Valma Clark

“ I darted from the tracery of face and garments to the Greek letters of the signature and sipped the honey of our rare find after my own fashion.
"We were like two eager boys who have come upon Captain Kidd's treasure. We dropped into heated argument, I recall: Lutz preferred the strong, battling Athena who hurled her spear at the giant, while I maintained that the quiet Athena, who sat with her head bowed to the music of her flute player, was the greater art. Laughingly, I took possession of my favorite half of the vase and left to Lutz his savage goddess. ”

“ The signature was on the other piece."
"But man alive, given that other piece,—and you must know where it is to be so familiar with it—this fragment is worth a king's ransom. A genuine whole Euphronios—why, the museums alone, bidding against each other—"
"The other half is gone," spoke the old man; "gone forever. But this piece itself is still worth more than a king's ransom; not in gold, but in the coin of knowledge—the knowledge it will give the world of Greek art."
His gray eyes widened to a vision; the poet was drowned in the farseeing scientist. ”

“ Then the thrill of my discovery caught me again: 'Its value is greater than you realize, Lutz. You saw nothing strange in finding a vase by Euphronios in the Persian rubbish? Why, wake up, man! If Euphronios and his contemporaries lived and painted before the Persians, it simply means that the whole chronology of Greek vases must be pushed back half a century. And that’s going to mean that Greek painting developed before Greek sculpture, instead of the contrary, as we’ve always believed. ”

“ Then something familiar in the vase struck me—like the broken pattern of a forgotten dream . . . . It was the fragment of a vase, the half of a cylix, on which an orange goddess stood with uplifted spear.
"Ah," I breathed, "the Athena—Euphronios!"
"So you’re up to it!" chuckled old Bauer. "Not many of ’em are. Classic stuff: I used to aim for a collection of the pure Greek, but I’ve grown out of that; not that I wouldn’t have achieved it if my taste hadn’t changed, y’understand, for I’m generally successful—I get the things I set out for. This"—he scowled at the vase—"is my one failure. ”

“ The sea was very still, of dull purples and greens, and the broad cream beach, below the sand scrap upon which I stood, had a grayish tinge. Above me, on the highest point of the cliff and huddled too close to its shifting edge, was one of those low, weather-beaten, Cape houses. ”

“ The old man forgot me and relapsed into mutterings, quivering under each shrill onslaught of the wind, pausing to listen for the moan of the surf below.
"You're deucedly close to this cliff," I ventured once, when a shower of sand swished against the window-pane.
"Eh—the cliff? Some winter nights she'll rise up to the very house and drench the glass of my windows—the sea will," he shuddered. "She's eating back—eating back; forty years ago, when I first came here, there was a front yard." ”

“ Ah, you are thinking it wrong of me to have buried, too, the half of this valuable cylix, since, fragment though it is, it would have been sufficient to establish the fact. Perhaps it was wrong. But, don’t you see, I could establish nothing without first revealing my identity and giving my word as a scientist that the shard came from the Persian debris? That way lay danger—the danger of being drawn back into the old life; there, too, lay honor for me who deserved nothing but contempt. ”

“ For all his athletic build, Lutz was soft with soft living. Moreover, my will was stronger than his, So I ate sparingly of my dried meat while Lutz slept, and I maintained a patient watch over the Euphronios fragment which was not yet in my hands. ”

“ The old man sat silent for a time, as he had been silent before the fine beauty of his Greek vase, and his old, frail face was lit by the same inner glow. He moved to take up from the base of the candlestick a hurt night moth, and, cupping it gently in his two hands, opened the window a crack and released it. Then he continued:
"Lutz and I were in Athens together in the spring in the interest of our college museum, which was then in its infancy. We had at our joint disposal a fund for any valuable specimens, and we haunted the excavation fields and the markets for antiquities. ”

“ You are the first man who would comprehend. Wait!"
Smiling like a child with a secret, he tiptoed to a chest of drawers, brought out something wrapped in tissue paper. Very tenderly he unwound the papers, and produced before me the broken half of a red-figured cylix, with one handle attached but with the standard missing. He waited triumphantly for my exclamation.
"Why," I said lamely, "the interior is that same Athena with her flute player. It seems—a very fine fragment—"
"Fine!"—he scorned the adjective. "Fine! Sir, this is the best of its kind—the aristocrat of the Greek vase. ”

“ This meeting I had planned solely for the sake of the old scholar; if, in aiding Twining to clear his conscience, I also cleared the conscience of Max Bauer, that I could not help. But Bauer, T assured myself, had no conscience; one way or the other, it would not matter to him.
Still, it was a situation without parallel, I thought: two men, each living, and each believing himself to have murdered the other. And to bring those two men together, face to face, would be smashing drama! ”

