"Jean Marie Stine - Future Eves" - читать интересную книгу автора (Stine Jean Marie)

The big picture was finished.
The last white space on the canvas was filled. The center figure of the ram stood out
strong and tense, as he defiantly faced the ravening pack, whose snarling jaws
already drooled in anticipation of the juicy meal. His eyes were held by the leader. In
horrible fascination the two gazed at each other; the wolf, luring, compelling, the ram
terrified, but held against his will. The pack waited.
Before the canvas stood Minna drooping like a brilliant flower, that has been blasted
just as it was about to bloom.
Miss Wormersley pointed a finger towards the ram's head. "Do you still deny your
part in this?"
Minna could only shake her head hopelessly. She had no voice.
The elder woman looked disdainfully at the girl's untidy hair, then turned to the maid.
"You said you hear noises last night. What were they?"
Lisbeth wrenched her eyes from the picture and fastened them in awe upon her
mistress. "I heard Miss Sayre moving about her room, and footsteps on the stairs."
"Why didn't you call me?"
"I was afraid."
"Did you get up?"
"Yes 'em."
"What did you do?"
"I locked my door and crept back to bed."
Miss Wormersley sniffed. "'Fraidy cat. Wish I'd heard it. Anything else?"
The maid hung back.
"Speak up. Tell everything you know."
"When I went to Miss Sayre's room this morning her bed hadn't been slept in."
"Is that all?"
"Yes 'em."
"You may go. Let Mr. Brownell in. Thank Heavens he's come. Sit up, Bertram, he's
brought Mrs. Beekman-Smythe. Too bad to have to bring them out in such
weather."
While she waited for Lisbeth to let in the callers, Miss Wormersley smoothed her
apron and set the chairs straight. She picked up the artist's palette and laid it on the
table.
"Did you say the chewed brush was missing?" she asked her nephew.
He raised his head and nodded, then let it sink disconsolately upon his breast.
"Guess it's not very far off," said his aunt looking pertinently toward Minna's
drooping figure. The girl made no sign that she had heard. Miss Wormersley
hastened to greet her visitors, but stiffened perceptibly as Mr. Brownell entered, and
welcomed him with a cordial smile and a deprecating nod toward her nephew, who
neither moved nor looked up. Mrs. Beekman-Smythe's greeting was warm but hasty;
for her eyes had caught sight of the big canvas. She hurried to it and stood silently
studying every detail, while Miss Wormersley rehearsed the events of the past three
days to Mr. Brownell.
At first the critic seemed to pooh-pooh the seriousness of the situation just as she
herself had done that first morning; but, as she finished her account of Lisbeth's
testimony of that very day, he looked grave.
"He's not only lost his picture," continued "Miss Wormersley so that everyone in the
studio could hear, "and you know he's lived for years just to paint that picture, but
he counted on using the money it brought him to repay Mrs. Beekman-Smythe, and
now who'll buy a picture when you can't say who painted it? Besides, the