suffolk and you’ve spent a certain amount of your master’s time in trying to get it clean, as I say, I’ll spring a couple of pounds to encourage you. But why I should I really don’t know.”

June was hard-set to refrain from breaking the peace which followed, with the laugh of derision. Happily, by a triumph of will power, she bridled her tongue and kept her eyes modestly upon her plate.

“Now, boy!” Uncle Si made a series of conjuror’s passes with his spectacles. “Two pounds! Take it or leave it! What do you say?”

William did not say anything, yet one of his shy smiles was winged to June across the table. She promptly sent back a scowl quite feral in its truculence, which yet was softened by a world of eloquence and humour behind it. There was no other way of intimating that Uncle Si must not learn too soon that the picture was now hers.

William, no fool, if he chose to use his wits, was able to interpret this wireless. Thus he began to temporise; and he did so in a way delightfully his own.

“What difference, sir, do you think the signature would make to our little masterpiece?”

The old man gave his assistant a look almost superhuman in its caution.

“Heh?” said he.

The question was repeated.

“Depends whose it is,” was the testy answer. “You know that as well as I do. If it’s Hobbema’s, it might be worth money.”

“It isn’t Hobbema’s.”

“Ah!” said S. Gedge Antiques. “Interesting to know that.” Had he been on winking terms with his niece, he would have winked at her; as it was, he had to be content with a sarcastic glance at the tablecloth. “But how do you know?” he added, idly careless.

“Anyone can see it isn’t.”

Anyone could not see it wasn’t a Hobbema, and that was the snag in the mind of the old man at this moment. Neither Mr. Thornton nor his friend, Mr. Finch, was quite certain it was not a Hobbema; they were even inclined to think that it was one, but in the absence of proof they were not disposed to gamble upon it.

“How do you mean, boy, that anyone can see it isn’t?”

“That gleam of sunlight, sir.” The voice of William was music and poetry in the ear of June. “I doubt whether even Hobbema could have painted that.”

“You tell that to the Marines,” said S. Gedge Antiques impatiently. All the same he knew better than to discourage William in the process of unbosoming himself. The young man was continually betraying such a knowledge of a difficult and abstruse subject that it was becoming a source of wonder to his master. “Maybe you’ve found somebody else’s signature?” The tone was half a sneer.

“Yes, sir, I rather think I have,” said William quite calmly and simply.

“You have!” A sudden excitement fused the cold voice. “When did you find it?”

“It would be about half an hour ago.”

“Oh, indeed!” said the old man.

This queer fellow’s casual tone was extremely puzzling. Why should he be inclined to apologise for having discovered the name of the artist, when it was of such vital importance? The only possible explanation of the mystery at once presented itself to the astute mind which asked the question.

“Then I expect you’ve been a fool. If you couldn’t find Hobbema’s signature you had no right to find the signature of anyone else.”

William was out of his depth. He could only regard his master with eyes of bewilderment. But June was not out of hers; she was careful, all the same, not to regard Uncle Si with eyes of any kind. She merely regarded her plate. And as she did so, a little shiver that was almost pain ran through her. Uncle Si was such a deep one that she felt ashamed of knowing how deep he was.

“I don’t understand, sir,” said William, in the way that only he could have spoken.

“Boy,” said his master, “you make me tired. In some ways you are clever, but in others you are just the biggest idiot that ever happened. I should have thought a child would have known that this has either got to be a Hobbema or it has got to be nothing. The best thing you can do is to go upstairs right now and take out that signature.”

“But I understood you to say, sir, that the picture has no market value without a signature.”

“No more it has, you fool. But there may be those who think it’s a Hobbema. And if there are, it is up to us to help them to keep on thinking.”

June hung breathlessly on every word that passed. She watched William shake his head in slow and grave perplexity.

“But anybody can see that it isn’t a Hobbema.”

“Anybody can’t,” said the old man. “Mr. Thornton can’t for one, and he’s a pretty good judge, as a rule. Mr. Finch is more doubtful, but even he wouldn’t like to swear to it.”

William shook his head.

“Boy, you are a fool. You are getting too clever; you are getting above your trade. Go at once and take out that signature, whatever it may be, provided it isn’t Hobbema’s, and I’ll give you two pounds for the thing as it stands. And let me tell you two pounds is money.”

William shook his head a little more decisively.

“I’d have to paint out the trees,” he said, “and the water, and that cloud, and that gleam of sunlight before I could begin to touch the signature.”

“What do you mean?”

“It’s a Van Roon,” said William, in a voice so gentle that he might have been speaking to himself.

S. Gedge Antiques laid his knife on his plate with a clatter. He gave an excited snort. “Van Fiddlestick!”

William’s smile grew so intense that June could hardly bear to look at him.

“Every inch of it,” said William, “and there are not so many, is Van Roon.”

