The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1907-11-03
THE SCHEMES
OF COLONEL CLAY
Continued from PAGE 1.


saw our prisoner conversing amiably.
in the most excited way, with the ma
gistrate (who, it seems, was a personal
friend of his), and Charles at once went
up and spoke TO them. Dr. Polperro
turned round and glared at him
through his pince-nez.
The only possible explanation of this
persons extraordinary and incredible
conduct" he said lis that he must be
mad-and his secretary equally so. He
made my acquaintance, unasked, on a
glass seat on the Kings road; invited
me to go on his coach in Lewes; voiun-
teered to buy a valuable picture or me,
and then, at the last moment, unac-
countably gave me in charge on TINS
silly and preposterous trumped-up ac-
cusation. l demand summons for
false Imprisonment"
Suddenly it began 10 dawn upon us
that the tables were turned. BY de-
grees it came out that we had made
mistake. DR.. Polperro was really the
person he represented himself to be,
and had been always. His picture, we
found out, was the real Maria van
renen, and genuine Rembrandt,
which he had merely deposited for
cleaning and restoring at the suspicious
dealers Sir ]. H. Tomlinson had been
imposed upon and cheated by cum
ming Dutchman; his picture, though
also an undoubted Rembrandt, was not
the Maria, and was an inferior speci-
men in bad preservation. The authori-
ty we had consulted turned out to be
an ignorant, self sufficient quack. The
Maria. however was valued by other
experts at no more than 5000 or 5000
guineas. Charles wanted TO cry off
his bargain. but DR.. Polperro naturally
would not hear of il. The agreement
was legally binding instrument. and
what passed in Charles mind at the
moment had nothing to do with the
written contract Our adversary only
consented to fOrego the action for false
Imprisonment on condition that Charles
inserted a printed apology in the
Times and paid him e500 compensation
for damage TO character. So that was
the end of our well-planned attempt TO
arrest the swinGler.
Not quite the end. however for of
course. after this the whole affair got
by degrees into the papers. DR.. Pol
perro, who was familiar person in
literary and artistic society, as it
turned out, brought an action against
the so-called expert who had declared
against the genUineness of his alleged
Rembrandt. and convicted him OF the
grossest ignorance and msstatement
Then paragraphs got about. The World
showed us up in a sarcastic article, and
Truth, which has always been terribly
severe upon Sir Charles and all the
other South Africans. had a pungent
set of verses on High Art in Kimber-
ley" By this means, as we suppose
the affair became known to Colonel
Clay himself for a week or two later
my brother-in-law received a cheerful
little note on scented paper from our
DeFCiSTpnT ShaTnpT in
these terms:
'Oh, you innocent infant,
Bless your ingenious little heart,
And did ii believe, then. 1T had posi-
lively caught the redoubtable colonel?
And had it ready nice little pinch of
salt to put upon his tail? And is 1T
true its respected name is Sir Simple
Simon? How heartily we have
laughed. White Heather and |, at your
neat little ruses. 1t would pay you. by
the way, to take White Heather into
your house for six months to instruct
YOU in the agreeable sport of amateur
detectives Your charming naivetIe
quite moves our envy. So you actual
ly imagined man of my brains would
condescend to anything so fiat and
stale as the silly and threadbare old
master deception? And this in the
nineteenth century, o. sanctua sim
fantile transparency be mine? When.
all. when? But never mind dear
friend. Though you didn't catch me-
we shall meet before long at some de-
lightful Philippi. Yours, with the pro-
foundest respect and gratitude.
ANTONIO HERRERA
Otherwise Richard Peploe Bra bacon.
Charles laid down the letter with q
deep-drawn sigh. "Sey, my boy ne
unused aloud. no fortune on earth
not even mine-can go on standing it,
These perpetual drains begin really to
terrify me. / foresee the end. 7 shall
die i'm a WorkhOuse. What with the
money he rObs me of when he is Col
Onel Clay. and the money | waste upon
him when he isn't Colonel Clay, the
man is beginning 10 tell upon my ner-
Vous system. | shall withdraw alto
gether from this worrying life. / shall
retire from a scheming and polluted
world to some untainted spot in the
fresh, pure mountains
You must need rest and change"
said. when you talk like that. Let
us try the Tyrol.