Taking up a lighted candle and the keys both of the tower and of the picture gallery, I directed my steps towards the latter place. It was situated at some distance from the library, and, the house being new to me, I had some difficulty in finding it.  
In the distance the sound of jovial carols told me that in the servants' quarters due homage was being paid to the spirit of the season. Floating faintly along the corridors came the snatches of a refrain—
 
"Come, bring with a noise,
My merry, merry boys,
The Christmas log to the firing;
While my old dame she
Bids you all be free,
And drink to your hearts' desiring."
I hummed over a few bars myself as I made my way along.
 
At last, after losing my way several times, I stood in front of the thick oaken door that I knew to be the entrance of the picture-gallery. Half-a-dozen keys inserted into the lock one after another failed to open the door. The seventh caused the steel tongue to spring back with a sharp click. I was on the point of turning the handle when a sound on the other side arrested my act. A moment's reflection induced me to believe that it was merely the night breeze sighing[Pg 232] through the elms and yews outside, but in my first start I had likened it to human footsteps stealing softly away from the door. So strongly had I been impressed with this fancy that I had at once turned the key in the lock again, so as to keep two inches of solid oak, at least, between me and the something on the other side.
 
Up to this time I had always considered myself fairly brave, but I now began to question my right to the title. Should I return whence I came, safe in limb, sane in mind, but baffled in my quest by my own fears, or should I invite one of the servants to accompany me? No! I determined to venture by myself. What a fine thing it would be, if, alone and unaided, I should succeed in solving the mystery that gave this chamber the reputation of being haunted! I should be the hero of the hour, eclipsing all the male guests of Silverdale and receiving the smiles and praises of the women. While the men were singing carols at a safe distance, I should have been keeping a solitary vigil in a moonlit hall surrounded by ghostly perils. Vanity rather than courage inspired me to proceed.
 
I could still hear the carolling of the servants, and the sound, remote though it was, gave me a sense of safety. Once more I turned the key, and then flung wide the door. Before entering, I gazed down the gallery, but no sound came from it now, and nothing moving was to be seen.
 
It was a superb night. The moon was at the full, and its bright rays, falling upon the tall casements, flung parallelograms of light across the polished oak flooring, causing the gallery to present a chequered appearance, silver alternating with ebony in regular perspective. A more weird place to spend a night in[Pg 233] could hardly be imagined, and I quite forgave the servants for believing it to be haunted. Mailed warriors and mounted knights shimmered in the moonlight apparently on the point of starting into life and action; the eyes of the portraits on the walls seemed to stare at me with a marvellous resemblance to those of human beings; mysterious shapes seemed to be lurking in the alcoves, whispering and pointing at me as I advanced with beating heart.
 
I had not taken more than ten steps when the great door swung to on its hinges with a clang that gave me a sudden start and called forth strange echoes from the gallery.
 
There is nothing remarkable in the clanging of a door, if it be due merely to a current of air or to automatic action; but when neither of these causes is in operation it is apt to create an uneasy sensation, especially when, as in the present instance, it is accompanied by what sounds very like a laugh, coming it is impossible to say whence.
 
I felt afraid almost to turn round to discover the author of the laugh, but when I had turned and could perceive nothing to justify my belief that it was a laugh, I was equally afraid to turn the other way, and so stood rooted to the spot for a few moments, not wishing to retire, nor yet overbold to go forward.
 
At length, despite the frowning faces of the portraits on the walls and the threatening lances of the knights, I advanced, with one hand on the pistol in my pocket. I could have wished myself for the time being one of those students of the black art who, successfully passing through the fabled hall in Padua, are said never afterwards to have cast a shadow; for, as I moved before the moonlit casements, a black shape[Pg 234] moved with me along the floor of the hall, and when I had passed out of the moonlight, the candle I carried in my trembling hand caused the shadow to start up on the adjacent wall as though it were some sable familiar attendant on my movements.
 
In the middle of the gallery, upon a small table and reared up against the wall, I could perceive in a massive frame a large picture, which I took to be the thing I was in quest of, but before I had got near enough to obtain a glimpse of it an unfortunate accident occurred. I dropped my candle, and the moon at this moment being obscured by clouds, I was left in darkness.
 
The superstitious fancies of my overwrought mind were for the moment overcome by the annoyance I felt at being thus baffled on the edge of discovery. Here was I at last standing before Angelo's great picture, the picture that had lifted him to fame, the picture that some critics had assigned to a hand other than his, the picture he had been so anxious to conceal from my view, the picture whose principal figure the Baronet averred was copied from the murdered dead, the picture whose figure, so the servants whispered, had the power of descending from the canvas, and yet beyond the fact of its size I was precluded by the darkness from learning anything about it.
 
