"Oh, some rot about daring to follow her star and find happiness, and that perhaps it might lead me to glory or something."
A kind of snort came from Kent. "Where have my brains been!" he cried. He thrust the bit of embroidery back into his pocket. Then, with an abrupt change of tone:
"You remember the--the picture of the face?" said Sedgwick with an effort.
"I've been doing another portrait from the sketches. It was on opaque glass, an experimental medium that I've worked on some. Late this afternoon I went out, leaving the glass sheet, backed against a light board, on my easel. The door was locked with a heavy spring. There's no possible access by the window. Yet somebody came in and smashed my picture to fragments. If I can find that man, Kent, I'll kill him!"
Kent glanced at the artist's long strong hands. They were clenched on his knees. The fingers were bloodless.
"I believe you would," said the scientist with conviction. "You mustn't, you know. No luxuries, at present."
"Very good. But just consider, please, that I'm having enough trouble clearing you of a supposed murder of your doing, to want a real one, however provoked, on my hands."
"That depends. Anything else in your place damaged?"
"Not that I noticed. But I didn't pay much attention to anything else. I came here direct to find you."
"That's right. Well, I'm with you, for the Nook."
Locking his curious room after him, Kent led the way to the hotel lobby, where he stopped only long enough to send some telegrams. The sun was still a few minutes short of its setting when he and his companion emerged from the hotel. Kent at once broke into a trot.
Such ruin as had been wrought in Sedgwick's studio was strictly localized. The easel lay on the floor, with its rear leg crumpled. Around it were scattered the fragments of the glass upon which the painter had set his labor of love. A high old-fashioned chair faced the wreckage. On its peak was hung a traveling cap. Lopping across the back sprawled a Norfolk jacket belonging to Sedgwick. Chester Kent lifted the coat, and after a swift survey let it drop.
"I hung it across the back of the chair," answered Sedgwick.
"Nothing has been changed, I tell you, except this." Sedgwick's hand, outstretched toward the destroyed portrait, condensed itself involuntarily into a knotty fist.