"It's surprising," he said at last. "But what did they want to go and burgle a plaster figure for?"
"That's where it is, you see; she ain't plaster--she's marble, a genuine antic of Venus, and worth thousands. The beggars who broke in knew that, and took nothing else. They'd made all arrangements to get away with her abroad, and pass her off on some foreign collection before it got blown upon; and they'd have done it too if we hadn't been beforehand with them! So what do they do then? They drive up with her to these gardens, ask to see the manager, and say they're agents for some Fine Arts business, and have a sample with them, to be disposed of at a low price.
The manager, so he tells me, had a look at it, thought it a neat article and suitable to the style of his gardens. He took it to be plain plaster, as they said, and they put it up for him their own selves, near the small gate up by the road; then they took the money--a pound or two they asked for it--and drove away, and he saw no more of them."
"And was that all they got for their pains?" said Leander.
The inspector smiled indulgently. "Don't you see your way yet?" he asked. "Can't you give a guess where that statue's got to now, eh?"
"No," said Leander, with what seemed to the inspector a quite uncalled-for excitement, "of course I can't! What do you ask me for? How should I know?"
"Quite so," said the other; "you want a mind trained to deal with these things. It may surprise you to hear it, but I know as well how that statue disappeared, and what was done with her, as if I'd been there!"
"Do you, though?" thought Leander, who was beginning to doubt whether his visitor's penetration was anything so abnormal. "What was done with her?" he asked.
"Why, it was a plant from the first. They knew all their regular holes were stopped, and they wanted a place to dump her down in, where she wouldn't attract attention, till they could call for her again; so they got her taken in at the gardens, where they could come in any time by the gate and fetch her off again--and very neatly it was done, too!"
"But where do you make out they've taken her to now?" asked Leander, who was naturally anxious to discover if the official had any suspicions of him.
"I've my own theory about that," was his answer. "I shall hunt that Venus down, sir; I'll stake my reputation on it."
"Venus is her name, it seems," thought Leander. "She told me it was Aphrodite. But perhaps the other's her Christian name. It can't be the Venus I've seen pictures of--she's dressed too decent."
"Yes," repeated the inspector, "I shall hunt her down now. I don't envy the poor devil who's giving her house-room; he'll have reason to repent it!"
"How do you know any one's giving her house-room?" inquired Leander; "and why should he repent it?"
"Ask your own common sense. They daren't take her back to any of their own places; they know better. They haven't left the country with her.
What remains? They've bribed or got over some mug of an outsider to be their accomplice, and a bad speculation he'll find it, too."
"What would be done to him?" asked the hairdresser, with a quite unpleasant internal sensation.
[Illustration: "WHAT WOULD BE DONE TO HIM?" ASKED THE HAIRDRESSER, WITH A QUITE UNPLEASANT INTERNAL SENSATION.]
"That is a question I wouldn't pretend to decide; but I've no hesitation in saying that the party on whose premises that statue is discovered will wish he'd died before he ever set eyes on her."
"You're quite right there!" said Leander. "Well, sir, I'm afraid I haven't been much assistance to you."
"Never mind that," said the inspector, encouragingly; "you've answered my questions; you've not hindered the law, and that's a game some burn their fingers at."
Leander let him out, and returned to his saloon with his head in a worse whirl than before. He did not think the detective suspected him. He was clearly barking up the wrong tree at present; but so acute a mind could not be long deceived, and if once Leander was implicated his guilt would appear beyond denial. Would the police believe that the statue had run after him? No one would believe it! To be found in possession of that fatal work of art would inevitably ruin him.
He might carry her away to some lonely spot and leave her, but where was the use? She would only come back again; or he might be taken in the act. He dared not destroy her; his right arm had been painful all day after that last attempt.
If he gave her up to the authorities, he would have to explain how he came to be in a position to do so, which, as he now saw, would be a difficult undertaking; and even then he would lose all chance of recovering his ring in time to satisfy his aunt and Matilda. There was no way out of it, unless he could induce Venus to give up the token and leave him alone.
"Cuss her!" he said angrily; "a pretty bog she's led me into, she and that minx, Ada Parkinson!"
