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I THOUGHT, in common with the other pensionnaires at the Villa Blanche, that Mr. Clement K. Brown, when he first presented himself amongst us, was the shyest man I had ever met. I myself happened to he the first to make his acquaintance. He came up the narrow path leading from the road, passed underneath the pergola of drooping roses, and emerged to climb the few steps leading on to the terrace where I was lying in a long chair, looking lazily over the distant valley. He hesitated as he saw me there, and then, raising a worn tweed cap, he addressed me nervously, but in a voice which was not devoid of pleasing qualities.

“I beg your pardon if I disturb you,” he said. “I was looking for an apartment for a few days, and a passer-by recommended me here. Can you tell me, please, where I may find the proprietor or proprietress?”

I raised myself a little in my chair in order to see him more clearly. His was not the figure to be framed in a bower of roses and clematis. He was short and slight of stature. His rather worn face disclosed humorous lines about the eyes and mouth, which I liked—the deep-set eyes of an artist, and features which, though at first sight they were insignificant, were nevertheless well enough on further investigation. His hair was of a light brown colour, almost sandy, his eyes a remote shade of hazel, unusual in a man. His clothes were fit for nothing but the rag bag, and there was a gaping hole in the knapsack which he carried. I somehow fancied that Madame, who was rather a martinet, would scarcely welcome him as a respectable addition to our little company, and simultaneously with that reflection I felt a desire to help him to obtain the hospitality he sought.

“Madame Servelle is on the other side of the house,” I told him. “If you wish I will take you to her.”

“You are very kind, sir,” he acknowledged gratefully.

I led the way along the terrace, and around the corner, to where Madame had chosen a sheltered spot. She was endeavouring to avoid the sun which I had courted.

“Madame,” I announced, “I have brought you a traveller who is seeking an apartment.”

Once more the tweed cap left the head of Mr. Clement Brown. He bowed. Madame, who was a short, fat woman, black-haired, and of somewhat forbidding appearance, looked at him over her spectacles, and I felt that matters might not go well with my companion. Accordingly I lingered.

“Monsieur is a traveller,” she remarked, gazing fixedly at a hole in his coat.

“I am an artist in a small way,” he confided humbly. “I have seen beautiful country in this neighbourhood. It would please me to remain for a time.”

Madame looked him up and down.

“Monsieur,” she said, “I entertain here but a few guests. They are mostly artists, but they are—”

She stopped short. Perhaps there was something in the traveller’s air of polite suspense which checked the words upon her lips.

“They are people of good condition, mark you,” she continued. “This gentleman here—Major Forester—is an officer in the British army. I have a great artist and his wife from Paris, an American lady with diplomas, and an English colonel and his wife.”

My protégé” seemed a little puzzled. I ventured to intervene.

“Madame thinks, perhaps,” I pointed out, “that your attire—”

He looked down at himself, and a little smile broke from his lips. From that moment I definitely liked him.

“It is true,” lie confessed. “I am in bad condition. But I have other clothes, Madame, down at Cagnes, not far from here. My easel and paintbrushes are there too. I regret that I should present myself like this. I travel much on foot, and I lose the habit of thinking of my appearance. So long as one bathes “

He turned to me as though for mutual understanding. Certainly his skin was fresh and cleanly, and his hands amazingly well cared for.

“I have a small room,” Madame admitted. “My terms are thirty francs a day.”

“I will take the room,” the stranger said eagerly. Madame frowned.

“That includes,” she went on unperturbed, “the little breakfast, the déjeuner at twelve-thirty—we have fresh fish and vegetables, but it is not always that I can promise meat. The evening meal is at seven. I cook it myself.”

“Madame,” my protege said, with a courteous bow, “I am assured of good fare if you will accept me as your guest. I should have remembered my appearance. If you will allow me..”

He took out a worn pocketbook and produced notes. Madame rose to her feet and waved them away.

“That will do later,” she said. “If Monsieur will give himself the trouble to walk this way, I will show him his room.”

So that is how Mr. Clement K. Brown came to join our little circle at the Villa Blanche.

