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Roy Glashan's Library
Non sibi sed omnibus
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The Grand Magazine, January 1920, with "The Un-Punctual Painting"
The Blue Book Magazine, May 1923, with the "Easy
Street Experts" version of "The Un-Punctual Painting"
THE hare, abruptly startled from its quiet retreat under a spreading mangold leaf, was so excessively flustered that for a fraction of a moment it paused, thus unwisely forming, as it were, the apex of a triangle comprising Mr. Smiler Bunn, his partner ex-Lord Fortworth and itself.
Then it gave a mighty bound and started for a spot some miles away. It was late.
Mr. Bunn's gun spoke crisply and the hare ceased from troubling and was at rest.
"Pretty," said Mr. Bunn in accents of justifiable pride. "A very pretty shot—as clean as chloroform. I don't know that I've ever made a better shot. I'll eat his meat à la Royale!" he concluded with a certain cannibalistic gusto, and called across to Fortworth:
"How's that, Squire?"
Fortworth looked up from the gun which he was reloading.
"Fine work," he cried, smiling. "I never shot a hare cleaner in my life."
"Hey?" bawled Mr. Bunn. "That was my hare, Squire. Sorry."
Fortworth drew nigh, laughing. They had just finished their day.
"Your hare, haha! Don't deceive yourself that way, old man. Your shot kicked up the dust a good yard behind his tail. I saw it. I said to myself at the time, 'That's hard luck—a good shot, too, but short. It's his worst fault. He never will throw far enough in front.'
"You will find that hare's heart practically pierced in all directions by the shot from my gun. Does that convey anything to you?"
Mr. Bunn was somewhat purple.
"You are the lad that is deceiving himself," he said emphatically. "That hare was dead before your charge was more than halfway," he expostulated firmly. "There's reason in all things, Squire. A child could see that I shot that hare. It ain't like me to take what isn't mine, and as a general rule I give up what is strictly mine for sake of peace and quietness, but this is stretching it a bit too far. I've got, in sheer common fairness, to insist that I shot that hare, Squire. I'm afraid you'll have to hand it to me this time."
But Fortworth merely roared with angry and scornful laughter.
"Hand you nothing!" he shouted. "If that animal could speak I'm the lad he'd blame for shooting him—but you'd get the credit for frightening him. Man-alive, d'you think I'd tell a lie for a mere hare? I felt myself shoot him. The instant I pressed the trigger I said, 'My hare!' and a good shot it was, though I say it. I heard your gun but I thought it was the echo of mine."
"You make me tired, Squire," declared Mr. Bunn furiously. "Why should I try to claim your hare—I've shot far more than you have to-day, as you know. I'm in form —at the very top of my form—"
"One miserable rabbit is what you were ahead of me—and he was so slow you could have killed him with the butt of your gun," replied Fortworth.
"Beg pardon, gentlemen," said the keeper, coming up. "But the man that shot that hare is going to get away with it if we don't look out. He was lying in the ditch with a gun—a poacher—most darin' man, gentlemen!"
The partners looked in the direction of the hare and perceived that it had vanished. Dangling over the shoulder of a gipsy-like gentleman, it was moving at an extremely brisk rate towards the thick woods on the right.
"D'you mean to say he shot it?" they demanded simultaneously.
"Yes sir. You all three fired together—your shot, sir, blew a mangold to pieces a yard behind him"—(this to Mr. Bunn)—"and your shot, sir, was a foot too high. I was watching, gentlemen."
They faced him, their mouths opened to blast him where he stood—when at that instant another hare, seeming as big as a jackass, bounded in panic out of his form not twenty feet away. As these remarkable animals sometimes will, he had remained there through all the noise—either scared stiff or merely foolish.
"Bang—bang!" Mr. Bunn fired in mad haste, swearing as he fired. A little spray of débris leaped into the air a good yard behind the hare.
"Bang—bang!" Fortworth as nearly as possible had pulled both triggers together—but with no other effect than to frighten the fleeing hare into a furious spurt.
"Haha! You both bossed him!" laughed the keeper, completely forgetting himself.
They turned on him like two grizzlies, drawing breath to sack him, but fortunately for him Fate intervened to save him—Fate in the form of Sing Song, Mr. Bunn's automatic crutch. The Chink was cantering lightly over the mangolds, a telegram in his hand.
Delighted at the opportunity of a more or less graceful "get out" of a slightly undignified position the partners feigned intense interest in his approach.
"What has the yellow gink got hold of now?" growled Smiler.
"Looks like a wire," suggested Fortworth, retailing the obvious.
Sing Song placed the telegram in his master's hand and Mr. Bunn gave his gun to the keeper.
"See that it's properly cleaned this time," he said. "It's been shooting foul all day. Lord de Grey himself couldn't hit a flying barn with it—the gun's filthy."
