Public-domain ebook
The wizard of light
by David Ely
Language: en392 downloads on Project Gutenberg
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In: Science-Fiction & Fantasy·Humour·Novels
Public-domain ebook sourced from Project Gutenberg #72081.
The opening · free to read
Illustrated by ADKINS
For Sampson to destroy the Philistines, he had to bring their very temple crashing to the ground. But for Dr. Browl to destroy the culture-mongers, he needed merely a monstrous easel.
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Amazing Stories March 1962. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
The old man's tour of the art museums was quite an amusing spectacle. Indeed, it became a standing joke among those polite and cultivated gentlemen whose chief function in life is to obtain and display great paintings. They were accustomed to dealing with eccentric members of the public--but never had they witnessed anything to match the ludicrous performance of old Dr. Browl! (Of course, they carefully concealed their mirth, for Dr. Browl was far too rich to be laughed at openly; and after all, he might decide some day to honor the museums with bequests from the fortune he had amassed with his remarkable inventions in the field of optics, which had earned him the sobriquet, the Wizard of Light.)
Dr. Browl was a copyist. He had his easel, his brushes and his paints. He had a little smock, too, and a beret that perched on his bald dome. But he had not the slightest resemblance to any of the other earnest amateurs who sat dutifully daubing their canvases in imitation of the masterpieces that hung before them. No, Dr. Browl was different!
He would arrive at a museum in princely fashion, in an enormous black limousine. Two liveried servants would lug in his easel, another would carry his encased palette, and Dr. Browl himself would hobble in on the arm of a nurse. Then he would sit down grumpily in a folding chair while the easel was being set up by his servants, and glare around at the little crowd that always gathered to watch him.
The easel itself was remarkable. It was a monument in wood and brass and steel, and as massive as an upright piano. It was equipped, moreover, with one of Dr. Browl's own inventions, a bank of mysterious lamps that gave off no visible light, but which presumably bathed each picture he sought to copy in a special radiance seen by him alone, through a great pair of black-lensed spectacles he clapped on his nose.
His painting technique was even more bizarre. Dr. Browl would fairly fling the colors from palette to canvas, his little claw-hands darting back and forth with demonic speed. Faster and faster his jerky movements would become, until it seemed that the only remaining step in hastiness would be to hurl the palette itself against the canvas. His copies, naturally, were gross caricatures, and his only accomplishments the spoilage of innocent canvas and good paint.
At this feverish pace, he would copy one masterpiece after another. Often he would manage to work his way through an entire collection in a single day. He required only two weeks, for example, to make a complete round of the Louvre, with its many thousands of paintings, neglecting to copy not a single one. His energy and industry were without parallel. Within the space of two years, his pellmell progress had carried him through every significant art repository in the Western world.
Dr. Browl's fanatic devotion to painting seemed beyond explanation. Some said it was merely a lamentable aberration. Others suggested the existence of a guilt complex, for it was rumored that the old man had once burned his own small art collection in a fit of senile rage. But Dr. Browl seemed far from being guilt-ridden. From time to time, as his servants would shift the heavy easel to a new location, he would lower his black spectacles and briefly eye the amused by-standers. A strange look, the old man had. Ironical, and contemptuous, too; but more than that, for there would sometimes be a devilish gleam of mockery there that suggested some wild, wicked humor. The people were snickering at him, were they? Well, it would seem that he was barely able to contain his own laughter at them!
It was in the spring of 196- that Dr. Browl completed his remarkable tour of museums and galleries. The first series of incidents, however, did not occur until slightly more than a year later.
One bright June morning, a van stopped in front of the offices of the London art dealers, Bouser & Baillie. Two workmen delivered a large flat crate which proved to contain Manet's famous "Boy With Drum," recently returned to its owner, the Countess Palumbo, from an exhibit at the National Gallery. But Bouser & Baillie found no note attached to explain why the Countess had sent it. Was it to be loaned to another exhibit, was it to be sold, or was it simply to be cleaned?
Perforce, Bouser & Baillie telephoned their client at her Norfolk estate, and with suitable apologies, requested instructions. The Countess was annoyed. What was this nonsense about "Boy With Drum"? She had no intention of exhibiting it or selling it or having it cleaned, and in fact, had not sent it at all. The picture was hanging right in her drawing-room at that very moment, in its accustomed place. "Boy With Drum" indeed! She hung up sharply. Bouser & Baillie looked at each other and then at the canvas in question. Incredible--and yet it was the "Boy With Drum"! Or was it? They approached it warily for a closer look.
Meanwhile, that same morning, another van had parked outside the offices of a similarly distinguished firm of art dealers, Sack, Bonesteel & Woodward. The deliverymen struggled in with a burden quite like the one deposited at Bouser & Baillie, obtained their receipt, and departed.
