"Not yet," I said, "not yet." "Yes," he replied. "And I must waste no more time. I am very weak. What I want you to do is to get this picture back into the possession of the National Gallery without anyone suspecting my connection with it. That is all. The ordinary execution of my will you and the lawyer can manage without the faintest difficulty, and I have left you plenty for such expense and trouble as you are put to. But the restitution of this picture I count on you to make alone. You will do it?" I shook his hand. "I will do everything possible to preserve secrecy," I said. "There is no hurry," he replied. "Take your time. Keep it in your room in a parcel until you are ready. Only the suspected are suspected in this world, and you and I are equally remote from their thoughts." He lay still again. "But where," I asked, after a while, "is the picture?" "In there," he said, pointing to the door to which I had wrongly gone for the cough mixture. "Go in. No one has seen it here but myself." I opened the door and found myself in a little room lighted by one window. Opposite this on the wall was a curtain. "Turn on the light," he said, "and draw back the curtain." I did so, and beheld one of the most exquisite paintings I ever saw--the head of a girl, sweet, wistful, understanding, and gay. Not quite a Madonna; no mother; but the very personification of youthful joy, sympathy, and loveliness. I knew too little of painting to express an opinion as to the authenticity, and Verrocchio, I am told, although he was the master of Leonardo and Perugino and Lorenzo di Credi, has left almost nothing authentically from his own brush; but there is a candour and charm in the treatment, and transparency in the colours, which are like nothing that I know except the National Gallery picture attributed to this master's school. "Bring it to me, please," said Carstairs from his bed, and I carried it in and held it for him. "No one has ever seen it but myself--and now you--since it left the Gallery four years ago," he said. "Mrs. Wiles has done her best to get into that room, but in vain. I suppose everyone who steals a picture or becomes the owner of a stolen picture has similar difficulties. Perhaps the safer way would be to have another canvas or panel over the stolen one, in the same frame, to slide aside when one is alone; but that would mean taking a workman more or less into one's confidence, and no wise thief does that. "Put it back, put it back," he cried suddenly, as he fell on his pillow unconscious. I did so at once, put the key of the cupboard door in my pocket, and telephoned for the doctor. Carstairs died that night. CHAPTER XXXIII IN WHICH I BECOME THE VERY OPPOSITE OF A THIEF, YET FEEL ALL A THIEF'S SENSE OF GUILT