We were a curiously assorted company—we who had sought the hospitality of Madame Servelle, at thirty francs a day. There was myself, who had the trick of wandering into strange places, who had come for a night and lingered on entranced by the beauty of the spot—the swelling pasture-lands, dotted with olive trees, by which we were surrounded, the rose farm which every night lent fragrance to the air, the turbulent stream which rushed down from the mountain only a few yards away from the back door of the Villa, those fine promontories of the lesser Alps, in the distance, the snow-clad peaks—and turning round again towards the more peaceful prospect—the sea—that long, fine line of celestial blue. We were all nature lovers more or less. There was Monsieur Léon, an artist from Paris, and his wife. Monsieur Léon wore a velveteen coat of dark green, and a black tie which drooped from his low-cut neck like a silken handkerchief. Madame his wife was small and dainty. She spoke no English, and did little except watch her husband work. Then there was an American girl of somewhat bold type, also a reputed artist—a Miss Carrie Wilcock—attractive in her way, with her brilliant eyes and very beautiful figure, but a little noisy at close quarters. She, it was understood, had won a travelling scholarship from some American university, and she certainly worked. Then there were two quiet English people—a Colonel Grayson and his wife—both of whom amused themselves by painting indifferent water colours in a quite inoffensive way; a young man named Seymour, whom no one knew anything about—an Englishman, passably good-looking, but uncommunicative, who was apparently an author, as he spent most of his time writing, and carried a notebook always with him; and to complete our numbers, there was another man whom no one knew anything of—a silent, dark-complexioned, melancholy looking person, middle-aged, civil but aloof, whose chief occupation was walking or exploring the Château. His name was Parsons, and the only thing one had discovered about him during the fortnight of his presence at the Villa was that he had at one time followed the profession of an architect. Taken all in all, we could scarcely have been considered a very formidable-looking gathering, yet when Mr. Brown made his appearance amongst us—he found us seated at the dinner table— he had the look of a frightened child who would have liked to sink through the floor. He bowed to Madame, and then bowed to the company. Most of us said “good evening.” I ventured upon a word of welcome.

“Will Monsieur be pleased to sit at the end of the table,” Madame invited. “We are punctual here at the Villa, but we are only at this moment assembled.”

Mr. Brown took his place, and sat nervously crumbling his roll. My length of stay bad seen me promoted to a place on the left-hand side of Madame, but my interest that night was with the newcomer. Our table was of an oval shape, and conversation, as a rule, general. Mr. Brown was placed between Parsons and Seymour. I noticed that they had both eyed him curiously, and Parsons, who was one of our most silent guests, at once asked him a question.

“Have you come far to-day?” he inquired, looking at his neighbour’s attire, which, carefully though it had been brushed, still bore the marks of travel.

“From Cagnes,” was the quiet reply.

“You have come to see the Château, I suppose?”

“And the country around here, which struck me as being very beautiful,” Mr. Brown replied. “Is the Château interesting?”

“Interesting?” Parsons exclaimed.

“Say, do you hear that? Interesting, indeed!” Miss Wilcock echoed.

The Colonel and his wife smiled benevolently. Madame was too busy calculating how many portions of fish she still bad to serve to do more than nod her head vigorously. There was a moment’s somewhat curious silence. Monsieur Léon was staring at the harmless questioner with eyes that were almost fiercely interrogative; Seymour was looking at him none the less steadfastly because there was something surreptitious about the way his eyes drooped under their lids. Suddenly, to me, the silent watcher, the situation appeared to have developed. Madame’s little dining room had become an arena, and all these people who had seemed, I must confess, during the long weeks, rather like dummies to me, had sprung into life. The only two who remained wholly normal were Madame, breathing a sigh of relief as she concluded her successful attack upon the salmon trout, and Mr. Brown, who had asked a harmless question.

“Say, doesn’t that sound queer,” Miss Carrie Wilcock exclaimed, “to hear any one speak of the Château like that? Don’t you realise, Mr.—Mr.— sorry, but I didn’t quite catch your name.”

“Brown,” the newcomer vouchsafed modestly—“Clement Brown.”

“Do you mean to say that you’ve just climbed up here and found a room at the Villa Blanche to admire the scenery, or for your health, or to paint the usual stuff with which every gallery in Nice is overfull? Do you mean to say that you didn’t know about the Château?”

Mr. Brown looked for a moment from one to the other of us. His expression was the expression of a child.

“The Château?” he repeated vaguely. “As I climbed this afternoon, I watched the bending rose fields, and the stiff carnations, and I beard the little breeze pass through the corn, and I watched the trout jump in that stream, but of the Château I did not think. Externally you surely would not consider it beautiful ?”

There was another brief silence. Then Colonel Grayson, the mild-eyed painter of watery landscapes, plunged in where others for various reasons, held aloof.

“You are not a reader of guidebooks, Mr. Brown?”

“God forbid!” was the hearty but tremulous response.

The Colonel cleared his throat.

“That may account then,” he said, “for your ignorance concerning one of the great charms of this district. The Château which seems to you a little forbidding, is the shell which guards a great treasure. Within its walls are parts of the ancient Château—the twelfth-century Château, mind you—where Francis the First came down from Paris to sign the Treaty of Peace with his great Italian rival. There are one or two of the original rooms which are still to be seen—some indeed of the famous tapestries—and there are three paintings upon the wall, behind the oak screens, which many people claim to have been the original commissions from Francis to Andrea del Sarto when he stayed here on his way to the Court of France. There is the Gold Cup, too, out of which King Francis and the Comtesse—ah, let us call her only by her wonderful name—Beatrice—are said to have drunk.”

