The Midnight Guest: A Detective Story

by Fred M. White

"Perhaps I can stimulate your memory," he said. "Isn't your friend an Italian? Hasn't he got something to do with the variety stage? Come, you can answer my question; surely it is an easy one. Isn't your friend in London at the present moment?"

Stevens stammered and hesitated. There was something like fear in his eyes as he glanced furtively at the questioner. Lance felt quite sure that he was on the right track now.

"Now, look here," he said. "We have come on important business, and if you refuse to help us, we may find some other way of inducing you to tell the truth. On the other hand, there need be no unpleasantness, and there is no reason why you shouldn't put a five-pound note in your pocket. Now isn't that picture the property of a man named Valdo who is at present under engagement at the Imperial Palace Theatre? Now, yes or no."

"I don't know how you found it out," Stevens said, wriggling about uncomfortably. "But it is true enough. Valdo was living with me about three years ago. He came back one night with the picture in his possession."

"Not in a frame, I suppose?" Lance asked.

"He brought it rolled up. The frame was put upon it a day or two later by Silva himself."

"Silva!" Venables exclaimed. "I thought his name was Valdo."

"That is his stage name," Stevens explained. "You see, Silva had not come to England very long. He was very poor then, and I understood that he was looking for some Englishman, who had promised him employment whenever he crossed the Channel."

"Was the Englishman ever found?" Lance asked.

"That I can't tell you," Stevens went on. "Silva is very close about his own affairs, and I believe that he belonged to some secret society. He told me the picture had been painted for him by a clever compatriot of his, who was trying to make a name for himself. Of course, it was nothing to me, and I asked no questions about it. When Silva went away to fulfil an engagement up in the North, he asked me to take care of the portrait, and it has been hanging on the wall opposite ever since. I hope there is nothing wrong about it."