In the compartment of the railway carriage, Steele was gazing fixedly
at the lace "tidy" on the cushioned back of the opposite seat. His
brows were closely knit in thought. He was evolving a plan.
Duska sat with her elbow on the sill of the compartment window, her
chin on her gloved hand, her eyes gazing out, vague and unseeing. Yet,
she loved beauty, and just outside the panes there was beauty drawn to
a scale of grandeur.
They were climbing, behind the double-header of engines, up where it
seemed that one could reach out and touch the close-hanging clouds,
into tunnels and out of tunnels, through St. Gothard's Pass and on
where the Swiss Alps reached up into the fog that veiled the summits.
The mountain torrents came roaring down, to beat their green water
into swirling foam, and dash over the lower rocks like frenzied
mill-races. Her eyes did not wake to a sparkle at sight of the quaint
chalets which seemed to stagger under huge roof slabs of rugged slate.
She did not even notice how they perched high on seemingly
unattainable crags like stranded arks on Helvetian Ararats.
Each tunnel was the darkness between changed tableaux, and the mouth
of each offered a new and more wonderful picture. The car-windows
framed glimpses of Lake Como, Lake Lugano, and valleys far beneath
where villages were only a jumble of toy blocks; yet, all these things
did not change the utter weariness of Duska's eyes where enthusiasm
usually dwelt, or tempt Steele's fixity of gaze from the lace "tidy."
At Lucerne, his thinking found expression in a lengthy telegram to
Paris. The Milan exhibit had opened up a new channel for speculation.
If Saxon's pictures were being pirated and sold as Marston's, there
was no one upon whom suspicion would fall more naturally than the
unscrupulous St. John, Marston's factor in Paris. Steele vaguely
remembered the Englishman with his petty pride for his stewardship,
though his own art life had lain in circles that rarely intercepted
that of the Marston cult even at its outer rim. If this fraud were
being practiced, its author was probably swindling both artists, and
the appearance of either of them in Paris might drive St. John to
desperate means of self-protection.
The conversion of the rooms formerly occupied by Marston into a school
had been St. John's doing. This _atelier_ was in the house where St.
John himself lived, and the Kentuckian knew that, unless he had moved
his lodgings, he could still be found there, as could the very minor
"academy" of Marston-idolizers, with their none-too-exalted
instructor, Jean Hautecoeur.
At all events, it was to this address that Steele directed his
message. Its purport was to inform St. John that Americans, who had
only a short stay in Paris, were anxious to procure a Marston of late
date, and to summon him to the Hotel Palais d'Orsay for the day of
their arrival there.
When they reached the hotel, he told the girl of his plan, suggesting
that it might be best for him to have this interview with the agent
alone, but admitting that, if she insisted on being present, it was
her right. She elected to hear the conversation, and, when St. John
arrived, he was conducted to the sitting-room of Mrs. Horton's suite.
Pleased with the prospect of remunerative sales, Marston's agent made
his entrance jauntily. The shabbiness of the old days had been put by.
He was now sprucely clothed, and in his lapel he wore a bunch of
violets.
His thin, dissipated face was adorned with a rakishly trimmed mustache
and Vandyke of gray which still held a fading trace of its erstwhile
sandy red. His eyes were pale and restless as he stood bowing at the
door. The afternoon was waning, and the lights had not yet been turned
on.
"Mr. Steele?" he inquired.
Steele nodded.
St. John looked expectantly toward the girl in the shadow, as though
awaiting an introduction, which was not forthcoming. As he looked, he
seemed to grow suddenly nervous and ill-at-ease.
"You are Mr. Marston's agent, I believe?" Steele spoke crisply.
"I have had that honor since Mr. Marston left Paris some years ago.
You know, doubtless, that the master spends his time in foreign
travel." The agent spoke with a touch of self-importance.
"I want you to deliver to me here the portrait and the landscape now
on exhibition at Milan," ordered the American.
"It will be difficult--perhaps expensive--but I think it may be
possible." St. John spoke dubiously.
Steele's eyes narrowed.
"I am not requesting," he announced, "I am ordering."
"But those canvases, my dear sir, represent the highest note of a
master's work!" began St. John, almost indignantly. "They are the
perfection of the art of the greatest living painter, and you direct
me to procure them as though they were a grocer's staple on a shelf!
Already, they are as good as sold. One does not have to peddle
Marston's canvases!"
