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MR. HIGBY FEWSTON was well satisfied with the next morning's newspapers. Hector Bushell saw to it that every office was supplied with information of the merits and doings of that patron of fine art, and during the day the evening papers interviewed Mr. Fewston himself, to the combined glory of Fewston and Blenkinsop. Mr. Fewston expressed strong opinions as to the inefficiency of the police, and made occasion to allude to his views on the London County Council. Speaking as an art critic Mr. Fewston considered Mr. Blenkinsop certainly the greatest painter of the present time; and the stolen masterpiece was a great loss to him, personally, the intending purchaser. There could be no doubt, in Mr. Fewston's mind, that the same clever gang had captured the two great pictures—evidently educated criminals of great artistic judgment. And then came certain notable and mysterious hints as to astonishing things that Mr. Fewston might say as to the whereabouts of the plunder, if it were judicious—which at this moment, of course, it was not.

The "boom" went so well that Sydney Blenkinsop himself began to look upon his sudden notoriety with a more complacent eye. In another day or two the affair had run best part of the ordinary course of a newspaper sensation, the Bishop of London had given his opinion on it, and while the Gainsborough column shrank considerably, the Blenkinsop column became a mere paragraph at its foot. It would seem to be the proper moment for the recovery of the picture.

And now it grew apparent that this was the great difficulty. What had been done was easy enough; it had almost done itself—with the constant help of Hector. But to restore the picture—naturally, unsuspiciously, and without putting anybody in gaol—this was a job that grew more difficult the more it was considered. Hector Bushell grew unwontedly thoughtful, and Sydney Blenkinsop began to get ungrateful again. He had been dragged up a blind alley, he said, and now he wanted to know the way out. Hector smoked a great many strong cigars without being able to tell him.

They parted moodily one night toward the end of the week, and the next day Sydney was alone in his studio all the morning. He was growing fidgety and irritable, notwithstanding his new-found eminence, and he wondered what kept Hector away. Was he going to shirk now that the real pinch was coming? Work was impossible, so the partaker in Gainsborough's glory loafed and smoked and kicked his furniture, and smoked and loafed again. His lunch was brought him from the corner public-house, and he ate what he could of it. Then he took to looking out of door, as is the useless impulse of everybody anxiously awaiting a visitor. He had done it twice, and was nearing the lobby again when the cry of a running newsboy struck his ear. He pulled the door open hurriedly, for in the shout he seemed to hear something like the name Gainsborough. There came the boy, shouting at each studio door as he passed, and waving his papers. Sydney extended his coin and snatched the paper as the boy ran past. It was fact; he had heard the name of Gainsborough, for the thousandth time that week. The picture had been discovered in the thief's lodgings, but the thief had bolted and was still at large. There was not much of it under the staring headline, but so much was quite clear. The picture was found, but the thief had got away.

Wasn't there a chance in this? Surely there ought to be. Why didn't Hector Bushell come? Surely, if they were prompt enough, some little dodge might be built on this combination of circumstances, by which his picture might be brought to light again—this also without the thief. They knew, now, where the thief had been, and that he was gone. This was good news. Hector could certainly make something of that. Where was he?

He was at the door in the Iobby, in the studio, even as the thought passed. Flushed and rumpled, wild of eye, with dust on his coat and a dint in his hat, Hector Bushell dropped into the nearest seat with an inarticulate "G'lor!"

"What's up?" cried Sydney. "The Gainsborough—do you know? They've got it!"

"Blow the Gainsborough—where's the Blenkinsop? Sydney, it's a bust up!"

"What is?"

"The whole festive caboodle! The entire bag of tricks! My mother's been and sent the roll of stair-carpet to the jumble sale!"

"The what?"

"Jumble sale—Mrs. Fewston's jumble sale; Stockjobbers' Almhouse fund!"

"Great heavens!"—Sydney leapt for his hat—"where is it? When is it! What—"

"No go!" interrupted Hector, with a feeble wave of the hand. "No go! It's to-day—I've been there. Blazed off there the moment I knew it. They'd sold the carpet to an old woman just before I arrived. Nice girl I know, helping at Mrs. Fewston's stall, told me that. Just then up came Mrs. Fewston herself, glaring straight over my head as though I was too small and too beastly to look at. A dead cut, if ever I saw one! I felt a bit uneasy at that. But the nice girl told me the name of the old woman who had the carpet and where she lived. So I streaked out after her and caught her two streets off; she was shoving her plunder home in a perambulator. I grabbed it with both hands and offered to buy it. I was a bit wild and sudden, I expect, and the old girl didn't understand; started screaming, and laid into me with an umbrella. I wasn't going to wait for a crowd, so I out with the stair-carpet and bowled it open all along the pavement. There was no picture in it—nothing! I kicked it the whole length out, all along the street, and then pelted round the next corner while the old party was tangled up with the other end. Sydney, my boy, Fewston's got that picture now! The carpet was sent to the house!"

"What in the world shall we do? We're in a fine sort of mess!"

For a time Hector Bushell had no answer: he was considering many things. Mrs. Fewston's disdainful cut; the fact that the carpet—and the picture—had been in Fewston's house since the evening of the day before yesterday. Also he wondered why Fewston had made no sign. He had had a full day and a half to flare up in, if he had felt that way inclined; but there had been no flare. Why? Hector's faculties gradually ranged themselves and he began to understand. Could Fewston afford to stultify himself after the advertisement he had so eagerly snatched? And there were the interviews in the newspapers! And the County Council election! And the limited company! It grew plain that Mr. Fewston's interests were not wholly divorced from their own, after all.

"What shall we do?" reiterated Sydney, wildly. "We're in a most hideous mess!"

"Mess?" repeated Hector, straightening his hat and gradually assuming his customary placidity. "Mess? Oh, I don't know, after all. I was a bit startled at first, but we haven't accused anybody, you know. We're perfectly innocent. If you like to authorize me to get in at your studio window to fetch a picture, why shouldn't you? And if the police like to jump to conclusions—well, they ought to know better. Lend me a clothes-brush."

"But what about Fewston?"

"That's why I want the clothes-brush. He's in it pretty deep, one way and another, eh? We'll go round and collect that money."