Dorian Gray sat alone in his library. His servants had retired for the night. They had returned to their own, less haunted houses, quickly and quietly. Gray brought a cigarette to his crimson lips. Then, bending over his interlaced fingers, the youth listened to the spiteful tick of the clock. Ashes drifted to the carpet.
The curtains were drawn and the gas lamps burned low. The pale smoke mingled with the heavy gray puffs from his cigarette. Dorian ran his fingers through his blond hair, his curls bouncing back under his touch. A cold sweat had broken out over his arched brow and he wiped his away. He ran a finger over the taut skin beneath his eyelids and he could not help but smile. Dorian leaned forward once more, his fingers touching his temples lightly.
Gray's shoulders jumped back as the doorbell was rung. He stood stiffly, crossing his arms before his chest and pacing the room. The books sat with their spines to him. The clock, its silver filigree bringing attention to nothing, chimed an answer to his only question. Victor appeared at the doorway, his head drooping.
"Sir, Mr. Du—"
"Yes, I know. Show him in." Gray drew back a heavy purple curtain and allowed himself to look down on Grosvenor square. The fog that had covered it on that day had peeled back under the crisp English night. The walkways between the fenced grasses drew lines around the hidden, gilded statue of some happy prince. A cat yowled in the distance, causing the youth to jump despite himself. How inhuman it had sounded, beneath the lamp-lights of the square.
"Monsieur Dupin," Victor chimed with a sluggish voice. Gray turned. The detective had not removed his hat and stood before Victor in the doorframe. He firmly held a cane in one hand, the other concealed by his coat.
"Welcome, Mr. Dupin." Gray closed the curtain and heightened the flame of the gas lamps. The detective said nothing, but merely glanced over the titles engraved upon the books' spines. The youth pursed his lips. "I am glad you could come in such few days, this is of the utmost importance to me."
Dupin turned, the shadows stunted beneath his top hat. "They say Phileas Fogg traversed the world in eighty days. What is a sleeve in two?" He took up his cane and twirled it once in the air. Smoke turned, Gray frowned.
"Yes, extraordinary," Dorian replied, his hands sinking deep into the pockets of his waist-coat, "now, will you see the room?" Dupin had turned to look at the books once more. The dim light was barely enough to read by.
"One must have patience, Monsieur Gray. Tell me first the painter of this picture."
Dorian blushed, "of what consequence is that? The painting was taken by a common thief, no doubt." He grappled with his pocket watch. It ticked between their dispersed conversations, counting the seconds of contemplation between them.
"Doubt, yes." Dupin did not move. "You have things of much more consequence to an English thief." He ran a finger down one of the books' spines, "the English have no appreciation for art, only intention."
"Basil Hallward," Gray said, the name coinciding with the closing click to the cover of his watch, "Basil Hallward painted my picture."
"Ah," Dupin turned, but his expression had not changed, "he was to come to Paris, but he did not. Thank you, Monsieur Gray. This painting, it has not gone on tour?"
"No," Gray answered, and took up a candle, "no more questions. Come with me, Mr. Dupin."
The youth led the French detective through the door from which he came. Victor stood to attention as they crossed the oak-paneled entrance hall and up the wide staircase. Gray withdrew a small, rounded key from his pocket and unlocked an almost inconspicuous door with a shudder. Dupin watched the Englishman's thin, trembling shoulders. The candle lamp clinked against Gray's rings as they ascended the winding staircase.
"This room, it is very high up. Why would you keep such a painting, a Hallward painting, in such a room?"
Gray stopped his climb and turned to face the detective, "Mr. Dupin, I suggest you do not inquire further. Your job is to investigate the whereabouts of my painting, not my personal habits."
"Forgive me." With a bob from Dupin's top hat, Gray continued to climb. In the darkness the door was a sudden obstacle. Dispelled quickly with the youth's key they entered the room of his discontent.
