A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P R S T U V W X Z

The Master Detective

P >> Percy James Brebner >> The Master Detective




"Is she pretty?" asked the other.

"Upon my word, I don't know; what I do know is that I wanted to look
at her all the time, and when she had gone life seemed to have left
the studio."

I did not know the speaker, but I did not lose sight of him until I
had tracked him to a club in Piccadilly and discovered that his name
was Tenfield, and that he was a partner in a firm of art dealers in
Bond Street.

When I repeated this conversation to Quarles he wondered why I had taken
so much trouble over the art dealer.

"Looking for a clue," I answered.

Quarles shrugged his shoulders.

"What did you think of the portrait?"

"Frankly, not much."

"But you got an impression of Madame Vatrotski's character."

"I cannot say I got any great enlightenment. It made me wonder why she
had made such a great reputation."

"The fact that it made you wonder at all shows there is something in the
portrait," said Quarles. "Let us argue indirectly from the picture. You
will agree that the lady was fascinating, since she had so many admirers,
but in the portrait you discern nothing to account for that fascination.
We may conclude that the painter saw the real woman underneath the
superficial charm. She could not hide herself from him as she did from
others. Now in that portrait I see rather a commonplace woman,
essentially bourgeoise and vulgar, not naturally artistic. I can imagine
her the wife of a small shopkeeper, or a girl given to cheap finery on
holidays. I think she would be capable of any meanness to obtain that
finery. Her face shows a decided lack of talent, but it also shows
tremendous greed. The critics have said that her dancing was a pose and
not in good taste."

I nodded.

"They are practically unanimous on this point. It was beyond her to
appeal to the artistic sense, so she appealed to the lower nature, and
therein lay her fascination. Just consider who the men are to whom she
appealed. A millionaire with an unsavory reputation. To two or three
peers who, even by the wildest stretch of imagination, cannot be
considered ornaments of their order. To some younger sons of the Nut
description who are ready to pay anything to be seen with a popular
actress, and to the kind of fools who are always ready to offer marriage
to a divorcee, or to a husband murderer when she comes out of prison. She
appeals to a man like Paul Renaud, whose outlook upon life is disgusting,
and who would not be able to keep a decent girl on his premises were it
not for the fact that the whole management of the business is in the
hands of his two partners. Sir Charles Woodbridge I do not understand. He
is a decent man. I could easily imagine his killing her in a revulsion of
feeling after being momentarily fascinated. Honestly, I have wondered
whether this may not be the solution of the case."

"You are suspicious of Sir Charles?" I asked.

"I do not give that as my definite opinion. She may not be dead.
Perchance some particularly mean exploit has made her afraid and she has
gone into hiding; but if she is dead, I think we must look for her
murderer--I had almost said her executioner--amongst the decent men who
have been caught for a while in her toils."

"The only decent man seems to be Sir Charles," said Zena.

"And I am convinced he was genuinely in love with her," I said.

"Well, we are at a dead end," said Quarles. "I think I should go and see
Musgrave and ask his opinion of her. It may help us."

I went simply because there was nothing else to do, and I felt that I
must; be doing something. The authorities seemed to think that I was
making a great muddle over a very ordinary affair, possibly because
rather contemptuous comments in the press had annoyed them, while the
letters from amateur detectives had been more abundant than usual. Oh,
those amateur detectives!

I found Musgrave quite willing to talk about Madame Vatrotski, and before
I had been with him ten minutes I discovered that his opinion of her very
nearly coincided with Quarles's.

He put it differently, but it came to the same thing.

"To tell you the truth, she rather appealed to me when I first saw her,"
he said. "It was at an artists' affair in Chelsea. She came there with a
man named Renaud, who has a big shop in Regent Street, and had spent
money on her, I imagine. She was interesting because she was something
new in the way of vulgarity. It was for this man Renaud that I did the
portrait, but when it was finished he repudiated the bargain. He said it
wasn't a bit like her. You see, I was not looking at her with his eyes"

"Had she no beauty, then?"

"I cannot say that," Musgrave answered. "She had a beautiful figure, and
her face--well, I painted it as I saw it. Renaud said it wasn't in the
least like her, and I am bound to admit that most of the people who knew
her and have seen the portrait in the Academy agree with him."

"You claim that you show her character, I suppose?"

"No; I merely say I painted what I saw."

"Can you account for the fascination she exerted?" I asked.

