Dance Me to the End of Love

Dance Me to the End of Love
Evening Mood painting
female nude reclining
flaming june painting
Gather ye rosebuds while ye may
¡¡¡¡ "Oh--nothing!" ¡¡¡¡ "You are 'father', you know. That's what they call the man who gives you away." ¡¡¡¡ Jude could have said "Phillotson's age entitles him to be called that!" But he would not annoy her by such a cheap retort. ¡¡¡¡ She talked incessantly, as if she dreaded his indulgence in reflection, and before the meal was over both he and she wished they had not put such confidence in their new view of things, and had taken breakfast apart. What oppressed Jude was the thought that, having done a wrong thing of this sort himself, he was aiding and abetting the woman he loved in doing a like wrong thing, instead of imploring and warning her against it. It was on his tongue to say, "You have quite made up your mind?" ¡¡¡¡ After breakfast they went out on an errand together moved by a mutual thought that it was the last opportunity they would have of indulging in unceremonious companionship. By the irony of fate, and the curious trick in Sue's nature of tempting Providence at critical times, she took his arm as they walked through the muddy street-- a thing she had never done before in her life--and on turning the corner they found themselves close to a grey perpendicular church with a low-pitched roof--the church of St. Thomas.

Biblis painting

Biblis painting
William Bouguereau Biblis
Charity painting
Christ In The Storm On The Sea Of Galilee
Then Sue wrote to tell him the day fixed for the wedding; and Jude decided, after inquiry, that she should come into residence on the following Saturday, which would allow of a ten days' stay in the city prior to the ceremony, sufficiently representing a nominal residence of fifteen. ¡¡¡¡ She arrived by the ten o'clock train on the day aforesaid, Jude not going to meet her at the station, by her special request, that he should not lose a morning's work and pay, she said (if this were her true reason). But so well by this time did he know Sue that the remembrance of their mutual sensitiveness at emotional crises might, he thought, have weighed with her in this. When he came home to dinner she had taken possession of her apartment. ¡¡¡¡ She lived in the same house with him, but on a different floor, and they saw each other little, an occasional supper being the only meal they took together, when Sue's manner was something like that of a scared child. What she felt he did not know; their conversation was mechanical, though she did not look pale or ill. Phillotson came frequently, but mostly when Jude was absent. On the morning of the wedding, when Jude had given himself a holiday, Sue and her cousin had breakfast together for the first and last time during this curious interval; in his room--the parlour-- which he had hired for the period of Sue's residence. Seeing, as women do, how helpless he was in making the place comfortable, she bustled about.

madonna with the yarnwinder painting

madonna with the yarnwinder painting
Mother and Child
My Sweet Rose painting
Naiade oil painting
Nighthawks Hopper
"We have been doing such a funny thing!" said she, smiling candidly. "We've been to the church, rehearsing as it were. Haven't we, Jude?" ¡¡¡¡ "How?" said Phillotson curiously. ¡¡¡¡ Jude inwardly deplored what he thought to be unnecessary frankness; but she had gone too far not to explain all, which she accordingly did, telling him how they had marched up to the altar. ¡¡¡¡ Seeing how puzzled Phillotson seemed, Jude said as cheerfully as he could, "I am going to buy her another little present. Will you both come to the shop with me?" ¡¡¡¡ "No," said Sue, "I'll go on to the house with him"; and requesting her lover not to be a long time she departed with the schoolmaster. ¡¡¡¡ Jude soon joined them at his rooms, and shortly after they prepared for the ceremony. Phillotson's hair was brushed to a painful extent, and his shirt collar appeared stiffer than it had been for the previous twenty years. Beyond this he looked dignified and thoughtful, and altogether a man of whom it was not unsafe to predict that he would make a kind and considerate husband. That he adored Sue was obvious; and she could almost be seen to feel that she was undeserving his adoration.

jesus christ on the cross

jesus christ on the cross
klimt painting the kiss
leonardo da vinci self portrait
Madonna Litta
¡¡¡¡ "I know you do!" said Jude. ¡¡¡¡ "They are interesting, because they have probably never been done before. I shall walk down the church like this with my husband in about two hours, shan't I!" ¡¡¡¡ "No doubt you will!" ¡¡¡¡ "Was it like this when you were married?" ¡¡¡¡ "Good God, Sue--don't be so awfully merciless! ... There, dear one, I didn't mean it!" ¡¡¡¡ "Ah--you are vexed!" she said regretfully, as she blinked away an access of eye moisture. "And I promised never to vex you! ... I suppose I ought not to have asked you to bring me in here. Oh, I oughtn't! I see it now. My curiosity to hunt up a new sensation always leads me into these scrapes. Forgive me! ... You will, won't you, Jude?" ¡¡¡¡ The appeal was so remorseful that Jude's eyes were even wetter than hers as he pressed her hand for Yes. ¡¡¡¡ "Now we'll hurry away, and I won't do it any more!" she continued humbly; and they came out of the building, Sue intending to go on to the station to meet Phillotson. But the first person they encountered on entering the main street was the schoolmaster himself, whose train had arrived sooner than Sue expected. There was nothing really to demur to in her leaning on Jude's arm; but she withdrew her hand, and Jude thought that Phillotson had looked surprised.

girl with a pearl earring vermeer

girl with a pearl earring vermeer
Gustav Klimt Kiss painting
Head of Christ
Hylas and the Nymphs
¡¡¡¡ "That's the church," said Jude. ¡¡¡¡ "Where I am going to be married?" ¡¡¡¡ "Yes." ¡¡¡¡ "Indeed!" she exclaimed with curiosity. "How I should like to go in and see what the spot is like where I am so soon to kneel and do it." ¡¡¡¡ Again he said to himself, "She does not realize what marriage means!" ¡¡¡¡ He passively acquiesced in her wish to go in, and they entered by the western door. The only person inside the gloomy building was a charwoman cleaning. Sue still held Jude's arm, almost as if she loved him. Cruelly sweet, indeed, she had been to him that morning; but his thoughts of a penance in store for her were tempered by an ache: ¡¡¡¡ ... I can find no way How a blow should fall, such as falls on men, Nor prove too much for your womanhood! ¡¡¡¡ They strolled undemonstratively up the nave towards the altar railing, which they stood against in silence, turning then and walking down the nave again, her hand still on his arm, precisely like a couple just married. The too suggestive incident, entirely of her making, nearly broke down Jude. ¡¡¡¡ "I like to do things like this," she said in the delicate voice of an epicure in emotions, which left no doubt that she spoke the truth.

My Sweet Rose painting

My Sweet Rose painting
Naiade oil painting
Nighthawks Hopper
Nude on the Beach
One Moment in Time
Ah--you are vexed!" she said regretfully, as she blinked away an access of eye moisture. "And I promised never to vex you! ... I suppose I ought not to have asked you to bring me in here. Oh, I oughtn't! I see it now. My curiosity to hunt up a new sensation always leads me into these scrapes. Forgive me! ... You will, won't you, Jude?" ¡¡¡¡ The appeal was so remorseful that Jude's eyes were even wetter than hers as he pressed her hand for Yes. ¡¡¡¡ "Now we'll hurry away, and I won't do it any more!" she continued humbly; and they came out of the building, Sue intending to go on to the station to meet Phillotson. But the first person they encountered on entering the main street was the schoolmaster himself, whose train had arrived sooner than Sue expected. There was nothing really to demur to in her leaning on Jude's arm; but she withdrew her hand, and Jude thought that Phillotson had looked surprised. ¡¡¡¡ "We have been doing such a funny thing!" said she, smiling candidly. "We've been to the church, rehearsing as it were. Haven't we, Jude?" ¡¡¡¡ "How?" said Phillotson curiously. ¡¡¡¡ Jude inwardly deplored what he thought to be unnecessary frankness; but she had gone too far not to explain all, which she accordingly did, telling him how they had marched up to the altar. ¡¡¡¡ Seeing how puzzled Phillotson seemed, Jude said as cheerfully as he could, "I am going to buy her another little present. Will you both come to the shop with me?" ¡¡¡¡ "No," said Sue, "I'll go on to the house with him"; and requesting her lover not to be a long time she departed with the schoolmaster. ¡¡¡¡ Jude soon joined them at his rooms, and shortly after they prepared for the ceremony. Phillotson's hair was brushed to a painful extent.

leonardo da vinci self portrait

leonardo da vinci self portrait
Madonna Litta
madonna with the yarnwinder painting
Mother and Child
Again he said to himself, "She does not realize what marriage means!" ¡¡¡¡ He passively acquiesced in her wish to go in, and they entered by the western door. The only person inside the gloomy building was a charwoman cleaning. Sue still held Jude's arm, almost as if she loved him. Cruelly sweet, indeed, she had been to him that morning; but his thoughts of a penance in store for her were tempered by an ache: ¡¡¡¡ ... I can find no way How a blow should fall, such as falls on men, Nor prove too much for your womanhood! ¡¡¡¡ They strolled undemonstratively up the nave towards the altar railing, which they stood against in silence, turning then and walking down the nave again, her hand still on his arm, precisely like a couple just married. The too suggestive incident, entirely of her making, nearly broke down Jude. ¡¡¡¡ "I like to do things like this," she said in the delicate voice of an epicure in emotions, which left no doubt that she spoke the truth. ¡¡¡¡ "I know you do!" said Jude. ¡¡¡¡ "They are interesting, because they have probably never been done before. I shall walk down the church like this with my husband in about two hours, shan't I!" ¡¡¡¡ "No doubt you will!" ¡¡¡¡ "Was it like this when you were married?" ¡¡¡¡ "Good God, Sue--don't be so awfully merciless! ... There, dear one, I didn't mean it!"

Gustav Klimt Kiss painting

Gustav Klimt Kiss painting
Hylas and the Nymphs
jesus christ on the cross
klimt painting the kiss
¡¡¡¡ She talked incessantly, as if she dreaded his indulgence in reflection, and before the meal was over both he and she wished they had not put such confidence in their new view of things, and had taken breakfast apart. What oppressed Jude was the thought that, having done a wrong thing of this sort himself, he was aiding and abetting the woman he loved in doing a like wrong thing, instead of imploring and warning her against it. It was on his tongue to say, "You have quite made up your mind?" ¡¡¡¡ After breakfast they went out on an errand together moved by a mutual thought that it was the last opportunity they would have of indulging in unceremonious companionship. By the irony of fate, and the curious trick in Sue's nature of tempting Providence at critical times, she took his arm as they walked through the muddy street-- a thing she had never done before in her life--and on turning the corner they found themselves close to a grey perpendicular church with a low-pitched roof--the church of St. Thomas. ¡¡¡¡ "That's the church," said Jude. ¡¡¡¡ "Where I am going to be married?" ¡¡¡¡ "Yes." ¡¡¡¡ "Indeed!" she exclaimed with curiosity. "How I should like to go in and see what the spot is like where I am so soon to kneel and do it." ¡¡¡¡ Again he said to himself, "She does not realize what marriage means!"

female nude reclining

female nude reclining
flaming june painting
Gather ye rosebuds while ye may
girl with a pearl earring vermeer
¡¡¡¡ She lived in the same house with him, but on a different floor, and they saw each other little, an occasional supper being the only meal they took together, when Sue's manner was something like that of a scared child. What she felt he did not know; their conversation was mechanical, though she did not look pale or ill. Phillotson came frequently, but mostly when Jude was absent. On the morning of the wedding, when Jude had given himself a holiday, Sue and her cousin had breakfast together for the first and last time during this curious interval; in his room--the parlour-- which he had hired for the period of Sue's residence. Seeing, as women do, how helpless he was in making the place comfortable, she bustled about. ¡¡¡¡ "What's the matter, Jude?" she said suddenly. ¡¡¡¡ He was leaning with his elbows on the table and his chin on his hands, looking into a futurity which seemed to be sketched out on the tablecloth. ¡¡¡¡ "Oh--nothing!" ¡¡¡¡ "You are 'father', you know. That's what they call the man who gives you away." ¡¡¡¡ Jude could have said "Phillotson's age entitles him to be called that!" But he would not annoy her by such a cheap retort.

Samson And Delilah

Samson And Delilah
Rembrandt Biblical Scene
Rembrandt The Jewish Bride
Return of the Prodigal Son
His offer of his lodging must have commended itself to Phillotson at any rate, for the schoolmaster sent him a line of warm thanks, accepting the convenience. Sue also thanked him. Jude immediately moved into more commodious quarters, as much to escape the espionage of the suspicious landlady who had been one cause of Sue's unpleasant experience as for the sake of room. ¡¡¡¡ Then Sue wrote to tell him the day fixed for the wedding; and Jude decided, after inquiry, that she should come into residence on the following Saturday, which would allow of a ten days' stay in the city prior to the ceremony, sufficiently representing a nominal residence of fifteen. ¡¡¡¡ She arrived by the ten o'clock train on the day aforesaid, Jude not going to meet her at the station, by her special request, that he should not lose a morning's work and pay, she said (if this were her true reason). But so well by this time did he know Sue that the remembrance of their mutual sensitiveness at emotional crises might, he thought, have weighed with her in this. When he came home to dinner she had taken possession of her apartment.

madonna with the yarnwinder painting

madonna with the yarnwinder painting
Mother and Child
My Sweet Rose painting
Naiade oil painting
¡¡¡¡ HE was a handy man at his trade, an all-round man, as artizans in country-towns are apt to be. In London the man who carves the boss or knob of leafage declines to cut the fragment of moulding which merges in that leafage, as if it were a degradation to do the second half of one whole. When there was not much Gothic moulding for Jude to run, or much window-tracery on the bankers, he would go out lettering monuments or tombstones, and take a pleasure in the change of handiwork. ¡¡¡¡ The next time that he saw her was when he was on a ladder executing a job of this sort inside one of the churches. There was a short morning service, and when the parson entered Jude came down from his ladder, and sat with the half-dozen people forming the congregation, till the prayer should be ended, and he could resume his tapping. He did not observe till the service was half over that one of the women was Sue, who had perforce accompanied the elderly Miss Fontover thither.

madonna with the yarnwinder painting

madonna with the yarnwinder painting
Mother and Child
My Sweet Rose painting
Naiade oil painting
¡¡¡¡ HE was a handy man at his trade, an all-round man, as artizans in country-towns are apt to be. In London the man who carves the boss or knob of leafage declines to cut the fragment of moulding which merges in that leafage, as if it were a degradation to do the second half of one whole. When there was not much Gothic moulding for Jude to run, or much window-tracery on the bankers, he would go out lettering monuments or tombstones, and take a pleasure in the change of handiwork. ¡¡¡¡ The next time that he saw her was when he was on a ladder executing a job of this sort inside one of the churches. There was a short morning service, and when the parson entered Jude came down from his ladder, and sat with the half-dozen people forming the congregation, till the prayer should be ended, and he could resume his tapping. He did not observe till the service was half over that one of the women was Sue, who had perforce accompanied the elderly Miss Fontover thither.

jesus christ on the cross

jesus christ on the cross
klimt painting the kiss
leonardo da vinci self portrait
Madonna Litta
¡¡¡¡ On one of these occasions the church clocks struck some small hour. It fell upon the ears of another person who sat bending over his books at a not very distant spot in the same city. Being Saturday night the morrow was one on which Jude had not set his alarm-clock to call him at his usually early time, and hence he had stayed up, as was his custom, two or three hours later than he could afford to do on any other day of the week. Just then he was earnestly reading from his Griesbach's text. At the very time that Sue was tossing and staring at her figures, the policeman and belated citizens passing along under his window might have heard, if they had stood still, strange syllables mumbled with fervour within--words that had for Jude an indescribable enchantment: inexplicable sounds something like these:-- ¡¡¡¡ "ALL HEMIN HEIS THEOS HO PATER, EX HOU TA PANTA, KAI HEMEIS EIS AUTON:" ¡¡¡¡ Till the sounds rolled with reverent loudness, as a book was heard to close:-- ¡¡¡¡ "KAI HEIS KURIOS IESOUS CHRISTOS, DI HOU TA PANTA KAI HEMEIS DI AUTOU!"

Dance Me to the End of Love

Dance Me to the End of Love
Evening Mood painting
female nude reclining
flaming june painting
Gather ye rosebuds while ye may
¡¡¡¡ "Something you have been buying, Miss Bridehead?" she asked, regarding the enwrapped objects. ¡¡¡¡ "Yes--just something to ornament my room," said Sue. ¡¡¡¡ "Well, I should have thought I had put enough here already," said Miss Fontover, looking round at the Gothic-framed prints of saints, the Church-text scrolls, and other articles which, having become too stale to sell, had been used to furnish this obscure chamber. "What is it? How bulky!" She tore a little hole, about as big as a wafer, in the brown paper, and tried to peep in. "Why, statuary? Two figures? Where did you get them?" ¡¡¡¡ "Oh--I bought them of a travelling man who sells casts" ¡¡¡¡ "Two saints?" ¡¡¡¡ "Yes." ¡¡¡¡ "What ones?" ¡¡¡¡ "St. Peter and St.--St. Mary Magdalen." ¡¡¡¡ "Well--now come down to tea, and go and finish that organ-text, if there's light enough afterwards

William Bouguereau Biblis painting

Biblis painting
William Bouguereau Biblis
Charity painting
Christ In The Storm On The Sea Of Galilee ¡¡¡¡ Occasionally peeping inside the leaves to see that Venus's arm was not broken, she entered with her heathen load into the most Christian city in the country by an obscure street running parallel to the main one, and round a corner to the side door of the establishment to which she was attached. Her purchases were taken straight up to her own chamber, and she at once attempted to lock them in a box that was her very own property; but finding them too cumbersome she wrapped them in large sheets of brown paper, and stood them on the floor in a corner. ¡¡¡¡ The mistress of the house, Miss Fontover, was an elderly lady in spectacles, dressed almost like an abbess; a dab at Ritual, as become one of her business, and a worshipper at the ceremonial church of St. Silas, in the suburb of Beersheba before-mentioned, which Jude also had begun to attend. She was the daughter of a clergyman in reduced circumstances, and at his death, which had occurred several years before this date, she boldly avoided penury by taking over a little shop of church requisites and developing it to its present creditable proportions. She wore a cross and beads round her neck as her only ornament, and knew the Christian Year by heart. ¡¡¡¡ She now came to call Sue to tea, and, finding that the girl did not respond for a moment, entered the room just as the other was hastily putting a string round each parcel.

the Night Watch

the Night Watch
The Nut Gatherers
The Painter's Honeymoon
the polish rider
The Sacrifice of Abraham painting
The girl for whom he was beginning to nourish an extraordinary tenderness was at this time ensphered by the same harmonies as those which floated into his ears; and the thought was a delight to him. She was probably a frequenter of this place, and, steeped body and soul in church sentiment as she must be by occupation and habit, had, no doubt, much in common with him. To an impressionable and lonely young man the consciousness of having at last found anchorage for his thoughts, which promised to supply both social and spiritual possibilities, was like the dew of Hermon, and he remained throughout the service in a sustaining atmosphere of ecstasy. ¡¡¡¡ Though he was loth to suspect it, some people might have said to him that the atmosphere blew as distinctly from Cyprus as from Galilee. ¡¡¡¡ Jude waited till she had left her seat and passed under the screen before he himself moved. She did not look towards him, and by the time he reached the door she was half-way down the broad path. Being dressed up in his Sunday suit he was inclined to follow her and reveal himself. But he was not quite ready; and, alas, ought he to do so with the kind of feeling that was awakening in him?

