I have not mentioned Mr. Alfred Mount lately though I saw him often on matters connected with the case. He was an interesting character. It was only by degrees that I realised what an extraordinary man I had to deal with. After our first meeting his manner towards me completely changed. He appeared to be sorry for his brusqueness on that occasion. Now he was all frankness and friendliness. Nothing crude, you understand, just the air of one man of the world towards another. I could not help but feel flattered by it.
While we worked together so amicably the mutual antagonism remained. I knew he still resented Miss Hamerton's having employed me without consulting him, and I believed that he was working independently. For my part, you may be sure, I told him nothing but what I had to. I found no little pleasure in blocking his subtle questioning by my air of clumsy innocence. I told him nothing about the cryptogram.
I never called at his office again. Sometimes he dropped into mine, his bright eyes wandering all around, but more often I called on him at his apartment over the store. For he occupied the second floor of the beautiful little building which housed his business. There was however nothing of the old-fashioned shop-keeper about his place. I never saw such splendour before or since. But it took you a while to realise that it was splendour, for there was nothing showy or garish. Everything he possessed was the choicest of its kind in the world. Even with my limited knowledge, when I stopped to figure up the value of what I saw, I was staggered. I saw enough at different times to furnish several millionaires.
Mount had a strange love for his treasures in which there was nothing of the usual self-glorification of millionaires. He had a modest, almost a tender, way of referring to his things, of handling them. I learned quite a lot about tapestries, rugs, Chinese porcelains, enamels, ivories and gold workmanship from his talk. He did not care for paintings.
"Too insistent," he said. "Paintings will not merge."
The man was full of queer sayings, which he would drawl out with an eye to the effect he was creating on you.
He never allowed daylight to penetrate to his principal room, a great hall two stories high, lined with priceless tapestries.
"Daylight is rude and unmanageable," he said. "Artificial light I can order to suit my mood."
Another odd thing was his antipathy to red. That colour almost never appeared in his treasures. In the tapestries greens predominated; the rugs were mostly old blues and yellows. The great room never looked quite the same. Sometimes it was completely metamorphosed over night. I understood from something he let fall that the other floors of the building were stored with his treasures. He had them brought down and arranged according to his fancy. The only servant ever visible was a silent Hindoo, who sometimes appeared in gorgeous Eastern costume, encrusted with jewels. It occurred to me that that was how his master ought to dress. The sober clothes of a business man, however elegant, were out of place on Mount. Long afterwards I learned that it was his custom when alone to array himself like an Eastern potentate, but I never saw him dressed that way.
One day, to see what he would say, I asked him point blank what was the value of Miss Hamerton's lost pearls.
He consulted a note-book. "She paid me at different times exactly twenty-five thousand, seven hundred for them."
"I know," I said quietly. "But what was their value?"
He bored me through and through with his jetty eyes before answering. Finally he smiled—he had a charming smile when he chose, and spread out his hands in token of surrender. His hands were too white and beautiful for a man's.
"I see you know the truth," he said. "Well—I am in your hands. I hope you will keep the secret. Only a great deal of unhappiness could result from its becoming known."
"I shall not tell," I said. "But how much are they worth."
"I really couldn't say," he said frankly. "There is nothing like them in the world, nothing to measure them by, I mean. It would depend simply on how far the purchaser could go."
"Wouldn't they be difficult to dispose of?"
"Very. That is our hope in the present situation."
"Do you suppose the thief knew what he was getting?"
"I doubt it. To distinguish the blue cast is a fad of my own. They ordinarily go with the black pearls."
Later he returned to the subject of his own accord. "Since you have learned or guessed so much, I should tell you the whole story, for fear you might have a doubt of Miss Hamerton."
"No danger of that," I said quickly.
He looked at me strangely. I suppose he was wondering if I presumed to rival him there. He immediately went on smoothly:
"She, of course, has no suspicion of the true value of the pearls. Nor does she guess that they were in my possession for years. I let her have them one or two at a time. Do you blame me—" he spread out his expressive hands again.
"They are the most beautiful pearls in all the world," he murmured softly, "the fruit of all my knowledge and my patience. Pearls in a case are not pearls. Only when they lie on the warm bosom of a woman are pearls really pearls. I wished to have the pleasure of seeing Irma—Miss Hamerton wearing them. I could not give them to her. So I devised this innocent deception. Wouldn't you have done the same?"
Maybe I would. Anyhow I didn't feel called upon to argue the matter with him, so I kept my mouth shut.
His long eyes narrowed. "If you had seen her wear the real pearls you would understand better," he said dreamily. "They glowed as if with pleasure in their situation. Her skin is so tender that the veins give it a delicate bluish cast exactly matched by my exquisite pearls!"
To me there was something—what would you say, something delicately indecent in the way Mount spoke of Miss Hamerton. It made me indignant deep down. But I said nothing.
"I am a fool about precious stones," he went on with that disarming smile. "No shop-keeper has any right to indulge in a personal passion for his wares. Pearls come first with me, then diamonds. Would you like to see my diamonds?"
Without waiting for any answer he disappeared into the next room. I heard the ring of a burglar-proof lock. Presently he returned bearing a little black velvet cushion on which lay a necklet of gleaming fire.
"I am no miser," he said smiling. "Quantity does not appeal to me, nor mere bigness. Only quality. This is my whole collection, seventy-two stones, the result of thirty years' search for perfection."
I gazed at the fiery spots speechlessly. Before taking this case I had never thought much of precious stones. They had seemed like pretty things to me, and useless. But upon looking at these I could understand Miss Hamerton's reference to her pearls as living things. These diamonds were alive—devilishly alive. They twinkled up at Mount like complaisant little slaves outvying each other to flatter their master. The sheer beauty of them caught at the breast. Their fire bit into a man's soul. Seeing it, I could understand the ancient lusts to rob and murder for bits of stone like these.
"Aren't they lovely?" Mount murmured.
"Yes, like a snake," I blurted out.
He laughed. "That feeling seems strange to me. I love them."
"Put them away!" I said.
He continued to laugh. He caressed the diamonds with his long, white fingers. "Wouldn't you like to see Miss Hamerton wear them?" he asked softly.
"No, by God!" I cried. "She's a good woman."
