An Old Master

AT FIFTEEN, Freddy Vincent was an enthusiastic bird watcher, and a period of convalescence after scarlet fever, when he was sent to stay with his aunt in Suffolk, came early in June, just at the right time for nesting migrants. But Miss Vincent had decided that he must be coddled. She ordered him to rest for an hour after every meal — to spend the mornings in the conservatory and to wear a muffler when she allowed him to go out in the afternoon. She sent him to bed hours before it was dark.

Freddy was outwardly obedient, but he made up for his deprivations by getting up an hour before dawn and spending two or three hours before breakfast exploring the hedgerows on the dewsoaked water meadows and the reed beds along the old towpath by the river.

On the second morning he followed the river up as far as the lock below Wrattenbury, where there was a big pool below the old water mill. He startled two herons; he saw a harrier and what might possibly have been a Sclavonian grebe. Then, peeping through the reeds of the river on the higher level, above the lock, instead of the duck he had hoped for, he saw an old gentleman walking from the millhouse along the opposite bank of the little river to where an easel was standing. The sun had just got up and the boy watched the artist put a canvas on his easel and begin to paint. Not wishing to be seen, Freddy remained motionless. Then after not more than ten minutes, he saw the old man stop, pack up his things, and walk back toward the millhouse with his canvas in one hand and the paintbox and the palette in the other. The light had changed.

Next morning Freddy went again to the same place, for the water mill attracted him and he thought he might find a dipper’s nest by its old wheel. Once again he saw the artist — but on this occasion the old man saw him first and greeted him with a wave of the arm and a shout of “Good morning. It’s going to be another day like yesterday,” which showed Freddy that he had been seen the day before.

Freddy waved back and replied that he hoped so, and each went on his way. After that he saw him on all his morning excursions, always in the neighborhood of the mill.

One day, when his aunt was beginning to relax her vigilance a little, she took him with her to Wrattenbury in her shooting brake. Suddenly she drew up beside the mill and led the way into the miller’s little office, where Freddy saw the artist perched on a high stool behind a huge desk, with a pair of steel spectacles on his nose.

Freddy was, even as a boy, possessed of quite exceptional moral courage. There was for him Something humorous in having to tell the truth or to face the music — and he gave a peculiar characteristic grin as he recognized the miller. He foresaw that in the next minute his early morning escapades would come out and that the explanation which seemed inevitable would be a most disagreeable one and for that reason horribly comic.

Miss Vincent introduced her nephew to Mr. Saul, saying that she had to take a great deal of care of him as he was run-down after his illness. “This is the first time he’s been out in the morning,” she said. “But it’s so fine that I thought if he were well wrapped up, a drive in the car would do him no harm.”

Mr. Saul had shown no sign of recognizing Freddy and he chuckled and said he must take care not to get a chill. Above all she must see that he never went out when the dew was on the grass. “Dew is most dangerous. I never trust myself out before it is off the grass,” he said, and with these words he winked at Freddy in a most shameless manner. Freddy was relieved that he was not going to be given away, and because he was rather clever about people, he guessed that the old gentleman would prefer him not to say anything about the painting to his aunt. Mr. Saul was a widower with a small son, and Miss Vincent was clearly attracted by him.

AFTER that Freddy often went for the holidays to stay with his aunt and kept up the friendship with old Mr. Saul. Sometimes she would tell him to go to the mill to order some linseed cake or crushed oats for her Jersey cows; sometimes he went round without any real excuse, for the mill itself fascinated him. It was a huge weatherboarded structure, painted white, which was built astride a weir on the little river with the lock beside it. A gibbet and pulley was folded against the wall, to raise sacks of grain into the mill and to load barges below with sacks of offal or flour.

When he went into the little office, Mr. Saul would greet Freddy by name, and then, if there were an order for oats or dairy nuts, he would book it. After that he would take Freddy with him into the mill next door, where there were sifters shaking, belts whirling, and sacks slowly filling from holes in the floor above.

