Being of the nature of dogs and aboriginal trackers, Marulitch made straight for the Louvre. There he had quitted the trail, and there must he pick it up again. But the hunt demanded the utmost wariness. If he startled the quarry, he might fail at the outset, and, supposing his talking was successful, both he and Beliani must still beware of a King's vengeance if their project miscarried.
Neither man had the slightest belief in Alec's innate nobility of character. Beliani likened him to Bayard, it is true, and Marulitch had scoffingly adopted the simile; but that was because each thought Bayard not admirable, but a fool. The somber history of the Kosnovian monarchy, a record of crass stupidity made lurid at times by a lightning gleam of passion, justified the belief that Alexis would follow the path that led Theodore, and Ferdinand, and Ivan, and Milosch to their ruin. Each of these rulers began to reign under favorable auspices, yet each succumbed to the siren's spell, and there was no reason at all, according to such reckoning, why the handsome and impulsive Alexis should escape. That a pretty Parisienne who was also an artist should fail to offer herself as a willing bait did not enter at all into the calculation.
"Be suave, spend money, and keep in the background," said the Greek.
Julius entered the Grande Galerie prepared to apply these instructions through the medium of his own subtle wit. At the outset, luck favored him. Somehow, it is always easier to do evil than good, and the longevity of evil is notorious, whereas the short lived existence of good would horrify an insurance agent.
Joan was not present; but Felix Poluski was preparing a canvas for his twenty-seventh copy of the famous Murillo. Two of his "Immaculate Conceptions" were in private collections; one had been sold to a South American millionaire as the Spanish artist's own duplicate of the picture, though Poluski was unaware of the fraud; and twenty-three adorned the high altars of various continental churches, where they edified multitudes happily ignorant of the irreverent conditions under which the cheery souled anarchist hunchback droned his snatches of song and extracted from a few tubes of paint some glimpse of heaven, and rays of sunlight, and hints of divine love and divine maternity.
The crooked little Pole's genius and character were alike unknown to Count Julius. He saw only a quaintly artistic personage who might possibly be acquainted with such a remarkable looking habitué of the gallery as Joan. Instead, therefore, of appealing to one of the officials, he approached Poluski, and the two exchanged greetings with the politeness that Paris quickly teaches to those who dwell within her gates.
"You work in this gallery most days, monsieur?" said Julius.
"But yes, monsieur," said Felix.
"About a fortnight ago, monsieur," explained Marulitch, "I happened to be here at this hour, and I noticed a young lady copying one of the pictures on the opposite wall. Can you tell me who she was?"
"Can you tell me which picture she was copying?" said Poluski.