The Jewel Casket

The Jewel Casket
The Kitchen Maid
The Lady of Shalott
the night watch by rembrandt
¡¡¡¡ He lingered awhile in the vestibule, and the service was some way advanced when he was put into a seat. It was a louring, mournful, still afternoon, when a religion of some sort seems a necessity to ordinary practical men, and not only a luxury of the emotional and leisured classes. In the dim light and the baffling glare of the clerestory windows he could discern the opposite worshippers indistinctly only, but he saw that Sue was among them. He had not long discovered the exact seat that she occupied when the chanting of the 119th Psalm in which the choir was engaged reached its second part, IN QUO CORRIGET, the organ changing to a pathetic Gregorian tune as the singers gave forth: ¡¡¡¡ Wherewithal shall a young man cleanse his way? ¡¡¡¡ It was the very question that was engaging Jude's attention at this moment. What a wicked worthless fellow he had been to give vent as he had done to an animal passion for a woman, and allow it to lead to such disastrous consequences; then to think of putting an end to himself; then to go recklessly and get drunk. The great waves of pedal music tumbled round the choir, and, nursed on the supernatural as he had been, it is not wonderful that he could hardly believe that the psalm was not specially set by some regardful Providence for this moment of his first entry into the solemn building. And yet it was the ordinary psalm for the twenty-fourth evening of the month.

Sweet Nothings

Sweet Nothings
The Abduction of Psyche
The British Are Coming
The Broken Pitcher
¡¡¡¡ BUT under the various deterrent influences Jude's instinct was to approach her timidly, and the next Sunday he went to the morning service in the Cathedral church of Cardinal College to gain a further view of her, for he had found that she frequently attended there. ¡¡¡¡ She did not come, and he awaited her in the afternoon, which was finer. He knew that if she came at all she would approach the building along the eastern side of the great green quadrangle from which it was accessible, and he stood in a corner while the bell was going. A few minutes before the hour for service she appeared as one of the figures walking along under the college walls, and at sight of her he advanced up the side opposite, and followed her into the building, more than ever glad that he had not as yet revealed himself. To see her, and to be himself unseen and unknown, was enough for him at present.

Rembrandt The Jewish Bride

Rembrandt The Jewish Bride
Return of the Prodigal Son
Samson And Delilah
seated nude
Spring Breeze
From this moment the emotion which had been accumulating in his breast as the bottled-up effect of solitude and the poetized locality he dwelt in, insensibly began to precipitate itself on this half-visionary form; and he perceived that, whatever his obedient wish in a contrary direction, he would soon be unable to resist the desire to make himself known to her. ¡¡¡¡ He affected to think of her quite in a family way, since there were crushing reasons why he should not and could not think of her in any other. ¡¡¡¡ The first reason was that he was married, and it would be wrong. The second was that they were cousins. It was not well for cousins to fall in love even when circumstances seemed to favour the passion. The third: even were he free, in a family like his own where marriage usually meant a tragic sadness, marriage with a blood-relation would duplicate the adverse conditions, and a tragic sadness might be intensified to a tragic horror. ¡¡¡¡ Therefore, again, he would have to think of Sue with only a relation's mutual interest in one belonging to him; regard her in a practical way as some one to be proud of; to talk and nod to; later on, to be invited to tea by, the emotion spent on her being rigorously that of a kinsman and well-wisher. So would she be to him a kindly star, an elevating power, a companion in Anglican worship, a tender friend

Vermeer Girl with a Red Hat

Red Hat Girl
Red Nude painting
Regatta At Argenteuil
Vermeer Girl with a Red Hat
¡¡¡¡ His closeness to her was so suggestive that he trembled, and turned his face away with a shy instinct to prevent her recognizing him, though as she had never once seen him she could not possibly do so; and might very well never have heard even his name. He could perceive that though she was a country-girl at bottom, a latter girlhood of some years in London, and a womanhood here, had taken all rawness out of her. ¡¡¡¡ When she was gone he continued his work, reflecting on her. He had been so caught by her influence that he had taken no count of her general mould and build. He remembered now that she was not a large figure, that she was light and slight, of the type dubbed elegant. That was about all he had seen. There was nothing statuesque in her; all was nervous motion. She was mobile, living, yet a painter might not have called her handsome or beautiful. But the much that she was surprised him. She was quite a long way removed from the rusticity that was his. How could one of his cross-grained, unfortunate, almost accursed stock, have contrived to reach this pitch of niceness? London had done it, he supposed.

Hylas and the Nymphs

Hylas and the Nymphs
jesus christ on the cross
klimt painting the kiss
leonardo da vinci self portrait
"By why ask my view? I've got nothing to do with it?"
"I really came to ask you something quite different - but I don't quite know how to put it."
Dr. Quimper looked interested.
"I understand that not long ago – at Christmas-time, I think it was - Mr. Crackenthorpe had rather a bad turn of illness."
He saw a change at once in the doctor's face. It hardened.
"Yes."
"I gather a gastric disturbance of some kind?"
"Yes."
"This is difficult…. Mr. Crackenthorpe was boasting of his health, saying he intended to outlive most of his family. He referred to you - you'll excuse me, Doctor…"
"Oh, don't mind me. I'm not sensitive as to what my patients say about me!"

Gather ye rosebuds while ye may

Gather ye rosebuds while ye may
girl with a pearl earring vermeer
Gustav Klimt Kiss painting
Head of Christ
First, I've got you to thank, I believe, for advising Miss Crackenthorpe to come to me with the letter that purported to be from her brother's widow."
"Oh, that? Anything in it? I didn't exactly advise her to come. She wanted to. She was worried. All the dear little brothers were trying to hold her back, of course."
"Why should they?"
The doctor shrugged his shoulders.
"Afraid the lady might be proved genuine, I suppose."
"Do you think the letter was genuine?"
"No idea. Never actually saw it. I should say it was someone who knew the facts, just trying to make a touch. Hoping to work on Emma's feelings. They were dead wrong, there. Emma's no fool. She wouldn't take an unknown sister-in-law to her bosom without asking a few practical questions first."
He added with some curiosity:

Dance Me to the End of Love

Dance Me to the End of Love
Evening Mood painting
female nude reclining
flaming june painting
Craddock had to wait a few minutes whilst Quimper finished his evening surgery, and then the doctor came to him. He looked tired and depressed.
He offered Craddock a drink and when the latter accepted he mixed one for himself as well.
"Poor devils," he said as he sank down in a worn easy-chair. "So scared and so stupid - no sense. Had a painful case this evening. Woman sho ought to have come to me a year ago. If she'd come then, she might have been operated on successfully. Now it's too late. Makes me mad. The truth is people are an extraordinary mixture of heroism and cowardice. She's suffering agony, and borne it without a word, just because she was too scared to come and find out that what she feared might be true. At the other end of the scale are the people who come and waste my time because they've got a dangerous swelling causing them agony on their little finger which they think may be cancer and which turns out to be a common or garden chilblain! Well, don't remind me. I've blown off steam now. What did you want to see me about?"

Biblis painting

Biblis painting
Boulevard des Capucines
Charity painting
Christ In The Storm On The Sea Of Galilee
So granted Martine," said Craddock thoughtfully, "there is a motive of a kind. Martine's reappearance with a son would diminish the Crackenthorpe inheritance – though hardly to a point, one would think, to active murder. They're all very hard up –"
"Even Harold?" Lucy demanded incredulously.
"Even the prosperous-looking Harold Crackenthorpe is not the sober and conservative financier the appears to be. He's been plunging heavily and mixing himself up in some rather undesirable ventures. A large sum of money, soon, might avoid a crash."
"But if so –” said Lucy, and stopped.
"Yes, Miss Eyelesbarrow –"
"I know, dear," said Miss Marple. "The wrong murder, that's what you mean."
"Yes. Martine's death wouldn't do Harold - or any of the others - any good. Not until –"
"Not until Luther Crackenthorpe died. Exactly. That occurred to me. And Mr. Crackenthorpe, senior, I gather from his doctor, is a much better life than any outsider would imagine."
"He'll last for years," said Lucy. Then she frowned.
"Yes?" Craddock spoke encouragingly.
"He was rather ill at Christmas-time," said Lucy. "He said the doctor made a lot of fuss about it – ‘Anyone would have thought I'd been poisoned by the fuss he made.' That's what he said."
She looked inquiringly at Craddock.
"Yes," said Craddock. "That's really what I want to ask Dr. Quimper about."
"Well, I must go," said Lucy. "Heavens, it's late."
Miss Marple put down her knitting and picked up The Times with a half-done crossword puzzle.

A Greek Beauty

A Greek Beauty
A Lily Pond
Absence Makes the Heart Grow Fonder
American Day Dream
Then she gave a slight shiver.
"One forgets," she said. "The boys have been having such fun that one almost thought of it all as a game. But it's not a game."
"No," said Miss Marple. "Murder isn't a game."
She was silent for a moment or two before she said:
"Don't the boys go back to school soon?"
"Yes, next week. They go tomorrow to James Stoddart-West's home for the last few days of the holidays."
"I'm glad of that," said Miss Marple gravely. "I shouldn't like anything to happen while they're there."
"You mean to old Mr. Crackenthorpe. Do you think he's going to be murdered next?"
"Oh, no," said Miss Marple. "He'll be all right. I meant to the boys."
"To the boys?"
"Well, to Alexander."
"But surely –"
"Hunting about, you know – looking for clues. Boys love that sort of things – but it might be very dangerous."
Craddock looked at her thoughtfully.
"You're not prepared to believe, are you, Miss Marple, that it's a case of an unknown woman murdered by an unknown man? You tie it up definitely connection, yes."
"I think there's a definite connection, yes."
"All we know about the murderer is that he's a tall dark man. That's what your friend says and all she can say. There are three tall dark men at Rutherford Hall. On the day of the inquest, you know, I came out to see the three brothers standing waiting on the pavement for the car to draw up. They had their backs to me and it was astonishing how, in their heavy overcoats, they looked all alike. Three tall dark men. And yet, actually, they're all three quite different types." He sighed. "It makes it very difficult."
"I wonder," murmured Miss Marple. "I have been wondering – whether it might perhaps be all much simpler than we suppose. Murders so often are quite simple - with an obvious rather sordid motive…."
"Do you believe in the mysterious Martine, Miss Marple?"
"I'm quite ready to believe that Edmund Crackenthorpe either married, or meant to marry, a girl called Martine. Emma Crackenthorpe showed you his letter, I understand, and from what I've seen of her and from what Lucy tells me, I should say Emma Crackenthorpe is quite incapable of making up a thing of that kind - indeed, why should she?"

Abstract Painting

Abstract Painting
"We can't stay here talking," said Harold irritably. "there's quite a crowd. And all those men with cameras."
At a sign from him, the chauffeur pulled away from the kerb. The boys waved cheerfully.
"All over so soon!" said Cedric. "That's what they think, the young innocents! It's just beginning."
"It's all very unfortunate. Most unfortunate," said Harold. "I suppose –"
He looked at Mr. Wimborne who compressed his thin lips and shook his head with distaste.
Abstract Painting
I hope," he said sententiously, "that the whole matter will soon be cleared up satisfactorily. The police are very efficient. However, the whole thing, as Harold says, has been most unfortunate."
He looked, as he spoke, at Lucy, and there was distinct disapproval in his glance. "If it had not been for this young woman," his eyes seemed to say, “poking about where she had no business to be - none of this would have happened."
This sentiment, or one closely resembling it, was voiced by Harold Crackenthorpe.
Abstract Painting

Rembrandt Painting

Rembrandt Painting
murmur went round: "That's them…."
Emma said sharply: "Let's get away."
The big hired Daimler drew up to the kerb. Emma got in and motioned to Lucy. Mr. Wimborne, Cedric and Harold followed. Bryan Eastley said: “I'll take Alfred with me in my little bus." The chauffeur shut the door and the Daimler prepared to roll away.
"Oh, stop!" cried Emma. "There are the boys!"
Rembrandt Painting
The boys, in spite of aggrieved protests, had been left behind at Rutherford Hall, but they now appeared grinning from ear to ear.
"We came on our bicycles," said Stoddart-West. "The policeman was very kind and let us in at the back of the hall. I hope you don't mind, Miss Crackenthorpe," he added politely.
"She doesn't mind," said Cedric, answering for his sister. "You're only young once. Your first inquest, I expect?"
"It was rather disappointing," said Alexander. "All over so soon."
Rembrandt Painting

The Singing Butler

The Singing Butler
The inquest was a purely formal affair. No one came forward to identify the dead woman. Lucy was called to give evidence of finding the body and medical evidence was given as to the cause of death - strangulation. The proceedings were then adjourned.
The Singing Butler
It was a cold blustery day when the Crackenthorpe family came out of the hall where the inquest had been held. There were five of them all told, Emma, Cedric, Harold, Alfred, and Bryan Eastley, the husband of the dead daughter Edith. There was also Mr. Wimborne, the senior partner of the firm of solicitors who dealt with the Crackenthorpes' legal affairs. He had come down specially from London at great inconvenience to attend the inquest. They all stood for a moment on the pavement, shivering. Quite a crowd had assembled; the piquant details of the "Body in the Sarcophagus" had been fully reported in both the London and the local Press.
The Singing Butler

Jack Vettriano Painting

Jack Vettriano Painting
"Yes, sir. And she's quite set and definite about the whole thing. Whether she's barmy or not, I don't know, but she sticks to her story – about what her friend saw and all the rest of it. As far as all that goes, I dare say it's just make-believe – sort of thing old ladies do make up, like seeing flying saucers at the bottom of the garden, and Russian agents in the lending library. But it seems quite clear that she did engage this young woman. The lady help, and told her to look for a body – which the girl did."
Jack Vettriano Painting
And found one," observed the Chief Constable. "Well, it's all a very remarkable story. Marple, Miss Jane Marple - the name seems familiar somehow…. Anyway, I'll get on to the Yard. I think you're right about its not being a local case - though we won't advertise the fact just yet. For the moment we'll tell the Press as little as possible."
Jack Vettriano Painting

Mary Cassatt painting

Mary Cassatt painting
Harold Crackenthorpe, he's something in the City - quite an important figure, I understand. Alfred - don't quite know what he does. Cedric - that's the one who lives abroad. Paints!" The inspector invested the word with its full quota of sinister significance. The Chief Constable smiled into his moustache.
"No reason, is there, to believe the Crackenthorpe family are connected with the crime in any way?" he asked.
Mary Cassatt painting
"Not apart from the fact that the body was found on the premises," said Inspector Bacon. "And of course it's just possible that this artist member of the family might be able to identify her. What beats me is this extraordinary rigmarole about the train."
"Ah, yes. You've been to see this old lady, this - er –” (he glanced at the memorandum lying on his desk) "Miss Marple?"Mary Cassatt painting

Edward Hopper Painting

Edward Hopper Painting
We'd better have the Yard in on it, is that what you think, Bacon?
The Chief Constable looked inquiringly at Inspector Bacon. The inspector was a big solid man - his expression was that of one utterly disgusted with humanity.
"The woman wasn't local, sir," he said. "there's some reason to believe - from her underclothing - that she might have been a foreigner. Of course," added Inspector Bacon hastily, "I'm not letting on about that yet awhile. We're keeping it up our sleeves until after the inquest."
Edward Hopper Painting
The Chief Constable nodded.
"The inquest will be purely formal, I suppose?"
"Yes, sir. I've seen the Coroner."
"And it's fixed for – when?"
"To-morrow. I understand the other members of the Crackenthorpe family will be here for it. There's just a chance one of them might be able to identify her. They'll all be here."
He consulted a list he held in his hand.
Edward Hopper Painting

Van Gogh Sunflower

Van Gogh Sunflower
Lucy said gently:
"Not, perhaps, until after you have interviewed Miss Marple and got her confirmation of it."
"I shall interview her all right. She must be cracked."
Lucy forbore to point out that to be proved right is not really a proof of mental incapacity. Instead she said:
"What are you proposing to tell Miss Crackenthorpe? About me, I mean?"
"Why do you ask?"
Van Gogh Sunflower
Well, as far as Miss Marple is concerned I've done my job, I've found the body she wanted found. But I'm still engaged by Miss Crackenthorpe, and there are two hungry boys in the house and probably some more of the family will soon be coming down after all this upset. She needs domestic help. If you go and tell her that I only took this post in order to hunt for dead bodies she'll probably throw me out. Otherwise I can get on with my job and be useful."
The inspector looked hard her.
Van Gogh Sunflower

Van Gogh Painting

Van Gogh Painting
"Now, Miss Eyelesbarrow, you went into the Long Barn to find some paint. Is that right? And after having found the paint you got a crowbar, forced up the lid of this sarcophagus and found the body. What were you looking for in the sarcophagus?"
"I was looking for a body," said Lucy.
"You were looking for a body – and you found one! Doesn't that seem to you a very extraordinary story?"
"Oh, yes, it is an extraordinary story. Perhaps you will let me explain it to you."
"I certainly think you had better do so."
Van Gogh Painting
Lucy gave him a precise recital of the events which had led up to her sensational discovery.
The inspector summed it up in an outraged voice.
"You were engaged by an elderly lady to obtain a post here and to search the house and grounds for a dead body? Is that right?"
"Yes."
"Who is this elderly lady?"
"Miss Jane Marple. She is at present living at 4 Madison Road."
The inspector wrote it down.
"You expect me to believe this story?"
Van Gogh Painting

Henri Matisse Painting

Henri Matisse Painting
After leading the police to the Long Barn, and giving a brief account of her actions, Lucy had retired into the background, but she was under no illusion that the police had finished with her.
She had just finished preparing potatoes for chips that evening when word was brought to her that Inspector Bacon required her presence. Putting aside the large bowl of cold water and salt in which the chips were reposing, Lucy followed the policeman to where the inspector awaited her. She sat down and awaited his questions composedly.
Henri Matisse Painting
She gave her name - and her address in London, and added of her own accord:
"I will give you some names and addresses of references if you want to know all about me."
The names were very good ones. An Admiral of the Fleet, the Provost of an Oxford College, and a Dame of the British Empire. In spite of himself Inspector Bacon was impressed.
Henri Matisse Painting

