An African Millionaire Episodes in the Life of the Illustrious Colonel Clay

III

THE EPISODE OF THE OLD MAS­TER

Like most South Africans, Sir Charles Van­drift is any­thing but seden­tary. He hates sit­ting down. He must al­ways “trek.” He can­not live with­out mov­ing about freely. Six weeks in May­fair at a time is as much as he can stand. Then he must run away in­con­ti­nent­ly for rest and change to Scot­land, Hom­burg, Monte Car­lo, Biar­ritz. “I won’t be a limpet on the rock,” he says. Thus it came to pass that in the ear­ly au­tumn we found our­selves stop­ping at the Métropole at Brighton. We were the ac­cus­tomed nice lit­tle fam­ily par­ty–Sir Charles and Amelia, my­self and Is­abel, with the suite as usu­al.

On the first Sun­day morn­ing af­ter our ar­rival we strolled out, Charles and I–I re­gret to say dur­ing the hours al­lot­ted for Di­vine ser­vice–on to the King’s Road, to get a whiff of fresh air, and a glimpse of the waves that were churn­ing the Chan­nel. The two ladies (with their bon­nets) had gone to church; but Sir Charles had risen late, fa­tigued from the week’s toil, while I my­self was suf­fer­ing from a matuti­nal headache, which I at­tribut­ed to the close air in the bil­liard-​room overnight, com­bined, per­haps, with the in­sid­ious ef­fect of a brand of so­da-​wa­ter to which I was lit­tle ac­cus­tomed; I had used it to di­lute my evening whisky. We were to meet our wives af­ter­wards at the church pa­rade–an in­sti­tu­tion to which I be­lieve both Amelia and Is­abel at­tach even greater im­por­tance than to the ser­mon which pre­cedes it.

We sat down on a glass seat. Charles gazed in­quir­ing­ly up and down the King’s Road, on the look-​out for a boy with Sun­day pa­pers. At last one passed. “Ob­serv­er,” my broth­er-​in-​law called out la­con­ical­ly.

“Ain’t got none,” the boy an­swered, bran­dish­ing his bun­dle in our faces. “‘Ave a Ref­er­ee or a Pink ‘Un?”

Charles, how­ev­er, is not a Ref­er­ead­er, while as to the Pink ‘Un, he con­sid­ers it un­suit­able for pub­lic pe­rusal on Sun­day morn­ing. It may be read in­doors, but in the open air its blush be­trays it. So he shook his head, and mut­tered, “If you pass an Ob­serv­er, send him on here at once to me.”

A po­lite stranger who sat close to us turned round with a pleas­ant smile. “Would you al­low me to of­fer you one?” he said, draw­ing a copy from his pock­et. “I fan­cy I bought the last. There’s a run on them to-​day, you see. Im­por­tant news this morn­ing from the Transvaal.”

Charles raised his eye­brows, and ac­cept­ed it, as I thought, just a tri­fle grumpi­ly. So, to re­move the false im­pres­sion his surli­ness might pro­duce on so benev­olent a mind, I en­tered in­to con­ver­sa­tion with the po­lite stranger. He was a man of mid­dle age, and medi­um height, with a cul­ti­vat­ed air, and a pair of gold pince-​nez; his eyes were sharp; his voice was re­fined; he dropped in­to talk be­fore long about dis­tin­guished peo­ple just then in Brighton. It was clear at once that he was hand in glove with many of the very best kind. We com­pared notes as to Nice, Rome, Flo­rence, Cairo. Our new ac­quain­tance had scores of friends in com­mon with us, it seemed; in­deed, our cir­cles so large­ly co­in­cid­ed, that I won­dered we had nev­er hap­pened till then to knock up against one an­oth­er.

“And Sir Charles Van­drift, the great African mil­lion­aire,” he said at last, “do you know any­thing of _him_? I’m told he’s at present down here at the Métropole.”

I waved my hand to­wards the per­son in ques­tion.

“_This_ is Sir Charles Van­drift,” I an­swered, with pro­pri­etary pride; “and _I_ am his broth­er-​in-​law, Mr. Sey­mour Went­worth.”

“Oh, in­deed!” the stranger an­swered, with a cu­ri­ous air of draw­ing in his horns. I won­dered whether he had just been go­ing to pre­tend he knew Sir Charles, or whether per­chance he was on the point of say­ing some­thing high­ly un­com­pli­men­ta­ry, and was glad to have es­caped it.

