: The Gallery by Phillips Rog Llewellyn Illustrator - Science fiction; Short stories Science Fiction

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.. The only kind of terrible trouble Matilda could be in was if some swindler talked her out of some of her capital! And that definitely would not be easy to do. I grinned to myself at the recollection of her worrying herself sick once over what would happen to her if there was a revolution and the new government refused to honor the old government bonds.

Things began to make sense. Her telegram, then those pictures moved around in the front room, and the one she had forgotten to hide, in the guest room. If the other pictures were anything like it, I could see how Aunt Matilda might cash in on part of her securities to invest in what she thought was a sure thing.

But sure things are only as good as the people in control of them. Many a sure thing has been lost to the original investors by stupid decisions leading to bankruptcy, and many a seemingly sure thing has fleeced a lot of innocent victims.

Slowly, as I thought it out, I became sure that that was what had happened.

Then why Aunt Matilda's about-face, hiding the pictures and telling me to go back to Chicago? Had she threatened whoever was behind this, and gotten her money back? Or had she again become convinced that her financial venture was sound?

In either case, why was she trying to keep me from knowing about the pictures?

I made up my mind. Whether Aunt Matilda liked it or not, I was going to stay until I got to the bottom of things. What Aunt Matilda evidently didn't realize was that no inventor who really had something would waste time trying to find backing in a place like Sumac.

Getting dressed, I decided that first on the agenda would be to find where Matilda had hidden those pictures, and get a good look at them.

That was simpler than I expected it to be. When I came out of my room I stuck my head in the kitchen doorway and said good morning to her, and she leaped to her feet to get some breakfast ready for me. It was obvious that she was anxious to get me fed and out of the house.

Then I simply took the two steps past the bathroom door to the door to her bedroom and went in. The pictures were stacked against the side of her dresser. The one of the church was the first one. It was on its side.

With a silent whistle of amazement I bent down to watch it. The car was not parked at the curb in it, but there were several children walking along, obviously on their way to school. And they were walking. Moving.

I picked up the picture. It was as heavy as it should be, but not more. A faint whisper of sound seemed to come from it. I put my ear closer and heard children's voices. I explored with my ear close to the surface, and found that the voices were loudest when my ear was closest to the one talking, as though the voices came out of the picture directly from the images!

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