Marc Chagall Painting

Marc Chagall Painting
"On, sir, please, sir. You never know. We might know who she was. Oh, please, sir, do be a sport. It's not fair. Here's a murder, right in our own barn. It's the sort of chance that might never happen again. Do be a sport, sir."
"Who are you two?"
"I'm Alexander Eastley, and this is my friend James Stoddart-West."
"Have you ever seen a blonde woman wearing a light-coloured dyed squirrel coat anywhere about the place?"
"Well, I can't remember exactly, said Alexander astutely. If I were to have a look-"
Marc Chagall Painting
Take 'em in, Sanders," said Inspector Bacon to the constable who was standing by the barn door. "One's only young once!"
"Oh, sir, thank you, sir. Both boys were vociferous. It's very kind of you, sir."
Bacon turned away towards the house.
"And now," he said to himself grimly, "for Miss Lucy Eyelesbarrow!"
Marc Chagall Painting

William Bouguereau Birth of Venus Painting

William Bouguereau Birth of Venus Painting
Cabanel The Birth of Venus painting
No matter how ill I am, I've got to do my duty, haven't I?"
A very brief visit inside the Long Barn was, however, quite long enough. Mr. Crackenthorpe shuffled out into the air again with remarkable speed.
"Never saw her before in my life!" he said. "What's it mean? Absolutely disgraceful. It wasn't Florence – I remember now - it was Naples. A very fine specimen. And some fool of a woman has to come and get herself killed in it!"
He clutched at the folds of his overcoat on the left side.
The Birth of Venus
"Too much for me…. My heart…. Where's Emma? Doctor…."
Doctor Quimper took his arm.
"You'll be all right," he said. "I prescribe a little stimulant. Brandy."
They went back together towards the house.
"Sir. Please, sir."
Inspector Bacon turned. Two boys had arrived, breathless, on bicycles. Their faces were full of eager pleading.
"Please, sir, can we see the body?"
"No, you can't," said Inspector Bacon.
The Birth of Venus

Bouguereau William

Bouguereau William
The doctor stood by the sarcophagus and looked down with frank curiosity, professionally unmoved by what he had named the “unpleasantness."
"Never seen her before. No patient of mine. I don't remember ever seeing her about in Brackhampton. She must have been quite good-looking once - hm - somebody had it in for her all right."
They went out again into the air. Doctor Quimper glanced up at the building.
"Found in the - what do they call it? - the Long Barn - in a sarcophagus! Fantastic! Who found her?"
"Miss Lucy Eyelesbarrow."
Bouguereau William
"Oh, the latest lady help? What was she doing, poking about in sarcophagi?"
"That," said Inspector Bacon grimly, "is just what I am going to ask her. Now, about Mr. Crackenthorpe. Will you –?"
"I'll bring him along."
Mr. Crackenthorpe, muffled in scarves, came walking at a brisk pace, the doctor beside him.
"Disgraceful," he said. "Absolutely disgraceful! I brought back that sarcophagus from Florence in - let me see - it must have been in 1908 - or was it 1909?"
"Steady now," the doctor warned him. "This isn't going to be nice, you know."
Bouguereau William

Gustav Klimt Painting

Gustav Klimt Painting
"I'd like you to have a look, yes, Doctor. We want to get her identified. I suppose it's impossible for old Mr. Crackenthorpe? Too much of a strain?"
"Strain? Fiddlesticks. He’d never forgive you or me if you didn't let him have a peep. He's all agog. Most exciting thing that's happened to him for fifteen years or so - and it won't cost him anything!"
"There's nothing really much wrong with him then?"
Gustav Klimt Painting
"He's seventy-two," said the doctor. "That's all, really, that's the matter with him. He has odd rheumatic twinges - who doesn't? So he calls it arthritis. He has palpitations after meals - as well he may - he puts them down to ‘heart.' But he can always do anything he wants to do! I've plenty of patients like that. The ones who are really ill usually insist desperately that they're perfectly well. Come on, let's go and see this body of yours. Unpleasant, I suppose?"
"Johnstone estimates she's been dead between a fortnight and three weeks."
"Quite unpleasant, then."
Gustav Klimt Painting

Gustav Klimt The Kiss

Gustav Klimt The Kiss
That woman's the salt of the earth," said the doctor, looking after her. "A thousand pities she's never married. The penalty of being the only female in a family of men. The other sister got clear, married at seventeen, I believe. This one's quite a handsome woman really. She'd have been a success as a wife and a mother."
"Too devoted to her father, I suppose," said Inspector Bacon.
Gustav Klimt The Kiss
She's not really as devoted as all that - but she's got the instinct some women have to make their menfolk happy. She sees that her father likes being an invalid, so she lets him be an invalid. She's the same with her brothers. Cedric feels he's a good painter, whatshisname - Harold - knows how much she relies on his sound judgment - she lets Alfred shock her with his stories of his clever deals. Oh, yes, she's a clever woman - no fool. Well, do you want me for anything? Want me to have a look at your copse now Johnstone has done with it" (Johnstone was the police surgeon) "and see if it happens to be one of my medical mistakes?"
Gustav Klimt The Kiss

Modern Art Painting

Modern Art Painting
"I'm sorry, very sorry - to have asked this of you," said Inspector Bacon.
His hand under her arm, he led Emma Crackenthorpe out of the barn. Emma's face was very pale, she looked slick, but she walked firmly erect.
"I'm quite sure that I've never seen the woman before in my life."
"We're very grateful to you, Miss Crackenthorpe. That's all I wanted to know. Perhaps you'd like to lie down?"
"I must go to my father. I telephoned to Dr. Quimper as soon as I heard about this and the doctor is with him
Modern Art Painting
Dr. Quimper came out of the library as they crossed the hall. He was a tall genial man, with a casual off-hand cynical manner that his patients found very stimulating.
He and the inspector nodded to each other.
"Miss Crackenthorpe has performed an unpleasant task very bravely," said Bacon.
"Well done, Emma," said the doctor, patting her on the shoulder. "You can take things. I've always known that. Your father's all right. Just go in and have a word with him, and then go into the dining-room and get yourself a glass of brandy. That's a prescription."
Emma smiled at him gratefully and went into the library.
Modern Art Painting

Art Painting

Art Painting
It's not that at all," said Lucy. "I didn't want to speak before your father because I understand he is an invalid and it might give him a shock. You see, I've just discovered the body of a murdered woman in that big sarcophagus in the Long Barn."
Emma Crackenthorpe stared at her.
"In the sarcophagus? A murdered woman? It's impossible!"
"I'm afraid it's quite true. I've rung up the police. They will be here at any minute."
A slight flush came into Emma's cheek.
"You should have told me first – before notifying the police."
Art Painting
"I'm sorry," said Lucy.
"I didn't hear you ring up" – Emma's glance went to the telephone on the hall table.
"I rang up from the post office just down the road."
"But how extraordinary. Why not from here?"
Lucy thought quickly.
"I was afraid the boys might be about – might hear - if I rang up from the hall here."
"I see…. Yes…. I see…. They are coming – the police, I mean?"
"They're here now," said Lucy, as with a squeal of brake a car drew up at the front door and the front-door bell pealed through the house.
Art Painting

Famous painting

Famous painting
She paused in the hall for a moment, thinking.
Then she gave a brief sharp nod of the head and went to the library where Miss. Crackenthorpe was sitting helping her father to do The Times crossword.
"Can I speak to you a moment, Miss Crackenthorpe?"
Emma looked up, a shade of apprehension on her face. The apprehension was, Lucy thought, purely domestic. In such words do useful household staff announce their imminent departure.
"Well, speak up, girl, speak up," said old Mr. Crackenthorpe irritably.
Lucy said to Emma:
"I'd like to speak to you alone, please."
Famous painting
"Nonsense," said Mr. Crackenthorpe. "You say straight out here what you've got to say."
"Just a moment, father." Emma rose and went towards the door.
"All nonsense. It can wait," said the old man angrily.
"I'm afraid it can't wait," said Lucy.
Mr. Crackenthorpe said, "What impertinence!"
Emma came out into the hall, Lucy followed her and shut the door behind them.
"Yes?" said Emma. "What is it? If you think there's too much to do with the boys here, I can help you and –"
Famous painting

Famous artist painting

Famous artist painting
"Yes. A woman in a fur coat. It's in a stone sarcophagus in a kind of barn-cum-museum near the house. What do you want me to do? I ought to inform the police, I think."
"Yes. You must inform the police. At once."
"But what about the rest of it? About you? The first thing they'll want to know is why I was prying up a lid that weighs tons for apparently no reason. Do you want me to invent a reason? I can."
"No.I think, you know," said Miss Marple in her gentle serious voice, "that the only thing t do is to tell the exact truth."
Famous artist painting
About you?"
"About everything."
A sudden grin split the whiteness of Lucy's face.
"That will be quite simple for me," she said. "But I imagine they’ll find it quite hard to believe!"
She rang off, waited a moment, and then rang and got the police station.
"I have just discovered a dead body in a sarcophagus in the Long Barn at Rutherford Hall."
"What's that?"
Lucy repeated her statement and anticipating the next question gave her name.
She drove back, put the car away and entered the house.
Famous artist painting

Decorative painting

Decorative painting
A few minutes later Lucy, rather pale, left the barn, locked the door and put the key back on the nail.
She went rapidly to the stables, got out her car and drove down the back drive. She stopped at the post office at the end of the road. She went into the telephone box, put in the money and dialled.
"I want to speak to Miss Marple."
"She's resting, miss. It's Miss Eyelesbarrow, isn't it?"
"Yes."
"I'm not going to disturb her and that's flat, miss. She's an old lady and she needs her rest."
"You must disturb her. It's urgent."
Decorative painting
"Please do what I say at once."
When she chose, Lucy's voice could be as incisive as steel. Florence knew authority when she heard it.
Presently Miss Marple's voice spoke.
"Yes, Lucy?"
Lucy drew a deep breath.
"You were quite right," she said. "I've found it."
"A woman's body?"Decorative painting

Abstract Painting

Abstract Painting
Stodders?"
"Good-oh!" said Stoddart-West.
"He isn't really Australian," explained Alexander courteously. "But he's practising talking that way in case his people take him out to see the Test Match next year."
Encouraged by Lucy, they went off to get the clock golf set. Later, as she returned to the house, she found them setting it out on the lawn and arguing about the position of the numbers.
Abstract Painting
We don't want it like a clock," said Stoddart-West. "That's kid stuff. We want t make a course of it. Long holes and short ones. It's a pity the numbers are so rusty. You can hardly see them."
"They need a lick of white paint," said Lucy. "You might get some to-morrow and paint them."
"Good idea." Alexander's face lit up. "I say, I believe there are some old pots of paint in the Long Barn - left there by the painters last hols. Shall we see?"
"What's the Long Barn?" asked Lucy.
Alexander pointed to a long stone building a little way from the house near the back drive.
Abstract Painting

Rembrandt Painting

Rembrandt Painting
A golf ball," said Lucy promptly. "Several golf balls in fact. I've been practising golf shots most afternoons and I've lost quite a lot of balls. I thought that to-day I really must find some of them."
"We'll help you," said Alexander obligingly.
"That's very kind of you. I thought you were playing football."
"One can't go on playing footer," explained Stoddart-West. "One gets too hot. Do you play a lot of golf?"
"I'm quite fond of it. I don't get much opportunity."
"I suppose you don't. You do the cooking here, don't you?"
Rembrandt Painting
"Yes."
"Did you cook lunch to-day?"
"Yes. Was it all right?"
"Simply wizard," said Alexander. "We get awful meat at school, all dried up. I love beef that's pink and juicy inside. That treacle tart was pretty smashing, too."
"You must tell me what things you like best."
"Could we have apple meringue one day? It's my favourite thing."
"Of course."
Alexander sighed happily.
Rembrandt Painting

The Singing Butler

The Singing Butler
As the two boys left the table, Lucy heard Alexander say apologetically to his friend:
"You mustn't pay any attention to my grandfather. He's on a diet or something and that makes him rather peculiar. He's terribly mean, too. I think it must be a complex of some kind."
Stoddart-West said comprehendingly:
"I had an aunt who kept thinking she was going bankrupt. Really, she had oodles of money. Pathological, the doctor said. Have you got that football, Alex?"
The Singing Butler
After she had cleared away and washed up lunch, Lucy went out. She could hear the boys calling out in the distance on the lawn. She herself went in the opposite direction, down the front drive and from there she struck across to some clumped masses of rhododendron bushes. She began to hunt carefully, holding back the leaves and peering inside. She moved from clump to clump systematically, and was raking inside with a golf club when the polite voice of Alexander Eastley made her start.
"Are you looking for something, Miss Eyelesbarrow?"
The Singing Butler

Jack Vettriano Painting

Jack Vettriano Painting
The two boys arrived the following morning. They both had well-brushed hair, suspiciously angelic faces, and perfect manners. Alexander Eastley had fair hair and blue eyes, Stoddart-West was dark and spectacled.
They discoursed gravely during lunch on events in the sporting world, with occasional references to the latest space fiction. Their manner was that of elderly professors discussing Palaeolithic implements. In comparison with them, Lucy felt quite young.
The sirloin of beef vanished in no time and every crumb of treacle tart was consumed.
Mr. Crackenthorpe grumbled: “You two will eat me out of house and home."
Jack Vettriano Painting
Alexander gave him a blue-eyed reproving glance.
"We'll have bread and cheese if you can't afford meat, grandfather."
"Afford it? I can afford it. I don't like waste."
"We haven't waste any, sir," said Stoddart-West, looking down at his place which bore clear testimony of that fact.
"You boys both eat twice as much as I do."
"We're at the body-building stage," Alexander explained. "We need a big intake of proteins."
The old man grunted.
Jack Vettriano Painting

Mary Cassatt painting

Mary Cassatt painting
"No, I don't. Died in 1928, that's what I mean."
Lucy supposed that 1928 qualified as “before the war" though it was not the way she would have described it herself.
She said: "Well, I expect you'll be wanting to go on with your work. You mustn't let me keep you."
"Ar," said old Hillman without enthusiasm, "not much you can do this time of day. Light's too bad."
Lucy went back to the house, pausing to investigate a likely-looking copse of birch and azalea on her way.
She found Emma Crackenthorpe standing in the hall reading a letter. The afternoon post had just been delivered.
Mary Cassatt painting
My nephew will be here to-morrow – with a school-friend. Alexander's room is the one over the porch. The one next to it will do for James Stoddart-West. They’ll use the bathroom just opposite."
"Yes, Miss Crackenthorpe. I'll see the rooms are prepared."
"They'll arrive in the morning before lunch." She hesitated. "I expect they'll be hungry."
"I bet they will," said Lucy. "Roast beef, do you think? And perhaps treacle tart?"
"Alexander's very fond of treacle tart."
Mary Cassatt painting

Edward Hopper Painting

Edward Hopper Painting
Crackenthorpe's Fancies, that's what they are. The old gentleman started it, Mr. Crackenthorpe's father. A sharp one he was, by all accounts. Made his fortune, and built this place. Hard as nails, they say, and never forgot an injury. But with all that, he was open-handed. Nothing of the miser about him. Disappointed in both his sons, so the story goes. Give 'em an education and brought 'em up to be gentlemen – Oxford and all. But they were too much of gentlemen to want to go into the business. The younger one married an actress and then smashed himself up in a car accident when he'd been drinking. The elder one, our one here, his father never fancied so much. Abroad a lot, he was, bought a lot of heathen status and had them sent home. Wasn't so close with his money when he was young - come on, him more in middle age, it did. No, they never did hit it off, him and his father, so I've heard."
Edward Hopper Painting
Lucy digested this information with an air of polite interest. The old man leant against the wall and prepared to go on with his saga. He much preferred talking to doing any work.
"Died afore the war, the old gentleman did. Terrible temper he had. Didn't do to give him any sauce, he wouldn't stand for it."
"And after he died, this Mr. Crackenthorpe came and lived here?"
"Him and his family, yes. Nigh grown up they was by then."
"But surely…. Oh, I see, you mean the 1914 war."
Edward Hopper Painting

Van Gogh Sunflower

Van Gogh Sunflower
Lucy was careful to display no embarrassment.
"I expect you think I'm very nosy," she said cheerfully. "I was just wondering if something couldn't be made out of this place - growing mushrooms for the market, that sort of thing. Everything seems to have been let go terribly."
"That's the master, that is. Won't spend a penny. Ought to have two men and a boy here, I ought to keep the place proper, but won't hear of it, he won't. Had all I could do to made him get a motor mower. Wanted me to mow all that front grass by hands, he did."
Van Gogh Sunflower
But if the place could be made to pay – with repairs?"
"Won't get a place like this to pay - too far gone. And he wouldn't care about that, anyway. Only cares about saving. Knows well enough what’ll happen after he's gone – the young gentlemen'll sell up as fast as they can. Only waiting for him to pop off, they are. Going to come into a tidy lot of money when he dies, so I've heard."
"I suppose he's a very rich man?" said Lucy.
Van Gogh Sunflower

Van Gogh Painting

Van Gogh Painting
After tea, Lucy rose.
"I'll be getting back," she said. "As I've already told you, there's no one actually living in the Rutherford Hall who could be the man we're looking for. there's only an old man and a middle-aged woman, and an old deaf gardener."
"I didn't say he was actually living there," said Miss Marple. "All I mean is, that he's someone who knows Rutherford Hall very well. But we can go into that after you've found the body."
"You seem to assume quite confidently that I shall find it," said Lucy. "I don't feel nearly so optimistic."
"I'm sure you will succeed, my dear Lucy. You are such an efficient person."
"In some ways, but I haven't had any experience in looking for bodies."
Van Gogh Painting
I'm sure all it needs is a little common sense," said Miss Marple encouragingly.
Lucy looked at her, then laughed. Miss Marple smiled back at her.
Lucy set to work systematically the next morning.
She poked round outhouse, prodded the briars which wreathed the old pigsties, and was peering into the boiler room under the greenhouse when she heard a dry cough and turned to find old Hillman, the gardener, looking at her disapprovingly.
"You be careful you don't get a nasty fall, miss," he warned her. "Them steps isn't safe, and you was up in the loft just now and then floor there ain't safe neither."Van Gogh Painting

Henri Matisse Painting

Henri Matisse Painting
He couldn't bury it in the park. Too hard work and very noticeable. Somewhere where the earth was turned already?"
"The kitchen garden, perhaps, but that's very close to the gardener's cottage. He's old and deaf - but still it might be risky."
"Is there a dog?"
"No."
"Then in a shed, perhaps, or an outhouse?"
"That would be simpler and quicker…. There are a lot of unused old buildings; broken down pigsties, harness rooms, workshops that nobody ever goes near. Or he might perhaps thrust it into a clump of rhododendrons or shrubs somewhere."
Miss Marple nodded.
"Yes, I think that's much more probable."
Henri Matisse Painting
There was a knock on the door and the grim Florence came in with a tray.
"Nice for you to have a visitor," she said to Miss Marple, "I've made you my special scones you used to like."
"Florence always made the most delicious tea cakes," said Miss Marple.
Florence, gratified, creased her features into a totally unexpected smile and left the room.
"I think, my dear," said Miss Marple, "we won't talk any more about murder during tea. Such an unpleasant subject!"Henri Matisse Painting

