Chapter D: Appleton and Company (8)

The prompt opening of the door by a gravely dignified manservant acted as a strong restorative. June mustered the force of will to ask if she could see Miss Babraham. Such a request, made in a nervous and excited manner, gave pause to the footman, who at first could not bring himself to invite her into the large dimly lighted hall. Finally he did so; closed the door against the fog, and then asked her name with an air of profound disapproval, which at any other time must have proved highly embarrassing.

“I’m Miss Gedge,” said June. “From the second-hand shop in New Cross Street. Miss Babraham’ll remember me.”

The servant slowly repeated the fragmentary words in a low voice of cutting emphasis. “I’m afraid,” he said, while his eye descended to June’s shoes and up again, “Miss Babraham will not be able to see you to-night. However, I’ll inquire.”

Superciliously the footman crossed the hall, to discuss the matter with an unseen presence in its farthest shadows. The conference was brief but unsatisfactory, for a moment later the unseen presence slowly materialized into the august shape of a butler, who seemed at once to diminish the footman into a relative nothingness.

“Perhaps you’ll let me know your business,” said the butler, in a tone which implied that she could have no business, at any rate with Miss Babraham, at such an hour.

June, alas, could not explain the nature of her errand. These two men were so imposing, so unsympathetic, so harsh, so frightening that had life itself depended upon her answers, and in quite a special degree she now felt that it did, she was yet unequal to the task of making them effective.

“Miss Babraham cannot see you now,” said the slow-voiced butler, with an air of terrible finality.

“But I must see her. I simply must,” wildly persisted June.

“It’s impossible to see her now,” said the butler.

The words caused June to stagger back against the wall. In answer to her tragic eyes, the butler said reluctantly: “You had better call again some time to-morrow, and I’ll send in your name.”

“I--I must see her now,” June gasped wildly.

The butler was adamant. “You can’t possibly see her to-night.”

“Why can’t I?” said June, desperately.

“She is going to a ball.”

The words were like a blow. A vista of the fog outside and of herself wandering with her precious burden all night long in it homeless, penniless, desolate, came upon her with unnerving force. “But--please!--I must see her to-night,” she said, with a shudder of misery.

Faced by the butler’s pitiless air, June felt her slender hope to be ebbing away. She would be turned adrift in the night. And what would happen to her then? She could not walk the streets till daybreak with the Van Roon under her arm. Already she had reached the limit of endurance. The dark haze before her eyes bore witness to the fact that her strength was almost gone. No matter what the attitude of the butler towards her she must not think of quitting this place of refuge unless she was flung out bodily, for her trials here were nought by comparison with those awaiting her outside.

June’s defiance was very puzzling to the stern functionary who quite plainly was at a loss how to deal with it. But in the midst of these uncertainties the problem was unexpectedly solved for him. A glamour of white satin, jewels and fur appeared on the broad staircase. Miss Babraham descended slowly.

Once more was June upheld by a sense of Providence. Hope flickered again, a painful, fluctuating gleam. She sprang forward to intercept this vision of pure beauty, wildly calling the name “Miss Babraham! Miss Babraham!”

The dazzling creature was startled out of her glowing self-possession: “Why, who _are_ you?” she cried.

In a gush of strange words, June strove to make clear that she was the girl from the antique shop in New Cross Street, and that her uncle, its proprietor, was a very wicked old man who was trying to steal a valuable picture that had been given to her. She pressed the Van Roon upon the astonished Miss Babraham and besought her to take care of it.

After that, June had only a very dim idea of what happened. She found herself in a sort of anteroom without knowing how she got there, with faces of a surprised curiosity around her. Foremost of these was the lovely Miss Babraham, a thing of sheer beauty in her ball-dress, who asked questions to which June could only give confused replies, and issued orders that she was not able to follow.

Everything began to grow more and more like a wild and terrible dream. Other people appeared on the scene, among whom June was just able to recognize the tall form of Sir Arthur Babraham. By then, however she no longer knew what she was doing or saying, for deep blanks were invading her consciousness; even the treasure in which her very soul was merged had somehow slipped from her mental grasp, and like everything else had ceased to have significance.

L

AT eleven o’clock the next morning, Sir Arthur Babraham, looking worried and distrait, was pretending to read the “Times.” If ever a man could be said to have “been born with a silver spoon in his mouth” it was this soft-voiced, easy-mannered, kindly gentleman. The rubs of a hard world had hardly touched his unflawed surfaces. He sat on committees, it was true, and played Providence at third or fourth hand to less happily situated mortals; yet scarcely, if at all, had he been brought face to face with the stark realities of life.

It is never too late, however, for some new thing to occur. The previous evening an experience had happened to this worthy man; and he could not rid his mind of the fact that it was disconcerting. On a table at his elbow was a picture without a frame, and more than once his eyes strayed from the newspaper to this object, which at a first glance was so insignificant, and yet as if cursed with an “obi” it had the power to dominate him completely.

