Part 15

“‘I am informed that the programme is correct,’ he said with the same smooth insincerity, standing in the middle of the room for me to leave. ‘Miss Roscastle is on the stage at this moment. The make-up must have deceived you, Mr Enniscorthy.’

“I had nothing to reply, because I did not even know what to think. I simply proceeded to walk out.

“‘One moment.’ I had reached the door when Mr Stokesey spoke. ‘You are a friend of Miss Roscastle, I suppose?’

“‘Yes,’ I replied. ‘I think I may claim that.’

“‘Then I would merely suggest to you that to start a rumour crediting her with being out of the piece is a service she would fail to appreciate. Good-evening.’

“I left the theatre because I despaired of getting any real information after that, and it occurred to me that I could do better elsewhere. Although Una and I did not correspond, I had begged her, before she left, to let me know that she arrived safely, and she had sent me just half-a-dozen lines. I now took a taxi and drove off to the address she had given--a sort of private hotel or large boarding-house near Holborn.

“‘Can you tell me if Miss Roscastle is in?’ I asked at the office.

“‘Roscastle?’ said the fellow there. ‘Oh, the young lady from the theatre. Why, she left us more than a week ago--nearer two, I should say.’

“This was another facer.

“‘Can you give me the address she went to?’ I asked.

“‘Couldn’t; against our rule,’ he replied. ‘Any letters for her were to be sent to the theatre.’

“I didn’t think it would be successful to offer him a bribe, so I thanked him and walked away. As the hall porter opened the door for me I dropped him a word. In two minutes he came out to where I was waiting.

“‘A Miss Roscastle left here a week or two ago,’ I said. ‘They won’t give me her address, but you can get it. Here’s a Bradbury. I’ll be here again in half-an-hour and if you’ve got the address--the house, not the theatre--there’ll be another for you when I’ve verified it.’

“He looked a bit doubtful. Evidently a decent fellow, I thought.

“‘It’s quite all right,’ I assured him. ‘We are engaged, but I’ve only just come over.’

“He was waiting for me when I returned. The first thing he did was to tender me the note back again--a piece of superfluous honesty that prepared me for the worst.

“‘I’m sorry, sir, but it’s no go,’ he explained. ‘The young lady left no address beyond the theatre.’

“‘You called a cab for her when she went?’ I suggested.

“‘Yes, sir, but she gave the directions while I was bringing out her things. I never heard where it was to go.’”

“And that is as far as we have got up to this moment, Max,” struck in Mr Carlyle briskly.

“I’m afraid it is,” corroborated Enniscorthy. “I got round to the stage door here in time to see most of the people leave, but neither Miss Roscastle nor the girl like her were among them.”

“She is off half-an-hour before the piece finishes,” explained Carrados. “And of course she might not leave by the stage door.”

“In any case it is an extraordinary enough business, is it not, Mr Carrados?” said Enniscorthy, rather anxious not to be set down a blundering young idiot for his pains. “What does it mean?”

“So far I would describe it as--curious,” admitted Carrados guardedly. “Investigation may justify a stronger term. In the meanwhile we need not miss the play.”

By this time the theatre had practically filled and the orchestra was tuning up for the overture. With nothing to occupy his attention, Mr Enniscorthy began to manifest an unhappy restlessness that increased until the play had been proceeding for some few minutes. Then Carrados heard Mr Carlyle murmur, “Charming! Charming!” in a tone of mature connoisseurship; there was a spontaneous round of applause and “Mary Ryan” was on the scene.

“The understudy again,” Enniscorthy whispered to his companions.

“Well,” remarked Mr Carlyle when the curtain descended for the first interval, “you are still equally convinced, Mr Enniscorthy?”

“There isn’t the shadow of a doubt,” he replied.

Carrados had been writing a few lines on one of his cards. He now summoned an attendant.

“Mr Stokesey is in the house?” he asked. “Then give him this, please--when you next go that way.”

Before the curtain rose the girl came round to the box again.