“And those treasures,” Mr. Brown inquired, “are they on view to the general public?”

“There are certain difficulties,” Colonel Grayson replied, “but they are on view—if you know of them. The Château is rigidly held and sightseers are not welcome.”

“It is occupied then ?” Mr. Brown asked.

“By custodians only.”

“But such custodians!” Seymour murmured.

Madame, who was in a good humour, because the meal had passed pleasantly, and because something of the skinny poulets had been left owing to the revival of this ever-engrossing subject of conversation, leaned forward to make things clear to her new guest.

“The custodians,” she said, “are a woman and her daughter, about whose lives there is much of romance and much of gossip, for many say that they are descended from the great family who once owned the

Château. The girl is very beautiful; Madame is very strict. They carry on a family tradition, for those who were before them kept the keys of the castle, but—”

“But!” groaned Monsieur Léon in agony.

“But!” echoed Mr. Parsons.

“But,” Madame continued, “there is a tragedy to be faced. The Château is sold—not only sold, but sold to an American!”

Monsieur Léon leaned forward. Every muscle of his face twitched. His black imperial rose and fell with his words.

“It is of all tilings the most infernal,” he declared. “Year after year, have I and many others visited here to worship before those beautiful things — the windows and panels that remain of the old Château within the walls, the tapestries, the paintings—and before God, I believe them to be the veritable handiwork of Andrea del Sarto—the Cup—the wonderful Gold Cup! I am one of the scattered artists who came here to worship. Year by year it has been our pilgrimage, and now there arrives one to whom they say these things belong, and who will hide them from our view. Within a month the Château is to be closed. Madame and the divine Beatrice are to return to the hills. The Château is to be modernised, electric lights are to flash from the windows, jazz music is to float down the valleys at night, motor cars will spit and roar their way across the portcullis. This little corner of heaven is to be vulgarised and destroyed !”

“It is an infamy,” Madame murmured, without particular emphasis, because, as I very well knew, she had never quite made up her mind whether the change would bring good or ill to her.

“It is sacrilege!” Monsieur Léon groaned.

Madame rose. We accepted the signal, and followed her out on to the terrace, where Marthe, the one waitress, served us with coffee. I took our new arrival by the arm, led him to a corner of the piazza, and pointed upwards. There behind a ridge of pine trees, towering above the precipitous crags, was the Château—a square mass, flanked by four towers, reached only from this side by a grass-grown avenue. A single light burned from one of the narrow windows.

“That,” I indicated, “is the Château of the Audiberts,”

He looked at it earnestly. Below us the frogs had begun to call; every now and then a bat wheeled above our heads. Madame Léon, who was sentimental, held up her finger. A nightingale was singing in the grove behind the garden.

“It is a little corner of paradise,” Monsieur Léon lamented, “which materialism would remove from us.”

I had ventured to offer Madame a liqueur cognac, and her humour was good.

“After all,” she said, “the long-hreatened sometimes never happens. It is months since we were told that the Château was sold. No one comes here but Monsieur Latoste, the notary from Nice. Madame and Mademoiselle Beatrice remain. Why not hope for the best ?”

We drew our chairs together, and talked more hopefully, but outside our circle, leaning still with his arms upon the terrace and his queer little face turned up starwards, Mr. Clement Brown remained, his eyes fixed upon those stark pines and what lay beyond.

It fell, as it chanced, to my lot to pilot this latest guest to our great show place, the Château. Monsieur Léon—contrary to bis custom— was painting in the valley, and Madame remained his adoring shadow. Colonel and Mrs. Grayson had gone to Nice for the day by the crazy motor diligence, to meet some friends. Miss Carrie Wilcock was writing letters in her room. Parsons and Seymour had both disappeared without explanation. Mr. Brown timidly attached himself to me, explaining that until the arrival of his painting paraphernalia he could do nothing. So I climbed with him the steep way to the Château, and clanged the bell outside.

“Be prepared,” I warned my companion, “to see the most beautiful girl in the world.”

Almost at that moment, the key was turned from inside, the nail-studded doors thrown open, and Mademoiselle Beatrice smiled her usual demure “good morning” to me. When she saw that I had a companion, however, she stood a little back, and in her expression as she gazed at poor Mr. Clement Brown there seemed to be born a great aversion. She was very beautiful, this Mademoiselle Beatrice, in her plain black gown and narrow white linen collar, with her yellow-gold hair brushed back from her forehead and her sweet though rather arrogant face. Just now, unfortunately, she was disturbed. The smile left her dancing lips; a fine frown drew her eyebrows together. She looked at my companion with a strangely absorbed expression—an expression half of fear, half of vehement dislike.

