Читать книгу The Inquisitor. A Novel онлайн

22 страница из 52

No, Klitch wouldn't. He realized that. Moreover the artist-demon in him was stirring, gripping his heart with its talons, urging him on, spiteful vindictive little animal, to perform some egregious commercial folly.

'Yes. It's fine,' Klitch said. 'I won't deny it.' He examined it more closely. He took it into his expert hands. The figure was exquisitely carved and it was no absurd fancy of Klitch's that, with its dignity of suffering, its abnegation of all pride, its poignant authority, the room and everything in it should be aware of a new presence.

Klitch placed it on a table. Both men looked at it.

'Of course,' said the man, 'it's worth I don't know how much. If I waited I could get anything I like for it in London.'

'Perhaps,' said Klitch, 'you could and perhaps you couldn't. It's amazing these days what low prices fine things are fetching at Christie's and Sotheby's.'

'Oh, that's not the way,' said the man. 'The thing to do is to find somebody who wants it, somebody who must have it. But I haven't the time. That's the damnable part of it. Fact is,' he went on, growing more confidential, 'I don't want to part with it—if I can see a way out.'