Immediately he had allowed himself to be persuaded, Staff felt sure he should not have agreed to change his seat to the table occupied by Mrs. Ilkington’s party, especially if he meant sincerely to try to do any real work aboard the Autocratic; and it wasn’t long after he had taken his place for the first dinner that he was convinced that he had blundered beyond remedy or excuse.
The table was round and seated seven, though when the party had assembled there remained two vacant places. Staff was assigned the chair on Mrs. Ilkington’s right and was sensitive to a not over subtle implication that his was the seat of honour. He would cheerfully have exchanged it for a place on the lady’s left, which would have afforded a chance to talk to Miss Searle, to whom he earnestly desired to make an explanation and such amends as she would permit. But a male person named Bangs, endowed with impressive self-assurance, altogether too much good-looks (measuredby the standards of the dermatological institute advertisements) and no excess baggage in the way of intellect, sat on Mrs. Ilkington’s left, with Miss Searle beyond him. The latter had suffered Staff to be presented to her with (he fancied) considerable repressed amusement. Not that he blamed her, but ...
His position was rendered unhappy to the verge of being impossible, however, by the lady on his own right, a Mrs. Thataker: darkly temperamental and buxom, a divorcée and (she lost no time in telling him) likewise a playwright. True, none of her plays had ever been produced; but that was indisputably due to a managerial conspiracy; what she really needed was a friend at court—some clever man having “the ear of the manager.” (Staff gathered that a truly clever man could warm up a play and pour it into the ear of the managers like laudanum and sweet-oil.) With such a man, he was given to understand, Mrs. Thataker wouldn’t mind collaborating; she had manuscripts in her steamer-trunk which were calculated to prove a number of things ...
And while he was easing away and preparing to run before the wind to escape any such hideous complication, he was abruptly brought up all-standing by the information that the colour of the lady’s soul was pink. She knew this to be a fact beyond dispute, because shenever could do her best work save when garbed exclusively in pink. She enumerated several articles of wearing apparel not customarily discussed between comparative strangers but which—always provided they were pink—she held indispensable to the task of dramatic composition.
In his great agony, happening to glance in Miss Searle’s direction, he saw her with head bent and eyelids lowered, lips compressed, colour a trifle heightened, shoulders suspiciously a-quiver.
Incongruously, the impression obtruded that they were unusually handsome shoulders.
For that matter, she was an unusually handsome young woman: tall, fair, with a face featured with faint, exquisite irregularity, brown eyes and brows in striking contrast to the rich golden colour of her hair; well-poised and balanced—sure but not too conscious of herself ...
Staff heard himself saying “Beg pardon?” to a third repetition of one of Mrs. Thataker’s gratuitous revelations.
At this he took fright, drew back into his reserve for the remainder of the meal, and as soon as he decently could, made his excuses and fled to join Iff in the smoking-room....
He found the little man indulging his two passions;he was drinking whiskey-and-sodas and playing bridge, both in the most masterly fashion. Staff watched the game a while and then, the opportunity offering, cut in. He played till ten o’clock, at which hour, wearied, he yielded his seat to another, leaving Mr. Iff the victor of six rubbers and twelve whiskey-and-sodas. As Staff went out on deck the little man cut for the seventh and ordered the thirteenth. Neither indulgence seemed to have had any perceptible effect upon him.
Staff strolled forward, drinking in air that seemed the sweeter by contrast with the reeking room he had just quitted. The wind had freshened since nightfall; it blew strong and cool, but not keen. And there was more motion in the seas that sang overside, wrapped in Cimmerian blackness. The sky had become overcast; there were no stars: only the ’longshore lights of Ireland twinkled, small, bright, incredibly distant over the waters. The decks were softly aglow with electric lights, lending a deeper shade of velvety denseness to the night beyond the rails.
He hadn’t moved far forward when his quick sight picked out the shimmer of a woman’s hair, like spun gold, about amidships in the rank of deck-chairs. He made sure it was Miss Searle; and it was. She sat alone, with none near her, her head resting against the back of the chair, her face turned a trifle forward; so thatshe was unaware of his approach until he stopped before her.
“Miss Searle—” he began diffidently.
She looked up quickly and smiled in what he thought a friendly way.
“Good evening,” said she; and moved her body slightly in the deck-chair, turning a little to the left as if expecting him to take the vacant chair on that hand.
He did so without further encouragement, and abruptly found himself wholly lacking words wherewith to phrase what he had in mind to say. In such emergency he resorted to an old, tried and true trick of his and began to talk on the first subject, unrelated to his dilemma, that popped into his head.
“Are you a good sailor?” he enquired gravely.
The girl nodded. “Very.”
“Not afraid of seasickness?”
“No. Why?”
“Because,” said Staff soberly, “I’ve been praying for a hurricane.”
She nodded again without speaking, her eyes alone questioning.
“Mrs. Thataker,” he pursued evenly, “confided to me at dinner that she is a very poor sailor indeed.”
Miss Searle laughed quietly. “You desire a punishment to fit the crime.”
“There are some crimes for which no adequate punishment has ever been contrived,” he returned, beginning to see his way, and at the same time beginning to think himself uncommonly clever.
“Oh!” said Miss Searle with a little laugh. “Now if you’re leading up to a second apology about that question of the bandbox, you needn’t, because I’ve forgiven you already.”
He glanced at her reproachfully. “You just naturally had to beat me to that, didn’t you?” he complained. “All the same, itwasinexcusable of me.”
“Oh, no; I quite understood.”
“You see,” he persisted obstinately, “I really did think it was my bandbox. I actually have got one with me, precisely like yours.”
“I quite believed you the first time.”
Something in her tone moved him to question her face sharply; but he found her shadowed eyes inscrutable.
“I half believe you know something,” he ventured, perplexed.
“Perhaps,” she nodded, with an enigmatic smile.
“What do you know?”
“Why,” she said, “it was simple enough. I happened to be in Lucille’s yesterday afternoon when a hat was ordered delivered to you.”
“You were! Then you know who sent it to me?”
“Of course.” Her expression grew curious. “Don’t you?”
“No,” he said excitedly. “Tell me.”
But she hesitated. “I’m not sure I ought ...”
“Why not?”
“It’s none of my affair—”
“But surely you must see ... Listen: I’ll tell you about it.” He narrated succinctly the intrusion of the mysterious bandbox into his ken, that morning. “Now, a note was promised; it must have miscarried. Surely, there can be no harm in your telling me. Besides, I’ve a right to know.”