“Whom do you bring here?” she demanded.

“Only a visitor like myself,” I replied. “He has joined us at the Villa Blanche. He would like to see the ruins of your famous paintings and the Gold Cup.”

“These things are not to be seen to-day,” she answered shortly.

“But, Mademoiselle,” I protested, “it is not a Saint’s Day or a Festival, it is not even the Sabbath! Why then deny us a view of the treasures?”

“Too many people look upon them day by day,” she declared. “It becomes dangerous. Let this person wait. Soon, we are told, he who calls himself the owner of the Château will come with a mass of workmen. Let Monsieur wait until then. The treasures will still be on view.”

I listened to her almost passionate outburst in amazement. I had never known her like this. She answered the unspoken question of my eyes fiercely.

“Do you ever consider, Monsieur!” she exclaimed. “We are here alone—my mother and I. There is Monsieur Seymour from your villa. He is no artist, but he spends whole days in front of the Gold Cup, watching it, turning it in his hands as though to feel the smoothness, and all the time with a covetous gleam in his eyes. Then Monsieur Parsons, he brings a chair and he sits in front of the paintings, and the American girl—why does she continually commence another picture of our Adoration? These people are impossible. Shall I tell you what I think, Major Forester?”

“If you will,” I acquiesced.

For the moment she had forgotten my companion. She thrust her hand through my arm. Her violet eyes were filled with fire, her beautiful lips were trembling with earnestness. Mr. Clement Brown watched her as one would watch a divinity.

“They are frauds, these people at the Villa,” she cried. “Mademoiselle Wilcock—what diploma could she have earned? She cannot paint. She sits in front of my pictures, and what she is thinking of I can guess too well. And this Monsieur Seymour, who would bring me jewellery from Nice! And Monsieur Parsons, who does not even take the trouble to pretend to be a writer or a painter! These men I fear. Listen! I know what is in their minds. If they are not watched night and day, they will steal the pictures; they will steal the Cup. It is for that they are there.”

We had drawn a little apart, my companion remaining patiently in the background.

“Beatrice,” I said reassuringly, “you make trouble for yourself. These people whom you have mentioned are all harmless. They may not be great artists, but I am convinced that they are not thieves.”

“Then why have I this feeling?” she demanded. “Who is this stranger whom you have brought this morning?”

“To tell you the truth,” I confessed, “I know little about him, but surely he is harmless. You would not suspect him of being a criminal.”

She turned half fiercely round, and I followed her example. Mr. Brown, having lit a cigarette, was seated upon the moss-grown parapet, whistling softly to himself. He did not once glance in our direction, but as she watched him, Beatrice’s cheeks were once more blanched.

“Who is he?” she insisted, tugging at my arm in a frightened manner.

I laughed.

“I don’t know, but I can’t really imagine any one being frightened by Mr. Brown,” I expostulated.

“Perhaps not,” she answered gloomily, “and yet it is another stranger. Does he really want to see the pictures ?”

“If you please, Mademoiselle Beatrice.”

She turned slowly away—a slim, exquisite flower she seemed, with her pearl- white skin, dark eyes and scarlet lips. She motioned us reluctantly to follow her, and I saw Mr. Brown obey like a man in a dream. We passed underneath the ruined oriel windows of marvellous grace, in through the twelfth-century doorway of the great hall. From here she led us into the chapel. My companion followed my example as I kneeled for a moment. Then we passed to the three pictures, and she opened the oak cases.

“They are here,” she said—“here where the great master kneeled side by side with King Francis.”

My companion was directly opposite the Madonna, which occupied the central space. He raised bis eyes to it, and they never once faltered. He appeared to have passed into some sort of ecstatic trance. He never even glanced at either of the smaller pictures. He seemed to have become absorbed in what I can only term an “ardent” contemplation of that one masterpiece. I myself, who had worshipped before it nearly every day since my arrival, felt a curious new sympathy for this strange little man. I longed to read his thoughts, to pass with him into that world of abstractions in which he was surely dwelling. Then I caught Mademoiselle’s sullen, watching expression, saw the cloud of suspicion which had darkened her beautiful face, and I felt a sudden spasm almost of anger. It was prejudice carried to the point of absurdity.

Mr. Clement Brown, who had disappeared for a couple of days, returned in due course on the motor diligence from Cagnes, bringing with him a battered and somewhat inadequate easel and painter’s outfit, some slight addition to his scanty store of habiliments—and a bombshell. The latter he cast amongst us all at déjeuner on the morning of bis arrival.

“In Nice,” he announced, looking at Madame, but speaking to me, “a great piece of fortune befell me. Monsieur Latoste has given me his permission to make a copy of the Madonna.”

