JUST at first June was unable to realise that M. Duponnet had
not taken the picture away with him. The blood seemed to drum against
her brain while she watched Uncle Si turn over the cheque in his
long talon fingers and then transfer it to a leather case, which he
returned to his breast pocket with a deep sigh. Afterwards he took up
the picture from the table on which he had set it down and then June
grasped the fact that the treasure was still there.
The face which bent over it now was not that of a happy man. It was
a complex of emotions, deep and stern. The price was huge for a
thing that had cost him nothing, but--and there it was that the shoe
pinched!--if it should prove to be a real Van Roon, he might be parting
with it for a song.
June could read his thoughts like an open book. He wanted to eat his
cake and have it too. She would have been inclined to pity him had her
hatred and her scorn been less. In his cunning and his greed he was a
tragic figure, with a thing of incomparable beauty in his hand whose
sole effect was to give him the look of an evil bird of prey. Utter
rascal as she knew him to be now, she shivered to think how easy it
would be for herself to grow just like him. Her very soul was fixed
upon the recovery of this wonderful thing which, in the first place,
she had obtained by a trick. And did she covet it for its beauty? Or
was it for the reason which at this moment made Uncle Si a creature so
ill to look upon? To such questions there could only be one answer.
For the time being, however, these things were merged in the
speculation far more momentous: What will the Old Crocodile do now?
She was feeling so uncomfortable in her narrow hiding place, which
prevented all movement, and almost forbade her to breathe, that she
hoped devoutly the old wretch would lose no time in putting back the
treasure.
This, alas, was not to be. The picture was still in the hand of Uncle
Si, who still pored over it like a moulting vulture, when a luxurious
motor glided up to the shop door. Almost at once the shop was invaded
by two persons, who in the sight of June had a look of notable
importance.
The first of these, whom June immediately recognised, was the tall,
fashionable girl whose visit had caused her such heart-burning the week
before. She was now accompanied by a gentleman who beyond a doubt was
her distinguished father.
“Good morning, Mr. Gedge!” It was twenty past three by the afternoon,
but June was ready to take a Bible oath that Miss Blue Blood said “good
morning.” “I’ve persuaded my father to come and look at this amazing
vase.” And with her _en-tout-cas_ Miss Blue Blood pointed straight
at the Hoodoo.
Feeling herself to be a rat caught neatly in a trap, June at once
crouched lower. The Hoodoo being fully six feet tall and her own stoop
considerable, she was able to take comfort from the fact that just then
no part of her own head was showing. But how long was she likely to
remain invisible? That was a question for the gods. And it was further
complicated by the knowledge that the Hoodoo’s mouth was open, and that
the point of Miss Blue Blood’s green umbrella might easily find a way
through.
A-shiver with fear June tried to subdue her wild heart, while Miss
Babraham, her father, Sir Arthur, and S. Gedge Antiques gathered round
the Hoodoo. She hardly dared to breathe. The least sound would betray
her. And in any case, one of the three had merely to stand on an
adjacent coffin stool and peer over the top for the murder to be out.
The tragedy which June so clearly foresaw was not permitted to take
place at once. Plainly the fates were inclined to toy with their victim
for a while. Miss Blue Blood’s laugh--how rich and deep it was!--rang
in her ears and made them burn as she gave the Hoodoo a prod and cried
out in her gay Miss-Banks-like manner, “Papa, I ask you, did you ever
see anything quite like it?”
“By George, no!” laughed that connoisseur.
“It’s such a glorious monster,” said his enthusiastic daughter standing
on tiptoe, “that one can’t even see over the top.”
“Puts one in mind,” said Sir Arthur, “of the Arabian Nights and the
Cave of the Forty Robbers.”
“The long gallery at Homefield is the very place for it!”
“I wonder!” The connoisseur tapped the Hoodoo with his walking stick
and turned to S. Gedge Antiques. “Do you happen to know where it came
from?” he asked.