By this time, how­ev­er, Charles laid down the pa­per and chimed in­to our con­ver­sa­tion. I could see at once from his mol­li­fied tone that the news from the Transvaal was favourable to his op­er­ations in Cloete­dorp Gol­con­das. He was there­fore in a friend­ly and af­fa­ble tem­per. His whole man­ner changed at once. He grew po­lite in re­turn to the po­lite stranger. Be­sides, we knew the man moved in the best so­ci­ety; he had ac­quain­tances whom Amelia was most anx­ious to se­cure for her “At Homes” in May­fair–young Faith, the nov­el­ist, and Sir Richard Mon­trose, the great Arc­tic trav­eller. As for the painters, it was clear that he was sworn friends with the whole lot of them. He dined with Aca­demi­cians, and gave week­ly break­fasts to the mem­bers of the In­sti­tute. Now, Amelia is par­tic­ular­ly de­sirous that her sa­lon should not be con­sid­ered too ex­clu­sive­ly fi­nan­cial and po­lit­ical in char­ac­ter: with a sol­id ba­sis of M.P.’s and mil­lion­aires, she loves a del­icate un­der-​cur­rent of lit­er­ature, art, and the mu­si­cal glass­es. Our new ac­quain­tance was ex­treme­ly com­mu­nica­tive: “Knows his place in so­ci­ety, Sey,” Sir Charles said to me af­ter­wards, “and is there­fore not afraid of talk­ing freely, as so many peo­ple are who have doubts about their po­si­tion.” We ex­changed cards be­fore we rose. Our new friend’s name turned out to be Dr. Ed­ward Polper­ro.

“In prac­tice here?” I in­quired, though his garb be­lied it.

“Oh, not med­ical,” he an­swered. “I am an LL.D. don’t you know. I in­ter­est my­self in art, and buy to some ex­tent for the Na­tion­al Gallery.”

The very man for Amelia’s “At Homes”! Sir Charles snapped at him in­stant­ly. “I’ve brought my four-​in-​hand down here with me,” he said, in his best friend­ly man­ner, “and we think of tool­ing over to-​mor­row to Lewes. If you’d care to take a seat I’m sure La­dy Van­drift would be charmed to see you.”

“You’re very kind,” the Doc­tor said, “on so ca­su­al an in­tro­duc­tion. I’m sure I shall be de­light­ed.”

“We start from the Métropole at ten-​thir­ty,” Charles went on.

“I shall be there. Good morn­ing!” And, with a sat­is­fied smile, he rose and left us, nod­ding.

We re­turned to the lawn, to Amelia and Is­abel. Our new friend passed us once or twice. Charles stopped him and in­tro­duced him. He was walk­ing with two ladies, most el­egant­ly dressed in rather pe­cu­liar artis­tic dress­es. Amelia was tak­en at first sight by his man­ner. “One could see at a glance,” she said, “he was a per­son of cul­ture and of re­al dis­tinc­tion. I won­der whether he could bring the P.R.A. to my Par­lia­men­tary ‘At Home’ on Wednes­day fort­night?”

Next day, at ten-​thir­ty, we start­ed on our drive. Our team has been con­sid­ered the best in Sus­sex. Charles is an ex­cel­lent, though some­what anx­ious–or, might I say bet­ter, some­what care­ful?–whip. He finds the man­age­ment of two lead­ers and two wheel­ers fills his hands for the mo­ment, both lit­er­al­ly and fig­ura­tive­ly, leav­ing very lit­tle time for gen­er­al con­ver­sa­tion. La­dy Belleisle of Bea­con bloomed be­side him on the box (her bloom is peren­ni­al, and ap­plied by her maid); Dr. Polper­ro oc­cu­pied the seat just be­hind with my­self and Amelia. The Doc­tor talked most of the time to La­dy Van­drift: his dis­course was of pic­ture-​gal­leries, which Amelia de­tests, but in which she thinks it in­cum­bent up­on her, as Sir Charles’s wife, to af­fect now and then a cul­ti­vat­ed in­ter­est. No­blesse oblige; and the walls of Cas­tle Sel­don, our place in Ross-​shire, are al­most cov­ered now with Lead­ers and with Or­chard­sons. This re­sult was first ar­rived at by a sin­gu­lar ac­ci­dent. Sir Charles want­ed a lead­er–for his coach, you un­der­stand–and told an artis­tic friend so. The artis­tic friend brought him a Lead­er next week with a cap­ital L; and Sir Charles was so tak­en aback that he felt ashamed to con­fess the er­ror. So he was turned un­awares in­to a pa­tron of paint­ing.