“Possibly ... but I’m not sure I’ve a right to tell. Why should I be a spoil-sport?”
“You mean,” he said thoughtfully—“you think it’s some sort of a practical joke?”
“What do you think?”
“Hmm-mm,” said Staff. And then, “I don’t like to be made fun of,” he asserted, a trace sulkily.
“You are certainly a dangerously original man,” said Miss Searle—“almost abnormal.”
“The most unkindest slam of all,” he murmured.
He made himself look deeply hurt. The girl laughed softly. He thought it rather remarkable that they should enjoy so sympathetic a sense of humour on such short acquaintance....
“But you forgive me?”
“Oh, yes,” he said generously; “only, of course, I couldn’t help feeling it a bit—coming fromyou.”
“From me?” Miss Searle sat up in her deck-chair and turned to him. “Mr. Staff! you’re not flirting with me?”
“Heaven forfend!” he cried, so sincerely that both laughed.
“Because,” said she, sinking back, “I must warn you that Mrs. Ilkington has been talking ...”
“Oh,” he groaned from his heart—“damn that woman!”
There was an instant of silence; then he stole a contrite look at her immobile profile and started to get up.
“I—Miss Searle,” he stammered—“I beg your pardon ...”
“Don’t go,” she said quietly; “that is, unless you want to. My silence was simply sympathetic.”
He sat back. “Thank you,” he said with gratitude; and for some seconds considered the case of Mrs. Ilkington, not charitably but with murder in his bosom. “Do you mean,” he resumed presently, “she has—ah—connected my name with—”
“Yes,” nodded the girl.
“‘Something lingering in boiling oil,’” he mused aloud, presently.... “What staggers me is how shefound out; I was under the impression that only the persons most concerned knew about it.”
“Then it’s true? You are engaged to marry Miss Landis? Or is that an impertinent question?” Without pause the girl answered herself: “Of course it is; only I couldn’t help asking. Please forget I spoke—”
“Oh, I don’t mind,” he said wearily; “now that Mrs. Ilkington has begun to distribute handbills. Only ... I don’t know that there’s a regular, hard-and-fast engagement: just an understanding.”
“Thank you,” said Miss Searle. “I promise not to speak of it again.” She hesitated an instant, then added: “To you or anybody else.”
“You see,” he went on after a little, “I’ve been working on a play for Miss Landis, under agreement with Jules Max, her manager. They want to use it to open Max’s newest Broadway theatre late this autumn. That’s why I came across—to find a place in London to bury myself in and work undisturbed. It means a good deal to me—to all of us—this play.... But what I’m getting at is this: Alison—Miss Landis—didn’t leave the States this summer; Mrs. Ilkington (she told me at dinner) left New York before I did. So how in Heaven’s name—?”
“I had known nothing of Mrs. Ilkington at all,”said Miss Searle cautiously, “until we met in Paris last month.”
He was conscious of the hint of uneasiness in her manner, but inclined to assign it to the wrong cause.
“I trust I haven’t bored you, Miss Searle—talking about myself.”
“Oh, no; indeed no. You see—” she laughed—“I quite understand; I keep a temperament of my own—if you should happen to wonder why Mrs. Ilkington interests herself in me. I’m supposed to have a voice and to be in training for grand opera.”
“Not really?”
And again she laughed. “I’m afraid there isn’t any cure for me at this late date,” she protested; “I’ve gone so far I must go farther. But I know what you mean. People who singaredifficult. However ...” She stirred restlessly in her chair, then sat up.
“What is that light over there?” she asked. “Do you know?”
Staff’s gaze sought the indicated direction. “Roches Point, I imagine; we’re about due at Queenstown ...”
“As late as that?” The girl moved as if to rise. Staff jumped up and offered her a hand. In a moment she was standing beside him. “I must go below,” said she. “Good night.”
“You won’t tell me who it was in Lucille’s, yesterday?” he harked back pleadingly.
She shook her head gaily as she turned forward to the main companionway entrance: “No; you must find out for yourself.”
“But perhaps it isn’t a practical joke?”
“Then—perhaps—I shall tell you all—sometime.”
He paused by the raised door-sill as she stepped within the superstructure. “Why not stop up and see the tender come off?” he suggested. “It might be interesting.”
She flashed him a look of gay malice. “If we’re to believe Mrs. Ilkington, you’re apt to find it more interesting than I. Good night.”
“Oh—good night!” he muttered, disturbed; and turned away to the rail.
His troubled vision ranged far to the slowly shifting shore lights. The big steamship had come very close inshore—as witness the retarded speed with which she crept toward her anchorage—but still the lights, for all their singular brightness, seemed distant, incalculably far away; the gulf of blackness that set them apart exaggerated all distances tenfold. The cluster of sparks flanked by green and red that marked the hovering tender appeared to float at an infinite remove,invisibly buoyed upon the bosom of a fathomless void of night.
Out of this wind-swept waste of impenetrable darkness was to come the answer to these many questions that perplexed him—perhaps. Something at least would come to influence him; or else Mrs. Ilkington’s promise had been mereblague.... Then what?
Afterwards he assured himself that his stupidity had been unparalleled inconceivable. And indeed there seems to be some colour of excuse for this drastic stricture, self-inflicted though it were.
Below him, on the main deck, a squad of deckhands superintended by a petty officer was rigging out the companion-ladder.
Very suddenly—it seemed, because of the immense quiet that for all its teeming life enveloped the ship upon the cessation of the engine’s song—the vessel hesitated and then no longer moved. From forward came the clank of chains as the anchor cables were paid out. Supple to wind and tide, the Autocratic swung in a wide arc, until the lights of the tender disappeared from Staff’s field of vision.
Before long, however, they swam silently again into sight; then slowly, cautiously, by almost imperceptible stages the gap closed up until the tender ranged alongside and made fast to her gigantic sister.
Almost at once the incoming passengers began to mount the companion-ladder.
Staff promptly abandoned his place at the rail and ran down to the main-deck. As he approached the doorway opening adjacent to the companion-ladder he heard a woman’s laugh out on the deck: a laugh which, once heard, was never to be forgotten: clear, sweet, strong, musical as a peal of fairy bells.
He stopped short; and so did his breath for an instant; and so, he fancied, did his heart. This, then, was what Mrs. Ilkington had hinted at! But one woman in all the world could laugh like that ...