“Why, there are only about a dozen Van Roons in existence,” said the old man, a queer little shake coming into his voice.

“There’s one more now, sir.” William’s own voice was curiously soft.

XI

“IF you go on like this,” said S. Gedge Antiques, after a pause, full of drama, “you will have to have a cold compress put on your head. Do you mean to tell me you have actually found the signature?”

“Yes, sir,” said William, “right down in the corner about half an hour ago.”

“Then why didn’t you say so instead of keeping it all to yourself?”

“Because it doesn’t seem half so important as the other things I’ve found.”

“What other things?”

“The trees and the water and that----”

“We’ve heard more than enough about those. Here have you been rubbing for that signature for the best part of a fortnight, and you pretend to have found a Van Roon, and you keep it as close as the tomb.”

“I had found Van Roon, sir, long before I came upon his name.”

“Rubbish! What do you know of Van Roon?”

“There is a Van Roon in the treasure house in the Square,” said William with his inward smile.

“There’s only one,” snapped S. Gedge Antiques, “in the treasure house in the Square, as you call it, and it’s a very small one, too.”

“Ours is very small, sir. All Van Roons are small. And they are very scarce.”

“They are so scarce, my friend, that you’ll never convince anybody that ours is genuine.”

“There’s no need, sir, provided you know it is yourself.”

“But that’s just what I don’t know,” said the old man. “Anyhow you had better go upstairs and fetch it. I’ll have a look at the signature of Mynheer Van Roon.” And then Uncle Si scowled at his niece who, in a state of growing excitement, had already begun to remove the bread and cheese from the supper table.

While the young man went up to the attic, his master ruminated.

“Fellow’s cracked,” he declared, a hostile eye still fixed upon June. “That’s his trouble. I’ll never be able to make anything of him. This comes of Hobbemaising. Van Fiddlestick!”

“Uncle Si,” said June, in the voice of a dove, “if it is a Van Roon, what is the value of it?”

“Heh?” growled Uncle Si, and his eye became that of a kite. “Never you mind. Get on with the clearing of that table, and don’t interfere. I never knew such creatures as women for minding other people’s business. But I can tell you this, only a born fool would talk of Van Roon.”

A born fool came down the stairs at that moment, the picture in one hand, a microscope in the other.

“It’s not a very good light, sir--” William’s voice trembled a little--“but I think if you hold it up to the gas, you will be able to see the signature right down in the corner. Just there, sir, along by my thumb.”

The old man, glass in hand, brought a close scrutiny to bear upon the spot along by William’s thumb. Then he shook his head.

“No, it is just as I thought. There doesn’t begin to be the sign of a signature.”

“Don’t you see the upstroke of the R?”

“Don’t I see the leg of my grandmother!”

“Just there, sir. Round by the edge of my finger nail.”

S. Gedge Antiques solemnly exchanged his “selling” spectacles for his “buying” ones, screwed up his eyes and grunted: “Why, that’s the tail of a Q, you fool.” Again he took up the microscope and made prodigious play with it. “That’s if it’s anything. Which I take leave to doubt.”

William, however, was not to be moved. And then Uncle Si’s manner had a bad relapse. He began to bully. William, all the same, stuck to his guns with a gentle persistence that June could only admire. This odd but charming fellow would have Van Roon, or he would have none.

At last the old man laid the microscope on the supper table, and there came into his cunning, greedy eyes what June called the “old crocodile” look. “If you’ll take my advice, boy, you’ll turn that R into an A, and you’ll make that upstroke a bit longer, so that it can stand for an H, and you’ll touch up those blurs in the middle, so that ordinary common people will really be able to see that it _is_ a Hobbema. Now what do you say?”

William shook a silent, rather mournful, head.

“If you’ll do that, you shall have five pounds for it. That’s big money for a daub for which you paid five shillings, but Mr. Thornton says American buyers are in the market, and with Hobbemas in short supply, they might fall for a thing like this. But of course the job must be done well.”

William was still silent.

“Now what do you say, boy?” The Old Crocodile was unable to conceal his eagerness. “Shall we say five pounds as it stands? We’ll leave out the question of the signature. Mr. Thornton shall deal with that. Now what do you say? Five pounds for it now?”

William did not speak. It was at the tip of June’s tongue to relieve his embarrassment by claiming the picture as her own; but, luckily, she remembered that to do so just now might have an effect opposite to the one intended. Even as it was, she could not refrain from making a “mouth” at William to tell him to stand firm.

He saw the “mouth,” but unfortunately so did Uncle Si. There were few things escaped the old man when he happened to be wearing his “buying” spectacles.

“Niece, you cut off to bed,” he said sternly. “And you must learn not to butt in, or one of these days you’ll bite granite.”