Dr. Polper­ro, in spite of his too pro­nounced­ly artis­tic talk, proved on clos­er view a most agree­able com­pan­ion. He di­ver­si­fied his art clev­er­ly with anec­dotes and scan­dals; he told us ex­act­ly which fa­mous painters had mar­ried their cooks, and which had on­ly mar­ried their mod­els; and oth­er­wise showed him­self a most di­vert­ing talk­er. Among oth­er things, how­ev­er, he hap­pened to men­tion once that he had re­cent­ly dis­cov­ered a gen­uine Rem­brandt–a quite un­doubt­ed Rem­brandt, which had re­mained for years in the keep­ing of a cer­tain ob­scure Dutch fam­ily. It had al­ways been al­lowed to be a mas­ter­piece of the painter, but it had sel­dom been seen for the last half-​cen­tu­ry save by a few in­ti­mate ac­quain­tances. It was a por­trait of one Maria Van­re­nen of Haar­lem, and he had bought it of her de­scen­dants at Gou­da, in Hol­land.

I saw Charles prick up his ears, though he took no open no­tice. This Maria Van­re­nen, as it hap­pened, was a re­mote col­lat­er­al an­ces­tress of the Van­drifts, be­fore they em­igrat­ed to the Cape in 1780; and the ex­is­tence of the por­trait, though not its where­abouts, was well known in the fam­ily. Is­abel had of­ten men­tioned it. If it was to be had at any­thing like a rea­son­able price, it would be a splen­did thing for the boys (Sir Charles, I ought to say, has two sons at Eton) to pos­sess an un­doubt­ed por­trait of an an­ces­tress by Rem­brandt.

Dr. Polper­ro talked a good deal af­ter that about this valu­able find. He had tried to sell it at first to the Na­tion­al Gallery; but though the Di­rec­tors ad­mired the work im­mense­ly, and ad­mit­ted its gen­uine­ness, they re­gret­ted that the funds at their dis­pos­al this year did not per­mit them to ac­quire so im­por­tant a can­vas at a prop­er fig­ure. South Kens­ing­ton again was too poor; but the Doc­tor was in treaty at present with the Lou­vre and with Berlin. Still, it was a pity a fine work of art like that, once brought in­to the coun­try, should be al­lowed to go out of it. Some pa­tri­ot­ic pa­tron of the fine arts ought to buy it for his own house, or else mu­nif­icent­ly present it to the na­tion.

All the time Charles said noth­ing. But I could feel him cog­itat­ing. He even looked be­hind him once, near a dif­fi­cult cor­ner (while the guard was ac­tu­al­ly en­gaged in tootling his horn to let passers-​by know that the coach was com­ing), and gave Amelia a warn­ing glance to say noth­ing com­mit­ting, which had at once the req­ui­site ef­fect of seal­ing her mouth for the mo­ment. It is a very un­usu­al thing for Charles to look back while driv­ing. I gath­ered from his do­ing so that he was in­or­di­nate­ly anx­ious to pos­sess this Rem­brandt.

When we ar­rived at Lewes we put up our hors­es at the inn, and Charles or­dered a lunch on his wont­ed scale of prince­ly mag­nif­icence. Mean­while we wan­dered, two and two, about the town and cas­tle. I an­nexed La­dy Belleisle, who is at least amus­ing. Charles drew me aside be­fore start­ing. “Look here, Sey,” he said, “we must be _very_ care­ful. This man, Polper­ro, is a chance ac­quain­tance. There’s noth­ing an as­tute rogue can take one in over more eas­ily than an Old Mas­ter. If the Rem­brandt is gen­uine I ought to have it; if it re­al­ly rep­re­sents Maria Van­re­nen, it’s a du­ty I owe to the boys to buy it. But I’ve been done twice late­ly, and I won’t be done a third time. We must go to work cau­tious­ly.”

“You are right,” I an­swered. “No more seers and cu­rates!”