"This is it," Gray placed the candle down upon the desk. A shadow stretched across the old woodwork. Dupin took off his hat. The room smelled foully of acids which burnt the throat. The youth's nostril's flared and he held a kerchief to his mouth.
Gray stooped to gather up the purple tapestry which shrouded the dusty ground like a pall. Dupin smacked his cane against his chest; "do not touch that, Monsieur Gray. This is evidence. I would like if you left this room, if you would please, for I have need alone."
"No, I cannot accept that. With all due respect, Mr. Dupin, I cannot allow you to do this." Pulling the desk chair from beneath the table he sat before the dark eyes of the Frenchman.
"Very well, Monsieur Gray. You may stay if you wish. I do have questions for you later; if you will not let me implicate you let me implicate this burglar."
Wordlessly Gray turned to face the table, his back to where his portrait once hung. The dark line along the wood seemed like nothing but a crease in the fiber but as Gray ran his delicate white fingers over the streak he swept his hand over the desk top in horror and knocked the candle to the floor.
Gray jumped from his chair. The room was not in total darkness; the moon shone a pale yellow through the window. Dupin stood before it, threading his fingers through a black glove.
"Thank you, Monsieur Gray. To see a thief is to see as one." With his gloved hand he pulled the window open. It swung forward with a gasp from Dorian.
"That window was locked," he turned to look out unto Grosvenor square once more. The tree- and roof-tops gave way to few stars above a lamp-lit street.
Dupin glanced briefly at the scene. "This thief was not of high caliber—nothing of a thief at all." He hooked the handle of his cane around the latch and swung it closed again. It clattered and shuttered rudely from the blow. Dorian turned away from the view; the cross-shaped supports of the windowpane cast a Christian shadow upon the death-shroud. It was a fitting sight, to consider what that Tyrian horror had covered.
Dorian put a hand to his lips; by coincidence, or by some design, the purple cloth had taken the shape of a large cat, with the edges' tassels flaring about the neck like a victim of the gallows. Dupin traced its outline with his cane.
"How curious," he remarked, but drew away after but a few moments' regard for the oddity.
"Indeed!" Gray found the back of his chair with outstretched hands and sat back down. He gathered up the candle and, with a match-box from his pocket, re-lighted the candle. "Are you quite finished?" he asked, holding up the light to disturb the moon's glow.
"This will take time, Monsieur. Our thief has left behind but one sign. We shall pursue this," he drew his cane over the neck-rope of the noose, "we shall have a chat."
"I do not need your rhetoric." Gray placed the candle upon the table again. He watched the uncanny figure of the cat which lay beneath the moonlight. The animal scream which had so startled him before seemed to come upon him again, and he placed a hand to his breast.
"There is no more to do in this cursed room, so I would suppose that I am finished." He placed the hat back upon his head and crossed himself, "an amateur thief is often seen. What of your neighbors, or servants? Certainly they spied our man. Did you not inquire?"
"I have," Gray took a silver cigarette case from his breast pocket, "they saw nothing." He placed a cigarette between his lips and lit it appreciatively. The faint glow illuminated his golden curls.
"Nothing?" He looked to the lines of curtained windows that were kept by an adjacent building, "That is quite a difficult thing. To leave a window unlatched, to choose such a painting to carry, and yet remain unseen to all of England?" He stroked his moustache, leaning upon his cane.
"Do you know where my painting is, Dupin?" Dorian held a long drag of his cigarette before letting the smoke drift away in small puffs. The detective tapped his cane on the floor.
"Is it that you have enemies, Monsieur Gray?"
Dorian pulled the cigarette from his mouth and stood, "this is not about me, detective, this is about my painting."
"A painting of such extreme value to none but the owner is stolen not by the monetary gain. In such cases is it wise to learn a motive."
"I have no enemies." Gray crossed to the window, looking to the windows of his neighbors. "I have no enemies, Mr. Dupin."