He opened the telegram, glanced at it, and handed it to Fortworth.
"What d'you make of that, Squire?" he demanded Fortworth absorbed the contents of the wire, which were brief but to the point:—
VICTOR KIDNAPPED. NO CLUE. DETECTIVES USELESS. IMPLORE YOU BOTH COME DUNES HALL.—KATIE BEAURAY.
"That's the drawback to being the only grandson of a multi-millionaire and pet godchild of a childless billionaire—you're apt to be kidnapped," said Mr. Bunn, pulling out his cigar case. "We'd better go, hey? There's no need to be desperate, though I suppose Dunes Hall is in a pretty fluster about it. I should like to have a bet that the kidnapper, whoever he is, is taking rather more care of Victor Beauray than he would of the Kohinoor if he'd had the luck to kidnap that."
He lit his cigar.
Fortworth acquiesced, and together they strolled back to the comfortable farmhouse they had rented with the shooting.
In spite of the naturally rather frantic nature of the telegram they did not unduly strain themselves in the matter of speed. As Mr. Bunn had said, little Victor Beauray, who some day, with luck, would be one of the richest men on earth, might be kidnapped, but he was as safe with his "'nappers" as he would be at home in his costly little bed. Any man or men with the brains necessary to get away with Victor (as Mr. Bunn put it) had sufficient and more than sufficient sense to take care of him, for he was precious.
And in any case, as Fortworth took occasion to observe, there was nothing to be gained by prancing swiftly among the mangold wurzels in an agitated manner. Far better take it steadily—and stroll quietly back to the excellent dinner which awaited them, thinking it over quietly and carefully.
"We shall gain nothing by rushing this thing—" said Fortworth
"Or by tackling it on an empty stomach," supplemented Mr. Bunn. "One thing at a time and only one is quite enough for Mr. Bunn—that's poetry, and true, too."
So they sent the keeper to the Post Office with a telegram of two words: "SURELY COMING," and proceeded to take the necessary steps to guard themselves against the danger of travelling on empty stomachs—a wise precaution, but a lengthy process.
It was nine o'clock at night before their big limousine, with Sing Sing at the wheel, rolled silently out on to the main road for its hundred-mile run.
They discussed their problem between dozes en route, but they knew so very little of the circumstances that they did not arrive at any conclusion of importance during the first half of the journey.
But at about eleven o'clock Fortworth woke up with a start so violent that he woke Mr. Bunn.
Smiler glared under the electric light.
"What's the idea?" he demanded resentfully.
"How idea?" mumbled Fortworth.
"Kicking me on the knee-cap that way? There's no need to hack me on the knee-cap to attract my attention."
"I had a dream," explained Fortworth, and I dreamed I was kicking somebody else,. That's it—somebody else." His voice rose. "And I don't mind betting that the man I dreamed I was kicking is that man who has kidnapped Victor Beauray."
Mr. Bunn smiled an ironical smile.
"Well, it's one way of tracking his down—dreaming of him. But it's pretty poor way, Squire, he said, indulgently—yes, pretty poor, and I guess you've got another dream coming to you. Who was it?"
The dour ex-peer leaned forward.
Prince Rupert of Rottenberg!" he said.
An expression of amazement flashed on to Mr. Bunn's face, and unconsciously he nodded. He had not thought of the man who had been Katie's second husband—until divorced.
"Well, that's not such a bad guess—for a dream," he said, handsomely, "I'll own it. Yes, Rupert certainly is a very likely lad for this business. It's a thousand to one that he's hard up—most of these German was-Royalties must be—and it would be natural for him to think of Ebney Rush's millions when he was planning to make a few more marks for himself. And the thought of Rush would lead him on to the Beaurays and their child. Yes—on the whole, it's likely you've dreamed about right. However, we shall know more later. Meantime," he concluded with rather ponderous humour, "go to sleep and dream, again, Squire—dream again. Perhaps you'll dream of the address of the place where Rupert's hiding the lad. And if you dream you're kicking the door in, kick a little more to the right. You want to bear in mind that you're wearing shooting boots, Squire, and that I'm not wearing cricket pads."
And so saying Mr. Bunn lapsed comfortably into his interrupted slumbers,
Fortworth did dream again, He dreamed that he and Mr. Bunn had found little Victor in a field of mangold wurzels, and while they were arguing as to who had seen him first, Prince Rupert of Rottenberg sprang out of a ditch and had seized the boy and vanished into the woods with him while an old jack hare had come up and told them that their guns were foul and their shooting disgraceful, and that Lord de Grey had sent a telegram complaining about it.