Marc Chagall Painting

Marc Chagall Painting
It is exactly like that," said Lucy. "It's an anachronism out of the past. Bustling urban life goes on all around it, but doesn't touch it. The tradespeople deliver in the mornings and that's all."
"So we assume, as you said, that the murderer comes to Rutherford Hall that night. It is already dark when the body falls and no one is likely to discover it before the next day."
"No, indeed."
"The murderer would come – how? In a car? Which way?"
Lucy considered.
Marc Chagall Painting
There's a rough lane, alongside a factory wall. He'd probably come that way, turn in under the railway arch and along the back drive. Then he could climb the fence, go along at the foot of the embankment, find the body, and carry it back to the car."
"And then," continued Miss Marple. "He took it to some place he had already chosen beforehand. This was all thought out, you know. And I don't think, as I say, that he would take it away from Rutherford Hall, or if so, not very far. The obvious thing, I suppose, would be to bury it somewhere?" She looked inquiringly at Lucy.
"I suppose so," said Lucy considering. "But it wouldn't be quite as easy as it sounds."
Miss Marple agreed.
Marc Chagall Painting

William Bouguereau Birth of Venus Painting

William Bouguereau Birth of Venus Painting
Cabanel The Birth of Venus painting
Are you saying - do you mean - that this was a premeditated crime?"
"I didn't thing so at first," said Miss Marple. "One wouldn't - naturally. It seemed like a quarrel and a man losing control and strangling the girl and then being faced with the problem which he had to solve within a very few minutes. But it really is too much of a coincidence that he should kill the girl in a fit of passion, and then look out of the window and find the train was going round a curve exactly at a spot where he could tip the body out, and where he could be sure of finding his way later and removing it! If he’d just thrown her out there by chance, he'd have done no more about it, and the body would, long before now, have been found."
She paused. Lucy stared at her.
The Birth of Venus
"You know," said Miss Marple thoughtfully, "it's really quite a clever way to have planned a crime - and I think it was very carefully planned. There's something so anonymous about a train. If he'd killed her in the place where she lived, or was staying, somebody might have noticed him come or go. Or if he’d driven her out in the country somewhere, someone might have noticed the car and its number and make. But a train is full of strangers coming and going. In a non-corridor carriage, along with her, it was quite easy - especially if you realise that he knew exactly what he was going to do next. He knew – he must have known - all about Rutherford Hall – its geographical position, I mean, its queer isolation – an island bounded by railway lines."
The Birth of Venus

Bouguereau William

Bouguereau William
A faint flush of achievement came into Miss Marple's cheeks.
"Perhaps one ought not to feel so, she said, but it is rather gratifying to form a theory and get proof that it is correct!"
She fingered the small tuft of fur. "Elspeth said the woman was wearing a light-coloured fur coat. I suppose the compact was in the pocket of the coat and fell out as the body rolled down the slope. It doesn't seem distinctive in any way, but it may help. You didn't take all the fur?"
"No, I left half of it on the thorn bush."
Miss Marple nodded approval.
"Quite right. You are very intelligent, my dear. The police will want to check exactly."
"You are going to the police – with these things?"
Bouguereau William
"Well - not quite yet…." Miss Marple considered: “It would be better, I think, to find the body first. Don't you?"
"Yes, but isn't that rather a tall order? I mean, granting that your estimate is correct. The murderer pushed the body out of the train, then presumably got out himself at Brackhampton and at some time - probably that same night - came along and removed the body. But what happened after that? He may have taken it anywhere."
"Not anywhere," said Miss Marple. "I don't think you've followed the thing to its logical conclusion, my dear Miss Eyelesbarrow."
"Do call me Lucy. Why not anywhere?"
Bouguereau William

Gustav Klimt Painting

Gustav Klimt Painting
Miss Marple was occupying the back sitting-room which looked out on to a small tidy square of garden. It was aggressively clean with a lot of mats and doilies, a great many china ornaments, a rather big Jacobean suite and two ferns in pots. Miss Marple was sitting in a big chair by the fire busily engaged in crocheting.
Lucy came in and shut the door. She sat down in the chair facing Miss Marple.
"Well!" she said. "It looks as though you were right."
She produced her finds and gave details of their finding.
A faint flush of achievement came into Miss Marple's cheeks
Gustav Klimt Painting
Miss Marple was occupying the back sitting-room which looked out on to a small tidy square of garden. It was aggressively clean with a lot of mats and doilies, a great many china ornaments, a rather big Jacobean suite and two ferns in pots. Miss Marple was sitting in a big chair by the fire busily engaged in crocheting.
Lucy came in and shut the door. She sat down in the chair facing Miss Marple.
"Well!" she said. "It looks as though you were right."
She produced her finds and gave details of their finding.
A faint flush of achievement came into Miss Marple's cheeks
Gustav Klimt Painting

Gustav Klimt The Kiss

Gustav Klimt The Kiss
She began to hunt carefully down in the grass at the foot of the embankment just below the broken thorn bush. Presently her search was rewarded. She found a powder compact, a small cheap enamelled affair. She wrapped it in her handkerchief and put it in her pocket. She searched on but did not find anything more.
On the following afternoon, she got into her car and went to see her invalid aunt. Emma Crackenthorpe said kindly, "Don't hurry back. We shan't want you until dinner-time."
"Thank you, but I shall be back by six at the latest."
Gustav Klimt The Kiss
No.4 Madison Road was a small drab house in a small drab street. It had very clean Nottingham lace curtains, a shining white doorstep and a well-polished brass door handle. The door was opened by a tall, grim-looking woman, dressed in black with a large knob of iron-grey hair.
She eyed Lucy in suspicious appraisal as she showed her in to Miss Marple.
Gustav Klimt The Kiss

Modern Art Painting

Modern Art Painting
She began playing a series of shots. After five minutes or so, a ball, apparently sliced, pitched on the side of the railway embankment. Lucy went up and began to hunt about for it. She looked back towards the house. It was a long way away and nobody was in the least interested in what she was doing. She continued to hunt for the ball. Now and then she played shots from the embankment down into the grass. During the afternoon she searched about a third of the embankment. Nothing. She played her ball back towards the house.
Modern Art Painting
Then, on the next day, she came upon something. A thorn bush growing about half-way up the bank had been snapped off. Bits of it lay scattered about. Lucy examined the tree itself. Impaled on one of the thorns was a torn scrap of fur. It was almost the same colour as the wood, a pale brownish colour. Lucy looked at it for a moment, then she took a pair of scissors out of her pocket and snipped it carefully in half. The half she had snipped off she put in an envelope which she had in her pocket. She came down the steep slope searching about for anything else. She looked carefully at the rough grass of the field. She thought she could distinguish a kind of track which someone had made walking through the long grass. But it was very faint – not nearly so clear as her own tracks were. It must have been made some time ago and it was too sketchy for her to be sure that it was not merely imagination on her part.
Modern Art Painting

Art Painting

Art Painting
"All right, all right, say straight out that I ate too much! That's what you mean. And why did I eat too much? Because there was too much food on the table, far too much. Wasteful and extravagant. And that reminds me - you, young woman. Five potatoes you sent in for lunch - good-sized ones too. Two potatoes are enough for anybody. So don't send in more than four in future. The extra one was wasted to-day."
"It wasn't wasted, Mr. Crackenthorpe. I've planned to use it in a Spanish omelette to-night."
Art Painting
Urgh!" As Lucy went out of the room carrying the coffee tray she heard him say, "Slick young woman, that, always got all the answers. Cooks well, though – and she's a handsome kind of girl!"
Lucy Eyelesbarrow took a light iron out of the set of gold clubs she had had the forethought to bring with her, and strolled out into the park, climbing over the fencing.Art Painting

Art Painting

Art Painting
"All right, all right, say straight out that I ate too much! That's what you mean. And why did I eat too much? Because there was too much food on the table, far too much. Wasteful and extravagant. And that reminds me - you, young woman. Five potatoes you sent in for lunch - good-sized ones too. Two potatoes are enough for anybody. So don't send in more than four in future. The extra one was wasted to-day."
"It wasn't wasted, Mr. Crackenthorpe. I've planned to use it in a Spanish omelette to-night."
Art Painting
Urgh!" As Lucy went out of the room carrying the coffee tray she heard him say, "Slick young woman, that, always got all the answers. Cooks well, though – and she's a handsome kind of girl!"
Lucy Eyelesbarrow took a light iron out of the set of gold clubs she had had the forethought to bring with her, and strolled out into the park, climbing over the fencing.Art Painting

Famous painting

Famous painting
"I suppose it will be all right if I just practise a few iron shots in the park?" asked Lucy.
"Oh, yes, certainly. Are you fond of golf?"
"I'm not much good, but I like to keep in practise. It's a more agreeable form of exercise than just going for a walk."
"Nowhere to walk outside this," growled Mr. Crackenthorpe. "Nothing but pavements and miserable little band boxes of houses. Like to get hold of my land and build more of them. But they won't until I'm dead. And I'm not going to die to oblige anybody. I can tell you that! Not to oblige anybody!"
Emma Crackenthorpe said mildly:
Famous painting
"Now, father."
"I know what they think – and what they're waiting for. All of them. Cedric, and that sly fox Harold with his smug face. As for Alfred, I wonder he hasn't had a shot at bumping me off himself. Not sure he didn't, at Christmas-time. That was a very odd turn I had. Puzzled old Quimper. He asked me a lot of discreet questions."
"Everyone gets these digestive upsets now and again, father."
Famous painting

Famous artist painting

Famous artist painting
"Excuse me, can you tell me if there is a public telephone near here?"
"Post office just at the corner of the road."
Lucy thanked her and walked along until she came to the post office which was a combination shop and post office. There was telephone box at one side. Lucy went into it and made a call. She asked to speak to Miss Marple. A woman's voice spoke in a sharp bark.
Famous artist painting
She's resting. And I'm not going to disturb her! She needs her rest - she's an old lady. Who shall I say called?"
"Miss Eyelesbarrow. there's no need to disturb her. Just tell her that I've arrived and everything is going on well and that I'll let her know when I've any news."
She replaced the receiver and made her way back to Rutherford Hall.
Famous artist painting

Decorative painting

Decorative painting
She strolled round the gardens which would be the normal thing to do. The kitchen garden was sketchily cultivated with a few vegetables. The hot-houses were in ruins. The paths everywhere were overgrown with weeds. A herbaceous border near the house was the only thing that showed free of weeds and in good condition and Lucy suspected that that had been Emma's hand. The gardener was a very old man, somewhat deaf, who was only making a show of working. Lucy spoke to him pleasantly. He lived in a cottage adjacent to the big stableyard.
Leading out of the stableyard a back drive led through the park which
Decorative painting
Every few minutes a train thundered along the main line over the railway arch. Lucy watched the trains as they slackened speed going round the sharp curve that encircled the Crackenthorpe property. She passed under the railway arch and out into the lane. It seemed a little-used track. On the one side was the railway embankment, on the other was a high wall which enclosed some tall factory buildings. Lucy followed the lane until it came out into a street of small houses. She could hear a short distance away the busy hum of main road traffic. She glanced at her watch. A woman came out of a house nearby and Lucy stopped her.
Decorative painting

Rembrandt Painting

Rembrandt Painting
"Nevertheless，"continued Poirot，"in view of what has happened，thepolice there would like to have another look at the anonymous letter Ireceived.I have said that you and I will go down to Andover at once." My spirits revived a little.After all，sordid as this crime seemed to be，it was a crime，and it was a long time since I had had any association withcrime and criminals. I hardly listened to the next words Poirot said.But they were to comeback to me with significance later. "This is the beginning，"said Hercule Poirot.
Rembrandt Painting
We were received at Andover by Inspector Glen，a tall fair-haired manwith a pleasant smile. For the sake of concisenss I think I had better give a brief resume ofthe bare facts of the case. The crime was discovered by Police Constable Dover at 1am on the morningof the 22nd.When on his round he tried the door of the shop and found itunfastened，he entered and at first thought the place was empty.Directinghis torch over the counter，however，he caught sight of the huddled-up bodyof the old woman.When the police surgeon arrived on the spot it was elicitedthat the woman had been struck down by a heavy blow on the back of the head，probably while she was reaching down a packet of cigarettes from the shelfbehind the counter.Death must have occurred about nine to sever hourspreviously.
Rembrandt Painting

The Singing Butler

The Singing Butler
Mais oui......" "Yes，of course......" "But yes，we will come......" "Naturally......" "It may be as you say......" "Yes，I will bring it.A tout a l'heure then." He replaced the receiver and came across the room to me. "That was Japp speaking，Hastings." "Yes?" "He had just got back to the Yard.There was a message fromAndover......" "Andover?"I cried excitedly. Poirot said slowly: "An old woman of the name of Ascher who keeps a little tobacco andnewspaper shop has been found murdered."
The Singing Butler
I think I felt ever so slightly damped.My interest，quickened by thesound of Andover，suffered a faint check.I had expected somethingfantastic-out of the way!The murder of an old woman who kept a littletabacco shop seemed，somehow，sordid and uninteresting. Poirot continued in the same slow，grave voice: "The Andover police believe they can put their hand on the man who didit-"I felt a second throb of disappointment. "It seems the woman was on bad terms with her husband.He drinks and isby way of being rather a nasty customer.He's threatened to take her lifemore than once.
The Singing Butler

Jack Vettriano Painting

Jack Vettriano Painting
How can a crime be intime?" "Supposing，"murmured Poirot，"that four people sit down to play bridgeand one，the odd man out，sits in a chair by the fire. At the end of the evening the man by the fire is found dead.One of thefour，while he is dummy，has gone over and killed him，and intent on theplay of the hand，the other three have not noticed.Ah，there would be acrime for you!Which of the four was it?" "Well，"I said."I can't see any excitement in that!" Poirot threw me a glance of reproof.
Jack Vettriano Painting
"No，because there are no curiously twisted daggers，no blackmail，noemerald that is the stolen eye of a god，no untraceable Eastern poisons.Youhave the melodramatic soul，Hastings.You would like，not one murder，but aseries of murders." "I admit，"I said，"that a second murder in a book often cheers thingsup.If the murder happens in the first chapter，and you have to follow upeverybody's alibi until the last page but one-well，it does get a bittedious." The telephone rang and Poirot rose to answer. "Allo，"he said."Allo.Yes，it is Hercule Poirot speaking." He listened for a minute or two and then I saw his face change. His own side of the conversation was short and disjointed.
Jack Vettriano Painting

Van Gogh Sunflower

Van Gogh Sunflower
"It's utterly senseless." "From the point of view of the man about to sit，certainly it is." "Well，"I said，slightly recovering my temper，(I admit that I am touchyabout the thinness of my hair.)"I'm sorry that anonymous letter businesscame to nothing." "I have indeed been in the wrong over that. About that letter，there was，I thought，the odour of the fish.Instead amere stupidity. Alas，I grow old and suspicious like the blind watch-dog who growls whenthere is nothing there." "If I'm going to co-operate with you，we must look about for some other"creamy"crime，"I said with a laugh.
Van Gogh Sunflower
"You remember your remark of the other day?If you could order a crime asone orders a dinner，what would you choose?" I fell in with his humour. "Let me see now.Let's review the menu. Robbery?Forgery?No，I think not.Rather too vegetarian.It must bemurder-red-blooded murder-with trimmings，of course." "Naturally.The hors d'oeuvres." "Who shall the victim be-man or woman?Man，I think.Some big-wig.Americanmillionaire.Prime Minister.Newspaper proprietor.Scene of the crime-well，what's wrong with the good old library?Nothing like it for atmosphere.
Van Gogh Sunflower

Abstract Painting

Abstract Painting
"But we've been able to get it down a bit nearer than that，"explainedthe inspector."We've found a man who went in and bought some tobacco at5.30.And a second man went in and found the shop empty，as he thought，atfive minutes past six.That puts the time at between 5.30and 6.5.So far Ihaven't been able to find anyone who saw this man Ascher in theneighbourhood，but，of course，it's early as yet.He was in the Three Crownsat nine o'clock pretty far gone in drind.When we get hold of him he'll bedetained on suspicion." "Not a very desirable character，inspector?"asked Poirto. "Unpleasant bit of goods." "He didn't live with his wife?"
Abstract Painting
"No，they separated some years ago.Ascher's a German.He was a waiter atone time，but he took to drink and gradually became unemployable.His wifewent into service for a bit.Her last place was as cook-housekeeper to an oldlady，Miss Rose. She allowed her husband so much out of her wages to keep himself，but hewas always getting drunk and coming round and making scenes at the placeswhere she was employed.That's why she took the post with Miss Rose at TheGrange.It's three miles out of Andover，dead in the countrAbstract Painting

Edward Hopper Painting

Edward Hopper Painting
As for the weapon-well，it might be a curiously twisted dagger-or someblunt instrument-a carved stone idol-"Poirot sighed. "Or，of course，"I said，"there's poison-but that's always sotechnical.Or a revolver shot echoing in the night.Then there must be abeautiful girl or two-""With auburn hair，"murmured my friend. "Your same old joke.One of the beautiful girls，of course，must beunjustly suspected-and there's some misunderstanding between her and theyoung man.And then，of course，there must be some other suspects-an olderwoman-dark，dangerous type-and some friend or rival of the dead man's-and aquiet secretary-dark horse-and a hearty man with a bluff manner-and a coupleof discharged servants or gamekeepers or somethings-and a damn fool of adetective rather like Japp-and well-that's about all."
Edward Hopper Painting
That is your idea of the cream，eh?" "I gather you don't agree." Poirot looked at me sadly. "You have made there a very pretty resume of nearly all the detectivestories that have ever been written." "Well，"I said."What would you order?" Poirot closed his eyes and leaned back in his chair. His voice came purringly from between his lips. "A very simple crime.A crime with no complications.A crime of quietdomestic life......very unimpassioned-very intime."
Edward Hopper Painting

Van Gogh Painting

Van Gogh Painting
"He does not change much，the good Japp，eh?"asked Poirot. "He looks much older，"I said. "Getting as grey as a badger，"I added vindictively. Poirot coughed and said: "You know，Hastings，there is a little device-my hairdresser is a man ofgreat ingenuity-one attaches it to the scalp and brushes one's own hair overit-it is not a wig，you comprehend-but-""Poirot，"I roared."Once and for allI will have nothing to do with the beastly inventions of your confoundedhairdresser. What's the matter with the top of my head?" "Nothing-nothing at all."
Van Gogh Painting
"It's not as though I were going bald." "Of course not!Of course not!" "The hot summers out there naturally cause the hair to fall out a bit.Ishall take back a really good hair tonic." "Precisement." "And，anyway，what business is it of Japp's?He always was an offensivekind of devil.And no sense of humour.The kind of man who laughs when a chairis pulled away just as a man is about to sit down." "A great many people would laugh at that."Van Gogh Painting