He laughed more than ever. It was a kind of Oriental laugh, soft, unwholesome. "I'm afraid you suffer from the Puritan confusion of the ideas of beauty and evil," he said.
"Maybe I do," I said shortly.
"Some other time I will show you my emeralds and sapphires," he said.
I hated the things, yet I was eager to see them. That shows the effect they had on you. I was struck by his omission of rubies.
"How about rubies?" I asked.
He shivered. "I do not care for rubies. They are an ugly color."
I welcomed the chill, raw air of the street after that scented chamber. After the elegant collector of jewels my crude and commonplace fellow-citizens seemed all that was honest and sturdy. I was proud of them. Yet I enjoyed going to Mount's rooms, too. One could count on being thrilled one way or another.
As time went on I dismissed the women of the company from my calculations—though I still kept an eye on them through Sadie. Of the men I had most to do with two, Roland Quarles and Kenton Milbourne, the first because I liked him, and the second because I didn't.
Though I had no evidence against him, the idea that Milbourne was the thief had little by little fixed itself in my mind. It was largely a process of elimination. All the others had proved to my satisfaction one way or another that they couldn't have committed the robbery. With the exception of Quarles, none of them had the brains to conceive of such a plan, or to hide it afterwards. I didn't know if Milbourne had the brains, indeed the more I went with him the less I knew. Yet he did not seem to have a guard over himself. I laid several ingenious little traps to get a sight of his bank-book, but did not succeed in finding out even if he possessed such a thing.
Milbourne was a pasty, hatchet-faced individual, very precise and conscientious in his manner, and exceedingly talkative. That was what put me off. He talked all the time, but I learned nothing from it. With his sharp, foxy features and narrow-set eyes he had the look of a crook right enough, but after all looks are not so important as disposition, and this heavy, dull-witted, verbose fellow was the epitome of respectability. He was not at all popular in the company, principally, I fancy, because of his over-nicety. He bragged of the number of baths he took. He was not "a good fellow." He never joked nor carried on with the crowd. In the play he took the part of a brutal thug, a sort of Bill Sykes, and played it well though there was nothing in his appearance to suggest the part. He was the fox, not the bull-dog. Imagine a man with the appearance of a fox and the voice of a sheep and you have Milbourne.
Shortly after I joined the company I was allotted to share his dressing-room. He told me that he had requested the stage-manager to make the change, because he objected to the personal habits of his former roommate. So I had every opportunity to observe him. A lot of good it did me. He talked me to sleep. He would recite all the news of the day which I had just read for myself, and commented on it like a country newspaper. You couldn't stop him.
Roland Quarles I cultivated for a different reason. I did not suspect him. As a popular leading juvenile his life for years had been lived in the public eye and there was no reason in the world save pure cussedness why he should be a thief. I liked him. I was working hard, but one can't be a detective every waking minute. I sought out Roland to forget my work. I had started disinterestedly with the whole company, but I gradually came to feel an affection for Roland, principally because, much to my surprise, he seemed to like me.
I have said he was a morose young man. Such was my first impression. He did not make friends easily. He was hated by all the men of the company, because he despised their foolish conceit, and took no pains to hide it. But the women liked him, I may say all women were attracted to him. He did not plume himself on this, it was a matter of great embarrassment to him. He avoided them no less than the men.
He was exceedingly good-looking and graceful, and there was not the slightest consciousness of it in his bearing. In that among young actors he stood alone. He had a sort of proud, reserved, bitter air, or as a novelist would say, he seemed to cherish a secret sorrow. His mail at the theatre was enormous. He used to stuff it in his pocket without looking at it.
I got my first insight into his character from his treatment of me. Of the entire company he and Milbourne were the only members who never made my meek insignificance a target for unkind wit. Of them all only this high and mighty young man never tried to make me feel my insignificance. For a while he ignored me, but it seemed to strike him at last that I was being put upon by the others, whereupon in an unassuming way he began to make little overtures of friendship. I was charmed.
One night after the show he offered me a cigar at the stage door, and we walked down the street smoking and chatting until our ways parted. He was not on during the second act, and after my brief scene I got in the habit of stopping a while in his room before I went up to change. He had good sense. It was worth while talking to him. We became very friendly. He was only a year or two younger than I, but to me he seemed like a mere kid.
One night in the middle of our talk he said: "You're not like an actor. You're human."
"Don't you like actors?" I asked curiously.
"It's a rotten business for men," he said bitterly. "It unsexes them. But here I am! What am I to do about it?"
I learned as I knew him better that the popular young actor, notwithstanding the adulation of women—or perhaps because of it, led an exemplary life. The dazzling palaces of the Great White Way knew him not. It was his custom to go home after the show, have a bite to eat in solitude, and read until he turned in.
One night he invited me to accompany him home. He had a modest flat in the Gramercy Square neighbourhood with an adoring old woman to look after him. The cheerful fire, the shaded lamp, the capacious easy chair, gave me a new conception of bachelor comfort. Books were a feature of the place.
"Pretty snug, eh?" he said, following my admiring eyes.
"Well, you're not like an actor either," said I.
He laughed. "After the theatre this is like Heaven!"
"Why don't you chuck it?" I asked. "You're young."
He shrugged. "Who wants to give an actor a regular job?"
We had scrambled eggs and sausages. I stayed for a couple of hours talking about the abstract questions that young men loved to discuss. When I left he was as much of an enigma to me as when I arrived. He was willing to talk about anything under the sun—except himself. Without appearing to, he foiled all my attempts to draw him out.
Hard upon this growing friendship it was a shock to learn from Sadie as a result of her work during the days, that it was Roland Quarles who had deposited forty thousand dollars in his bank.
"Impossible!" I said in my first surprise.
"I got it direct from the bank," she said. "It was the Second National. He deposited forty thousand in cash on April Sixth."
My heart sunk.
"But that doesn't prove that he stole the pearls," said Sadie. She shared my liking for the young fellow.
"I hope not," I said gloomily. "But if it wasn't he then our promising clue is no good."
"Maybe he won it on the Stock Exchange."
"That doesn't explain the cash. No broker pays in cash."
"Well I can think of ten good reasons why he couldn't have done it," Sadie said obstinately. She had too warm a heart, perhaps, to make an ideal investigator.