June showed no desire to obey, but Uncle Si, with a look set and dour, shuffled as far as the parlour door and opened it. “No more of it, my girl.” The voice was full of menace.

One further instant June hesitated. The picture had been given to her, and the right and proper course was to claim it. But this daughter of the midlands was afraid of a false move. The revelation sprang to the tip of her tongue, yet a mysterious power seemed to hold it back. She may have expected help from William, but he, alas, seemed too much occupied in proving his case to be able to give a moment’s thought to the picture’s ownership.

“Off to bed with you.” The old man’s voice was now savage. “Or--!” There was a world of meaning in the strangled threat.

June climbed up to her attic with the best grace she could, her thunderbolt unlaunched. As slowly she undressed by the uncertain light of one poor candle, she felt very unhappy. Not only was there something unpleasant, one might almost say wicked, about Uncle Si, but his manner held a power of menace which fed her growing fear.

What _was_ there to be afraid of? As she blew out the candle and leapt into the meagre, rickety bed which had lumps in the middle, that was the question she put to a rather stricken conscience. To ask the question was not to answer it; a fact she learnt after she had said her prayers in which Uncle Si was dutifully included. Perhaps the root of the mischief was that the old man was so horridly deceitful. While he held the picture up to the light, and he gazed at it through the microscope, she fancied that she had seen the devil peeping out of him. In a vivid flash she had caught the living image of the Hoodoo. And June was as certain as that her pillow was hard, that cost what it might he had made up his mind to get possession of the treasure.

At the same time, she lacked the knowledge to enter fully into the niceties of the case. The picture might be a thing of great value; on the other hand it might not. She was not in a position to know; yet she was quite sure that William in spite of his cleverness was in some ways a perfect gaby, and that his master was out to take advantage of the fact.

As she sought in vain for a soft place in her comfortless bed, she was inclined to admire her own astuteness in persuading William to bestow the picture upon herself. It was for the Sawney’s own sake, that at least was how she chose to view the transaction now. But a sense of vague triumph was dashed by the thought lurking at the back of her mind. Uncle Si was bound to get the picture from the feckless William somehow; indeed the young man, being as clay in the hands of his master, she was soon besieged with a fear that he had parted with it already.

The slow passing of the tardy minutes gave form and pressure to this spectre. With an excitement that grew and grew she listened intently for William ascending to the room next door. Soon or late she would hear his feet on the carpetless stairs; but to one burning with impatience it seemed that an age had to pass.

At last came the sounds for which she was so expectantly listening. The door of the next room was softly closed. What had happened? Was the picture still in his keeping? To lie all night with that question unanswered was more than she could bear. Suddenly she jumped out of bed, flung a macintosh over her white nightdress, so that the proprieties might be observed, thrust her feet into slippers and then knocked upon William’s door.

It was opened at once.

“Why, Miss June!” Astonishment was in the tone. “Are you ill?”

“The picture?” said June, in quick whisper, so that Uncle Si should not hear. “You haven’t left it downstairs, I hope?”

Laughing gently, William half turned from the threshold and pointed to a small table in the middle of the room, on which lay the treasure with a bit of candle burning beside it.

A deep sigh expressed June’s relief. “Please give it to me. I will lock it up in my box for safety.”

He smiled at her eagerness, and declared that it was quite all right where it was. Besides, another week’s work was needed to give the last touches to the delicate process of cleaning. June, whose careful bringing-up would not allow her to enter the room in such circumstances, tried from its threshold to make clear that the picture was already clean enough for her. But William was not to be moved. Many exquisite details yet called for the labours of a true lover.

“Well, you must promise,” whispered June finally, “to take _enormous_ care of it. You must promise not to let it out of your sight for a single moment.”

William hesitated to give this pledge. It appeared that his master wanted to show the picture to a friend; a fact which did but serve to confirm June in her suspicions. But she had the wisdom not to put them into words. She was content to affirm once more that the picture was now hers and that she would not trust _anyone_ with a thing of such value.

“But I’d trust the master with my life,” said William softly.

June felt that she would like to beat him for his innocence, as her manner plainly showed. In some things he was almost too simple to live.

Suddenly she gave him a stern good-night, and abruptly closed the door. But it was long after Saint Martin’s Church had struck the hour of two that sleep visited her pillow.

XII

THE next day was Saturday; and as the shop closed at one, June prepared to keep her promise of accompanying William to his “treasure house.” Strategy was needed, all the same. After she had washed up, she put on her “going out” dress. But when she came downstairs in it, Uncle Si, who took a most unwelcome interest in all her movements, inquired what was in the wind.

“I’m going to look at a hat,” was the answer, bland and cool.

“Going to look _at_ a hat!” To the mind of Uncle Si it was an unheard-of proceeding. “Next thing you’ll be wanting to buy a hat.”

June confessed that it might be so.