When, after a noiseless entrance
and a careful advance through the hall, I threw open the door beyond
the gilded pillars, it was to see the tall figure of this old man
mounted upon the chair I had left there, peering up at the nail from
which I had so lately lifted the picture. He started as I presented
myself and almost fell from the chair. But the careless laugh I
uttered assured him of the little importance I placed upon this
evidence of his daring and unappeasable curiosity, and he confronted
me with an enviable air of dignity; whereupon I managed to say:
"Really, Mr. Moore, I'm glad to see you here. It is quite natural
for you to wish to learn by any means in your power what that picture
concealed. I came back, because I suddenly remembered that I had
forgotten to rehang it"
Involuntarily he glanced again at the wall overhead, which was as
bare as his hand, save for the nail he had already examined.
"It has concealed nothing," he retorted. "You can see yourself that
the wall is bare and that it rings as sound as any chimneypiece ever
made." Here he struck it heavily with his fist. "What did you
imagine that you had found?"
I smiled, shrugged my shoulders in tantalizing repetition of my
former action upon a like occasion and then answered brusquely:
"I did not come back to betray police secrets, but to restore this
picture to its place.
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