This dream Fortworth did not mention
IT was in the neighbourhood of one o'clock when the two old rascals arrived at Dunes Hall, for so the beautiful old Manor House on the Norfolk coast which the Beaurays were occupying was named, and the first wave of alarm had died down to an extent. The family was there to force—Mr. Ebney Rush, the ferro-concrete substitute monarch, father of Katie Beauray, and grandfather of the missing boy, Mr Henry le Hay, of Brillingham Castle (when not in America), the world-famous lard millionaire and his wife; Major Geoffrey Beauray, D.S.O., M.C, and about four rather hunted-looking detectives, some private, some official—all vainly worrying every nook and cranny for signs of some clue.
The partners were met by practically the whole family in the great hall, and the warmth of their reception would have been rather flattering to any couple less free from self-consciousness.
They entered briskly, and smiling—the only people who had dared to smile in that house for the last forty-eight hours—and subdued greetings were made. Mr. Bunn looked at Katie Beauray. "Come here, my dear," he said, and out his great hands one on each shoulder.
"You're worrying," he said, sternly, "Why? Nobody's going to hurt your baby—that's the last thing that can happen. The people who have taken him don't want to hurt him—they're probably taking far more care of him than of their own children, if they've got any. What they want to hurt is his grandfather's and godfather's great big swelled-up bank accounts. Now, if you start worrying, I can't think properly, or my partner either. And if we can't think properly it will take us a good deal longer to get the little lad back. We're going to make you promise. We're going to get Victor back for you and quickly. I can't tell you to an hour exactly when, but you can be sure you won't have long to wait. Do you believe me?"
Mrs. Beauray looked up at the big face, the massive head, of the old adventurer and nodded. She actually smiled a little.
"Yes—oh yes, yes," she said.
"Very well, then. It will probably cost the family a pretty penny, but that'll be all right. Money's no object, thank God!" said Mr. Bunn comfortably. It wasn't his money.
"Take her to bed, Mrs. le Hay—you both ought to be in bed. You're tired out, both of you. I can see it. I'm surprised at you, Geoff, and you, Henry le Hay, permitting them to wear themselves out when it is essential that they should keep fit—'pon me soul, I'm surprised at men of your ability!"
He was talking to a winner of the D.S.O. and M.C., and to about the third richest man in America—but they looked guilty. Le Hay opened his mouth to explain that American husbands are not expert at sending their wives to bed against the ladies' wishes, but on second thoughts closed it with a metallic click of his gold teeth.
It was noteworthy that the ladies went to bed forthwith, quite meekly. What Mr. Bunn said went in that house. But that he had proved his right to a certain authority neither Kate Beauray nor Mrs. le Hay would dreamed of denying.
"And now," he said, a few minutes later, as he drew huge and luxurious arm-chair up to a blazing fire in the library, "now we can get busy!" He now lit a cigar, presumably the first stage of the act of getting busy.
"Now, Geoff, let's have the facts."
Major Beauray (himself indebted to the partners for many benefits) gave them full particulars, the two multis sitting silently at the table just behind.
It was quite simple.
Little Victor—five years old—had been put to bed as usual two nights before. In the communicating room to the left slept his nurse, a tried and trusted old retainer, who only needed at any hour of the night to touch and electric bell in her bedpost to turn out two hefty "guards" (usually camouflaged footmen) who slept within easy reach.
The only entrances to the boy's room were through the nurse's room or his mother's.
At half-past eleven Katie Beauray and her husband had gone in and seen the boy. Everything was in perfect order and quite normal.
In the morning Victor had gone. The room and bed were wholly undisturbed. The nurse had overslept a little and it was Mrs. Beauray who had discovered that the boy's bed was empty.
That was the whole of it.
It was as if a silent hand had reached in through the quarter-opened window of the boy's room and plucked him. No sound had been heard, no sign had been seen.
Lard le Hay and Mr. Ebney Rush had communicated with Scotland Yard and the Home Office—the country Police Station was not for them—and they were quite "big" enough men to put the wind up to an appreciable degree in certain of the places where the Government do their governing. With a four-and-ninepenny dollar grinding its iron heel on the face of an eight-and-sixpenny pound the Government could not fail to realise that nothing was to be gained by failing in courtesy to two really hefty money-captains of the U.S.A.
So a pair of the very best detectives available were promptly hunted down to Dunes Hall—not to mention a brace of private investigators, of whom Mr. Ebney Rush had heard good words spoken.
They had all worked very hard—the detectives. They had examined everybody in the house and everything, but they had not found any clues.
Victor Beauray had disappeared in the night. They were well aware of that fact. It was all of which they were well aware.
One—the senior official detective—had committed himself to the statement that it looked like the work of "professionals," and had telephoned to London certain enquiries as to the whereabouts of one "Uncle" John Burton, a kidnapper. But it proved that "Uncle" John was still working off—at Portland—the penalty of a slight misculation in the matter of a little "job" which had missed fire some three years before.