In the midst of this preoccupation, Laura Babraham entered the room. She had returned late from the dance, and this was her first appearance that morning. Hardly had she saluted her father when her eye also fell on the picture, and a look of deep anxiety came into her eyes.

“Have you heard anything from the hospital?” she asked eagerly.

“I rang them up half an hour ago,” said Sir Arthur. “The girl is very ill indeed. I gather from the tone of the person with whom I talked that the case is pretty serious.”

“Yes,” said Laura Babraham, in a low voice. “One felt sure of that. Never again do I want to see a human creature in the state that poor thing was in last night. I’ve been haunted by her ever since.”

“Pretty bad, I must say.” Sir Arthur plucked sharply at his moustache. “According to the Hospital, she’s been knocked about and generally ill-used. There are marks on her throat, and they want my opinion as to whether they should communicate with the police.”

“What do you advise, papa?” said Laura, with a growing concern.

“One doesn’t know what to advise.” Sir Arthur’s moustache continued to receive harsh treatment. “We are faced with rather a problem, it seems to me.”

“You mean that it will be a matter for the police if she doesn’t get better?”

“Yes, certainly that. And it may be a matter for the police if she does get better.”

Laura Babraham agreed; yet even then she did not see the problem in its full complexity. Sir Arthur, taking the first step towards her enlightenment, pointed to the Van Roon: “My dear, beyond any doubt that is a most precious thing. And, ignoring for the moment the state in which this young woman turned up last night, the question we have to ask ourselves is: What is she doing with it at all? And why was she ranging the streets alone, in the fog, at that hour?”

“From what one gathered,” said Laura, “the picture is hers, and her uncle, the old curio man in New Cross Street, with whom she lives, is determined to steal it.”

“Quite. That’s her story, as far as one can get at it. But I put it to you, isn’t it far more likely--prima facie at any rate--that the girl is trying to steal it from the old dealer?”

“I believe the poor thing is speaking the truth,” said Woman in the person of Miss Laura Babraham.

“You mean, my dear,” said her logical parent, with a sad little smile, “that you _hope_ she is speaking the truth. With all my heart I hope so, too, even if it proves this old man--Gedge you say his name is--to be a terrible scoundrel. One of them certainly is not playing straight--but prima facie, as I say--if we call in the police, it is almost certain that it is this wretched girl who will find herself in prison.”

“There I don’t agree, papa,” said Woman staunchly. “The poor thing says that William the assistant gave her the picture; and in all the dealings I have had with William in the course of the past year, he has been honesty itself.”

Her father shook his head gently. “All very well, but Master William is the part of the story I like least. Is it probable, in the first place, that a young man who almost certainly has no money of his own, would be able to get possession of such a thing; and, again, assuming him to be clever enough to do so, is he going to be such a fool as to give it away to this girl? Let us look all the facts in the face. To my mind, the more one thinks of it the more inevitable the plain solution is.”

“I’m absolutely convinced that William, at any rate, is honest.”

Sir Arthur frowned and opened his cigar case. “And I for my part am convinced,” he said, with a sigh as he cut off the end of a Corona, “that our friend William is a cunning scoundrel, who has been deep enough to get this young woman to do the dirty work and run all the risks, because he must know as well as anybody that a great deal of money is at stake.”

Laura Babraham had a considerable respect for her father’s judgment, yet she knew the value of her own. She did not think it was possible to be so deceived; her dealings with William had left her with the highest regard for his straightforwardness; if he proved to be the despicable creature Sir Arthur’s fancy painted him, never again would she be able to hold an opinion about anyone. Yet her father’s analysis of the case, as it presented itself to her clear mind, left her on the horns of a dilemma. Either this young man was a fool, or he was a rogue. Beset by two evils, she chose without hesitation that which to the feminine mind appeared the less.

“He’s always struck one as rather simple in some ways and too much under the thumb of the old dealer, yet he’s really very clever.”

Sir Arthur drew mental energy from his Corona. “Not clever enough to keep honest, my dear.”

“Please don’t prejudge him. That wicked old man is at the back of all.”

“Well, that is just what we have now to find out.”

Laura assented; yet then arose the question as to the means by which the truth could be won. It was likely to resolve itself into an affair of William’s word against the word of his master. Whoever could tell the more plausible tale would be believed; and William’s friend saw from the outset that Circumstance had already weighted the scales heavily against him. On the face of it, the story as disclosed by the poor girl who was now in the Hospital, was frankly incredible.

Recollection of the pitiful scene of the previous night brought to Laura Babraham’s mind her own urgent duty in the matter. The girl had begged her not on any account to give up the picture. So long as sense and coherence remained the unlucky creature had declared it to be her own lawful property. Laura had solemnly promised to see justice done, and it behooved her now to be as good as her word.

“I suppose, papa, you have telephoned already to Mr. Gedge?”

“The Hospital has, I believe,” said Sir Arthur. “I particularly asked them to do so. The old fellow must be very anxious about the girl, and perhaps even more anxious about his Van Roon.”

“Please don’t say ‘his Van Roon’ before he’s proved the ownership.”

“That won’t be difficult, I fear.”