“If this man’s an im­pos­tor,” Charles went on–“and in spite of what he says about the Na­tion­al Gallery and so forth, we know noth­ing of him–the sto­ry he tells is just the sort of one such a fel­low would trump up in a mo­ment to de­ceive me. He could eas­ily learn who I was–I’m a well-​known fig­ure; he knew I was in Brighton, and he may have been sit­ting on that glass seat on Sun­day on pur­pose to en­trap me.”

“He in­tro­duced your name,” I said, “and the mo­ment he found out who I was he plunged in­to talk with me.”

“Yes,” Charles con­tin­ued. “He may have learned about the por­trait of Maria Van­re­nen, which my grand­moth­er al­ways said was pre­served at Gou­da; and, in­deed, I my­self have of­ten men­tioned it, as you doubt­less re­mem­ber. If so, what more nat­ural, say, for a rogue than to be­gin talk­ing about the por­trait in that in­no­cent way to Amelia? If he wants a Rem­brandt, I be­lieve they can be turned out to or­der to any amount in Birm­ing­ham. The moral of all which is, it be­hoves us to be care­ful.”

“Right you are,” I an­swered; “and I am keep­ing my eye up­on him.”

We drove back by an­oth­er road, over­shad­owed by beech-​trees in au­tum­nal gold. It was a de­light­ful ex­cur­sion. Dr. Polper­ro’s heart was elat­ed by lunch and the ex­cel­lent dry Monopole. He talked amaz­ing­ly. I nev­er heard a man with a greater or more var­ied flow of anec­dote. He had been ev­ery­where and knew all about ev­ery­body. Amelia booked him at once for her “At Home” on Wednes­day week, and he promised to in­tro­duce her to sev­er­al artis­tic and lit­er­ary celebri­ties.

That evening, how­ev­er, about half-​past sev­en, Charles and I strolled out to­geth­er on the King’s Road for a blow be­fore din­ner. We dine at eight. The air was de­li­cious. We passed a small new ho­tel, very smart and ex­clu­sive, with a big bow win­dow. There, in evening dress, lights burn­ing and blind up, sat our friend, Dr. Polper­ro, with a la­dy fac­ing him, young, grace­ful, and pret­ty. A bot­tle of cham­pagne stood open be­fore him. He was help­ing him­self plen­ti­ful­ly to hot-​house grapes, and full of good hu­mour. It was clear he and the la­dy were oc­cu­pied in the in­tense en­joy­ment of some cap­ital joke; for they looked queer­ly at one an­oth­er, and burst now and again in­to mer­ry peals of laugh­ter.

I drew back. So did Sir Charles. One idea passed at once through both our minds. I mur­mured, “Colonel Clay!” He an­swered, “_and_ Madame Pi­cardet!”

They were not in the least like the Rev­erend Richard and Mrs. Brabazon. But that clinched the mat­ter. Nor did I see a sign of the aquiline nose of the Mex­ican Seer. Still, I had learnt by then to dis­count ap­pear­ances. If these were in­deed the fa­mous sharp­er and his wife or ac­com­plice, we must be very care­ful. We were fore­warned this time. Sup­pos­ing he had the au­dac­ity to try a third trick of the sort up­on us we had him un­der our thumbs. On­ly, we must take steps to pre­vent his dex­ter­ous­ly slip­ping through our fin­gers.

“He can wrig­gle like an eel,” said the Com­mis­sary at Nice. We both re­called those words, and laid our plans deep to pre­vent the man’s wrig­gling away from us on this third oc­ca­sion.

“I tell you what it is, Sey,” my broth­er-​in-​law said, with im­pres­sive slow­ness. “This time we must de­lib­er­ate­ly lay our­selves out to be swin­dled. We must pro­pose of our own ac­cord to buy the pic­ture, mak­ing him guar­an­tee it in writ­ing as a gen­uine Rem­brandt, and tak­ing care to tie him down by most strin­gent con­di­tions. But we must seem at the same time to be un­sus­pi­cious and in­no­cent as babes; we must swal­low whole what­ev­er lies he tells us; pay his price–nom­inal­ly–by cheque for the por­trait; and then, ar­rest him the mo­ment the bar­gain is com­plete, with the proofs of his guilt then and there up­on him. Of course, what he’ll try to do will be to van­ish in­to thin air at once, as he did at Nice and Paris; but, this time, we’ll have the po­lice in wait­ing and ev­ery­thing ready. We’ll avoid pre­cip­itan­cy, but we’ll avoid de­lay too. We must hold our hands off till he’s ac­tu­al­ly ac­cept­ed and pock­et­ed the mon­ey; and then, we must nab him in­stant­ly, and walk him off to the lo­cal Bow Street. That’s my plan of cam­paign. Mean­while, we should ap­pear all trust­ful in­no­cence and con­fid­ing guile­less­ness.”