Van Gogh Painting

Van Gogh Painting
"The 21st，"said Japp."That's what I dropped in about.Yesterday was the21st and just out of curiosity I rang up Andover last night.Nothingdoing.One broken shop window-kid throwing stones-and a couple of drunk anddisorderlies.So just for once our Belgian friend was barking up the wrongtree." "I am relieved，I must confess." acknowledged Poirot. "You'd quite got the wind up about it，hadn't you?"said Jappaffectionately."Bless you，we get dozens of letters like that coming inevery day!People with nothing better to do and a bit weak in the top storeysit down and write'em.They don't mean any harm!Just a kind of excitement." "I have indeed been foolish to take the matter so seriously，"saidPoirot."It is the nest of the horse that I put my nose into there."
Van Gogh Painting
"You're mixing up mares and wasps，"said Japp. "Pardon?" "Just a couple of proverbs.Well，I must be off.Got a little business inthe next street to see to-receiving stolen jewellery.I thought I'd just dropin on my way and put your mind at rest.Pity to let those grey cells functionunnecessarily." With which words and a hearty laugh，Japp departed.
Van Gogh Painting

Marc Chagall Painting

Marc Chagall Painting
I had been impressed at the time by Poirot's forebodings about theanonymous letter he had received，but I must admit that the matter hadpassed from my mind when the 21st actually arrived and the first reminder ofit came with a visit paid to my friend by Chief Inspector Japp of ScotlandYard.The CID inspector had been known to us for many years and he gave me ahearty welcome. "Well，I never，"he exclaimed."If it isn't Captain Hastings back fromthe wilds of the what do you call it!Quite like old days seeing you herewith Monsieur Poirot.You're looking well，too.Just a little bit thin on top，eh?Well，that's what we're all coming to.I'm the same."
Marc Chagall Painting
I winced slightly.I was under the impression that owing to the carefulway I brushed my hair across the top of my head the thinness referred to byJapp was quite unnoticeable.However，Japp had never been remarkable for tactwhere I was concerned，so I put a good face upon it and agreed that we werenon of us getting any youger. "Except Monsieur Poirot here，"said Japp.
Marc Chagall Painting

William Bouguereau Birth of Venus Painting

William Bouguereau Birth of Venus Painting
Cabanel The Birth of Venus painting
"Not instinct，Hastings.Instinct is a bad word.It is my knowledge-myexperience-that tells me that something about that letter is wrong-"Hegesticulated as words failed him，then shook his head again. "I may be making the mountain out of the anthill.In any case there isnothing to be done but wait." "Well，the 21st is Friday.If a whacking great robbery takes place nearAndover then-""Ah，what a comfort that would be-!" "A comfort?"I stared.The word seemed to be a very extraordinary one touse. "A robbery may be a thrill but it can hardly be a comfort!"I protested. Poirot shook his head energetically.
The Birth of Venus
Mr.Alexander Bonaparte Cust rose from his seat and peered near-sightedlyround the shabby bedroom.His back was stiff from sitthing in a crampedposition and as he stretched himself to his full height an onlooker wouldhave realized that he was，in reality，quite a tall man.His stoop and hisnear-sighted peering gave a delusive impression. Going to a well-worn overcoat hanging on the back of the door，he tookfrom the pocket a packet of cheap cigarettes and some matches.He lit acigarette and then returned to the table at which he had been sitting.
The Birth of Venus

Bouguereau William

Bouguereau William
"Nothing-just an expression.I meant a fellow who was tight.No，damn it，a fellow who had had a spot too much to drink." "Merci，Hastings-the expression "tight"I am acquainted with it.As yousay，there may be nothing more to it than that......" "But you think there is?"I asked，struck by the dissatisfaction of histone. Poirot shook his head doubtfully，but he did not speak. "What have you done about it"I inquired. "What can one do?I showed it to Japp.He was of the same opinion as you-astupid hoax-that was the expression he used.They get these things every dayat Scotland Yard.I，too，have had my share......" "But you take this one seriously?"
Bouguereau William
Poirot replied slowly. "There is something about that letter，Hastings，that I do notlike......" In spite of myself，his tone impressed me. "You think-what?" He shook his head，and picking up the letter，put it away again in thedesk. "If you really take it seriously，can't you do something?"I asked. "As always，the man of action!But what is there to do?The county policehave seen the letter but they，too，do not take it seriously.There are nofingerprints on it.There are no local clues as to the possible writer." "In fact there is only your own instinct?"
Bouguereau William

Gustav Klimt The Kiss

Gustav Klimt The Kiss
"Upon my word，Poirot，"I said. "Anyone would think you were ordering a dinner at the Ritz." "Whereas one cannot command a crime to order? Very true."He signed."But I believe in luck-in destiny，if you will.Itis your destiny to stand beside me and prevent me from committing theunforgivable error." "What do you call the unforgivable error?" "Overlooking the obvious." I turned this over in my mind without quite seeing the point. "Well，"I said presently，smiling，"has this super crime turned up yet?" "Pas encore.At least-that is-"He paused.A frown of perplexity creasedhis forehead.His hands automatically straightened an object or two that Ihad inadvertently pushed awry. "I am not sure，"he said slowly.
Gustav Klimt The Kiss
There was something so odd about his tone that I looked at him insurprise. The frown still lingered. Suddently with a brief decisive nod of the head he crossed the room to adesk near the window.Its contents，I need hardly say，were all neatlydocketed and pigeon-holed so that he was able at once to lay his hand uponthe paper he wanted. He came slowly across to me，an open letter in his hand.He read itthrough himself，then passed it to me.
Gustav Klimt The Kiss

Gustav Klimt Painting

Gustav Klimt Painting
"Tell me，mon ami，"he said."What do you make of this?" I took it from him with some interest. It was written on thickish white notepaper in printed characters: Mr.Hercule Poirot，-You fancy yourself，don't you，at solving mysteriesthat are too difficult for our poor thickheaded British police?Let us see，Mr.Clever Poirot，just how clever you can be.Perhaps you'll find this nuttoo hard to crack.Look out for Andover，on the 21st of the month. Yours，etc.，A B C I glanced at the envelope.That also was printed. "Postmarked WCI，"said Poirot as I turned my attention to the postmark. "Well，what is your opinion?" I shrugged my shoulders as I handed it back to him.
Gustav Klimt Painting
"Some madman or other，I suppose." "That is all you have to say?" "Well-doesn't it sound like a madman to you?" "Yes，my friend，it does." His tone was grave.I looked at him curiously. "You take this very seriously，Poirot." "A madman，mon ami，is to be taken seriously.A madman is a very dangerouthing." "Yes，of course，that is true......I hadn't considered thatpoint......But what I meant was，it sounds more like a rather idiotic kindof hoax.Perhaps some convivial idiot who had had one over the eight." "Comment?Nine?Nine what?"
Gustav Klimt Painting

Art Painting

Art Painting
"Dear me，"I said，recovering from the shock."I suppose next time I comehome I shall find you wearing false moustaches-or are you doing so now?" Poirot winced.His moustaches had always been his sensitive point.He wasinordinately proud of them.My words touched him on the raw. "No，no，indeed，mon ami.That day，I pray the good God，is still faroff.The false moustache!Quel horreur!" He tugged at them vigorously to assure me of their genuine character. "Well，they are very luxuriant still，"I said. "N'est ce pas?Never，in the whole of London，have I seen a pair ofmoustaches to equal mine."
Art Painting
A good job too，I thought privately.But I would not for the world havehurt Poirot's feelings by saying so. Instead I asked if he still practised his profession on occasion. "I know，"I said，"that you actually retired years ago-""C'est vrai.Togrow the vegetable marrows!And immediately a murder occurs-and I send thevegetable marrows to promenade themselves to the devil.And since then-I knowvery well what you will say-I am like the prima donna who makes positivelythe farewell performance!That farewell performance，it repeats itself anindefinite number of times!" I laughed.
Art Painting

Famous artist painting

Famous artist painting
I said that I thought there could be too much squareness and，alludingto an old joke，I asked if in this super-modern hostelry they managed toinduce hens to lay square eggs. Poirot laughed heartily. "Ah，you remember that?Alas!No-science has not yet induced the hens toconform to modern tastes，they still lay eggs of different sizes andcolours!"
Famous artist painting
examined my old friend with an affectionate eye. He was looking wonderfully well-hardly a day older than when I had lastseen him. "You're looking in fine fettle，Poirot，"I said."You've hardly aged atall.In fact，if it were possible，I should say that you had fewer grey hairsthan when I saw you last." Poirot beamed on me. "And why is that not possible?It is quite true."
Famous artist painting

Henri Matisse Painting

Henri Matisse Painting
"Quite a good advertisement for a hair tonic，he'd be.Face fungussprouting finer than ever.Coming out into the limelight，too，in his oldage.Mixed up in all the celebrated cases of the day.Train mysteries，airmysteries，high society deaths-oh，he's here，there and everywhere.Neverbeen so celebrated as since he retired." "I have already told Hastings that I am like the prima donna who makesalways one more appearance，'said Poirot，smiling. "I shouldn't wonder if you ended by detecting your own death，"said Japp，laughing heartily."That's an idea，that is.Ought to be put in a book." "It will be Hastings who will have to do that，"said Poirot，twinklingat me.
Henri Matisse Painting
"Ha ha!That would be a joke，that would，"laughed Japp. I failed to see why the idea was so extremely amusing，and in any case Ithought the joke was in poor taste.Poirot，poor old chap，is gettingon.Jokes about his approaching demise can hardly be agreeable to him. Perhaps my manner showed my feelings，for Japp changed the subject. "Have you heard about Monsieur Poirot's anonymous letter?" "I showed it to Hastings the other day，"said my friend. "Of course，"I exclaimed."It had quite slipped my memory.Let me see，what was the date mentioned?"
Henri Matisse Painting

Modern Art Painting

Modern Art Painting
"In truth，it has been very like that.Each time I say:this is theend.But no，something else arises!And I will admit it，my friend，theretirement I care for it not at all.If the little grey cells are notexercised，they grow the rust." "I see，"I said."You exercise them in moderation." "Precisely.I pick and choose.For Hercule Poirot nowadays only the creamof crime." "Has there been much cream about?" "Pas mal.Not long ago I had a narrow escape." "Of failure?" "No，no."Poirot looked shocked."But I-I，Hercule Poirot，was nearlyexterminated." I whistled.
Modern Art Painting
"An enterprising murderer!" "Not so much enterprising as careless，"said Poirot."Preciselythat-careless.But let us not talk of it.You know，Hastings，in many ways Iregard you as my mascot." "Indeed?"I said."In what ways?" Poirot did not answer my question directly.He went on: "As soon as I heard you were coming over I said to myself:something willarise.As in former days we will hunt together，we two.But if so it must beno common affair.It must be something"-he waved his handsexcitedly-"something recherche-delicate-fine......"He gave the lastuntranslatable word its full flavour.
Modern Art Painting

Famous painting

Famous painting
"Do you mean your hair is turning from grey to black instead of fromblack to grey?" "Precisely." "But surely that's a scientific impossibility!" "Not at all." "But that's very extraordinary.It seems against nature." "As usual，Hastings，you have the beautiful and unsuspicious mind.Yearsdo not change that in you!You perceive a fact and mention the solution of itin the same breath without noticing that you are doing so!" I stared at him，puzzled.
Famous painting
Without a word he walked into his bedroom and returned with a bottle inhis hand which he handed to me. I took it，for the moment uncomprehending. It bore the words: Revivit-To bring back the natural tone of the hair. Revivit is not a dye.In five shades，Ash，Chestnut，Titian，Brown，Black. "Poirot，"I cried."You have dyed your hair!" "Ah，the comprehension comes to you!" "So that's why your hair looks so much blacker that it did last time Iwas back." "Exactly."
Famous painting

Decorative painting

Decorative painting
It was in June of 1935that I came home from my ranch in South Americafor a stay of about six months.It had been a difficult time for us outthere.Like everyone else，we had suffered from world depression.I hadvarious affairs to see to in England that I felt could only be successful ifa personal touch was introduced.My wife remained to manage the ranch.
Decorative painting
need hardly say that one of my first actions on reaching England wasto look up my old friend，Hercule Poirot. I found him installed in one of the newest type of service flats inLondon.I accused him (and he admitted the fact)of having chosen thisparticular building entirely on account of its strictly geometricalappearance and proportions. "But yes，my friend，it is of a most pleasing symmetry，do you not findit so?"
Decorative painting

Abstract Painting

Abstract Painting
The people greeted Dorothy kindly, and invited her to supper and to pass the night with them; for this was the home of one of the richest Munchkins in the land, and his friends were gathered with him to celebrate their freedom from the bondage of the Wicked Witch.
Dorothy ate a hearty supper and was waited upon by the rich Munchkin himself, whose name was Boq. Then she sat upon a settee and watched the people dance.
Abstract Painting
When Boq saw her silver shoes he said, "You must be a great sorceress."
"Why?" asked the girl.
"Because you wear silver shoes and have killed the Wicked Witch. Besides, you have white in your frock, and only witches and sorceresses wear white."
Abstract Painting

Edward Hopper Painting

Edward Hopper Painting

"Yes," answered the child, looking up and drying her tears.
"Then you must go to the City of Emeralds. Perhaps Oz will help you."
"Where is this city?" asked Dorothy.
"It is exactly in the center of the country, and is ruled by Oz, the Great Wizard I told you of."
"Is he a good man?" inquired the girl anxiously.
"He is a good Wizard. Whether he is a man or not I cannot tell, for I have never seen him."
Edward Hopper Painting
"How can I get there?" asked Dorothy.
"You must walk. It is a long journey, through a country that is sometimes pleasant and sometimes dark and terrible. However, I will use all the magic arts I know of to keep you from harm."
"Won't you go with me?" pleaded the girl, who had begun to look upon the little old woman as her only friend.
"No, I cannot do that," she replied, "but I will give you my kiss, and no one will dare injure a person who has been kissed by the Witch of the North." Edward Hopper Painting

van gogh sunflower

van gogh sunflower
another, and then at Dorothy, and then shook their heads.
"At the East, not far from here," said one, "there is a great desert, and none could live to cross it."
"It is the same at the South," said another, "for I have been there and seen it. The South is the country of the Quadlings."
"I am told," said the third man, "that it is the same at the West. And that country, where the Winkies live, is ruled by the Wicked Witch of the West, who would make you her slave if you passed her way."
van gogh sunflower
"The North is my home," said the old lady, "and at its edge is the same great desert that surrounds this Land of Oz. I'm afraid, my dear, you will have to live with us."
Dorothy began to sob at this, for she felt lonely among all these strange people. Her tears seemed to grieve the kind-hearted Munchkins, for they immediately took out their handkerchiefs and began to weep also. As for the little old woman, she took off her cap and balanced the point on the end of her nose, while she counted "One, two, three" in a solemn voice. At once the cap changed to a slate, on which was written in big, white chalk marks
van gogh sunflower

Van Gogh Painting

Van Gogh Painting
"No, but I am their friend, although I live in the land of the North. When they saw the Witch of the East was dead the Munchkins sent a swift messenger to me, and I came at once. I am the Witch of the North."
"Oh, gracious!" cried Dorothy. "Are you a real witch?"
"Yes, indeed," answered the little woman. "But I am a good witch, and the people love me. I am not as powerful as the Wicked Witch was who ruled here, or I should have set the people free myself."
Van Gogh Painting
"But I thought all witches were wicked," said the girl, who was half frightened at facing a real witch. "Oh, no, that is a great mistake. There were only four witches in all the Land of Oz, and two of them, those who live in the North and the South, are good witches. I know this is true, for I am one of them myself, and cannot be mistaken. Those who dwelt in the East and the West were, indeed, wicked witches; but now that you have killed one of them, there is but one Wicked Witch in all the Land of Oz -- the one who lives in the West."
"But," said Dorothy, after a moment's thought, "Aunt
Van Gogh Painting

Henri Matisse Painting

Henri Matisse Painting Dorothy looked, and gave a little cry of fright. There, indeed, just under the corner of the great beam the house rested on, two feet were sticking out, shod in silver shoes with pointed toes.
"Oh, dear! Oh, dear!" cried Dorothy, clasping her hands together in dismay. "The house must have fallen on her. Whatever shall we do?"
"There is nothing to be done," said the little woman calmly.
"But who was she?" asked Dorothy.
Henri Matisse Painting
many years, making them slave for her night and day. Now they are all set free, and are grateful to you for the favor."
"Who are the Munchkins?" inquired Dorothy.
"They are the people who live in this land of the East where the Wicked Witch ruled."
"Are you a Munchkin?" asked Dorothy.
Henri Matisse Painting

Marc Chagall Painting

Marc Chagall Painting
You are welcome, most noble Sorceress, to the land of the Munchkins. We are so grateful to you for having killed the Wicked Witch of the East, and for setting our people free from bondage."
Dorothy listened to this speech with wonder. What could the little woman possibly mean by calling her a sorceress, and saying she had killed the Wicked Witch of the East? Dorothy was an innocent, harmless little girl, who had been carried by a cyclone many miles from home; and she had never killed anything in all her life
Marc Chagall Painting
evidently expected her to answer; so Dorothy said, with hesitation, "You are very kind, but there must be some mistake. I have not killed anything."
"Your house did, anyway," replied the little old woman, with a laugh, "and that is the same thing. See!" she continued, pointing to the corner of the house. "There are her two feet, still sticking out from under a block of wood." Marc Chagall Painting

The Birth of Venus

William Bouguereau Birth of Venus Painting
Cabanel The Birth of Venus painting
Three were men and one a woman, and all were oddly dressed. They wore round hats that rose to a small point a foot above their heads, with little bells around the brims that tinkled sweetly as they moved. The hats of the men were blue; the little woman's hat was white, and she wore a white gown that hung in pleats from her shoulders. Over it were sprinkled little stars that glistened in the sun like diamonds. The men were dressed in blue, of the same
The Birth of Venus
shade as their hats, and wore well-polished boots with a deep roll of blue at the tops. The men, Dorothy thought, were about as old as Uncle Henry, for two of them had beards. But the little woman was doubtless much older. Her face was covered with wrinkles, her hair was nearly white, and she walked rather stiffly.
When these people drew near the house where Dorothy was standing in the doorway, they paused and whispered among themselves, as if afraid to come farther. But the little old woman walked up to Dorothy, made a low bow and said, in a sweet voice
The Birth of Venus

van gogh sunflower

van gogh sunflower
Em has told me that the witches were all dead -- years and years ago."
"Who is Aunt Em?" inquired the little old woman.
"She is my aunt who lives in Kansas, where I came from."
The Witch of the North seemed to think for a time, with her head bowed and her eyes upon the ground. Then she looked up and said, "I do not know where Kansas is, for I have never heard that country mentioned before. But tell me, is it a civilized country?"
"Oh, yes," replied Dorothy.
van gogh sunflower
"Then that accounts for it. In the civilized countries I believe there are no witches left, nor wizards, nor sorceresses, nor magicians. But, you see, the Land of Oz has never been civilized, for we are cut off from all the rest of the world. Therefore we still have witches and wizards amongst us."
"Who are the wizards?" asked Dorothy.
"Oz himself is the Great Wizard," answered the Witch, sinking her voice to a whisper. "He is more powerful than all the rest of us together. He lives in the City of Emeralds."
Dorothy was going to ask another question, but just then the Munchkins, who had been standing silently by, gave a loud shout and pointed to the corner of the house where the Wicked Witch had been lying.
van gogh sunflower