“We must make it as difficult for him as we can,” said the tenacious Laura.

Sir Arthur shook his head. As a man of the world, he had but scant hope that the mystery would be cleared up in the way Laura desired.

LI

AT Number Forty-six, New Cross Street, the bottom seemed to have fallen out of the world. June’s flight with the picture, as soon as it became known to William, caused him not only intense pain, but also deep concern. The news was a tragic shock for which he was quite unprepared; and the behaviour of his master seemed, if possible, to make it worse. The old man was distraught. Now that it was no longer necessary to mask his intentions, prudence slipped from him like a veil. On his return, baffled and furious, from Victoria he at once accused William of being in the plot against him.

William, hurt and astonished, was at a loss. He did not know all that had happened; he had only the broad facts to go upon that June had run off with the picture at an instant’s notice, without a word as to her plans and leaving no address; and the bitter reproaches of his master appeared to him the outpourings of a mind not quite sane.

Such indeed they were. The truth was that upon one subject S. Gedge Antiques was a little unhinged. The love of money, an infirmity which had crept upon him year by year had begun to affect reason itself; and now that, as it seemed, he had thrown away, by his own carelessness, the one really big prize of his career, this dark fact came out.

William, who found it very difficult indeed to think ill of anyone, could only accept the broad fact that the picture had meant even more to the old man than he had supposed; therefore this good fellow was inclined to pity his master. It was not for a mind such as his, which took things on trust, to fill in the details of a tragic episode. He did not look for the wherefore and the why, yet he was very deeply grieved by what had occurred.

The old man could not rid his brain of the illusion that William had connived with June. Under the lash of an unreasoning rage he did not pause to consider the improbability of this, nor did he try to attain a broad view of the whole matter; it was almost as if his resentment, craving an outlet, must wreak itself upon the thing near at hand. Yet in the course of a few hours this dangerous obsession was to bring its own nemesis.

About twelve o’clock the next day, M. Duponnet came to fetch the picture. It had been arranged that Mr. Gedge should present the cheque at the Bank in the meantime, and if duly approved, as there was every reason to expect that it would be, the Van Roon should be handed over at once.

To the Frenchman’s surprise, he was now greeted by his own cheque, backed by a livid countenance of tragic exasperation. The treasure had been stolen.

“Stolen!”

The face of S. Gedge Antiques forbade all scepticism.

“When? By whom?”

Mussewer Duponny might well ask by whom! It had been stolen by the girl who did the housework--the old man could not bring himself, in such circumstances, to speak of her as his niece--and he had not the least doubt in his own mind that the youth who helped him in the business who, at that moment, was in the next room polishing chairs, had put her wise in the matter, and was standing in with her.

S. Gedge Antiques, still in a frenzy of frustration, was hardly able to realize the gravity of this charge. Had he been in full command of himself, he must have weighed such a statement very carefully indeed before it was made. But remorselessly driven by his greed, he threw discretion to the wind.

The disgruntled purchaser was quick to seize upon the accusation. To his mind, at least, its import was clear. Even if the seller did not perceive its full implication, the buyer of the Van Roon had no difficulty in doing so.

“We must call in ze police, hein?”

The words brought the old man up short. He proceeded to take his bearings; to find out, as well as his rage would let him, just where he stood in the matter. Certainly the police did not appeal to him at all. It was not a case for publicity, because the picture was not his: that was to say, having now reached a point where the law of _meum_ and _tuum_ had become curiously involved, it might prove exceedingly difficult and even more inconvenient to establish a title to the Van Roon. No, he preferred to do without the police.

M. Duponnet, however, unfettered by a sense of restraint, argued volubly that the police be called in. The assistant was guilty or he was not guilty; and in any event it would surely be wise to enlist the help of those who knew best how to deal with thieves. Nothing could have exceeded the buyer’s conviction that this should be done, yet to his chagrin he quite failed to communicate it to S. Gedge Antiques.

From that moment, a suspicion began to grow up in the Frenchman’s mind that the seller was not laying all his cards on the table. Could it be that he was telling a cock and bull story? According to Mr. Thornton, who was acting as a go-between, this old man had long had the name of a shifty customer. Undoubtedly he looked one this morning. Jules Duponnet had seldom seen a frontispiece he liked less; and the theory now gained a footing in his mind that the old fox wanted to go back on his bargain.

There were two drawbacks, all the same, to M. Duponnet’s theory. In the first place, as no money had yet changed hands, it would be quite easy for S. Gedge Antiques to undo the bargain by a straightforward means; and further, beyond any shadow of doubt, the old man was horribly upset by his loss.

“Let us go to ze bureau, Meester Gedge,” he said, as conviction renewed itself in the light of these facts.

“No, no, no,” cried the old man, whose brain, capable at times of a surprising vigour, was now furiously at work.

“But why not?”