Mr. Bunn, rather audaciously, had the official detectives paraded before him. He questioned them kindly and they rather warmed to him. After all, even senior detectives are human and possess nerves, and when the Lord High Chief Topdog is a little "breezy" he usually contrives to pass it on to his underlings. As in the Army, when the Colonel of the regiment is ravening for fresh, hot blood in large quantities, you rarely find a really happy sergeant-major, so in the Police.
Mr. Bunn's questioning of the really competent official detectives was characteristic.
"You've been here nearly twenty-four hours," he said. "When did you eat last? Have you had any sleep?" The answers were "six hours ago" and "no." Mr. Bunn grazed coldly at Messrs. le Hay and Rush—who looked a little shamefaced.
"All men work best with dinners under their belts and the grits out of their eyes," he said rather severely.
"Honestly, now, have you found out anything worth while?" he asked in that man-to-man tone of his, which was well calculated to inspire confidence.
The senior detective shook a worried head.
"Nothing. I never heard of such a case—never. That's why we're here now. There must be something to give us a start. I never heard of a case which didn't have one loose end hanging out. I questioned the servants minutely—turned them inside out. They've noticed nothing—can think of nothing—"
"Except possibly that boot-boy—Cooper, sir," said the junior detective, very diffidently indeed.
"Cooper! What about Cooper?" The whole five of them pounced like hawks.
"Cooper? Who's Cooper?" snapped Ebney Rush. "What does he say?" The detective consulted his notebook.
"He doesn't seem to be quite all there, but I made a note of his fancy, although it probably has no bearing on the matter. He says that he noticed that the Corot—that picture near the hall clock, gentlemen—" here the detective read from his book, "'was an hour later in the evening the morning after the night the little boy was kidnapped than it was the afternoon before!' I tried to get out of him what he meant but he's as shy as a hare and he turned sulky and said he meant nothing—it was the only thing he'd noticed. He seemed to me to be half-witted and I gathered that he had got confused with the Daylight Saving Order. The clocks were put back an hour on the night the child disappeared. I've seen him twice but can make nothing out of him."
Mr. Bunn's eyes were half-closed, but Fortworth was staring at him. The ex-peer knew that steel-like gleam through the eye-lids of old.
"Just read again what this lad Cooper said, will you?" requested Mr. Bunn, blandly. The detective read:—
"The little picture near the clock in the hall was an hour later in the evening the morning after the night the little boy was kidnapped than it was the afternoon before."
"That," said Beauray drily, "is very helpful." Mr. Bunn turned to him.
"Don't you be too sure that it's no good, Geoff. It's only a detail and a little detail at that—but so's the gap of a sparking plug. And you wouldn't get very far along the road without a gap to your sparking plug points, hey?"
"You think, sir, that it means something?" queried the main detective, politely.
"On the whole, I do, yes—sure," said Mr. Bunn guardedly.
Messrs. Ebney Rush and Lard le Hay—both fine judges of a man, though they were perhaps a notch or two below their average concerning Mr. Bunn, began to get excited.
"Say, Geoff, press that bell and send for Cooper," said Mr. Rush.
But Smiler stayed him with a large, warning hand.
"If," he said, "if you want to scare the little devil into a fit of meaninglessness you couldn't do better than fetch him out of bed and parade him before the seven of us here. No, Rush, old man—let him alone for to-night, and I will deal with the lad to-morrow."
He graciously dismissed the detectives.
"What you need, m'friends, is a good square meal and some sleep. After that, I've got an idea I can keep you busy," he informed them. They went out, grateful but puzzled, and stared very hard at the clock in the hall which had been put back an hour, and at the picture that was "an hour later in the evening the morning after the night," and so forth.
There's no sense to it, Alfred, that I can see," said the main detective—one Rufton. "Everything is an hour late in the evening if you put back your clock back an hourmdash;and you put is back two hours, well, everything is two hours later. He's a decent old bird, that chap Flood" (you remember Mr. Bunn was known as 'Wilton Flood')—a very sensible, decent that little chap, indeed, but when he's seen that little boiled owl Cooper he'll realise that when we turned Cooper we turned down nothing.
They wandered on down the corridor to the butler's room.
"Everything's an hour later—from the clock in the hall to the mousetraps in the larder;—if you're fool enough to look at it to in that light," came the puzzled muttering of the chief sleuth, gradually dying out over his shoulder—"except our supper—and that's a good six hours later.
"Yes, sir," said the junior detective, feelingly. "That's right, sir."
"And you were a bit above yourself to mention it at all. Why don't you keep your mouth shut when I'm reporting. Everything in this house is an hour later than it was—except your mouth. And that's a good hour too early."