In pur­suance of this well-​laid scheme, we called next day on Dr. Polper­ro at his ho­tel, and were in­tro­duced to his wife, a dain­ty lit­tle wom­an, in whom we af­fect­ed not to recog­nise that arch Madame Pi­cardet or that sim­ple White Heather. The Doc­tor talked charm­ing­ly (as usu­al) about art–what a well-​in­formed ras­cal he was, to be sure!–and Sir Charles ex­pressed some in­ter­est in the sup­posed Rem­brandt. Our new friend was de­light­ed; we could see by his well-​sup­pressed ea­ger­ness of tone that he knew us at once for prob­able pur­chasers. He would run up to town next day, he said, and bring down the por­trait. And in ef­fect, when Charles and I took our wont­ed places in the Pull­man next morn­ing, on our way up to the half-​year­ly meet­ing of Cloete­dorp Gol­con­das, there was our Doc­tor, lean­ing back in his arm-​chair as if the car be­longed to him. Charles gave me an ex­pres­sive look. “Does it in style,” he whis­pered, “doesn’t he? Takes it out of my five thou­sand; or dis­counts the amount he means to chouse me of with his spu­ri­ous Rem­brandt.”

Ar­rived in town, we went to work at once. We set a pri­vate de­tec­tive from Mar­vil­li­er’s to watch our friend; and from him we learned that the so-​called Doc­tor dropped in for a pic­ture that day at a deal­er’s in the West-​end (I sup­press the name, hav­ing a ju­di­cious fear of the law of li­bel ev­er be­fore my eyes), a deal­er who was known to be mixed up be­fore then in sev­er­al shady or dis­rep­utable trans­ac­tions. Though, to be sure, my ex­pe­ri­ence has been that pic­ture deal­ers are–pic­ture deal­ers. Hors­es rank first in my mind as beget­ters and pro­duc­ers of un­scrupu­lous agents, but pic­tures run them a very good sec­ond. Any­how, we found out that our dis­tin­guished art-​crit­ic picked up his Rem­brandt at this deal­er’s shop, and came down with it in his care the same night to Brighton.

In or­der not to act pre­cip­itate­ly, and so ru­in our plans, we in­duced Dr. Polper­ro (what a clev­er­ly cho­sen name!) to bring the Rem­brandt round to the Métropole for our in­spec­tion, and to leave it with us while we got the opin­ion of an ex­pert from Lon­don.

The ex­pert came down, and gave us a full re­port up­on the al­leged Old Mas­ter. In his judg­ment, it was not a Rem­brandt at all, but a cun­ning­ly-​paint­ed and well-​be­grimed mod­ern Dutch im­ita­tion. More­over, he showed us by doc­umen­tary ev­idence that the re­al por­trait of Maria Van­re­nen had, as a mat­ter of fact, been brought to Eng­land five years be­fore, and sold to Sir J. H. Tom­lin­son, the well-​known con­nois­seur, for eight thou­sand pounds. Dr. Polper­ro’s pic­ture was, there­fore, at best ei­ther a repli­ca by Rem­brandt; or else, more prob­ably, a copy by a pupil; or, most like­ly of all, a mere mod­ern forgery.

We were thus well pre­pared to fas­ten our charge of crim­inal con­spir­acy up­on the self-​styled Doc­tor. But in or­der to make as­sur­ance still more cer­tain, we threw out vague hints to him that the por­trait of Maria Van­re­nen might re­al­ly be else­where, and even sug­gest­ed in his hear­ing that it might not im­prob­ably have got in­to the hands of that om­niv­orous col­lec­tor, Sir J. H. Tom­lin­son. But the ven­dor was proof against all such at­tempts to de­cry his goods. He had the ef­fron­tery to brush away the doc­umen­tary ev­idence, and to de­clare that Sir J. H. Tom­lin­son (one of the most learned and as­tute pic­ture-​buy­ers in Eng­land) had been smart­ly im­posed up­on by a needy Dutch artist with a tal­ent for forgery. The re­al Maria Van­re­nen, he de­clared and swore, was the one he of­fered us. “Suc­cess has turned the man’s head,” Charles said to me, well pleased. “He thinks we will swal­low any ob­vi­ous lie he choos­es to palm off up­on us. But the buck­et has come once too of­ten to the well. This time we check­mate him.” It was a mixed metaphor, I ad­mit; but Sir Charles’s tropes are not al­ways en­tire­ly su­pe­ri­or to crit­icism.

