“I am going straight on to the studio,” I replied.
“You had better come and have an early lunch with me first,” said he. “There is no occasion to hurry. Polton is there and you won’t easily get rid of him, for I understand that Miss D’Arblay is doing the finishing work on a wax bust.”
“I ought to see that, too,” said I.
He looked at me with a mischievous smile. “I expect you will have plenty of opportunities in the future,” said he, “whereas Polton must make hay while the sun shines. And, by the way, he may have something to tell you. I have instructed him to make arrangements with those two ladies, Miss Dewsnep and her friend, to go into the question of their identification of Bendelow. I want you to be present at the interview, but I have left him to fix the date. Possibly he has made the arrangement by now. You had better ask him.”
At this moment, an eligible omnibus making its appearance, we both climbed on board and were duly conveyed to King’s Cross, where we alighted and lunched at a modest restaurant, thereafter separating to go our respective ways north and south.
XVII
A Chapter of Surprises
In answer to my knock the studio door was opened by Polton; and as I met his eyes for a moment I was conscious of something unusual in his appearance. I had scanty opportunity to examine him, for he seemed to be in a hurry, bustling away after a few hasty words of apology and returning whence he had come. Following close on his heels, I saw what was the occasion of his hurry. He was engaged with a brush and a pot of melted wax in painting a layer of the latter on the insides of the moulds of a pair of arms, while Marion, seated on a high stool, was working at a wax bust, which was placed on a revolving modelling-stand, obliterating the seams and other irregularities with a steel tool which she heated from time to time at a small spirit lamp.
When I had made my salutations, I offered my help to Polton, which he declined—without looking up from his work—saying that he wanted to carry the job through by himself. I sympathized with this natural desire, but it left me without occupation; for the work which Marion was doing was essentially a one-person job, and in any case was far beyond the capabilities of either of the apprentices. For a minute or two I stood idly looking on at Polton’s proceedings, but, noticing that my presence seemed to worry him, I presently moved away—again with a vague impression that there was something unusual in his appearance—and, drawing up another high stool beside Marion’s, settled myself to take a lesson in the delicate and difficult technique of surface finishing.
We were all very silent. My two companions were engrossed by their respective occupations, and I must needs refrain from distracting them by untimely conversation; so I sat, well content to watch the magical tool stealing caressingly over the wax surface, causing the disfiguring seams to vanish miraculously into an unbroken contour. But my own attention was somewhat divided; for even as I watched the growing perfection of the bust there would float into my mind now and again an idle speculation as to the change in Polton’s appearance. What could it be? It was something that seemed to have altered, to some extent, his facial expression. It couldn’t be that he had shaved off his moustache or whiskers, for he had none to shave. Could he have parted his hair in a new way? It seemed hardly sufficient to account for the change; and looking round at him cautiously I could detect nothing unfamiliar about his hair.
At this point he picked up his wax-pot and carried it away to the farther end of the studio to exchange it for another which was heating in a water-bath. I took the opportunity to lean towards Marion and ask in a whisper:
“Have you noticed anything unusual about Polton?”
She nodded emphatically, and cast a furtive glance over her shoulder in his direction.
“What is it?” I asked in the same low tone.
She took another precautionary glance, and then leaning towards me with an expression of exaggerated mystery, whispered:
“He has cut his eyelashes off.”
I gazed at her in amazement, and was about to put a further question, but she held up a warning forefinger and turned again to her work. However, my curiosity was now at boiling-point. As soon as Polton returned to his bench, I slipped off my stool and sauntered over to it on the pretence of seeing how his wax cast was progressing.
Marion’s report was perfectly correct. His eyelids were as bare of lashes as those of a marble bust. And this was not all. Now that I came to look at him critically, his eyebrows had a distinctly moth-eaten appearance. He had been doing something to them, too.
It was an amazing affair. For one moment I was on the point of demanding an explanation, but good sense and good manners conquered the inquisitive impulse in time. Returning to my stool I cast an enquiring glance at Marion, from whom, however, I got no enlightenment but such as I could gather from a most alluring dimple that hovered about the