"I answer that question by asking you another. Can you account for the
fascination which sin exerts over a vast number of people in the world?
See sin as it really is, and it repels you; but sin seldom lets you see
the reality, that is why it is so successful. A man requires grace to see
sin as it really is, and that is his salvation. I was in a detached
position when I painted Madame Vatrotski's portrait, and you have seen
the result; had I been under her spell the result would undoubtedly have
been different. I should have painted only the mask of the moment, and
that would have satisfied her admirers, I imagine. I suppose you know
that my ideas of the true functions of art have caused many people to
call me a crank?"

"I know little of the artistic world," I answered; "but any man who takes
himself seriously always appeals to me."

Musgrave smiled. I fancy he was about to favor me with his ideas, but
concluded I was not worth the trouble. I had not got much out of my visit
beyond the knowledge that Quarles was not alone in his estimate of Madame
Vatrotski.

The professor's opinion combined with the artist's influenced me, and
gave me a kind of rough theory. A man might be fascinated, then
repelled, the repulsion being far stronger than the attraction.

To make this possible the man must normally be decent, and because Sir
Charles Woodbridge seemed the only person who fitted all the conditions I
gave his movements a considerable amount of my attention during the next
few days. He had certainly been amongst the most assiduous of her
admirers, and I discovered that he had put a private detective on to the
business who was chiefly concerned in shadowing Paul Renaud.

Sir Charles was evidently convinced that Renaud was at the bottom of
the mystery.

Nearly a month went by, and, except to those chiefly concerned, interest
in the dancer's disappearance was fading out, when it was suddenly
revived by the notice of a picture exhibition in Bond Street, at the
gallery belonging to the firm in which Tenfield was a partner.

The pictures were the work of French artists of the cubist school, but
also on view was a portrait bust of Madame Vatrotski by Lovet Forbes. It
was evidently the bust I had overheard Tenfield speak about that day in
the Academy, and I discovered that his firm had bought it as a
speculation.

Lovet Forbes had been only a vague name until a few days ago, when a
symbolic group of his had been placed in the entrance hall of the
Agricultural Institution, and had at once attracted attention. The
critics spoke of him as a new force in art, and a bust of the famous
dancer by him was therefore, under the circumstances, an event.

"People will go to see it who wouldn't cross the road to look at a
cubist's picture," said Quarles. "It is for sale, no doubt, and the
dealers may clear a very nice little profit over it. Not a bad
speculation, I should say; I wonder how much they paid the artist. We
will go and have a look at it, Wigan."

The three of us went on the opening day. Zena in a dress I had not seen
before, which suited her to perfection. She was much more interesting to
me than Forbes's bust of Madame Vatrotski.

Quarles was right in his prophecy; the gallery was full, and the cubists
were not the attraction. Sir Charles was there, so was Renaud, and many
others whose names had been mentioned more or less prominently in this
case, including the managing director of the Olympic; and before I got a
view of the bust I heard whispers of the prices which had been offered
for it; rather fabulous prices they were.

"But she is perfectly beautiful!" Zena exclaimed, when at last we stood
before the bust.

She was right, and there was evidently something wrong somewhere. The
difference between Musgrave's picture and Forbes's marble was tremendous,
and yet they were unmistakably the same woman.

Where the essential likeness was I cannot say, nor can I explain where
the difference lay, but the marble was charming, while the painting
was horrible.

"Rather a surprise, eh, Wigan?" said the professor.

"Very much so."

"I hear Forbes is about somewhere. I should like to see him. He is one of
the lucky ones; this mystery has helped him to fame."

"But his work is good, isn't it?"

"Yes; slightly meretricious, perhaps. I shall want to see more of his
work before I express a definite opinion. I think we must go and see what
he has done for the Agricultural Institute."

We not only saw Forbes, but had a talk with him. He was a man well on in
the forties, carelessly dressed, a Bohemian, and not particularly elated
at his success apparently. He smiled at the prices which were being
offered for his work.

"It is the dancer they are paying for, not my genius," he said. "She
seems to have fooled men in life; she is fooling them in death, if
she is dead."

"Ah, that is the question," said Quarles. "I have my doubts."

"She is safer dead, at any rate, if only half they say of her is true,"
Forbes returned.

"How came she to sit for you?" I asked.