It is no exaggeration to say that a veritable scream of voices arose.

“It is impossible,*’ was Madame’s contribution.

“If I believed that was true,” Miss Wilcock exclaimed, “I would go and shake the life out of that little shrimp. Why, I went all the way into Nice the week after I arrived to beg for that permission, and he wouldn’t even listen to me.”

“And I,” Seymour, in whose eyes there was a very angry gleam, intervened, “have begged only for an hour a day in the chapel alone that I might write my impressions.”

“And what about myself?” Monsieur Léon cried in great excitement, “I—an artist of repute—an exhibitor at the Salon, a gold medallist—I present myself before that attorney. I demand the right of an artist to study a great work and reproduce it. What is his reply? ‘It is impossible.’ Only a week ago his clerk showed me to the door. He gave me no hope. This gentleman must be mistaken.”

“In any case,” I warned him, “I don’t think Mademoiselle will ever let you in for more than our customary ten minutes.”

Mr. Brown seemed surprised at the clamour. He produced a sheet of paper from his pocket and handed it to me. I read it to the little company. It was written upon the note paper of Monsieur Latoste, Notary and Attorney-at-Law, and it was addressed to Madame and Mademoiselle St. Ivery:

The bearer, Mr. Clement Brown, has my permission to enter the Château and chapel at will and to occupy himself in such fashion as he desires with the paintings and objets d’art.

Some of them got up and looked over my shoulder. The terms of the permission were unassailable.

“Say, I’d like to be there when Mademoiselle reads that,” Miss Wilcock declared, stabbing the butter in front of her viciously.

“It does not seem to me an unusual privilege,” Mr. Brown ventured, “to be permitted to copy a wonderful picture.”

“Perhaps you are a great artist in disguise,” Seymour suggested sarcastically.

Mr. Brown shook his head.

“Often I have tried,” he confessed, “but never once have I had a picture exhibited.”

Outside, instead of talcing our coffee together as usual, that evening we broke up into little knots. Miss Wilcock, with Seymour and Parsons, deliberately drew away, and conversed in low tones. Madame led me on one side.

“I have an uneasiness,” she confided. “The little man, he is evidently poverty-stricken. Even the clothes he has brought back are little better than those he is wearing. I fear he is a scamp.”

“He puzzles me, Madame,” I confessed, “but I think he is all right. As to his clothes, you will notice that he has plenty of linen, and he is your best customer for the bathroom. There is a type of man who thinks little of such things as clothes. He may be one.”

“That letter?”

“I feel convinced that it is genuine,” I assured her, “and he cannot be altogether a vagabond to have received it,”

“I am uneasy,” Madame persisted.

She meant it, too. I liked Madame. I felt in a way responsible for the little man’s presence, for I am certain that if I bad not piloted him round that corner, Madame would have sent him away. Therefore I determined to do my best to allay this feeling of disquietude.

“I will write to Monsieur Latoste,” I promised. “He once transacted some business for me. He will tell me if there is anything suspicious about Mr. Brown,”

Madame was properly grateful and mucli relieved. By degrees the others drifted back for their coffee, and the evening passed as usual.

We were a curious little company, for one by one, when Mr. Clement Brown shouldered his easel and set off for the Château with his tin case under his arm, we trooped after him. We wanted to see what happened when be presented himself. We were disappointed, however, for when we arrived in the outer quadrangle, Mr. Brown had already gained admission, and we had no chance of witnessing Mademoiselle’s consternation. Thereafter for days the same programme was repeated. Inside the chapel, at a proper distance from the Madonna, each morning Mr. Brown set up his easel, and each morning, with a sort of dogged ferocity, Mademoiselle Beatrice established herself on a hard stool a few yards away, with a bundle of sewing, and stolidly went on with her tasks. Soon understanding dawned upon us—it was her firm intention, although she had been compelled to admit this unwelcome visitor, not to leave him alone, either with the pictures or the great Gold Cup which, in its iron cage, was chained to the wall above the altar. Now and then one of us paid our franc and entered for the prescribed ten minutes. At such times, Mr. Brown always carelessly covered up his work and accepted the opportunity of a chat and word of conversation. On one of these occasions I drew Mademoiselle on one side.

“Tell me, Mademoiselle Beatrice,” I begged, “why do you watch this poor little man as though you feared something from him? Monsieur Latoste’s letter was genuine. I have proved it.”

She drew me round the corner into the long, cool passage, with its cloistered roof, which led to the great banqueting ball.

“Monsieur,” she confided, “I cannot explain with what feelings that man inspires me. There is something about him disturbing.”

“He is perhaps a greater painter than we believe,” I suggested.

She laughed scornfully.

