Buried Alive: a Tale of These Days Part 23

"Then you've been playing a game with me all morning!"

"Please don't put it like that, _cher maitre_," 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 connoisseurs.h.i.+p, I say they aren't facts. I say there's been a--a misunderstanding about--er-- corpses. Now, _cher maitre_, 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 connoisseurs.h.i.+p. 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 a.s.sure 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 connoisseurs.h.i.+p 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. n.o.body. 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 Yorks.h.i.+reman 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 maitre_." 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, why didn't you keep on leaving it alone?" Priam asked.

"Because circ.u.mstances won't let me. I sold practically all those pictures to Whitney C. Witt. It was all right. Anyhow I thought it was all right. I put Parfitts' name and reputation on their being yours. And then one day I heard from Mr. Witt that on the back of the canvas of one of the pictures the name of the canvas-makers, and a date, had been stamped, with a rubber stamp, and that the date was after your supposed burial, and that his London solicitors had made inquiries from the artist's-material people here, and these people were prepared to prove that the canvas was made after Priam Farll's funeral. You see the fix?"

Priam did.

"My reputation--Parfitts'--is at stake. If those pictures aren't by you, I'm a swindler. Parfitts' name is gone for ever, and there'll be the greatest scandal that ever was. Witt is threatening proceedings. I offered to take the whole lot back at the price he paid me, without any commission. But he won't. He's an old man; a bit of a maniac I expect, and he won't. He's angry. He thinks he's been swindled, and what he says is that he's going to see the thing through. I've got to prove to him that the pictures are yours. I've got to show him what grounds I had for giving my guarantee. Well, to cut a long story short, I've found you, I'm glad to say!"

He sighed again.

"Look here," said Priam. "How much has Witt paid you altogether for my pictures?"

After a pause, Mr. Oxford said, "I don't mind giving you the figure.

He's paid me seventy-two thousand pounds odd." He smiled, as if to excuse himself.

When Priam Farll reflected that he had received about four hundred pounds for those pictures--vastly less than one per cent, of what the s.h.i.+ny and prosperous dealer had ultimately disposed of them for, the traditional fury of the artist against the dealer--of the producer against the parasitic middleman--sprang into flame in his heart. Up till then he had never had any serious cause of complaint against his dealers. (Extremely successful artists seldom have.) Now he saw dealers, as the ordinary painters see them, to be the authors of all evil! Now he understood by what methods Mr. Oxford had achieved his splendid car, clothes, club, and minions. These things were earned, not by Mr. Oxford, but _for_ Mr. Oxford in dingy studios, even in attics, by shabby industrious painters! Mr. Oxford was nothing but an opulent thief, a grinder of the face of genius. Mr. Oxford was, in a word, the sp.a.w.n of the devil, and Priam silently but sincerely consigned him to his proper place.

It was excessively unjust of Priam. n.o.body had asked Priam to die.

n.o.body had asked him to give up his ident.i.ty. If he had latterly been receiving tens instead of thousands for his pictures, the fault was his alone. Mr. Oxford had only bought and only sold; which was his true function. But Mr. Oxford's sin, in Priam's eyes, was the sin of having been right.

It would have needed less insight than Mr. Oxford had at his disposal to see that Priam Farll was taking the news very badly.

"For both our sakes, _cher maitre_," said Mr. Oxford persuasively, "I think it will be advisable for you to put me in a position to prove that my guarantee to Witt was justified."

"Why for both our sakes?"

"Because, well, I shall be delighted to pay you, say thirty-six thousand pounds in acknowledgment of--er--" He stopped.

Probably he had instantly perceived that he was committing a disastrous error of tact. Either he should have offered nothing, or he should have offered the whole sum he had received less a small commission. To suggest dividing equally with Priam was the instinctive impulse, the fatal folly, of a born dealer. And Mr. Oxford was a born dealer.

"I won't accept a penny," said Priam. "And I can't help you in any way.

I'm afraid I must go now. I'm late as it is."

His cold resistless fury drove him forward, and, without the slightest regard for the amenities of clubs, he left the table, Mr. Oxford, becoming more and more the dealer, rose and followed him, even directed him to the gigantic cloak-room, murmuring the while soft persuasions and pacifications in Priam's ear.

"There may be an action in the courts," said Mr. Oxford in the grand entrance hall, "and your testimony would be indispensable to me."

"I can have nothing to do with it. Good-day!"

The giant at the door could scarce open the gigantic portal quickly enough for him. He fled--fled, surrounded by nightmare visions of horrible publicity in a law-court. Unthinkable tortures! He d.a.m.ned Mr.

Oxford to the nethermost places, and swore that he would not lift a finger to save Mr. Oxford from penal servitude for life.