CHAPTER XII
Rather late in the afternoon of the same day, towards half-past five,Dick Garstin, who was alone in his studio upstairs smoking a pipe andreading Delacroix's "Mon Journal," heard his door bell ring. He wasstretched out on a divan, and he lay for a moment without moving,puffing at his pipe with the book in his hand. Then he heard the bellagain, and got up. Arabian's portrait stood on its easel in the middleof the room. Garstin glanced at it as he went toward the stairs. Sincethe day when he had shown it for the first time to Beryl Van Tuyn andArabian he had not seen either of them. Nor had he had a word from them.This had not troubled him. Already he was at work on another sitter, adancer in the Russian ballet, talented, decadent, impertinent, and, soGarstin believed, marked out for early death in a madhouse--altogetherquite an interesting study. But now, looking at Arabian's portrait,Garstin thought:
"Probably the man himself. I knew he would come back, and we should havea battle. Now for it!"
And he smiled as he went striding downstairs.
But when he opened the door he found standing outside in the foggydarkness a tall, soldierly old man, with an upright figure, white hair,and moustache, a lined red face and dark eyes which looked straight intohis.
"Who are you, sir?" said Garstin. "And what do you want?"
"Are you Mr. Dick Garstin?" said the old man.
"Or rather, elderly," Garstin now said to himself, glancing sharply overhis visitor's strong, lean frame and broad shoulders.
"Yes, I am."
The stranger opened a leather case and took out a card.
"Perhaps you will kindly read that."
Garstin took the card.
"Beryl!" he said. "What's up?"
And he read: "To introduce Sir Seymour Portman, _please see him_. B. V.T."
"Are you Sir Seymour Portman?"
"Yes."
"Come in."
Sir Seymour stepped in.
"Take off your coat?"
"If you'll allow me. I won't keep you long."
"The longer the better!" said Garstin with offhand heartiness. He hadtaken a liking to his visitor at first sight.
"A damned fine old chap!" had been his instant mental comment on seeingSir Seymour. "A fellow to swear by!"
"Come upstairs. I'll show you the way," he added.
He tramped up and Sir Seymour followed him.
"I do most of my painting here," said Garstin. "Sit down. Have a cigar."
"Thank you very much, but I won't smoke," said Sir Seymour, lookinground casually at the portraits in the room before sitting down andcrossing his right leg over his left leg. "And I won't take up your timefor more than a few minutes."
At this moment he noticed at some distance the portrait of Arabian onits easel, and he put up his eyeglasses. Then he moved.
"Will you allow me to look at that portrait over there?" he asked.
"Rather! It's the last thing I've done, and not so bad either!"
Sir Seymour got up and went to stand in front of the portrait. He waspuzzled, and his face showed that; he frowned and pursed his lips,bending forward.
"This is a portrait of a man called Arabian, isn't it?" he said atlength, turning round to Garstin.
"Yes. D'you know the fellow?"
"I haven't that--privilege," replied Sir Seymour with an extraordinarilydry intonation. "But I must have seen him somewhere."
"About town. He's been here some time."
"But he's altered!" said Sir Seymour, still looking hard at theportrait.
"I'm not a photographer, you know!"
"A photographer!" said Sir Seymour, who was something of a connoisseurin painting, and had a few good specimens of the Barbizon School in hisapartment at St. James's Palace. "No. This isn't a photograph in paint.It's a"--he gazed again at the portrait--"it's a masterly study of aremarkable and hideous personality."
"Hideous!" said Garstin sharply.
"Yes, hideous," said Sir Seymour grimly. "An abominable face! Ah!"
He had been bending, but now pulled himself up.
"I saw that man at the Ritz Hotel a good many years ago," he said. "Iwas giving a lunch. He was lunching close by with--let me see--an oldwoman, yes, in a rusty black wig. Someone spoke to me about him, andI--, Yes! I remember it all perfectly. But he looked much youngerthen. It must be over ten years ago. I spotted him at once as a shadycharacter. One would, of course. But you have brought it all to thesurface in some subtle way. Does he like it?"
"To tell the truth I don't believe he does."
"I wish to speak to you about that man."
"Sit down again. Have a whisky?"
"No, thanks."
"What is it? Are the police after him?"
"I'm not aware of it."
"I know everything about him, as you see"--he shot out an arm towardsthe portrait--"and nothing. I picked him up at the Cafe Royal. He's amagnificent specimen."
"No doubt. What I want to know is whether you will allow me to bring twoor three people here to see this portrait? I'm doing this--I'm here now,and want to come here again, if you are so kind as to allow me--"
"Always jolly glad to see you!" interjected Garstin, with a sort ofgruff heartiness.