That night Roland asked me home to supper again. This was about a week after the first occasion. The old woman had gone to bed and he cooked creamed oysters in a chafing-dish, while I looked at the paper.
"Wouldn't it be nice to have white hands waiting at home to do that for you?" I suggested teasingly.
"Never for me!" he said with a bitter smile.
"Why not?"
"What I can have I don't want. What I want I can never have."
"You never can tell," I said encouragingly. I was thinking what a superb couple the handsome young pair made on the stage. It seemed low to cross-examine him while he was preparing to feed me, but there was no help for it.
"The market is off again," I said carelessly. "Chance for somebody to make money."
"How can you make money when the market is going down," he said innocently.
If the innocence was assumed it was mighty well done. However, I told myself his business was acting.
"By selling short," I said.
"I never understood that operation."
I explained it.
"Too complicated for me," he said. "I consider the whole business immoral."
I agreed, and switched to talk of solid, permanent investments. He immediately looked interested.
"You seem to know something about such matters," he said. "Suppose a man had a little money to invest, what would you advise?"
"Your savings?" I asked with a smile.
"Lord! I couldn't save anything. No, I have a friend who has a few thousand surplus."
Being anxious to believe well of him I snatched at this straw. Maybe a friend had entrusted him with money to invest. Hardly likely though, and still more unlikely that it would be handed over in cash. I gave him some good advice, and the subject was dropped.
Later we got to talking about acting again. He said in his bitter way:
"I shall soon be out of it now, one way or the other."
"What do you mean?" I asked.
"I mean to leave the stage at the close of this engagement or before."
"What are you going to do?"
"God knows!" he said with his laugh. "Go to the devil, I expect."
I couldn't get anything else out of him. It was all mysterious enough. He sounded utterly reckless when you got below the surface, but somehow it was not the recklessness of a crook.
Worse was to follow.
First, however, I must put down how the situation stood with Milbourne, because I shall not return to him for some time. Kenton Milbourne! I have to smile every time I write it, the fancy appellation was so unsuitable to the tallow-cheeked, hatchet-faced talker who bore it. I believed Milbourne had stolen the pearls, and I worked hard to justify my belief, but without being able to lay anything bare against him.
Every night he talked me to a standstill. He seemed to be a man totally devoid of individuality, temperament, a mere windbag. But I told myself that dullness is the favourite and most effective disguise of a sharper. His talk was a little too dull to be natural, and once in a while I received an impression that he was anything but dull.
One night I said to him as Roland had said to me: "You don't seem like an actor. How did you get into this business?"
"Drifted into it," he said. "Always knew I could act, but was too busy with other things. I had an attack of typhoid in Sydney four years ago which shattered my health. When I was getting better a friend gave me the part of a human monster to play, just to help me pass the time. I made a wonderful hit in it. They wouldn't let me stop. Since then I've never been idle. I haven't any conceit, so they offer me the horrible parts."
"Sydney?" I said.
"I was raised in Australia. I came to America last Fall because there was a wider field for my art."
I put this down in my mind as a lie. I do not know Australia but I suppose they have their own peculiarities of speech, and this man talked good New York.
I asked idly what parts he had played in Australia. He named three or four and I made careful mental notes of them. I thought I had him there.
The next day I consulted old files of an Australian stage paper in the rooms of the Actors' Society. To my chagrin I found his name, Kenton Milbourne listed in the casts of the very plays he had mentioned. I was far from being convinced of his genuineness, however. I wrote to Australia for further information.
Under cover of my meek and gentle air, I continued to watch him close. I could have sworn he was not aware of it, which shows how you may fool yourself. His apparent stupidity still blocked me. But one night when he lifted the tray of his trunk I saw the edge of a book underneath.
"Anything good to read?" I said, picking it up before he could stop me.
A peculiar look chased across his face, which was anything but stupidity. The title of the book was: "The World's Famous Jewels."
"Aha! my man!" I thought. I dropped it, saying: "That's not in my line."
This was how matters stood when things began to happen which drove all thought of Kenton Milbourne out of my mind.
The next day Sadie came into the office to report, looking so confoundedly pretty that it drove the detective business clean out of my mind for the moment. What with her thirty dollars a week from the theatre and her additional salary as operative (which Miss Hamerton insisted on her taking) Sadie was in affluent circumstances, and for the first time in her life she was able to dress as a pretty girl ought. With her Spring hat and suit, her dainty gloves and boots, all from the best shops, she was as smart a little lady as you'd find from one end of the Avenue to the other.
"You look sweet enough to eat!" I said, grinning at her like a Cheshire cat.
"Cut it out!" she said with her high and mighty air. "It's business hours. I'm operative S.F."
"What's that for, swell figure?"
"Wait till after the whistle blows."
"After hours you're Miss Covington the actress, and I'm not allowed to know you."
"Well, there's Sunday."
"But this is only Tuesday."
"I've got to respect my boss, haven't I?"
"What if I kissed you anyhow?"
"I'd box your ears!" she said quick as lightning.
And she would. I sighed, and came back to earth. It was not that I was afraid of the box on the ears, but she was right, and I knew it. As soon as I started that line of talk I resigned my proper place as the boss of the establishment.
"What's new?" I asked.
"I found out something interesting to-day," she said. "Miss Hamerton's in love with Roland Quarles."
"I guessed that long ago," I said calmly.
Sadie was much taken aback. Evidently she had expected to stun me. "You never said anything about it," she said pouting.
"I left it for you to find out for yourself."
"She never believed he had anything to do with the robbery," Sadie said with a touch of defiance.
"Then why was she so distressed in the beginning?"
"Well, there was something that would have looked like evidence to a man," said Sadie scornfully. "So naturally she didn't want to tell you."
"Did she tell you?" I asked, a little huffed at the thought that Sadie was getting deeper in the confidence of my client than I.
"Yes, to-day. She didn't tell me about her feelings, of course. I guessed that part."
"What is this mysterious thing?"
"She only told me because since she saw the cryptogram she knows there couldn't be anything in it."
This was getting denser instead of more clear. "What was there about the cryptogram that eased her mind?" I asked.
"She knows that it couldn't have been written to Roland Quarles because he has no idea of leaving the company."
