Ashton-Kirk, Investigator Part 10

She rocked to and fro and fanned herself with her ap.r.o.n.

"It must have been a very severe shock, Mrs. Dwyer," agreed the coroner. "Now," after a pause, "do you know anything--however slight, mind you--that would seem to point to who did this thing?"

Mrs. Dwyer shook her head.

"Me acquaintance with Mr. Hume was a business one only, sir," she said. "I never set foot into his place further than the hall except on the days when I went to get me pay--and this morning, save us from harm!"

"You know nothing of his friends then--of his habits?"

"There is the Jew boy, outside there, that worked for him. He's a nice, good mannered little felly, and is the only person I ever see in the office when I went there, barrin' the boss himself. As for Mr.

Hume's habits, I can say only what everybody knows. He were drunk when he engaged me, and he were drunk the last time I seen him alive."

"That will be all, Mrs. Dwyer," said Stillman. "Thank you. Curran, I'll see the young man next."

As Curran and Mrs. Dwyer went out the young coroner turned to his two visitors.

"I am still a.s.sured that we have the motive for the crime in the attempt to steal the painting," he said. "But it will do no harm to get all the light we can upon every side of the matter. The smallest clue," importantly, "may prove of the utmost value at the inquest."

Ashton-Kirk smilingly nodded his entire a.s.sent to this. Then Curran showed in the clerk.

The young man still carried the thick volume and, when he sat down, laid it upon a corner of Stillman's desk. Its back was turned toward Ashton-Kirk and he noted that it was a work on anatomy such as first-year medical students use.

"What is your name, please?" asked the coroner.

"Isidore Brolatsky," replied the young man.

"You are, or were, employed by Mr. Hume?"

"As a clerk, yes, sir. I've been with him for some years." Brolatsky spoke with scarcely a trace of accent. "He didn't pay much, but then there wasn't much to do, and I had plenty of time to study."

"Ah," said Stillman, encouragingly. "To study, eh?"

"Yes. I've taken up medicine. There's a college up town that has night cla.s.ses. I have been attending the lectures there and reading during the day. There's a big chance for physicians who can speak Yiddish.

Not only to make money, but to do good."

"I see." The coroner regarded him reflectively for a moment. "Now, Mr.

Brolatsky, having worked for Hume for some years, you must have picked up some details as to his business and himself. Suppose you tell us all you know about both."

The dark face of Brolatsky became thoughtful.

"Mr. Hume was a hard man to get along with," he said. "He seemed ready to quarrel at any time with anybody. I don't recall a customer ever coming into the store that he didn't have some kind of trouble with before they went out. But he had a great knowledge of the things he dealt in. People came from far and near to get his opinion on items in their collections. His fees," with appreciation, "were large.

"But there is one thing that I noticed about him. While he knew all about objects of art, he did not seem to care for them. He had no love for his trade, no sympathy, I may say, for the collectors who came to him. I wouldn't be going far from the truth if I said that he thought them all fools for paying their money for such things. And I _know_ that he mocked them."

"Humph!" Stillman looked at Ashton-Kirk, with surprise upon his face.

"That seems odd. Men usually go into Hume's business through love of it." He turned once more to Brolatsky. "And he had no hobby of his own, no collection that he fancied more than another?"

Brolatsky nodded amusedly.

"Yes," he replied. "I was just coming to that. He _did_ have a collection that he called his own. And he never sold an item from it as long as I was with him. Indeed, I think if anybody had offered to buy, he would have come to blows with him."

Ashton-Kirk bent forward. For the first time since entering the room, he spoke.

"And what was the nature of that collection?" he inquired eagerly.

"Portraits," answered Isidore Brolatsky. "Prints, lithographs, mezzo-tints, engravings, paintings, it made no difference. And all of the same person. He had hundreds, I guess, and every one of them was of General Wayne."

Ashton-Kirk leaned back in his chair with a faint breath of triumph.

"When a portrait of General Wayne was offered him," continued Brolatsky, "he never haggled over it. He paid the price asked and seemed quite delighted to get it. It was a standing joke in the trade that if you wanted to get even with Mr. Hume for driving a hard bargain with you, all you had to do was to offer him a portrait of General Wayne. I never saw him refuse one. Even if he had dozens of duplicates, which often happened; still he'd buy."

A look of great acuteness had settled upon the face of the young coroner.

"There is a painting at one side of the show room," said he. "It is under a large green curtain. Is that of General Wayne?"

"It is," replied the clerk. "And I believe that he valued it more than anything else that he owned."

Stillman laughed with pleasure.

"Now," said he to his visitors, "we are getting at it, indeed. Someone probably knew of the value he attached to this painting and planned to steal it, perhaps for a ransom. Hume has been suspected of doing this sort of thing himself before now. He was supposed to have engaged someone to do the actual work, I believe, as in the case of the Whistler portrait of the d.u.c.h.ess of Winterton. Suppose this someone,"

and Stillman rapped his knuckles upon the edge of the desk excitedly, "took the notion to go into the picture stealing business of his own account. Hume himself with his much prized portrait of General Wayne was ready at hand--and so," with a sweeping gesture, "what has happened, has happened."

Pendleton, much impressed, looked at Ashton-Kirk. But the latter's thoughts seemed far away; his eyes were fixed upon the wall; his expression was of delighted antic.i.p.ation.

Stillman also noticed this non-attention to his reasoning, and a little wrinkle of discontent appeared between his brows. So he turned his gaze upon Brolatsky and spoke rather sharply.

"Now, as to Mr. Hume's intimates? What do you know of them?"

Isidore Brolatsky s.h.i.+fted in his chair; his long fingers began to drum upon his knees.

"I have known of the matter of the Whistler portrait," said he, "but I never knew anything more about it than what I read in the newspapers.

It happened before my time."

"I'm not accusing you," said Stillman. "I'm asking you about Hume's friends."

The clerk considered.

"There was no one that I ever saw or heard of that you could call his friend, exactly," said he at length. "He made game of people too much to have any I guess."

"Had he no a.s.sociates--no one with whom he spent his time?"

Brolatsky shook his head.

"Perhaps so; but then I was only in Christie Place during business hours. I have heard that he frequently went out at night; but where I do not know."

"Was there no one who came to visit him while you were there during the day. No one whom he spoke of in an intimate way?"

Again the clerk shook his head. Stillman began to appear nonplussed.

He looked at the other, pondering and frowning through his gla.s.ses.