"Depend upon it, the old boy was no madder than you or I," said Jack gravely. "I am beginning to think that he was very sane indeed, and that he has managed the whole of this business with consummate skill—always bearing in mind his expressed desire to make his heirs sweat for their money. Now listen here. I have been thinking while you did your hard labour in the garden, and I am now perfectly convinced that the old fox did not bury his precious piece of rubbish because he valued it or thought his heir would. Quite the contrary. He knew that it was extremely likely that his heir—probably James Strong, as he supposed at the time—would chuck the portrait in the fire with a curse at the memory of the original. And why, think you, did he take the trouble to have this picture painted and to bury it and solemnly bequeath it to his heir if he suspected that the finder would burn it?"
"It beats me," said I. "Go on."
"Because he knew that the portrait was indispensable, or nearly so, to the finding of the treasure," said Jack mysteriously. "See here. He hates Strong and the rest, and knows they hate him. Therefore he makes his portrait indispensable in the hope that they will destroy it, and with it their chance of finding his money."
"Very well," said I, "let us admit all that; but how can the portrait be indispensable to, or have any connection with, the finding of the hidden treasure?"
"That's what we have to learn," said Jack; "but I have evolved a theory on that point also."
I laughed.
"Upon my life, Jack, it's too funny," I said. "You are as ingenious as Machiavelli himself; but how are you going to connect that awful daub with the buried treasure? You can't do it; I defy you!"
"Well, I'll tell you, anyhow; it may be as ridiculous as you suppose, and it may not," said Jack. "You see the eyes of the awful personage in the picture: look here, I hold the portrait thus. Now get in front of the thing and try if you can find a place where the eyes focus you; you'll have to lie down on the carpet."
Still amused, but interested nevertheless, I lay down along the carpet, as desired, and presently found a spot where the eyes certainly seemed to gaze at me.
"Well," I said, "what then? They are to gaze at the spot where the money lies hidden? Is that it?"