The crate contained nothing less than Manet's "Boy With Drum." Sack gasped. Bonesteel grunted. Woodward carefully inspected the empty crate for a note, but found none. Had the picture been delivered to them by error? It did not seem so, for their corporate name was plainly stencilled on the crate. Sack gave Bonesteel a significant look. The masterpiece, they knew, was part of the Palumbo collection. Could it be that the Countess had chosen this dramatic gesture to indicate her desire to let them handle her considerable business? After much consultation, Woodward was nominated to make the call, which was effected not five minutes after the Countess had angrily hung up on Bouser & Baillie. Another "Boy With Drum"? She flew into a rage and screamed out a variety of Central European epithets, then flung her telephone receiver the full length of its coiled elastic cord, so that as she stomped furiously out of the room, the receiver crept cautiously back toward its table, while poor Woodward, in London, sat transfixed, staring foolishly at his two worried partners and at the mute painting beyond.
The following morning, Bouser & Baillie telephoned the leading British authenticator of art objects, Dr. A. B. T. Joll, and politely requested him to visit their offices to have a look at a picture which seemed to be an extremely skillful forgery of "Boy With Drum." It was so skillful, Bouser & Baillie admitted, that it had them baffled. Dr. Joll, foreseeing a plump little fee, readily agreed, and promised to bring his full kit of instruments. Nothing pleased him more than the prospect of detecting a good, sound job of forgery. He had once been termed by the press "the Sherlock Holmes of the art world," which privately delighted him; unfortunately, there had yet appeared no artistic equivalent of Professor Moriarty to provide him with a serious challenge.
He went down to Bouser & Baillie that very morning, and after spending two full hours sniffing and poking the canvas, and making several tests with his own portable super-speed electro-chemical laboratory apparatus, he turned calmly to face the partners, and announced:
"Gentlemen, this is no forgery. It is the original."
Bouser & Baillie were thunderstruck. They did not doubt Dr. Joll's judgment (and with reason, for the expert had never once been wrong); rather, they were horrified by the inescapable conclusion. If this were the original, then the Countess had bought a fake--and had bought it on the strength of Bouser & Baillie's advice! They sank into adjacent chairs and sat trembling in silence.
Dr. Joll, meanwhile, examined his watch, found it was nearly time for lunch, and called his office to see if any important messages had been left in his absence. No messages, his secretary reported, but Mr. Bonesteel of Sack, Bonesteel & Woodward had just stepped in on what he said was a most urgent matter. Would Dr. Joll care to speak to him? "Put him on," said Dr. Joll, with Holmesian dispatch.
But he was soon disappointed. "Look here, Mr. Bonesteel," he interrupted, "I'm afraid I can save you the trouble. It so happens, coincidentally, that I've just finished examining the original.... Yes, right here at Bouser & Baillie. The original 'Boy With Drum'.... No doubt about it, sir, you have a fake."
Bonesteel was persistent, however, and so Dr. Joll at length reluctantly agreed to stop by for a look after lunch.
His mood underwent a transformation after he had made a cursory inspection of Sack, Bonesteel & Woodward's "Boy With Drum." He frowned, he polished his spectacles, he cleared his throat, and he reached for his kit. One hour grew to two, to three. At last, Dr. Joll stepped back, haggard and shaken, feeling much the same, perhaps, as had Holmes himself, when he tottered on the brink of the Reichenbach Fall in the grip of the criminal genius. A nasty doubt flashed through Joll's mind. Had he been hoaxed by the two firms? Had Bouser & Baillie rushed the original up to Sack, Bonesteel & Woodward while he had been at lunch? That would be preposterous--and yet the alternative was no less confounding.
He telephoned at once to Bouser & Baillie. Within the hour, the two partners appeared at the offices of the rival firm, carrying their "Boy With Drum" between them. Joll set the two paintings side by side and went grimly to work. It was quite late at night when he finished.
"There is only one explanation, gentlemen," he told the five dealers. "Only one. Manet painted two identical versions of 'Boy With Drum'!"
Not until the next morning did the distraught dealers attempt to trace the source of the two mysterious deliveries. In each case, however, their efforts were frustrated. The delivery firms had duly responded to pick-up calls from unexceptional addresses (one in Kensington, the other near Paddington), and had been paid on the spot by husky young men who had been waiting with their crates at the curbside. It developed further that these young men had not actually been occupants of the addresses in question.
The most stunning blow of all, however, came the following afternoon, when Bouser & Baillie mustered sufficient courage to escort Dr. Joll to Norfolk, to break the difficult news to the Countess. The news proved to be even more difficult than the three gentlemen had imagined, for Dr. Joll's examination of the lady's "Boy With Drum" confirmed that it, too, was the original; or rather, that it was now but one of three originals. Other experts were hastily consulted, and their opinions supported that of Joll. Had Manet been seized by a fit of madness which had compelled him thus to repeat himself, not once but twice? Whatever the motive, his performance was undoubtedly the most brilliant technical tour-de-force in art history, for the three canvases were identical, down to the last detail seen under the most powerful microscope.
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