When Hunt had rented this attic as a studio they had accepted his explanation that he had taken it because it was cheap and he could afford to pay no more.

Likewise they had accepted his explanation that he was a mechanic by trade who had roughed it all over the world and was possessed with an itch for painting, that lately he had worked in various garages, that it was his habit to hoard his money till he got a bit ahead and then go off on a painting spree.

All these admissions were indubitably plausible, for his paintings seemed the unmistakable handiwork of an irresponsible, hard-fisted motor mechanic.
Maggie shifted to her other foot and glanced casually at the canvases which leaned against the walls of the shabby studio.

There was the Duchess: incredibly old, the face a web of wrinkles, the lips indrawn over toothless and shrunken gums, the nose a thin, curved beak, the eyes deep-set, gleaming, inscrutable, watching; and drawn tight over the hair--even Maggie did not know whether that hair was a wig or the Duchess's--the faded Oriental shawl which was fastened beneath her chin and which fell over her thin, bent chest.

There was O'Flaherty, the good-natured policeman on the beat.