“But, Monsieur,” she begged, “do not believe it! I have seen nothing of what is on his canvas, but I picked up a sketch of his yesterday. Why, even one of those pretenders outside could do better. My mother has written to Monsieur Latoste. We cannot continue here without further protection. I do not trust any of Madame’s household, except Monsieur le Colonel and you yourself. We cannot remain here. It was kindly meant to offer us the post, but we shall have to return to the farm. The responsibility is too great.”

We retraced our steps. Mr. Brown had ceased to work. He was leaning forward, his chin resting upon his hand, looking with rapt eyes at the picture.

“Is that the face of a thief, Mademoiselle?” I whispered.

She shook her head doubtfully.

“No,” she admitted, “but he is fast becoming friendly with those others, and he is poor. His paints are of inferior quality. He has not even enough brushes. Look yourself, Monsieur, at his shoes.”

“It is true,” I agreed; “but poverty is not a crime. I am quite sure that in conversation he never offends you.”

“On the contrary, he is always gentle,” she acknowledged reluctantly— “always respectful. Yet I am never at ease with him. In any case, we have decided to go—my mother and I. We have written to Monsieur Latoste.”

“Then the charm of the Château will pass,” I told her, honestly enough.

She was her old exquisite self for a moment. She even took my hand and pressed it.

“Monsieur is a good friend,” she whispered… .

Now, watching more closely, I saw signs of what Beatrice had hinted at. That evening, for instance, the American girl, with Seymour and Parsons, took Mr. Brown out with them for a promenade along the moon-blanched road. We heard the sound of their footsteps as they passed up and down, but their voices were inaudible. When they came back, Mr. Brown was silent and abstracted. For the first time he accepted my offer of the Englishman’s goodnight drink—a whisky and soda—with hesitation. He sat with me in the tiny sitting room, vouchsafed to me of Madame’s grace, almost in silence.

“They are strange people, these artists,” be remarked abruptly, after a somewhat prolonged pause.

“So Mademoiselle Beatrice thinks,” I acquiesced, watching him closely. “She tells me that she and her mother have made up their minds to leave—to go back to their home in the mountains.”

“But why?” he demanded, startled.

“It is the responsibility of those treasures,” I pointed out.

“But they are foolish,” be argued. “At six o’clock each evening the great gates to the castle are locked. Who could win admittance? The castle is as strong as in olden days. The windows are too small for burglary ; the locks are the size of my fist. And then, by day, Mademoiselle, it seems to ine, never leaves the chapel. At any rate,” he added, with a whimsical little smile, “she never leaves it when I am there.”

“Burglary has become one of the arts,” I reminded him. “If a real craftsman were here, he would find a way.”

“I wonder,” Mr. Brown murmured.

A few nights later, after dinner, we all trooped out to the little tin shed which Madame dignified by the name of “garage,” to see a car which Parsons had bought and driven home from Nice. It was merely a Citroen, and a second-hand one at that, but as we none of us possessed such a luxury, we were all interested. For some reason or other, Mr. Brown seemed more interested than any of us. He and Parsons went over it several times, the latter explaining all the details of starting and stopping, with almost painstaking accuracy. Mr. Brown hoisted himself into the driver’s seat, turned on the lights, switched on the power, and tried the gears. He stepped down with a little sigh.

“It must be a great pleasure,” be said, “to own a machine like this, and to wander about the country at will.”

Parsons smiled enigmatically. I fancied that I caught a gleam of admiration in his eyes as he glanced at the speaker… . We strolled back to our coffee, of which I consider myself a judge, and very soon I put my cup down only half empty. It bad a peculiar flavour which reminded me of one of the most unpleasant nights of my life. I looked round at the others. No one seemed to have noticed anything, and presently we wandered off to our usual occupations. I myself unpacked a box of new books, and before long—a most extraordinary occurrence for me—fell asleep over one of them by the window… .

Now it seemed to me as I lay there that I had a dream. I thought that I saw Mr. Clement Brown steal out of the garden and, keeping in the shadow of the hedge, climb upwards towards the Château. I lost sight of him for a time, and then my dream returned. I saw him again, descending the road, this time walking softly, bare-headed, and looking anxiously about him. Under his arm be had a roll of something—parchment it might have been, or brown paper—I could distinguish nothing. Finally he disappeared into the tin shed, and the dream passed. I tried to rouse myself, but failed. When I awoke, the sun was shining into the room.

It was our custom at the Villa to carry our little breakfast out on to the piazza and eat it in the flower-scented sunshine, gossiping or remaining silent as we chose. This morning my barely stifled yawn as I carried out my own tray was the signal for a chorus of exclamations.

“You, too, Major,” Colonel Grayson remarked. “Do you know, we’ve come to the conclusion that we were all drugged last night. I never slept like it in my life.”

