“I used to doubt whether their small son, Robin, would much mend matters. For Robin too was vague – although in what might be called a potentially more distinguished way. He was a shy child, but with some hidden flame in him – of passion, of imagination: one couldn’t tell what. Certainly he was more likely to add something to the ideal than to the practical world. I’m afraid that I can’t describe him better than that – which is a pity, since my story turns on him.”
“Robin Fray is its hero?” The Archdeacon asked this.
And Appleby nodded. “Yes. Not, I’m glad to say, the tragic hero. Although in a sense, it was a near thing.”
“I don’t need to tell you much about the house-party. It wasn’t large, and we nearly all were friends of long standing. But there were three exceptions. Miss Shibley was an elderly woman who painted dogs, and John Fray’s admiration for this accomplishment was so great that he had made Elizabeth invite her to stop, pretty well out of the blue. Then there was a fellow called Habgood, who appeared to do free-lance articles on country houses for the magazines. Finally, and in rather a different category, there was an American cousin, Charles Fray.
“The actual cousinship must have been extremely remote, since the American branch of the family had been established in New England for many generations. But I was amused to notice that Charles knew far more about the family history than John did. Not that Charles obtruded his knowledge. He was an observant, rather diffident bachelor. It was with some surprise that I gathered he was a highly successful business executive and extremely wealthy. He was due to conclude his visit a couple of days after my own arrival. I was sorry about this, because he seemed to me a thoroughly nice fellow.
“I’ve mentioned the Long Gallery. We had tea there on the last afternoon of Charles Fray’s stay, and it happened that he and I made a little tour of inspection of the paintings lining one side of the place. There were a great many of them, although if Frays had ever had luck on their continental wanderings, and brought home a Titian or a Rubens, it had long since gone to the sale room. But there is often a mild charm in a collection of mediocre pictures that have accreted over some centuries in that sort of house, and my American acquaintance was clearly delighted with this record of his English relatives’ artistic tastes.
“There was one painting in particular that he paused before. For some moments I couldn’t see why. It was a small autumnal landscape with figures, executed in the Flemish taste of the late sixteenth century, which would have been pleasing enough if the quality of the painting hadn’t been rather notably poor. What was represented was a bleak, level scene, with a windmill in the middle distance and the towers of a tiny town closing the horizon. In the foreground was the gable of a house, with an attic window out of which a small boy was gazing rather disconsolately at the prospect. I had just taken this in when Charles Fray touched my arm and pointed across the Gallery. I saw his point. There, through the large Tudor window, was an actual landscape very like the painted one we had been glancing at. It was possible to guess at once what had prompted some bygone Fray to make this particular purchase. But that, at the moment, wasn’t all. At the real window our small friend Robin was himself gazing wistfully out over the bare fields. He and the boy in the picture, one could feel, were both longing for a gorgeous fall of snow.”
Appleby paused on this. The Archdeacon, whose successfully accomplished ghost story gave him the status of a performer who had retired into the wings, judged it proper to offer a word of encouragement. “A pleasing incident,” he said. “It makes a picture in itself.”
“No doubt. But it was then handled a shade heavily – chiefly by Miss Shibley, the woman who painted dogs. She came up at that moment, and I pointed out the correspondence that had attracted us. She brought it into general notice, and even teased Robin a little. She asked him if he knew the painting was a magic painting, and that it would never, never snow again outside until it had snowed in the painting first. It would have been difficult to tell what Robin made of this. I thought Charles Fray looked a little startled, and that at the same time he was watching the child curiously. Then he turned the conversation by asking John whether he knew anything about the origin of the Flemish painting.
“But John, of course, was as vague as usual. He had once been told some story about it, which had entirely gone out of his head. He did remember that when his father died there had been some reason for having it specially looked at by the fellow who came down and valued everything. It hadn’t proved to be worth much.
“Habgood, the guest who went round writing up country houses, took a hand at this point. That is to say, he peered at the painting with a good deal of curiosity, and then rather baldly remarked that its owner was certainly right, and that it was artistically worthless. I believe John Fray was slightly nettled; probably he liked the thing just because it had a smack of his own familiar landscape; and the incident was closed by some other guest having the good sense to cause a diversion.
“The next morning Charles Fray took his departure. I remember him looking up at the sky as he prepared to step into his car, and saying – in rather a whimsical tone – something about snow coming soon. It was true that that great sky appeared heavy with it. But certainly not a flake had fallen.
“And now I come to the sudden crisis of the affair. What remained of the party was gathered in the drawing-room shortly after lunch when Robin burst in upon us like a small madman. ‘It’s come!’ he shouted. ‘It’s come, it’s come, it’s come!’ His eyes were blazing, and as he stared at us it happened that for a second I met his gaze directly. You remember my saying that there was a moment not simply of the mysterious, but of mystery, in the business? Well, this was it. The boy had met a mystery. He had met the real thing. And he was exalted.
“But now his mother was pulling him up – gently enough, but decidedly. ‘Robin dear, don’t be so noisy. And what has come?’
“‘The snow. It’s come, I tell you!’