So we pre­tend­ed to be­lieve our man, and ac­cept­ed his as­sur­ances. Next came the ques­tion of price. This was warm­ly de­bat­ed, for form’s sake on­ly. Sir J. H. Tom­lin­son had paid eight thou­sand for his gen­uine Maria. The Doc­tor de­mand­ed ten thou­sand for his spu­ri­ous one. There was re­al­ly no rea­son why we should hig­gle and dis­pute, for Charles meant mere­ly to give his cheque for the sum and then ar­rest the fel­low; but, still, we thought it best for the avoid­ance of sus­pi­cion to make a show of re­sis­tance; and we at last beat him down to nine thou­sand guineas. For this amount he was to give us a writ­ten war­ran­ty that the work he sold us was a gen­uine Rem­brandt, that it rep­re­sent­ed Maria Van­re­nen of Haar­lem, and that he had bought it di­rect, with­out doubt or ques­tion, from that good la­dy’s de­scen­dants at Gou­da, in Hol­land.

It was cap­ital­ly done. We ar­ranged the thing to per­fec­tion. We had a con­sta­ble in wait­ing in our rooms at the Métropole, and we set­tled that Dr. Polper­ro was to call at the ho­tel at a cer­tain fixed hour to sign the war­ran­ty and re­ceive his mon­ey. A reg­ular agree­ment on sound stamped pa­per was drawn out be­tween us. At the ap­point­ed time the “par­ty of the first part” came, hav­ing al­ready giv­en us over pos­ses­sion of the por­trait. Charles drew a cheque for the amount agreed up­on, and signed it. Then he hand­ed it to the Doc­tor. Polper­ro just clutched at it. Mean­while, I took up my post by the door, while two men in plain clothes, de­tec­tives from the po­lice-​sta­tion, stood as men-​ser­vants and watched the win­dows. We feared lest the im­pos­tor, once he had got the cheque, should dodge us some­how, as he had al­ready done at Nice and in Paris. The mo­ment he had pock­et­ed his mon­ey with a smile of tri­umph, I ad­vanced to him rapid­ly. I had in my pos­ses­sion a pair of hand­cuffs. Be­fore he knew what was hap­pen­ing, I had slipped them on his wrists and se­cured them dex­ter­ous­ly, while the con­sta­ble stepped for­ward. “We have got you this time!” I cried. “We know who you are, Dr. Polper­ro. You are–Colonel Clay, alias Señor An­to­nio Her­rera, alias the Rev­erend Richard Pe­ploe Brabazon.”

I nev­er saw any man so as­ton­ished in my life! He was ut­ter­ly flab­ber­gast­ed. Charles thought he must have ex­pect­ed to get clear away at once, and that this prompt ac­tion on our part had tak­en the fel­low so much by sur­prise as to sim­ply un­man him. He gazed about him as if he hard­ly re­alised what was hap­pen­ing.

“Are these two rav­ing ma­ni­acs?” he asked at last, “or what do they mean by this non­sen­si­cal gib­ber­ish about An­to­nio Her­rera?”

The con­sta­ble laid his hand on the pris­on­er’s shoul­der.

“It’s all right, my man,” he said. “We’ve got war­rants out against you. I ar­rest you, Ed­ward Polper­ro, alias the Rev­erend Richard Pe­ploe Brabazon, on a charge of ob­tain­ing mon­ey un­der false pre­tences from Sir Charles Van­drift, K.C.M.G., M.P., on his sworn in­for­ma­tion, now here sub­scribed to.” For Charles had had the thing drawn out in readi­ness be­fore­hand.

Our pris­on­er drew him­self up. “Look here, of­fi­cer,” he said, in an of­fend­ed tone, “there’s some mis­take here in this mat­ter. I have nev­er giv­en an alias at any time in my life. How do you know this is re­al­ly Sir Charles Van­drift? It may be a case of bul­ly­ing per­son­ation. My be­lief is, though, they’re a pair of es­caped lu­natics.”

