The Secret of Lonesome Cove Part 26

"What would you call it, then?"

"A copy."

"How can you tell that? You haven't seen the original from which it was made, have you?"

"No."

"Then, what's the basis?"

"Quite simple. If you had used your eyes on it instead of your temper, you might have seen at once that it is a tracing. Look for yourself, now."

Taking the magnifying monocle that Kent held out, the artist scrutinized the lines of the picture.

"By Jove! You're right," said he. "It's been transferred through tracing-paper, and touched up afterward. Rather roughly, too. You can see where the copyist has borne down too hard on the lead."

"What's your opinion of the likeness-if it is the likeness which you suppose?" inquired Kent.

"Why, as I remember the woman, this picture is a good deal idealized.

The hair and the eyes are much the same. But the lines of the face in the picture are finer. The chin and mouth are more delicate, and the whole effect softer and of a higher type."

"Do you see anything strange about the neck, on the left side?"

"Badly drawn; that's all."

"Just below the ear there is a sort of blankness, isn't there?"

"Why, yes. It seems curiously unfinished, just there."

"If you were touching it up how would you correct that?"

"With a slight shading, just there, where the neck muscle should be thrown up a bit by the turn of the head."

"Or by introducing a large pendant earring which the copier has left out?"

"Kent, you're a wonder! That would do it, exactly. But why in the name of all that's marvelous, should the tracer of this drawing leave out the earring?"

"Obviously to keep the picture as near like as possible to the body on the beach."

"Then you don't think it is the woman of the beach?"

"No; I don't."

"Who else could it possibly be?"

"Perhaps we can best find that out by discovering who left the drawing here."

"That looks like something of a job."

"Not very formidable, I think. Suppose we run up to the village and ask the local stationer who has bought any tracing-paper there within a day or two."

As the demand for tracing-paper in Martindale Center was small, the stationer upon being called on, had no difficulty in recalling that Elder Dennett had been in that afternoon and made such a purchase.

"Then he must have discovered something after I left him," said Kent to Sedgwick, "for he never could have kept his secret if he'd had it then."

"But what motive could he have?" cried the artist.

"Just mischief, probably. That's enough motive for his sort." Turning to the store-keeper Kent asked: "Do you happen to know how Mr. Dennett spent the early part of this afternoon?"

"I surely do. He was up to Dimmock's rummage auction, an' he got something there that tickled him like a feather. But he wouldn't let on what it was."

"The original!" said Sedgwick.

"What does Dimmock deal in?"

"All kinds of odds and ends. He sc.r.a.pes the country for bankrupt sales, an' has a big auction once a year. Everybody goes. You can find anything from a plough-handle to a second-hand marriage certificate at his place."

"We now call on Elder Dennett," said Kent.

That worthy was about closing up shop when they entered.

"Don't your lamp work right, yet, Professor Kent?" he inquired.

"Perfectly," responded the scientist. "We have come to see you on another matter, Mr. Sedgwick and I."

"First, let me thank you," said Sedgwick, "for the curious work of art which you left at my place."

"Hay-ee?" inquired the Elder, with a rising inflection.

"Don't take the trouble to lie about it," put in Kent. "Just show us the original of the drawing which you traced so handily."

The town gossip shifted uneasily from foot to foot. "How'd you know I got the picture?" he giggled. "I didn't find it, myself, till I got back from the auction."

"Never mind the process. Have you the original here?"

"Yes," said Elder Dennett; and, going to his desk he brought back a square of heavy bluish paper, slightly discolored at the edges.

"That's a very good bit of drawing," said Sedgwick, as he and Kent bent over the paper.

"But unsigned," said his companion. "Now, Mr. Dennett, whom do you suppose this to be?"

"Why, the lady that stopped to talk with Mr. Sedgwick, and was killed in Lonesome Cove."

"Then why did you leave out this earring in copying the picture?"

"Aw-well," explained the other in some confusion, "she didn't have no earrings on when I seen her. And it looks a lot more like, without it."

"Your bent for gratuitous mischief amounts to a pa.s.sion," retorted the scientist. "Some day it will get you into deserved trouble, I trust."