"Very sorry, sir."
"All right. Cut it out in future."
"Certainly. I will, sir...
They halted at the butlery.
Meantime, things in the library were interesting-
The multis and Beauray possessed what was now an ingrained and growing belief i Mr. Bunn, and not unnaturally they were keenly anxious to learn as much as his somewhat mysterious manner led them to believe he knew.
But he was not to be drawn-
He beamed round upon them kindly enough, but he was firm.
"No," he said. "Until I've seen this lad, Cooper, there will be nothing doing. Not because I won't, but because I don't want to raise a lot of false hopes. You don't want to get any idea that I'm churlish about this business. I'm not. It hurts me to hold my idea up—but it's got to be."
He gazed at Ebney Rush.
"There you are, Ebney, just itching to offer me thousands of pounds for getting the little lad back—and you, Henry le Hay, with your finger on the trigger of your cheque book and the cheque book itself aimed dead true at my breeches pocket for the same service—you too, Geoff—ain't that so?"
"That's so," chorused the millionaires crisply.
"Well, I'm sorry. We like money, my partner and me, as well as the next man—but we can't take money for nothing. When we've got young Victor comfortably straddling across his rocking horse flogging the hide off it, then—and not till then we'll say 'Shoot!' but not before—no, sirs. That's right, Squire, ain't it?"
"Sure," said Fortworth faithfully. "Poor—compared with some of you—we are. But we're proud, hey, Flood?"
Proud as Lucy Firr—whoever she was," acquiesced Mr. Bunn. "Friend of Charles the Second, wasn't she?"
And with that the party broke up to get the rest they all needed.
Boot-boy Cooper was busy upon his lawful occasions. That is to say, upon the following morning he had collected from various dressing rooms such articles as the valets of the gentlemen of the house had put out for his early morning attention, prior to their own efforts later, and was en route to the scene of his daily labours. He was not hastening, for he was one of the earliest risers in the house. Boot-boy Cooper, indeed, usually rose much earlier than he need have done—in order to gratify a passion which is infrequently part of the psychological equipment of boot-lads.
Mr. Cooper's passion was all for art in the form if painted pictures. The son of poor but not actively dishonest parents, Mr. Cooper, at the age of fourteen, was unanimously considered by the entire staff of Dunes Hall to approximate to half-wittedness, and it was due solely to the kindness of the housekeeper's heart that the shy, undersized lad was permitted to earn a few shillings a week at the big house.
He could have improved himself. He had, indeed, been approached by the bailiff of a local agriculturist with offers of higher emolument for duties connected with the cleaning out of stables and cowsheds, but this he had refused on the ground that there would be no oil-paintings to look at in the cow department. He had, in short, sacrificed material advancement for the sake of art. He had informed his mother with tears that he would certainly die if he was torn away from his daily passionate, but furtive study of the pictures at Dunes Hall. Whence had sprung his fierce, half-crazy devotion to painting nobody knew. It was thought by his father, a cowman of no great intellect, that Mrs. Cooper's descriptions of the pictures of an artist who had been lodging at her mother's cottage in the village some little time before the lad had made his appearance in this vale of tears, had first stirred his enthusiasm in this direction—an opinion shared by Mrs. Cooper. But however that may have been, it is certain that the boy knew every picture in Dunes Hall by heart. There were many pictures there and they were good—and it was to stare at them and blindly to adore them that Boot-boy Cooper rose early six days out of seven.
One figures to oneself the poor little devil—sleepy-eyed, creeping about the great house through the grey dawn in his stockings, gazing at the pictures he loved without knowing why, rapt wonder on his oddly delicate, refined, girlish face (so quaintly unlike the practically featureless visage of his bucolic father) understanding the carefully painted work without knowing that he understood it, with marvels in his brain though none guessed it yet, furtive as a mouse, timid as a fawn, ready to bolt for the boot-hole at the sound of a tread....
He was staring at the Corot landscape in the hall, with puzzled eyes, on the morning after Messrs. Bunn and Fortworth arrived, when some instinct urged him to look round. He did so—and was startled almost to the screaming-point.
For a large man, and fat, was watching him. He had not heard the man approach. But the panic died down quickly—for the man was smiling in a very friendly way. Also he looked good natured. Also he was eating a large, handsome, excessively curranty rock cake. (Mr. Bunn always maintained that eating that rock cake at that hour of the morning was The Bravest Deed He Ever Did.)
"Hello, sonny. Looking at the pictures, hey?" said Mr. Bunn.
"Y-yes, sir," faltered Boot-boy Cooper.
"And very nice, too, sonny, very nice, too. Now, that's a very pretty picture. Have a rock cake, sonny?" He produced a paper bag.