"Oh, hasn't he!" I thought to myself. How strangely loving women reason. Aloud I said: "Now for the thing that a mere man would have considered evidence."
"Don't try to be sarcastic," said Sadie. "It doesn't suit you."
"Who's forgetting that I'm the boss now?" I said severely.
She made a face at me and went on: "It seems that Miss Hamerton and Roland Quarles had a bet on about the pearls."
This was something new. I pricked up my ears.
"She laughed at him because he thought he knew something about jewels, and she says he scarcely knows a pearl from an opal. They argued about it, and she finally bet him a box of cigars against a box of gloves that he wouldn't be able to tell when she wore the genuine pearls. That is how she came to wear them the night they were stolen."
"The devil!" I exclaimed.
"But he has never spoken about it since. She believes that he has forgotten all about the bet."
I walked up and down the room considering what this meant.
"You needn't look like that," said Sadie. "We know he didn't do it. Wouldn't he have paid his bet if he had?"
"It seems so," I said. I didn't know what to believe.
"There's another reason," said Sadie, "sufficient for a woman."
"What's that?"
"He's in love with her. He's making love to her now. He couldn't do that if he had robbed her."
"I don't know," I said grimly. "If he could rob her, I suspect he could make love to her."
That night at the theatre I devoted my attention pretty exclusively to Quarles. God knows I was not anxious to ruin the young fellow, but Sadie's communication taken in connection with the cryptogram and that mysterious cash deposit was beginning to look like pretty strong evidence. This being my first case, I attached more importance to "evidence" than I would now.
I was in his dressing-room when he left to go on for the third act. He had only a short scene at the beginning, and as he went out, he asked me to wait till he came off.
I watched him go with a sinking heart for I hated to do what I had to do. He was so handsome, so graceful, and with that burden on his breast, so invariably kind to me, I felt like a wretch. Nevertheless, I told myself for the sake of all of us I had to discover the painful secret he was hiding.
I knew exactly how long I had before he would return. I swung the door almost shut, as if the wind had blown it, and made a rapid, thorough search. There was a pile of letters on his dressing-table as yet unopened. Nothing suspicious there. Nothing in the drawers of his dressing-table. There was no trunk in the room. His street coat was on a form hanging from a hook. I frisked the pockets. There was a handful of letters, papers in the breast pocket. Shuffling them over I came upon a sheet of "dimity" note-paper without an envelope. Opening it I beheld a communication in cryptogram exactly like the other.
I could hear the voices on the stage. Roland was about to come off. I hastily returned all the papers to his pocket as I had found them,—except the cryptogram. That I put in my own pocket.
When he came in we picked up our conversation where we had dropped it.
As soon as I got home I made haste to translate my find. I had saved the numerical key I used before. I instantly found that it fitted this communication also. This is what I got:
"I. has known of her loss for a couple of weeks. She has put two detectives in the company. Faxon and the girl Covington. I have this straight. Watch yourself. J."
So this is why Quarles cultivated my friendship! I thought, feeling all the bitterness of finding myself betrayed. I could no longer doubt my evidence. My friendly feelings for the young fellow were curdled.
I woke up next morning with a leaden weight on my breast. I had no zest in the day which bore with it the necessity of telling Miss Hamerton what I had learned. I put off the evil moment as long as possible. During the morning Sadie came into the office for instructions. I had not the heart to tell her. I sent her over to Newark on a wild goose chase in connection with some of McArdle's activities.
I was not expecting Miss Hamerton that afternoon. At three I called her up and said that I had something important to report. She said she was expecting some one later, and did not want to go out. Could I come to her? This pleased me, for since I had to strike her down it was more merciful to do it at home. I went.
She had never looked lovelier. Her room was a bower of Spring flowers, and she in a pale yellow dress was like the fairest daffodil among them. She was full of happiness, her cheeks glowing, her eyes sparkling. It did not make my task any easier. I angrily rebelled from it. But she was already asking me what was the matter.
I told her bunglingly enough, God knows, of the second cryptogram and where I had found it. It crushed her like a flower trodden underfoot.
Presently, however, she began to fight. "The first thing the thief would do when he found himself under surveillance," she faltered, "would be to try to divert your attention to some one else."
"He would hardly choose one ordinarily so far above suspicion as the leading man," I said reluctantly.
"He may have known, since he knows so much, that you were already suspicious of Ro—of the other." She could not get his name out.
I felt like the criminal myself, trying to convince her against her heart. "Taken by itself the letter would not be conclusive, but with the other things——"
"What other things?"
"Well, his provoking you by a bet to wear the genuine pearls."
"There's nothing in that," she said quickly. "If he had had an ulterior motive he would have spoken of the bet since. He would have lost it, wouldn't he, to keep us from suspecting?"
I conceded the reasonableness of this—taken by itself. "But his bank account?"
"Bank account?" she repeated, startled. We had not told her of this.
"On April sixth Mr. Quarles deposited forty thousand dollars in cash in the Second National Bank."
All the light went out of her face. "Oh! Are you sure?" she gasped.
"I have seen the entry in his pass-book. I verified it at the bank."
Her heart still fought for him. "But my necklace was worth only twenty-five thousand. And a thief would never be able to realise the full value of it."
I shrugged. Naturally I did not care to add to her unhappiness by telling her that the pearls were worth half a million. She thought from my shrug that I meant to convey that if her lover had been guilty of one theft why not others?
It crushed her anew. She had no more fight left in her. She sank back dead white and bereft of motion. "He's coming here," she whispered. "What shall I say to him? What shall I say?"
"Don't see him," I cried.
"I must. I promised."
I sat there, I don't know for how long, staring at the carpet like a clown.
The telephone rang and we both jumped as at a pistol shot.
I offered to answer it, but she waved me back. She went to the instrument falteringly—but I was surprised at the steadiness of her voice. "What is it?" she asked.
"Let him come up," she said firmly. By her stricken white face I knew who it was.
I jumped up in a kind of panic. "I will have myself carried up to the roof garden so I won't meet him," I said.
"No,please," she murmured. "I want you here."
"But he must not meet me!" I cried.
"Wait in the next room." Her voice broke piteously. "Oh, I must have some one here—some one I can trust!"
