“I have sometimes thought of putting myself to it. Illustrating, I mean, as a profession. One never knows when one may have to go to work for a living. If one has a start when that time comes, so much the better.”
“Perhaps I might be of some service to you. I know a few editors.”
“Thank you very much. You mean you would ask them to give me work to illustrate?”
“If you wished. Or sometimes the text and illustrations may be done first, and then submitted together. A friend of mine had some success with me that way; I wrote the stuff, he made the pictures, and the combination took its chances. We did very well. My friend was Murray Davenport, who disappeared. Perhaps you've heard of him.”
“I think I read something in the papers,” replied Turl. “He went to South America or somewhere, didn't he?”
“A detective thinks so, but the case is a complete mystery,” said Larcher, making the mental note that, as Turl evidently had not known Davenport, it could not be Davenport who had mentioned Turl. “Hasn't Mr. Kenby or his daughter ever spoken of it to you?” added Larcher, after a moment.
“No. Why should they?” asked the other, turning over a page of the volume.
“They knew him. Miss Kenby is very unhappy over his disappearance.”
Did a curious look come over Mr. Turl's face for an instant, as he carefully regarded the picture before him? If it did, it passed.
“I've noticed she has seemed depressed, or abstracted,” he replied. “It's a pity. She's very beautiful and womanly. She loved this man, do you mean?”