S. Gedge Antiques did not reply immediately, but at last a dark light broke over the vulpine face. “Why not, Mussewer Duponny? I’ll tell you. Because I think there may be a better way of dealing with that damned young scoundrel yonder.” William’s master pointed towards the inner room. “Happen the police’ll need all sorts of information we don’t want to give them; and my experience is, Mussewer, their methods are slow and clumsy, and out of date. They may take weeks over this job, and long before they are through with it, the picture will be in America.”

“You may be right, Meester Gedge. But where’s the ’arm in seeing what they can do?”

With the air of one whose faculties have been braced by a mental tonic, the old man shook his head decisively. “Mussewer Duponny,” he said, in a slow voice which gave weight and value to each word, “I’m thinking with a little help from yourself and Mr. Thornton I can deal with this--this scoundrel much better than the police.”

“At your sairvice, Meester Gedge,” said Jules Duponnet, with a dry smile. He could not have been the man he was, had he remained insensitive to the depth of cunning which now transfigured the face of the old dealer. “But for Meester Thornton of course I cannot spick.”

“You can’t, of course,” said the old fox, briskly. “But we’ll go right now, and have a word with Mr. Thornton on the subject.”

Like one in whom a change sudden and mysterious has been wrought, S. Gedge Antiques stepped through the house door into the passage, took his hat and coat from the peg, and his heavy knotted walking stick out of the rickety umbrella stand, put his head into the room next door and said, in a harsh tone to the polisher of chairs, “Boy, I’m going along as far as Mr. Thornton’s, so you’d better keep an eye on the shop.”

LII

THE old man, contrary to his practice, was a little late for the midday meal, and he had a poor appetite for it. As he tried to eat the cold mutton and the potato William had baked for him, his thoughts seemed a long way from his plate. William himself, who was too full of trouble to give much attention to food, now saw that the old man’s earlier ferocity, which had hurt him even more than it had puzzled him, had yielded to a depth of melancholy that was hardly less disturbing. But the master’s manner, on his return from the visit to Mr. Thornton, was far more in accordance with his nature, at least as William understood that nature; indeed, his voice had recaptured the note of pathos which seemed natural to it whenever the Van Roon was mentioned.

“I ought to tell you, boy,” he said, in a husky tone, towards the end of the meal, “that it looks as if there’ll be the dickens to pay over this job. A French detective from Paris has been here, and he’s coming again this afternoon to have a word with you.”

“With me, sir?”

The old man, whose eyes were furtively devouring the face of William, was quick to observe its startled look. “Yes, boy, you’re the one he wants to see. The Loov authorities have managed to get wind of this Van Roon of ours, and they say it’s the feller they’ve been looking for since 1898.”

Easy to gull William in some respects was, yet, he could not help thinking that the French Government took a little too much for granted.

“I think so, too--but there it is,” said the old man. “They have to prove the Van Roon is theirs, and that won’t be easy, as I told the detective this morning. But I understand that the question of identity turns upon certain marks, as well as upon similarity of subject.”

William allowed that the subject had an undoubted similarity with that of the picture stolen from the Louvre, but then, as he explained, every known Van Roon had a strong family likeness. In size they varied little, and they always depicted trees, water, clouds, and in some cases a windmill.

“Ours, I believe, had no windmill.”

“No, sir, only water and trees, and a wonderful bit of cloud.”

“I understand,” said the old man mournfully, “that the one that was stolen from the Loov had no windmill.”

“The other one in the Louvre has no windmill; there are two at Amsterdam that have no windmill; and there’s one at The Hague, I believe, that hasn’t a windmill.”

“May be. These are all points in our favour. But, as I say, the whole question will turn upon certain identification marks, and this French detective is coming here this afternoon to examine it. So it seems to me that the best thing you can do is to go off at once, and get it back from that hussy, because you can take it from me, boy, that we are going to be held responsible for the picture’s safety by the French police; and if when the detective calls again all we have to say is that it has vanished like magic, and we are unable to produce it, we may easily find ourselves in the lock-up.”

This speech, worded with care and uttered with weight, had the effect of increasing William’s distress. Underlying it was the clear assumption that he was in league with June, and this was intolerable to him, less because of her strangely misguided action, than for the reason that the master to whom he had been so long devoted found it impossible to believe his word.

“If only I knew where Miss June was, sir--” he said, miserably.

The old man, with the fragment of caution still left to him, was able to refrain from giving William the lie. It wasn’t easy to forbear, since he was quite unable to accept the open and palpable fact that his assistant was in complete ignorance of June’s whereabouts. So true it is that the gods first tamper with the reason of those whom they would destroy!

S. Gedge Antiques was in the toils of a powerful and dangerous obsession. He saw William in terms of himself; indeed, he was overtaken by the nemesis which dogs the crooked mind. For the old man was now incapable of seeing things as they were; the monstrous shadow of his own wickedness and folly enshrouded others like a pall. One so shrewd as William’s master, who had had such opportunities, moreover, of gauging the young man’s worth, should have been the last person in the world to hold him guilty of this elaborate and futile deceit; but the old man was in thrall to the Frankenstein his own evil thoughts had created.