Almost at once she appeared, breaking through the cluster of passengers on the deck and into the lighted interior with a swinging, vigorous manner suggestive of intense vitality and strength. She paused, glancing back over her shoulder, waiting for somebody: a magnificent creature, splendidly handsome, wonderfully graceful, beautiful beyond compare.
“Alison!” Staff breathed hoarsely, dumfounded.
Though his exclamation could by no means have carried to her ears, she seemed to be instantly sensitive to the vibrations of his emotion. She swung round, raking her surroundings with a bright, curious glance, and saw him. Her smile deepened adorably, her eyesbrightened, she moved impulsively toward him with outflung hands.
“Why,” she cried—“Why, Staff! Such a surprise!”
Nothing could have been more natural, spontaneous and unaffected. In an instant his every doubt and misgiving was erased—blotted out and as if it had never been. He caught and held her hands, for the moment speechless. But his eyes were all too eloquent: under their steadfast sincerity her own gaze wavered, shifted and fell. She coloured consummately, then with a gentle but determined manner disengaged her hands.
“Don’t,” she said in the low, intimate voice she knew so well how and when to employ—“don’t! People are looking ...” And then with a bewildering shift, resuming her former spirit: “Of all things wonderful, Staff—to meet you here!”
She was acting—masking with her admirable art some emotion secret from him. He knew this—felt it intuitively, though he did not understand; and the knowledge affected him poignantly. What place had dissimulation in their understanding? Why need she affect what she did not feel—with him?
Distressed, bewildered, he met evasion with native straightforwardness.
“I’m stunned,” he told her, holding her eyeswith a grave, direct gaze; “I’m afraid I don’t understand.... How does this happen?”
“Why, of course,” she said, maintaining her artificial elation—“I infer—you’ve finished the play and are hurrying home. So—we meet, dear boy. Isn’t it delightful?”
“But you’re here, on this side—?”
“Oh, just a flying trip. Max wanted me to see Bisson’s new piece at the Porte St. Martin. I decided to go at the last moment—caught the Mauretania on eight hours’ notice—stayed only three days in Paris—booked back on this tub by telegraph—travelled all day to catch it by this wretched, roundabout route. And—and there you are, my dear.”
She concluded with a gesture charmingly ingenuous and disarming; but Staff shook his head impatiently.
“You came over—you passed through London twice—you stayed three days in Paris, Alison—and never let me know?”
“Obviously.” She lifted her shoulders an inch, with a light laugh. “Haven’t I just said as much?... You see, I didn’t want to disturb you: it means so much to—you and me, Staff—the play.”
Dissatisfied, knitting his brows faintly, he said: “I wonder ...!”
“My dear!” she protested gaily, “you positivelymust not scowl at me like that! You frighten me; and besides I’m tired to death—this wretched rush of travelling! Tomorrow we’ll have a famous young pow-wow, but tonight—! Do say good night to me, prettily, like a dear good boy, and let me go.... It’s sweet to see you again; I’m wild to hear about the play.... Jane!” she called, looking round.
Her maid, a tight-mouthed, unlovely creature, moved sedately to her side. “Yes, Miss Landis.”
“Have my things come up yet?” The maid responded affirmatively. “Good! I’m dead, almost....”
She turned back to Staff, offering him her hand and with it, bewitchingly, her eyes: “Dear boy! Good night.”
He bent low over the hand to hide his dissatisfaction: he felt a bit old to be treated like a petulant, teasing child....
“Good night,” he said stiffly.
“What a bear you are, Staff! Can’t you wait till tomorrow? At all events, you must....”
Laughing, she swept away, following her maid up the companion stairs. Staff pursued her with eyes frowning and perplexed, and more leisurely with his person.
As he turned aft on the upper deck, meaning to goto the smoking-room for a good-night cigarette—absorbed in thought and paying no attention to his surroundings—a voice saluted him with a languid, exasperating drawl: “Ah, Staff! How-d’-ye-do?”
He looked up, recognising a distant acquaintance: a man of medium height with a tendency toward stoutness and a taste for extremes in the matter of clothes; with dark, keen eyes deep-set in a face somewhat too pale, a close-clipped grey moustache and a high and narrow forehead too frankly betrayed by the derby he wore well back on his head.
Staff nodded none too cordially. “Oh, good evening, Arkroyd. Just come aboard?”
Arkroyd, on the point of entering his stateroom, paused long enough to confirm this surmise. “Beastly trip—most tiresome,” he added, frankly yawning. “Don’t know how I should have stood it if it hadn’t been for Miss Landis. You know her, I believe? Charming girl—charming.”
“Oh, quite,” agreed Staff. “Good night.”
His tone arrested Arkroyd’s attention; the man turned to watch his back as Staff shouldered down the alleyway toward the smoking-room. “I say!” commented Mr. Arkroyd, privately. “A bit hipped—what? No necessity for being so bally short with a chap....”
The guess was only too well founded: Staff was distinctly disgruntled. Within the past ten minutes his susceptibilities had been deeply wounded. Why Alison should have chosen to slight him so cavalierly when in transit through London passed his comprehension.... And the encounter with Arkroyd comforted him to no degree whatever. He had never liked Arkroyd, holding him, for all his wealth, little better than a theatre-loafer of the Broadway type; and now he remembered hearing, once or twice, that the man’s attentions to Alison Landis had been rather emphatic.
Swayed by whim, he chose to avoid the smoking-room, after all—having little wish to be annoyed by the chatter of Mr. Iff—and swung out on deck again for a half-hour of cigarettes and lonely brooding....
But his half-hour lengthened indefinitely while he sat, preoccupied, in the deck-chair of some total stranger. By definite stages, to which he was almost altogether oblivious, the Autocratic weighed anchor, shook off her tender and swung away on the seven-day stretch. As definitely her decks became bare of passengers. Presently Staff was quite a solitary figure in the long array of chairs.
Two bells rang mellowly through the ship beforehe roused, lifted himself to his feet and prepared to turn in, still distressed and wondering—so much so that he was barely conscious of the fact that one of the officers of the vessel was coming aft, and only noticed the man when he paused and spoke.
“I say—this is Mr. Staff, isn’t it?”
Staff turned quickly, searching his memory for the name and status of the sturdy and good-looking young Englishman.
“Yes,” he said slowly, “but—”
“I’m Mr. Manvers, the purser. If I’m not mistaken, you crossed with us this spring?”