“I can’t keep awake now,” Miss Wilcock declared.

“As for me,” I confessed, “I fell asleep in my chair and dreamed.”

“Tell us about it,” Mrs. Grayson begged.

“It didn’t amount to a dream,” I acknowledged. “I just thought that I saw our persevering friend Mr. Brown on his way up the hill to the Château, and presently come down again and visit the garage.”

I looked round for Parsons, but he was absent. Just at that moment he emerged from the little tin shed, waving bis arms.

“Hallo, what’s up with our friend?” Colonel Grayson exclaimed.

Parsons broke into a run.

“My car!” he shouted. “Gone! Stolen!”

Then I felt a shiver through all my frame. I could have bitten out my tongue for having told my dream. It seemed to me that I knew what was underneath Mr. Brown’s arm, and I knew who had taken the car, and the shadow of a great disappointment was already depressing me.

“Any one seen Mr. Brown this morning?” Miss Wilcock demanded.

Madame never hesitated. She entered the house, and I heard her flying footsteps up the stairs. When she returned her expression was portentous.

“I knew it!” she cried, looking accusingly at me. “My instinct never fails me. He has gone. It is he who has stolen the car, and—”

Madame could say no more. Her eyes were fixed upon the Château. One by one, moved by a common impulse, we rose to our feet and hurried up the hill. I myself, with a moment’s start, was first to reach the great bell. Apparently nothing was wrong. Everywhere the early morning stillness seemed undisturbed. A flower cart went jogging down the road, bringing faint whiffs of perfume, and the farmer took off his bat with a sweep to one of Madame’s guests. Then round the corner from her cottage came Mademoiselle, a little surprised, but dangling the keys in her hand.

“But at this hour, Monsieur! What has happened ?” she exclaimed. “And the others too—they all come!”

“Presently, Mademoiselle,” I replied. “Open the gate, please.”

She obeyed. We passed into the courtyard. Opposite us was the other huge door, tightly closed.

“Open it,” I begged.

“But, Monsieur,” she protested, “it is not yet the hour.”

“Never mind. Do as I say.”

She obeyed me. The huge lock turned slowly, and the door rolled back. We passed across the stone-paved halt, and through the inner door to the chapel. There before us was the ghastly truth. The glory of the place was gone. The middle frame above the altar stood empty, a thin shred of canvas banging down. The Madonna had gone—and Mademoiselle’s shriek of horror will live in my memory for ever!

They all came streaming in, even Madame, panting hard, bringing up the rear. We grouped ourselves in front of the desecrated shrine. Mademoiselle Beatrice had sunk on to her stool, her frame shaken with sob. Every one seemed to be talking at once. Then, with an effort, I pulled myself together.

“Have the keys left your possession since you locked up last night, Mademoiselle?” I asked.

“Not for a single second,” she answered fiercely.

“And the picture was there when you locked up?”

“Naturally.”

We looked at the windows—mere slits, and the lowest fifteen feet from the ground. No wonder we were stupefied.

“Colonel,” I proposed, “you and I had better get down to the village. There is a telephone there. We can speak to the police at Nice, and to Monsieur Latoste.”

“It must he done at once,” Parsons agreed. “I will accompany you.”

“I can ride a motor bicycle, if there is one to be found,” Seymour suggested.

Even then I found it hard to move. My heart was torn with two great sorrows—the gash in the wall, and Mademoiselle Beatrice’s bowed head. Presently she looked up and, though there were red rims underneath, the violet of her eyes seemed clearer than ever.

“Did I not tell you, Monsieur,” she lamented, “that there was something strange? I could not tell what it was. Sometimes it frightened me, sometimes it was different, but he was not as other men.”

“You had instinct, Mademoiselle,” I admitted sadly. “I must confess myself at fault. I thought him harmless.”

There were sounds outside. Madame ran back to the door.

“Here are some early tourists,” she announced. “They have cars. It is good. They will take you to Cagnes… But behold!”

She stepped aside in amazement. We all stood around like dummies. Through the open door came Monsieur Latoste, the Notary, by his side Mr. Clement Brown, and behind two gendarmes. Mademoiselle Beatrice rose slowly to her feet. There was passion rising in her face. Her eyes flamed.

“He is there!” she cried. “It is he who has stolen the picture.”

“He is already in custody,” Colonel Grayson observed, watching the gendarmes range themselves at the door, “but why have they brought him here?”

The girl’s passion named out in her words. She picked up a canvas at the side of the altar.

“I always knew that he was a thief,” she denounced—“a thief and an impostor. Look—look, all of you. This is what he sat and worked at when he pretended to be copying ‘Our Lady.’ Look!”

We all leaned forward. It was a crude but not ungraceful likeness of Mademoiselle Beatrice herself which we saw, seated upon her stool. Mr. Brown, too, examined it, screwing up his eyes.

