"Then you are _the_ Professor Kent! But look here! The Frenchman made you out a most superior species of highfalutin detective, working along lines peculiarly your own-"
"Rot!" interjected Kent. "The only lines a detective can work along successfully are the lines laid down for him by the man he is after."
"Sounds more reasonable than romantic," admitted the artist. "Come now, Kent, open up and tell me something about yourself."
"Only last month a magazine put that request in writing, and accompanied it with an offer of twenty-five hundred dollars-which I didn"t accept.
However, as I may wish to ask you a number of leading questions later, I"ll answer yours now. You remember I got into trouble my senior year with the college authorities, by proving the typhoid epidemic direct against a forgotten defect in the sewer system. It nearly cost me my diploma; but it helped me too, later, for a scientist in the Department of Agriculture at Washington learned of it, and sent for me after graduation. He talked to me about the work that a man with the true investigation instinct-which he thought I had-could do, by employing his abilities along strictly scientific lines; and he mapped out for me a three-year"s postgraduate course, which I had just about enough money to take. While I specialized on botany, entomology, and bacteriology, I picked up a working knowledge of other branches; chemistry, toxicology, geology, mineralogy, physiology, and most of the natural sciences, having been blessed with an eager and catholic curiosity about the world we live in.
"Once in the Department, I found myself with a sort of roving commission. I worked under such men as Wiley, Howard, and Merriam, and learned from them something of the infinite and scrupulous patience that truly original scientific achievement demands. At first my duties were largely those of minor research. Then, by accident largely, I chanced upon the plot to bull the cotton market by introducing the boll weevil into the uninfested cotton area, and checked that. Soon afterward I was put on the "deodorized meat" enterprise, and succeeded in discovering the scheme whereby it was hoped to sell spoiled meat for good. You might have heard of those cases; but you would hardly have learned of the success in which I really take a pride, the cultivation of a running wild grape to destroy _Rhus Toxicodendron_, the common poison ivy. What spare time I had I devoted to experimenting along mechanical lines, and patented an invention that has been profitable. Some time ago the Department of Justice borrowed me on a few cases with a scientific bearing, and more recently offered me incidental work with them on such favorable terms that I resigned my other position. The terms include liberal vacations, one of which I am now taking. And here I am! Is that sufficient?"
"Hardly. All this suggests the arts of peace. What about your forty-horse-power kick? You don"t practise that for drawing-room exhibitions, I take it?"
"Sometimes," confessed the scientist, "I have found myself at close quarters with persons of dubious character. The fact is, that an ingenious plot to get rid of a very old friend, Doctor Lucius Carter the botanist, drew me into the criminal line, and since then, that phase of investigation has seemed fairly to obtrude itself on me, officially and unofficially. Even up here, where I hoped to enjoy a month"s rest-Do you know," he said, breaking off, "that you have a most interesting inset of ocean currents hereabouts?"
"Of course. Lonesome Cove. But kindly finish that "even up here". I recollect your saying that you were waiting for me. Haven"t traced any scientific crime to my door, have you?"
"Let me forget my work for a little while," pleaded his visitor, "and look at yours."
Sedgwick rose. "Come up-stairs," he said, and led the way to the big, bare, bright studio.
From the threshold Chester Kent delivered an opinion, after one approving survey. "You really work, I see."
"I really do. Where do you see it, though?"
"All over the place. No draperies or fripperies or fopperies of art here. The barer the room, the more work done in it."
He walked over to a curious contrivance resembling a small hand-press, examined it, surveyed the empty easel, against which were leaning, face in, a number of pictures, all of a size, and turned half a dozen of them over, ranging them and stepping back for examination. Standing before them, he whistled a long pa.s.sage from _La Boheme_, and had started to rewhistle it in another key, when the artist broke in with some impatience.
"Well?"
"Good work," p.r.o.nounced Kent quietly, and in some subtle way the commonplace words conveyed to their hearer the fact that the man who spoke them knew.
"It"s the best there is in me, at least," said Sedgwick.