He felt so thoroughly miserable that hunger had vanished, and he dreaded the idea of an evening at home, though it was a blusterous night, with occasional vicious spirts of rain, and by no means favourable to continued pacing of streets and squares.
"I'm hanged if I don't think I'll go to church!" he thought; "and perhaps I shall feel more equal to supper afterwards."
He went upstairs to get his best hat and overcoat, and was engaged in brushing the former in his sitting-room, when from within the cupboard he heard a shower of loud raps.
His knees trembled. "She's wuss than any ghost!" he thought; but he took no notice, and went on brushing his hat, while he endeavoured to hum a hymn.
"Leander!" cried the clear, hard voice he knew too well, "I have returned. Release me!"
His first idea was to run out of the house and seek sanctuary in some pew in the opposite church. "But there," he thought disgustedly, "she'd only come in and sit next to me. No, I'll pluck up a spirit and have it out with her!" and he threw open the door.
"How have you dared to imprison me in this narrow tomb?" she demanded majestically, as she stepped forth.
Leander cringed. "It's a nice roomy cupboard," he said. "I thought perhaps you wouldn't mind putting up with it, especially as you invited yourself," he could not help adding.
"When I found myself awake and in utter darkness," she said, "I thought you had buried me beneath the soil."
"Buried you!" he exclaimed, with a sudden perception that he might do worse.
"And in that thought I was preparing to invoke the forces that lie below the soil to come to my aid, burst the masses that impeded me, and overwhelm you and all this ugly swarming city in one vast ruin!"
"I won't bury her," Leander decided. "I'm sorry you hadn't a better opinion of me, mum," he said aloud. "You see, how you came to be in there was this way: when you went out, like the snuff of a candle, so to speak, you left your statue standing in the middle of the floor, and I had to put it somewhere where it wouldn't be seen."
"You did well," she said indulgently, "to screen my image from the vulgar sight; and if you had no statelier shrine wherein to instal it, the fault lies not with you. You are pardoned."
"Thank you, mum," said Leander; "and now let me ask you if you intend to animate that statue like this as a regular thing?"
"So long as your obstinacy continues, or until it outlives my forbearance, I shall return at intervals," she said. "Why do you ask this?"
"Well," said Leander, with a sinking heart, but hoping desperately to move her by the terrors of the law, "it's my duty to tell you that that image you're in is stolen property."
"Has it been stolen from one of my temples?" she asked.
"I dare say--I don't know; but there's the police moving heaven and earth to get you back again!"
"He is good and pious--the police, and if I knew him I would reward him."
"There's a good many hims in the police--that's what we call our guards for the street, who take up thieves and bad characters; and, being stolen, they're all of 'em after _you_; and if they had a notion where you were, they'd be down on you, and back you'd go to wherever you've come from--some gallery, I believe, where you wouldn't get away again in a hurry! Now, I tell you what it is, if you don't give me up that ring, and go away and leave me in quiet, I'll tell the police who you are and where you are. I mean what I say, by George I do!"
"We know not George, nor will it profit you to invoke him now," said the goddess. "See, I will deign to reason with you as with some froward child. Think you that, should the guards seize my image, _I_ should remain within, or that it is aught to me where this marble presentment finds a resting-place while I am absent therefrom? But for you, should you surrender it into their hands, would there be no punishment for your impiety in thus concealing a divine effigy?"
"She ain't no fool!" thought Leander; "she mayn't understand our ways, but she's a match for me notwithstanding. I must try another line."
"Lady Venus," he began, "if that's the proper way to call you, I didn't mean any threats--far from it. I'll be as humble as you please. You look a good-natured lady; you wouldn't want to make a man uncomfortable, I'm sure. Do give me back that ring, for mercy's sake! If I haven't got it to show in a day or two, I shall be ruined!"
"Should any mortal require the ring of you, you have but to reply, 'I have placed it upon the finger of Aphrodite, whose spouse I am!' Thus will you have honour amongst mortals, being held blameless!"
"Blameless!" cried Leander, in pardonable exasperation. "That's all you know about it! And what am I to say to the lady it lawfully belongs to?"
"You have lied to me, then, and you are already affianced! Tell me the abode of this maiden of yours."