The Key to Yesterday

by Charles Neville Buck

“The story is not ended. In those days, it was almost starvation. No one would buy my pictures. No one would buy her verse. The one source of revenue we might have had was what Marston sought to give us, but that she would not accept. She said she had not married him for alimony. He tried often and in many ways, but she refused. Then, he left. He had done that before. No one wondered. After his absence had run to two years, I was in Spain, and stumbled on a house, a sort of pension, near Granada, where he had been painting under an assumed name, as was his custom. Then, he had gone again—no one knew where. But he had left behind him a great stack of finished canvases. Mon dieu, how feverishly the man must have worked during those months—for he had then been away from the place almost a year. The woman who owned the house did not know the value of the pictures. She only knew that he had ordered his rooms reserved, and had not returned, and that rental and storage were due her. I paid the charges, and took the pictures. Then, I investigated. My investigations proved that my surmise as to his death was correct. I was cautious in disposing of the pictures. They were like the diamonds of Kimberley, too precious to throw upon the market in sufficient numbers to glut the art-appetite of the world. I hoarded them. I let them go one or two at a time, or in small consignments. He had always sold his pictures cheaply. I was afraid to raise the price too suddenly. From time to time, I pretended to receive letters from the painter. I had then no definite plan. When they had reached the highest point of fame and value, I would announce his death. But, meanwhile, I discovered the work young Saxon was doing in America. I followed his development, and I hesitated to announce the death of Marston. An idea began to dawn on me in a nebulous sort of way, that somehow this man’s work might be profitably utilized by substitution. At first, it was very foggy—my idea—but I felt that in it was a possibility, at all events enough to be thought over—and so I did not announce the death of Marston. Then, I realized that I could supplement the Marston supply with these canvases. I was timid. Such sales must be cautiously made, and solely to private individuals who would remove the pictures from public view. At last, I found these two which you saw at Milan. I felt that Mr. Saxon could never improve them. I would take the chance, even though I had to exhibit them publicly. The last of the Marstons, save a few, had been sold. I could realize enough from these to take my daughter to Cairo, where she might have a chance to live. I bought the canvases in New York in person. They have never been publicly shown save in Milan; they were there but for a day only, and were not to be photographed. When you sent for me, I thought it was an American Croesus, and that I had succeeded.” St. John had talked rapidly and with agitation. Now, as he paused, he wiped the moisture from his forehead with his pocket-handkerchief.

“I have planned the thing with the utmost care. I have had no confederates. I even collected a few of Mr. Saxon’s earlier and less effective pictures, and exhibited them beside Marston’s best, so the public might compare and be convinced in its idea that the boundary between the master and the follower was the boundary between the sublime and the merely meritorious. That is all. For a year I have hesitated. When I entered this room, I realized my danger. Even in the growing twilight, I recognized the lady as the original of the portrait.”

“But didn’t you know,” questioned the girl, “that sooner or later the facts must become known—that at any time Mr. Saxon might come to Europe, and see one of his own pictures as I saw the portrait of myself in Milan?”

St. John bowed his head.

“I was desperate enough to take that chance,” he answered, “though I safeguarded myself in many ways. My sales would invariably be to purchasers who would take their pictures to private galleries. I should only have to dispose of a few at a time. Mr. Saxon has sold many pictures in Paris under his own name, and does not know who bought them. Selling them as Marston’s, though somewhat more complicated, might go on for some time—and my daughter’s life can not last long. After that, nothing matters.”

“Have you actually sold any Saxons as Marstons heretofore?” demanded Steele.

St. John hesitated for a moment, and then nodded his head.

“Possibly, a half-dozen,” he acknowledged, “to private collectors, where I felt it was safe.”

“I have no wish to be severe,” Steele spoke quietly, “but those two pictures we must have. I will pay you a fair profit. For the time, at least, the matter shall go no further.”

St. John bowed with deep gratitude.