Charles would have spoken, but he swept on, as though a spate of words had been loosed in him. "You will not. But I desire it also, and I tell you the day comes when I shall see it. And if I see it, only for one little minute! one little, little minute, what shall I do? Shall I tell you? Ah no, m'sieur! No, no, no, I tell no one, but I am free! And it will be for me then to revenge myself, for me to be master!"
A flash of lightning made Charles blink. There was the scrape of a chair. Duval had sprung up, and was staring- towards the window. "What was that," he gasped. "What was that, m'sieur? A face? A face pressed to the glass?"
"Nonsense," Charles said calmly. "It was nothing but that sunflower blown against the window. Look!"
The sweat stood on Duval's forehead. "Truly? Yes, yes, I see. It was nothing. Yet for a moment I could have sworn I saw - something. It is this accursed storm. I do not like the lightning. It makes me what you call on edge. Sometimes I fear I have not the courage to go on with what I have made up my mind I must do to be free. For when I am here with the darkness I remember that other who died." He went to the cupboard and opened it, and pulled out a whisky bottle, half-full, and two thick glasses, "You will take a little drink with me? This storm - one's nerves demand it."
"Not for me, thanks," Charles answered. "May I suggest that if you've reason to think someone is watching you your best course is to inform the police."
Duval cast a quick, furtive look at him. The whisky spilled into his glass. He tossed it off, neat, and seemed to regain what little composure he possessed. "No, I do not do that. You will not listen to me: I talk folly, hein? Me, I am Louis Duval, and I am not afraid."
The rain had practically ceased by now, and Charles got up. "Then since the storm seems to be passing over you won't mind if I say good-bye, will you?" He picked up the picture he had bought. "I shall - er - value this, I assure you. And if at any time you'd like to take me rather more into your confidence you know where I'm to be found, don't you?"
"I thank you. And for this' - he held up Charles' cheque - "I thank you also." With his self-command his arrogance too was creeping back. "The day comes when you will congratulate yourself that you were once able to buy a picture of Louis Duval's for so small a price."
That view was not shared either by Charles, or by any of his relatives. When he exhibited the painting at the Priory an astonished silence greeted it.
"Yes," he said blandly, "I thought you'd be hard put to it to find words to express your emotions."
Peter breathed audibly through his nose. "You were right," he said.
"Nice piece of work, isn't it? I particularly like the woman's splay feet. Where shall we hang it?"
"I suggest the coal-cellar," said Peter.
Mrs. Bosanquet was regarding the picture through her lorgnette. "What an exceedingly ill-favoured young person!" she remarked. "Really, almost disgusting. And what is she waving in her hand, pray?"
"Since I am informed that the title of this masterpiece is "Reapers" I should hazard a guess that it must be a sickle," Charles replied.
Celia found her tongue. "Charles, how could you?" she demanded. "Have you gone mad, or something?"
"Not at all. I'm supporting modern art."
"You don't know anything about art, ancient or modern. I can't get over you going out and wasting your money on an awful thing like this! You don't suppose that I could live with it on my walls, do you?"
"Shove it up on the stairs," suggested Peter. "Then the next time the Monk goes glissant up and down, though we do not see, it'll give him something to think about. After all we owe him one for that skull."
"My dear," said Mrs. Bosanquet gravely, "you should not make a jest of these things. When Margaret returns from London with my planchette board I shall hope to convince you as I myself have been convinced."
"Aunt, you promised you wouldn't talk about the Monk!" Celia said uneasily. "Just when I was beginning to forget about it too!"
"It was not I who started it, dear child," Mrs. Bosanquet pointed out. "But by all means let us talk of something else. I do trust, Peter, that you are not serious in wishing to hang that very unpleasant picture on the stairs."
"Well, we shall have to hang it somewhere," Peter said. "Old Ackerley will want to see it. When he asked me where you were, Chas, and I told him you'd gone to buy one of Duval's pictures, I thought he'd throw a fit."
"You can jolly well tell him then that you didn't buy a picture after all," Celia said. "I won't have you making yourself a laughing-stock. It'll be all over Framley that you've been had."
Charles listened to this with a suspicious air of interest. "Do I understand you all to mean that you feel these walls are unworthy to bear the masterpiece?" he inquired.
"You can put it like that, if you choose," Celia said.
"Very well," he replied, and began carefully to roll it up again. "I've always wanted to see my name in the papers as one who has presented a work of art to the nation. I wonder where they'll hang it? It would go rather well amongst the Turners."
"And the worst of it is," Celia said later to her brother, "he's quite capable of sending it to the National Gallery, if only to tease me."
Peter was more interested in the result of Charles' visit than in the fate of the picture, but it was not until he was dressing for dinner that he had an opportunity of speaking to him alone. Charles came in while he was wrestling with a refractory stud, and sat down on the edge of the bed.
"Good. I hoped you'd come in," Peter said. "God damn this blasted laundry! They starch the thing so that… Ah, that's got it! Well, did you discover anything, or is he merely potty?"
"A bit of both," Charles said. He selected a cigarette fromm his case, and lit it. "From a welter of drivel just one or two facts emerge. The most important of these is that unless Duval is completely out of his mind, which I doubt, the Monk is a very real personage. Further, it would appear that he has some hold over Duval, who, with or without reason, fears him like the devil. It seems fairly obvious that the Monk - and very likely Duval too - is engaged in some nefarious pursuit, and I rather gathered from what our friend said that he - I'm talking now of Duval - is only waiting for the chance to blackmail him."
"What about?" Peter asked, busy with his tie.
"God knows. I couldn't arrive at it. It sounds absurd, but everything seemed to hinge on the Monk's face."
"Talk sense," said Peter shortly.
"Quite impossible," Charles replied, flicking the ash off his cigarette. "I'm giving you the gist of Duval's conversation. Put plainly, the Monk is strictly incognito. According to Duval the only man who ever saw his face immediately died. Manner not specified, but all very sinister."
"Doesn't say much for the Monk's face," Peter commented. His eyes met Charles' in the mirror, and he saw that Charles was frowning slightly. He turned. "Look here, how much faith do you place in this rigmarole?"
Charles shrugged. "Can't say. After all we had ourselves decided that the Monk was no ghost."
Peter picked up his waistcoat and put it on. "Neither you nor I have so far set eyes on this precious Monk," he reminded Charles. "We know there's a legend about a monk haunting this place; we've had a skull drop at our feet, and we suspect - suspect, mind you —- human agency. Not necessarily the Monk. The only person to see it is Aunt Lilian. I admit she's not the sort of person likely to imagine things, but you've got to bear in mind that it was late at night, and she, in common with the rest of us, had probably got the Monk slightly on the brain. She got the wind up - admits that herself. Started to "feel" things. Works herself into a state in which she's ripe for seeing anything. She has a candle only, and by its light she sees, or thinks she sees, a cowled figure."