_For Sampson to destroy the Philistines, he had to
bring their very temple crashing to the ground.
But for Dr. Browl to destroy the culture-mongers,
he needed merely a monstrous easel._
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
Amazing Stories March 1962.
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
The old man's tour of the art museums was quite an amusing spectacle.
Indeed, it became a standing joke among those polite and cultivated
gentlemen whose chief function in life is to obtain and display great
paintings. They were accustomed to dealing with eccentric members
of the public--but never had they witnessed anything to match the
ludicrous performance of old Dr. Browl! (Of course, they carefully
concealed their mirth, for Dr. Browl was far too rich to be laughed at
openly; and after all, he might decide some day to honor the museums
with bequests from the fortune he had amassed with his remarkable
inventions in the field of optics, which had earned him the sobriquet,
the Wizard of Light.)
Dr. Browl was a copyist. He had his easel, his brushes and his paints.
He had a little smock, too, and a beret that perched on his bald dome.
But he had not the slightest resemblance to any of the other earnest
amateurs who sat dutifully daubing their canvases in imitation of the
masterpieces that hung before them. No, Dr. Browl was different!
He would arrive at a museum in princely fashion, in an enormous black
limousine. Two liveried servants would lug in his easel, another would
carry his encased palette, and Dr. Browl himself would hobble in on
the arm of a nurse. Then he would sit down grumpily in a folding chair
while the easel was being set up by his servants, and glare around at
the little crowd that always gathered to watch him.
The easel itself was remarkable. It was a monument in wood and brass
and steel, and as massive as an upright piano. It was equipped,
moreover, with one of Dr. Browl's own inventions, a bank of mysterious
lamps that gave off no visible light, but which presumably bathed each
picture he sought to copy in a special radiance seen by him alone,
through a great pair of black-lensed spectacles he clapped on his nose.
His painting technique was even more bizarre. Dr. Browl would fairly
fling the colors from palette to canvas, his little claw-hands darting
back and forth with demonic speed. Faster and faster his jerky
movements would become, until it seemed that the only remaining step in
hastiness would be to hurl the palette itself against the canvas. His
copies, naturally, were gross caricatures, and his only accomplishments
the spoilage of innocent canvas and good paint.
At this feverish pace, he would copy one masterpiece after another.
Often he would manage to work his way through an entire collection
in a single day. He required only two weeks, for example, to make a
complete round of the Louvre, with its many thousands of paintings,
neglecting to copy not a single one. His energy and industry were
without parallel. Within the space of two years, his pellmell progress
had carried him through every significant art repository in the Western
world.
Dr. Browl's fanatic devotion to painting seemed beyond explanation.
Some said it was merely a lamentable aberration. Others suggested the
existence of a guilt complex, for it was rumored that the old man had
once burned his own small art collection in a fit of senile rage. But
Dr. Browl seemed far from being guilt-ridden. From time to time, as his
servants would shift the heavy easel to a new location, he would lower
his black spectacles and briefly eye the amused by-standers. A strange
look, the old man had. Ironical, and contemptuous, too; but more than
that, for there would sometimes be a devilish gleam of mockery there
that suggested some wild, wicked humor. The people were snickering at
him, were they? Well, it would seem that he was barely able to contain
his own laughter at them!
* * * * *
It was in the spring of 196- that Dr. Browl completed his remarkable
tour of museums and galleries. The first series of incidents,
however, did not occur until slightly more than a year later.
One bright June morning, a van stopped in front of the offices of the
London art dealers, Bouser & Baillie. Two workmen delivered a large
flat crate which proved to contain Manet's famous "Boy With Drum,"
recently returned to its owner, the Countess Palumbo, from an exhibit
at the National Gallery. But Bouser & Baillie found no note attached to
explain why the Countess had sent it. Was it to be loaned to another
exhibit, was it to be sold, or was it simply to be cleaned?
Perforce, Bouser & Baillie telephoned their client at her Norfolk
estate, and with suitable apologies, requested instructions. The
Countess was annoyed. What was this nonsense about "Boy With Drum"? She
had no intention of exhibiting it or selling it or having it cleaned,
and in fact, had not sent it at all. The picture was hanging right in
her drawing-room at that very moment, in its accustomed place. "Boy
With Drum" indeed! She hung up sharply. Bouser & Baillie looked at each
other and then at the canvas in question. Incredible--and yet it _was_
the "Boy With Drum"! Or was it? They approached it warily for a closer
look.
Meanwhile, that same morning, another van had parked outside the
offices of a similarly distinguished firm of art dealers, Sack,
Bonesteel & Woodward. The deliverymen struggled in with a burden quite
like the one deposited at Bouser & Baillie, obtained their receipt, and
departed.
The crate contained nothing less than Manet's "Boy With Drum." Sack
gasped. Bonesteel grunted. Woodward carefully inspected the empty crate
for a note, but found none. Had the picture been delivered to them
by error? It did not seem so, for their corporate name was plainly
stencilled on the crate. Sack gave Bonesteel a significant look. The
masterpiece, they knew, was part of the Palumbo collection. Could it
be that the Countess had chosen this dramatic gesture to indicate
her desire to let them handle her considerable business? After much
consultation, Woodward was nominated to make the call, which was
effected not five minutes after the Countess had angrily hung up on
Bouser & Baillie. _Another_ "Boy With Drum"? She flew into a rage and
screamed out a variety of Central European epithets, then flung her
telephone receiver the full length of its coiled elastic cord, so that
as she stomped furiously out of the room, the receiver crept cautiously
back toward its table, while poor Woodward, in London, sat transfixed,
staring foolishly at his two worried partners and at the mute painting
beyond.
