"It was not I who started it, dear child," Mrs. Bosanquet pointed out. "But by all means let us talk of something else. I do trust, Peter, that you are not serious in wishing to hang that very unpleasant picture on the stairs."
"Well, we shall have to hang it somewhere," Peter said. "Old Ackerley will want to see it. When he asked me where you were, Chas, and I told him you'd gone to buy one of Duval's pictures, I thought he'd throw a fit."
"You can jolly well tell him then that you didn't buy a picture after all," Celia said. "I won't have you making yourself a laughing-stock. It'll be all over Framley that you've been had."
Charles listened to this with a suspicious air of interest. "Do I understand you all to mean that you feel these walls are unworthy to bear the masterpiece?" he inquired.
"You can put it like that, if you choose," Celia said.
"Very well," he replied, and began carefully to roll it up again. "I've always wanted to see my name in the papers as one who has presented a work of art to the nation. I wonder where they'll hang it? It would go rather well amongst the Turners."
"And the worst of it is," Celia said later to her brother, "he's quite capable of sending it to the National Gallery, if only to tease me."
Peter was more interested in the result of Charles' visit than in the fate of the picture, but it was not until he was dressing for dinner that he had an opportunity of speaking to him alone. Charles came in while he was wrestling with a refractory stud, and sat down on the edge of the bed.
"Good. I hoped you'd come in," Peter said. "God damn this blasted laundry! They starch the thing so that… Ah, that's got it! Well, did you discover anything, or is he merely potty?"
"A bit of both," Charles said. He selected a cigarette fromm his case, and lit it. "From a welter of drivel just one or two facts emerge. The most important of these is that unless Duval is completely out of his mind, which I doubt, the Monk is a very real personage. Further, it would appear that he has some hold over Duval, who, with or without reason, fears him like the devil. It seems fairly obvious that the Monk - and very likely Duval too - is engaged in some nefarious pursuit, and I rather gathered from what our friend said that he - I'm talking now of Duval - is only waiting for the chance to blackmail him."