“From a Polynesian temple in the South Sea Islands, I believe, sir,”
said Uncle Si, glibly.
“What do you want for it?” And Sir Arthur tapped the Hoodoo again.
“I’ll take thirty pounds, sir.” It was the voice of a man bringing
himself to part with a valuable tooth. “Sixty was the sum I paid for it
some years ago. But it isn’t everybody’s fancy, and it swallows a small
place.”
Sir Arthur observed with pleasant humour that such a monstrosity ought
to be taken over by the nation. S. Gedge Antiques, with a humour that
strove to be equally pleasant, concurred.
At this point, to June’s mortal terror, Miss Babraham made a second
attempt to look over the top.
“Stand on this coffin stool, Miss,” said S. Gedge Antiques, politely
producing that article from the collection of bric-à-brac around the
Hoodoo.
June’s heart stood still. The game was up. Sickly she closed her eyes.
But Providence had one last card to play.
“Thank you so much,” said Miss Babraham. “But it won’t bear my weight,
I’m afraid. No, I don’t think I’ll risk it. There’s really nothing to
see inside.”
Uncle Si agreed that there was really nothing to see inside; and June
breathed again.
“Thirty pounds isn’t much, papa, for such a glorious monstrosity.” Miss
Blue Blood had evidently set her heart on it.
Sir Arthur, however, expressed a fear that a thing of that size, that
hue, that contour would kill every object in the Long Gallery. Great
argument ensued. And then to June’s relief, Miss Babraham, her father,
Sir Arthur and S. Gedge Antiques, arguing still, moved away from the
Hoodoo.
The upshot was that Sir Arthur, overborne at last by the force of
his daughter’s reasoning, agreed to buy the monster, for what in the
opinion of the seller, was a ridiculously inadequate sum. It was
to be carefully packed in a crate, and sent down to Homefield near
Byfleet, Surrey. So much for the Hoodoo. And then the eye of a famous
connoisseur lit on the picture that the old dealer had laid on the
gate-legged table.
“What have we here?” said Sir Arthur, fixing his eyeglass.
Uncle Si became a sphinx. The connoisseur took the picture in his hand,
and while he examined it with grave curiosity he too became a sphinx.
So tense grew the silence to June’s ear that again she was troubled by
the loud beating of her heart.
At last the silence was broken by the light and charming note of Miss
Babraham. “Why, surely,” she said, “that is the funny old picture I saw
when I was here the other day.”
“We have cleaned it up a bit since then, madam,” said Uncle Si in
a voice so toneless that June could only marvel at the perfect
self-command of this arch dissembler.
Sir Arthur, it was clear, was tremendously interested. He turned the
picture over and over, and used the microscope very much as M. Duponnet
had done. Finally he said in a voice nearly as toneless as that of
Uncle Si himself. “What do you ask for this, Mr. Gedge?”
“Not for sale, sir,” was the decisive answer.
The nod of Sir Arthur implied that it was the answer he expected.
“Looks to me a fine example.” A true amateur, he could not repress a
little sigh of pleasure. There was no concealing the fact that he was
intrigued.
“Van Roon at his best, sir,” said S. Gedge Antiques.
“Ye-es,” said the connoisseur--in the tone of the connoisseur.
“One would be rather inclined to say so. If the question is not
impertinent,”--Sir Arthur fixed a steady eye upon the face of deep
cunning which confronted his--“may I ask where it came from?”
The old man was prepared for the question. His answer was pat. “I can’t
tell you that, sir,” he said, in a tone of mystery.
Again Sir Arthur nodded. That, too, was the answer he had expected. In
the pause which followed Sir Arthur returned to a loving re-examination
of the picture; and then said S. Gedge Antiques in a voice gravely and
quietly confidential: “Strictly between ourselves, sir, I may say that
I have just turned down an offer of five thousand guineas.”
“Oh--indeed!”
It was now the turn of the Old Crocodile to gaze into the impassive
countenance of the famous connoisseur.