“Trouble?” said Priam, with an intensification of his misery.

“Yes,” said Mr. Oxford.  “I must tell you, so that you can understand the situation.”  He became very solemn, showing that he had at last reached the real point.  “Some time ago a man, a little dealer, came to me and offered me a picture that I instantly recognized as one of yours.  I bought it.”

“How much did you pay for it?” Priam growled.

After a pause Mr. Oxford said, “I don’t mind giving you the figure.  I paid fifty pounds for it.”

“Did you!” exclaimed Priam, perceiving that some person or persons had made four hundred per cent. on his work by the time it had arrived at a big dealer.  “Who was the fellow?”

“Oh, a little dealer.  Nobody.  Jew, of course.”  Mr. Oxford’s way of saying ‘Jew’ was ineffably ironic.  Priam knew that, being a Jew, the dealer could not be his frame-maker, who was a pure-bred Yorkshireman from Ravensthorpe.  Mr. Oxford continued, “I sold that picture and guaranteed it to be a Priam Farll.”

“The devil you did!”

“Yes.  I had sufficient confidence in my judgment.”

“Who bought it?”

“Whitney C. Witt, of New York.  He’s an old man now, of course.  I expect you remember him, cher maitre.”  Mr. Oxford’s eyes twinkled.  “I sold it to him, and of course he accepted my guarantee.  Soon afterwards I had the offer of other pictures obviously by you, from the same dealer.  And I bought them.  I kept on buying them.  I dare say I’ve bought forty altogether.”

“Did your little dealer guess whose work they were?” Priam demanded suspiciously.

“Not he!  If he had done, do you suppose he’d have parted with them for fifty pounds apiece?  Mind, at first I thought I was buying pictures painted before your supposed death.  I thought, like the rest of the world, that you were—­in the Abbey.  Then I began to have doubts.  And one day when a bit of paint came off on my thumb, I can tell you I was startled.  However, I stuck to my opinion, and I kept on guaranteeing the pictures as Farlls.”

“It never occurred to you to make any inquiries?”

“Yes, it did,” said Mr. Oxford.  “I did my best to find out from the dealer where he got the pictures from, but he wouldn’t tell me.  Well, I sort of scented a mystery.  Now I’ve got no professional use for mysteries, and I came to the conclusion that I’d better just let this one alone.  So I did.”

“Well, why didn’t you keep on leaving it alone?” Priam asked.

“Because circumstances won’t let me.  I sold practically all those pictures to Whitney C. Witt.  It was all right.  Anyhow I thought it was all right.  I put Parfitts’ name and reputation on their being yours.  And then one day I heard from Mr. Witt that on the back of the canvas of one of the pictures the name of the canvas-makers, and a date, had been stamped, with a rubber stamp, and that the date was after your supposed burial, and that his London solicitors had made inquiries from the artist’s-material people here, and these people were prepared to prove that the canvas was made after Priam Farll’s funeral.  You see the fix?”