He was sure that William was lying. Just as in the first instance the young man had given the picture to “the hussy”, he was now in collusion with her in an audacious attempt to dispose of it. S. Gedge Antiques was not in a frame of mind to sift, to analyze, to ask questions; it seemed natural and convenient to embrace such a theory and, urged by the demon within, he was now building blindly upon it.

About three o’clock William was engaged in the lumber room putting derelict pieces of furniture to rights, when his master came with a long and serious face, and said that the French detective wanted to see him. William put on his coat and followed the old man into the shop where he found two persons awaiting him. With only one of these was William acquainted. Mr. Thornton was well known to him by sight, but he had not seen before the French dealer, M. Duponnet.

With a nice sense of drama on the part of S. Gedge Antiques the Frenchman was now made known to William as M. Duplay of the Paris police. Midway between a snuffle and a groan, the old man, raising his eyes in the direction of heaven, besought his assistant to tell Mussewer all that he knew as to the picture’s whereabouts.

William, alas, knew no more than his master; and he found no difficulty in saying so. He was not believed, since the old man had had no scruple in the blackening of his character, and the Frenchman, with a skilful assumption of the manner of an official, which the others solemnly played up to, proceeded to threaten the assistant with the terrors of the law.

The French Government was convinced from the description, which had been given of the Van Roon by those who had seen it, that there could be little doubt it was their long missing property. Such being the case, the police were only willing to allow the young man another twenty-four hours in which to produce it for examination. If he failed to do that within the time specified, a warrant would be applied for, and he might find himself in prison.

In the face of this intimidation, William stuck to his story. He knew no more than the dead where the picture was; Miss June, to whom it had been given, had suddenly disappeared with it the previous night.

“Who is Mees June?” said the Frenchman sharply.

Miss June was the niece of Mr. Gedge.

“And he gave the picture to her?” The disappointed buyer, who felt that his suspicions in the matter were being confirmed, looked keenly from the young man to the old.

“No, sir,” said William, with the utmost simplicity. “I gave it to her myself.”

There was a pause, in which astonishment played its part, and then Mr. Thornton gravely interposed: “How do you mean you gave her the picture? It isn’t yours to give. It is the property of your master.”

“You are forgetting, boy,” said the old man in a voice in which oil and vinegar were wonderfully mingled, “that I would not allow my niece to have such a valuable thing, and that you then made it over to me to dispose of to the best advantage.”

“I gave it to Miss June,” persisted the young man simply, “but I told her that, as you had set your heart upon it, I hoped very much she would let you have it.”

While this odd conversation went on, the two dealers exchanged glances. Both were greatly puzzled. They were as one in being a little suspicious of the absolute bona fides of S. Gedge Antiques. Either this was a very clumsy method of establishing them, or there was more behind the picture’s disappearance than met the eye.

S. Gedge Antiques, whose brain was working at high pressure, was not slow to read their minds. He closed the discussion with a brevity which yet was not lacking altogether in persuasion. “There’s no time, boy, to go into all that,” he said. “The girl’s gone off with the picture, and wherever she’s to be found, you must go right away, and get it back from her, and bring it here to me, or we may both find ourselves in the lock-up. That is so, Mussewer Duplay--what?” And with a lively gesture the old fox turned to the Frenchman.

Puzzled that gentleman certainly was, yet he heartily agreed. If the Van Roon was not produced within the next four and twenty hours, a warrant would be issued.

“Where is the hussy? That’s what we want to know,” said the old man. “Tell us what has become of her.”

Frankly William did not know. He was not believed, at any rate, by his master who by now was deeper than ever in the coil of his own crookedness. As for the two dealers who, between them, had contrived, as they thought, to acquire one of the world’s treasures for an absurd sum, they did not know what to think. The comedy they were performing at the instance of S. Gedge Antiques was designed to bemuse the assistant, yet both men had an uneasy feeling at the back of their minds that master and man were engaged in a piece of flapdoodle for their private benefit. If so, the old man was a fool as well as a rogue, and the young one was a rogue as well as a fool. Scant was the comfort to be got out of this reflection. They seemed very far from the goal on which their hearts were set; and impatience of such methods was just beginning to show itself in the bearing of Messrs. Duponnet and Thornton when the affair took a new and remarkable turn.

LIII

A TALL man, quietly dressed, yet wearing a silk hat and an eyeglass, with a pleasant air of authority, came into the shop. For a moment he stood by the door, a rather cool gazed fixed upon the group of four; and then, an odd mingling of alertness and caution in his manner, he advanced to the proprietor.

“May I have a word with you,” said the visitor, with an air of apology for the benefit of the others whom he included in a smile which expressed little.

“Certainly you may, Sir Arthur,” said S. Gedge Antiques, an odd change coming into his tone. Taken by surprise, the old man had been slow to reckon up the situation. He was not able to detach himself from the group, and lead the rather unwelcome visitor out of earshot before that gentleman had divulged the business which had brought him there.

“You must be anxious about your niece, Mr. Gedge,” said Sir Arthur, who saw no need for secrecy.

The old man was very anxious indeed.

“You’ve heard from the Hospital, of course?”

