The Great Adventure Part 21

CARVE. No.

JANET. Excuse me, Albert. Why shouldn't the gentleman make an offer for it?

EBAG. (Quickly seizing an opportunity) If you cared to consider, say, five hundred pounds.

JANET. Five hundred p----

EBAG. I came down quite prepared to spend--and to pay cash. (Fingers his pocket-book.)

JANET. (Sitting down.) And if it isn't a rude question--do you generally go about with five hundred pounds in your pocket, as it were?

EBAG. (Raising his hands.) In my business, madam--

CARVE. It's not for sale. (Turns it round.)

JANET. (Vivaciously.) Oh yes, it is. Somebody in this house must think about the future. (Cajolingly.) If this gentleman can show me five hundred pounds it's for sale. After all, it's my picture. And you can do me another one. I'd much sooner be done without the cooking-sleeves. (Entreating.) Albert!

CARVE. (Shy, nervous, and tongue-tied.) Well!

JANET. (Endearingly.) That's right! That's all right!

EBAG. (Putting down notes.) If you will kindly count these--

JANET. (Taking the notes.) Nay, I'm too dizzy to count them. (As if giving up any attempt to realize the situation.) It fairly beats me! I never did understand this art business, and I never shall....(To EBAG.) Why are you so interested in my portrait? You've never seen me before.

EBAG. Madam, your portrait happens to be one of the very finest modern paintings I ever saw. (To CARVE.) I have a picture here as to which I should like to ask your opinion. (Exposing picture.) I bought it ten years ago.

CARVE. (After seeing picture.) Janet, would you mind leaving us a minute.

JANET. (Triumphant with her money.) Not a bit.

(Exit, L.)

EBAG. (Bowing to JANET. Then to CARVE.) It's signed "Ilam Carve."

Should you say it's a genuine Carve?

CARVE. (More and more disturbed.) Yes.

EBAG. Where was it painted?

CARVE. Why do you ask me?

EBAG. (Quietly dramatic.) Because you painted it. (Pause. He approaches CARVE.) Master----

CARVE. What's that?

EBAG. Master!

(Pause.)

CARVE. (Impulsively.) Look here! I never could stick being called "master"! It's worse even than "maitre." Have a cigarette? How did you find out who I was?

EBAG. (Pointing to Janet's portrait.) Isn't that proof enough?

CARVE. Yes, but you knew before you saw that.

EBAG. (After lighting-cigarette.) I did. I knew from the very first picture I bought from our friend the "picture-dealer and frame-maker" in the early part of last year.

CARVE. But I'd completely altered my style. I altered it on purpose.

EBAG. (Shaking his head.) My dear sir, there was once a well-known man who stood six feet ten inches high. He shaved off his beard and dyed his hair, and invented a very ingenious costume, and went to a Fancy Dress Ball as Tom Thumb. Strange to say, his disguise was penetrated immediately.

CARVE. Who are you?

EBAG. My name is Ebag--New Bond Street.

CARVE. What! You're my old dealer!

EBAG. And I'm delighted at last to make your acquaintance, sir. It wasn't until I'd bought several of those small canvases from the Putney man that I began to inquire closely into their origin. As a general rule it's a mistake for a dealer to be too curious. But my curiosity got the better of me. And when I found out that the pictures were being produced week by week, fresh, then I knew I was on the edge of some mystery.

CARVE. (Awkwardly.) The fact is, perhaps, I ought to explain.

EBAG. Pardon me. I ask nothing. It isn't my affair. I felt certain, solely from the evidence of what I was buying, that the great painter who was supposed to be buried in Westminster Abbey, and whose somewhat premature funeral I attended, must be alive and painting vigorously. I wanted the a.s.surance from your lips. I have it. The rest does not concern me--at any rate, for the moment.

CARVE. I'll say this--you know a picture when you see it.

EBAG. (Proudly.) I am an expert, nothing else.

CARVE. All right! Well, I'll only ask you to persevere in your discretion. As you say, it isn't your affair. Thank goodness, I didn't put a date on any of these things. I won't sell any more. I'd take an oath never to paint again, only I know I should go and break it next week. I shall rely on this famous discretion of yours to say nothing--nothing whatever.

EBAG. I'm afraid it's too late.

CARVE. How too late?

EBAG. I'm afraid I shall have to ask you to state publicly that you are Ilam Carve, and that there must have been--er--some misapprehension, somewhere, over that funeral.

CARVE. (Aghast.) Publicly? Why?

EBAG. It's like this, I've been selling those pictures to Texel in New York. You remember, he's always been one of your princ.i.p.al collectors.

He's getting old, and he's half-blind, but he still buys. Now, I rely on my judgment, and I guaranteed those pictures to be genuine Carves.

Well, somebody over there must have had suspicions.

CARVE. What does that matter? There isn't a date on any of them.

EBAG. Just so. But in one of those pictures there's most distinctly a taxi-cab. It isn't a private motor car. It's a taxi.

CARVE. And if there is? No law against painting a taxi, I hope!

EBAG. (Again quietly dramatic.) No. But at the date of your funeral there wasn't a single taxi on the streets of London.