I went simply because there was nothing else to do, and I felt that I must; be doing something. The authorities seemed to think that I was making a great muddle over a very ordinary affair, possibly because rather contemptuous comments in the press had annoyed them, while the letters from amateur detectives had been more abundant than usual. Oh, those amateur detectives!
I found Musgrave quite willing to talk about Madame Vatrotski, and before I had been with him ten minutes I discovered that his opinion of her very nearly coincided with Quarles"s.
He put it differently, but it came to the same thing.
"To tell you the truth, she rather appealed to me when I first saw her,"
he said. "It was at an artists" affair in Chelsea. She came there with a man named Renaud, who has a big shop in Regent Street, and had spent money on her, I imagine. She was interesting because she was something new in the way of vulgarity. It was for this man Renaud that I did the portrait, but when it was finished he repudiated the bargain. He said it wasn"t a bit like her. You see, I was not looking at her with his eyes"
"Had she no beauty, then?"
"I cannot say that," Musgrave answered. "She had a beautiful figure, and her face--well, I painted it as I saw it. Renaud said it wasn"t in the least like her, and I am bound to admit that most of the people who knew her and have seen the portrait in the Academy agree with him."
"You claim that you show her character, I suppose?"
"No; I merely say I painted what I saw."
"Can you account for the fascination she exerted?" I asked.
"I answer that question by asking you another. Can you account for the fascination which sin exerts over a vast number of people in the world?
See sin as it really is, and it repels you; but sin seldom lets you see the reality, that is why it is so successful. A man requires grace to see sin as it really is, and that is his salvation. I was in a detached position when I painted Madame Vatrotski"s portrait, and you have seen the result; had I been under her spell the result would undoubtedly have been different. I should have painted only the mask of the moment, and that would have satisfied her admirers, I imagine. I suppose you know that my ideas of the true functions of art have caused many people to call me a crank?"
"I know little of the artistic world," I answered; "but any man who takes himself seriously always appeals to me."
Musgrave smiled. I fancy he was about to favor me with his ideas, but concluded I was not worth the trouble. I had not got much out of my visit beyond the knowledge that Quarles was not alone in his estimate of Madame Vatrotski.
The professor"s opinion combined with the artist"s influenced me, and gave me a kind of rough theory. A man might be fascinated, then repelled, the repulsion being far stronger than the attraction.
To make this possible the man must normally be decent, and because Sir Charles Woodbridge seemed the only person who fitted all the conditions I gave his movements a considerable amount of my attention during the next few days. He had certainly been amongst the most a.s.siduous of her admirers, and I discovered that he had put a private detective on to the business who was chiefly concerned in shadowing Paul Renaud.
Sir Charles was evidently convinced that Renaud was at the bottom of the mystery.
Nearly a month went by, and, except to those chiefly concerned, interest in the dancer"s disappearance was fading out, when it was suddenly revived by the notice of a picture exhibition in Bond Street, at the gallery belonging to the firm in which Tenfield was a partner.
The pictures were the work of French artists of the cubist school, but also on view was a portrait bust of Madame Vatrotski by Lovet Forbes. It was evidently the bust I had overheard Tenfield speak about that day in the Academy, and I discovered that his firm had bought it as a speculation.
Lovet Forbes had been only a vague name until a few days ago, when a symbolic group of his had been placed in the entrance hall of the Agricultural Inst.i.tution, and had at once attracted attention. The critics spoke of him as a new force in art, and a bust of the famous dancer by him was therefore, under the circ.u.mstances, an event.
"People will go to see it who wouldn"t cross the road to look at a cubist"s picture," said Quarles. "It is for sale, no doubt, and the dealers may clear a very nice little profit over it. Not a bad speculation, I should say; I wonder how much they paid the artist. We will go and have a look at it, Wigan."
The three of us went on the opening day. Zena in a dress I had not seen before, which suited her to perfection. She was much more interesting to me than Forbes"s bust of Madame Vatrotski.
Quarles was right in his prophecy; the gallery was full, and the cubists were not the attraction. Sir Charles was there, so was Renaud, and many others whose names had been mentioned more or less prominently in this case, including the managing director of the Olympic; and before I got a view of the bust I heard whispers of the prices which had been offered for it; rather fabulous prices they were.
"But she is perfectly beautiful!" Zena exclaimed, when at last we stood before the bust.
She was right, and there was evidently something wrong somewhere. The difference between Musgrave"s picture and Forbes"s marble was tremendous, and yet they were unmistakably the same woman.
Where the essential likeness was I cannot say, nor can I explain where the difference lay, but the marble was charming, while the painting was horrible.
"Rather a surprise, eh, Wigan?" said the professor.
"Very much so."
"I hear Forbes is about somewhere. I should like to see him. He is one of the lucky ones; this mystery has helped him to fame."
"But his work is good, isn"t it?"
"Yes; slightly meretricious, perhaps. I shall want to see more of his work before I express a definite opinion. I think we must go and see what he has done for the Agricultural Inst.i.tute."
We not only saw Forbes, but had a talk with him. He was a man well on in the forties, carelessly dressed, a Bohemian, and not particularly elated at his success apparently. He smiled at the prices which were being offered for his work.
"It is the dancer they are paying for, not my genius," he said. "She seems to have fooled men in life; she is fooling them in death, if she is dead."
"Ah, that is the question," said Quarles. "I have my doubts."
"She is safer dead, at any rate, if only half they say of her is true,"
Forbes returned.
"How came she to sit for you?" I asked.
"Vanity. I was introduced to her one night at an Artists" Ball--the Albert Hall affair, you know--and I told her she had the figure of a Venus. I was consciously playing on her vanity for a purpose. In the thing I have done for the Agricultural Inst.i.tute there is a rec.u.mbent figure, and I wanted the perfect model for it. The right woman is more difficult to get than you would imagine. Of course she agreed with me as to the perfectness of her figure, and then I began to doubt it. That settled the business. She fell into my trap and agreed to be the model."
"Posing in the nude?" I asked.
"Oh, that did not trouble her at all," answered Forbes. "I shouldn"t be surprised if she had been a model in Paris studios before she blossomed out as a dancer. She spoke Russian, but I am inclined to think France had the honor of giving her birth. In return for her complaisance I promised to do a portrait bust of her for herself. That is it. If she is alive and comes to claim it I shall have to do her another one."
"She was evidently a very beautiful woman," said Quarles, glancing in the direction of the bust.
"Beautiful and bad, I fancy. Curiously enough, I did not hear of her disappearance until I telephoned to her flat two days after it had happened. She had broken an appointment to give me a final sitting, and I wanted to know why she hadn"t come."
"Was the final sitting for the Agricultural group?" Quarles asked.
"No; for the bust there. I had to leave it as it was, but there is something in the line of the mouth which does not please me. What has become of her, do you suppose?"
"Possibly some one or something she is afraid of has caused her to go into hiding," said Quarles.
"Afraid! I doubt if she had any fear of devil or man. Have you seen Musgrave"s portrait of her?"
The professor nodded, and I thought it was curious that the Academy picture should be referred to so persistently.
"She was like that," said Forbes. "Musgrave"s is a wonderful piece of work."
Involuntarily I glanced at the bust, and he noticed my surprise.
"Oh, she was like that too at times," he said.
"I should doubt if Musgrave ever saw her as you have represented her,"
said Quarles.