Once or twice Freddy was sent with messages from his aunt: Would Mr. Saul come to tea on Sunday and bring his little boy? The roses wore at their best. On receiving such an invitation, Mr. Saul took a book out of his waistcoat pocket, looked carefully to see if he had a prior engagement— he never had — and then marked the day and hour before looking up at Freddy and saying in a gentle and ceremonious voice, “Trevor and I will be delighted to accept.” And then in a casual way he would say that the kingfishers were fledged and that he had seen six of them sitting in a row on a branch of the willow below the small pool.

Once, when Freddy was going away rather forlornly, because Mr. Saul was almost the only person he knew in Suffolk who interested him, the old gentleman looked him up and down attentively and asked:

“I suppose you can climb in the dark?” Freddy was surprised by the question and did not answer at once.

“I mean you are not subject to vertigo?” went on Mr. Saul.

“I’m not often giddy, if that’s what you mean,” replied Freddy.

“Well, then I’ll show you my feathered cats,” said the old man. And he led the way into a part of the mill into which Freddy had not been before.

“I shall go first,” said Mr. Saul and started climbing a ladder which disappeared through a hole in the ceiling into darkness above.

Freddy followed him and Mr. Saul grasped his arm at the top and made him take hold of the rungs of another ladder. This time the climb was longer, but a few rays of light entering here and there through the weatherboarding revealed that they were in the very top of a mansard roof, with great beams and rafters extending around them.

Again the old man helped the boy to step from the ladder onto a small platform. “You can have a good look at these beauties. I don’t think they’ll fly away,” and the old gentleman turned an electric torch full on a white owl perched not more than ten feet away. The bird remained motionless until Mr. Saul turned the light of the torch away from it. Then it opened its wings and floated into the darkness. Mr. Saul went along the platform until they werc close to the nest on which the hen bird was sitting. “I am at war here with the rats and mice,” said Mr. Saul. “No rats or mice are allowed. So I keep owls. But the young owls make their parents’ lives a burden and the old ones drive them away in self-defense. So I never have as many owls as I want.”

On the occasions when Mr. Saul came to tea Miss Vincent expected her nephew to be present. “You can play with Trevor,” she said, oblivious of the difference between sixteen and nine. Trevor was an extremely good-looking little boy with very red cheeks, very blue eyes, and a head covered with very dark, almost black curls. He was brimful of self-confidence, he was always laughing, and he was consciously manly. Miss Vincent adored him and told Freddy to show him the bagatelle board or to take him to see the calves. But these suggestions were never fruitful. Trevor preferred the old lady’s admiration. Thus both Freddy and Trevor accompanied their elders in their slow perambulation of the flower garden. Trevor would run in front, keeping himself always in full view. Freddy would walk on one side of Miss Vincent, Mr. Saul slowly on the other side. He wore very old-fashioned clothes: a pepper-and-salt morning coal and trousers made of a rough tweed and a stand-up white collar, and he held his hands behind his back and listened appreciatively while the lady rattled away about the flowers.

“Of course you are not a gardener. Your interest is purely aesthetic” was a recurring theme, and Mr. Saul never failed to agree with a gentle smile. He was not in the least bored by the lady, but he seldom said much.

THERE was an interval of three years in Freddy’s visits to his aunt. At nineteen he was no longer much interested in birds, for all his energies were devoted to the study of the history of art. Mr. Saul was still coming to tea and Freddy was again commanded to accompany the elderly pair in their walk round the flower beds. It was dahlias, not roses, they were looking at on this occasion, and Freddy was surprised to hear Mr. Saul say, “That’s very paintable,” as he pointed to a bed of them. It brought back to his mind his first sight of Mr. Saul in the early mornings and it reminded him that he had never seen any of Mr. Saul’s work. “He must be a bad painter if he wants to paint these dahlias” was his reflection. If his aunt had not been there he would perhaps have begun to talk about painting. But he felt sure that it would be a mistake to do so, for Freddy was fond of Mr. Saul and did not wish gratuitously to lead him to discuss a subject in which he was bound to make a fool of himself.

On one occasion Mr. Saul came with Trevor to tea. Freddy had left a copy of a portfolio of reproductions of Matisse’s work in the hall and he saw that Mr. Saul was looking at it while his aunt was putting on her galoshes.