Kent went slowly around the walls, keenly examining, silently appraising. There were landscapes, genre bits, studies of the ocean in its various moods, flashes of pagan imaginings, nature studies; a wonderful picture of wild geese settling from a flight; a no less striking sketch of a mink, startled as he crept to drink among the sedges; a group of country children at hop-scotch on the sands; all the varied subjects handled with a deftness of truth and drawing, and colored with a clear softness quite individual.
"Have you found or founded a new system of coloring?" asked Kent as he moved among the little masterpieces. "No; don"t tell me." He touched one of the surfaces delicately. "It"s not paint, and it"s not pastel. Oh, I see! They"re all of one size-of course." He glanced at the heavy mechanism near the easel. "They"re color prints."
Sedgwick nodded. "Monotypes," said he. "I paint on copper, make one impress, and then-phut!-a sponge across the copper makes each one an original."
"You certainly obtain your effects."
"The printing seems to refine the color. For instance, moonlight on white water, a thing I"ve never been able to approach, either in straight oils or water. See here."
From behind a cloth he drew a square, and set it on the easel. Kent whistled again, casual fragments of light and heavy opera intermingled with considerative twitches of his ear.
"It"s the first one I"ve given a name to," said Sedgwick. "I call it _The Rough Rider_."
A full moon, brilliant amid blown cloud-rack, lighted up the vast procession of billows charging in upon a near coast. In the foreground a corpse, the face bent far up and back from the spar to which it was lashed, rode with wild abandon headlong at the onlooker, on the crest of a roaring surge. The rest was infinite clarity of distance and desolation.
"_The Rough Rider!_" murmured Kent; then, with a change of tone, "For sale?"
"I don"t know," hesitated the artist. "Fact is, I like that about well enough to keep."
"I"ll give you five hundred dollars for it."
"Five hundred! Man alive! A hundred is the most I"ve ever got for any of my prints!"
"The offer stands."
"But, see here, Kent, can you afford it? Government salaries don"t make men rich, do they?"
"Oh, I"m rich enough," said the other impatiently. "I told you I"d made inventions. And I can certainly afford to buy it better than you can afford to keep it here."
"What"s that?" asked the painter, surprised.
Kent repeated his final sentence, with slow emphasis. "Do you understand what I mean?" he asked, looking flatly into Sedgwick"s eyes.
"No, not in the least. Another suggestion of mystery. Do you always deal in this sort of thing?"
"Very seldom. However, if you don"t understand so much the better. When did you finish this picture?"
"Yesterday."
"H-m! Has any one else seen it?"
"That old fraud of a plumber, Elder Dennett, saw me working on it yesterday, when he was doing some repairing here, and remarked that it gave him the creeps."
"Dennett? Well, then that"s all up," said Kent, as if speaking to himself. "There"s a streak of superst.i.tion in all these New Englanders.
He"d be sure to interpret it as a confession before the fact. However, Elder Dennett left this morning for a trip to Cadystown. That"s so much to the good."
"He may have left for a trip to Hadestown for all I care," stated Sedgwick with conviction. "What"s it all about, anyway?"
"I"ll tell you, as soon as I"ve mulled it over a little. Just let me cool my mind down with some more of your pictures." He turned to the wall border again, and faced another picture out. "What"s this? You seem to be something of a dab in black and white, too."
"Oh, that"s an imaginary face," said Sedgwick carelessly.
"Imaginary face studied from various angles," commented Kent. "It"s a very lovely face, and the most wistful I"ve ever seen. A fairy, prisoned on earth by c.o.c.kcrow, might wear some such expression of startled wondering purity, I fancy."
"Poetry as well as mystery! Kent, you grow and expand on acquaintance."
"There is poetry in your study of that imaginary fay. Imaginary!
Um-hum!" continued Kent dryly, as he stooped to the floor. "I suppose this is an imaginary hairpin, too."
"My Chinaman-" began Sedgwick quickly, when the other caught him up.
"Don"t be uneasy. I"m not going to commit the _betise_ of asking who she is."
"If you did, I give you my word of honor I couldn"t tell you. I only wish I knew!"