* * * * *
The following morning, Bouser & Baillie telephoned the leading British
authenticator of art objects, Dr. A. B. T. Joll, and politely requested
him to visit their offices to have a look at a picture which seemed
to be an extremely skillful forgery of "Boy With Drum." It was so
skillful, Bouser & Baillie admitted, that it had them baffled. Dr.
Joll, foreseeing a plump little fee, readily agreed, and promised to
bring his full kit of instruments. Nothing pleased him more than the
prospect of detecting a good, sound job of forgery. He had once been
termed by the press "the Sherlock Holmes of the art world," which
privately delighted him; unfortunately, there had yet appeared no
artistic equivalent of Professor Moriarty to provide him with a serious
challenge.
He went down to Bouser & Baillie that very morning, and after spending
two full hours sniffing and poking the canvas, and making several
tests with his own portable super-speed electro-chemical laboratory
apparatus, he turned calmly to face the partners, and announced:
"Gentlemen, this is no forgery. It is the original."
Bouser & Baillie were thunderstruck. They did not doubt Dr. Joll's
judgment (and with reason, for the expert had never once been wrong);
rather, they were horrified by the inescapable conclusion. If _this_
were the original, then the Countess had bought a fake--and had bought
it on the strength of Bouser & Baillie's advice! They sank into
adjacent chairs and sat trembling in silence.
Dr. Joll, meanwhile, examined his watch, found it was nearly time for
lunch, and called his office to see if any important messages had been
left in his absence. No messages, his secretary reported, but Mr.
Bonesteel of Sack, Bonesteel & Woodward had just stepped in on what he
said was a most urgent matter. Would Dr. Joll care to speak to him?
"Put him on," said Dr. Joll, with Holmesian dispatch.
But he was soon disappointed. "Look here, Mr. Bonesteel," he
interrupted, "I'm afraid I can save you the trouble. It so happens,
coincidentally, that I've just finished examining the original.... Yes,
right here at Bouser & Baillie. The original 'Boy With Drum'.... No
doubt about it, sir, you have a fake."
Bonesteel was persistent, however, and so Dr. Joll at length
reluctantly agreed to stop by for a look after lunch.
His mood underwent a transformation after he had made a cursory
inspection of Sack, Bonesteel & Woodward's "Boy With Drum." He frowned,
he polished his spectacles, he cleared his throat, and he reached for
his kit. One hour grew to two, to three. At last, Dr. Joll stepped
back, haggard and shaken, feeling much the same, perhaps, as had Holmes
himself, when he tottered on the brink of the Reichenbach Fall in the
grip of the criminal genius. A nasty doubt flashed through Joll's
mind. Had he been hoaxed by the two firms? Had Bouser & Baillie rushed
the original up to Sack, Bonesteel & Woodward while he had been at
lunch? That would be preposterous--and yet the alternative was no less
confounding.
* * * * *
He telephoned at once to Bouser & Baillie. Within the hour, the two
partners appeared at the offices of the rival firm, carrying their "Boy
With Drum" between them. Joll set the two paintings side by side and
went grimly to work. It was quite late at night when he finished.
"There is only one explanation, gentlemen," he told the five dealers.
"Only one. Manet painted _two_ identical versions of 'Boy With Drum'!"
Not until the next morning did the distraught dealers attempt to trace
the source of the two mysterious deliveries. In each case, however,
their efforts were frustrated. The delivery firms had duly responded
to pick-up calls from unexceptional addresses (one in Kensington,
the other near Paddington), and had been paid on the spot by husky
young men who had been waiting with their crates at the curbside. It
developed further that these young men had not actually been occupants
of the addresses in question.
The most stunning blow of all, however, came the following afternoon,
when Bouser & Baillie mustered sufficient courage to escort Dr. Joll to
Norfolk, to break the difficult news to the Countess. The news proved
to be even more difficult than the three gentlemen had imagined, for
Dr. Joll's examination of the lady's "Boy With Drum" confirmed that it,
too, was the original; or rather, that it was now but one of _three_
originals. Other experts were hastily consulted, and their opinions
supported that of Joll. Had Manet been seized by a fit of madness
which had compelled him thus to repeat himself, not once but twice?
Whatever the motive, his performance was undoubtedly the most brilliant
technical tour-de-force in art history, for the three canvases were
identical, down to the last detail seen under the most powerful
microscope.
Manet's fiendish skill did not impress the Countess. She felt that the
painter had deliberately outraged her, and she wished that he were
still living, so that she might have the opportunity of snubbing him.
That being impossible, she determined to snub his work. "Sell it at
once!" she ordered Bouser & Baillie. "You told me last year you could
get me half again what I paid for it. Then do so now! In fact," she
added, to show the selflessness of her grudge against Manet, "I don't
care if there's no profit at all--just sell it!"
"Ah, um--" Bouser began. But he found himself unable to speak. Baillie
tried, too, with no greater success. How could they make it clear to
this dangerous female that the existence of two other originals had
placed the marketability of her own in grave jeopardy? There was doubt,
indeed, whether any buyer could now be found--at any price. And more
than that, if she chose to donate the canvas outright to a museum,
would the museum be likely to accept?
While the two partners stood thus uncomfortably searching their minds
for some way of phrasing these unpleasant truths, a delivery van back
in London was edging into a parking space in front of the firm of John
Pickering & Sons, art dealers. Within the van was a crate, and within
the crate was a painting.