"Well, go on. You saw——?"
"Mr. Vasari's picture was hanging in its usual place there," pointing to the black panel, "but," and the speaker dropped his voice to an awed whisper, "lying on the floor was a figure—the moonlight was shining clear upon it—a figure in a long cloak, a grey cloak. I jumped to my feet at once. 'Good God! there's a murder been done!' I thought. I forgot my fright in the desire to see if I could give the poor fellow any help. I unlocked the door, flung it open, and—" He paused once more. "The picture was still there, but the figure was gone. I came a little way into the gallery, but I could see nobody. Then all my fright returned. 'It must have been a ghost,' I thought. I dared not stay any longer, and I bolted off to bed as quick as my legs could carry me. For a long time I lay awake, but I heard nothing more."
I offered a chair to Daphne, for she seemed on the point of fainting. The mention of a figure in a grey cloak had revived all the memories of that night by the haunted well.
Strange as Fruin's story was, it was told in a way that made it impossible to dismiss it with a sneer. Sir Hugh seemed to feel this; seemed, too, to be angry with himself for feeling it. He looked in silence at his guests, whose faces reflected his own uneasiness. The empty space on the wall was a disquieting fact.
"Your story," he said, "does not explain in the least how the picture comes to be missing." Turning to the other servants, he continued:
"The picture has been removed by some one within the Abbey, and not by any outsider: of that I am certain. If any of you has taken it, he had better confess at once, and I will overlook the offence, or rather I will inflict no other punishment than that of dismissal from my service. I will give the guilty party, whoever he may be, an hour to consider the matter. If at the end of that time no confession be forthcoming, I will make a thorough search of the Abbey from end to end and from roof to basement, for I am certain the picture must be concealed somewhere within it. And I promise you whoever shall be found to have taken it shall not be leniently dealt with. What's the matter with that girl?"
This last question was occasioned by the singular conduct of the little housemaid before mentioned who had so evoked Angelo's wrath. She was staring at the artist, and had been staring at him ever since his outburst, as though there were some strange attraction in his face. Several times she had seemed on the point of speaking, but had hesitated as if from fear. At the Baronet's question, however, her emotion at last bubbled over and took the shape of words. She pointed to the artist with her forefinger, and cried, as defiant of grammar as the monks of Rheims when they beheld the kleptomaniac jackdaw:
"That's him! that's him!"
Her arm dropped from a horizontal to a vertical position on receiving a smart tap from the housekeeper's hand.
"How dare you point in that rude fashion? Have you no manners? What do you mean?"