Supported on one side by Penny and on the other by his wife, the artist hobbled to the adjoining studio.
On easels about the room were many half completed paintings. Several fine pictures, one of the artist’s wife, hung on the walls. A paint-smeared smock had been draped carelessly over a statue.
“Vernon,” sighed his wife, reaching to retrieve the garment, “you are so untidy.”
“Without you, my dear, I should live like a pig in a sty and revel in it,” chuckled the artist.
At a desk, amid a litter of letters and papers, were several large sheets of yellowed drawings.
“These are the original plans of the monastery,” Mr. Eckenrod said, placing them in Penny’s hands. “They show every detail of the old building before it was remodeled by later owners.”
“How did you get these plans, Mr. Eckenrod?”
“The present owner of the building let me have them to study at the time I planned to buy the property. He would have sold the place to me too if that soft-talking fellow who calls himself Father Benedict hadn’t come along!”
“Vernon, you mustn’t speak that way of him!” reprimanded his wife in a shocked tone. “I’m sure he’s a good, kind man of religion. Just because you had a quarrel with his servant—”
“Father Benedict has less religion than I’ve got in my little finger!” the artist growled. “You said yourself only last night that something’s wrong at the place! What of those screams we heard?”