"Thank you! I'm doing this for your friend, Miss Beryl Van Tuyn."
"Ha!" said Garstin.
"I don't think I need to go into the matter further than to say that shedoes not wish to have anything more to do with this Mr. Arabian."
"Oh, she's found him out at last, has she, and put you up to--"
Garstin paused. Then he added:
"It's like Beryl's cheek to ask a man of your type to interfere in sucha matter. Fellows like Arabian are hardly in your line."
"Oh, I've had to deal with men of all classes."
"And quite able to, I should say. So Beryl's had enough of that chap?"
"Mr. Garstin, I am going to be frank with you, frank to this extent.Arabian is a blackguard."
"No news to me!"
"Miss Van Tuyn can have no further acquaintance with him, and I amgoing to do my best to see to that. But I believe this fellow is verypersistent."
"I should say so. He's a hard nut to crack. You may depend on that."
"And therefore strong measures may be necessary."
"Whom do you want to bring here to look at my stuff?"
"Two or three officials from Scotland Yard."
Garstin uttered the thrush's song through half-closed lips.
"That's it! Well, you can bring them along whenever you like."
"Thank you. They may not be art experts, but they, or one of them, maypossibly be useful for my purpose."
"Right you are! So you know something definite about the fellow?"
"Yes."
"Don't bother yourself! I don't want to know what it is," snapped outGarstin abruptly.
Sir Seymour smiled, and it was almost what Lady Sellingworth called his"beaming" smile. He got up and held out his hand.
"Thank you," he said.
Garstin gave him a strong grip.
"Glad I've met you!" he said. "Beryl's done me a good turn."
"Perhaps you will allow me to say--though I'm no expert, and my opinionmay therefore have no value in your eyes--but you've painted a portraitsuch as one very seldom sees nowadays."
"D'you mean you think it's fine?"
"Very fine! Wonderful!"
Garstin's usually hard face softened in an extraordinary way.
"Your opinion goes down in my memory in red letters."
Sir Seymour turned to go. As he did so he cast a look round the studio,which suggested to Garstin that he would perhaps like to examine theother portraits dotted about on easels and hanging on the walls. A faintreddish line appeared in the painter's shaven blue cheeks.
"Not worth your while!" he almost muttered.
"Eh?" said Sir Seymour.
"A lot of decadent stuff. I've been choosing my models badly. But--" hepaused, looking almost diffident for a moment.
"Yes?" sa
id Sir Seymour.
"Perhaps, if we ever get to know each other a bit better, you'd let mehave a shy at you for a change?"
"That would be an honour," said Sir Seymour with a touch of his verysimple, courtly manner.
"In return you know for my letting in the detectives!" said Garstin,with a laugh. "Hulloh!"
He had heard the bell ring downstairs.
"If it's our man!" he said, instinctively lowering his voice.
"Arabian! Are you expecting him?"
"No. But it's just as likely as not. Want to meet him?"
"I can hardly say that!" said Sir Seymour, looking suddenly, Garstinthought, remarkably like a very well-bred ramrod.
"Well, then--"
"But it may be necessary." He hesitated obviously, then added: "If itshould be Arabian by chance, perhaps it would be as well if I did seehim."
"Just as you like."
"I'll stay if you will allow me," said Sir Seymour, with suddendecision, like a man who had just overcome something.
The bell rang again.
"Can you act?" said Garstin, quickly.
"Sufficiently, I dare say," said Sir Seymour, with a very faint and grimsmile.
"Then you'd better! He can!"
And Garstin sprang down the stairs. Two or three minutes later Arabianwalked into the studio with Garstin just behind him. When he saw SirSeymour a slight look of surprise came into his face, and he half turnedtowards Garstin as if in inquiry. Sir Seymour realized that Garstin hadnot mentioned that there was a visitor in the studio.
"A friend of mine, Sir Seymour Portman," said Garstin. "Mr. NicolasArabian!"
Arabian bowed and said formally:
"Very glad to meet you."
Sir Seymour bowed, and said:
"Thanks."
"Sit down, my boy!" said Garstin, with sudden heartiness, laying a handon Arabian's shoulder. "And I know you'll put your lips to a whisky."
"Thank you," said Arabian.
And he sat down in a deep arm-chair. Sir Seymour saw his brown eyes, fora moment hard and inquiring, rest upon the visitor he had not expectedto find, and wondered whether Arabian remembered having seen him before.If so Arabian would also remember that he, Seymour, was a friend ofAdela Sellingworth, who had been with him at the Ritz on that day tenyears ago.