"T-thank you, sir:" Timidly the boy took it. Too shy to eat it, he stared solemnly at this fairy godfather.
Mr. Bunn bit a large piece off his cake, and moved closer to the Corot, affecting not to notice the boy.
"Eat your cake before it gets stale, son. I must say I do like a good rock cake, don't you, hey?"
"Yes, sir." The mouse nibbled—while Smiler stared at the picture.
"Yes, that's very pretty. You can see that it's getting on towards supper-time in that picture, can't you, sonny?—on a kind of misty evening. Is that mist—or is it smoke from a fire in somebody's garden?"
"It's mist, sir. But it isn't so much like mist as it used to be. It's mistier, sir."
"Mistier, hey, sonny? How's that?"
"It's later in the evening than it used to be, sir."
"Later, is it?"
"Yes, sir—last week the picture was like the evening is at six o'clock in September—now it's like it is at seven o'clock, sir."
"It's different, is it?"
"Yes, sir."
"Supposing somebody had changed the picture, sonny —taken away the six o'clock one and put this one in its place—hey, sonny?"
The boy gaped. Clearly this had not occurred to him. No doubt he had subconsciously regarded the picture belonging to the high, powerful, god-like people spoken of reverently even by the Butler Himself, as "Billionaires!" as something no more likely to be changed than the church tower or the kitchen range. He had accepted the idea that it could change in the manner that the twilight changes—but that the one which depicted six o'clock could be taken and another which depicted seven o'clock substituted had obviously never occurred to him.
He looked sharply at the picture, then back to Mr. Bunn, and his face changed. He smiled like a child who has solved a puzzle.
"How's that for an idea, sonny? Is it the same picture as the one which was hanging up here two nights ago?"
"No, sir." Boot-boy Cooper's voice was as definite and decisive as the sharp edge of an axe.
"You're sure of it, hey son. Point out one or two things which are different."
Airily, the lad did so—a dozen things—"The shadows under the leaves here are different, sir—and the colour of the place where the sunset is showing is colder—" he was running on, when Mr. Bunn stopped him.
"That'll be all right, my son," he said eyeing him with a certain admiration. "You may be a boot-boy, laddie, but you've got an eye like a hawk for a picture. Here, take this, my boy." He crammed some silver in the small fist. "You're a good little lad—and you've dealt yourself a better hand than you know. Yes, my boy—four aces and the joker. All right, sonny. Finish your rock-cake and—er—you may as well finish mine for me while you're at it."
And so saying, Mr. Bunn ruffled the boy's hair with a
clumsily friendly gesture and moved away towards his room.
"I knew it," he muttered. "Yes, sir, the old man knew it. They've got to rise early if they're going to catch any early worms belonging to the old man—me. Nose like a point-blank bloodhound—eyes like a condemned old crow!"
And so proceeded to Fortworth's room.
"Wake up, Squire—this is our busy day," he said loudly in his irascible partner's ear—and Fortworth woke in no uncertain manner....
The autumn mists still hung like grey veils upon all, wet and heavy and salt with the smell of the sea that was crawling languidly about the flats, when the partners' big limousine, driven by Sing Song, with Mr. Bunn, Fortworth, two detectives, and Boot-boy Cooper aboard, rolled silently away from Dunes Hall, nosing out to the London road.
Fortworth was in a contrary mood.
"Perhaps now you've got us out of bed, out of the house, and travelling as hard as the car can take us away from breakfast," he remarked, "it wouldn't strain you to give us some idea of what it's all about and what sense there is in it?"
"Sure, sure," said Mr. Bunn. "Sure, I will."
Mr. Bunn selected a cigar, carefully lit it, and settling comfortably down in his fur coat, surveyed his little company with a benign and fatherly gaze.
"We're going to fetch little Victor Beauray back to his mamma," he said. "I've decided that he's been away quite long enough."
Detective-Inspector Rufton gurgled surprisedly.
"D'ye mean to say you know where he is, sir?"
"No, I can't say I definitely know, Inspector. But Cooper and I have got a hunch that we can lay our hands on the missing boy and the missing Corot very shortly—yes, very shortly—hey, sonny?"
Boot-boy Cooper broke off his solo upon the ginger-beer bottle long enough to agree shyly.
"You mean to say, sir, you have found out how he was stolen and by whom?" persisted the detective.
"I guess I have. Maybe the old man is wrong—maybe not. We shall see."
"You say 'the missing Corot.' D'you mean that the picture in the hall was changed—the original stolen and another put in its place?"
"We do that—don't we, son?"
"But both Mr. and Mrs. Beauray, and Mr. Rush and Mr. and Mrs. le Hay, all large buyers of good pictures, have seen the picture in the hall a dozen times since the night of the kidnapping, and they have not noticed the exchange. Are you sure, sir?"
