And so I sought the little shop with the bisected Old Master in the window, one half cleaned up like day and the other dingy as night.
Dadley was not doing anything in particular except sitting among his molding-patterns eating an apple. The door of his workshop beyond stood open, and when I told him my errand he led me into these back premises, leaving the greater part of the apple on the shelf beneath his counter but bringing small portions of it in his gray beard. The pictures were going on very nicely, he said, but he was waiting for glass; I wouldn't believe how difficult it was to get glass; like asking for the moon, it was, trying to buy glass. It was as he talked about the price and scarcity of glass that I drew my own conclusions about those two pictures. Obviously a job given out of kindness. As obviously it followed that I myself was being used to serve a turn.
"A fine painter, Mr. Esdaile, it's a pleasure to work for him," the old man ran on; and I did not reply that in my experience few pleasures in the world lasted quite so long. I was thinking of other things, the nature of which you may guess at.
For I wanted to know, by no means for the purpose of passing the information on to Philip, how Mr. Harry Westbury had fared since I had last seen him, and whether his friendship with Inspector Webster prospered. I also wanted to know the latest news of Monty Rooke. I decided that it was better to begin with Rooke, so did not hesitate to ask Dadley whether he had seen him.
"Oh, yes, he was in here last Thursday—no, Wednesday," the old man replied. "Paspertoos. Six of them, or else eight; no, six; I think the other two are Mr. Hammond's. I can't show you them because they're all glued up in the press. And I can get the glass for small things like that. It's the large plate that breaks my heart."
"Then Mr. Rooke is working again?" I said. "The last time I saw him he told me that his removal had rather interrupted his work."
The lids dropped over the kind old eyes. "Yes, sir, and I understand Mr. Rooke's had trouble as well."
This, if he meant Mrs. Cunningham, I did not propose to discuss, and he went on.
"Well, you get over these things when you're young, but it seems hard at the time. And troubles seem always to come together in a lump. I sympathize with Mr. Rooke, which some doesn't. He's always been a very pleasant gentleman to me."
"Oh? Who doesn't sympathize with Mr. Rooke?" I asked.