“It’s the first one I’ve given a name to,” said Sedgwick. “I call it The Rough Rider.”
A full moon, brilliant amid blown cloud-rack, lighted up the vast procession of billows charging in upon a near coast. In the foreground a corpse, the face bent far up and back from the spar to which it was lashed, rode with wild abandon headlong at the onlooker, on the crest of a roaring surge. The rest was infinite clarity of distance and desolation.
“The Rough Rider!” murmured Kent; then, with a change of tone, “For sale?”
“I don’t know,” hesitated the artist. “Fact is, I like that about well enough to keep.”
“I’ll give you five hundred dollars for it.”
“Five hundred! Man alive! A hundred is the most I’ve ever got for any of my prints!”
“The offer stands.”
“But, see here, Kent, can you afford it? Government salaries don’t make men rich, do they?”
“Oh, I’m rich enough,” said the other impatiently. “I told you I’d made inventions. And I can certainly afford to buy it better than you can afford to keep it here.”
“What’s that?” asked the painter, surprised.
Kent repeated his final sentence, with slow emphasis. “Do you understand what I mean?” he asked, looking flatly into Sedgwick’s eyes.
“No, not in the least. Another suggestion of mystery. Do you always deal in this sort of thing?”
“Very seldom. However, if you don’t understand so much the better. When did you finish this picture?”
“Yesterday.”
“H-m! Has any one else seen it?”
“That old fraud of a plumber, Elder Dennett, saw me working on it yesterday, when he was doing some repairing here, and remarked that it gave him the creeps.”
“Dennett? Well, then that’s all up,” said Kent, as if speaking to himself. “There’s a streak of superstition in all these New Englanders. He’d be sure to interpret it as a confession before the fact. However, Elder Dennett left this morning for a trip to Cadystown. That’s so much to the good.”
“He may have left for a trip to Hadestown for all I care,” stated Sedgwick with conviction. “What’s it all about, anyway?”
“I’ll tell you, as soon as I’ve mulled it over a little. Just let me cool my mind down with some more of your pictures.” He turned to the wall border again, and faced another picture out. “What’s this? You seem to be something of a dab in black and white, too.”
“Oh, that’s an imaginary face,” said Sedgwick carelessly.
“Imaginary face studied from various angles,” commented Kent. “It’s a very lovely face, and the most wistful I’ve ever seen. A fairy, prisoned on earth by cockcrow, might wear some such expression of startled wondering purity, I fancy.”
“Poetry as well as mystery! Kent, you grow and expand on acquaintance.”
“There is poetry in your study of that imaginary fay. Imaginary! Um-hum!” continued Kent dryly, as he stooped to the floor. “I suppose this is an imaginary hairpin, too.”
“My Chinaman—” began Sedgwick quickly, when the other caught him up.
“Don’t be uneasy. I’m not going to commit the bêtise of asking who she is.”
“If you did, I give you my word of honor I couldn’t tell you. I only wish I knew!”
There was silence between them for a moment; then the painter broke out with the air of one who takes a resolution:
“See here, Kent! You’re a sort of detective, aren’t you?”
“I’ve been called so.”
“And you like my picture of The Rough Rider?”
“Five hundred dollars’ worth.”
“You can have that and any other picture in my studio, except this one,” he indicated the canvas with the faces, “if you’ll find out for me who she is.”
“That might be done. We shall see. But frankly, Sedgwick, there’s a matter of more importance—”
“Importance? Good heavens, man! There’s nothing so important in this world!”
“Oh, is it as bad as that?”
A heavy knock sounded from below, followed by the Chinaman’s voice, intermingled with boyish accents demanding Sedgwick in the name of the Western Union Telegraph Company.
“Send him up,” ordered Sedgwick, and the boy arrived; but not before Kent had quietly removed The Rough Rider from its place of exhibit.
“Special from the village,” announced young Mercury. “Sign here.”
After the signature had been duly set down, and the signer had read his message with knit brows, the urchin lingered, big with news.
“Say, heard about the body on the beach?”
Kent turned quickly, to see Sedgwick’s face. It was interested, but unmoved as he replied:
“No. Where was it found?”
“Lonesome Cove. Woman. Dressed swell. Washed up on a grating last night or this morning.”
“It’s curious how they all come in here, isn’t it?” said the artist to Kent. “This is the third this summer.”
“And it’s a corkerino!” said the boy. “Sheriff’s on the case. Body was all chained up, they say.”
“I’m sure they need you at the office to help circulate the news, my son,” said Kent. “And I’ll bet you this quarter, payable in advance, that you can’t get back in half an hour on your wheel.”
With a grin the boy took the coin. “I got yer,” he said, and was off.
“And now, Sedgwick,” said Kent decisively, “if I’m to help you, suppose you tell me all that you know about the woman who called on you last evening?”
“Last evening? Ah, that wasn’t the girl of the picture. It’s an interminable six days since I’ve seen her.”
“No; I know it wasn’t she, having seen your picture, and since then your visitor of last night. The question is, who was it?”
“Wait! How did you know that a woman came here last night?”
“From common gossip.”
“And where have you seen her since?”
“On the beach, at Lonesome Cove.”
“Lonesome Cove,” repeated Sedgwick mechanically. Then with a startled glance: “Not the dead woman!”
Kent nodded, watching him closely. For a space of four heart-beats—one very slow, and three very quick—there was silence between them. Kent broke it.
“Do you see now the wisdom of frankness?”
“You mean that I shall be accused of having a hand in her death?”
“Strongly suspected, at least.”
“On what basis?”
“You are the last person known to have seen her alive.”
“Surely that isn’t enough?”
“Not of itself. There’s a bruise back of your right ear.”
Involuntarily Sedgwick’s hand went to the spot.
“Who gave it to you?”