“Yes, and at twice the salary you were getting. I’m going to appoint you my private watchman to guard my picture gallery.”
“Sure, an’ this ain’t one o’ your jokes?” Phelan asked, with a dismal effort to summon a grin.
“Indeed, it is not, and here is that five hundred dollar bill you so foolishly surrendered to my friend the picture expert. Now, as all your fellow officers seem to have departed you can begin your duties by going upstairs and telling the ladies that the blockade has been raised.”
By the time Michael Phelan got the crisp saffron bill tucked away in his jeans he was in full and glorious grin and made for the stairway with an agility that was a distinct revelation of hidden resources. A few minutes later Mrs. Burton entered the room, followed by her two nieces.
As her now calmer eye took in the room and the empty picture frames, Mrs. Burton exclaimed:
“Whatever have you been doing here?”
“Some of my canvases need cleaning,” was the ready response, with a wink at Whitney Barnes, who was hovering about Sadie, “so I took the most valuable ones out of the frames to send them to the cleaners.”
Mrs. Burton swallowed the fib and began a tour of inspection of the room.
“Your father collected some of these, didn’t he?” she said after a pause. “Your father and my father were very good friends. I remember not so long ago hearing him tell of that portrait of your ancestor,” indicating the Stuart.