The Philosophical Strangler by Eric Flint

“The Cat,” Greyboar corrected. He rubbed his chin. “Well—you’re the professional.” He glanced at the Cat, who was off again, wandering about. “I’ll admit it would be difficult to get her to sit still for a formal pose.”

Benvenuti shook his head. “And it wouldn’t—how shall I say it? It wouldn’t be her. It would be—” He waved at the various portraits on the walls.

Greyboar looked at them. “Yeah, I see what you mean. They all look like they’re constipated or something.” He shrugged. “All right. Do whatever you think’s best.”

For about the next hour or so, Benvenuti drew a whole series of charcoal sketches. Within minutes, he was oblivious to anything else. Greyboar stayed and watched for quite some time, but the rest of us started wandering around. (By “the rest of us” I mean me, Jenny and Angela. “Wandering around” doesn’t really apply to the Cat. She wanders around when she’s standing still, if you know what I mean.)

Jenny found them first. Wandering into a room where she shouldn’t have been wandering, with me and Angela not far behind like we shouldn’t have been, she suddenly started oohing and ahing again.

“You’ve got to see these!” she squeaked.

Angela scurried into the room. A moment later I heard her oohing and ahing too.

“Oh, they’re wonderful.”

Tiresome. Like I said, they ought to hang all artists just on general principle. Male ones, anyway.

I moseyed into the room, just to bring the presence of masculine sanity and nonchalance. A bedroom, it was. The artist’s, apparently. But I didn’t have much time to examine the furnishings, for my eyes were immediately drawn to the portraits which lined every single wall in the room.

I froze. Utter shock.

The portraits were all of a single woman. The same woman, over and again, in a variety of poses. Except they weren’t really poses. I’m no artist, but even I could tell that these paintings had been done from memory. These weren’t your typical studio portraits.

All kinds of portraits, there were. The most of them, mind you, were eminently proper. A woman—the woman—fully clothed, riding a horse. The same woman, sitting on a chair staring out a window. Same woman, singing.

But, then—there were the others.

The same woman—the woman—lying on a bed.

You know.

Artists call them “nudes.” Us lowlifes call them nekkid wimmen.

There were a lot of those paintings. The same woman, in a variety of different poses and attitudes. None of them were actually what you’d call pornographic, mind you. Even in my state of shock, I could tell that these were the kind of paintings that aesthetes go berserk over but don’t do all that much for your normal regular-guy-type lecher.

Still. I mean—naked.

Her.

That woman.

I finally found my voice.

“Get out of here!” I hissed to Jenny and Angela. “If we close the door and act like nothing happened, maybe we can still keep—”

Jenny and Angela were glaring at me.

“And just what’s your problem now, Ignace?” demanded Jenny.

“Yeah!” chimed in Angela, planting her hands on hips. “Still protecting your little cherubs? Boy, do you—”

I tried to shut them up with frantic hand motions.

Too late. Greyboar was already standing in the doorway.

I sighed. “And here it is,” I muttered. “Murther and massacree. So much for pleasant social outings.”

Greyboar was motionless—all except his head, which was slowly scanning the room. His eyes—I swear it—were starting to bulge out of their sockets. And that’s some feat, believe me, when you’ve got a brow like his.

“Aren’t they wonderful, Greyboar?” piped up Jenny.

Greyboar made no reply, beyond a faint noise which sounded like a man strangling to death. I was seized by a sudden urge to giggle. I suppressed the urge manfully. (Well, more like a despot suppresses insurrection.)

The chokester scanned the portraits, wall to wall. His head swiveled back, scanning. When he was done, he turned and walked out of the room. There was a kind of slow but inexorable pace to his movement. Think of a glacier advancing on a rabbit hutch.

“What’s wrong with him?” demanded Angela crossly.

I rolled my eyes. Pointed to the portraits.