"So far so good," I said.
"You sound like Sam," he answered. "Honest, Luke, I'm not nuts." A strained expression crossed his face. "At least I don't think I am."
"To me, whatever you say is right," I said, loyally. "But what's the pitch on this painting? Why is it worth so much money?"
"Because there is a secret hidden in it," he answered. "And I'm trying to re-discover it."
"Ah?" I said.
"Luke, you mustn't think that science came into existence this generation," he said. "There were men ahead of us who were just as interested in solving Nature's secrets as we are. Some of them came close to doing it. I think the man who painted this girl was one of them. I think he hid his knowledge in this painting, hid it because he did not dare reveal it. It is my hope that if I can discover his secret and perhaps add it to the knowledge of modern science, I can come up with something that may be as startling as the atom bomb, only in a different way." He frowned and a far-away look crept into his eyes. I knew he was dreaming of the future as he saw it, a better, healthier, happier world. He was just the man to make that dream come true!
"I've already uncovered part of the secret." He nodded toward the pages of paper on the big table. "Enough to know that the man who painted that picture was a real genius even if recorded history has no record of him! The geometry of the painting itself has meaning, the distance between the eyes, the angle of the chin, the way the hair is dressed—" He went on at some length but I had stopped listening. I knew nothing of the more obscure aspects of cryptography but I knew enough to know that Tom could be right. I had never seen such a glow in his eyes or such an eager expression on his face during all the years I had known him. If he was dreaming, I hoped his dream came true.
I interrupted him long enough to tell him about the men in the saloon.
"You take care of all such intruders, Luke. That's your job," he told me.
Ann followed me outside, to ask further questions. "He had some visitors a few days ago, but I don't know who they were," she said.