You understand my meaning; not shrewd in
the mere business sense of the word, but a man who really knows
something about men and life. Well, I laid the case before him, and he
was evidently impressed. He said it needed consideration, and asked me
to come again in the course of a week. A few days later I received this
extraordinary letter.”

Austin took the envelope, drew out the letter, and read it curiously. It ran as follows:—

“MY DEAR VILLIERS,—I have thought over the matter on which you
consulted me the other night, and my advice to you is this. Throw the
portrait into the fire, blot out the story from your mind. Never give
it another thought, Villiers, or you will be sorry. You will think, no
doubt, that I am in possession of some secret information, and to a
certain extent that is the case. But I only know a little; I am like a
traveller who has peered over an abyss, and has drawn back in terror. What I know is strange enough and horrible enough, but beyond my
knowledge there are depths and horrors more frightful still, more
incredible than any tale told of winter nights about the fire. I have
resolved, and nothing shall shake that resolve, to explore no whit
farther, and if you value your happiness you will make the same
determination. “Come and see me by all means; but we will talk on more cheerful
    topics than this.”


Austin folded the letter methodically, and returned it to Villiers. “It is certainly an extraordinary letter,” he said, “what does he mean
by the portrait?”

“Ah! I forgot to tell you I have been to Paul Street and have made a
discovery.”

Villiers told his story as he had told it to Clarke, and Austin
listened in silence. He seemed puzzled. “How very curious that you should experience such an unpleasant
sensation in that room!” he said at length. “I hardly gather that it
was a mere matter of the imagination; a feeling of repulsion, in
short.”

“No, it was more physical than mental. It was as if I were inhaling at
every breath some deadly fume, which seemed to penetrate to every nerve
and bone and sinew of my body. I felt racked from head to foot, my eyes
began to grow dim; it was like the entrance of death.”

“Yes, yes, very strange certainly. You see, your friend confesses that
there is some very black story connected with this woman. Did you
notice any particular emotion in him when you were telling your tale?”

“Yes, I did. He became very faint, but he assured me that it was a mere
passing attack to which he was subject.”

“Did you believe him?”

“I did at the time, but I don’t now. He heard what I had to say with a
good deal of indifference, till I showed him the portrait. It was then
that he was seized with the attack of which I spoke. He looked ghastly,
I assure you.”

“Then he must have seen the woman before. But there might be another
explanation; it might have been the name, and not the face, which was
familiar to him. What do you think?”

“I couldn’t say. To the best of my belief it was after turning the
portrait in his hands that he nearly dropped from the chair. The name,
you know, was written on the back.”

“Quite so. After all, it is impossible to come to any resolution in a
case like this. I hate melodrama, and nothing strikes me as more
commonplace and tedious than the ordinary ghost story of commerce; but
really, Villiers, it looks as if there were something very queer at the
bottom of all this.”

The two men had, without noticing it, turned up Ashley Street, leading
northward from Piccadilly. It was a long street, and rather a gloomy
one, but here and there a brighter taste had illuminated the dark
houses with flowers, and gay curtains, and a cheerful paint on the
doors. Villiers glanced up as Austin stopped speaking, and looked at
one of these houses; geraniums, red and white, drooped from every sill,
and daffodil-coloured curtains were draped back from each window. “It looks cheerful, doesn’t it?” he said. “Yes, and the inside is still more cheery. One of the pleasantest
houses of the season, so I have heard. I haven’t been there myself, but
I’ve met several men who have, and they tell me it’s uncommonly
jovial.”

“Whose house is it?”

“A Mrs. Beaumont’s.”

“And who is she?”

“I couldn’t tell you. I have heard she comes from South America, but
after all, who she is is of little consequence. She is a very wealthy
woman, there’s no doubt of that, and some of the best people have taken
her up. I hear she has some wonderful claret, really marvellous wine,
which must have cost a fabulous sum. Lord Argentine was telling me
about it; he was there last Sunday evening. He assures me he has never
tasted such a wine, and Argentine, as you know, is an expert. By the
way, that reminds me, she must be an oddish sort of woman, this Mrs.
Beaumont. Argentine asked her how old the wine was, and what do you
think she said? ‘About a thousand years, I believe.’ Lord Argentine
thought she was chaffing him, you know, but when he laughed she said
she was speaking quite seriously and offered to show him the jar. Of
course, he couldn’t say anything more after that; but it seems rather
antiquated for a beverage, doesn’t it? Why, here we are at my rooms. Come in, won’t you?”

“Thanks, I think I will. I haven’t seen the curiosity-shop for a
while.”

It was a room furnished richly, yet oddly, where every jar and bookcase
and table, and every rug and jar and ornament seemed to be a thing
apart, preserving each its own individuality. “Anything fresh lately?” said Villiers after a while. “No; I think not; you saw those queer jugs, didn’t you? I thought so. I
don’t think I have come across anything for the last few weeks.”

Austin glanced around the room from cupboard to cupboard, from shelf to
shelf, in search of some new oddity. His eyes fell at last on an odd
chest, pleasantly and quaintly carved, which stood in a dark corner of
the room. “Ah,” he said, “I was forgetting, I have got something to show you.”
Austin unlocked the chest, drew out a thick quarto volume, laid it on
the table, and resumed the cigar he had put down. “Did you know Arthur Meyrick the painter, Villiers?”

“A little; I met him two or three times at the house of a friend of
mine. What has become of him? I haven’t heard his name mentioned for
some time.”

“He’s dead.”

“You don’t say so! Quite young, wasn’t he?”

“Yes; only thirty when he died.”

“What did he die of?”

“I don’t know. He was an intimate friend of mine, and a thoroughly good
fellow. He used to come here and talk to me for hours, and he was one
of the best talkers I have met. He could even talk about painting, and
that’s more than can be said of most painters. About eighteen months
ago he was feeling rather overworked, and partly at my suggestion he
went off on a sort of roving expedition, with no very definite end or
aim about it. I believe New York was to be his first port, but I never
heard from him.