It stood glimmering faintly through the gloom, and eluding my power to penetrate its secret. I strained my eyes to the utmost, and after a time they became accustomed to the darkness; but all I could discern on the canvas were two figures, one erect, the other prostrate, both which seemed to be returning my stare like faces in a mirror. Faint whisperings seemed to be trembling on the air around, and more than once I thought I heard a subdued laugh.
 
[Pg 235]
 
I passed my hand over the canvas, not without the weird fancy that it might be seized in a cold clasp. It is needless to say that my sense of touch did not add anything to my knowledge.
 
Just as I was preparing to return for another candle the moon emerged triumphantly from an array of defiant clouds, and its light, increasing almost to the brightness of day, enabled me to obtain a clear view of the picture.
 
My first feeling was one of disappointment.
 
What I had expected to see I do not quite know: something alarming, probably.
 
There was, however, nothing alarming on the canvas before me. It was a painting that Gér?me himself might have been proud to own, so classic and finished was its character. Indeed, I cannot give a better idea of it than by saying that in the pose of the two figures, and in the arrangement of the details, it bore a considerable resemblance to the work of that great master on the same subject, save that in Angelo's composition the figures of the conspirators were wanting.
 
The principal features of the picture (to quote the language of the Standard correspondent) were: "The fallen C?sar with his toga wrapped partly round him, the statue of Pompey rising above, a tesselated pavement stained with blood, here and there a discarded dagger, columnar architecture in the back-ground: such were the simple elements presented by this chef-d'?uvre."
 
I fell back a pace or two to contemplate the picture as a whole, and, despite my dislike of the artist, I could not repress a feeling of admiration for the man who had produced such a masterpiece.
 
Desirous of verifying the Baronet's suspicion that the picture might reveal to me something that would[Pg 236] be entirely passed over by others, I proceeded to examine it in detail.
 
I first directed my attention to the statue of Pompey, and saw that Angelo had given his own regular and haughty features to this figure, which was represented as being crowned with a laurel-wreath, and armed with spear and shield. The centre of this shield was set with the helmeted head of Minerva—a gem of minute painting—and it required no second glance to tell me that the face of the goddess was simply a miniature portrait of Daphne. The Baronet had never made any reference to this fact. How the likeness could have escaped his notice was a marvel to me. Perhaps a lover's eyes were more discerning than his.
 
From the statue of Pompey I turned my attention to the figure at the base of the pedestal. Angelo had not strictly adhered to the minuti? of history in this portion of his picture, for he had given a full view of C?sar's face instead of veiling it in the folds of the toga.
 
From the space between two lofty columns there slanted a flood of sunshine, painted with a technique so marvellous that the beams seemed actually to quiver on the canvas. In fact, so beautifully was this sunlight managed that I was impelled to touch it with my hand, almost expecting to see it tinged with a golden hue. These rays formed the principal beauty of the picture, suffusing the dead body of C?sar with a transparent veil of light.
 
The bald and beardless head of the fallen Dictator became next the object of my study.
 
Standing close to the canvas, my eyes could detect nothing but a confused daub, but on receding gradually from it the effect was curious, not to say startling.[Pg 237] The features of C?sar, which appeared but dim and vague at first, became gradually clearer and more distinct, till at length each curve and every line of the painted countenance stood out in relief through the cascade of yellow beams. I could quite forgive the little servant-girl for supposing that the eyes of this figure moved, for more than once I was seized with the same impression.
 
The thought, suggested by the epitaph in the artist's portfolio, that a murdered man might have contributed to the deathlike realism displayed by this face invested it with a weird interest; and I continued to gaze at it as though it were the embalmed head of Orpheus, celebrated in classic legend, whose dead tongue could whisper things past and to come. The filmy, glazed eyes fascinated me with their dreadful stare. The face had a mournful, surprised expression—the very expression, so far as I could imagine (for happily I am no judge of such matters), of a man who, without warning, had been cut off out of the land of the living. It was not, however, the face that meets us in the coins and busts of art-galleries: it seemed to have a much more familiar look. It seemed a face well known to me—one, too, that I had seen but recently.
 
Minute after minute passed, and still I stood there contemplating the dead face, with the secret consciousness that ere long I should recognise it. A sudden movement on my part to the left, seemingly, as it were, to set the face in a new point of view, caused the light of knowledge to flash into my mind.
 
