This being so, I wondered for a moment that he had troubled me about them, but I did not wonder for very long. A former suspicion was renewed in my mind. It seemed to me to confirm Glenfield's prophecy, that Esdaile, having made as it were impulsive and unconsidered advances to the rest of us, was about to draw in his horns again. Yet at the same time he had the appearance of wishing to be on both sides at once--of keeping his own counsel, but also of endeavoring to "pump" those from whom he was now withdrawing his half-extended confidence. In a word, without expressly asking me to spy out the land for him, he wished me to do so, and trusted to my interest, garrulity or whatnot to report to him anything I might discover. Well, had I happened to call on old Dadley before that Sunday afternoon I had spent so remarkably in his studio I dare say I should have done as he wished. But that hole in the floor put a very different complexion on matters. He knew about that hole, but he had no suspicion that I now shared his knowledge. Therefore if he proposed to act independently I did not see why I should not do the same. He would make use of me, would he? Very well. It rather amuses us to be made use of when we guess the intention, to allow our legs to be pulled with the knowledge that at our pleasure the position can be reversed. I am very fond of Philip and he of me, but there is no mush about our friendship. We take it keenly and with relish, even to our long rivalry at the billiard-table. Undoubtedly he knew something I didn't know, but on the other hand I thought it likely that I too had now a minor advantage. He could hardly have known of the presence of that ring in that hole. He had been round his house covering up pictures, drawing blinds and removing the key from the cellar door, and would certainly not have left that ring where it was had he known it had been there. It had been put there since he had last seen the hole. The event, as you will see, showed that I was right in this, and that in one of his main objects he had broken down badly. _A bon chat bon rat._ I laughed softly. "Done with you, Philip," I murmured. "I'll send you the packet of sketches, and you shall know how your precious picture-framing's going on. But that's all you are going to get for the present." And so I sought the little shop with the bisected Old Master in the window, one half cleaned up like day and the other dingy as night.