“Oh, yes; I did. How-d’-you-do?” Staff offered his hand.
“Sure I recognised you just now—saw you on the main-deck—talking to Miss Landis, I believe.”
“Yes ...?”
“Beg pardon; I don’t wish to seem impertinent; but may I ask, do you know the lady very well?”
Staff’s eyes clouded. “Why ...”
“Knew you’d think me impertinent; but it is some of my business, really. I can explain to your satisfaction. You see”—the purser stepped nearer and lowered his voice guardedly—“I was wondering if you had much personal influence with Miss Landis. I’ve just had a bit of a chat with her,and she won’t listen to reason, you know, about that collar.”
“Collar?” Staff repeated stupidly.
“The Cadogan collar, you know—some silly pearl necklace worth a king’s ransom. She bought it in Paris—Miss Landis did; at least, so the report runs; and she doesn’t deny it, as a matter of fact. Naturally that worries me; it’s a rather tempting proposition to leave lying round a stateroom; and I asked her just now to let me take care of it for her—put it in my safe, you know. It’d be a devilish nasty thing for the ship, to have it stolen.” The purser paused for effect. “Would you believe it? She wouldn’t listen to me! Told me she was quite capable of taking care of her own property! Now if you know her well enough to say the right word ... it’d be a weight off my mind, I can tell you!”
“Yes, I can imagine so,” said Staff thoughtfully. “But—what makes you think there’s any possibility—”
“Well, one never knows what sort of people the ship carries—as a rule, that is. But in this instance I’ve got good reason to believe there’s at least one man aboard who wouldn’t mind lifting that collar; and he’s keen enough to do it prettily, too, if what they tell of him is true.”
“Now you’re getting interesting. Who is this man?”
“Oh, quite the swell mobsman—Raffles and Arsène Lupin and all that sort of thing rolled into one. His name’s Ismay—Arbuthnot Ismay. Clever—wonderful, they say; the police have never been able to fasten anything on him, though he’s been known to boast of his jobs in advance.”
“You told Miss Landis this?”
“Certainly—and she laughed.”
This seemed quite credible of the lady. Staff considered the situation seriously for a moment or two.
“I’ll do what I can,” he said at length; “though I’m not hopeful of making her see it from your point of view. Still, I will speak to her.”
“That’s good of you, I’m sure. You couldn’t do more.”
“You’re positive about this Ismay?” Staff pursued. “You couldn’t be mistaken?”
“Not I,” asserted the purser confidently. “He crossed with us last year—the time Mrs. Burden Hamman’s jewels disappeared. Ismay, of course, was suspected, but managed to prove every kind of an alibi.”
“Queer you should let him book a second time,” commented Staff.
“Rather; but he’s changed his name, and I don’t imagine the chaps in Cockspur Street know him by sight.”
“What name does he travel under now?”
The purser smiled softly to himself. “I fancy you won’t be pleased to learn it,” said he. “He’s down on the passenger-list as Iff—W. H. Iff.”
When Staff went below a little later, he was somewhat surprised to find his stateroom alight,—surprised, because he had rather expected that Mr. Iff would elect to sleep off his potations in darkness.
To the contrary, the little man was very much awake, propped up in his berth with a book for company, and showed no effects whatever of overindulgence, unless that were betrayed by a slightly enhanced brightness of the cool blue eyes which he brought to bear upon his roommate.
“Good morning!” he piped cheerfully. “What on earth got you up so early? The bar’s been closed an hour and more.”
“Is that why you came to bed?” enquired Staff.
“Sure,” agreed Mr. Iff complacently.
Staff quietly began to shed his clothing and to insert his spare frame into pajamas. Iff lay back and stared reflectively at the white-painted overhead girders.
“Got to slip it to you,” he observed presently, “for perfect mastery of the dignified reserve thing. I never knew anybody who could better control his tumultuous emotions.”
“Thanks,” said Staff drily as he wound up his watch.
“Anything ’special troubling you?”
“Why do you ask?”
“You talk so darn much.”
“Sorry if I’m keeping you awake,” said Staff politely.
“Oh, I don’t mean to seem to beef about it, only ... I was wondering if by any chance you’d heard the news?”
“What news?”
“About me.”
“About you!” Staff paused with his fingers on the light-switch.
“About my cute little self. May I look now?” Iff poked his head over the edge of the upper berth and beamed down upon Staff like a benevolent, blond magpie. “Haven’t you heard the rumour that I’m a desperate character?”
“Just what do you mean?” demanded Staff, eyeing the other intently.
“Oh, simply that I overheard the purser discussingme with his assistant. He claims to recognise in me a bold bad man named Ismay, whose specialty is pulling off jobs that would make Sherlock Holmes ask to be retired on a pension.”
“Well?”
“Well what?”
“Are you Ismay?”
A broad, mocking grin irradiated the little man’s pinched features. “Don’t ask me,” he begged: “I might tell you.”
Staff frowned and waited a minute, then, receiving no further response to his enquiry, grunted “Good night,” turned off the light and got into his berth.
A moment later the question came out of the darkness overhead: “I say—what doyouthink?”
“Are you Iff or Ismay—you mean?”
“Aye, lad, aye!”
“I don’t know. It’s for you to say.”
“But if you thought I was Ismay you’d shift quarters, wouldn’t you?”
“Why?”
“Because I might pinch something of yours.”
“In the first place,” said Staff, yawning, “I can’t shift without going into the second cabin—and you know it: the boat’s full up. Secondly, I’venothing you could steal save ideas, and you haven’t got the right sort of brains to turn them to any account.”
“That ought to hold me for some time,” Iff admitted fairly. “But I’m concerned about your sensitive young reputation. Suppose I were to turn a big trick this trip?”
“As for instance—?”
“Well, say I swipe the Cadogan collar.”
“Then I’d stand just so much the better chance of catching you red-handed.”
“Swell notion you’ve got of the cunning of the Twentieth Century criminal, I must say. D’ you for an instant suppose my work’s so coarse that you could detect grits in it?”
“Then youareIsmay?”
“My son,” said the other solemnly, “your pertinacity shan’t go unrewarded: I will be frank with you. You shall know all. I am Iff—the eternal question.”
“Oh, go to thunder!” said Staff indignantly.
But as he slipped off to sleep he could hear the man overhead chuckling quietly, beneath his breath....
