THE VAN ROON By J. C. SNAITH THE VAN ROON THE COUNCIL OF SEVEN THE ADVENTUROUS LADY THE UNDEFEATED THE SAILOR THE TIME SPIRIT THE COMING ANNE FEVERSHAM D. APPLETON AND COMPANY Publishers New York THE VAN ROON BY J. C. SNAITH AUTHOR OF “THE SAILOR,” “THE UNDEFEATED,” “THE COUNCIL OF SEVEN,” ETC. D. APPLETON AND COMPANY NEW YORK :: LONDON :: MCMXXII COPYRIGHT, 1922, BY D. APPLETON AND COMPANY Copyright, 1922, by the Curtis Publishing Co. PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA THE VAN ROON I NORTH of the Strand, east of the National Gallery, a narrow street winds a devious course towards Long Acre. To the casual eye it is no more than a mean and dingy thoroughfare without charm or interest, but for the connoisseur it has its legend. Here Swinburne came upon his famous copy of “The Faerie Queene”; here more than one collection has been enriched by a Crome, a Morland, a choice miniature, a first proof or some rare unsuspected article of bigotry and virtue. On the right, going from Charing Cross, halfway up the street, a shop, outwardly inconspicuous, bears on its front in plain gilt letters the name S. Gedge, Antiques. A regard for the _mot juste_ could omit the final letter. S. Gedge Antique was nearer the fact. To look at, the proprietor of the business was an antique of the most genuine kind, whose age, before he was dressed for the day, might have been anything. When, however, he had “tidied himself up” to sit at the receipt of a custom, a process involving a shave, the putting on of collar and dickey, prehistoric frock coat, new perhaps for the Prince Consort’s funeral, and a pair of jemimas that also were “of the period,” his years, in spite of a yellow parchment countenance of an incredible cunning, could at conservative estimate be reckoned as seventy. On a certain morning of September, the years of the proprietor of S. Gedge Antiques, whatever they might be, sat heavily upon him. Tall, sombre, gaunt, a cross between a hop-pole and a moulting vulture, his tattered dressing gown and chessboard slippers lent a touch of fantasy to his look of eld, while the collar and dickey of commerce still adorned the back kitchen dresser. Philosophers say that to find a reason for everything is only a question of looking. The reason for the undress of S. Gedge Antiques so late as eleven o’clock in the morning was not far to seek. His right hand man and sole assistant, who answered to the name of William, and who was never known or called by any other, had been away for an annual holiday of one week, which this year he had spent in Suffolk. He was due back in the course of that day and his master would raise a pæan on his return. In the absence of William the indispensable S. Gedge Antiques was like a windjammer on a lee shore.