Let them get their information from
the police."
"Very well, sir," said Parks, and turned away grinning.
Vantine passed on through the ante-room in which we had found the
body of the unfortunate Frenchman, and into the room beyond. Five or
six pieces of furniture, evidently just unpacked, stood there, but,
ignorant as I am of such things, he did not have to point out to me
the Boule cabinet. It dominated the room, much as Madame de
Montespan, no doubt, dominated the court at Versailles.
I looked at it for some moments, for it was certainly a beautiful
piece of work, with a wealth of inlay and incrustation little short
of marvellous. But I may as well say here that I never really
appreciated it. The florid style of the Fourteenth and Fifteenth
Louis is not at all to my taste; and I am too little of a connoisseur
to admire a beauty which has no personal appeal for me. So I am
afraid that Vantine found me a little cold.
Certainly there was nothing cold about the way he regarded it. His
eyes gleamed with a strange fire as he looked at it; he ran his
fingers over the inlay with a touch almost reverent; he pulled out
for me the little drawers with much the same air that another friend
of mine takes down his Kilmarnock Burns from his bookshelves; he
pointed out to me the grace of its curves in the same tone that one
uses to discuss the masterpiece of a great artist.
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