CHAPTER XXXIII

IN WHICH I BECOME THE VERY OPPOSITE OF A THIEF, YET FEEL ALL A THIEF'S SENSE OF GUILT

After visiting Naomi to tell her of the state of things upstairs, I returned to Mr. Carstairs' room and awaited the doctor. The sick man did not recover consciousness. It was then necessary to inform the Misses Packer and telephone to the undertaker, and this I agreed to do. Before, however, I descended to the basement with my grim message, I secured some paper and string, made a parcel of the little Verrocchio, and placed it on a shelf in my room. Having agreed to carry out this peculiar and delicate commission, I meant to do it thoroughly.

Miss Laura and Miss Emma took the demise of Mr. Carstairs as a personal affront. I gathered that he had never been a favourite with them, although his money was good and he gave no trouble; but to die under their roof they held to be an action not only ungentlemanly but dishonest.

"Brings such a bad name on a house to have anyone die in it," said Miss Laura. "I shouldn't be at all surprised if Mr. Spanton were to leave. Of course with you, sir, it's different, you not being acquainted with the deceased, and two floors away, whereas Mr. Spanton's so close."

Having had another look at the mysterious cupboard, I thought it best to obtain the services of a lawyer before proceeding further; and together we looked for the will. It was easily found, and on reading it I discovered that the old fellow had truly inserted my name as his executor with a firm hand some days before he asked me: not a bad divination of my besetting complaisance! I discovered also something that caused the Misses Packer not only to change their tone with regard to the deceased but send them cheerfully to his funeral in new and becoming mourning, for he left them each fifty pounds in recognition of their unremitting kindness, and asked to be allowed to pay for the new papering and whitewashing of his rooms. To Mrs. Wiles he left ten pounds, and to his executor, "to compensate him for any unusual worry, vexation, and expense to which he may be put," five hundred pounds--an amount which seemed to perplex the lawyer not a little. "You're very lucky, my dear sir," he said. "Why, there's nothing to do!" If the Law only knew!

We buried John Carstairs at Kensal Green, and I ordered the stonecutter to place on his tombstone the words, from the Song of Solomon, "O thou fairest among women," and to this hour the honest fellow thinks I am mad.

These things being accomplished, I was free to bend my mind to the question of the restitution of the little Verrocchio; and this I had to work out absolutely alone. I could not even tell Naomi, even under that elastic understanding which is held to entitle married people to share secrets entrusted to either, for although I am no believer in the old saying that no woman can keep a secret, or, rather, do not believe that a woman is less of an oyster in these matters than a man, yet I did not wish to burden her with so good a forbidden mystery. I do not say she would have been embarrassed to retain it; but even the most cautious of us have a way now and then of dressing up a friend's confidence vaguely, with several removes, and so forth, which, though safe enough in some companies, might give everything away to a clever listener who was acquainted with one's circle. Anyway I did not tell her.

The only real temptation which I had to break the dead man's injunction, was to tell Lacey. Lacey would not only have been useful, but he would have so enjoyed it. I did not even dare to skirt the subject with him, to get the benefit of his improvisations. Furley, too, what would he not have given to be in a position to "film" me (as he calls it) with the famous picture under my arm on the errand of restitution!

I began--as I guess most criminals do, and I was a kind of inverted criminal with all a criminal's desire for secrecy--by inventing elaborate schemes, the cleverest things you ever heard of. But I gave them all up in favour of the most obvious commonplace simplicity. Having decided what to do, I waited three months and then did it. The delay was due to the fear that if I acted at once, two and two might easily be put together, since Carstairs had left all his money--no inconsiderable sum--to the National Art Collections Fund, and a comparison of dates might lead to investigation, and an interview with the Misses Packer or Mrs. Wiles might educe the fact of the locked cupboard, and then perhaps there would be a cross-examination of myself, from which the truth would probably emerge. At least, so I feared.

I therefore allowed the parcel to remain among my papers--every night waking up convinced the house was on fire, and never leaving it without expecting to find only ashes on my return--and at the end of three months I chose a moment when everyone was out, and in broad day conveyed the parcel to the cloak-room of that very centre of bustle and incuriosity, the Piccadilly Circus Tube station, where in the thick of passengers and chorus girls, I deposited it and paid my twopence. The boy gave me my ticket without lifting his eyes, and I again merged with the crowd. I had already printed on a piece of plain paper an intimation that if the Director of the National Gallery would send for the parcel concerned, he would not regret the deed, and this I enclosed with the ticket in an envelope, and dropped it into the post.

I could not send the picture direct, because that would have meant either an intermediary or myself carrying it. I could not send the note by express, because that would have meant a visit to the post office at a given registered time. Hence the pillar box, which, though safe, gave me one further anxiety--fear lest the Piccadilly Circus station should also be consumed by fire in the night; but this very unlikely contingency did not keep me awake, for, as Trist says, "The art of life is to take all reasonable precautions and then throw the responsibility on the shoulders of Fate."

The next day nothing happened, but _The Times_ of the morning after had the whole glorious story. The lines

"RECOVERY OF A LOST MASTERPIECE. THE STOLEN VERROCCHIO."

caught my eye at once, and I settled down to the perusal of what still is to me the most amusing piece of literature in the language.

"Listen," I said to Naomi, "here's something interesting," and I read as follows:

"'It will be remembered that some four years ago the world was startled by the news that the portrait of an unknown woman, attributed to Verrocchio, the master of Leonardo da Vinci, had disappeared from the National Gallery. The theft was contrived in full daylight, probably by a clever gang whose plans had long been maturing, and although Scotland Yard exerted every effort, no trace of the miscreant was found. Yesterday the Director received, by the first post, a letter in a disguised hand enclosing a ticket for the cloak-room at Piccadilly Circus station on the Hammersmith-Finsbury Park Railway, and the parcel when opened was found to contain the missing picture. As to who brought the parcel in, the cloak-room attendant has no knowledge; he is too busy, he says, to take particular notice of people, but he fancies it was an elderly woman.

"'The picture has been subjected to the most careful scrutiny, and is found to be in perfect condition, and any question of its being a copy may be set aside. The nation is to be congratulated on the recovery of such a treasure. No doubt certain lines of investigation will be followed, but it is not likely that the Trustees will wish to devote any large portion of their very exiguous income to the inquiry, which after all could afford only a certain sentimental satisfaction. We may take it that the restitution sufficiently indicates the remorse of the thief, and let the question of punishment go.

"'The picture, we may add, came into the possession of the nation in 1888, the bequest of a wealthy merchant and connoisseur named James Murchison, who committed suicide on a voyage to America very shortly after leaving Queenstown. This is the same James Murchison who founded and endowed the Murchison night refuges all over London."

I need hardly add that there followed a short article proving that whoever painted the picture it was most certainly not Verrocchio.

"What a strange thing!" said Naomi. "How did you say the picture was returned?"

"Someone seems to have left it at a Tube cloak-room," I replied, "and sent the Director the ticket."

"That was very clever," Naomi said. "I wonder how you would set about it if you had to restore a stolen picture. Not like that, I feel certain. You'd do something at once more clever and less clever."

"Yes," I said.

"I should like to see the picture so much," Naomi continued. "Do you think it is on view?"

"Sure to be," I said.

"Then let's look in this morning, shall we?"

I was only too willing, and together we stood before the little Verrocchio in its new position, screwed to the wall, with a custodian on either side. Never have I been so glad to see any picture in its right place.

"Why do you sigh like that?" Naomi asked.

"It's so satisfying," I said, but I did not mean quite what she thought.

And so ended not only my first, and I hope last, participation in the higher crime, but also my first, and I hope last, deception of Naomi.