“We’ll see about that to-​mor­row,” the con­sta­ble said, col­lar­ing him. “At present you’ve got to go off with me qui­et­ly to the sta­tion, where these gen­tle­men will en­ter up the charge against you.”

They car­ried him off, protest­ing. Charles and I signed the charge-​sheet; and the of­fi­cer locked him up to await his ex­am­ina­tion next day be­fore the mag­is­trate.

We were half afraid even now the fel­low would man­age some­how to get out on bail and give us the slip in spite of ev­ery­thing; and, in­deed, he protest­ed in the most vi­olent man­ner against the treat­ment to which we were sub­ject­ing “a gen­tle­man in his po­si­tion.” But Charles took care to tell the po­lice it was all right; that he was a dan­ger­ous and pe­cu­liar­ly slip­pery crim­inal, and that on no ac­count must they let him go on any pre­text what­ev­er, till he had been prop­er­ly ex­am­ined be­fore the mag­is­trates.

We learned at the ho­tel that night, cu­ri­ous­ly enough, that there re­al­ly _was_ a Dr. Polper­ro, a dis­tin­guished art crit­ic, whose name, we didn’t doubt, our im­pos­tor had been as­sum­ing.

Next morn­ing, when we reached the court, an in­spec­tor met us with a very long face. “Look here, gen­tle­men,” he said, “I’m afraid you’ve com­mit­ted a very se­ri­ous blun­der. You’ve made a pre­cious bad mess of it. You’ve got your­selves in­to a scrape; and, what’s worse, you’ve got us in­to one al­so. You were a deal too smart with your sworn in­for­ma­tion. We’ve made in­quiries about this gen­tle­man, and we find the ac­count he gives of him­self is per­fect­ly cor­rect. His name _is_ Polper­ro; he’s a well-​known art crit­ic and col­lec­tor of pic­tures, em­ployed abroad by the Na­tion­al Gallery. He was for­mer­ly an of­fi­cial in the South Kens­ing­ton Mu­se­um, and he’s a C.B. and LL.D., very high­ly re­spect­ed. You’ve made a sad mis­take, that’s where it is; and you’ll prob­ably have to an­swer a charge of false im­pris­on­ment, in which I’m afraid you have al­so in­volved our own de­part­ment.”

Charles gasped with hor­ror. “You haven’t let him out,” he cried, “on those ab­surd rep­re­sen­ta­tions? You haven’t let him slip through your hands as you did that mur­der­er fel­low?”

“Let him slip through our hands?” the in­spec­tor cried. “I on­ly wish he would. There’s no chance of that, un­for­tu­nate­ly. He’s in the court there, this mo­ment, breath­ing out fire and slaugh­ter against you both; and we’re here to pro­tect you if he should hap­pen to fall up­on you. He’s been locked up all night on your mis­tak­en af­fi­davits, and, nat­ural­ly enough, he’s mad with anger.”

“If you haven’t let him go, I’m sat­is­fied,” Charles an­swered. “He’s a fox for cun­ning. Where is he? Let me see him.”

We went in­to the court. There we saw our pris­on­er con­vers­ing am­ica­bly, in the most ex­cit­ed way, with the mag­is­trate (who, it seems, was a per­son­al friend of his); and Charles at once went up and spoke to them. Dr. Polper­ro turned round and glared at him through his pince-​nez.

“The on­ly pos­si­ble ex­pla­na­tion of this per­son’s ex­traor­di­nary and in­cred­ible con­duct,” he said, “is, that he must be mad–and his sec­re­tary equal­ly so. He made my ac­quain­tance, unasked, on a glass seat on the King’s Road; in­vit­ed me to go on his coach to Lewes; vol­un­teered to buy a valu­able pic­ture of me; and then, at the last mo­ment, un­ac­count­ably gave me in charge on this sil­ly and pre­pos­ter­ous trumped-​up ac­cu­sa­tion. I de­mand a sum­mons for false im­pris­on­ment.”

