“I’m not a photographer, you know!”
“A photographer!” said Sir Seymour, who was something of a connoisseur in painting, and had a few good specimens of the Barbizon School in his apartment at St. James’s Palace. “No. This isn’t a photograph in paint. It’s a”—he gazed again at the portrait—“it’s a masterly study of a remarkable and hideous personality.”
“Hideous!” said Garstin sharply.
“Yes, hideous,” said Sir Seymour grimly. “An abominable face! Ah!”
He had been bending, but now pulled himself up.
“I saw that man at the Ritz Hotel a good many years ago,” he said. “I was giving a lunch. He was lunching close by with—let me see—an old woman, yes, in a rusty black wig. Someone spoke to me about him, and I—, Yes! I remember it all perfectly. But he looked much younger then. It must be over ten years ago. I spotted him at once as a shady character. One would, of course. But you have brought it all to the surface in some subtle way. Does he like it?”
“To tell the truth I don’t believe he does.”
“I wish to speak to you about that man.”
“Sit down again. Have a whisky?”
“No, thanks.”