"That is impossible, Monsieur Gray." Dupin opened the window as Dorian's cheeks flushed a harsh red, "can you tell me that among these hundreds, thousands, you have given not one a reason to hold contempt to you, that none curse the name of Gray?"
Dupin watched the face of Dorian Gray. A blast of wind pressed the window against the wall and extinguished the candle in Dorian's red-splotched hands. As these words were said into the open night air Dorian had looked down at the paths of Grosvenor. His eyes grew stout and stiff. A carved crease appeared near his cheek and contorted his face into a sneer. A shadow glistened on his hands beneath the glow of his cigarette.
"It is not for you to take my questions to heart, Monsieur. If it is that you want your painting quickly it would be best if you complied with my questioning."
Dorian looked away from him. When the youth brought himself from the window his hands, like a pianist's, were white and dainty and his face was soft. Dupin's black eyes watched this. "But, if you please, let us return to your library, Monsieur. I enjoy it."
The red of the smoldering wick and the cigarette drew the detective back down, like two gleaming red eyes in the darkness.
"You had sat for Hallward," Dupin stated, his footsteps slow and methodical down the unlit staircase, "and he had given you this painting. Is this not true?"
"Basil is of a school that imagines that to idealize a sitter is to paint someone else. His painting it a cruel joke, if you chance to look upon it." Gray did not stop his descent as he spoke, but his voice had taken an unusual quality of firmness. "Though I dearly hope you do not."
"That is very well, Monsieur Gray." Dupin pulled at the collar of his coat, "to my knowledge it was to go n tour. You are lucky it did not, if you still had wished for none to see."
"Yes," said the two red eyes in the darkness, "fortunate indeed."
When they arrived they took their respective places. Dupin sat on the edge of his chair, arms folded and elbows to his knees. Gray stood by the curtained windows, holding one fold back and blowing smoke onto the fogging glass. Dorian watched as an overture of light slid down the dirty tiles of the London streets.
Dupin tapped his cane against the carpet, and Dorian closed the curtain and looked towards the Frenchman.
"This is a mystifying case, Monsieur. While a path to the window is possible from the outside it may only be done by one unburdened. The window was left unlocked so it suggests that he did come that way but to do so unseen would be a marvel. And as Monsieur has no enemies there is no motive but a misplaced greed." A smile flashed across Dupin's thin lips from beneath his moustache, "it has to seem as though my orangutan has come to enjoy English art." Gray's sneer seemed out of place on his statuesque face. Dupin continued, "Though surely this thief is more human, for what of the image of the hanged cat on the floor. Is it that it has any significance to you?"
"No, none." Dorian's blue eyes were clouded. Victor appeared at the door.
"Should I lay the table for two, sir?" the butler asked. Dorian whipped around, bracing himself against the wall. Seeing Victor, he straightened himself and nodded. "I am sorry not to mention this before, sir; I did not wish to disturb you. Alan Campbell had arrived yesterday while you were away. I let him alone in the entrance hall but he soon left."
"I am sorry to have missed him," Gray replied. With a shaking hand Dorian waved his servant away. Dupin ran his fingers over his moustache.
"Who is this Alan Campbell, Monsieur?" He said at length. Dorian extinguished his cigarette in an ashtray on a side-table.
"He is a friend and chemist of pedestrian quality." Gray replied, and watched the smoldering butt of his cigarette.
"Ah, then he will not mind if we pay him a visit, no?"
"Why would we go there?" Gray's heart beat lightly in his chest; each beat leapt into his throat. "Surely you can't think he took my picture?"
"Your room did smell of chemicals."
"Perhaps it's been cleaned?"
"Then what of the stains upon your desk?"
Dorian smoothed the pockets of his waist-coat.
"You certainly are one of the greatest detective minds to come out of France, Mr. Dupin."
The detective stood, and touched the top of his hat with the handle of his cane.
"I thank you, Monsieur, though it is most unfortunate you have no enemies to claim."