"Vanity. I was introduced to her one night at an Artists' Ball--the
Albert Hall affair, you know--and I told her she had the figure of a
Venus. I was consciously playing on her vanity for a purpose. In the
thing I have done for the Agricultural Institute there is a recumbent
figure, and I wanted the perfect model for it. The right woman is more
difficult to get than you would imagine. Of course she agreed with me as
to the perfectness of her figure, and then I began to doubt it. That
settled the business. She fell into my trap and agreed to be the model."

"Posing in the nude?" I asked.

"Oh, that did not trouble her at all," answered Forbes. "I shouldn't be
surprised if she had been a model in Paris studios before she blossomed
out as a dancer. She spoke Russian, but I am inclined to think France had
the honor of giving her birth. In return for her complaisance I promised
to do a portrait bust of her for herself. That is it. If she is alive and
comes to claim it I shall have to do her another one."

"She was evidently a very beautiful woman," said Quarles, glancing in the
direction of the bust.

"Beautiful and bad, I fancy. Curiously enough, I did not hear of her
disappearance until I telephoned to her flat two days after it had
happened. She had broken an appointment to give me a final sitting, and I
wanted to know why she hadn't come."

"Was the final sitting for the Agricultural group?" Quarles asked.

"No; for the bust there. I had to leave it as it was, but there is
something in the line of the mouth which does not please me. What has
become of her, do you suppose?"

"Possibly some one or something she is afraid of has caused her to go
into hiding," said Quarles.

"Afraid! I doubt if she had any fear of devil or man. Have you seen
Musgrave's portrait of her?"

The professor nodded, and I thought it was curious that the Academy
picture should be referred to so persistently.

"She was like that," said Forbes. "Musgrave's is a wonderful piece of
work."

Involuntarily I glanced at the bust, and he noticed my surprise.

"Oh, she was like that too at times," he said.

"I should doubt if Musgrave ever saw her as you have represented her,"
said Quarles.

"Perhaps not. He claims to paint character; possibly I might succeed in
chiseling character, but give me a beautiful model, and as a rule I am
content to show the surface only. Besides, the bust was for her, and I
made the best of my subject."

"And in the Agricultural piece?" asked Quarles.

"Naturally I idealized her."

"I suppose he is not the born artist that Musgrave is?" I said, when
Forbes had left us.

"I don't know," returned Quarles. "We will go and have another look at
the bust, and I think on the way home we might drop in and have another
look at Musgrave's picture."

"That portrait bothers me," I said. "One might suppose it was the key to
the mystery."

"I am not sure that it isn't," Quarles answered.

Further acquaintance with the Academy picture had rather a curious effect
upon me. I do not think I lost anything of my original sense of
repulsion, but I was strangely conscious that there was something
attractive in the face. I was astonished to find what a likeness there
was between the portrait and the bust. The impression created by one
became mingled with the impression made by the other.

I said as much to Quarles.

"That is tantamount to saying they are both fine pieces of work,"
he answered.

"And means, I suppose, that the real woman was somewhere between the
two," said Zena.

"Possibly, but with Musgrave's idea the predominant truth," said Quarles.

"Why?" asked Zena.

Quarles shrugged his shoulders. He had no answer to give.

"The day after to-morrow, Wigan, we will go to the Agricultural
Institute."

"Why not to-morrow?"

"To-morrow I am busy. Did you know I was writing an article for a
psychological review?"

On the following evening I took Zena to a theater--to the Olympic. I
suppose I chose the Olympic with a sort of idea that I was keeping in
touch with the case I had in hand, that if any one chanced to see me
there they would conclude that I was following up some clue. It is
hateful to feel that there is nothing to be done, more hateful still that
people should imagine you are beaten or are neglecting your work.

Zena told me the professor had been out all day, but she did not know
what business he was about. He was certainly not engaged in writing
his article.

The Olympic was by no means full that night; the disappearance of the
dancer was evidently having a disastrous effect upon the receipts.

The next day I went to the Agricultural Institute with Quarles. He had
got a card of introduction to the secretary.

The building had recently been enlarged, and at the top of the first
flight of the staircase stood a group representing the triumph of
modern methods.

Standing or crouching, and full of energy, were figures symbolic of
science and machinery, while in the foreground was a recumbent figure
from whose hands the sickle had fallen.

The woman was sleeping, her work done; yet she suggested that there was
beauty in those old methods which, for all their utility, was lacking
in the new.

"It is probably the best work that Lovet Forbes has done," said the
secretary, who came round with us.

"He is the coming man, they say," Quarles remarked.

