"Excellent, excellent!" said de Lesseps admiringly. He smiled a little bit. "I am afraid I did not give you credit for being the far-sighted business man that you are." He turned and glanced over the collection of pictures abstractedly. "A clever thief, though, " he ventured, "might cut a valuable painting, for instance the Rubens, out of the frame, roll it up, conceal it under his coat, and escape."
Kale laughed pleasantly and shook his head.
It was a couple of days later at the hotel that de Lesseps brought up the subject of copying the Whistler. He was profuse in his thanks when Kale volunteered to accompany him to the mansion and witness the preliminary stages of the work. They paused at the ball room door.
"Jennings, " said Kale to the liveried servant there, "this is Mr. de Lesseps. He is to come and go as he likes. He is going to do some work in the ball room here. See that he isn' t disturbed."
De Lesseps noticed the Rubens leaning carelessly against some other pictures, with the holy face of the Madonna toward them. "Really, Mr. Kale, " he protested, "that picture is too valuable to be left about like that. If you will let your servants bring me some canvas, I shall wrap it and place it up on the table here off the floor. Suppose there were mice here!"
Kale thanked him. The necessary orders were given, and finally the picture was carefully wrapped and placed beyond harm' s reach, whereupon de Lesseps adjusted himself, paper, easel, stool, and all, and began his work of copying. There Kale left him.
Three days later Kale just happened to drop in, and found the artist still at his labor.
"I just dropped by, " he explained, "to see how the work in the gallery was getting along. It will be finished in another week. I hope I am not disturbing you? "
"Not at all, " said de Lesseps; "I have nearly finished. See how I am getting along? " He turned the easel toward Kale.
The millionaire gazed from that toward the original which stood on a chair near by, and frank admiration for the artist' s efforts was in his eyes. "Why, it' s fine!" he exclaimed. "It' s just as good as the other one, and I bet you don' t want any five thousand dollars for it—eh? "
That was all that was said about it at the time. Kale wandered about the house for an hour or so, then dropped into the ball room where the artist was just getting his paraphernalia together, and they walked back to the hotel. The artist carried under one arm his copy of the Whistler, loosely rolled up.
One week passed, and the workmen who had been engaged in refinishing and decorating the gallery had gone. De Lesseps volunteered to assist in the work of rehanging the pictures, and Kale gladly turned the matter over to him. It was in the afternoon of the day this work began that de Lesseps, chatting pleasantly with Kale, ripped loose the canvas which enshrouded the precious Rubens. Then he paused with an exclamation of dismay. The picture was gone; the frame which had held it was empty. A thin strip of canvas around the inside edge showed that a sharp penknife had been used to cut out the painting.
All of these facts came to the attention of Professor Augustus S. F. X. Van Dusen—The Thinking Machine. This was a day or so after Kale had rushed into Detective Mallory' s office at police headquarters, with the statement that his Rubens had been stolen. He banged his fist down on the detective' s desk and roared at him. "It cost me fifty thousand dollars!" he declared violently. "Why don' t you do something? What are you sitting there staring at me for? "
"Don' t excite yourself, Mr. Kale, " the detective advised. "I will put my men at work right now to recover the—the—What is a Rubens, anyway? "
"It' s a picture!" bellowed Mr. Kale. "A piece of canvas with some paint on it, and it cost me fifty thousand dollars—don' t you forget that!"
So the police machinery was set in motion to recover the painting. And in time the matter fell under the watchful eye of Hutchinson Hatch, reporter. He learned the facts preceding the disappearance of the picture, and then called on de Lesseps. He found the artist in a state of excitement bordering on hysteria; an intimation from the reporter of the object of his visit caused de Lesseps to burst into words.
"Mon Dieu! it is outrageous!" he exclaimed. "What can I do? I was the only one in the room for several days. I was the one who took such pains to protect the picture. And now it is gone! The loss is irreparable. What can I do? "
Hatch didn' t have any very definite idea as to just what he could do, so he let him go on. "As I understand it, Mr. de Lesseps, " he interrupted at last, "no one else was in the room, except you and Mr. Kale, all the time you were there? "
"No one else."
"And I think Mr. Kale said that you were making a copy of some famous water color; weren' t you? "
"Yes, a Thames scene, by Whistler, " was the reply. "That is it, hanging over the mantel."
Hatch glanced at the picture admiringly. It was an exquisite copy, and showed the deft touch of a man who was himself an artist of great ability.
De Lesseps read the admiration in his face. "It is not bad, " he said modestly. "I studied with Carolus Duran."