A loud cry broke from me, and I reeled back into the middle of the hall.
 
For my brother's face was staring at me from the canvas in lineaments not to be mistaken—in [Pg 238]lineaments so startling in their fidelity to the original that I marvelled how I could have failed at the first to detect the resemblance. The beard and hair were wanting to complete the likeness: it was this omission that had delayed my recognition of it, just as it had prevented my recognition of the portrait sketch that Angelo had exhibited to me.
 
Overwhelmed with amazement I stood staring at the picture, rooted to the spot, without power to move from it. Whence had Angelo derived the marvellous art that had enabled him to limn my brother's face so faithfully, and yet to transform it so as to make it seem like the very image of death?
 
I lifted my eyes to the figure of Pompey mounted on his lofty pedestal, and as I gazed at the proud face, over which the changing moonbeams seemed to impart a smile of mockery, the picture assumed a new and terrible significance. An ordinary spectator might regard it simply as a splendid work of art, and see in it nothing more than was implied in its title—"The Fall of C?sar;" but to me, familiar with the artist's aspiration, it was full of a latent symbolism expressive of his hopes at the time of painting it. It was no longer the conqueror of the East triumphing over the conqueror of the West, but Angelo in his own person exulting over the rival whom he had slain. The laurel-wreath on his brows represented the crown of fame which the exhibition of this very picture was to bring him; and the setting of Daphne's head in the shield that was braced tight to his arm expressed the confident conviction that she was destined one day to be linked to him. The artist's secret was revealed: he had killed my brother! In his morbid desire of fame, and in a spirit of hideous realism sometimes, though rarely, exemplified in the history of art,[Pg 239] Angelo had murdered a fellow-mortal for the purpose of having by his side a dead man to serve as a model for the fallen C?sar, even proceeding so far as to retain in his picture the very features of his victim.
 
The commission of this terrible deed, and the thought that now that his rival was dead Daphne would be his, had imparted to the mind of the artist a sort of diabolic inspiration—a tone of fiendish exaltation that had enabled him for the time being to rise superior to his ordinary mediocre powers, and to surprise the art-critics by producing a work far surpassing all his previous efforts.
 
He could expose this painting to public view with little fear that its exhibition would be attended with the discovery of his crime, owing to the fact that his victim (to represent faithfully the person of C?sar) must be delineated as both bald and beardless, a fact that had imparted a very different look to the painted face; and moreover, since George had spent the years subsequent to his twentieth birthday in India, he was not known in Europe except to his own small circle of kinsfolk.
 
The only persons, then, whom the artist had cause to fear were the relatives of his victim, and returned Anglo-Indians.
 
I now understood his motive in calling my attention to the pen-and-ink sketch of George's face. It was to ascertain whether, in the event of seeing his picture, I should detect any resemblance to my brother in the bald and beardless head of C?sar: hence his satisfaction at my want of perception, for he felt pretty certain that if I failed to recognise the likeness, other persons would be equally or more obtuse.
 
Yet, despite the apparent safety which my mental blindness had promised him, he had feared after all lest[Pg 240] the picture should betray him, and the fracas that had occurred in the Vasari Gallery at Paris was a result of this fear.
 
The Indian officer, whom Angelo had ordered to be expelled from the gallery, was doubtless a friend of George's, belonging, perhaps, to the same regiment, and who, if permitted to see the work of art, might have discovered in the same more than was intended by its author.
 
Hence Angelo's reason for withdrawing the picture from the public view. Too fond of his handiwork to destroy it, he thought that by consigning it to the private collection of the Cornish Baronet his safety would be assured.
 
Vain hope! Avenging Nemesis was pursuing him, bringing to the chosen asylum of his masterpiece the very bride of the man he had slain—the one person above all others who would be swift to detect in the face of the painted C?sar the features of her lost lover; and so, in order to avert the penalty which such a recognition would bring, the artist had been compelled to resort to the desperate expedient of carrying off the picture during the night.
 
Such were the thoughts that went whirling through my mind!
 
Then, with a sudden revulsion of feeling, I laughed at these wild ideas, and at the fright they had given me.
 
"No, no. It can't be. I'm out of it altogether," I muttered. "This picture was exhibited last spring: the Standard newspaper's a proof of that. But George was seen at Rivoli by Daphne in the autumn: clearly, then, he can't have been killed last Christmas in order to minister to the success of Angelo's art."
 
It was a relief to believe that George might still be[Pg 241] living and that Angelo was not his murderer. But the affair was still as great a mystery as ever—nay, rather, it was enhanced. The question still remained: ............