Bouguereau William

Bouguereau William
about her, her eyes growing bigger and bigger at the wonderful sights she saw.
The cyclone had set the house down very gently -- for a cyclone -- in the midst of a country of marvelous beauty. There were lovely patches of greensward all about, with stately trees bearing rich and luscious fruits. Banks of gorgeous flowers were on every hand, and birds with rare and brilliant plumage sang and fluttered in the trees and bushes. A little way off was a small brook, rushing and sparkling along between green banks, and murmuring in a voice very grateful to a little girl who had lived so long on the dry, gray prairies.
Bouguereau William
While she stood looking eagerly at the strange and beautiful sights, she noticed coming toward her a group of the queerest people she had ever seen. They were not as big as the grown folk she had always been used to; but neither were they very small. In fact, they seemed about as tall as Dorothy, who was a well-grown child for her age, although they were, so far as looks go, many years older.
Bouguereau William

Gustav Klimt Painting

Gustav Klimt Painting
resolved to wait calmly and see what the future would bring. At last she crawled over the swaying floor to her bed, and lay down upon it; and Toto followed and lay down beside her.
In spite of the swaying of the house and the wailing of the wind, Dorothy soon closed her eyes and fell fast asleep.
Gustav Klimt Painting
She was awakened by a shock, so sudden and severe that if Dorothy had not been lying on the soft bed she might have been hurt. As it was, the jar made her catch her breath and wonder what had happened; and Toto put his cold little nose into her face and whined dismally. Dorothy sat up and noticed that the house was not moving; nor was it dark, for the bright sunshine came in at the window, flooding the little room. She sprang from her bed and with Toto at her heels ran and opened the door.
Gustav Klimt Painting

Art Painting

Art Painting
low wail of the wind, and Uncle Henry and Dorothy could see where the long grass bowed in waves before the coming storm. There now came a sharp whistling in the air from the south, and as they turned their eyes that way they saw ripples in the grass coming from that direction also.
Suddenly Uncle Henry stood up.
"There's a cyclone coming, Em," he called to his wife. "I'll go look after the stock." Then he ran toward the sheds where the cows and horses were kept.
Art Painting
Aunt Em dropped her work and came to the door. One glance told her of the danger close at hand.
"Quick, Dorothy!" she screamed. "Run for the cellar!"
Toto jumped out of Dorothy's arms and hid under the bed, and the girl started to get him. Aunt Em, badly frightened, threw open the trap door in the floor and climbed down the ladder into the small, dark hole. Dorothy caught Toto at last and started to follow her aunt. When she was halfway across the room there came a great shriek from the wind, and the house shook so hard that she lost her footing and sat down suddenly upon the floor.
Art Painting

Modern Art Painting

Modern Art Painting
Then a strange thing happened.
The house whirled around two or three times and rose slowly through the air. Dorothy felt as if she were going up in a balloon.
The north and south winds met where the house stood, and made it the exact center of the cyclone. In the
Modern Art Painting
middle of a cyclone the air is generally still, but the great pressure of the wind on every side of the house raised it up higher and higher, until it was at the very top of the cyclone; and there it remained and was carried miles and miles away as easily as you could carry a feather.
It was very dark, and the wind howled horribly around her, but Dorothy found she was riding quite easily. After the first few whirls around, and one other time when the house tipped badly, she felt as if she were being rocked gently, like a baby in a cradle.
Modern Art Painting

Famous painting

Famous painting
the child's laughter that she would scream and press her hand upon her heart whenever Dorothy's merry voice reached her ears; and she still looked at the little girl with wonder that she could find anything to laugh at.
Uncle Henry never laughed. He worked hard from morning till night and did not know what joy was. He was gray also, from his long beard to his rough boots, and he looked stern and solemn, and rarely spoke.
Famous painting
It was Toto that made Dorothy laugh, and saved her from growing as gray as her other surroundings. Toto was not gray; he was a little black dog, with long silky hair and small black eyes that twinkled merrily on either side of his funny, wee nose. Toto played all day long, and Dorothy played with him, and loved him dearly.
Today, however, they were not playing. Uncle Henry sat upon the doorstep and looked anxiously at the sky, which was even grayer than usual. Dorothy stood in the door with Toto in her arms, and looked at the sky too. Aunt Em was washing the dishes.
Famous painting

Rembrandt Painting

Rembrandt Painting
She was surprised, as she walked along, to see how pretty the country was about her. There were neat fences at the sides of the road, painted a dainty blue color, and beyond them were fields of grain and vegetables in abundance. Evidently the Munchkins were good farmers and able to raise large crops. Once in a while she would pass a house, and the people came out to look at her and bow low as she went by; for everyone knew she had been the means of destroying the Wicked Witch and setting them free from bondage. The houses
Rembrandt Painting
of the Munchkins were odd-looking dwellings, for each was round, with a big dome for a roof. All were painted blue, for in this country of the East blue was the favorite color.
Toward evening, when Dorothy was tired with her long walk and began to wonder where she should pass the night, she came to a house rather larger than the rest. On the green lawn before it many men and women were dancing. Five little fiddlers played as loudly as possible, and the people were laughing and singing, while a big table near by was loaded with delicious fruits and nuts, pies and cakes, and many other good things to eat.
Rembrandt Painting

The Singing Butler

The Singing Butler "They surely will never do for a long journey, Toto," she said. And Toto looked up into her face with his little black eyes and wagged his tail to show he knew what she meant.
At that moment Dorothy saw lying on the table the silver shoes that had belonged to the Witch of the East.
"I wonder if they will fit me," she said to Toto. "They would be just the thing to take a long walk in, for they could not wear out."
The Singing Butler

"Come along, Toto," she said. "We will go to the Emerald City and ask the Great Oz how to get back to Kansas again."
She closed the door, locked it, and put the key carefully in the pocket of her dress. And so, with Toto trotting along soberly behind her, she started on her journey.
There were several roads near by, but it did not take her long to find the one paved with yellow bricks. Within a short time she was walking briskly toward the Emerald City, her silver shoes tinkling merrily on the hard, yellow road-bed.
The Singing Butler

Jack Vettriano Painting

Jack Vettriano Painting
When Dorothy was left alone she began to feel hungry. So she went to the cupboard and cut herself some bread, which she spread with butter. She gave some to Toto, and taking a pail from the shelf she carried it down to the little brook and filled it with clear, sparkling water. Toto ran over to the trees and began to bark at the birds sitting there. Dorothy went to get him, and saw such delicious fruit hanging from the branches that she gathered some of it, finding it just what she wanted to help out her breakfast
Jack Vettriano Painting
herself and Toto to a good drink of the cool, clear water, she set about making ready for the journey to the City of Emeralds.
Dorothy had only one other dress, but that happened to be clean and was hanging on a peg beside her bed. It was gingham, with checks of white and blue; and although the blue was somewhat faded with many washings, it was still a pretty frock. The girl washed herself carefully, dressed herself in the clean gingham, and tied her pink sunbonnet on her head. She took a little basket and filled it with bread from the cupboard, laying a white cloth over the top. Then she looked down at her feet and noticed how old and worn her shoes were.
Jack Vettriano Painting

Mary Cassatt painting

Mary Cassatt painting
She came close to Dorothy and kissed her gently on the forehead. Where her lips touched the girl they left a round, shining mark, as Dorothy found out soon after.
"The road to the City of Emeralds is paved with yellow brick," said the Witch, "so you cannot miss it. When you get to Oz do not be afraid of him, but tell your story and ask him to help you. Good-bye, my dear."
Mary Cassatt painting

The three Munchkins bowed low to her and wished her a pleasant journey, after which they walked away through the trees. The Witch gave Dorothy a friendly little nod, whirled around on her left heel three times, and straightway disappeared, much to the surprise of little Toto, who barked after her loudly enough when she had gone, because he had been afraid even to growl while she stood by.
But Dorothy, knowing her to be a witch, had expected her to disappear in just that way, and was not surprised in the least.
Mary Cassatt painting

van gogh sunflower

van gogh sunflower

"What is it?" asked the little old woman, and looked, and began to laugh. The feet of the dead Witch had disappeared entirely, and nothing was left but the silver shoes.
"She was so old," explained the Witch of the North, that she dried up quickly in the sun. That is the end of her. But the silver shoes are yours, and you shall have them to wear." She reached down and picked up the shoes, and after shaking the dust out of them handed them to Dorothy.
van gogh sunflower
"The Witch of the East was proud of those silver shoes," said one of the Munchkins, "and there is some charm connected with them; but what it is we never knew."
Dorothy carried the shoes into the house and placed them on the table. Then she came out again to the Munchkins and said:
"I am anxious to get back to my aunt and uncle, for I am sure they will worry about me. Can you help me find my way?" van gogh sunflower

Gustav Klimt The Kiss

Gustav Klimt The Kiss
Toto did not like it. He ran about the room, now here, now there, barking loudly; but Dorothy sat quite still on the floor and waited to see what would happen.
Once Toto got too near the open trap door, and fell in; and at first the little girl thought she had lost him. But soon she saw one of his ears sticking up through the hole, for the strong pressure of the air was keeping him up so that he could not fall. She crept to the hole, caught Toto by the ear, and dragged him into the room again, afterward closing the trap door so that no more accidents could happen.
Gustav Klimt The Kiss
Hour after hour passed away, and slowly Dorothy got over her fright; but she felt quite lonely, and the wind shrieked so loudly all about her that she nearly became deaf. At first she had wondered if she would be dashed to pieces when the house fell again; but as the hours passed and nothing terrible happened, she stopped worrying and
Gustav Klimt The Kiss

Famous artist painting

Famous artist painting
When Dorothy stood in the doorway and looked around, she could see nothing but the great gray prairie on every side. Not a tree nor a house broke the broad sweep of flat country that reached to the edge of the sky in all directions. The sun had baked the plowed land into a gray mass, with little cracks running through it. Even the grass was not green, for the sun had burned the tops of the long blades until they were the same gray color to be seen everywhere. Once the house had been painted, but the sun blistered the paint and the rains washed it away, and now the house was as dull and gray as everything else.
Famous artist painting
When Aunt Em came there to live she was a young, pretty wife. The sun and wind had changed her, too. They had taken the sparkle from her eyes and left them a sober gray; they had taken the red from her cheeks and lips, and they were gray also. She was thin and gaunt, and never smiled now. When Dorothy, who was an orphan, first came to her, Aunt Em had been so startled Famous artist painting

Decorative painting

Decorative painting

Dorothy lived in the midst of the great Kansas prairies, with Uncle Henry, who was a farmer, and Aunt Em, who was the farmer's wife. Their house was small, for the lumber to build it had to be carried by wagon many miles. There were four walls, a floor and a roof, which made one room; and this room contained a rusty looking cookstove, a cupboard for the dishes, a table, three or four chairs, and the beds. Uncle
Decorative painting
Henry and Aunt Em had a big bed in one corner, and Dorothy a little bed in another corner. There was no garret at all, and no cellar -- except a small hole dug in the ground, called a cyclone cellar, where the family could go in case one of those great whirlwinds arose, mighty enough to crush any building in its path. It was reached by a trap door in the middle of the floor, from which a ladder led down into the small, dark hole.
Decorative painting

Abstract Painting

Abstract Painting
The great pageant moved on, and still on, under one triumphal arch after another, and past a bewildering succession of spectacular and symbolical tableaux, each of which typified and exalted some virtue, or talent, or merit, of the little king's. "Throughout the whole of Cheapside, from every penthouse and window, hung banners and streamers; and the richest carpets, stuffs, and cloth-of-gold tapestried the streets-specimens of the great wealth of the stores within; and the splendor of this thoroughfare was equaled in the other streets, and in some even surpassed."
Abstract Painting
"And all these wonders and these marvels are to welcome me-me!" murmured Tom Canty.
The mock king's cheeks were flushed with excitement, his eyes were flashing, his senses swam in a delirium of pleasure. At this point, just as he was raising his hand to fling another rich largess, he caught sight of a pale, astounded face which was strained forward out of the second rank of the crowd, its intense eyes riveted upon him, A sickening consternation struck through him
Abstract Painting

Rembrandt Painting

Rembrandt Painting
occupied by Henry VIII, issuing from a red-and-white rose, with the effigy of the new king's mother, Jane Seymour, represented by his side. One branch sprang from this pair, which mounted to a third stage, where sat the effigy of Edward VI himself, enthroned in royal majesty; and the whole pageant was framed with wreaths of roses, red and white."
Rembrandt Painting
This quaint and gaudy spectacle so wrought upon the rejoicing people, that their acclamations utterly smothered the small voice of the child whose business it was to explain the thing in eulogistic rhymes. But Tom Canty was not sorry; for this loyal uproar was sweeter music to him than any poetry, no matter what its quality might be. Whithersoever Tom turned his happy young face, the people recognized the exactness of his effigy's likeness to himself, the flesh-and-blood counterpart; and new whirlwinds of applause burst forth. Rembrandt Painting

Edward Hopper Painting

Edward Hopper Painting
Tom Canty, splendidly arrayed, mounted a prancing war-steed, whose rich trappings almost reached to the ground; his "uncle," the Lord Protector Somerset, similarly mounted, took place in his rear; the King's Guard formed in single ranks on either side, clad in burnished armor; after the Protector followed a seemingly interminable procession of resplendent nobles attended by their vassals; after these came the lord mayor and the aldermanic body, in crimson velvet robes
Edward Hopper Painting
and with their gold chains across their breasts; and after these the officers and members of all the guilds of London, in rich raiment, and bearing the showy banners of the several corporations. Also in the procession, as a special guard of honor through the city, was the Ancient and Honorable Artillery Company-an organization already three hundred years old at that time, and the only military body in England possessing the privilege (which it still possesses in our day) of holding itself independent of the commands of Parliament
Edward Hopper Painting

van gogh sunflower

van gogh sunflower

When Tom Canty awoke the next morning, the air was heavy with a thunderous murmur; all the distances were charged with it. It was music to him; for it meant that the English world was out in its strength to give loyal welcome to the great day.
Presently Tom found himself once more the chief figure in a wonderful floating pageant on the Thames; for by ancient custom the "recognition procession" through London must start from the Tower, and he was bound thither.

van gogh sunflower
When he arrived there, the sides of the venerable fortress seemed suddenly rent in a thousand places, and from every rent leaped a red tongue of flame and a white gush of smoke; a deafening explosion followed, which drowned the shoutings of the multitude, and made the ground tremble; the flame-jets, the smoke, and the explosions were repeated over and over again with marvelous celerity, so that in a few moments the old Tower disappeared in the vast fog of its own smoke, all but the very top of the tall pile called the White Tower; this, with its banners, stood out above the dense bank of vapor as a mountain peak projects above a cloud-rack.
van gogh sunflower

Mary Cassatt painting

Mary Cassatt painting
It was a brilliant spectacle, and was hailed with acclamations all along the line, as it took its stately way through the packed multitudes of citizens. The chronicler says, "The king, as he entered the city, was received by the people with prayers, welcomings, cries, and tender words, and all signs which argue an earnest love of subjects toward their sovereign; and the king, by holding up his glad countenance to such as stood afar off
Mary Cassatt painting
and most tender language to those that stood nigh his Grace, showed himself no less thankful to receive the people's good will than they to offer it. To all that wished him well, he gave thanks. To such as bade "God save his Grace," he said in return, "God save you all!" and added that "he thanked them with all his heart." Wonderfully transported were the people with the loving answers and gestures of their king."
In Fenchurch Street a "fair child, in costly apparel," stood on a stage to welcome his majesty to the city. The last verse of his greeting was in these words:
Mary Cassatt painting

Van Gogh Painting

Van Gogh Painting
Tom's poor mother and sisters traveled the same road out of his mind. At first he pined for them, sorrowed for them, longed to see them; but later, the thought of their coming some day in their rags and dirt, and betraying him with their kisses, and pulling him down from his lofty place and dragging him back to penury and degradation and the slums, made him shudder. At last they ceased to trouble his thoughts almost wholly. And he was content, even glad; for, whenever their mournful and accusing faces did rise before him now, they made him feel more despicable than the worms that crawl.
Van Gogh Painting
At midnight of the 19th of February, Tom Canty was sinking to sleep in his rich bed in the palace, guarded by his loyal vassals, and surrounded by the pomps of royalty, a happy boy; for to-morrow was the day appointed for his solemn crowning as king of England. At that same hour, Edward, the true king, hungry and thirsty, soiled and draggled, worn with travel, and clothed in rags and shreds-his share of the results of the riot-was wedged in among a crowd of people who were watching with deep interest certain hurrying gangs of workmen who streamed in and out of Westminster Abbey, busy as ants; they were making the last preparation for the royal coronation.
Van Gogh Painting

Marc Chagall Painting

Marc Chagall Painting
He even learned to enjoy sitting in throned state in council, and seeming to be something more than the Lord Protector's mouthpiece. He liked to receive great ambassadors and their gorgeous trains, and listen to the affectionate messages they brought from illustrious monarchs who called him "brother." Oh, happy Tom Canty, late of Offal Court!
Marc Chagall Painting
He enjoyed his splendid clothes, and ordered more; he found his four hundred servants too few for his proper grandeur, and trebled them. The adulation of salaaming courtiers came to be sweet music to his ears. He remained kind and gentle, and a sturdy and determined champion of all that were oppressed, and he made tireless war upon unjust laws; yet upon occasion, being offended, he could turn upon an earl, or even a duke, and give him a look that would make him tremble.
Marc Chagall Painting

Jack Vettriano Painting

Jack Vettriano Painting

The people burst forth in a glad shout, repeating with one voice what the child had said. Tom Canty gazed abroad over the surging sea of eager faces, and his heart swelled with exultation; and he felt that the one thing worth living for in this world was to be a king, and a nation's idol. Presently he caught sight, at a distance, of a couple of his ragged Offal Court comrades-one of them the lord high admiral in his late mimic court, the other the first lord of the bedchamber in the same pretentious fiction; and his pride swelled higher than ever.
Jack Vettriano Painting
Oh, if they could only recognize him now! What unspeakable glory it would be, if they could recognize him, and realize that the derided mock king of the slums and back alleys was become a real king, with illustrious dukes and princes for his humble menials, and the English world at his feet! But he had to deny himself, and choke down his desire, for such a recognition might cost more than it would come to; so he turned away his head, and left the two soiled lads to go on with their shoutings and glad adulations, unsuspicious of whom it was they were lavishing them upon. Jack Vettriano Painting

