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.