“I think we all turned and looked through the window. The sky was more leaden than ever – but still no snow was falling. And suddenly the boy laughed – quite wildly. ‘Sillies!’ he shouted. ‘Dear old sillies! Not outside. In the picture. Don’t you remember? It has to be in the picture – first.’
“There was an awkward silence. Some of us, I imagine, supposed the child to be delirious, and the more obtuse may have concluded that it was all some sort of impertinent joke. I could see Robin’s parents exchange an alarmed glance. They were simple souls, remember, and probably regarded their boy as being at best quite dangerously dreamy and fanciful.
“Habgood was the first person to produce what looked like a sensible reaction. ‘I suppose,’ he said, ‘that somebody may have been perpetrating a trick up there? I’ll go and see.’ And then he turned to Robin. ‘There’s often a good deal of magic in pictures, you know. But it doesn’t always last.’ He gave the boy a kindly pat on the shoulder, and left the room.
“For some seconds we were all silent. And then somebody gave a little involuntary exclamation, and pointed to the window. The first flakes were coming down.”
Our hostess gave a deft kick at her small log, and flame flickered up around it. “I hope,” she said, “there was magic in the picture.”
Appleby nodded. “I was hoping so, too. And I was in possession, you know, of an important piece of evidence.”
“Evidence?”
“Just that single glance of the boy’s. To a policeman, a wink – or call it the absolute absence of one – ought to be as good as a nod, any day. Somehow it suddenly struck us that we’d all better follow Habgood up to the Long Gallery. I said so, pretty vigorously – and then led the way, with Robin’s hand in mine.
“As we mounted the final flight of stairs, Habgood came down to meet us. He glanced at the boy, and for a moment he just didn’t appear to know what to say. It was uncomfortable, as you may guess. And then he found what wasn’t a bad tone – light, but not in the least condescending or f
acetious. ‘It’s gone. Robin. It’s gone, as it came. It’s true, isn’t it, that all snow doesn’t lie?’
“The boy said nothing, but I felt his hand tremble, and I saw that he had gone very pale. Suddenly he gave a tug; I let him go; and he ran to the far end of the Gallery where the picture hung. By the time he got to the end of that long vista he looked quite comically – or tragically – small.
“When we came up with him he was very still, gazing at the familiar, the mediocre, the untransformed autumnal painting – hanging as it had always hung on the known, predictable wall. He seemed to have no disposition to cry, and for a moment nobody had anything to say. Then some worthy woman began talking nervously to Elizabeth Fray about tricks of light, and what a charming fancy of Robin’s it had been. Outside, the snow was still falling.
“I looked at the little painting, and suddenly I was quite sure that there should indeed be snow there too. This wasn’t entirely intuition. I had, in fact, been doing my best to think. And now I asked John Fray to close the doors at either end of the Gallery, and to let nobody out. Then I searched the place – pretty grimly, for I had a notion that, so far as the boy’s confidence in this universe was concerned, rather a lot depended on it. Of course there hadn’t been time to find a really cunning hiding-place. Within half an hour, Robin had his snow-scene in his hands.”
The girl who had wanted a sealed room and a thrilling chase cried out delightedly at this. “Really and truly?”
Appleby smiled at her.
“Really and truly. There it was: the same landscape, the same attic window, the same small boy. But everywhere, snow. And such snow! Teniers couldn’t have done it. Nor could he have done the figures with which the small landscape was peopled. Against that snow their life was miraculous. What Robin Fray held was, in its minor way, a masterpiece. Which is what, from the elder Breughel, you might expect.”
Appleby had paused.
“Explanations? Well, not many are needed. What had prompted Miss Shibley to her joke about the picture being transformed into a snow-scene? The subconscious memory of a bit of art-history gathered in her student days. What had sent Habgood, the only man with any sort of connoisseurship, to the Long Gallery, before anybody else could check up on Robin’s apparently fantastic story? Fuller knowledge of the same bit of history. That was as much as I could obscurely guess while the episode was taking place. Now I can add what I discovered later.
“Breughel is believed to have painted four companion pictures: an identical scene, but at the four seasons of the year. Spring and Summer survive – the first in Hungary and the second in a public collection in New York.
"Long ago, a Fray came into possession of Autumn. But his grandson – it was long before a Pieter Breughel was accounted very valuable – gave it away to a friend who fancied it, but first caused a mediocre copy to be made by an itinerant painter from the Low Countries. No doubt he wanted some record of a landscape that a little recalled his own estate. Later still, the original Autumn perished in a fire. The copy that remained at Fray had, of course, no more than historical interest or value; nobody would give more than a few hundred pounds for it at the most.
“The fourth painting, Winter, had long been thought to have perished. But Charles Fray, who was a collector, had run it to earth somewhere. Knowing that the English Frays had once owned the original Autumn, he brought Winter with him on his visit, intending it as a parting gift – a princely gift – to his kinsman and to the home of his ancestors. Miss Shibley’s joke prompted him to substitute it for the old copy of Autumn just before leaving. The old copy of Autumn itself he simply left leaning against the wall. The situation, he supposed, would thus at once explain itself, and at the same time give Robin, to whom he had taken a great fancy, a little amusement.