The next few days would have provided him with ample opportunity in which to ponder the questionof his roommate’s identity, had Staff chosen so to occupy his time. As it happened, Heaven was kind to the young man, and sent a gale of sorts, which, breaking upon the Autocratic the following morning, buffeted her for three days and relegated to their berths all the poor sailors aboard, including the lady with the pink soul and underthings. Of Mrs. Thataker, indeed, Staff saw nothing more until just before the vessel docked in New York. He wasn’t heartless by any manner of means; he was, as a matter of fact, frankly sorry for the other poor passengers; but he couldn’t help feeling there was a lot of truth in the old saw about an ill wind....
Otherwise the bad weather proved annoying enough in several ways. To begin with, Alison Landis herself was anything but a good sailor, and even Miss Searle, though she missed no meals, didn’t pretend to enjoy the merciless hammering which the elements were administering to the ship. Alison retired to her suite immediately after the first breakfast and stuck religiously therein until the weather moderated, thus affording Staff no chance to talk with her about the number of immediately interesting things on his mind. While Miss Searle stayed almost as steadily in her quarters, keeping out of harm’s way and reading, she toldStaff when they met at meals. Mrs. Ilkington, of course, disappeared as promptly as Mrs. Thataker. In consequence of all of which, Staff found himself thrown back for companionship on Bangs, who bored him to the point of extinction, Arkroyd, whom he didn’t like, and Iff, who kept rather out of the way, dividing his time between his two passions and merely leering at the younger man, a leer of infinite cunning and derision, when chance threw them together.
In despair of finding any good excuse for wasting his time, then, Mr. Staff took unto himself pens, ink, paper and fortitude and—surprised even himself by writing that fourth act and finishing his play. Again—an ill wind!
And then, as if bent on proving its integral benevolence so far as concerned Mr. Staff, the wind shifted and sighed and died—beginning the operation toward sundown of the third day out from Queenstown. The morning of the fourth day dawned clear and beautiful, with no wind worth mentioning and only a moderate sea running—not enough to make much of an impression on the Autocratic. So pretty nearly everybody made public appearance at one time or another during the morning, and compared notes about their historic sufferings, andquoted the stewardess who had been heard to say that this was the worst westbound passage the boat had ever made, and regained their complexions, and took notice of the incipient flirtations and—well, settled down in the usual way to enjoy an ocean voyage.
Staff, of course, was on deck betimes, with an eye eager for first sight of Alison and another heedful of social entanglements which might prevent him from being first and foremost to her side when she did appear. But for all his watchfulness and care, Mrs. Ilkington forestalled him and had Alison in convoy before Staff discovered her; and then Arkroyd showed up and Mrs. Ilkington annexed him, and Bangs was rounded up with one or two others and made to pay court to Mrs. Ilkington’s newly snared celebrity and ... Staff went away and sulked like a spoiled child. Nor did his humour become more cheerful when at lunch he discovered that Mrs. Ilkington had kept two seats at their table reserved for Miss Landis and Arkroyd. It had been a prearranged thing, of course; it had been Alison with whom Mrs. Ilkington had talked about him in Paris; and evidently Alison had been esquired by Arkroyd there. Staff didn’t relish the flavour of that thought. What right had Arkroydto constitute himself Alison’s cavalier on her travels? For that matter, what right had Alison to accept him in such a capacity?... Though, of course, Staff had to remind himself that Alison was in reality not bound in any way....
But he had his reward and revenge after lunch. As the party left the table Alison dropped behind to speak to him; and in interchange of commonplaces they allowed the others to distance them beyond earshot.
“You’re a dear,” the young woman told him in a discreet tone as they ascended the companionway.
“I’m bound to say,” he told her with a faint, expiring flicker of resentment, “that you hardly treat me like one.”
Her eyes held his with their smiling challenge, half provocative, half tender; and she pouted a little, prettily. In this mood she was always quite irresistible to Staff. Almost against his will his dignity and his pose of the injured person evaporated and became as if they had never been.
“Just the same,” she declared, laughing, “you are a dear—if youdon’tdeserve to be told so.”
“What have I done?” he demanded guiltily—knowing very well on what counts he was liable to indictment.
“Oh, nothing,” said Alison—“nothing whatever. You’ve only been haughty and aloof and icy and indifferent and everything else that men seem to consider becoming to them when they think they’re neglected.”
“You certainly don’t expect me tolikeseeing Arkroyd at your side all the time?”
“Oh!” she laughed contemptuously—“Arkroyd!” And she dismissed that gentleman with a fine sweeping gesture. “Can I help it if he happens to travel on the same ship?”
They halted at the top of the steps.
“Then it was accidental—?” he asked seriously.
“Staff!” The young woman made an impatient movement. “If I didn’t like you—youknow how much—upon my word I’d snub you for that. You are a bear!”
“A moment ago I was a dear.”
“Oh, well, I’m fond of all sorts of animals.”
“Then I advise your future husband to keep you away from zoos.”
“Oh, Staff! But wouldn’t you want me to come to see you once in a while?”
He jerked up one hand with the gesture of a man touched in a fencing-bout. “You win,” he laughed. “I should’ve known better....”
But she made her regard tender consolation for his discomfiture. “You haven’t told me about the play—our play—myplay?”
“It’s finished.”
“Not really, Staff?” She clasped her hands in a charmingly impulsive way. He nodded, smiling. “Is it good?”
“You’ll have to tell me that—you and Max.”
“Oh—Max! He’s got to like what I like. When will you read it to me?”
“Whenever you wish.”
“This afternoon?”
“If you like.”
“Oh, good! Now I’m off for my nap—only I know I shan’t sleep, I’m so excited. Bring the ’script to me at two—say, half-past. Come to my sitting-room; we can be alone and quiet, and after you’ve finished we can have tea together and talk and—talk our silly heads off. You darling!”
She gave him a parting glance calculated to turn any man’s head, and swung off to her rooms, the very spirit of grace incarnate in her young and vigorous body.
Staff watched her with a kindling eye, then shook his head as one who doubts—as if doubting his own worthiness—and went off to his own stateroom torun over the type-script of his fourth act: being fortunate in having chosen a ship which carried a typist, together with almost every other imaginable convenience and alleged luxury of life ashore.