Steele walked over to the door, and, planting his back against its
panels, folded his arms. His voice was deliberate and dangerous:
"It's not worth while to bandy lies with you. We both know that those
pictures are from the brush of Robert Saxon. We both know that you
have bought them at the price of a pupil's work, and mean to sell them
at the price of the master's. I shall be in a position to prove the
swindle, and to hand you over to the courts."
St. John had at the first words stiffened with a sudden flaring of
British wrath under his gray brows. As he listened, the red flush of
anger faded to the coward's pallor.
"That is not all," went on Steele. "We both know that Mr. Saxon came
to Paris a short while ago. For him to learn the truth meant your
unmasking. He disappeared. We both know whose interests were served by
that disappearance. You will produce those canvases, and you will
produce Mr. Saxon within twenty-four hours, or you will face not only
exposure for art-piracy, but prosecution for what is more serious."
As he listened, St. John's face betrayed not only fear, but also a
slowly dawning wonder that dilated his vague pupils. Steele, keenly
reading the face, as he talked, knew that the surprise was genuine.
"As God is my witness," avowed the Englishman, earnestly, "if Mr.
Saxon is in Paris, or in Europe, I know nothing of it."
"That," observed Steele dryly, "will be a matter for you to prove."
"No, no!" The Englishman's voice was charged with genuine terror, and
the hand that he raised in pleading protest trembled. His carefully
counterfeited sprightliness of guise dropped away, and left him an old
man, much broken.
"I will tell you the whole story," he went on. "It's a miserable
enough tale without imputing such evil motives as you suggest. It's a
shameful confession, and I shall hold back nothing. The pictures you
saw are Saxon's pictures. Of course, I knew that. Of course, I bought
them at what his canvases would bring with the intention of selling
them at the greater price commanded by the greater painter. I knew
that the copyist had surpassed the master, but the world did not know.
I knew that Europe would never admit that possible. I knew that, if
once I palmed off this imitation as genuine, all the art-world would
laugh to scorn the man who announced the fraud. Mr. Saxon himself
could not hope to persuade the critics that he had done those
pictures, once they were accepted as Marston's. The art-world is led
like sheep. It believes there is one Marston, and that no other can
counterfeit him. And I knew that Marston himself could not expose me,
because I know that Marston is dead." The man was ripping out his
story in labored, detached sentences.
Steele looked up with astonished eyes. The girl sat listening, with
her lips parted.
"You see--" the Englishman's voice was impassioned in its
bitterness--"I am not shielding myself. I am giving you the unrelieved
truth. When I determined the fact of his death, I devised a scheme. I
did not at that time know that this American would be able to paint
pictures that could be mistaken for Marston's. Had I known it, I
should have endeavored to ascertain if he would share the scheme with
me. Collaborating in the fraud, we could have levied fortunes from
the art world, whereas in his own name he must have painted a decade
more to win the verdict of his true greatness. I was Marston's agent.
I am Marston's father-in-law. When I speak, it is as his ambassador.
Men believe me. My daughter--" the man's voice broke--"my daughter
lies on her death-bed. For her, there are a few months, perhaps only a
few weeks, left of life. I have provided for her by trading on the
name and greatness of her husband. If you turn me over to the police,
you will kill her. For myself, it would be just, but I am not guilty
of harming Mr. Saxon, and she is guilty of nothing." The narrator
halted in his story, and covered his face with his talon-like fingers.
St. John was not a strong man. The metal of his soul was soft and
without temper. He dropped into a chair, and for a while, as his
auditors waited in silence, gave way to his emotion.
"I tell you," he groaned, "I have at least been true to one thing in
life. I have loved my child. I don't want her punished for my
offenses."
Suddenly, he rose and faced the girl.
"I don't know you," he said passionately, "but I am an old man. I am
an outcast--a derelict! I was not held fit for an introduction, but I
appeal to you. Life can drive a man to anything. Life has driven me to
most things, but not to all. I knew that any day might bring my
exposure. If it had come after my daughter's death, I would have been
satisfied. I have for months been watching her die--wanting her to
live, yet knowing that her death and my disgrace were racing
together." He paused, then added in a quaking voice: "There were days
when I might have been introduced to a woman like you, many years
ago."
Duska was not fitted by nature to officiate at "third degree"
proceedings. As she looked back into the beseeching face, she saw only
that it was the face of an old man, broken and terrified, and that
even through its gray terror it showed the love of which he talked.
Her hand fell gently on his shoulder.