What was I to do? I obeyed very unwillingly. As soon as he entered I found that the transom over the door was open, and I could hear everything that passed between them. Of all the difficult things that have been forced on me in the way of business, that half hour's eavesdropping was as bad as any.
He must have been highly wrought up because he apparently never noticed her state. His very first speech was tragically unfortunate. He spoke in a harsh strained voice as if the painful thing he had kept hidden so long was breaking out in spite of him.
"Irma, how soon can you replace me in the cast?"
"Eh?" she murmured. I could imagine the painful start she suppressed.
"I want to get out. I can't stand it any longer."
"But why?" she whispered.
"I hate acting! It is not a man's work."
"Have you just discovered it?" she asked with a little note of scorn very painful to hear.
"No," he said gloomily, "I've always known. If I had been left to myself I never would have acted. But I came of a family of actors. I was brought up to it. I kept on because it was all I knew. It is only since I have acted with you that it has become more than I can bear."
"Why, with me?" she whispered.
"Because I love you!" he said in a harsh, abrupt voice.
"Ah!" The sound was no more than a painful catch in her breath.
"Oh, you needn't tell me I'm a presumptuous fool," he burst out. "I know it already. You don't know the height of my presumption yet. I love you! The silly make-believe of love that I have to go through every night with you drives me mad! I love you! I am ashamed to make my living by exhibiting a pretence of love!"
"It was your father's profession and your mother's," she murmured.
"They were the real thing," he said gloomily. "They had a genuine call. They loved their work. I hark back to an earlier strain, I guess. I have no feeling for art to make it worth while. I hate the tinsel and show and make-believe. I want to lead a real life with you——!"
No man has any right to hear another man bare his heart like this. I went to the open window and leaned out. I had forgotten Roland's supposed guilt. My instinct told me that a guilty man could not have spoken like this.
Even on the window-sill though I tried not to hear, an occasional word reached me. We were so high up that little of the street noises reached us. Bye and bye I heard Roland say "money" and I was drawn back into the room. This, I felt, it was my business to hear.
He was still pleading with his heart in his voice. "A month ago I would just have left without saying anything to you. I don't even know that I am fit for anything else but acting. I could not ask you to give it up without having something else to offer you. I suffer so to see you on the stage. To see your name, your person, your doings all public property drives me wild! I cannot stand seeing you show your lovely self to the applause of those vulgar fools!"
"You are mad!" she whispered.
"I know—but I have had a stroke of luck——!"
"Luck?"
"I have come into some money. Oh, nothing much, but enough to give me a start in some new country—if you could come with me! Oh, I am a fool to think it. But I had to tell you I loved you. You would be quite justified in laughing, and showing me the door. But I love you! It seemed cowardly to go away without telling you."
"You are asking me to give up my profession?" she murmured unsteadily.
"I ask nothing. I expect nothing. But if you could—! You'd have to give it up. It would kill me otherwise. I could stand better having none of you than half." He laughed harshly. "Am I not ridiculous? Tell me to go."
"I am not so enamoured of make-believe either," she murmured.
She was weakening! I trembled for her. This wretched business had to be cleared up before they could hope for any happiness.
"If I loved you I could give it up," she whispered, "but I am not sure."
It was like a glimpse of Heaven to him. "Irma!" He cried her name over and over brokenly. "My dear love! Then there is a chance—I never expected—Oh! don't raise me up only to cast me down lower than before!"
I went to the window-sill again and leaned out.
There I was still when she came in. She was trembling and breathing fast.
"He has gone," she said.
She led me back into the outer room. She noticed that the transom was open. "You heard?" she said startled.
"Some," I said uncomfortably. "More than I wanted to."
"I don't care," she said.
"Have you promised to marry him?" I asked.
She shook her head. "I have promised nothing. I asked for time."
"Good!" I said involuntarily.
She looked at me startled. "You heard!" she said defiantly. "Were they the words of a guilty man?"
"Not if I know anything about human nature," I said promptly.
The sweetest gratitude lighted up her face. "Oh, thank you!" she said. She was very near tears. "Anything else would be unbelievable!"
"Give me one day more," I suggested.
"No! No!" she cried with surprising energy. "I will not carry this tragic farce any further. I hate the pearls now. I would not wear them if I did get them back. They are gone. Let them go!"
"But Miss Hamerton——" I persisted.
"Not another word!" she cried. "My mind is made up!"
"I must speak," I said doggedly. "Because you as much as said you depended on getting honest advice from me. You can't stop now. If you marry Mr. Quarles, the fact that you have suspected him though it was only for a moment will haunt you all your life. No marriage is a bed of roses. When trouble does come your grim spectre will invariably rise and mock you. It must be definitely laid in its grave before you can marry the man."
The bold style of my speech made her pause. I had never spoken to her in that way before. She eyed me frowning.
"I hope you know it's not the job I'm after," I went on. "I never had work to do that I enjoyed less. But you put it up to me to give you honest advice."
"I can't spy on the man I love," she faltered.
"You can't marry the man you suspect," I returned.
"I don't suspect him."
"The suspicious circumstances are not yet explained."
"Very well, then, I'll send for him to come back, and he will explain them."
I had a flash of insight into the character of my young friend. "No!" I cried. "If he knew that you had ever suspected him, he would never forgive you."
"Then what do you want me to do?" she cried.
"Give me twenty-four hours to produce proofs of his innocence."
She gave in with a gesture.
Leaving Miss Hamerton I walked twice around Bryant Square to put my thoughts in order. I wished to believe in Roland's innocence almost as ardently as she did, but I had to force myself to keep an open mind. A fixed idea one way or the other is fatal to any investigator. So I argued against him for a while to strike a balance. I told myself there was a type of man who would stop at absolutely nothing to secure the woman he desired. In the bottom of my heart, like anybody else, I had a sneaking admiration for the type.
True, I had never heard of a man robbing a woman in order to secure the means to support her. Still, human psychology is an amazing thing. You never can tell! I reminded myself of all the other times I had been brought face to face with the apparently impossible. Particularly is human nature ingenious in justifying itself.
I finally made up my mind to search Roland's apartment that night. On my previous visits I had marked a little safe there. Surely it must contain some conclusive evidence one way or the other. What I hoped to find was some natural and honest explanation of the sum of money he had received.