William Bouguereau Birth of Venus Painting

William Bouguereau Birth of Venus Painting
Cabanel The Birth of Venus painting
He ordered my Lady Elizabeth and my Lady Jane Grey into his presence when he wanted to play or talk, and dismissed them when he was done with them, with the air of one familiarly accustomed to such performances. It no longer confused him to have these lofty personages kiss his hand at parting.
The Birth of Venus
He came to enjoy being conducted to bed in state at night, and dressed with intricate and solemn ceremony in the morning. It came to be a proud pleasure to march to dinner attended by a glittering procession of officers of state and gentlemen-at-arms; insomuch, indeed, that he doubled his guard of gentlemen-at-arms, and made them a hundred. He liked to hear the bugles sounding down the long corridors, and the distant voices responding, "Way for the King!"
The Birth of Venus

Henri Matisse Painting

Henri Matisse Painting Once, when his royal 'sister," the grimly holy Lady Mary, set herself to reason with him against the wisdom of his course in pardoning so many people who would otherwise be jailed, or hanged, or burned, and reminded him that their august late father's prisons had sometimes contained as high as sixty thousand convicts at one time, and that during his admirable reign he had delivered
Henri Matisse Painting
Did Tom Canty never feel troubled about the poor little rightful prince who had treated him so kindly, and flown out with such hot zeal to avenge him upon the insolent sentinel at the palace gate? Yes; his first royal days and nights were pretty well sprinkled with painful thoughts about the lost prince, and with sincere longings for his return and happy restoration to his native rights and splendors. But as time wore on, and the prince did not come, Tom's mind became more and more occupied with his new and
Henri Matisse Painting

Bouguereau William

Bouguereau William
Whilst the true king wandered about the land, poorly clad, poorly fed, cuffed and derided by tramps one while, herding with thieves and murderers in a jail another, and called idiot and impostor by all impartially, the mock King Tom Canty enjoyed a quite different experience.
Bouguereau William
When we saw him last, royalty was just beginning to have a bright side for him. This bright side went on brightening more and more every day; in a very little while it was become almost all sunshine and delightfulness. He lost his fears; his misgivings faded out and died; his embarrassments departed, and gave place to an easy and confident bearing. He worked the whipping-boy mine to ever-increasing profit.
Bouguereau William

Famous painting

Famous painting
He said to himself, "Now am I finely tinseled, indeed! The specter-knight of the Kingdom of Dreams and Shadows is become a specter-earl!-a dizzy flight for a callow wing! An this go on, I shall presently be hung like a very May-pole with fantastic gauds and make-believe honors. But I shall value them, all valueless as they are, for the love that doth bestow them. Better these poor mock dignities of mine, that come unasked from a clean hand and a right spirit, than real ones bought by servility from grudging and interested power."
Famous painting
The dreaded Sir Hugh wheeled his horse about, and, as he spurred away, the living wall divided silently to let him pass, and as silently closed together again. And so remained; nobody went so far as to venture a remark in favor of the prisoner, or in compliment to him; but no matter, the absence of abuse was a sufficient homage in itself. A late comer who was not posted as to the present circumstances, and who delivered a sneer at the "impostor" and was in the act of following it with a dead cat, was promptly knocked down and kicked out, without any words, and then the deep quiet resumed sway once more
Famous painting

The Singing Butler

The Singing Butler
Every now and then rose the cry, "A largess! a largess!" and Tom responded by scattering a handful of bright new coins abroad for the multitude to scramble for.
The chronicler says, "At the upper end of Gracechurch Street, before the sign of the Eagle, the city had erected a gorgeous arch, beneath which was a stage, which stretched from one side of the street to the other.
The Singing Butler
This was a historical pageant, representing the king's immediate progenitors. There sat Elizabeth of York in the midst of an immense white rose, whose petals formed elaborate furbelows around her; by her side was Henry VII, issuing out of a vast red rose, disposed in the same manner; the hands of the royal pair were locked together, and the wedding-ring ostentatiously displayed. From the red and white roses proceeded a stem, which reached up to a second stage
The Singing Butler

Famous artist painting

Famous artist painting
The stillness that pervaded the place when Hendon found himself once more in the stocks, was in strong contrast with the insulting clamour which had prevailed there so little a while before. The king came softly to Hendon's side, and whispered in his ear:
"Kings cannot ennoble thee, thou good, great soul, for One who is higher than kings hath done that for thee; but a king can confirm thy nobility to men." He picked up the scourge from the ground, touched Hendon's bleeding shoulders lightly with it, and whispered, "Edward of England dubs thee earl!"
Famous artist painting
Hendon was touched. The water welled to his eyes, yet at the same time the grisly humor of the situation and circumstances so undermined his gravity that it was all he could do to keep some sign of his inward mirth from showing outside. To be suddenly hoisted, naked and gory, from the common stocks to the Alpine altitude and splendor of an earldom, seemed to him the last possibility in the line of the grotesque.
Famous artist painting

Gustav Klimt Painting

Gustav Klimt Painting
between them, striking Hendon on the elbow and then bounding off among the hurrying confusion of feet. So evanescent and unstable are men's works in this world!-the late good king is but three weeks dead and three days in his grave, and already the adornments which he took such pains to select from prominent people for his noble bridge are falling. A citizen stumbled over that head, and drove his own head into the back of somebody in front of him, who turned and knocked down the first person that came handy, and was promptly laid out himself by that person's friend.
Gustav Klimt Painting
It was the right ripe time for a free fight, for the festivities of the morrow-Coronation Day-were already beginning; everybody was full of strong drink and patriotism; within five minutes the free fight was occupying a good deal of ground; within ten or twelve it covered an acre or so, and was become a riot. By this time Hendon and the king were hopelessly separated from each other and lost in the rush and turmoil of the roaring masses of humanity. And so we leave them.
Gustav Klimt Painting

Gustav Klimt The Kiss

Gustav Klimt The Kiss
He was surprised to see how far he had come; the village was away behind him. The king was jogging along in his wake, with his head bowed; for he, too, was deep in plans and thinkings. A sorrowful misgiving clouded Hendon's newborn cheerfulness; would the boy be willing to go again to a city where, during all his brief life, he had never known anything but ill usage and pinching want? But the question must be asked; it could not be avoided; so Hendon reined up, and called out:
Gustav Klimt The Kiss

"I had forgotten to inquire whither we are bound. Thy commands, my liege?"
"To London!"
Hendon moved on again, mightily contented with the answer-but astonished at it, too. The whole journey was made without an adventure of importance. But it ended with one. About ten o'clock on the night of the night of the 19th of February, they stepped upon London Bridge, in the midst of a writhing, struggling jam of howling and hurrahing people, whose beer-jolly faces stood out strongly in the glare from manifold torches-and at that instant the decaying head of some former duke or other grandee tumbled down
Gustav Klimt The Kiss

Modern Art Painting

Modern Art Painting
certainly, but still worth considering, for lack of any other that promised anything at all. He remembered what old Andrews had said about the young king's goodness and his generous championship of the wronged and unfortunate. Why not go and try to get speech of him and beg for justice? Ah, yes, but could so fantastic a pauper get admission to the august presence of a monarch? Never mind-let that matter take care of itself; it was a bridge that would not need to be crossed till he should come to it. He was an old campaigner
Modern Art Painting
and used to inventing shifts and expedients; no doubt he would be able to find a way. Yes, he would strike for the capital. Maybe his father's old friend, Sir Humphrey Marlow, would help him-"good old Sir Humphrey, Head Lieutenant of the late king's kitchen, or stables, or something"-Miles could not remember just what or which. Now that he had something to turn his energies to, a distinctly defined object to accomplish, the fog of humiliation and depression that had settled down upon his spirits lifted and blew away, and he raised his head and looked about him.
Modern Art Painting

Art Painting

Art Painting
When Hendon's term of service in the stocks was finished, he was released and ordered to quit the region and come back no more. His sword was restored to him, and also his mule and his donkey. He mounted and rode off, followed by the king, the crowd opening with quiet respectfulness to let them pass, and then dispersing when they were gone.
Art Painting
Hendon was soon absorbed in thought. There were questions of high import to be answered. What should he do? Whither should he go? Powerful help must be found somewhere, or he must relinquish his inheritance and remain under the imputation of being an impostor besides. Where could he hope to find this powerful help? Where, indeed! It was a knotty question. By and by a thought occurred to him which pointed to a possibility-the slenderest of slender possibilities
Art Painting

Decorative painting

Decorative painting
Hendon was removed from the stocks, and his back laid bare; and while the lash was applied the poor little king turned away his face and allowed unroyal tears to channel his cheeks unchecked. "Ah, brave good heart," he said to himself, "this loyal deed shall never perish out of my memory. I will not forget it-and neither shall they!" he added, with passion. While he mused, his appreciation of Hendon's magnanimous conduct grew to greater and still greater dimensions in his mind, and so also did his gratefulness for it. Presently he said to himself
Decorative painting
"Who saves his prince from wounds and possible death-and this he did for me-performs high service; but it is little-it is nothing!-oh, less than nothing!-when "tis weighed against the act of him who saves his prince from shame!"
Hendon made no outcry under the scourge, but bore the heavy blows with soldierly fortitude. This, together with his redeeming the boy by taking his stripes for him, compelled the respect of even that forlorn and degraded mob that was gathered there; and its gibes and hootings died away, and no sound remained but the sound of the falling blows.
Decorative painting

Abstract Painting

Abstract Painting
That I'm sure they do, sir " - she spoke heartily, sincerely. Doctors had always treated her most kindly, and even generously.
And then, having laid the cloth, and put the lodger's one hot dish upon it, she went towards the door. "Wouldn't you like me to bring up another scuttleful of coals, sir? it's bitterly cold - getting colder every minute. A fearful night to have to go out in - " she looked at him deprecatingly.
Abstract Painting
And then Mr. Sleuth did something which startled her very much. Pushing his chair back, he jumped up and drew himself to his full height.
"What d'you mean?" he stammered. "Why did you say that, Mrs. Bunting?"
She stared at him, fascinated, affrighted. Again there came an awful questioning look over his face.
Abstract Painting

Jack Vettriano Painting

Jack Vettriano Painting
He would have to put on his dress clothes, and she didn't like his dressing in the sitting-room. It didn't suit her ideas that he should do so. How if she did light the fire here, in their bedroom? It would be nice for her to have bit of fire to cheer her up after he had gone.
Mrs. Bunting knew only too well that she would have very little sleep the coming night. She looked over, with shuddering distaste, at her nice, soft bed. There she would lie, on that couch of little ease, listening - listening. . .
Jack Vettriano Painting
She went down to the kitchen. Everything was ready for Mr. Sleuth's supper, for she had made all her preparations before going out so as not to have to hurry back before it suited her to do so.
Leaning the tray for a moment on the top of the banisters, she listened. Even in that nice warm drawing-room, and with a good fire, how cold the lodger must feel sitting studying at the table! But unwonted sounds were coming through the door. Mr. Sleuth was moving restlessly about the room, not sitting reading, as was his wont at this time of the evening.
Jack Vettriano Painting

Mary Cassatt painting

Mary Cassatt painting
Hurriedly she got up from her chair. "There, now," she said; "here I am gossiping all about nothing when I ought to be seeing about the lodger's supper. It was someone in the train talked to me about that person as thinks she saw The Avenger."
Without waiting for an answer, she went into her bedroom, lit the gas, and shut the door. A moment later she heard Bunting go out to buy the paper they had both forgotten during their dangerous discussion.
Mary Cassatt painting
As she slowly, languidly took off her nice, warm coat and shawl, Mrs. Bunting found herself shivering. It was dreadfully cold, quite unnaturally cold even for the time of year.
She looked longingly towards the fireplace. It was now concealed by the washhand-stand, but how pleasant it would be to drag that stand aside and light a bit of fire, especially as Bunting was going to be out to-night.
Mary Cassatt painting

Edward Hopper Painting

Edward Hopper Painting
"So that's your idea about him, is it?" She looked across at her husband. Somehow this dangerous, this perilous conversation between them attracted her strangely. She felt as if she must go on with it. "D'you think he was the man that woman said she saw? That young man what passed her with a newspaper parcel?"
"Let me see," he said slowly. "I thought that 'twas from the bedroom window a woman saw him?"
Edward Hopper Painting
"No, no. I mean the other woman, what was taking her husband's breakfast to him in the warehouse. She was far the most respectable-looking woman of the two," said Mrs. Bunting impatiently.
And then, seeing her husband's look of utter, blank astonishment, she felt a thrill of unreasoning terror. She must have gone suddenly mad to have said what she did!
Edward Hopper Painting

van gogh sunflower

van gogh sunflower
"What do you mean?" said Bunting, staring at her. Ellen had spoken so oddly, as if to herself, and in so fierce and passionate a tone.
"What do I mean?" she repeated - and a great fear clutched at her heart. What had she said? She had been thinking aloud.
"Why, by saying he won't go out. Of course, he has to go out. Besides, he'll have been to the play as it is. 'Twould be a pretty thing if the police didn't go out, just because it was cold!"
van gogh sunflower
"I - I was thinking of The Avenger," said Mrs. Bunting. She looked at her husband fixedly. Somehow she had felt impelled to utter those true words.
"He don't take no heed of heat nor cold," said Bunting sombrely. "I take it the man's dead to all human feeling - -saving, of course, revenge.
van gogh sunflower

Van Gogh Painting

Van Gogh Painting
"I'll just run out," said Bunting apologetically, "and see what happened at that inquest to-day. Besides, they may have a clue about the horrible affair last night. Chandler was full of it - when he wasn't talking about Daisy and Margaret, that is. He's on to-night, luckily not till twelve o'clock; plenty of time to escort the two of 'em back after the play. Besides, he said he'll put them into a cab and blow the expense, if the panto' goes on too long for him to take 'em home."
Van Gogh Painting
"On to-night?". repeated Mrs. Bunting. "Whatever for?"
"Well, you see, The Avenger's always done 'em in couples, so to speak. They've got an idea that he'll have a try again to-night. However, even so, Joe's only on from midnight till five o'clock. Then he'll go and turn in a bit before going off to fetch Daisy, Fine thing to be young, ain't it, Ellen?"
"I can't believe that he'd go out on such a night as this!"
Van Gogh Painting

Henri Matisse Painting

Henri Matisse Painting
She stared at him, a little suspiciously. "I be afraid?" she echoed. "Certainly not. Why should I be? I've never been afraid before. What d'you exactly mean by that, Bunting?"
"Oh, nothing. I only thought you might feel funny-like, all alone on this ground floor. You was so upset yesterday when that young fool Chandler came, dressed up, to the door."
Henri Matisse Painting
"I shouldn't have been frightened if he'd just been an ordinary stranger," she said shortly. "He said something silly to me - just in keeping with his character-like, and it upset me. Besides, I feel better now."
As she was sipping gratefully her cup of tea, there came a noise outside, the shouts of newspaper-sellers.
Henri Matisse Painting

Marc Chagall Painting

Marc Chagall Painting
No, that I didn't! I hum'd and haw'd a lot; and I could see the fellow was quite worried - in fact, at the end he offered me half-a-crown more. So I graciously consented!"
Husband and wife laughed more merrily than they had done for a long time.
Marc Chagall Painting
"You won't mind being alone, here? I don't count the lodger - he's no good - " Bunting looked at her anxiously. He was only prompted to ask the question because lately Ellen had been so queer, so unlike herself. Otherwise it never would have occurred to him that she could be afraid of being alone in the house. She had often been so in the days when he got more jobs.
Marc Chagall Painting

William Bouguereau Birth of Venus Painting

William Bouguereau Birth of Venus Painting
Cabanel The Birth of Venus painting
"Something else happened?" she said in a startled voice. Getting up from her chair she came towards her husband: "What happened? Who came?"
"Just a message for me, asking if I could go to-night to wait at a young lady's birthday party. In Hanover Terrace it is. A waiter - one of them nasty Swiss fellows as works for nothing - fell out just at the last minute and so they had to send for me."
The Birth of Venus
His honest face shone with triumph. The man who had taken over his old friend's business in Baker Street had hitherto behaved very badly to Bunting, and that though Bunting had been on the books for ever so long, and had always given every satisfaction. But this new man had never employed him - no, not once.
"I hope you didn't make yourself too cheap?" said his wife jealously.
The Birth of Venus

The Singing Butler

The Singing Butler
She knocked, and then waited a moment.
There came the sound of a sharp click, that of the key turning in the lock of the chiffonnier cupboard - or so Mr. Sleuth's landlady could have sworn.
There was a pause - she knocked again.
"Come in," said Mr. Sleuth loudly, and she opened the door and carried in the tray.
The Singing Butler
You are a little earlier than usual, are you not Mrs. Bunting?" he said, with a touch of irritation in his voice.
"I don't think so, sir, but I've been out. Perhaps I lost count of the time. I thought you'd like your breakfast early, as you had dinner rather sooner than usual."
"Breakfast? Did you say breakfast, Mrs. Bunting?"
The Singing Butler

Bouguereau William

Bouguereau William
"Very nice for them, I'm sure," said Mrs. Bunting absently. But she was pleased - pleased to have her mind taken off herself. "Then when is that girl coming home?" she asked patiently.
"Well, it appears that Chandler's got to-morrow morning off too - this evening and to-morrow morning. He'll be on duty all night, but he proposes to go over and bring Daisy back in time for early dinner. Will that suit you, Ellen?"
Bouguereau William
Yes. That'll be all right," she said. "I don't grudge the girl her bit of pleasure. One's only young once. By the way, did the lodger ring while I was out?"
Bunting turned round from the gas-ring, which he was watching to see the kettle boil. "No," he said. "Come to think of it, it's rather a funny thing, but the truth is, Ellen, I never gave Mr. Sleuth a thought. You see, Chandler came in and was telling me all about Margaret, laughing-like, and then something else happened while you was out, Ellen."
Bouguereau William

Gustav Klimt Painting

Gustav Klimt Painting
"'Course I will," he said eagerly. "You just come in and sit down, my dear. Don't trouble to take your things off now - wait till you've had tea."
And she obeyed him. "Where's Daisy?" she asked suddenly. "I thought the girl would be back by the time I got home."
"She ain't coming home to-day" - there was an odd, sly, smiling look on Bunting's face.
Gustav Klimt Painting
"Did she send a telegram?" asked Mrs. Bunting.
"No. Young Chandler's just come in and told me. He's been over there and, - would you believe it, Ellen? - he's managed to make friends with Margaret. Wonderful what love will do, ain't it? He went over there just to help Daisy carry her bag back, you know, and then Margaret told him that her lady had sent her some money to go to the play, and she actually asked Joe to go with them this evening - she and Daisy - to the pantomime. Did you ever hear o' such a thing?"
Gustav Klimt Painting

