“Now you’re talking Stock Exchange,” Paul had told him. “The latest marked quotation is absolutely nil. No one will look at it. As a piece of property it is worthless. As a revelation——” he had stopped.
St. Aubyn had smiled. “I deal in revelations—professionally,” he said.
That had told Paul the secret he had already guessed.
“What a head-line for the evening papers,” he had said whimsically. “‘A Peer’s Secret! Threatened Exposure by Eminent Artist!’ But I’m not a blackmailer, and I don’t take hush-money. The picture is yours or no one’s.”
They had argued a little more. At last St. Aubyn had taken it.
“And about the inscription?” It had been Paul’s parting shot. “From a painter to a——?”
St. Aubyn had shaken his head.
“Experience is against endorsements, however cryptic, on secret documents,” he had said. “Sooner or later the cipher is sure to be read.”
And he had gone away, leaving Paul the sole possessor of his secret, a secret which Paul had summed up in one brief sentence addressed to a Chinese idol on his mantelpiece.
“The man, God help him, is a poet.”