“Mr. Saul is showing Trevor your book of pictures by that dreadful Frenchman,” she cried, as she crouched doubled up in the lobby, “I don’t like that kind of thing, Mr. Saul, but of course it’s very advanced, quite revolutionary no doubt. I don’t think it can be good for your boy.”

“They are silly old pictures,” said Trevor with a gay smile. “You ought to see what I can do. I paint heaps better.”

“I’m quite sure you do, Trevor,” said Miss Vincent.

This was the situation which Freddy had hoped to avoid. Mr. Saul said nothing to prevent himself from being classed by Freddy with Trevor and Miss Vincent as an ignoramus and a nincompoop. He stood silently and readily surrendered the portfolio to its owner. Then he grinned and said, “Good painting is never really revolutionary, whatever people may think” — a remark which both Freddy and his aunt took to be directed against Matisse.

The lady straightened herself and exclaimed, “There, d’you hear that, Freddy? Good painting is never revolutionary. Take your horrid Frenchman away.”

“You mistake my meaning, Miss Vincent.”

Miss Vincent was now, however, ready for the chrysanthemums, so she merely announced that her nephew would be delighted to lend the book to Trevor if he wanted to borrow it — a remark which the old gentleman could see for himself was not true.

“Trevor doesn’t want to borrow it, but you and I must have a talk about painting, Freddy, when you next visit the mill,” said the old gentleman.

“I’ll show you what I painted,” added Trevor.

Freddy thrust the portfolio out of sight, and for the first time in many years he let his visit go by without going round to see Mr. Saul.

Miss Vincent died that winter and Freddy did not see or hear of either Thomas Saul or Trevor for nine years. During that time he had held a job as an assistant curator at the Tate Gallery and had given it up, had written a book on modern art which had received a fair number of reviews, and it was to this that he owed a letter from the old miller.

“I hesitate to write to you, but you are the only person I know in the world of art in London. My son Trevor has come back from Paris, where he has been three years trying to learn to paint, and he is extremely anxious to have a show of his pictures in London. I cannot speak of his work, but I should be very grateful if you would see him and give him the benefit of your advice.”

Before Freddy had had time to answer this letter, Trevor Saul was on his doorstep. He had changed little, but had become astonishingly goodlooking. His expression was wonderfully frank and was full of the most jolly good humor. There was an overflowing bonhomie in the flash of his eyes and teeth, and the self-satisfied ripple of his laugh twinkled out the message that life and art and the fact of being young Trevor Saul were all extraordinarily good fun.

At the first sight of Trevor, Freddy had been charmed, and as it was lunchtime he had taken him out to lunch. During the meal it came out that Trevor had no studio and no place where he could unpack his pictures and where Freddy could see them. The fact was that he had not much money. His father, he confessed apologetically, had rather let him down. But he spoke very lightly about it. “It’s inevitable for old people to get left out of it — and there’s a pathetic jealousy in his attitude. It’s really far more his tragedy than mine,” he said.

Freddy was surprised that old Mr. Saul should have been mean, as it was not at all in character, but he rather admired his son’s attitude and he at once invited Trevor to send the pictures round to his flat. Trevor did not need pressing. He got up at once from the table and left the room for a moment; when he came back he said he had telephoned and had arranged for their delivery that afternoon. After lunch they went back to Freddy’s flat in Westminster to receive the crates of pictures. Freddy paid the carrier and Trevor began at once to unpack them. As he propped them up, one after another round the dining room, Freddy’s heart began to sink.

Certainly the pictures were like a lot of work being done in Paris, and with that reflection, Freddy got Atkinson of the Portheim Gallery round next morning to have a look at them. But it was no good—Atkinson had refused to be interested. Freddy tried again with Ian Matheson from Bartholdi’s, and with him he was successful.

Bartholdi’s would put Trevor into a show as one of three young painters and to Freddy’s immense relief, a week or two later, they collected the pictures. The fact that Trevor was one of three enabled Freddy to get out of writing an introductory note to the catalogue.