It seemed that the old man had heard nothing; and Sir Arthur was proceeding to deplore this oversight on the part of those whom he had asked over the telephone to communicate with Number Forty-six, New Cross Street, when William, whose ear had caught the sinister word ‘Hospital’ could no longer restrain a painful curiosity.

The young man sprang forward with clasped hands and shining eyes. “Oh, sir, what has happened to Miss June?” he cried. “Tell me--please!”

Sir Arthur, his mission concrete in his mind, brought a steady eye to bear upon the young man before he slowly replied: “She has had a mental breakdown, and we were able to arrange for her to be taken late last night to St. Jude’s Hospital.” He then turned to the old man, who had either grasped the news more slowly, or was less affected by it, and said: “It’s a case for careful treatment, in the opinion of the doctor who saw her soon after she arrived at my house, and upon whose advice she was sent to the Hospital. I am very sorry now that I did not communicate with you myself!”

It was the young man, however, as Sir Arthur did not fail to notice, who seemed really to be troubled by what had befallen this unfortunate girl. S. Gedge Antiques, for his part, soon shewed that his inmost thoughts were centered upon something else.

“Can you tell me, sir,” he said, with an excitement he did not try to conceal, “whether the picture she took away with her is quite safe?”

Sir Arthur looked hard at the old man before he answered: “Mr. Gedge, the picture is perfectly safe.”

“Thank God!” The exclamation of S. Gedge Antiques was not the less heartfelt for being involuntary.

“And Miss June?” interposed William huskily. “Is she?... Is she...?” He was too upset to frame his question.

“She is very ill indeed, I’m afraid,” said Sir Arthur, in a kind tone, “but she is in the best possible hands. Anything that can be done for her will be done--I am sure you can count upon that.”

“Is she going to die?”

Sir Arthur shook his head. “When I last rang up the Hospital, I asked that question, but they will not give an opinion. They prefer not to go beyond the fact that she is critically ill.”

Tears gathered slowly in William’s eyes. Conscience was pricking him sharply. Had he not brought this unlucky picture into the house, such a terrible thing would not have occurred.

William’s brief talk with the visitor, whose unheralded appearance upon the scene was by no means welcome to S. Gedge Antiques, gave his master a much needed opportunity to decide upon the course of action. The two dealers knew now that the Van Roon was safe, but as far as William and Sir Arthur were concerned, the situation was full of complexity. Much cunning would be needed to smooth out the tangle; and to this end, as the old man promptly realized, the first thing to be done was to induce the Frenchman and his agent to quit the shop.

“You hear, Mussewer, that the picture is safe,” he said to the buyer, soapily. “I will go at once and get it from this gentleman. If you will come in again to-morrow morning, it shall be ready for you.”

M. Duponnet seemed inclined to await further developments, but S. Gedge Antiques had no scruples about dismissing his fellow conspirators. Without more ado, he ushered both dealers gently but firmly to the door. This new turn in the game had made them keenly curious to learn more of the affair, yet they realized that they were on thin ice themselves, and the peremptory manner of S. Gedge Antiques enforced that view. “To-morrow morning, gentlemen--come and see me then!” he said, opening the shop door determinedly, and waiting for these inconvenient visitors to pass out.

This task accomplished, the old man had to deal with one more delicate. He had to remove from the minds of William and Sir Arthur Babraham all suspicion in regard to himself. He came to them with his most sanctimonious air: “I can’t tell you, sir,” he assured Sir Arthur, “what a relief it is to know that my niece is in good hands. But I am afraid she is a very wicked girl.” Then he turned abruptly to William, and said in a low tone that he wished to have a private conversation with Sir Arthur.

For once, however, the young man shewed less than his usual docility. He was most eager to learn all that had happened to June, and to gain a clue, if possible, to her strange conduct; besides the painful change in his master now filled him with distrust.

The shrewd judge of the world and its ways upon whom the duty had fallen of holding the balance true was quick to note the reluctance of the younger man; and even if the nature of the case would compel him in the end to take the word of the proprietor against that of the servant, he was influenced already, in spite of himself, by that open simplicity which had had such an effect upon his daughter.

“Is there anything, Mr. Gedge, we have to say to one another, which this young man may not hear?” said Sir Arthur quietly, and then, as the old dealer did not immediately reply, he added coolly, “I think not.” Turning to William he said: “Please stay with us. There are one or two questions I have to put which I hope you will be good enough to answer.”

This did not suit the book of S. Gedge Antiques, but he decided to play a bold game. “I’m very much obliged to you for your kindness in taking care of the picture,” he said, with a smirk to his visitor. “As you know, it is a thing of great value. Had anything happened to it, the loss would have been terrible. Perhaps you will allow me to go at once and fetch it, for I don’t mind telling you, sir, that until I get it back again my mind will not be easy.”

Sir Arthur looked narrowly at the face of unpleasant cunning before him, and then he said very quietly: “I am sorry to have to tell you, Mr. Gedge, that your niece claims the picture as her property.”