Punctual to the minute, manuscript under his arm, he knocked at the door of the sitting-room of thesuite de luxeoccupied by the actress. Her maid admitted him and after a moment or two Alison herself came out of her stateroom, in a wonderful Parisian tea-gown cunningly designed to render her even more bewilderingly bewitching than ever. Staff thought her so, beyond any question, and as unquestionably was his thought mirrored in his eyes as he rose and stood waiting for her greeting—very nearly a-tremble, if the truth’s to be told.
Her colour deepened as she came toward him and then, pausing at arm’s length, before he could lift a hand, stretched forth both her own and caught him by the shoulders. “My dear!” she said softly; and her eyes were bright and melting. “My dear, dear boy! It’s so sweet to see you.” She came a step nearer, stood upon her tiptoes and lightly touched his cheek with her lips.
“Alison ...!” he cried in a broken voice.
But already she had released him and moved away, with a lithe and gracious movement evading his arms.“No,” she told him firmly, shaking her head: “no more than that, Staff. You mustn’t—I won’t have you—carry on as if we were children—yet.”
“But Alison—”
“No.” Again she shook her head. “If I want to kiss you, I’ve a perfect right to; but that doesn’t give you any licence to kiss me in return. Besides, I’m not at all sure I’m really and truly in love with you. Now do sit down.”
He complied sulkily.
“Are you in the habit of kissing men you don’t care for?”
“Yes, frequently,” she told him, coolly taking the chair opposite; “I’m an actress—if you’ve forgotten the fact.”
He pondered this, frowning. “I don’t like it,” he announced with conviction.
“Neither do I—always.” She relished his exasperation for a moment longer, then changed her tone. “Do be sensible, Staff. I’m crazy to hear that play. How long do you mean to keep me waiting?”
He knew her well enough to understand that her moods and whims must be humoured like a—well, like any other star’s. She was pertinaciously temperamental: that is to say, spoiled; beautiful women are so, for the most part—invariably so, if on the stage.That kind of temperament is part of an actress’ equipment, an asset, as much an item of her stock in trade as any trick of elocution or pantomime.
So, knowing what he knew, Staff took himself in hand and prepared to make the best of the situation. With a philosophic shrug and the wry, quaint smile so peculiarly his own, he stretched forth a hand to take up his manuscript; but in the very act, remembering, withheld it.
“Oh, I’d forgotten ...”
“What, my dear?” asked Alison, smiling back to his unsmiling stare.
“What made you send me that bandbox?” he demanded without further preliminary; for he suspected that by surprising the author of that outrage, and by no other method, would he arrive at the truth.
But though he watched the woman intently, he was able to detect no guilty start, no evidence of confusion. Her eyes were blank, and a little pucker of wonder showed between her brows: that was all.
“Bandbox?” she repeated enquiringly. “What do you mean?”
“I mean,” he pursued with a purposeful, omniscient air, “the thing you bought at Lucille’s, the day before we sailed, and had sent me without a word of explanation. What did you do it for?”
Alison relaxed and sat back in her chair, laughing softly. “Dear boy,” she said—“do you know?—you’re quite mad—quite!”
“Do you mean to say you didn’t—?”
“I can’t even surmise what you’re talking about.”
“That’s funny.” He pondered this, staring. “I made sure it was you. Weren’t you in London last Friday?”
“I? Oh, no. Why, didn’t I tell you I only left Paris Saturday morning? That’s why we had to travel all day to catch the boat at Queenstown, you know.”
He frowned. “That’s true; you did say so.... But I wish I could imagine what it all means.”
“Tell me; I’m good at puzzles.”
So he recounted the story of the bandbox incognito, Alison lending her attention with evident interest, some animation and much quiet amusement. But when he had finished, she shook her head.
“How very odd!” she said wonderingly. “And you have no idea—?”
“Not the least in the world, now that you’ve established an alibi. Miss Searle knows, but—”
“What’s that?” demanded Alison quickly.
“I say, Miss Searle knows, but she won’t tell.”
“The girl who sat next to Bangs at lunch?”
“Yes—”
“But how is that? I don’t quite understand.”
“Oh, she says she was in the place when the bandbox was purchased—saw the whole transaction; but it’s none of her affair, says she, so she won’t tell me anything.”
“Conscientious young woman,” said Alison approvingly. “But are you quite sure you have exhausted every means of identifying the true culprit? Did you examine the box yourself? I mean, did you leave it all to the housemaid—what’s her name—Milly?”
He nodded: “Yes.”
“Then she may have overlooked something. Why take her word for it? There may be a card or something there now.”
Staff looked startled and chagrined. “That’s so. It never occurred to me. I am a bonehead, and no mistake. I’ll just take a look, after we’ve run through this play.”
“Why wait? Send for it now. I’d like to see for myself, if there is anything: you see, you’ve roused a woman’s curiosity; I want to know. Let me send Jane.”
Without waiting for his consent, Alison summoned the maid. “Jane,” said she, “I want you to go to Mr. Staff’s stateroom—”
“Excuse me,” Staff interrupted. “Find the stewardnamed Orde and ask him for the bandbox I gave him to take care of. Then bring it here, please.”
“Yes, sir,” said Jane; and forthwith departed.
“And now—while we’re waiting,” suggested Alison—“the play, if you please.”
“Not yet,” said Staff. “I’ve something else to talk about that I’d forgotten. Manvers, the purser—”
“Good Heavens!” Alison interrupted in exasperation. She rose, with a general movement of extreme annoyance. “Am I never to hear the last of that man? He’s been after me every day, and sometimes twice a day.... He’s a personified pest!”
“But he’s right, you know,” said Staff quietly.
“Right! Right about what?”
“In wanting you to let him take care of that necklace—the what-you-may-call-it thing—the Cadogan collar.”
“How do you know I have it?”
“You admitted as much to Manvers, and Mrs. Ilkington says you have it.”
“But why need everybody know about it?”
“Enquire of Mrs. Ilkington. If you wanted the matter kept secret, why in the sacred name of the great god Publicity did you confide in that queen of press agents?”
“She had no right to say anything—”
“Granted. So you actually have got that collar with you?”
“Oh, yes,” Alison admitted indifferently, “I have it.”
“In this room?”
“Of course.”
“Then be advised and take no chances.”
Alison had been pacing to and fro, impatiently. Now she stopped, looking down at him without any abatement of her show of temper.
“You’re as bad as all the rest,” she complained. “I’m a woman grown, in full possession of my faculties. The collar is perfectly safe in my care. It’s here, in this room, securely locked up.”