“Oh well, you must promise to do it next time,” said Trevor in a tone of finality. But when the next time had arrived, Trevor had got hold of someone better. To do him justice, Trevor stopped bothering Freddy directly he had got hold of more useful people, and he simply faded out of Freddy’s life. By that time Freddy had decided that Trevor’s gay friendliness, his good nature, his eager love of art, even his knowledge of Paris studios and French painters, were all bogus. And Freddy even persuaded himself that Trevor’s good looks and buoyant health were somehow bogus too. That shining Jonathan apple must be rotten at the core, just because it was so fresh and rosy. Anyway, even if Trevor were not rotten, Freddy had no longer any doubt that his pictures were.

A YEAR or two passed by, and then one morning Freddy received a card from the Portheim Gallery that greatly astonished him: A Collection of Oil Paintings by Thomas Saul.

Thomas, he remembered quite definitely, was the name of the old miller. Here, perhaps, were the fruits of the early mornings on the riverbanks. Freddy felt no curiosity to see the pictures, but he would have to look in at the gallery, pick out one or two that he could decently mention, and write a letter to the old man. He could not ignore their early friendship or forget that climb up to the roof of the mill to see the sleepy but defiant owls.

If Freddy went early to the private view it was simply to get it over: to waste as little of his day as possible. But within a few moments of walking into the gallery he knew he was in the presence of the works of a master: of a great painter whose work he had never seen before. Freddy Vincent felt his heart suddenly beating. He sensed a moment of strain, a momentary fear of being unequal to the experience. Then he had, it seemed, taken a deep breath and had let go and was being swept away off his feet and out of his depth. He spent two hours in the gallery staring at the pictures before he even remembered that they were the work of the old man he had known — of Thomas Saul. But they could have no connection . . . yet the connection was obvious: he was looking at a picture of the mill painted from across the river, from the opposite bank.

Freddy went up to Atkinson, who was sitting at a desk in the far end of the room, and said without preliminaries, “Tell me what you know about Thomas Saul.”

Atkinson pushed the detective story he had been reading under some papers. Then he made a remarkable gesture, cupping his fingers and rotating and lifting his hand. Having expressed the mysterious nature of his subject in this manner, he told Freddy that Thomas Saul had refused to have anything to do with the exhibition and had refused to reply to letters or telegrams, or to speak on the telephone. All of the pictures on view had been the property of a collector in Suffolk who had died. His executors had shown the pictures to Lesseps, the keeper of the Romilly Museum, and it was Lesseps who had taken them to Atkinson and had arranged the show.

“It’s pretty staggering,” said Freddy.

Atkinson beamed with pleasure. “I knew you would feel that. I only wish there was a hope of your saying so in print.” Then he added slyly: “Rather unlike Trevor Saul’s work, isn’t it? I don’t suppose Thomas is any relation, though it’s an unusual name.”

“He’s Trevor’s father. I used to know him quite well really, when I was a boy,” said Freddy.

Atkinson was astonished and impressed, but as Freddy was breaking away he asked, “Surely you didn’t know he painted like this?”

Freddy shook his head. “Somehow I never saw his work.”

That evening the BBC rang him up on the telephone and an intelligent female voice said, “We understand you are a personal friend of Mr. Thomas Saul . . .” and then asked him to give a talk on the artist’s life and work. Mr. Saul had refused to see an interviewer and would not speak to her on the telephone.

“Why don’t you ask his son?” asked Freddy.

“We don’t very much like that idea,” said the lady. “A son is almost bound to give a distorted picture, don’t you think?”

“I’m quite sure Trevor Saul would,” replied Freddy, after which all he could do was to agree to give a talk, a week later, on Thomas Saul and His Art.

NEXT morning Freddy asked himself with dismay what he knew about the old miller after all. His youthful memories amounted to very little. Such a wonderful opportunity had been presented to him — and he had so studiously refused to take advantage of it! Thomas Saul had invited him to come round for a talk about painting. He had deliberately avoided going to the mill and had never seen the old gentleman again. It might have changed his whole life!