"Me sure? No. I don't understand pictures, myself."
"Then, if you don't mind my asking, sir, how do you know the genuine Corot has been taken and a substitute left?"
"Cooper says so," said Mr. Bunn-.
"Cooper!" The detectives turned to gaze upon the shrinking boot-boy, as if he were a small beetle that had crept out from under the seat to express an opinion upon art matters.
"Cooper!... Do you know anything about pictures, my lad?"
"No, sir," said Cooper,
They all turned in amazement on the blandly smiling Mr. Bunn.
>Who waved his cigar.
"That's all right," he said cheerfully. He knows more about pictures than the total population of Dunes Hall and this car combined—but he doesn't know he knows it. Instinct—gift—genius—born with it."
They stared, obviously doubtful.
"But what's it got to do with little Victor Beauray anyway?" said Fortworth, interested in spite of himself.
Mr. Bunn gazed reproachfully at his partner.
"Listen, Squire," he said, "listen while I quote something a man once said to you and me. This is what he said—and I always think he put it very well, very well indeed: 'My artistic passion carried me away. I have always suffered from an obsession for those little things by Constable, the art of De Wint to me is a perpetual joy, and I love to bask in the rays of the genius of Prout—'"
"Paradix Dix, by G—d!" shouted Fortworth. "He said that when we found him stealing pictures at le Hay's place at Brillingham!" The detectives were staring meaningly at each other.
"Correct!" smiled Mr. Bunn.
"And you think he exchanged this Corot?"
"I do. Killed two birds with one stone. Kidnapped the boy and pinched the Corot at the same time. Probably he had a copy of the Corot. I shouldn't be surprised if le Hay gave the picture to the Beaurays. Dix probably saw it at Brillingham Castle, where he was a guest—until we ran him out—but didn't get the chance to make the exchange at Brillingham. He learnt that the Corot has gone to Dunes Hall, and when he made his plans to kidnap the boy, decided to get the picture as well. He would have pulled it off if Cooper hadn't had a better eye for a picture than our friends back at Dunes. But the man was greedy—and greed gets it in the neck nine times out of ten. He's a smart lad, is Paradix Dix—I always said so—but he's greedy. If he'd left the picture alone he would never have been suspected. As it was I smelt a badger the moment I heard a picture—a good picture—mentioned. That's all. You only need to keep your brains simmering in a case like this and it's simple, hey? Ever heard of this Dix, Inspector?"
The detectives smiled.
"We call him 'Buttery Ben.' He's as slippery as an eel. He's a crook we've been watching for a long time. But I think we've got him this time."
"Yes, I think so, too," said Mr. Bunn complacently. "I'm glad I took the trouble to ferret out where he lives some time back."
(Mr. Bunn had done this shortly after their Ascot adventure, at some expense to himself and much profit to the private inquiry agent who had shadowed Dix from the Astoritz Hotel, where he frequently dined, one night. But he did not tell the detectives this.)
"You know his address, sir?"
"I do," said Mr. Bunn, and gave it—a village some fifteen miles north-east of London. "And unless I have backed the worst also-ran that ever spoiled good turf that's where we shall find Victor Beauray and the painting by the late Mussoor Corot! And that's that."
The detectives were smiling and happy.
"You ought to have been a detective yourself, sir," said the Inspector.
"I'll say so," agreed the old rascal. "But on the whole I prefer to be a gentleman of private means, close friend and trusted adviser of several millionaires."
"Yes—you're right, of course, sir, on the whole," said the detective, wistfully....
The rest was simple.
It was without any attempt at concealment that the partners' big car drove up to the entrance of a quiet, unpretentious house lying a little back from the road, half hidden by shrubberies, in the Essex village which Mr. Paradix Dix utilised as his country headquarters. And it was without any loss of time that the competent five, including Sing Song, the Chink, swiftly posted themselves at all the immediately apparent bolt holes.
"If I know anything about Paradix, he won't be out of bed yet," said Mr. Bunn, as with sleuthhound Rufton he arrived at the front door.
There was no immediate answer to their knock.
It was very silent in the morning sunshine. They waited a moment.
From somewhere at the back came the sound of Fortworth and the junior sleuth knocking at the back door, and a powerful motor bicycle said "Tuff-tuff-tuff" as it came out of a lane on to the main road. But these noises died out and the silence fell again.
"Nobody up, hey?" said Mr. Bunn, and was at the point of repeating his fantasia on the knocker when the door was opened by a woman—a hard-looking, healthy, but worn woman, quite obviously a "daily" woman from the village.
"Is Mr. Dix at home?" asked the Inspector.
"No, sir."
"Do you know where he is? I am a police detective, so please answer carefully."