"Say how much," said Garstin, coming up with the whisky.
Sir Seymour noticed that Arabian took a great deal of the spirit andvery little soda-water with it. Directly his glass was filled--it was along glass--he drank almost greedily.
"A cigar?" said Garstin. "But I know without asking."
"I do not refuse," said Arabian.
And Sir Seymour hated his voice, while realizing that it was agreeable,perhaps even seductive.
"There! Now we're cozy!" said Garstin. "But I wish Sir Seymour you'djoin us!"
"If you will allow me I will smoke a light cigar I have here."
And Sir Seymour drew out a cigar-case and lit up a pale and longHavannah.
"That's better!" said Garstin, drinking. "How's Beryl, my boy?"
"I have not seen Miss Van Tuyn to-day," said Arabian. "But I hope to seeher to-morrow."
He looked at Sir Seymour, and there seemed to be a flicker of suspicionin his eyes.
"DO you know Miss Van Tuyn?" he asked.
"Very slightly," said Sir Seymour. "I have met her once or twice inLondon. She is a very beautiful creature."
There was constraint in the room. Sir Seymour felt it strongly andfeared that it came from something in him. Evidently he was not a verygood actor. He found it difficult to be easy and agreeable with a manwhom he longed to get hold of by the collar and thrash till it was timeto hand him over to the police. But he resolved to make a strong effortto conceal what he could not conquer. And he began to talk to Arabian.Afterwards he could not remember what they had talked about just then.He could only remember the strangeness which he had realized as he satthere smoking his Havannah, the strangeness of life. That he shouldbe smoking and chatting with the scoundrel who had changed Adela'sexistence, who had tricked her, robbed her, driven her into thesolitude which had lasted ten years! And why was he doing it? He did notabsolutely know. But his instinct had told him to stay on in Garstin'sstudio when everything else in him, revolting, had shrunk from meetingthis beast, unless and until he could deal with him properly.
He had smoked about half his cigar, and the constraint in theroom seemed to him to be lessened, though not abolished, when theconversation took a turn quite unexpected by him. And all that was saidin the studio from that moment remained firmly fixed in his memory.Garstin got up to fetch some more whisky for Arabian, whose glass wasnow empty, and as he came back with the decanter he said to Arabian:
"Sir Seymour's had a good look at your portrait, Arabian."
"Indeed!" said Arabian.
"And he thinks it's damn fine. As I'm giving it to you, I thought you'dlike to know that it's appreciated."
There was an unmistakably malicious expression on Garstin's face as hespoke, and his small eyes travelled quickly from Arabian to Sir Seymour.
"In fact," added Garstin, lifting the decanter to pour the whiskyinto Arabian's glass, "Sir Seymour is so pleased with my work that Ishouldn't wonder if he lets me paint him."
"Ah!" said Arabian, looking at Sir Seymour, with a sudden hard intensitywhich strangely transformed his face, "this is good news. I am pleased.But--thank you!" (to Garstin who poured out some more whisky) "that willdo, please! But you are not afraid of the drawback?"
"What drawback?" asked Sir Seymour.
"Mr. Dick Garstin makes us all look like _canaille_!"
"Indeed!"
"But have you not noticed this?" said Arabian.
And the agreeable softness of his voice altered, giving way to an almostrasping quality of sound. He put down his glass and got up, with a litheand swift movement that seemed somehow menacing. It was so light, soagile, so noiseless and controlled.
"Surely you have. Please, look at all these!"
He made a sweeping circular movement with his arm. Sir Seymour got onhis feet.
"Do you not see? There is the same thing in all. We are all placed byMr. Dick Garstin in the same boat. Even the judge, he is there too.Look!"
Sir Seymour looked from canvas to canvas and then at Arabian.
"Well?" said Arabian, still in the rasping voice. "Do I say true? Are wenot all turned into _canaille_ by Dick Garstin?"
Sir Seymour did not answer.
"With you if you are painted," continued Arabian, "it will be the same.Dick Garstin must see bad in us all."
He laughed and his laugh was oddly shrill and ugly.
"It is an _idee fixe_," he said. "You see, I am frank. I say what Ithink, Dick Garstin."
"No objection to that!" said Garstin, with a mischievous smile. "Butif you don't like your picture you won't want to have it. So let usconsider our bargain cancelled."
"Oh, no," said Arabian, "the picture is mine."
"The bargain we made," said Garstin, turning to Sir Seymour, "was this:Mr. Arabian was to be kind enough to sit to me on two conditions. Onewas in my favour, the other in his."
