Part 32 (2/2)
The young man took it down gingerly, biting his lips and cursing inwardly.
”That's it,” he was rewarded, ”bring it here.”
Gladwin managed to cross the room with an appearance of stolid indifference and as he handed the picture to the ”collector” he said haltingly:
”I take it these pictures is worth a lot of money, sorr.”
”You're right, I take it,” said the other with a laugh, beginning at once to slash out the canvas.
”Yes, sorr, I mean, _you take it_!” said Gladwin viciously. The wrathful emphasis missed its mark. The ”collector” was humming to himself and working with masterful deftness.
”Now that woman's head to the left,” he commanded as soon as he had disposed of the Dutch masterpiece. ”And be quick about it. You move as if you were in a trance.”
Gladwin saw that he was to take down his only Rubens, wherefore he deliberately reached for another painting, ”The Blue Boy.”
”No, not that thing!” exclaimed the ”collector.”
”Why, what's the matter with this one, sorr,” snapped back Gladwin.
”It's a fake,” said the other, contemptuously. ”I paid two old frauds five hundred pounds for that thing in London a couple of years ago--it's absolutely worthless from the standpoint of art.”
Gladwin looked at him in open-mouthed amazement and slid from the chair to the floor.
How had this astounding person come by the secret of ”The Blue Boy?”
There was a positive awe in Gladwin's gaze as he sized up the big man--again from his s.h.i.+ning patent leather shoes to his piercing eyes and broad, intellectual forehead. He fairly jumped when the command was repeated to take down the Rubens and hand it to him. As he handed it over he stammered:
”I don't think much of this one, sorr.”
”You don't?” said the other, in pitying disgust. ”Well, it's a Rubens--worth $40,000 if it's worth a cent.”
”Yez don't tell me,” Gladwin managed to articulate.
Indicating the full length portrait of the ancestral Gladwin, he added, ”Who is that old fellow over there, sorr?”
”Kindly don't refer to the subject of that portrait as fellow,” the other caught him up. ”That is my great-grandfather, painted by Gilbert Charles Stuart more than a century ago.”
”You monumental liar,” was on Gladwin's lips. He managed to stifle the outburst and ask:
”Are yez goin' to take all these pictures away with yez to-night?”
”Oh, no, not all of them,” was the careless reply. ”Only the best ones.”
”How unspeakably kind of him!” thought the unregarded victim.
”If yez wanted the others,” he said with fine sarcasm, ”I could pack 'em up afther ye're gone an' sind thim to yez.”
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