“So you see what happened. As soon as Robin tumbled in on us with his story, Habgood realised that Winter had turned up – and that if he could make off with it when only Robin had seen it, the boy would simply be disbelieved. Things might, of course, go wrong if Charles Fray made inquiries. But if Charles got no acknowledgement of his gift from his English kinsman he would almost certainly remain silent; and if Winter was subsequently heard of on the market he would presume that John Fray was behind the sale. Habgood was astute.”
Our hostess considered. “But not at all nice. What happened to Winter?”
“It hangs in Robin Fray’s bedroom now. And I don’t think he’ll ever have to sell it. The benevolent transatlantic cousin has been around again, and Robin looks like being his heir.”
HERE IS THE NEWS
“The Steel affair?” Appleby nodded through a drift of cigar-smoke. “I was certainly involved in it – although purely by chance. I stumbled into the thing. Or it might be better to say that I braked on it – hard.”
At this, recollection came to me. “In fact, Appleby, you were in a car immediately behind?”
“I was – and it may be that I was driving a shade faster than I ought to have been. It was at night, you know, and there were pockets of mist here and there on the road. Still, I was doing nothing reckless. The car in front – it appeared to be a large limousine – was making as good a pace as I had a mind to myself, so I was keeping about a hundred yards behind. The thing happened just when it had swung round a bend.”
“The shooting?”
“Well, in the first instance it was simply that the driver of this big car must have stopped uncommonly quickly. The surface was good – but nevertheless he had skidded, slewed across the road, and ended with one front wheel in the ditch. ‘Ended’ is, of course, the word. By the time I arrived on the scene John Steel was dead. Shot through the temple.”
Appleby paused on this, and I asked a question. “Steel was known to you?”
“Not from Adam – except, of course, by reputation. He was a man of some consequence – even notoriety – in his particular business world. He was credited with immense brains. Quite a lot of them were spattered about inside that car. The name – the impressive name of John Steel – was murmured or muttered or gasped at me by the young man.”
“There had been somebody else with Steel?”
“There was this young secretary, who was called Briggs. He was out in the road when I came up – with the revolver in his hands, turning it over and staring at it.”
I shook my head. “He oughtn’t to have been doing that.”
Appleby smiled grimly. “People do. Fingerprints and so forth don’t much stick in a layman’s head when he is suddenly confronted with violent death. And young Briggs had all the appearance of having sustained a tremendous shock. He was in a sort of daze or dream. Indeed, there was something puzzling about him – something I couldn’t place. And that, mind you, although my experience with such situations and conditions now has a very tolerable claim to be called extensive.”
“What did Briggs say?”
“For a time he said nothing very coherent. But what I gathered from him eventually was this. He had accompanied his employer on a visit to his partner, Charles Counterpoynt, in the country. The two partners had talked business in private for the better part of the day. Then there had been dinner, and after that Steel and young Briggs had set off on their return to town. Briggs had a notion that Counterpoynt, too, was returning to town tonight, and was probably some way behind us on the road at that moment.”
“Steel had no chauffeur with him?”
“No. He drove himself, and Briggs was shoved into the back, with a glass partition up and a blind down, so that he could have a light on and work at some papers. It was a regular set-up, it seems, when those two drove through the night. Only this time it hadn’t quite worked, for Briggs had felt uncontrollably drowsy and dropped into a sleep. Or so he said.”
“And what else did he say?”
“He said that what woke him up was the car coming to a stop with a jerk and then tilting over. Knowing that something must be badly wrong, he let up the blind in front of him. He was just in time to see his
employer, still at the wheel, in the act of blowing his brains out. He didn’t remember clearly anything after that until I found him standing in the road holding the gun.”
I shook my head. “It must have struck you as a pretty queer yarn, my dear Appleby. Here is this financial magnate driving composedly through the night in what was virtually entire solitude. And then quite suddenly he pulls up, produces a revolver, and shoots himself. It just doesn’t make sense.”
“Quite so. And Briggs was evidently aware that things wore an ugly look. I thought it proper to tell him at once that I happened to be from Scotland Yard. He was scared stiff, and mumbled something about saying nothing more except in the presence of his solicitor. We might well have got no further, but for the arrival, with a hoot and a scream of brakes, of Charles Counterpoynt. That livened things up.”
“Steel’s partner?”
“Yes – and what you might call a dominating personality. It took him no time to size up the situation and he seemed all for pushing us about. Briggs was prepared to take it. But it’s something that a policeman, whether he be a constable or Assistant Commissioner, doesn’t in these circumstances at all fancy. And when Counterpoynt told me to drive off and find a doctor, I was prompted to a little hard professional thinking. I wonder if you’d care to hear the result?”
“Hear the result?” I watched Appleby in some surprise as he walked down the long room to what it sometimes pleases him to call his museum. When he returned it was with a cardboard box from which he produced a small spool of metal tape. “Do you mean, my dear Appleby, that you are going to play me something?”
“Just that,” Appleby was now bending over some sort of machine. “It struck me, you see, that there was something odd about Charles Counterpoynt’s following along like that. I wondered if conceivably he had some design – whether on young Briggs or on Steel’s body, or even on something in Steel’s car.
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