Gustav Klimt The Kiss

Gustav Klimt The Kiss
"I ought to have sent him a card yesterday night," she said. "Of course, I was a fool to go all that way, just on chance of finding a doctor in. It stands to reason they've got to go out to people at all times of day."
"I hope they gave you a cup of tea?" he said.
And again she hesitated, debating a point with herself: if the doctor had a decent sort of servant, of course, she
Gustav Klimt The Kiss
Ellen Bunting, would have been offered a cup of tea, especially if she explained she'd known him a long time.
She compromised. "I was offered some," she said, in a weak, tired voice. "But there, Bunting, I didn't feel as if I wanted it. I'd be very grateful for a cup now - if you'd just make it for me over the ring."
Gustav Klimt The Kiss

Rembrandt Painting

Rembrandt Painting
"I beg your pardon, sir, I'm sure! I meant supper." He looked at her fixedly. It seemed to Mrs. Bunting that there was a terrible questioning look in his dark, sunken eyes.
"Aren't you well?" he said slowly. "You don't look well, Mrs. Bunting."
"No, sir," she said. "I'm not well. I went over to see a doctor this afternoon, to Ealing, sir."
Rembrandt Painting
"I hope he did you good, Mrs. Bunting" - the lodger's voice had become softer, kinder in quality.
"It always does me good to see the doctor," said Mrs. Bunting evasively.
And then a very odd smile lit up Mr. Sleuth's face. "Doctors are a maligned body of men," he said. "I'm glad to hear you speak well of them. They do their best, Mrs. Bunting. Being human they are liable to err, but I assure you they do their best."
Rembrandt Painting

Modern Art Painting

Modern Art Painting
She walked up the little flagged path wearily, and yet with a pleasant feeling of home-coming. And then she saw that Bunting must have been watching for her behind the now closely drawn curtains, for before she could either knock or ring he had opened the door.
"I was getting quite anxious about you," he exclaimed. "Come in, Ellen, quick! You must be fair perished a day like now - and you out so little as you are. Well? I hope you found the doctor all right?" He looked at her with affectionate anxiety.
Modern Art Painting
And then there came a sudden, happy thought to Mrs. Bunting. "No," she said slowly, "Doctor Evans wasn't in. I waited, and waited, and waited, but he never came in at all. "Twas my own fault" she added quickly. Even at such a moment as this she told herself that though she had, in a sort of way, a kind of right to lie to her husband, she had no sight to slander the doctor who had been so kind to her years ago.
Modern Art Painting

Art Painting

Art Painting
Hitherto Mrs. Bunting had been spared in any real sense a vision of The Avenger's victims. Now they haunted her, and she wondered wearily if this fresh horror was to be added to the terrible fear which encompassed her night and day.
As she came within sight of home, her spirit suddenly lightened. The narrow, drab-coloured little house, flanked each side by others exactly like it in every single particular, save that their front yards were not so well kept, looked as if it could, aye, and would, keep any secret closely hidden.
Art Painting
For a moment, at any rate, The Avenger's victims receded from her mind. She thought of them no more. All her thoughts were concentrated on Bunting - Bunting and Mr. Sleuth. She wondered what had happened during her absence - whether the lodger had rung his bell, and, if so, how he had got on with Bunting, and Bunting with him?
Art Painting

Famous painting

Famous painting
Bunting turned sick - so sick and faint that she did what she had never done before in her life - she pushed her way into a public-house, and, putting two pennies down on the counter, asked for, and received, a glass of cold water.
As she walked along the now gas-lit streets, she found her mind dwelling persistently - not on the inquest at which she had been present, not even on The Avenger, but on his victims.
Famous painting
Shudderingly, she visualised the two cold bodies lying in the mortuary. She seemed also to see that third body, which, though cold, must yet be warmer than the other two, for at this time yesterday The Avenger's last victim had been alive, poor soul - alive and, according to a companion of hers whom the papers had already interviewed, particularly merry and bright.
Famous painting

Famous artist painting

Famous artist painting
the more interest that he was himself so remarkably healthy. He would feel quite injured if Ellen didn't tell him everything that had happened; everything, that is, that the doctor had told her.
As she walked swiftly along, at every corner, or so it seemed to her, and outside every public-house, stood eager boys selling the latest edition of the afternoon papers to equally eager buyers. "Avenger Inquest?"
Famous artist painting
they shouted exultantly. "All the latest evidence!" At one place, where there were a row of contents-bills pinned to the pavement by stones, she stopped and looked down. "Opening of the Avenger Inquest. What is he really like? Full description." On yet another ran the ironic query: "Avenger Inquest. Do you know him?"
And as that facetious question stared up at her in huge print, Mrs.
Famous artist painting

Decorative painting

Decorative painting
t was not late even now, for the inquest had begun very punctually, but Mrs. Bunting felt that no power on earth should force her to go to Ealing. She felt quite tired out and as if she could think of nothing.
Pacing along very slowly, as if she were an old, old woman, she began listlessly turning her steps towards home. Somehow she felt that it would do her more good to stay out in the
Decorative painting
air than take the train. Also she would thus put off the moment - the moment to which she looked forward with dread and dislike - when she would have to invent a circumstantial story as to what she had said to the doctor, and what the doctor had said to her.
Like most men and women of his class, Bunting took a great interest in other people's ailments
Decorative painting

The Singing Butler

The Singing Butler
And then there was a titter. Even the jury smiled. And sharply the coroner bade Lizzie Cole stand down.
Far more credence was given to the evidence of the next witness.
This was an older, quieter-looking woman, decently dressed in black. Being the wife of a night watchman whose work lay in a big warehouse situated about a hundred yards from the alley or passage where the crimes had taken place
The Singing Butler
she had gone out to take her husband some food he always had at one in the morning. And a man had passed her, breathing hard and walking very quickly. Her attention had been drawn to him because she very seldom met anyone at that hour, and because he had such an odd, peculiar look and manner.
Mrs. Bunting, listening attentively, realised that it was very much from what this witness had said that the official description of The Avenger had been composed - that description which had brought such comfort to her, Ellen Bunting's, soul.
The Singing Butler

Jack Vettriano Painting

Jack Vettriano Painting
One fact - if fact it could be called - the coroner did elicit. Lizzie Cole suddenly volunteered the statement that as he had passed her window he had looked up at her. This was quite a new statement.
"He looked up at you?" repeated the coroner. "You said nothing of that in your examination."
"I said nothink because I was scared - nigh scared to death!"
Jack Vettriano Painting
If you could really see his countenance, for we know the night was dark and foggy, will you please tell me what he was like?"
But the coroner was speaking casually, his hand straying over his desk; not a creature in that court now believed the woman's story.
"Dark!" she answered dramatically. "Dark, almost black! If you can take my meaning, with a sort of nigger look."
Jack Vettriano Painting

Mary Cassatt painting

Mary Cassatt painting
But this interruption, this - this accusation, had utterly upset the witness. She began contradicting herself hopelessly. The man she had seen hurrying by in the semi-darkness below was tall - no, he was short. He was thin - no, he was a stoutish young man. And as to whether he was carrying anything, there was quite an acrimonious discussion.
Mary Cassatt painting
Most positively, most confidently, the witness declared that she had seen a newspaper parcel under his arm; it had bulged out at the back - so she declared. But it was proved, very gently and firmly, that she had said nothing of the kind to the gentleman from Scotland Yard who had taken down her first account - in fact, to him she had declared confidently that the man had carried nothing - nothing at all; that she had seen his arms swinging up and down.
Mary Cassatt painting

Edward Hopper Painting

Edward Hopper Painting
"Yes?" the coroner turned to him.
"I just want to say that this 'ere witness - if her name is Lizzie Cole, began by saying The Avenger was wearing a coat - a big, heavy coat. I've got it here, in this bit of paper."
"I never said so!" cried the woman passionately. "I was made to say all those things by the young man what came to me from the Evening Sun. Just put in what 'e liked in 'is paper, 'e did - not what I said at all!"
Edward Hopper Painting
At this there was some laughter, quickly suppressed.
"In future," said the coroner severely, addressing the juryman, who had now sat down again, "you must ask any question you wish to ask through your foreman, and please wait till I have concluded my examination of the witness."
Edward Hopper Painting

Henri Matisse Painting

Henri Matisse Painting
The coroner looked down at something lying on his desk. "Let me see! Here is the plan. Yes - I think I understand that the house in which you are lodging exactly faces the alley where the two crimes were committed?"
And there arose a quick, futile discussion. The house did not face the alley, but the window of the witness's bedroom faced the alley.
Henri Matisse Painting
A distinction without a difference," said the coroner testily. "And now tell us as clearly and quickly as you can what you saw when you looked out."
There fell a dead silence on the crowded court. And then the woman broke out, speaking more volubly and firmly than she had yet done. "I saw 'im!" she cried. "I shall never forget it - no, not till my dying day!" And she looked round defiantly.
Henri Matisse Painting

van gogh sunflower

van gogh sunflower
The woman began twisting and untwisting the corner of a coloured handkerchief she held in her hand.
"Let us begin at the beginning," said the coroner patiently. "What sort of a hat was this man wearing when you saw him hurrying from the passage?"
"It was just a black 'at" said the witness at last, in a husky, rather anxious tone.
van gogh sunflower
"Yes - just a black hat. And a coat - were you able to see what sort of a coat he was wearing?"
"'E 'adn't got no coat" she said decidedly. "No coat at all! I remembers that very perticulerly. I thought it queer, as it was so cold - everybody as can wears some sort o' coat this weather!"
A juryman who had been looking at a strip of newspaper, and apparently not attending at all to what the witness was saying, here jumped up and put out his hand. van gogh sunflower

Van Gogh Painting

Van Gogh Painting Mrs. Bunting suddenly remembered a chat one of the newspaper men had had with a person who slept under this woman's room. That person had unkindly said she felt sure that Lizzie Cole had not got up that night - that she had made up the whole story. She, the speaker, slept lightly, and that night had been tending a sick child. Accordingly, she would have heard if there had been either the scream described by Lizzie Cole, or the sound of Lizzie Cole jumping out of bed.
Van Gogh Painting
"We quite understand that you think you saw the" - the coroner hesitated - "the individual who had just perpetrated these terrible crimes. But what we want to have from you is a description of him. In spite of the foggy atmosphere about which all are agreed, you say you saw him distinctly, walking along for some yards below your window. Now, please, try and tell us what he was like."
Van Gogh Painting

Rembrandt Painting

Rembrandt Painting
This witness spoke quietly, confidently, and her account of the newspaper parcel the man was carrying was perfectly clear and positive.
"It was a neat parcel," she said, "done up with string."
She had thought it an odd thing for a respectably dressed young man to carry such a parcel - that was what had made her notice it. But when pressed, she had to admit that it had been a very foggy night - so foggy that she herself had been afraid of losing her way, though every step was familiar.
Rembrandt Painting
When the third woman went into the box, and with sighs and tears told of her acquaintance with one of the deceased, with Johanna Cobbett, there was a stir of sympathetic attention. But she had nothing to say throwing any light on the investigation, save that she admitted reluctantly that "Anny" would have been such a nice, respectable young woman if it hadn't been for the drink. Rembrandt Painting

Marc Chagall Painting

Marc Chagall Painting
so - so well pleased with herself till a minute ago, but now she had become very pale, and she looked round her as a hunted animal might have done.
But the coroner was very kind, very soothing and gentle in his manner, just as that other coroner had been when dealing with Ellen Green at the inquest on that poor drowned girl.
Marc Chagall Painting
After the witness had repeated in a toneless voice the solemn words of the oath, she began to be taken, step by step, though her story. At once Mrs. Bunting realised that this was the woman who claimed to have seen The Avenger from her bedroom window. Gaining confidence, as she went on, the witness described how she had heard a long-drawn, stifled screech, and, aroused from deep sleep, had instinctively jumped out of bed and rushed to her window.
Marc Chagall Painting

William Bouguereau Birth of Venus Painting

William Bouguereau Birth of Venus Painting
Cabanel The Birth of Venus painting
It was he who had filled her thoughts, - he and those who were trying to track him down. But now? Now she felt sick and sorry she had come here to-day. She wondered if she would ever be able to get the vision the policeman's words had conjured up out of her mind - out of her memory.
The Birth of Venus
And then there, came an eager stir of excitement and of attention throughout the whole court, for the policeman had stepped down out of the witness-box, and one of the women witnesses was being conducted to his place.
Mrs. Bunting looked with interest and sympathy at the woman, remembering how she herself had trembled with fear, trembled as that poor, bedraggled, common-looking person was trembling now. The woman had looked so cheerful
The Birth of Venus

Bouguereau William

Bouguereau William
with a thick finger. That was the exact place - no, he was making a mistake - that was the place where the other body had lain. He explained apologetically that he had got rather mixed up between the two bodies - that of Johanna Cobbett and Sophy Hurtle.
And then the coroner intervened authoritatively: "For the purpose of this inquiry," he said, "we must, I think, for a moment consider the two murders together."
Bouguereau William
After that, the witness went on far more comfortably; and as he proceeded, in a quick monotone, the full and deadly horror of The Avenger's acts came over Mrs. Bunting in a great seething flood of sick fear and - and, yes, remorse.
Up to now she had given very little thought - if, indeed, any thought - to the drink-sodden victims of The Avenger.
Bouguereau William

Abstract Painting

Abstract Painting
Her examination was shortened as much as possible; and so was that of the next witness, the husband of Johanna Cobbett. He was a very respectable-looking man, a foreman in a big business house at Croydon. He seemed to feel his position most acutely. He hadn't seen his wife for two years; he hadn't had news of her for six months. Before she took to drink she had been an admirable wife, and - and yes, mother.
Abstract Painting
Yet another painful few minutes, to anyone who had a heart, or imagination to understand, was spent when the father of the murdered woman was in the box. He had had later news of his unfortunate daughter than her husband had had, but of course he could throw no light at all on her murder or murderer.
Abstract Painting

Gustav Klimt Painting

Gustav Klimt Painting
"I am glad to say that we hope to obtain such evidence to-day as will in time lead to the apprehension of the miscreant who has committed, and is still committing, these terrible crimes."
Mrs. Bunting stared uneasily up into the coroner's firm, determined-looking face. What did he mean by that? Was there any new evidence - evidence of which Joe Chandler, for instance, was ignorant? And, as if in answer to the unspoken question, her heart gave a sudden leap
Gustav Klimt Painting
for a big, burly man had taken his place in the witness-box - a policeman who had not been sitting with the other witnesses.
But soon her uneasy terror became stilled. This witness was simply the constable who had found the first body. In quick, business-like tones he described exactly what had happened to him on that cold, foggy morning ten days ago. He was shown a plan, and he marked it slowly, carefully
Gustav Klimt Painting

Gustav Klimt The Kiss

Gustav Klimt The Kiss
Mrs. Bunting heard one of the older gentlemen sitting near her whisper to another: "Drawing it out all he can; that's what he's doing. Having the time of his life, evidently!" And then the other whispered back, so low that she could only just catch the words, "Aye, aye. But he's a good chap - I knew his father; we were at school together. Takes his job very seriously, you know - he does to-day, at any rate."
Gustav Klimt The Kiss
She was listening intently, waiting for a word, a sentence, which would relieve her hidden terrors, or, on the other hand, confirm them. But the word, the sentence, was never uttered.
And yet, at the very end of his long peroration, the coroner did throw out a hint which might mean anything - or nothing.Gustav Klimt The Kiss

Modern Art Painting

Modern Art Painting
And then, amid a silence so absolute that the slightest rustle could be heard through the court, the coroner - a clever-looking gentleman, though not so old as Mrs. Bunting thought he ought to have been to occupy so important a position on so important a day - gave a little history, as it were, of the terrible and mysterious Avenger crimes.
He spoke very dearly, warming to his work as he went on.
Modern Art Painting
He told them that he had been present at the inquest held on one of The Avenger's former victims. "I only went through professional curiosity," he threw in by way of parenthesis, "little thinking, gentlemen, that the inquest on one of these unhappy creatures would ever be held in my court."
On and on, he went, though he had, in truth, but little to say, and though that little was known to every one of his listeners.
Modern Art Painting

Art Painting

Art Painting
"Gentlemen, the Coroner."
The jury stood up, shuffling their feet, and then sat down again; over the spectators there fell a sudden silence.
And then what immediately followed recalled to Mrs. Bunting, for the first time, that informal little country inquest of long ago.
First came the "Oyez! Oyez!" the old Norman-French summons to all whose business it is to attend a solemn inquiry into the death - sudden, unexplained, terrible - of a fellow-being.
Art Painting
The jury - there were fourteen of them - all stood up again. They raised their hands and solemnly chanted together the curious words of their oath.
Then came a quick, informal exchange of sentences 'twixt the coroner and his officer.
Yes, everything was in order. The jury had viewed the bodies - he quickly corrected himself - the body, for, technically speaking, the inquest just about to be held only concerned one body. Art Painting

Famous painting

Famous painting And he kindly put her on a now empty bench opposite to where the seven witnesses stood and sat with their eager, set faces, ready - aye, more than ready - to play their part.
For a moment every eye in the court was focused on Mrs. Bunting, but soon those who had stared so hungrily, so intently, at her, realised that she had nothing to do with the case. She was evidently there as a spectator
Famous painting
and, more fortunate than most, she had a "friend at court," and ,so was able to sit comfortably, instead of having to stand in the crowd.
But she was not long left in isolation. Very soon some of the important-looking gentlemen she had seen downstairs came into the court, and were ushered over to her seat while two or three among them, including the famous writer whose face was so familiar that it almost seemed to Mrs. Bunting like that of a kindly acquaintance, were accommodated at the reporters' table. Famous painting

Famous artist painting

Famous artist painting
"Them's the reporters," whispered her friend. "They don't like coming till the last minute, for they has to be the last to go. At an ordinary inquest there are only two - maybe three - attending, but now every paper in the kingdom has pretty well applied for a pass to that reporters' table."
He looked consideringly down into the well of the court. "Now let me see what I can do for you
Famous artist painting
Then he beckoned to the coroner's officer: "Perhaps you could put this lady just over there, in a corner by herself? Related to a relation of the deceased, but doesn't want to be - " He whispered a word or two, and the other nodded sympathetically, and looked at Mrs. Bunting with interest. "I'll put her just here," he muttered. "There's no one coming there to-day. You see, there are only seven witnesses - sometimes we have a lot more than that."
Famous artist painting

Decorative painting

Decorative painting
It was from what they had both said - unluckily their accounts materially differed - that that official description of The Avenger had been worked up - that which described him as being a good-looking, respectable young fellow of twenty-eight, carrying a newspaper parcel.
As for the third woman, she was doubtless an acquaintance, a boon companion of the dead.
Decorative painting
Mrs. Bunting looked away from the witnesses, and focused her gaze on another unfamiliar sight. Specially prominent, running indeed through the whole length of the shut-in space,