The Weird Picture

by John R. Carling

Fruin's manner changed at once from excitement to soberness.

"Well, Sir Hugh," he began with the air of a penitent, "it was wrong, I admit, to play the spy on a gentleman, but—but— It's this way, you see. I have always been suspicious of Mr. Vasari and his doings, so—so that's how it was, you know. I haven't been doing exactly what's right, but—but—you see——"

He hesitated and stammered so much that the impatient Baronet, with a deprecatory wave of his hand, cried:

"There, there, go on. I forgive beforehand everything you've done in consideration of your having found the picture."

Highly gratified by this plenary indulgence, the butler began again in a more confident tone:

"Well, Sir Hugh, you remember that Mr. Vasari hadn't been here a week before I said to you, 'That Italian gentleman has come here for no good?'"

"I remember it, Fruin; and I told you not to pass remarks on my visitors."

"So you did, Sir Hugh, so you did," replied the butler, nodding, as if the reprimand were a decided compliment; "and I went off in a huff, determined to keep my own counsel for the future; determined, too, in spite of your rebuff, Sir Hugh, to keep a watchful eye on the foreign gentleman. Foreigners are always suspicious characters," he added digressively. "What first made me suspicious of Mr. V.," he continued, "was your telling me that he had chosen the Nuns' Tower as a studio. Why couldn't he take a nice cheerful room in the Abbey, and not that cold stone cell? 'You've got a motive for living in that place,' I thought to myself. 'You're up to something queer, and you want to get as far away from us as you can, so that we shall not be able to overhear anything.' Then, when I learned that, with the exception of Adams, who lights the fire in the morning, no one must enter his studio, not even you, Sir Hugh, I grew more suspicious still. 'What's your little game?' I thought. Why, do you know, I've looked out of my bedroom window at one, two, and three in the morning, and I've seen a light burning in the tower! What's he doing there at that unearthly hour? He can't be painting. No one paints by lamplight. I've long had a desire to have a peep in at that tower, to learn what goes on there; and so the other day, when Mr. Vasari had gone to London, I got the blacksmith to examine the lock of the door for the purpose of making a key to fit it. Here it is," he continued, holding it aloft on his forefinger. "I received it only a quarter of an hour ago, but as soon as I got it I went at once to the tower to have a look at the place before Mr. Vasari should return. Brown and Tompkins were with me, carrying dark lanterns. We tried the key, and the door opened easily. Brown and Tompkins didn't like to enter—they were afraid—so they stood at the head of the steps and turned the light of their bull's-eye into the place, for of course it was quite dark, while I went in. I looked round—there was no one there—and while looking round, my eye was caught by something peeping out from under the fringe of tapestry. I lifted the curtain, and there was the picture behind the tapestry, reared up against the wall."

He paused, out of breath, for he had been talking very fast.

"It was well for you that Angelo was not there," remarked the Baronet gravely, and speaking with a knowledge of the artist's character gained only within the past few minutes. "He might have resented your intrusion with a pistol-shot. He's quite capable of it."