"I beg your pardon!" said Arabian sharply.
But Garstin continued inflexibly:
"I was to have the right to exhibit the picture, and, after that, I wasto hand it over as a present to Arabian."
"No, that was not the bargain, please!" said Arabian.
"Not the bargain?" said Garstin, with an air of humorous surprise.
"Oh, no. You kindly said that if I gave up my time to you, as I havedone, very much of my time, you would give me the picture when it wasfinished. That was the bargain between us. But I did not say I wouldallow you to exhibit my picture."
"But I told you before I ever put a smudge of paint on the canvas that Ishould want to exhibit it."
"That is quite true."
"Well, then?"
"Two must speak to make a bargain. Is it not so?" He spoke to SirSeymour. r />
"I presume so," said the latter, very solemnly.
He had realized that this odd scene had been brought about deliberately,and perhaps by both of the men who stood before him. Garstin hadcertainly started it, but Arabian had surely with purpose, taken the cuefrom Garstin.
"Ah! You hear!"
"I do!" said Garstin, composedly.
"Well, Dick Garstin, I did not say I would permit my picture to beexhibited by you. And that was on purpose. I intended to wait until Isaw how you would make me appear. I have waited. There I am!" He pointedto the portrait. "It is fine, perhaps, as you say. But I do not choosethat people should see that and be told, 'That is Nicolas Arabian.' I donot give you permission to show that portrait."
"You don't like it?"
"You have made of me a beast. That is what I say."
"Sorry you think so! But what's to be done? That picture is worth fromeight hundred to a thousand pounds at the very least. You don't supposeI am going to give it to you without letting the people who care aboutmy stuff have a look at it? Why, where is your sense of fairness, myboy?"
"I do not know really what you mean by that!"
"Well, I ask you, Sir Seymour, would it be fair that I should have allmy trouble for nothing? He can have the picture. But I want my _kudos_.Eh?"
"I quite understand that," said Sir Seymour, calmly.
Arabian turned round and faced him. And as he did so Sir Seymour said tohimself:
"The fellow's been drinking heavily."
This thought had not occurred in his mind till this moment, but he feltcertain that Garstin's sharp eyes had noticed the fact sooner, probablydirectly they had seen Arabian at the street door. No doubt the verystiff whisky-and-soda Arabian had just drunk had made it more obvious.Anyhow, Sir Seymour had no doubt at all about it now. It was notnoticeable in Arabian's face. But his manner began to show it to theexperienced eyes of the old campaigner.
"But, please, do you understand my feeling? Would you like to be madewhat you are not--a beast?"
Sir Seymour saw Garstin, perhaps with difficulty, shutting off a smile.
"I can't say I should," he answered, with absolute gravity.
"Would you," pursued Arabian, apparently in desperate earnest, "wouldyou allow a picture of you like this to be shown to all your friends?"
"I think," returned Sir Seymour, still with an absolute and simplegravity, "that I should object to that--strongly."
"You hear!" said Arabian to Garstin. "It is your friend who says this."
"I can't help that," said Garstin, totally unperturbed. "I'm going toexhibit that picture."
"No! No!" said Arabian.
And as he spoke he suddenly bared his teeth.
Garstin, without making any rejoinder to this almost brutally forcibleexclamation, which was full of violent will, thrust a hand into hiswaistcoat pocket and pulled out a big gold watch.
"I say, I'm awfully sorry," he said, with a swift glance at Sir Seymour,which the latter did not miss, "but I must turn you both out. I'm diningat the Arts Club to-night. Jinks--you know the Slade Jinks--is coming topick me up. You'll forgive me, Sir Seymour?"
His voice was unusually gentle as he said the last words.
"Of course. I've stayed an unconscionable time. Are you going my way,Mr. Arabian?"
Garstin's mouth twitched. Before Arabian could reply, Garstin said:
"Look here, Arabian!"
"Yes--please?" said Arabian.
"You and I differ pretty badly about this business of your damnedportrait."
"Ah, yes!"
"Sir Seymour's a just man, a very just man. Let's hear what he has tosay."
"But you tell us you have no time!"
"Exactly! Jinks you know! He's a devil for punctuality. They set theclocks by him at the Slade! But _you_--"
"Yes?"
"Talk it over with Sir Seymour. Get his unbiased verdict. And let mehear from you any time to-morrow. He'll say what's fair and square. Iknow that."
While speaking he went towards the head of the stairs, followed by SirSeymour and Arabian. As Arabian passed the place where the whisky stoodhe picked up his glass and drunk it off at a gulp.
A minute later Sir Seymour and he were out in the night together.