“Now,” said Norma, as they drove through the gate, “if his three huge dogs don’t eat us up, peep and all, we’ll get on fine.”
Black pigeons, looking like dwarfed nuns, sat in rows on the barn roof, but no dogs appeared to announce their coming.
For all the world as if he had been watching at the keyhole, the photographer, whose hair seemed whiter and more bristling than ever, threw open the door the instant they rang the bell.
“Mr. Langer, this is Lieutenant Warren,” said Norma.
For a brief space of time he studied the newcomer’s face intently. But Rita Warren was older than when she was in India. Then, too, she had made her face up rather well for the occasion and was wearing tinted glasses. Add to this fact that a woman’s olive-drab uniform is in itself something of a disguise, and it may not seem strange that at first, at least, he did not recognize her.
“But then,” Norma chided herself, “more than likely he is not the man at all. Spies who are shot seldom show up somewhere else!”
If Lieutenant Warren recognized the man, neither Norma nor Carl Langer could have detected it from her action. She thanked him for his interest and repeated her desire to see his masterpiece.
“You shall see it at once,” he assured them. “After that we will have some tea—tea brought straight from India. You don’t often get that. But first—”
He stepped to a table to press a hidden buzzer that sounded in a distant room.
“Is that for a servant or a couple of murderers?” Norma asked herself with a shudder. To Lieutenant Warren she whispered, “India!”
Lieutenant Warren lifted her eyebrows—that was all.
“Now if you will come this way,” said their strange host, leading the way.
As they passed down a long corridor, Norma stole a glance or two into other rooms. In one, whose door stood ajar, she saw an open traveling bag, half packed.
At the far end of the hall they entered a room where but one light shone. This came from a long slender tube close to the ceiling. This light fell upon a large canvas.
Striking a pose, Carl Langer said, “Well, what do you think?”
For a full sixty seconds he received no answer. They all stood there looking at the picture. One of those simple things that can, if well done, be magnificent, it showed a peasant youth and a maid in her middle teens seated among the stubble of a partly mown field. Beside them were their scythes and rake and a rustic lunch basket. Back of them was a shock of wheat and behind that the waving grain. On their faces were smiles and over their faces played the sunlight.