"He has surely arrived," was the answer, "for the critics are unanimous
as to the beauty of this."

"Yes, it is remarkable in idea and execution. I am told the famous
dancer, who has recently disappeared, was the model for the
recumbent figure."

"So I understand. The figure is the gem of the whole composition."

Quarles was not inclined to endorse this opinion, and the secretary was
nothing loath to argue the point.

The discussion led to a close examination of the figure, Quarles arguing
that it was out of proportion in comparison with the standing figures, a
comment which the secretary met with some learned words on the laws
relating to perspective.

They were both a little out of their depth, I thought, and after a few
moments I did not pay much attention to them. My thoughts had gone back
to Musgrave's picture and to Forbes's bust of Madame Vatrotski. Zena had
said that the real woman was probably somewhere between the two, and as I
looked at the figure for which the dancer had been the model I felt she
was right.

I suppose the limbs were perfect, but it was the face which chiefly
interested mo. It was like Musgrave's picture, but it was more like
Forbes's bust, with something in it which differed entirely from the bust
and from the picture.

It was a beautiful figure, and I think the face was beautiful, but I
am not sure.

The secretary had just measured the figure, and the result seemed to have
established the fact that Quarles's contention was right. This evidently
pleased him, and he was inclined to give way on minor points of
difference.

"No doubt the sculptor's perspective has something to do with it," he
said; "but we must not forget that the group is symbolic. I should not
be surprised if the figure in the foreground is larger to illustrate
the fact that modern methods are of yesterday, while the sickle has
reaped the harvests of the world from old time. The sickle is not
broken, you observe, and the artist may mean that it will be used
again in the time to come."

"You may be right," said the secretary. "I shall take an early
opportunity of asking Forbes."

Soon afterwards, we left, and had got a hundred yards from the
building when the professor suddenly found he had left his gloves
behind in the library.

"I shall only be a minute or two, Wigan. Stop a taxi in the meantime."

He was longer than that, but he came back triumphant, waving the gloves,
an old pair hardly worth returning for. He seemed able to talk of nothing
but the symbolism of the group, finding many points in it which had
escaped me entirely.

"It has given me an idea, Wigan."

"About Madame Yatrotski?"

"Yes; but we will wait until we get home."

We went straight to that empty room. Zena could not persuade the old man
to have some tea first.

"Tea! I am not taking tea to-day. Bring me a little weak brandy and
water, my dear."

"Don't you feel well?"

"Yes, but I am a little exhausted by talking to a man who thinks he
understands art and doesn't."

"Oh, Murray doesn't pretend to understand it."

"Murray is not such a fool as he pretends to be, even in art; but I was
thinking of the secretary, not Murray."

The brandy was brought, and then the professor turned to me.

"You suggested that perhaps Forbes was not the born artist that Musgrave
is. What is your opinion now, Wigan?"

"I am chiefly impressed with the fact that Zena was right when she
said the real woman was probably between Forbes's bust and
Musgrave's picture."

"And I am chiefly impressed with the fact that they are both great
artists," said Quarles. "I said Musgrave was, but I reserved my opinion
of Forbes until I had seen this group. It has convinced me. Now, for my
idea concerning the dancer. The first germ was in the notion that in
Musgrave's picture lay the key to the mystery. Knowing something of the
painter's power and ideals, I felt that the portrait must be true from
one point of view. What was his standpoint? He explained it to you. He
was detached, unbiased, putting on to his canvas that which he saw behind
the mere outer mask. When I saw Forbes's bust, one of two things was
certain: either he was incapable of seeing below the surface, or in this
particular case he was incapable of doing so. I could not decide until I
had seen other work of his. To-day I know he is as capable with his
chisel as Musgrave is with his brush. You have only to study the standing
and crouching figures in the group to see how virile and full of insight
he can be."

"But the recumbent figure--" I began.

"You remember that he said it was idealized," Quarles said. "It is
undoubtedly full of--of strength, but for the moment I am more interested
in the bust. Why does it differ so widely from Musgrave's portrait? Well,
I think Forbes was only capable of seeing Madame Vatrotski like that, and
we have to discover the reason."

"Temperament," I suggested. "He said himself he was content as a rule to
show the beautiful exterior."

"He also said one or two other interesting things," said Quarles, "For
instance, he was certain she was dead, or he would hardly have sold the
bust he had executed specially for her. Why was he so certain? Again, he
suggested she was French and not Russian, scorned the idea of her being
afraid of any one, and altogether he showed rather an intimate knowledge
of her, which makes one fancy that she had been more open with him than
she had been with others."