Looking back on his stupidity roused him to the reflection that it would not help him much with his talk for the BBC. He had promised to talk on Thomas Saul and all he could offer was the story of his own deficiencies at nineteen! It was clear that he could not attempt to presume on his former acquaintance to ask Mr. Saul for an interview. But with the broadcast looming up before him, Freddy realized he would have to get some facts from somewhere and that the only possible source was Trevor. He would have to know when Thomas Saul was born, when he started to paint, and where he had studied.

Trevor looked rather surprised when he opened the door of his studio, but he invited Freddy in with his usual cheerfulness.

“I’ve come to ask about your father’s pictures,” said Freddy. Trevor broke into laughter.

“Really, I am intensely amused,” he said. “All the same, though I only see the humorous side of it, it is rather serious for me. I mean using the name, and unfortunately the initials are the same. I can’t tell you how many of the critics have rung me up. You’re not the first by any means. The cream of the joke is that they all take the old boy seriously as a painter — and as I can’t afford to offend those chaps, I have to pretend to treat him seriously too. I hope you haven’t been spoofed.”

Freddy gave the grin which was characteristic of him when he told an unpalatable truth. “I think he’s magnificent, a very great painter,” he said.

“Well, well, I only hope you get over it.” said Trevor laughing with almost his usual laugh. “Don’t think I grudge mon papa his amazing success. I should be delighted if it did anyone any good. But the ridiculous side of it is that apparently he doesn’t want it. He won’t get any of the money — and I hear that they are selling. In fact he’s far more furious than I was when I first heard about it.”

“Why should you be furious?” Freddy was so astonished that he did not for the moment feel angry.

Trevor laughed. “Ah well, I’m never furious, I’ve too much sense of the absurdity of the whole thing. But they have had the nerve to ask prices about treble what I can get — and then — well — you must see it’s extremely tiresome about the name.”

Freddy was suddenly angry. However, he gave his queer truth-telling grin and said, “It’s an honor for you to have the same name.”

Trevor’s laugh this time sounded genuine enough. “We won’t argue about it any more, after that, old man.”

Freddy was still grinning as he said, “All right, I’ll say nothing except that I am quite sure that within a very few weeks you’ll echo all that the critics have been saying about your father’s work. What I’ve come about,” continued Freddy in a pleasanter tone, “was to collect a few facts about your father — how old he is, where he studied painting, and so on.”

Trevor’s laughter became rather obviously condescending as he told Freddy the information he was in search of It was clear that he was not only furious at the exhibition of his father’s pictures, but that he disliked the subject of his father, and that he had no affection or love for him. But he said nothing of a quarrel or anything that could explain this breach.

When Freddy left he had learned the dates of Thomas Saul’s birth, of his marriage, and of the death of his wife. He had found out that, as a young man, Thomas Saul had lived in France for about ten years and had studied under Jacques Emil Blanche. Then his father had died and he had returned to Suffolk about the year 1910, to take over the management of the mill in order to support a bedridden mother and an invalid sister. He had never quite given up painting, but he painted very little and had always been extremely secretive about his work.

Trevor had been surprised to find that his father had sold as many as the thirty-seven pictures being exhibited at the Portheim Gallery. But it was easier to understand since they had all belonged to one collector, who must, in Trevor’s opinion, have been completely crazy.

“You must realize by now that everyone who matters shares his opinion of your father.”

“Well, I can’t help being a bit cynical. I wonder how many years it will be before it is my turn.”

Freddy was silent and Trevor went on: “It never occurred to me that they were worth more than the canvas they were painted on. Indeed I suppose you would be awfully shocked if I told you that when I was short of canvas I commandeered some of them and did my paintings on top.”

And with Trevor’s laugh ringing in his ears, Freddy departed vowing he would never go near him again.

ABOUT a week after his broadcast, when Freddy was shaving, he suddenly remembered Trevor Saul’s words about having painted over some of his father’s pictures. It was obvious that if he bought these canvases, he might get the Trevor Sauls cleaned off and discover magnificent Thomas Sauls below. The moment this idea had come to him, Freddy felt no scruples. It was horrible to think of Trevor painting over his father’s masterpieces, and the idea of uncovering them gave him a thrill of piratical ecstasy. It was a grim and wonderful lesson that he would teach Trevor!