"No," said the woman, not much moved by the Inspector's manner.
"That's very helpful," said Mr. Bunn, sarcastically.
"Is Mrs. Dix in?"
"No, sir. She went with Mr. Dix. They've not been gone ten minutes. They went in a great hurry—on the motor-bicycle. I wonder you didn't hear it."
The detective ground his teeth.
"I did," he snarled.
"Well, is the little boy here still?" asked Mr. Bunn, quite casually.
Her hard face lighted up.
"Yes, sir—having his breakfast."
"Hah! Good—very good!" exploded Mr. Bunn.
"He's a dear little boy, sir," volunteered the daily lady, leading the way.
"He is," agreed Smiler. "In fact, you might almost say expensive."
Victor Beauray was at the moment heavily in action with porridge and jam. He did not desire to be interrupted, and was obviously prepared to resist most lungfully any disturbance. That may have been the chief reason why the Dixes, when, on catching one glimpse of the Bunn cohort, they made their frantic dive for safety, via motor-bicycle, did not take Victor with them. They had perhaps ten seconds to get out of the house to their motor-bicycle and away. It takes at least that time to separate a healthy, hungry, five-year-old from porridge and jam. They did not risk it. They did not even risk waiting long enough to fetch the Corot from the dining-room.
According to the story of the daily woman, as subsequently gleaned by Mr. Bunn, they had been in the room with Victor when Mr. Dix, glancing out of the window, saw Mr. Bunn and Co. alighting from the car.
"Come," he had said briefly to his wife.
And they had gone forthwith....
They were back at Dunes Hall just about in time for lunch—with the exception of the junior detective, left in charge at Mr. Paradix Dix's late residence, but it was not until he and his partner had disposed of a meal which went far to make up for the omission of breakfast from their day, that Mr. Bunn, enthroned in a gigantic easy chair in the library with a cigar in full blast gave them all particulars.
The Beaurays, le Hays, and Mr. Rush listened attentively, admiringly, in silence.
"—but at the same time you want to understand," concluded Mr. Bunn, generously, "that if it hadn't have been for Boot-boy Cooper it would probably have taken us a good deal longer to get the little lad back, hey, Squire."
"Squire" Fortworth agreed.
"That young fellow is a very remarkable cock," said Smiler. "And nobody need feel offended when I say that he knows by instinct more about pictures than all the rest of us put together. That's how it goes, of course. The wealthy own these works—which is as it should be, to my mind—but the quaint classes, artists, cranks, geniuses, vegetarians, antique sharps, story writers, and Boot-boy Cooper understand 'em. If anyone steals a midsummer scene by Bill Corot, say, and puts a skating scene by Jim Constable, say, in its place, we should probably notice it. But it calls for a Boot-boy Cooper to notice an hour's difference in the colour of the mist and shadows, due to bad copying. So I'm going to ask you to give the lad a lift. Give him a chance to put paint on canvas—it's more in his line than putting polish on your boots. The lad's a genius."
Henry le Hay, the lard billionaire, spoke impressively. "I will take hold of Boot-boy Cooper," he announced. "I am god-father to Victor, and I guess I'm entitled to make some contribution to the reward. Boot-boy Cooper can be regarded as provided for. His future is assured. If he is afflicted with artistic genius he shall have his chance. If he is not afflicted with genius he shall be put into the lard business and other benefits bestowed upon him."
It was a long speech for Lard le Hay, but it was good for Boot-boy Cooper.
And while on the subject of "rewards" it may be mentioned that Messrs. Bunn and Fortworth allowed themselves no grounds whatever for regret at the size of the colossal hack which they themselves took at the teeming financial resources controlled by the families to which they had been of such service.
Ebney Rush and Lard le Hay were the broad-minded kind of millionaires who, in such a matter, would say, in effect, "Name your reward!"
And Messrs. Bunn and Fortworth were the broad-minded kind of rascals who would—and did—name it in no uncertain nor over-modest fashion....
Paradix Dix was not arrested. The Beaurays weren't vindictive enough about him; Detective-Inspector Rufton wasn't encouraged enough to catch him; and the Bunn Co. weren't interested enough in him to put him into a position of any great jeopardy.
So that the exact means by which he achieved the kidnapping was not discovered. Probably he had found it comparatively simple—for he was a very ingenious and fertile-minded person, though, as Mr. Bunn put it, "greedy—a little greedy—and on the whole, unlucky."
And that was true. He was unlucky—when he ran up against such a skilled and experienced brace of fish-hooks as Mr. Bunn and ex-Lord Fortworth. But then, as Mr. Bunn said, "we cannot all be lucky—if we were there would be no such thing as luck."
Roy Glashan's Library
Non sibi sed omnibus
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