The whole landscape slowly emerged: defaced here and there by dirt and scars in the surface, but not, after all, in bad condition.

In the foreground: water—and a lane that turned back into the middle-distance. A pond and a ford. A child in a vermilion dress with a hay-rake. In the middle-distance, trees that reflected in countless leafy mirrors, the late afternoon sun. In the background: a rising field, a spire, a generous and glowing sky.

‘It’s sunk,’ Troy muttered. ‘We could oil it out.’

‘What does that mean?’

‘Wait a bit. Dry the surface, can you?’

She went to her cabin and came back with linseed oil on a bit of paint-rag. ‘This won’t do any harm,’ she said. ‘Have you got the surface dry? Good. Now then.’

And in a minute the little picture was clearer and cleaner and speaking bravely for itself.

‘“Constables”,’ Caley Bard quoted lightly, ‘ “all over the place”. Or did you say “swarming”.’

Troy looked steadily at him for a moment and then returned to her oiling. Presently she gave a little exclamation and at the same moment Dr Natouche’s great voice boomed out: ‘It is a picture of Ramsdyke. That is the lock and the lane and, see, there is the ford and the church spire above the hill.’

The others, who had been clustered round Miss Hewson’s treasures on the table, all came to look at the painting.

Troy said: ‘Shall we put it in a better light?’

They made way for her. She stood on the window seat and held the painting close to a wall lamp. She examined the back of the canvas and then the face again.

‘It’s a good picture,’ Mr Lazenby pronounced. ‘Old-fashioned of course. Early Victorian. But it certainly looks a nice bit of work, don’t you think, Mrs Alleyn?’

‘Yes,’ Troy said. ‘Yes. It does. Very nice.’

She got down from the seat.

‘Miss Hewson,’ she said, ‘I was in the gallery here this morning. They’ve got a Constable. One of his big, celebrated worked-up pieces. I think you should let an expert see this thing because—well because as Mr Lazenby says it’s a very good work of its period and because it might have been painted by the same hand and because—well, if you look closely you will see—it is signed in precisely the same manner.’

IV