Arnold Bennett: Buried Alive, The Old Wives' Tale & The Card (3 Books in One Edition). Bennett Arnold
upon the merits of the Volterra picture. He analyzed 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 exactitude. "Scoundrel! He knows a thing or two!" reflected Priam grimly.
"You don't think I overpraise it, do you, cher maître? 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 identity!
Chapter 10
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."
"Then you've been playing a game with me all morning!"
"Please don't put it like that, cher maître," Mr. Oxford whisperingly pleaded. "I only wished to feel my ground. I know that Priam Farll is supposed to have been buried in Westminster Abbey. But for me the existence of that picture of Putney High Street, obviously just painted, is an absolute proof that he is not buried in Westminster Abbey, and that he still lives. It is an amazing thing that there should have been a mistake at the funeral, an utterly amazing thing, which involves all sorts of consequences! But that's not my business. Of course there must be clear reasons for what occurred. I am not interested in them--I mean not professionally. I merely argue, when I see a certain picture, with the paint still wet on it: 'That picture was painted by a certain painter. I am an expert, and I stake my reputation on it' It's no use telling me that the painter in question died several years ago and was buried with national honours in Westminster Abbey. I say it couldn't have been so. I'm a connoisseur. And if the facts of his death and burial don't agree with the result of my connoisseurship, I say they aren't facts. I say there's been a--a misunderstanding about--er--corpses. Now, cher maître, what do you think of my position?" Mr. Oxford drummed lightly on the table.
"I don't know," said Priam. Which was another lie.
"You are Priam Farll, aren't you?" Mr. Oxford persisted.
"Well, if you will have it," said Priam savagely, "I am. And now you know!"
Mr. Oxford let his smile go. He had held it for an incredible time. He let it go, and sighed a gentle and profound relief. He had been skating over the thinnest ice, and had reached the bank amid terrific crackings, and he began to appreciate the extent of the peril braved. He had been perfectly sure of his connoisseurship. But when one says one is perfectly sure, especially if one says it with immense emphasis, one always means 'imperfectly sure.' So it was with Mr. Oxford. And really, to argue, from the mere existence of a picture, that a tremendous deceit had been successfully practised upon the most formidable of nations, implies rather more than rashness on the part of the arguer.
"But I don't want it to get about," said Priam, still in a savage whisper. "And I don't want to talk about it." He looked at the nearest midgets resentfully, suspecting them of eavesdropping.
"Precisely," said Mr. Oxford, but in a tone that lacked conviction.
"It's a matter that only concerns me," said Priam.
"Precisely," Mr. Oxford repeated. "At least it ought to concern only you. And I can't assure you too positively that I'm the last person in the world to want to pry; but--"
"You must kindly remember," said Priam, interrupting, "that you bought that picture this morning simply as a picture, on its merits. You have no authority to attach my name to it, and I must ask you not to do so."
"Certainly," agreed Mr. Oxford. "I bought it as a masterpiece, and I'm quite content with my bargain. I want no signature."
"I haven't signed my pictures for twenty years," said Priam.
"Pardon me," said Mr. Oxford. "Every square inch of every one is unmistakably signed. You could not put a brush on a canvas without signing it. It is the privilege of only the greatest painters not to put letters on the corners of their pictures in order to keep other painters from taking the credit for them afterwards. For me, all your pictures are signed. But there are some people who want more proof than connoisseurship can give, and that's where the trouble is going to be."
"Trouble?" said Priam, with an intensification of his misery.
"Yes," said Mr. Oxford. "I must tell you, so that you can understand the situation." He became very solemn, showing that he had at last reached the real point. "Some time ago a man, a little dealer, came to me and offered me a picture that I instantly recognized as one of yours. I bought it."
"How much did you pay for it?" Priam growled.
After a pause Mr. Oxford said, "I don't mind giving you the figure. I paid fifty pounds for it."
"Did you!" exclaimed Priam, perceiving that some person or persons had made four hundred per cent. on his work by the time it had arrived at a big dealer. "Who was the fellow?"
"Oh, a little dealer. Nobody. Jew, of course." Mr. Oxford's way of saying 'Jew' was ineffably ironic. Priam knew that, being a Jew, the dealer could not be his frame-maker, who was a pure-bred Yorkshireman from Ravensthorpe. Mr. Oxford continued, "I sold that picture and guaranteed it to be a Priam Farll."
"The devil you did!"
"Yes. I had sufficient confidence in my judgment."
"Who bought it?"
"Whitney C. Witt, of New York. He's an old man now, of course. I expect you remember him, cher maître." Mr. Oxford's eyes twinkled. "I sold it to him, and of course he accepted my guarantee. Soon afterwards I had the offer of other pictures obviously by you, from the same dealer. And I bought them. I kept on buying them. I dare say I've bought forty altogether."
"Did your little dealer guess whose work they were?" Priam demanded suspiciously.
"Not he! If he had done, do you suppose he'd have parted with them for fifty pounds apiece? Mind, at first I thought I was buying pictures painted before your supposed death. I thought, like the rest of the world, that you were--in the Abbey. Then I began to have doubts. And one day when a bit of paint came off on my thumb, I can tell you I was startled. However, I stuck to my opinion, and I kept on guaranteeing the pictures as Farlls."
"It never occurred to you to make any inquiries?"
"Yes, it did," said Mr. Oxford. "I did my best to find out from the dealer where he got the pictures from, but he wouldn't tell me. Well, I sort of scented a mystery. Now I've got no professional use for mysteries, and I came to the conclusion that I'd better just let this one alone. So I did."
"Well,