He must see Trevor at once — but he might find it very difficult to find out which of Trevor’s pictures had been painted over those of Thomas Saul. He could not hint at his motives in buying them.

Freddy found the task of picking out the pictures he wanted was ridiculously easy. Pictures painted by Trevor when he was in Paris could be dismissed, and so could his most recent works in London. Freddy could therefore confine his serious attention to those painted while Trevor was at Wrattenbury or immediately after his return to London. Trevor’s style made it impossible to pick out those painted at Wrattenbury by their subjects. But Freddy did not hesitate to ask where a picture had been painted. The Wrattenbury pictures he considered at length, and as he picked them up and placed them in different lights he was able to examine their backs. One of them had a label on the back of the canvas. “Newman, Soho Square,” a business which had left Soho Square several years before Trevor had begun painting. Freddy picked it out and asked its price.

“I’m delighted you should have my work,” Trevor said. “I’ll let you have it very cheap indeed.”

Finally Freddy picked out another picture, which although it had no label on the back was painted on an old and dusty stretcher.

“I should like to buy these two,” he said.

“You can have them for a hundred and twenty,” said Trevor. “I painted them about the same time.”

“Your best period,” said Freddy and took out his checkbook with shaky fingers. He was no longer acting: the gambler’s fever had suddenly seized him. He handed the check to Trevor and suddenly, in a moment of suspicion, asked for a receipt.

Trevor laughed at the request, but he was quite ready to humor him and at last Freddy was able to get away. It was still bright daylight — only half past eight by Summer Time.

Back in his rooms Freddy gazed upon his booty. It was the first time he had really looked at either. One, the big canvas, was partly a collage of miscellaneous objects which included a hair net and the hand and dial of a barometer pointing to NO CHANGE, with a thunderstorm and a shipwreck in the background. The other, a smaller picture in surrealist mood, showed a butcher boy’s wooden trencher for delivering meat, on which were packed for delivery a female breast, a cleft human head, and a couple of children’s feet. Even if the canvases on which these were painted had originally been bought by old Mr. Saul, there was no reason to believe he had painted pictures on them or that they had ever been completed.

Freddy had acted upon intuition, and that evening he gave way to a mood of depression which was only increased by gazing at Trevor’s work. It was a long time before he could get to sleep. Next morning his excitement returned, and the reflection that even if he were left with a couple of blank canvases, he would not be saddled with Trevor’s pictures cheered him up.

He called up Kopernik, a picture cleaner whom he had met when he was at the Tate, and made an appointment. Then he drove round to Kopernik’s workshop with his two canvases and told him to clean off a corner of each and find out if there was a painting underneath.

Kopernik was a very honest Czech and he looked puzzled and suspicious. “I don’t like this job,” he said. “I don’t like funny business.”

Freddy found that it was impossible to reassure him without telling him the whole story of Trevor Saul and his father. Then the big clumsy-looking man burst into roars of laughter.

Kopernik was delighted when he realized that Freddy had not seen the pictures and that he did not even know for certain that they were there. He began work at once, pouring a few drops of liquid onto the canvas and rubbing vigorously first with his hand and then with a cotton-wool swab. After five minutes’ work, he was able to say definitely that there was a picture underneath the bigger of Trevor’s paintings.

Freddy went away exulting and determined not to go back till the picture had been completely laid bare.

Two days later his bell rang and Kopernik came in carrying the big picture. Solemnly he unwrapped it and set it on the sideboard. Once again Freddy felt his heart beating uncontrollably; he drew a great breath and his eyes dazzled. It was a picture of the millhouse, painted with extraordinary rapidity and firmness in the first light of morning. And it was his to keep forever.

They were still looking at the picture an hour later when there was a ring at the bell and to Freddy’s horror he found Trevor on the doorstep.

“Oh, I discovered you had taken the wrong pictures the other evening,” he began. “I wanted to do a study from one of them.”

Freddy did not ask him to come in, for the big Thomas Saul was just round the corner, visible from the lobby, through the open dining-room door. Trevor had only to take two steps in to see it.

“I’m awfully sorry,” Freddy said. “But there’s nothing doing. I paid what you asked and I don’t want to change.”