“But someone might break in while you’re out—”
“Either Jane is here all the time, or I am. It’s never left to itself a single instant. It’s perfectly ridiculous to suppose we’re going to let anybody rob us of it. Besides, where would a thief go with it, if he did succeed in stealing it—overboard?”
“I’m willing to risk a small bet he’d manage to hide it so that it would take the whole ship’s company, and a heap of good luck into the bargain, to find it.”
“Well,” said the woman defiantly, “I’m not afraid, and I’m not going to be browbeaten by any scare-cat purser into behaving like a kiddie afraid of the dark.I’m quite competent to look after my own property, and I purpose doing so without anybody’s supervision. Now let’s have that understood, Staff; and don’t you bother me any more about this matter.”
“Thanks,” said Staff drily; “I fancy you can count on me to know when I’m asked to mind my own business.”
“Oh, I didn’t mean that—not that way, dear boy—but—”
At this juncture the maid entered with the bandbox, and Alison broke off with an exclamation of diverted interest.
“There! Let’s say no more about this tiresome jewel business. I’m sure this is going to prove ever so much more amusing. Open it, Jane, please.”
In another moment the hat was in her hands and both she and Jane were giving passably good imitations—modified by their respective personalities—of Milly’s awe-smitten admiration of the thing.
Staff was conscious of a sensation of fatigue. Bending over, he drew the bandbox to him and began to examine the wrappings and wads of tissue-paper which it still contained.
“It’s a perfect dear!” said Miss Landis in accents of the utmost sincerity.
“Indeed, mum,” chimed Jane, antiphonal.
“Whoever your anonymous friend may be, she has exquisite taste.”
“Indeed, mum,” chanted the chorus.
“May I try it on, Staff?”
“What?” said the young man absently, absorbed in his search. “Oh, yes; certainly. Help yourself.”
Alison moved across to the long mirror set in the door communicating with her bedroom. Here she paused, carefully adjusting the hat to her shapely head.
“Now, sir!” she exclaimed, turning.
Staff sat back in his chair and looked his fill of admiration. The hat might have been designed expressly for no other purpose than to set off this woman’s imperious loveliness: such was the thought eloquent in his expression.
Satisfied with his dumb tribute, Alison lifted off the hat and deposited it upon a table.
“Find anything?” she asked lightly.
“Not a word,” said he—“not a sign of a clue.”
“What a disappointment!” she sighed. “I’m wild to know.... Suppose,” said she, posing herself before him,—“suppose the owner never did turn up after all?”
“Hum,” said Staff, perturbed by such a prospect.
“What would you do with it?”
“Hum,” said he a second time, non-committal.
“You couldn’t wear it yourself; it’s hardly an ornament for a bachelor’s study. Whatwouldyou do with it?”
“I think,” said Staff, “I hear my cue to say: I’d give it to the most beautiful woman alive, of course.”
“Thank you, dear,” returned Alison serenely. “Don’t forget.”
She moved back to her chair, humming a little tune almost inaudibly; and in passing lightly brushed his forehead with her hand—the ghost of a caress.
“You may go, Jane,” said she, sitting down to face her lover; and when the maid had shut herself out of the room: “Now, dear, read me our play,” said Alison, composing herself to attention.
Staff took up his manuscript and began to read aloud....
Three hours elapsed before he put aside the fourth act and turned expectantly to Alison.
Elbow on knee and chin in hand, eyes fixed upon his face, she sat as one entranced, unable still to shake off the spell of his invention: more lovely, he thought, in this mood of thoughtfulness even than in her brightest animation.... Then with a little sigh she roused, relaxed her pose, and sat back, faintly smiling.
“Well?” he asked diffidently. “What do you think?”
“It’s splendid,” she said with a soft, warm glow of enthusiasm—“simply splendid. It’s coherent, it hangs together from start to finish; you’ve got little to learn about construction, my dear. And my part is magnificent: never have I had such a chance to show what I can do with comedy. I’m delighted beyond words. But ...” She sighed again, distrait.
“But—?” he repeated anxiously.
“There are one or two minor things,” she said with shadowy regret, “that you will want to change, I think: nothing worth mentioning, nothing important enough to mar the wonderful cleverness of it all.”
“But tell me—?”
“Oh, it’s hardly worth talking about, dear boy. Only—there’s the ingenue rôle; you’ve given her too much to do; she’s on the stage in all of my biggest scenes, and has business enough in them to spoil my best effects. Of course, that can be arranged. And then the leading man’s part—I don’t want to seem hypercritical, but he’s altogether too clever; you mustn’t let him overshadow the heroine the way he does; some of his business is plainly hers—I can see myself doing it infinitely better than any leading man we could afford to engage. And those witty lines you’ve put into his mouth—Imusthave them; you won’t find it hard,I’m sure, to twist the lines a bit, so that they come from the heroine rather than the hero....”
Staff held up a warning hand, and laughed.
“Just a minute, Alison,” said he. “Remember this is a play, not a background for you. And with a play it’s much as with matrimony: if either turns out to be a monologue it’s bound to be a failure.”
Alison frowned slightly, then forced a laugh, and rose. “You authors are all alike,” she complained, pouting; “I mean, as authors. But I’m not going to have any trouble with you, dear boy. We’ll agree on everything; I’m going to be reasonable and you’vegotto be. Besides, we’ve heaps of time to talk it over. Now I’m going to change and get up on deck. Will you wait for me in the saloon, outside? I shan’t be ten minutes.”
“Will I?” he laughed. “Your only trouble will be to keep me away from your door, this trip.” He gathered up his manuscript and steamer-cap, then with his hand on the door-knob paused. “Oh, I forgot that blessed bandbox!”
“Never mind that now,” said Alison. “I’ll have Jane repack it and take it back to your steward. Besides, I’m in a hurry, stifling for fresh air. Just give me twenty minutes....”
She offered him a hand, and he bowed his lips to it; then quietly let himself out into the alleyway.
Late that night, Staff drifted into the smoking-room, which he found rather sparsely patronised. This fact surprised him no less than its explanation: it was after eleven o’clock. He had hardly realised the flight of time, so absorbed had he been all evening in argument with Alison Landis.
There remained in the smoking-room, at this late hour, but half a dozen detached men, smoking and talking over their nightcaps, and one table of bridge players—in whose number, of course, there was Mr. Iff.