"I am sorry--about your daughter," she said, softly.
St. John straightened, and spoke more steadily.
"The story is not ended. In those days, it was almost starvation. No
one would buy my pictures. No one would buy her verse. The one source
of revenue we might have had was what Marston sought to give us, but
that she would not accept. She said she had not married him for
alimony. He tried often and in many ways, but she refused. Then, he
left. He had done that before. No one wondered. After his absence had
run to two years, I was in Spain, and stumbled on a house, a sort of
_pension_, near Granada, where he had been painting under an assumed
name, as was his custom. Then, he had gone again--no one knew where.
But he had left behind him a great stack of finished canvases. _Mon
dieu_, how feverishly the man must have worked during those
months--for he had then been away from the place almost a year. The
woman who owned the house did not know the value of the pictures. She
only knew that he had ordered his rooms reserved, and had not
returned, and that rental and storage were due her. I paid the
charges, and took the pictures. Then, I investigated. My
investigations proved that my surmise as to his death was correct. I
was cautious in disposing of the pictures. They were like the diamonds
of Kimberley, too precious to throw upon the market in sufficient
numbers to glut the art-appetite of the world. I hoarded them. I let
them go one or two at a time, or in small consignments. He had always
sold his pictures cheaply. I was afraid to raise the price too
suddenly. From time to time, I pretended to receive letters from the
painter. I had then no definite plan. When they had reached the
highest point of fame and value, I would announce his death. But,
meanwhile, I discovered the work young Saxon was doing in America. I
followed his development, and I hesitated to announce the death of
Marston. An idea began to dawn on me in a nebulous sort of way, that
somehow this man's work might be profitably utilized by substitution.
At first, it was very foggy--my idea--but I felt that in it was a
possibility, at all events enough to be thought over--and so I did not
announce the death of Marston. Then, I realized that I could
supplement the Marston supply with these canvases. I was timid. Such
sales must be cautiously made, and solely to private individuals who
would remove the pictures from public view. At last, I found these two
which you saw at Milan. I felt that Mr. Saxon could never improve
them. I would take the chance, even though I had to exhibit them
publicly. The last of the Marstons, save a few, had been sold. I could
realize enough from these to take my daughter to Cairo, where she
might have a chance to live. I bought the canvases in New York in
person. They have never been publicly shown save in Milan; they were
there but for a day only, and were not to be photographed. When you
sent for me, I thought it was an American Croesus, and that I had
succeeded." St. John had talked rapidly and with agitation. Now, as he
paused, he wiped the moisture from his forehead with his
pocket-handkerchief.
"I have planned the thing with the utmost care. I have had no
confederates. I even collected a few of Mr. Saxon's earlier and less
effective pictures, and exhibited them beside Marston's best, so the
public might compare and be convinced in its idea that the boundary
between the master and the follower was the boundary between the
sublime and the merely meritorious. That is all. For a year I have
hesitated. When I entered this room, I realized my danger. Even in the
growing twilight, I recognized the lady as the original of the
portrait."
"But didn't you know," questioned the girl, "that sooner or later the
facts must become known--that at any time Mr. Saxon might come to
Europe, and see one of his own pictures as I saw the portrait of
myself in Milan?"
St. John bowed his head.
"I was desperate enough to take that chance," he answered, "though I
safeguarded myself in many ways. My sales would invariably be to
purchasers who would take their pictures to private galleries. I
should only have to dispose of a few at a time. Mr. Saxon has sold
many pictures in Paris under his own name, and does not know who
bought them. Selling them as Marston's, though somewhat more
complicated, might go on for some time--and my daughter's life can
not last long. After that, nothing matters."
"Have you actually sold any Saxons as Marstons heretofore?" demanded
Steele.
St. John hesitated for a moment, and then nodded his head.
"Possibly, a half-dozen," he acknowledged, "to private collectors,
where I felt it was safe."
"I have no wish to be severe," Steele spoke quietly, "but those two
pictures we must have. I will pay you a fair profit. For the time, at
least, the matter shall go no further."
St. John bowed with deep gratitude.
"They shall be delivered," he said.
Steele stood watching St. John bow himself out, all the bravado turned
to obsequiousness. Then, the Kentuckian shook his head.
"We have unearthed that conspiracy," he said, "but we have learned
nothing. To-morrow, I shall visit the studio where the Marston
enthusiasts work, and see if there is anything to be learned there."
"And I shall go with you," the girl promptly declared.