“I had much rather you had more representative specimens of my work,” said Trevor. “Neither of those pictures shows me at my best.”

“I don’t want your work at all.”

Freddy was aware of Kopernik listening on the other side of the door, and he knew he was trapped in one of those comic situations when he had to tell the truth. He giggled slightly and gave a peculiarly exasperating grin before he said, “I want what I have got.”

He stepped back into the lobby and Trevor followed him, and suddenly saw the cleaned picture propped up on the sideboard facing him. He saw Trevor’s face change: the rather irritated bantering look was replaced by something that was rage or terror or madness. Trevor half shouted: “You are a damned swindler. If you don’t return those pictures I’ll sue you for false pretenses.”

“No, you won’t, Trevor. It wouldn’t look at all well if the story came out.”

Trevor was silent and Freddy went on mercilessly: “You are making a great mistake in undervaluing your father’s work. It isn’t, for one thing, at all becoming.”

Trevor laughed suddenly. “You don’t honestly think he painted better than I do,” he said. “You are just muscling in on a racket.”

Freddy was still grinning as he shook his head. “No, I’m not. I shan’t ever sell this picture. I haven’t seen the other yet, so I can’t promise about that.”

Trevor half stooped and suddenly straightening himself hit Freddy unexpectedly as hard as he could in the mouth. Freddy reeled back and collapsed on the floor.

“You won’t get away with it,” Trevor shouted.

But just as he was dashing into the dining room, the Czech, who had remained unseen, stepped forward and blocked his way. By the time Freddy had come to himself, Trevor was gone, and Kopernik was wiping his face with a towel wrung out in cold water. His lip was badly cut and a tooth was loose. Turning his head he saw the picture by Thomas Saul was safe.

“He would have destroyed it if he could have got to it,” said Kopernik, dramatizing the situation. Freddy had never been suddenly assaulted before and he exaggerated the importance of the incident and began to imagine all sorts of nonsensical things in consequence. Trevor, he thought, would attack him again. Or he would burgle his flat. Or he would go down to Wrattenbury and destroy all his father’s pictures he could find. He was glad to have Kopernik with him, and after carefully locking up the picture and the flat went back with him to his workshop.

Kopernik had cleaned a small square patch off the second picture, revealing Thomas Saul’s paint, which showed that it was a portrait. Looking at this square of paint Freddy was seized with a vindictive fury against the barbarian who had done such a foul action and had then attacked him.

“Only clean half of this off,” he said. “Leave the other side.” For he had decided to go down to Suffolk and tell the whole story.

Two days later, Freddy parked his car outside the mill and went into the office. There had been changes and old Mr. Saul was no longer on his accustomed high stool. “Oh, he’s not what he was,” said the clerk. “His heart has been bad. But I’ll take him your name and I dare say he’ll see you.” When the messenger returned Freddy was taken to the millhouse.

There in a small room sat his old friend, looking very much altered. He was bald, and the hair that remained was very white. His cheeks had dropped and were pale, but his eyes were as blue as ever.

“Well, you broadcast about me. I was a good deal annoyed with you. Then you told them about climbing up to look at my owls — so I thought I would forgive you. But what do you fellows in London think of Trevor?” he went on. “That’s what I want to know.”

“We are much more concerned with having discovered you. You are a very great painter, sir. One of the very few great English painters of modern times.”

“No, no,” replied Thomas Saul. “I haven’t had the time. You can’t paint well unless you paint all day and every day. Like most Englishmen, I’m a bit of an amateur. But Trevor won’t have that handicap. He’s a whole-time painter. He wrote to me last week and told me you had bought two of his pictures. That’s really why I asked you to come in. I want to hear what you think of him.”

Freddy sat silent. His face must have shown some strange emotion, for old Saul looked at him and said, “Well, what have you come to tell me?”

Freddy’s plan had been to denounce Trevor, to accuse him of barbarous insincerity, to show his father the half-cleaned portrait half daubed over with Trevor’s idiotic composition. But all this seemed very difficult.

