"Ah! that he is," cried the old servant, surprised and delighted to find his master coming round to his way of thinking—"that he is! Angelo may be his name, but Devilo would suit him better, and so would you say, Sir Hugh, if you had seen his face this morning when you were accusing us servants—us!" protested Fruin, emphasizing the word with some dignity, "of stealing the picture. I was watching him, and if you could have seen his wicked looks and the sparkle of his eyes you wouldn't have wondered at that girl's fright. Others of us noticed his manner, but we didn't like to speak out. I am certain he was laughing in his sleeve at you, Sir Hugh, and saying to himself, 'Don't you wish you may find the picture again!' It struck me at the time that it was he who had removed it."
I interposed with a question which I was burning to put:
"What did you see in the studio besides the picture?"
"I was so delighted at finding the picture that I didn't stop to examine the place, but hurried here at once to tell Sir Hugh of my discovery."
"But you couldn't enter the place without seeing something of it," I persisted. "Tell us anything you did see. What's the place like?"
"Well, sir, there was the usual furniture—the table and the chairs of carved oak. The walls and floor are of stone, you know. There's tapestry round the walls, and the floor is covered with yellow sand—why, I don't know. It's a whim of his, I suppose. There was an easel with a picture on it, which I didn't look at, brushes, paints, palettes, and things of that sort on the table, and—and that's all I can remember," he added.
"Did you see nothing more?" I asked. "Where was the artist's model that Angelo spoke of at breakfast this morning—the lay figure that he paints from?"
"I saw nothing resembling a lay figure. But then I wasn't in the place above a few seconds, and it was in half-darkness all the time."
"Is 'The Fall of Cæsar' damaged in any way?" asked the Baronet.