In the face of this intimidation, William stuck to his story. He knew no more than the dead where the picture was; Miss June, to whom it had been given, had suddenly disappeared with it the previous night.
“Who is Mees June?” said the Frenchman sharply.
Miss June was the niece of Mr. Gedge.
“And he gave the picture to her?” The disappointed buyer, who felt that his suspicions in the matter were being confirmed, looked keenly from the young man to the old.
“No, sir,” said William, with the utmost simplicity. “I gave it to her myself.”
There was a pause, in which astonishment played its part, and then Mr. Thornton gravely interposed: “How do you mean you gave her the picture? It isn’t yours to give. It is the property of your master.”
“You are forgetting, boy,” said the old man in a voice in which oil and vinegar were wonderfully mingled, “that I would not allow my niece to have such a valuable thing, and that you then made it over to me to dispose of to the best advantage.”
“I gave it to Miss June,” persisted the young man simply, “but I told her that, as you had set your heart upon it, I hoped very much she would let you have it.”
While this odd conversation went on, the two dealers exchanged glances. Both were greatly puzzled. They were as one in being a little suspicious of the absolute bona fides of S. Gedge Antiques. Either this was a very clumsy method of establishing them, or there was more behind the picture’s disappearance than met the eye.
S. Gedge Antiques, whose brain was working at high pressure, was not slow to read their minds. He closed the discussion with a brevity which yet was not lacking altogether in persuasion. “There’s no time, boy, to go into all that,” he said. “The girl’s gone off with the picture, and wherever she’s to be found, you must go right away, and get it back from her, and bring it here to me, or we may both find ourselves in the lock-up. That is so, Mussewer Duplay—what?” And with a lively gesture the old fox turned to the Frenchman.