“What we want to know is how much you have painted. To save your work. To raise a subscription so it can be bought for the nation by the Contemporary Art Society.”

“It’s too late for that,” said old Saul. “I don’t know what there is now. Trevor will have it all when I’m dead.”

Freddy sat silent, but his pity was giving place to indignation. At last he grinned nervously, reflecting that he had come to tell the truth and that to try and escape it would be cowardice. Both he and Thomas Saul must face the truth together.

“It is true that I bought two pictures from your son. I bought them because I guessed that he had painted them over pictures by you — that your paintings were there and that I could save them. I’ll show them to you.”

He jumped up and ran out to fetch the pictures from his car.

When he came back the old man said nothing and shifted his position slightly. Freddy propped up the half-cleaned picture on a chair and then looked at old Saul.

A patch of color came into his cheek. “Take it away. Take it away,” he said. He was breathing very fast.

“Then I bought this one,” said Freddy, putting the big picture up to be looked at. The old man gazed at it for a long time in silence.

“That is the one that Trevor asked me for,” he said. “Trevor doesn’t care for my work and I don’t understand his. But he asked me for that picture. You see, he didn’t paint over that one.”

Freddy sat silent, feeling like an Avenging Angel that had suddenly lost its tongue.

The old man was gasping a little and Freddy was not at all certain how much he had taken in of what he had said.

At last Thomas Saul looked up at him and said, “You had no right to destroy Trevor’s picture. You have no right to come here like this. You have no right . . .” He put his hands onto the arms of his chair and tried to rise, but instead of rising he pitched forward in a faint and Freddy saw his temple hit against the edge of the brass fender.

Freddy rushed forward, picked him up, and called for help as he tried to stop the blood flowing from the old man’s forehead. The housekeeper came at once, and the clerk came over from the mill, and together they carried Thomas Saul to his bed. Freddy waited till the doctor had come and gone; then he went out into the yard, put his two pictures into his car, and drove away. He drove slowly and, for almost the first time in his life, he felt bitterly ashamed of what he had done. He had meant to punish Trevor, to save and guard old Saul’s pictures — instead of which he had been guilty of a brutal and dastardly action wounding the old man he had always loved and whom he now revered. And he realized that he was morally lower than Trevor. He had saved two pictures, but only by swindling Trevor and insulting him. Trevor had been quite right to knock him down.

All the way back to London his features remained twisted in the same bitter grin. He knew and loved Thomas Saul better than anyone living, and he thought that he had probably killed him. The words “You have no right to come here like this. You have no right . . .” haunted him. His handkerchief was soaked in Thomas Saul’s blood. The only grain of comfort that came to him was when he carried the pictures back into his flat. They, at any rate, would survive Trevor and himself, as well as the man he had wounded.

But Thomas Saul did not die until two years later, and Freddy did not have to reproach himself with having killed him.

In his will old Saul left everything to his son, and a few months later an exhibition of all the work the old master had left behind was shown at Bartholdi’s.

Trevor Saul made an introductory speech in the circular room downstairs at the opening of the private view. He was beautifully dressed and extraordinarily handsome and beamed with a tender friendliness at them all. He described his father’s character — his love of the English countryside, of which he had become a part and which, Trevor said, more than made up to him for the great sacrifice he had made in his youth.

“Sometimes, however,” said Trevor, “he had moods of savagery and bitterness and then he would slash to ribbons any of his paintings he came across. I was able to save two or three of the very finest specimens of his work by carrying them off and painting over them with rough sketches of my own. He never dreamed that I always meant to have my own crude daubs cleaned off, but that is, of course, what I have done. As a matter of fact, owing to an accident, two of these pictures were sold to an old friend of mine for a very low sum of money. But I am glad to say I was able to tell him that he had made a better bargain than he knew — and he is now the fortunate possessor of two of the greatest works of Thomas Saul. There are no hard feelings, are there?” he ended with a jolly laugh, looking up at Freddy. “But I am afraid the next time he buys some of my pictures, I cannot promise that he will get such a good bargain.”

There was some well-bred laughter and some clapping from the audience, after which Freddy Vincent got up and left the room. He gave a wild grin but he had no desire to defend himself.