Around the theatre that night Roland and I were as friendly as usual. The shadow was somewhat lifted from his dark eyes. They burned with an expectant fire. An extraordinary restlessness possessed him. For all he said he hated it, that time anyway, he outdid himself in playing his rôle. As far as I could see, he and Irma held no communications outside the play.
In pursuance of the plan I had made, I insisted on his supping with me that night. I was free to leave the theatre after the second act, so I went on ahead to order the supper I said. He was to meet me at the Thespis club at half-past eleven. I did order the supper there, then hurried on to his flat, arriving some time before his customary hour of coming from the theatre.
His old housekeeper having seen me in his company on several occasions expressed no surprise at my coming. I said I would wait for him, and she left me to my own devices in the front room. I satisfied myself that she had gone to her own room on the other side of the kitchen, three doors away, then I set to work.
I had brought a bunch of skeleton keys and a set of miniature housebreaking tools. I didn't require them, for I found that the little safe had one of the earliest and simplest forms of a lock. Part of my apprenticeship had been spent in learning how to open such locks merely by listening to the fall of the tumblers as one turned the knob. All that was required was patience. It was a little after ten. Supposing that Roland waited for me at the Thespis club only half an hour, I had two hours in which to work. It was painfully exciting. I had my first glimpse of the point of view of a housebreaker.
The safe door swung open at last. I looked inside with a beating heart. It contained but little; a diary, which I left for the moment; a wallet containing a sum of money, a bundle of papers enclosed by an elastic band. I went over the papers hastily; they consisted of insurance policies, theatrical contracts and business letters of old dates which had nothing whatever to do with my case.
However, there was still a little locked drawer to investigate. After a number of tries I fixed a key that would open it. The first thing I saw was a number of pieces of men's jewelry that Roland doubtless used for stage properties. The second thing I saw was a beautiful little antique box made of some sweet-smelling wood which contained several notes in Irma's handwriting and some withered flowers. The third and last thing was a seal leather case such as jewellers display. Upon pressing the spring the cover flew back and I saw lying on a bed of white velvet a string of wonderful dusky pearls.
For many moments I gazed at them in stupid astonishment. God knows what I expected to find. Certainly not that. What did it mean? It looked just the same as the string Miss Hamerton had showed me. I counted them. There were sixty-seven pearls. Was it another of Roberts' replicas? Perhaps Roland had bought it and stowed it away for sentimental reasons. That seemed pretty far-fetched.
I carried it to the electric light. There I could see the blue cast like the last gleam of light in the twilight sky. The bits of stone had a wonderful fire, life. An instinct told me they were genuine pearls. But if they were it must bethestring, for Mount had said there were no others. I remembered that Miss Hamerton had told me she had made a little scratch on the clasp and I eagerly looked for it. There was a kind of mark there. At this point I shook my head and gave up speculating.
I slipped the case in my pocket, locked the drawer and locked the safe again. I switched off the lights and let myself quietly out of the flat.
I decided to go to the Thespis club as if nothing had happened. I was not at all anxious to meet Roland until I knew where I stood, but I reflected that if I failed him it might rouse his suspicions and precipitate a catastrophe before I was ready for it. There was not much danger that he would look in his safe that night if I kept him late. His housekeeper would tell him I had been there, but I could explain that. In the morning I would have him watched.
Roland was at the club when I arrived. "I've been at your rooms," I said instantly. "I had an idea I was to wait for you there. But I got thinking it over and decided I had made a mistake."
"You've got a memory like a colander," he said good-naturedly. "Better do something about it."
We sat down to our supper. Roland was in for him, extraordinary spirits. All the while we ate, drank and joked I was wondering in the back of my head what kind of a change would come over his grim, dark, laughing face if he knew what I had in my pocket.
Few would envy me my task next morning. I called up Miss Hamerton merely saying that I would come to the hotel half an hour later. Sadie came in, but having kept from her what had already happened, I could not tell her this. I was not obliged to tell her all the developments of the case, of course, but she had a moral right to my confidence, and so I felt guilty and wretched every way. Sadie I knew would be terribly cut up by the way things were tending, and I had not the heart to face it, with what I had to go through later.
Miss Hamerton received me with great bright eyes that looked out of her white face like stars at dawn. The instant she caught sight of my face she said: "You have news?"
I nodded.
"Good or bad?" she whispered breathlessly.
There was no use beating around the bush. "Bad," I said bluntly.
A hand went to her breast. "Tell me—quickly."
I drew out the case. She gave no sign of recognising it. I snapped it open. "Is this the lost necklace?" I asked.
With a little cry, she seized upon it, examined the pearls, breathed upon them, looked at the clasp. "Yes! Yes!" she exclaimed, joy struggling in her face with an underlying terror. "Where did you get it?"
"Out of a safe in Mr. Quarles' flat."
She looked at me stricken stupid.
I had to repeat the words.
"Oh!—you would not deceive me?" she whispered.
"I wish to God it were not true!" I cried.
"In his room—his room!" she muttered. Suddenly she sank down in a crumpled white heap on the floor.
I gathered her up in my arms and laid her on the sofa. I called Mrs. Bleecker, who came running, accompanied by Irma's maid. A senseless scene of confusion followed. The foolish women roused half the hotel with their outcries. I myself, carried the beautiful, inanimate girl into her bedroom. For me it was holy ground. It was almost as bare as a convent cell. It pleased me to find that she instinctively rejected luxury on retiring to her last stronghold. I laid her on her bed—the pillow was no whiter than the cheek it bore, and returned to the outer room to await the issue. All this time, I must tell you, Mrs. Bleecker was relieving her feelings by abusing me. From the first I had apprehended hatred in that lady.
I waited a few minutes, feeling very unnecessary, and wondering if I would not do better to return to my office, when Mrs. Bleecker came back, and with a very ill grace said that Miss Hamerton wanted to know if it was convenient for me to wait a little while until she was able to see me, and would I please say whatever was necessary to people who called. I almost wept upon receiving this message. I sent back word that I would stay all day if she wanted me. Mrs. Bleecker glared at me, almost beside herself with defeated curiosity. I had the necklace safe in my pocket and she was without a clue to what had happened.