"The fact that she was sitting to him might account for that," said Zena.

"One would also expect that it would have made him come forward and give
what help he could in clearing up the mystery." Quarles answered; "but he
does nothing of the kind. We do not hear that he has used her as a model
for his Agricultural group until we hear it casually on the day the bust
was exhibited, and he tells us that he did not know of her disappearance
until he telephoned to her rooms two days afterwards. Does that sound
quite a likely story, Wigan?"

"I think you are building a theory on a frail foundation, Professor."

"It has served its purpose; I have built my theory--the artistic mind
fascinated and becoming revengeful in a moment of repulsion. I think
Madame Vatrotski had an appointment with Forbes that day, and more, that
she kept it."

"Where?"

"At his studio. It may have been to give him a final sitting, or it may
have been a lovers' meeting. Forbes could only see her beauty and
fascination; he put what he saw into the bust. He loved her with all the
unreasoning power that was in him; it is possible that in her limited way
she loved him, that he was more to her than all the rest. Then came the
sudden revulsion, perhaps because stories concerning her had reached
Forbes, stories he was convinced were true. She was alone with him in the
studio, and--well, I do not think she left it alive."

"But the body?" I said.

"Always the great difficulty," Quarles returned. "Yesterday I spent an
interesting day in Essex, Wigan, watching the various processes used in
making artificial stone, from its liquid and plastic state to its setting
into a hard block. I was amazed at what can be done with it."

"You mean that--"

"It is impossible!" Zena exclaimed.

"It is not a very difficult matter to treat a body so as to preserve it,
but to cover it with a preparation and with such precision that when it
is set you shall see nothing but a stone figure is, of course, only
possible to an artist."

"But she had sat for him, the figure must have been far advanced
before--before she disappeared."

"I have no doubt it was, Wigan; but, far advanced as it was, that
stone figure was removed and replaced by one that only superficially
was stone."

"I do not believe it. It is absurd."

"Measurement proved that the recumbent figure was out of proportion in
comparison with the other figures, accounted for by the stone casing. Of
course with the secretary there I could not look too closely."

"No, or you would have found--"

"You seem to forget that I went back for my gloves," said Quarles. "I
left them on purpose. I ran up to the library; no one was about. I had a
chisel and hammer with me. By this time some one may have discovered
that the group has been chipped. There are the pieces."

He took from his pocket some fragments of stone, pieces of a stone
mold, in fact.

"Whether they will realize what it is that is disclosed where that piece
is missing is another matter, but we know, Wigan. It is the body of
Madame Vatrotski. Can you wonder, my dear Zena, that I felt more like a
little brandy and water than tea?"

How far Quarles was right in his idea of the relations between Forbes and
the dancer no one will ever know. When the police went to arrest him he
was found dead in his studio. He had shot himself. How had he heard of
Quarles's discovery? How did he know that his ingenious method of
concealing the body had been found out?

It was so strange that I asked Quarles whether he had warned him.

"Do you think I should be likely to do such a thing?" was his answer.

He would give me no other answer, and all I can say positively is that he
has never actually denied it.




CHAPTER X

THE MYSTERY OF THE MAN AT WARBURTON'S


Two days later Zena went to visit friends in the country, and for some
weeks I did not go near Chelsea. Quarles was busy with some Psychological
Society which was holding a series of meetings in London, and was quite
pleased, no doubt, to be without my society for a while.

Except when I have a regular holiday, my leisure hours are limited, but I
was taking a night off. It was not because I had nothing to do, but
because I had so many things to think of that my brain had become
hopelessly muddled in the process, and a few blank hours seemed to be
advisable. When this kind of retreat becomes necessary, I invariably find
my way to Holborn, to a very plain-fronted establishment there over which
is the name Warburton. If you are a gastronomic connoisseur in any way
you may know it, for Warburton's is a restaurant where you can get an
old-fashioned dinner cooked as nowhere else in London, I believe, and
enjoy an old port afterwards which those delightful sinners, our
grandfathers, would have sat over half the night, and been pulled out
from under the table in the morning perchance. I am not abnormally
partial to the pleasures of the table, but I have found a good dinner in
combination with first-rate port, rationally dealt with, an excellent
tonic for the brain.

Copyright (c) 2007. famouswriterz.com. All rights reserved.