There was reverence and quick admiration in every feature as he bowed and exclaimed with a long sigh:
“Rembrandt! Rembrandt! God!––to paint like that!”
The emotions of this remarkable young man came and went with the quickness of his eye.
While still in the act of outpouring his admiration he whipped from the tail of his dress coat a flat fold of a dozen or more sheets of wrapping paper, shook them out and laid them on the lid of the chest.
With another swift gesture he produced a knife, sprang the thin gleaming blade and walked up to the Rembrandt.
He raised the knife to the canvas with the ease of a practiced hand, when he heard a movement behind him, and turned his head.
Travers Gladwin had stepped from the sheltering screen of portières and stopped abruptly.
Whatever shock this sudden apparition of a uniformed policeman was to the man caught in the act of cutting a priceless canvas from its frame he managed to conceal by taking tight grip of every muscle in his body.
His eyes revealed nothing. There was no rush of color to or from his face. His first change of expression was to smile.