Nodding abstractedly to the little man, Staff found a quiet corner and sat him down with a sigh and a shake of his head that illustrated vividly his frame of mind. He was a little blue and more than a little distressed. And this was nothing but natural, since he was still in the throes of the discovery that one man can hardly with success play the dual rôle of playwright and sweetheart to a successful actress.
Alison was charming, he told himself, a woman incomparable, tenderly sweet and desirable; and he loved her beyond expression. But ... his play was also more than a slight thing in his life. It meant a good deal to him; he had worked hard and put the best that was in him into its making; and hard as the work had been, it had been a labour of love. He wasn’t a man to overestimate his ability; he possessed a singularly sane and clear appreciation of the true value of his work, harbouring no illusions as to his real status either as dramatist or novelist. But at the same time, he knew when he had done good work. AndA Single Womanpromised to be a good play, measured by modern standards: not great, but sound and clear and strong. The plot was of sufficient originality to command attention; the construction was clear, sane, inevitable; he had mixed the elements of comedy and drama with the deftness of a sure hand; and he had carefully built up the characters in true proportion to one another and to their respective significance in the action.
Should all this then, be garbled and distorted to satisfy a woman’s passion for the centre of the stage? Must he be untrue to the fundamentals of dramaturgic art in order to earn her tolerance? Couldhe gain his own consent to present to the public as work representative of his fancy the misshapen monstrosity which would inevitably result of yielding to Alison’s insistence?
Small wonder that he sighed and wagged a doleful head!
Now while all this was passing through a mind wrapped in gloomy and profound abstraction, Iff’s voice disturbed him.
“Pity the poor playwright!” it said in accents of amusement.
Looking up, Staff discovered that the little man stood before him, a furtive twinkle in his pale blue eyes. The bridge game had broken up, and they two were now alone in the smoking-room—saving the presence of a steward yawning sleepily and wishing to ’Eaven they’d turn in and give ’im a charnce to snatch a wink o’ sleep.
“Hello,” said Staff, none too cordially. “What d’ you mean by that?”
“Hello,” responded Iff, dropping upon the cushioned seat beside him. He snapped his fingers at the steward. “Give it a name,” said he.
Staff gave it a name. “You don’t answer me,” he persisted. “Why pity the poor playwright?”
“He has his troubles,” quoth Mr. Iff cheerfully,if vaguely. “Need I enumerate them, to you? Anyway, if the poor playwright isn’t to be pitied, what right ’ve you got to stick round here looking like that?”
“Oh!” Staff laughed uneasily. “I was thinking....”
“I flattered you to the extent of surmising as much.” Iff elevated one of the glasses which had just been put before them. “Chin-chin,” said he—“that is, if you’ve no particular objection to chin-chinning with a putative criminal of the d’p’st dye?”
“None whatever,” returned Staff, lifting his own glass—“at least, not so long as it affords me continued opportunity to watch him cooking up his cunning little crimes.”
“Ah!” cried Iff with enthusiasm—“there spoke the true spirit of Sociological Research. Long may you rave!”
He set down an empty glass.
Staff laughed, sufficiently diverted to forget his troubles for the time being.
“I wish I could make you out,” he said slowly, eyeing the older man.
“You mean you hope I’m not going to take you in.”
“Either way—or both: please yourself.”
“Ah!” said the little man appreciatively—“I am a deep one, ain’t I?”
He laid a finger alongside his nose and looked unutterably enigmatic.
At this point they were interrupted: a man burst into the smoking-room from the deck and pulled up breathing heavily, as if he had been running, while he raked the room with quick, enquiring glances. Staff recognised Mr. Manvers, the purser, betraying every evidence of a disturbed mind. At the same moment, Manvers caught sight of the pair in the corner and made for them.
“Mr. Ismay—” he began, halting before their table and glaring gloomily at Staff’s companion.
“I beg your pardon,” said the person addressed, icily; “my name is Iff.”
Manvers made an impatient movement with one hand. “Iff or Ismay—it’s all one to me—to you too, I fancy—”
“One moment!” snapped Iff, rising. “If you were an older man,” he said stiffly, “and a smaller, I’d pull your impertinent nose, sir! As things stand, I’d probably get my head punched if I did.”
“That’s sound logic,” returned Manvers with a sneer.
“Well, then, sir? What do you want with me?”
Manvers changed his attitude to one of sardonic civility. “The captain sent me to ask you if you would be kind enough to step up to his cabin,” he said stiltedly. “May I hope you will be good enough to humour him?”
“Most assuredly,” Iff picked up his steamer-cap and set it jauntily upon his head. “Might one enquire the cause of all this-here fluster?”
“I daresay the captain—”
“Oh, very well. If you won’t talk, my dear purser, I’ll hazard a shrewd guess—by your leave.”
The purser stared. “What’s that?”
“I was about to say,” pursued Iff serenely, “that I’ll lay two to one that the Cadogan collar has disappeared.”
Manvers continued to stare, his eyes blank with amazement. “You’ve got your nerve with you, I must say,” he growled.
“Or guilty knowledge? Which, Mr. Manvers?”
A reply seemed to tremble onManvers’ lips, but to be withheld at discretion. “I’m not the captain,” he said after a slight pause; “go and cheek him as far as you like. And we’re keeping him waiting, if I may be permitted to mention it.”
Iff turned to Staff, with an engaging smile. “Rejectingthe guilty knowledge hypothesis, for the sake of the argument,” said he: “you’ll admit I’m the only suspicious personage known to be aboard; so it’s not such a wild guess—that the collar has vanished—when I’m sent for by the captain at this unearthly hour.... Lead on, Mr. Manvers,” he wound up with a dramatic gesture.
The purser nodded and turned toward the door. Staff jumped up and followed the pair.
“You don’t mind my coming?” he asked.
“No—wish you would; you can bear witness to the captain that I did everything in my power to make Miss Landis appreciate the danger—”
“Then,” Iff interrupted suavely, “the collar has disappeared—we’re to understand?”
“Yes,” the purser assented shortly.
They scurried forward and mounted the ladder to the boat-deck, where the captain’s quarters were situated in the deckhouse immediately abaft the bridge. From an open door—for the night was as warm as it was dark—a wide stream of light fell athwart the deck, like gold upon black velvet.
Pausingen silhouetteagainst the glow, the purser knocked discreetly. Iff ranged up beside him, dwarfed by comparison. Staff held back at a little distance.