“ I left him caressing the vase with his hands as. old "Tinker" Twining had caressed it with his eyes. But before I went, my gaze fell again upon the painting of Bauer’s wife, and I remembered the other man’s words for her: "A beautiful mind, and a light shining through her gray eyes that was like the haunting line of a poem."
"Body love and soul love," I muttered. ”

“ Bauer closed upon it greedily.
"Murdered him!" moaned Twining,
"Murdered me nothing," chuckled Bauer, who could now, with the vase in his grasp, afford to be generous. " ’S all right, old man; we’re quits."
But Twining was fumbling for a piece of paper.
"This!" he breathed. "Tell them where—painting before sculpture—"
"But great Caesar, they’ve known all this for forty years!" exploded Bauer, scanning the written statement. "Why, they found fragments of another Euphronios in that same Persian dirt heap; some one else proved that very thing, and the Lord knows how many other things. ”

“ I’d no intention of publishing my Euphronios at this time. But he was set—you’d never believe how set!—and since I couldn’t afford to stir up a row there in Athens, I humored him.
"Once we were clear of Greece—once we struck home ground—But we never struck home ground on that ship. She went down!"—with a flourish of his glass. "Yes, dammit all, regular desert island stuff. We were hung up on a rock in mid-ocean, the two of us, old Gooding hugging tight to half the vase, and me nursing the other half. Can’t say I ever was more damned uncomfortable in my life. ”

“ Lutz, an athlete in his day, hung onto the oars, but he was powerless against that surge of water. It was only a miracle which kept us afloat, Our little dory rode the waves like a cork. but still she rode them.
"With the breaking of a sullen dawn, the wind died. The rain settled to a steady downpour, and the waves, as the day wore on, subsided to the long, low rollers that last for hours after such a gale. The gray sea was a vast, unbroken stretch without a trace of life; perhaps the miracle that had saved our frail boat had not held for those heavier dories . ”

“ So Max Bauer, whom only circumstances outside of himself had saved from actual murder, went up to the city, successful and carefree, to add to his many treasures old "Tinker" Twining’s one treasure.
I stayed with the old scholar, whose every instinct would have held him from the murder he had planned, and watched him wear himself out, suffering to the last breath for his one mental sin.
That is why I hope, at the final reckoning, God will take some account of the sensitiveness of the souls he weighs, and will fix his penalties accordingly. ”

“ It means,' I reiterated patiently, 'a big discovery concerning Greek art, and Greek art is the basis of other arts. You wouldn't keep that knowledge from the world? Oh, you're afraid of losing—but whether the vase goes to a Greek museum or to our museum, is nothing compared to the fact it will establish. You simply don't understand!'
"'It's you,' said Lutz softly, 'who misunderstands. ”

“ Somehow, we gained the sheltered side of the island, and there, in a narrow inlet, achieved a landing. The mass of rocks was perhaps fourteen hundred feet long and half as wide. It rose abruptly from the sea, a lonely, desolate pile. The only life was sea gulls, insects and spiders, and a few fish in the surrounding waters. We were together there on the island for four days.
"Through all those four days, half-starved and suffering from exposure as we were, Lutz and I nursed each his own half of the cylix and kept a watchful eye upon the other half. ”

“ I’d take my chances on the island with a heap of dry wood an’ two matches for a li’l bonfire, an’ with the c-cup, both pieces of it safe.
"Murder?"—Bauer laughed. "’S’n ugly word, eh?" He pursued with an uncertain finger an injured fly which crawled across his trousers leg. "Bah, they say this man kills for hate, that for love—all good, noble motives. But your true collector—you ’n’ me—kills for a c-cup. Killing’s natural—th’easiest thing in the world—when you’re preshed for time. ”

“ Lutz's black eyes narrowed, his face tightened to an expression of hard shrewdness. 'As I see it, your theory depends upon your establishing the fact that the vase came out of that Persian junk; unless you can guarantee that, the whole theory goes smash. I think you'll find no one who'll swear to that. ”

“ That held him. He desisted, even tried to square himself with me. Probably Lutz merely delayed the issue until we should be safely out of Greece. For myself, I was firmly resolved that I should finally prevail upon him; and I did not doubt that I should publish my article and either return the vase to Greece or hand it over to my college museum. ”

“ I wanted fame, you see, recognition, and I was suspicious of Lutz's brilliance. I dare say the basis of many apparent friendships in this world is really a strong rivalry and a mutual suspicion.
"Lutz and I were rivals in more ways than on. There was. . . . a young lady in our college town ”

“ The vase is here—mine. Well then—'
"'But it belongs by right to the Greek government—the Museum of the Acropolis,' I protested, weakly enough.
"'Naturally, I know,' he smiled; 'but it does not go to the Greek government nor to the Acropolis. Now why quibble, Twining? You know those things are done every day.'
"I did know: in spite of laws, valuable classical pieces were continually turning up in the States; indeed, our own college had purchased specimens of doubtful past. ”