The old man was prepared for a development which he had been able to foresee. “I am afraid she is a very wicked girl,” he said, in the tone of a known good man whose feelings are deeply wounded. “I ask you, sir, is it likely that a thing of such immense value would belong to her?”

Sir Arthur had to agree that it was not, yet remembering his daughter’s deep conviction on the subject, he was careful to assert June’s claim.

“Moonshine, I assure you, sir.”

Sir Arthur, however, did not regard this as conclusive. In the light of what had happened he felt it to be his duty to seek a clear proof of the picture’s ownership; therefore he now turned to William and told him that the girl in the Hospital declared that he had given her the Van Roon. A plain statement of fact was demanded, and in the face of so direct an appeal the young man did not hesitate to give one. Originally the picture was his property, but a week ago he had given it to his master’s niece.

“What have you to say to that, Mr. Gedge?” asked Sir Arthur.

The heart of William seemed to miss a beat while he waited painfully for the answer to this question. To one of his primitive nature, his whole life, past, present and future seemed to turn upon the old man’s next words; and a kind of slow agony overcame him, as he realized what these words were in all their cynical wickedness.

“The Van Roon is mine, sir,” said S. Gedge Antiques, in a voice, strong, definite and calm. “It was bought with my money.”

Sir Arthur fixed upon the stupefied William an interrogating eye. In his own mind he felt sure that this must be the fact of the matter, yet it was hard to believe that a young man who seemed to be openness itself was deliberately lying. “What do _you_ say?” he asked gently.

William was too shocked to say anything. His master took a full advantage of the pause which followed. “Come, boy,” he said, in a tone of kindly expostulation, “you know as well as I do that you were given the money to buy a few things down in Suffolk in the ordinary way of business on your week’s holiday and that this little thing was one of your purchases.”

Sadly the young man shook his head. The cold falsehood was heavier upon him than a blow from the old man’s fist would have been, yet it roused him to the point of blunt denial. Quite simply he set forth the true facts.

“The master gave me twenty pounds to attend a sale by auction at Loseby Grange, Saxmundham, and I bought things to the value of twenty pounds one and ninepence.”

In a voice which was a nice mingling of humour and pathos the old man interposed. “This picture, which I admit was bought for a song as the saying is, was among them.”

“No, sir,” said William, “I bought this picture with my own money from an old woman in a shop at Crowdham Market.”

So much for the issue, which now was quite clearly defined. Sir Arthur, however, could only regret that the supremely difficult task of keeping the scales of justice true had developed upon him.

“What did you pay for the picture, may I ask?”

“Five shillings,” said William, unhesitatingly.

“Five shillings!”

“It was as black as night when I bought it, sir, with a still life, which must have been at least two hundred years old daubed over it.”

“Black enough, I allow,” said the old man, “but it can’t alter the fact that the picture’s mine.”

“Let me be quite clear on one point,” said Sir Arthur. “You maintain, Mr. Gedge, that the picture was bought at a sale with your money, and this young man declares it was bought at a shop with his.”

“That is so,” said the old man.

“Do you happen to have kept a list of the things that were bought at the sale?”

“No, sir, I’m afraid I haven’t one.”

Here, however, the old man’s memory was at fault, and this material fact William went on to prove. Under the counter was a file containing a mass of receipted bills, and from among these the young man was able to produce a document which told heavily in his favour. It was a list of his purchases at Loseby Grange, carefully written out, with the sum paid opposite each item, and at the foot of it, immediately beneath the figures “£20.1.9” was written in a rather shaky but businesslike hand, “Audited and found correct. S. Gedge.”

This lucky discovery went some way towards establishing William’s case. The paper contained no mention of a picture, other than a print after P. Bartolozzi, which William took at once from the shop window. Finished dissembler as he was, the old man could not conceal the fact that he was shaken, but like a desperate gambler with a fortune at stake, he hastily changed his tactics. He began now to pooh-pooh the receipt, and declared that even if his unfortunate memory had played him a trick as to where the picture had been actually bought, it did not affect the contention that it had been purchased with his money.

Sir Arthur Babraham, in his search for the truth, could not help contrasting the bearing of the claimants. Avarice was engraved deeply upon the yellow parchment countenance of S. Gedge Antiques, whereas so open was the face of William that it went against the grain to accuse its owner of baseness. In spite, of this, however, Sir Arthur could not help asking himself how it had come about that a young man so poor, who was yet clever enough to pick up such a treasure for a few shillings had parted with it so lightly.

Upon the answer to that question he felt much would depend.

“I suppose when you gave this picture away you did not realize its great value?”

“As a matter of fact, sir, I hardly thought about it at all in that way. I only saw that it was a very lovely thing, and Miss June saw that it was a very lovely thing. She admired it so much that she begged me to let her buy it.”

“Did you take her money?”

“No, sir. She accepted it as a gift. I asked her not to let us think of it as money.”

“Could you afford to do that?” Involuntarily the questioner looked at the young man’s threadbare coat and shabby trousers, and at once decided that he, of all people, certainly could not.