So there I was established as Miss Hamerton's representative. Everybody took orders from me, and wondered who I was. The word had spread like wildfire that the famous star had been taken ill, and the telephone rang continuously. I finally told the hotel people what to say, and ordered it disconnected. I had a couple of boys stationed in the corridor to keep people from the door. I sent for two doctors, not that Irma was in any need of medical attention, but I wished to have the support of a professional bulletin. I told them what I thought necessary. They were discreet men.
Miss Hamerton had no close relatives, and I could not see the sense of sending for any others. I forbade Mrs. Bleecker to telegraph them. In a case of this kind solitude is the best, the most merciful treatment for the sufferer. As it was I pitied the poor girl having to endure the officious ministrations of her inquisitive servants, but I did not feel justified in interfering there.
Only two men were allowed past the guard in the corridor, Mr. Maurice Metz, the famous theatrical manager, and Mr. Alfred Mount. The former stormed about the room like a wilful child. His pocketbook was hard hit. I was firm. He could not see Miss Hamerton, he must be satisfied with my report. Miss Hamerton had suffered a nervous breakdown—with that phrase we guarded her piteous secret, and it would be out of the question for her to act for weeks to come. It was her wish that the company be paid off and disbanded.
"Who the devil are you?" he demanded.
"I speak for Miss Hamerton," I said with a shrug. I remembered how humbly I had besieged this man's door with my play a few weeks since, and now I was turninghimdown.
To satisfy him I had Mrs. Bleecker in. He demanded of her who I was.
"I don't know," she snapped.
Nevertheless she had to bear me out. Miss Hamerton had sent word that the company was to be paid off with two weeks' salary, and the amount charged to her. I referred Mr. Metz to the doctors. They impressed him with medical phrases he didn't understand. He finally departed talking to himself and waving his hands.
Mr. Mount, of course, was very different. He came in all suave sympathy, anxious to uphold me in every way. I had wished to see him for a special purpose. I couldn't allow the possibility of a ghastly mistake being made.
I produced the fateful little seal leather box, and snapped it open again. "Are these the lost pearls?" I asked.
The man had wonderful self-control. No muscle of his face changed. Only his black eyes flamed up. He took the case quietly, but those eyes pounced on the pearls like their prey, and wolfed them one by one. He returned the case to me. A curious smile wreathed the corners of his voluptuous mouth.
"Those are the pearls," he said quietly.
"You aresure?"
"Sure?" He spread out his hands. "There are no other such pearls in the world."
I returned the case to my pocket.
"Where did you find them?" he asked.
"At present I am not free to say how they were recovered," I replied. "No doubt Miss Hamerton will give it out later."
"I think I understand," he said with a compassionate air. "I suppose there will be no prosecution."
"I do not know," I said blandly.
"Maybe it would be better never to speak of the matter to her?" he said softly.
I shrugged. I wasn't going to let him get any change out of me.
"Anyhow it's a triumph for you," he said graciously. "Allow me to congratulate you."
Was there a faint ring of irony in his words? In either case I never felt less triumphant. What booted it to return her jewels if I had broken her heart? I bowed my acknowledgment.
As he left he said: "Come and see me sometimes, though the case is closed. You are too valuable a man for me to lose sight of."
I bowed again, mutely registering a resolve to ask him a thumping figure if he ever did require my services.
Meanwhile I had the reporters to deal with. I have a strong fellow-feeling for the boys. As a class they are the most human lot of fellows I know. They do not make the rotten conditions of their business. But they certainly are the devil to deal with when they get you on the defensive. They seemed to spread through that hotel like quicksilver, bribing the bell-boys, the maids, even the waiter who brought up my dinner. If we had not been on the eleventh story I should have expected to find them peeping in the windows.
I did not dare see them myself. In my anomalous position they would have made a monkey of me. In my mind's eye I could see the story of the mysterious stranger who claimed to represent Miss Hamerton, etc., etc. I had to take every precaution, too, to keep them from that fool of a Mrs. Bleecker. I carefully drilled the doctors in what they should say, and then sent them down to their fate. They came off better than I expected. Of course the lurid tales did appear next day, but they were away beside the mark. Nothing approaching the truth was ever published.
A little before five everybody had gone, and I was alone in the sitting-room gazing out of the window and indulging in gloomy enough thoughts, when I heard the door behind me open. I turned with a sigh, expecting fresh complaints and demands from the old harridan. But there was Irma trying to smile at me. She was wearing a white negligée affair that made her look like a fragile lily. She walked with a firm step, but her face shocked me. It looked dead. The eyes open, were infinitely more ghastly than when I had laid her down with them closed. Mrs. Bleecker and the maid followed, buzzing around her. She seemed to have reached the limits of her patience with them.
"Let me be!" she said as sharply as I ever heard her speak. "I am perfectly well able to walk and to speak. Please go back to the bedroom. I have business to discuss with Mr. Enderby."
They retired, bearing me no love in their hearts.
"I must go away, quite by myself," she said, speaking at random. "Can you help me find a place, some place where nobody knows me? If I do not get away from these people they will drive me mad!"
"I will find you a place," I said.
"Perhaps I'd better not go alone," she said. "If I could only find the right kind of person. I'm so terribly alone. That nice girl you brought into the company, Miss Farrell, do you think she would go with me?"
There was something in this more painful than I can convey. "She'd jump at the chance," I said brusquely.
"You have been so good to me," she said.
"You can say that!" I said, astonished.
"Oh, I've not quite taken leave of my senses," she said bitterly. "If I had not known the truth, it would have been much worse."
This struck me as extraordinary generosity in a woman who loved.
"I—I have something else to ask of you," she said in the piteous beseeching way that made me want to cast myself at her feet.
"Anything," I murmured.
"Mr. Quarles is coming here at five. Please see him and tell him—Oh! tell him anything you like, anything that will keep him from ever trying to see me again."
I nodded. "You had better lose no time in getting out of this," I suggested. "Can you be ready by to-morrow morning?"
"I will start packing now," she said. "It will give me something to do."
How well I understood the hideous blankness that faced her.
"Don't let those women bother you," I said. "Refer them to me."
"They mean well," she said.
"I will answer for Miss Farrell," I said. "She'll be here at nine to-morrow."
