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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.