Part 22 (2/2)

”I don't mind telling you,” said Mr. Oxford, ”that I fancy I could sell it for a couple of thousand. It's rather small, but it's one of the finest in existence.”

”I should sell it,” said Priam, scarcely audible.

”You would? Well, perhaps you're right. It's a question, in my mind, whether some other painter may not turn up one of these days who would do that sort of thing even better than Farll did it. I could imagine the possibility of a really clever man coming along and imitating Farll so well that only people like yourself, _maitre_, and perhaps me, could tell the difference. It's just the kind of work that might be brilliantly imitated, if the imitator was clever enough, don't you think?”

”But what do you mean?” asked Priam, perspiring in his back.

”Well,” said Mr. Oxford vaguely, ”one never knows. The style might be imitated, and the market flooded with canvases practically as good as Farll's. n.o.body might find it out for quite a long time, and then there might be confusion in the public mind, followed by a sharp fall in prices. And the beauty of it is that the public wouldn't really be any the worse. Because an imitation that no one can distinguish from the original is naturally as good as the original. You take me? There's certainly a tremendous chance for a man who could seize it, and that's why I'm inclined to accept your advice and sell my one remaining Farll.”

He smiled more and more confidentially. His gaze was charged with a secret meaning. He seemed to be suggesting unspeakable matters to Priam.

That bright face wore an expression which such faces wear on such occasions--an expression cheerfully insinuating that after all there is no right and no wrong--or at least that many things which the ordinary slave of convention would consider to be wrong are really right. So Priam read the expression.

”The dirty rascal wants me to manufacture imitations of myself for him!”

Priam thought, full of sudden, hidden anger. ”He's known all along that there's no difference between what I sold him and the picture he's already had. He wants to suggest that we should come to terms. He's simply been playing a game with me up to now.” And he said aloud, ”I don't know that I _advise_ you to do anything. I'm not a dealer, Mr.

Oxford.”

He said it in a hostile tone that ought to have silenced Mr. Oxford for ever, but it did not. Mr. Oxford curved away, like a skater into a new figure, and began to expatiate minutely upon the merits of the Volterra picture. He a.n.a.lyzed it in so much detail, and lauded it with as much justice, as though the picture was there before them. Priam was astonished at the man's exact.i.tude. ”Scoundrel! He knows a thing or two!” reflected Priam grimly.

”You don't think I overpraise it, do you, _cher maitre?_ Mr. Oxford finished, still smiling.

”A little,” said Priam.

If only Priam could have run away! But he couldn't! Mr. Oxford had him well in a corner. No chance of freedom! Besides, he was over fifty and stout.

”Ah! Now I was expecting you to say that! Do you mind telling me at what period you painted it?” Mr. Oxford inquired, very blandly, though his hands were clasped in a violent tension that forced the blood from the region of the knuckle-joints.

This was the crisis which Mr. Oxford had been leading up to! All the time Mr. Oxford's teethy smile had concealed a knowledge of Priam's ident.i.ty!

CHAPTER X

_The Secret_

”What do you mean?” asked Priam Farll. But he put the question weakly, and he might just as well have said, ”I know what you mean, and I would pay a million pounds or so in order to sink through the floor.” A few minutes ago he would only have paid five hundred pounds or so in order to run simply away. Now he wanted Maskelyne miracles to happen to him.

The universe seemed to be caving in about the ears of Priam Farll.

Mr. Oxford was still smiling; smiling, however, as a man holds his breath for a wager. You felt that he could not keep it up much longer.

”You _are_ Priam Farll, aren't you?” said Mr. Oxford in a very low voice.

”What makes you think I'm Priam Farll?”

”I think you are Priam Farll because you painted that picture I bought from you this morning, and I am sure that no one but Priam Farll could have painted it.”

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