She started to thank me again, but I would not let her go on. I really could not stand it.
"Very well, you will see," she said with a smile, and left me.
Shortly afterwards Roland Quarles came striding down the hall. I opened the door to him. He was astonished to find a strange man in the room. He did not recognise me without my Faxon makeup.
"Enderby," I said in response to his enquiring glance. "You met me here once before."
"What's this I hear downstairs about Miss Hamerton being sick?" he demanded anxiously.
"She has had a nervous breakdown," I said.
He was not deceived. "What does that mean?" he demanded. "She was quite well yesterday."
I shrugged.
"Can I see her?"
I shook my head.
"I will speak to Mrs. Bleecker, then."
"You can't see her, either."
"Who are you?" he demanded, as so many others had done.
I gave him my card, hoping that he would take the hint, and save me further explanations.
Not a bit of it. "Investigator? What does that mean? Detective?"
"Precisely."
"What's it all about?" he cried irritably. "Why are you looking at me like a policeman?"
"Look at me close," I said.
He stared at me angry and puzzled. "I have seen you before—more than once——" Then his face changed. "Faxon!" he cried. "Is it Faxon?"
"The same," I said.
"What are you doing here?" he demanded.
This parade of innocence began to exasperate me. "Do you need to ask?" I said.
"Oh, for Heaven's sake don't play with words," he burst out. "Tell me what's the matter and be done with it."
"Miss Hamerton's pearl necklace was stolen from the theatre two months ago. She engaged me to recover it."
"Her pearls! Stolen!" he ejaculated, amazed. I could not have asked to see it better done.
"Do you still want me to go on?" I asked.
"Oh, drop the mystery!" he cried. "You fellows fatten on mystery!"
"As Faxon in the theatre I was perfectly sincere in my friendship for you," I went on. "I liked you. But little by little against my will I was forced to believe that you were the thief."
This touched him, but not quite in the way I expected. "Me? Thethief?" he gasped—and suddenly burst into harsh laughter. "How did you arrive at that?"
I was no longer inclined to spare him. "In the first place you provoked a bet with Miss Hamerton which induced her to wear the real pearls on the night they were stolen."
His face turned grave. "True," he said. "I forgot that. What else?"
"On April sixth you deposited forty thousand dollars in cash in the Second National Bank."
He paled. "Anything more?"
"Do you care to explain where you got it?" I asked.
"Not to you," he said proudly. "Go on with your story."
"My first clue was in the cryptic letter found on the stage."
"I remember. You couldn't translate it."
"But I did."
"What's it got to do with me?"
"Nothing. But I found a second letter written in the same cryptogram and about the same matters in your pocket."
"That's a lie!" he said.
"If you want to see it it's at my office."
"If you did find such a paper in my pocket it was planted there."
"I should be glad to believe you were not the man," I said mildly.
"Spare me your assurances," he said scornfully.
He was silent for a while, thinking over what I had told him. Slowly horror grew in his face. "But—but this is only a devilish combination of circumstances," he stammered. "You haven't proved anything."
"The pearls have been recovered," I said.
"Where?" he shot at me.
"In your safe."
His legs failed him suddenly. He half fell in a chair, staring at me witlessly. "Oh, my God!" he muttered huskily. "Those,hers!"
I believe I smiled.
"And you—you have told her this story?" he faltered.
"That's what I was engaged for."
"Oh, my God!" he reiterated blankly. "What shall I do!"
His agony was genuine enough. In spite of myself I was moved by it. "Better go," I said. "The matter will be hushed up, of course."
"Hushed up!" he cried. "Never!"
This theatrical pretence of innocence provoked me afresh. "Oh, get out!" I said. "And be thankful you're getting off so easily!"
He paid no attention to me. "I must see her," he muttered.
"What do you expect to gain by bluffing now?" I said impatiently. "You must see that the game is up."
"I will not leave here without seeing her," he said with a kind of dull obstinacy.
"You have me at a disadvantage," I said bitterly. "You know I can't have you thrown out without causing a scandal."
He scarcely seemed to hear me. "I will go when she sends me," he muttered.
"All right, my patience is equal to yours," I said.
So there we sat, he with his ghastly white face turned towards the door into the inner rooms, moistening his lips from time to time, I looking out of the window.
To make matters worse, Mrs. Bleecker came clucking in. She, knowing nothing, fell on Quarles' neck, so to speak, and told him all her troubles with sidelong shots at me.
He paid little attention to her vapouring, only repeating in his ghastly, blank way: "I must see Irma."
"Of course!" said Mrs. Bleecker. "I'll tell her you're here."
"Mrs. Bleecker, as a friend, I advise you not to interfere," I said sternly.
She went out, flouncing her skirts at me.
To my surprise, Miss Hamerton presently came in. I cannot say what led her to do it, perhaps she was hoping against hope that he could defend himself. There was no sign of weakness in her now. Her face was as composed as marble. Mrs. Bleecker did not return.
"Irma," he cried, "send this fellow away."
I made haste to go, but she kept me. "Mr. Enderby must stay," she said. "He is your friend," she added.
He made a gesture of despair. A hideous silence descended on the three of us.
"You asked to see me," she said at last.
"Irma, do you believe this of me?" he cried like a soul out of Hell.
"I am willing to hear anything you have to say," she murmured.
"What does evidence matter?" he cried. "Do you believe me capable of such a thing?"
"Am I not forced to?" she said very low.
His head dropped. I never saw such hopeless wretchedness in a man's face. I felt like an executioner.
"Speak up!" I said sharply. "We are anxious to believe in you."
He shook his head. "It doesn't matter," he said in a stifled voice. "I doubt if I could clear myself. Anyway I shan't try. It—it is killed!"
He bent a look of fathomless reproach on her. "Good-bye, Irma," he said quietly. "I'm glad I was the means of your getting your jewels back. I never knew they had been stolen."
This to me was the purest exhibition of cheek I had ever met with. I was hard put to it to keep my hands off the man. If she had not been there! He went. And when I turned around Irma had gone back into the next room. I was angry through and through, and yet—and yet——! A nagging little doubt teased me.
So ended, as I thought, the case of the blue pearls. Little did I suspect what was on the way.