"How did that get here?" he asked.
"My word, you may well ask that," Walter cried in surprise. "Here is another amazing discovery! You remember my uncle being robbed of some pictures a few years ago, one of which he declared was the best thing he had ever done?"
"You don't mean to say," Venables exclaimed, "that, that----"
"Indeed, I do," Walter said under his breath. "I declare to you that the painting hanging up there is the one which my uncle always considered his masterpiece."
[CHAPTER XIII.]
A STRIKING LIKENESS.
Venables regarded the painting with deep interest. All his journalistic instincts were now aroused. It appeared to him that he was on the eve of tapping a perfect gold mine of sensational "copy."
"Now are you quite sure you are not making a mistake?" he asked. "You have not been misled by some chance likeness, because this is rather an important matter for me. My people expect smartness, but they have a rooted objection to mistakes."
"I tell you there is no mistake here," Walter Lance said definitely. "I am prepared to swear that that portrait was painted by my uncle. Of course, you remember the sensation there was at the time when the pictures were stolen. They vanished from the studio in the most mysterious fashion. Two of them were of comparative unimportance, but yonder work my uncle reckons to be the best thing he has ever done. And I quite agree with him."
"A portrait, I suppose?" Venables asked.