While this ceremony was being performed I strolled round the studio and inspected the casts, more particularly the heads and faces. Of these latter the majority were obviously modelled, but I noticed a number with closed eyes, having very much the appearance of death masks. When we had taken our places at the little table near the great gas-ring I inquired what they were.
“They do look rather cadaverous, don’t they?” she said, as she poured out the tea; “but they are not death masks. They are casts from living faces, mostly from the faces of models, but my father always used to take a cast from anyone who would let him. They are quite useful to work from, though, of course, the eyes have to be put in from another cast or from life.”
“It must be rather an unpleasant operation,” I said, “having the plaster poured over the face. How does the victim manage to breathe?”
“The usual plan is to put little tubes or quills into the nostrils. But my father could keep the nostrils free without any tubes. He was a very skilful moulder; and then he always used the best plaster, which set very quickly, so that it only took a few minutes.”
“And how are you getting on, and what were you doing when I came in?”
“I am getting on quite well,” she replied. “My work has been passed as satisfactory, and I have three new commissions. When you came in I was just getting ready to make a mould for a head and shoulders. After tea I shall go on with it, and you shall help me. But tell me about yourself. You have finished with Dr. Cornish, haven’t you?”
“Yes, I am a gentleman at large for the time being, but that won’t do. I shall have to look out for another job.”
“I hope it will be a London job,” she said. “Arabella and I would feel quite lonely if you went away even for a week or two. We both look forward so much to our little family gathering on Sunday afternoon.”
“You don’t look forward to it as much as I do,” I said warmly. “It is difficult for me to realize that there was ever a time when you were not a part of my life. And yet we are quite new friends.”
“Yes,” she said; “only a few weeks old. But I have the same feeling. I seem to have known you for years, and as for Arabella, she speaks of you as if she had nursed you from infancy. You have a very insinuating way with you.”
“Oh, don’t spoil it by calling me insinuating!” I protested.
“No, I won’t,” she replied. “It was the wrong word. I meant sympathetic. You have the gift of entering into other people’s troubles and feeling them as if they were your own; which is a very precious gift—to the other people.”
“Your troubles are my own,” said I, “since I have the privilege to be your friend. But I have been a happier man since I shared them.”
“It is very nice of you to say that,” she murmured, with a quick glance at me and just a faint heightening of colour; and then for a while neither of us spoke.
“Have you seen Dr. Thorndyke lately?” she asked, when she had refilled our cups, and thereby, as it were, punctuated our silence.
“Yes,” I answered. “I saw him only a night or two ago. And that reminds me that I was commissioned to make some inquiries. Can you tell me if your father ever did any electrotype work for outsiders?”
“I don’t know,” she answered. “He used latterly to electrotype most of his own work instead of sending it to the bronze-founders, but it is hardly likely that he would do electros for outsiders. There are firms who do nothing else, and I know that, when he was busy, he used to send his work to them. But why do you ask?”
I related to her what Thorndyke had told me, and pointed out the importance of ascertaining the facts, which she saw at once.
“As soon as we have finished tea,” she said, “we will go and look over the cupboard where the electro moulds were kept—that is, the permanent ones. The gelatine moulds for works in the round couldn’t be kept. They were melted down again. But the waterproofed plaster moulds were stored away in this cupboard, and the gutta-percha ones, too, until they were wanted to soften down to make new moulds. And even if the moulds were destroyed, Father usually kept a cast.”
“Would you be able to tell by looking through the cupboard?” I asked.
“Yes. I should know a strange mould, of course, as I saw all the original work that he did. Have we finished? Then let us go and settle the question now.”
She produced a bunch of keys from her pocket and crossed the studio to a large, tall cupboard in a corner. Selecting a key, she inserted it and was trying vainly to turn it when the door came open. She looked at it in surprise and then turned to me with a somewhat puzzled expression.
“This is really very curious,” she said. “When I came here this morning I found the outer door unlocked. Naturally I thought I must have