William’s answer, accompanied by a baffling smile, gave pause to the man of the world. “I hope, sir, I shall always afford the luxury of not setting a price on beauty.”

The dark saying brought a frown to the face of Mr. Worldly Wiseman, who said in his slow voice: “But surely you would not give away a Van Roon to the first person who asks for it?”

“Why not, sir--if you happen to--to----”

“If you happen to what?”

“To like the person.”

Although the young man blushed when he made this confession, such an ingenuousness did his cause no harm. Sir Arthur Babraham, all the same, was puzzled more than a little by such an attitude of mind. This indifference to money was almost uncanny; and yet as he compared the face of the assistant with that of the master, the difference was tragic. One suffused with the light that never was on sea or land, the other dark as the image of Baal whose shadow was cast half across the shop.

LIV

DOUBT was melting in the mind of Sir Arthur Babraham. He was coming now to a perception of the truth. To one who lived in the world, who saw men and things at an obtuse angle, the story as told by this young man verged upon the incredible and yet he felt sure it was true. The fellow was an Original, an unkind critic might even say that he was a trifle “cracked,” but if this visionary who adored beauty for its own sake could enact such a piece of deceit it would be unwise ever to trust one’s judgment again in regard to one’s fellow creatures. And the reverse of the medal was shewn just as plainly in the face of the old dealer.

Man of affairs as Sir Arthur was, however, he knew better than to take a hasty decision upon what, after all, might prove to be wrong premises. It was his clear duty to see justice done in a strange matter, but he would leave to others the task of enforcing it. Thus when the old man renewed his demand to be allowed to go at once to Park Lane and get the picture, he was met by a refusal which if very polite was also final.

“Mr. Gedge, my daughter holds this picture in trust for your niece, who I am informed by the Hospital, has been most cruelly used by somebody. She accepts--we both accept--the story told by your niece as to how in the first instance she came to possess this most valuable thing, which by the way this young man has been able to confirm. If you persist in trying to establish your claim I am afraid you must apply to the law.”

This speech, delivered with judicial weight, was a bomb-shell. With a gasp the old man realized that the game was up; yet as soon as the first shock had passed he could hardly mask his fury. By his own folly the chance of a lifetime had been thrown away.

As he was now to find, he was bereft of more than the Van Roon. He had lost the trust and affection of William. In the first agony of defeat, S. Gedge Antiques was far from realizing what the fact would mean, but it was brought home to him poignantly two days later.

William’s first act, when Sir Arthur had left the shop, was to go to the Hospital. Here he was received by a member of its staff who told him that the patient was too ill to see anyone, and that even if she recovered, her mind might be permanently affected. The doctor who discussed the case with the young man allowed himself this frankness, because he was very anxious for light to be thrown on it. The girl had been cruelly knocked about, there were heavy bruises on her body and marks on her throat which suggested that she had had to fight for her life; and this was borne out by the delirium through which she was passing. In the main it seemed to be inspired by terror of a man whom she spoke of continually as Uncle Si.

The visitor was questioned closely as to the identity of the mysterious Uncle Si. He was pressed to say all that he knew about him, for the Hospital had to consider whether this was not a matter for the police.

William was shocked and rather terrified by the turn things had taken. The scales had been torn from his eyes with a force that left him bewildered. He had trusted his master in the way he trusted all the world, and now disillusion had come in a series of flashes which left him half blind, he felt life could never be the same. His own world of the higher reality was after all no more than the paradise of a fool. Perversely he had shut his eyes to the wickedness of men and their weak folly and in consequence he now found himself poised on the lip of a chasm.

Two days after the terrible discovery which had changed his attitude to life, he told his master that he was going to leave him. It was a heavy blow. Not for a moment had such a thing entered the old man’s calculations. He had got into the habit of regarding this good simple fellow as having so little mind of his own that for all practical purposes he was now a part of himself.

So inconceivable was it to S. Gedge Antiques that one wedded to him by years of faithful service could take such a step, that it was hard to believe the young man meant what he said. He must be joking. But the wish was the anxious parent of the thought, for even if the old man’s sight was failing, he was yet able to see the disdain in the eyes of William.

“I can’t part with you, boy,” he said bleakly.

That, indeed, was the open truth. To part with this absolutely honest and dependable fellow who had grown used to his ways, for whom no day’s work was too long, for whom no task was too exacting, who was always obliging and cheerful, whose keen young sight and almost uncanny “nose” for a good thing had become quite indispensable to one who was no longer the man he had been; for S. Gedge Antiques to lose this paragon was simply not to be thought of.

“Boy don’t talk foolishly. I’ll raise your wages five shillings a week from the first of the New Year.”

The old man could not see the look of slow horror that crept into the eyes of William; yet in spite of his other infirmity, he did not fail to catch the note of grim pain in the stifled, “I’ll have to leave you, sir. I can’t stay here.”

Obtuse the old man was, yet he now perceived the finality of these broken words. As he realized all they meant to him, the sharp pain was like the stab of a knife. William was not merely indispensable. His master loved him. And he had killed the thing he loved.