Hence Angelo's reason for withdrawing the picture from the public view. Too fond of his handiwork to destroy it, he thought that by consigning it to the private collection of the Cornish Baronet his safety would be assured.
Vain hope! Avenging Nemesis was pursuing him, bringing to the chosen asylum of his masterpiece the very bride of the man he had slain—the one person above all others who would be swift to detect in the face of the painted Cæsar the features of her lost lover; and so, in order to avert the penalty which such a recognition would bring, the artist had been compelled to resort to the desperate expedient of carrying off the picture during the night.
Such were the thoughts that went whirling through my mind!
Then, with a sudden revulsion of feeling, I laughed at these wild ideas, and at the fright they had given me.
"No, no. It can't be. I'm out of it altogether," I muttered. "This picture was exhibited last spring: the Standard newspaper's a proof of that. But George was seen at Rivoli by Daphne in the autumn: clearly, then, he can't have been killed last Christmas in order to minister to the success of Angelo's art."
It was a relief to believe that George might still be living and that Angelo was not his murderer. But the affair was still as great a mystery as ever—nay, rather, it was enhanced. The question still remained: Why had the artist employed George's features in painting his Cæsar?
The human mind is not content with simply accepting facts: it must endeavour to account for them. Men will theorise, as confident to-day as ever that they can solve every problem presented to them, whether it relates to things in heaven above, or in the earth beneath, or in the waters under the earth.
Flinging myself on a seat within an embrasured casement, I tried to devise some new theory to account for the admission of my brother's face into Angelo's picture.
"Angelo had George before him in his studio while painting this picture: of that I am certain. But how came George to be there? He would never of his own free will consent to pose as an artist's model—of that, too, I am certain. Besides, if it were so, Angelo would have nothing to fear from our discovering the fact; but that he does fear our discovering it is manifest by his behaviour. It's quite clear that something suspicious has attended the production of this picture. There's only one conclusion left as far as I can see. George, on account of his fine athletic figure, was inveigled into Angelo's studio; and, in order to produce a state requisite for the artist's conception, he was compelled to drink some drug which subdued his natural powers, and gave him every appearance of death. And since Angelo could never by his own strength overpower George, it is clear he must have had others to help him in this plot. That silver-haired old man, Matteo Carito, may have been one; and perhaps that mysterious veiled lady was another.