Later in the morning, Fluffy Reubens wrote a telegram to Bartholomew Doome:
“Bailiff in possession. Order a supper for about thirty here this evening. Whisk round London in cab and make all the boys come to an orgy. The bailiff looks ripping in that gorgeous livery out of your property wardrobe. The shoes do not fit, but his elastic-sided boots look stunning quaint at the end of the white stockings. Was afraid I’d never get his feet through the legs of the red plush breeches. I will do the rest.
Fluffy.”
He wrote another to Rippley.
CHAPTER XLIV
Wherein a Palace of Art disappears in the Night
Bartholomew Doome’s great studio was in a haze with the smoking of much tobacco; and it were almost as though the lolling figures had smoked in church.
The tapestried walls showed sombrely rich, their glowing colour only half revealed by the ghostly light of the huge white candles that flamed on high, held aloft by great gilt candlesticks the heavily wrought feet of which stood reflected on the dark-stained floor. And the handsome sheaves of crystal lustres that hung from the ceiling glittered and sparkled aloft like hundreds of precious gems.
The beautiful image of the Mary and the spangled ikons of the Russian Church, which stood on the suavely carved mantel, flanked by the pastel of a ballet-girl by Degas, and a frail nude beauty by Manet, gleamed mysterious—religious.