“Not so very bad,” be ventured timidly. “The pose is good, I think, Mademoiselle, even if I have failed as yet with the expression.”

She looked as though she were about to strike him. In fact we were all becoming somewhat incensed with this little man who accepted his ignominious position so coolly. As though conscious of our growing indignation, be laid his hand upon his companion’s shoulder.

“Monsieur Latoste,” he suggested, “perhaps it would be as well if you presented me to these ladies and gentlemen.”

The Notary held out his hand. There was a certain cynical pleasure gleaming in his eyes as he glanced towards Parsons and Seymour.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” he announced, “permit me to present you to the owner of the Château—Clément Audibert, Marquis de St. Ivery, Comte de Gourdon, Seigneur de St. Jeannet.”

No one said a word. Yet a very curious thing happened. With this pronouncement of his names and titles, the man who was standing in the centre of the little group seemed to cast away the mantle of Mr. Clement Brown. He drew himself up. His smile was pleasant and self-assured. One forgot the shabbiness of his clothes.

“My friends,” he apologised, “I regret having imposed upon you. Mademoiselle ma cousine,” he added, moving nearer to her, “it will be the task of my life to win your forgiveness.”

She stood trembling in every limb. I had no eyes for any one but her afterwards. I watched the slow change in her sensitive face, the wave of incredulity, the coming of hope, the promise of joy.

“May I explain,” the pseudo-Mr. Brown continued. “You all know that the Château was bought by a successful American financier. He was my uncle— Henri de St. Ivery, an American by naturalization. He died last year. He left me the Château with all his money, and I had a fancy—a foolish one, no doubt—to come here just as a wanderer, and see it in its old state before those workmen who, alas, must deface to beautify, arrive. A foolish notion, perhaps,” he repeated, looking around with that familiar smile which seemed to ask for sympathy, “but some of you, I think, will understand. It has always been my dream to see it like that, before a hand was laid upon the ruins, and afterwards to carry out my uncle’s will, for he was very wealthy, and it was his desire that the Château should once more become a great abode. So I came here and, thanks to my friend”—he bowed to me—“I found lodgings with Madame. And then,” he added, his voice becoming a little sterner, “a strange and terrible thing happened. I found that several of those guests of Madame whom I had thought were attracted here by the beauty of the place were here in reality as robbers.”

There was another silence. I saw Parsons’ quick look towards the guarded door. Seymour thrust his hands into bis pockets. The gendarmes were immovable, and bluff was all that was possible.

“I found, too,” the new owner of the Château went on, and with every sentence his voice seemed to gain in authority, “that the picture which I had grown almost to worship since I came to the hills here, was in real danger. A definite proposition to assist in its theft was made to me by one of those who were here for that purpose, and who imagined that in my apparent poverty I might become their tool. I was to cut the picture from its frame and convey it by motor car to Paris.”

“But that is just what has happened!” Mademoiselle Beatrice cried, pointing to the gash in the wall. “Some thief has surely been here.”

“Ah, no, Mademoiselle. Last night I took it carefully from its frame in order to save it, because I feared that it was in danger. I drove myself most uncomfortably to Nice, and I sent the canvas off to my good friend, Monsieur Dubois in Paris. You see, there was a little spot upon the robe,” he explained, “which day by day would grow larger until it reached the gorgeous scarlet of the hem. By to-morrow it will be in the hands of the greatest of all renovators, and when it comes back again I promise you that the spot will have disappeared… . And now, my friend Latoste, to conclude!”

There was a brief period of strained expectancy. The Notary stepped forward, and motioned to the gendarmes, who stood away from the door.

“It is the desire of Monsieur le Marquis,” he announced, “that his return home should be unmarred by any unpleasant episode. There is a spare motor car outside. It will be well if those who were connected with the proposal made to Monsieur le Marquis took their leave.”

They hurried off without a word of protest—Mr. Parsons, the ex- architect, Mr. Seymour, who was writing a story, and Miss Wilcock, the young lady with the travelling scholarship from an American university. Curiously enough they had scarcely crossed the threshold before the same idea seemed to occur to all of us. Monsieur Latoste passed out to see them safely off, and Madame followed. Colonel and Mrs. Grayson showed an almost indiscreet haste to disappear, and I myself, I must confess, was last. I have an idea, though, that Mr. Brown looked upon me as one who was in his secret, for as I passed him I saw his hands creep out, I saw the light steal into her face, I even heard her little sob. I glanced back once more from the doorway. The morning sunlight, pouring through the narrow window, just caught the empty space above the altar, and I fancied somehow that I could still see those gentle, kindly eyes, that benedictory hand uplifted towards the two people who stood below, clasped in one another’s arms.