There was one large brown envelope that Darcourt opened last, because he had a sense that it could contain what he was looking for. He wanted to tease himself, to work up an expectation that amounted almost to a fever, like a child that saves one parcel of its Christmas horde in vehement hope that it contains the gift most eagerly desired. Unlike the others, it was sealed; the gummed flap had been stuck down, instead of being merely tucked in, as was the case with all the others. It was labelled, not “Old Master Drawings”, but “My Drawings in Old Master style, for the National Gallery”. The Gallery authorities would probably not have allowed him to open it, or not without some Gallery representative being at his elbow as he did so, but Darcourt, who now regarded himself as a thorough-going crook, managed to sneak into the little kitchen where Gallery workers made their tea and coffee and secreted their biscuits, and quickly and efficiently steamed it open. And there it all was. If he had been a fainting man, he would have fainted.

Here were preliminary sketches for The Marriage at Cana; several plans for the groupings of the figures, and quick studies for heads, arms, clothes, and armour for the figures—and every head was a likeness, though not always a wholly faithful likeness, of somebody in the Sun Pictures taken by Grandfather James Ignatius McRory. No, not quite every head; the woman who stood in the centre panel was unknown to Grandfather, but she was very well known to Darcourt. She was Ismay Glasson, wife of Francis Cornish and mother of Little Charlie. Nor was there any source in the Sun Pictures for the figure of Judas; but he was Tancred Saraceni, caricatured in several of Francis’s notebooks and plainly labelled. And the dwarf, so vaunting in The Marriage, so self-doubting in the photography; F. X. Bouchard, beyond a doubt. And the huissier; Zadok Hoyle, Grandfather’s coachman. Why was he important enough to be included in the composition? Darcourt hoped that somehow he might find out, but it was not vital that he do so.

Most mysterious were the studies of that angel, who flew so confidently above the centre panel—so confidently that his influence extended over the whole three panels of the work. But here he was, and one of those drawings was identified as F. C., and although those were Cornish’s own initials, this angel was certainly not Francis Cornish.—Was the drawing merely signed, in an idle moment? Or was this crazed, yet inexorably compelling and potent figure—this Spook, this grotesque—some notion Francis cherished of his inner self? Had he thought so strangely of himself? Another puzzle, and Darcourt hoped he might solve it, but knew that he had no need to do so. Here were the originals of the people in The Marriage, and if not all of them could be equated with people Francis and Grandfather McRory had known, that did nothing to lessen the importance of his discovery. It was with a light heart that Darcourt carefully resealed the envelope, and left the Gallery, with much affability toward those who had permitted him to seek for material which they assumed, and quite rightly, was for information that would flesh out his biography of their dead benefactor.

Darcourt wanted time to come to terms with his discovery, surely the most extraordinary piece of luck that had ever come his way, so he travelled back to Toronto by train, and the journey, which would have taken just under an hour by air, filled the greater part of a day. It was just what he needed. The train was not crowded, and its alternation of simoom-like heat and bitter November draughts was vastly preferable to the “pressurized” atmosphere of a plane. What the train lacked in food—there were sandwiches of the usual railway variety—he made good with a large bar of chocolate and nuts. He had a book in his lap, for he was the kind of man who must always have a book near as a protective talisman, but did not look at it. He thought about his find. He gloated. He looked out at the sere, desolate landscape of Eastern Ontario in November, and the bleak towns, so charmless, so humble; to his gaze it might have been the Garden of Eden and all the chilled passers-by so many Adams and Eves. Sentences formed in his mind; he fastidiously chose adjectives; he rejected tempting flights into literary extravagance; he thought of several modest ways of presenting his great discovery, which wholly changed the idea the world was to receive of the late Francis Cornish. His journey passed in something as near to bliss as he had ever known.

Bliss ended with the journey. When he arrived back at his college the porter gave him a telephone message; he was to call Arthur as soon as possible.

“Simon, I’ve rather an important favour to ask. I know you’re busy, but will you drop everything and go to Stratford at once? To see Powell.”

“What about?”

“Don’t you know? Don’t you read the papers? He’s in hospital, rather badly banged up.”

“What happened?”

“Car accident last night. Apparently he was driving recklessly. In fact he was driving through the park, next to the Festival Theatre, at great speed, and ran into a tree.”

“Skidded off the road?”

“He wasn’t on the road. He was in the park itself, zigzagging among the trees and yelling like a wild man. Very drunk, they say. He’s all smashed up. We’re terribly worried about him.”

“Naturally. But why don’t you go yourself?”

“Bit delicate. Complications. Apparently he raved a lot under anaesthetic, and the surgeon called me to explain—and see if I had anything to say. He babbled a lot about Maria and me, and if we rush down there to see him it lends colour to a lot of speculation among the theatre people. You know what they are. But somebody must go. Indecent not to. Will you? Hire a car, of course, it’s Foundation business as much as it’s anything. Do go, Simon. Please.”

“Of course I’ll go if it’s necessary. But do you mean he’s spilled the beans?”

“Quite a few beans. The surgeon said that of course people fantasize under anaesthetic, and nobody takes it seriously.”

“Except that he took it seriously enough to tip you off.”

“There were assistants and nurses around when he was patching Geraint up—and you know how hospital people talk.”

“I know how all people talk, when they think they’ve got hold of a juicy morsel.”

“So you’ll go? Simon, you are a good friend! And you’ll call us as soon as you get back?”

“Is Maria worried?”

“We’re both worried.”

That was a good thing, thought Darcourt, as he sped toward Stratford in his hired limousine. If they were both worried about the same thing, and that thing was the mess they were in with Powell, it might bring them together, and put an end to all that polite conversation about nothing. Darcourt was in a somewhat cynical frame of mind, for he had gobbled a snack while waiting for the car, and it was not sitting well with all the chocolate he had eaten in the train.

Indigestion is a great begetter of cynicism. In the back seat of the car, dashing through the November darkness, he had lost the happy mood of the daytime; here he was again, good old Simon, the abbé at the court of the Cornish Foundation, the reliable old fire-engine sent off to quench a blaze of gossip that Arthur and Maria took seriously.

We live in an age of sexual liberation, he thought, when people are not supposed to take marital fidelity seriously, and when adultery, and fornication, and all uncleanness are perfectly okay—except when they come near home. When that happens, there may be uproars that awaken the gossip columnists, alert the divorce lawyers, and sometimes end in the criminal courts. Especially so among prominent people, and Arthur, and Maria, and Geraint Powell were all, in their various ways, prominent, and just as touchy as everybody else. Darcourt was of Old Ontario stock, descendant of United Empire Loyalists, and from time to time an Old Ontario saw seemed to him to sum up a situation: “It all depends whose ox is gored”. The Cornish ox had been gored, and it was probably impossible to conceal the wound.