Sud­den­ly it be­gan to dawn up­on us that the ta­bles were turned. By de­grees it came out that we had made a mis­take. Dr. Polper­ro was re­al­ly the per­son he rep­re­sent­ed him­self to be, and had been al­ways. His pic­ture, we found out, was the re­al Maria Van­re­nen, and a gen­uine Rem­brandt, which he had mere­ly de­posit­ed for clean­ing and restor­ing at the sus­pi­cious deal­er’s. Sir J. H. Tom­lin­son had been im­posed up­on and cheat­ed by a cun­ning Dutch­man; _his_ pic­ture, though al­so an un­doubt­ed Rem­brandt, was _not_ the Maria, and was an in­fe­ri­or spec­imen in bad preser­va­tion. The au­thor­ity we had con­sult­ed turned out to be an ig­no­rant, self-​suf­fi­cient quack. The Maria, more­over, was val­ued by oth­er ex­perts at no more than five or six thou­sand guineas. Charles want­ed to cry off his bar­gain, but Dr. Polper­ro nat­ural­ly wouldn’t hear of it. The agree­ment was a legal­ly bind­ing in­stru­ment, and what passed in Charles’s mind at the mo­ment had noth­ing to do with the writ­ten con­tract. Our ad­ver­sary on­ly con­sent­ed to forego the ac­tion for false im­pris­on­ment on con­di­tion that Charles in­sert­ed a print­ed apol­ogy in the Times, and paid him five hun­dred pounds com­pen­sa­tion for dam­age to char­ac­ter. So that was the end of our well-​planned at­tempt to ar­rest the swindler.

Not quite the end, how­ev­er; for, of course, af­ter this, the whole af­fair got by de­grees in­to the pa­pers. Dr. Polper­ro, who was a fa­mil­iar per­son in lit­er­ary and artis­tic so­ci­ety, as it turned out, brought an ac­tion against the so-​called ex­pert who had de­clared against the gen­uine­ness of his al­leged Rem­brandt, and con­vict­ed him of the gross­est ig­no­rance and mis­state­ment. Then para­graphs got about. The World showed us up in a sar­cas­tic ar­ti­cle; and Truth, which has al­ways been ter­ri­bly se­vere up­on Sir Charles and all the oth­er South Africans, had a pun­gent set of vers­es on “High Art in Kim­ber­ley.” By this means, as we sup­pose, the af­fair be­came known to Colonel Clay him­self; for a week or two lat­er my broth­er-​in-​law re­ceived a cheer­ful lit­tle note on scent­ed pa­per from our per­sis­tent sharp­er. It was couched in these terms:–

“Oh, you in­no­cent in­fant!

“Bless your in­gen­uous lit­tle heart! And did it be­lieve, then, it had pos­itive­ly caught the re­doubtable colonel? And had it ready a nice lit­tle pinch of salt to put up­on his tail? And is it true its re­spect­ed name is Sir Sim­ple Si­mon? How hearti­ly we have laughed, White Heather and I, at your neat lit­tle rus­es! It would pay you, by the way, to take White Heather in­to your house for six months to in­struct you in the agree­able sport of am­ateur de­tec­tives. Your charm­ing naivete quite moves our en­vy. So you ac­tu­al­ly imag­ined a man of my brains would con­de­scend to any­thing so flat and stale as the sil­ly and thread­bare Old Mas­ter de­cep­tion! And this in the so-​called nine­teenth cen­tu­ry! O sanc­ta sim­plic­itas! When again shall such in­fan­tile trans­paren­cy be mine? When, ah, when? But nev­er mind, dear friend. Though you didn’t catch me, we shall meet be­fore long at some de­light­ful Philip­pi.

“Yours, with the pro­found­est re­spect and grat­itude,

“AN­TO­NIO HER­RERA,

“Oth­er­wise RICHARD PE­PLOE BRABAZON.”

Charles laid down the let­ter with a deep-​drawn sigh. “Sey, my boy,” he mused aloud, “no for­tune on earth–not even mine–can go on stand­ing it. These per­pet­ual drains be­gin re­al­ly to ter­ri­fy me. I fore­see the end. I shall die in a work­house. What with the mon­ey he robs me of when he _is_ Colonel Clay, and the mon­ey I waste up­on him when he _isn’t_ Colonel Clay, the man is be­gin­ning to tell up­on my ner­vous sys­tem. I shall with­draw al­to­geth­er from this wor­ry­ing life. I shall re­tire from a schem­ing and pol­lut­ed world to some un­taint­ed spot in the fresh, pure moun­tains.”

“You _must_ need rest and change,” I said, “when you talk like that. Let us try the Ty­rol.”