Page:The Valley of Fear.pdf/35

Rh has more than indorsed the high opinion formed of him by his contemporaries.”

The Inspector’s eyes grew abstracted. “Hadn’t we better” he said.

“We are doing so,” Holmes interrupted. “All that I am saying has a very direct and vital bearing upon what you have called the Birlstone Mystery. In fact, it may in a sense be called the very center of it.”

MacDonald smiled feebly, and looked appealingly to me. “Your thoughts move a bit too quick for me, Mr. Holmes. You leave out a link or two, and I can’t get over the gap. What in the whole wide world can be the connection between this dead painting man and the affair at Birlstone?”

“All knowledge comes useful to the detective,” remarked Holmes. “Even the trivial fact that in the year 1865 a picture by Greuze entitled ‘La Jeune Fille à l’Agneau’ fetched one million two hundred thousand francs—more than forty thousand pounds—at the Portalis sale may start a train of reflection in your mind.”

It was clear that it did. The Inspector looked honestly interested. [33]