“Mr Carrados?” she inquired. “Mr Stokesey told me to say that he would save you the trouble by looking in here during the next interval.”

“Shall I remain?” asked Enniscorthy.

“Oh yes. Stokesey is a most amiable man to do with. I know him slightly. His attitude to you was evidently the outcome of the circumstances. We shall all get along very nicely.”

The second act was the occasion of “Mary Ryan’s” great opportunity and again she carried the enthusiasm of the audience. After the curtain the young actress had to respond to an insistent call. In the darkness Mr Stokesey entered the box and stood waiting at the back.

“Glad to see you here again, Mr Carrados,” he remarked, shaking hands with the blind man as soon as the lights were up. Then he looked at the other occupants. “My word, I have put my head into the lion’s den!” he continued, his smile deepening into a good-natured grin. “Don’t shoot, Mr Enniscorthy; I will climb down without. I see that the game is up.”

“What are you going to tell us?” asked Carrados.

“Everything I know. The lady who has just gone off is not Miss Roscastle. Mr Enniscorthy was quite right; she wasn’t here last night either.”

“Then why is her name still in the programme, and why do you and your people keep up the fiction?” demanded Enniscorthy.

“Because I hoped that Miss Roscastle might have returned to the cast to-night, and, failing to-night, I hope that she will return to-morrow. Because we happen to have a substitute in Miss Linknorth so extraordinarily like the original lady in appearance and voice that no one--excluding yourself--will have noticed the difference, and because I have a not unreasonable objection to announcing that the chief attraction of my theatre is out of the cast. Is there anything very unaccountable in that?”

Mr Carlyle nodded acquiescence to this moderate proposition; Enniscorthy seemed to admit it reluctantly; it remained for Carrados to accept the challenge.

“Only one thing,” he replied with some reluctance.

“And what is that?”

“That Miss Roscastle will not return to the cast and that you are well aware why she never can return to it.”

“I--what?” demanded the astonished manager.

“Miss Roscastle cannot _return_ to the cast because she has never been in it.”

Stokesey wavered, burst into a roar of laughter and sat down.

“I give in,” he exclaimed heartily. “That’s my last ditch. Now you really do know everything that I do.”

“But why has she not been in?” demanded Enniscorthy.

“Better ask the lady herself. I cannot even guess.”

“I will when I can find her.” Not for the first time the young man was assailed by a horrid fear that he might have been making a fool of himself. “Where in the meantime is she?”

“The Lord alone knows,” retorted Mr Stokesey feelingly. “Don’t annihilate me, Mr Enniscorthy; I don’t mean a member of the peerage. But, I’ll tell you, the lady put me in a very deuced fix.”

“Won’t you take us into your confidence?” suggested Carrados.

“I will, Mr Carrados, because I want a consideration from you in return. I can put it into a very few words. Twenty minutes before the curtain went up on the first night a note was sent in to Miss Roscastle. She read it, put on her hat and coat and went out hurriedly by the stage door.”

“Well?” said Carlyle encouragingly.

“That is all. That is the last we saw of her--heard of her. She never returned.”

“But--but----” stammered Enniscorthy, and came up short before the abysmal nature of the prospect confronting him.

“There are a good many ‘buts’ to be taken into consideration, Mr Enniscorthy,” said the manager, with a rather cryptic look. “Fortunately we had Miss Linknorth, and the first costume, as you know, is immaterial. Up to the last possible moment we hung on to Miss Roscastle’s return. Then the other had to go on.”

“With not very serious consequences to the success of the play, apparently,” remarked Carrados.

“That’s the devilment of it,” exclaimed Stokesey warmly. “Don’t you see the hole it has put me into? If ‘Mary Ryan’ had remained a negligible quantity it wouldn’t have mattered two straws. But for her own diabolical vanity Miss Linknorth made a confounded success of the part. Of course it was too late to have any alteration printed on the first night and now Miss Roscastle is the draw of the piece. People come to see Miss Roscastle. Miss Roscastle _is_ the piece.”

“But if you explained that Miss Linknorth was really the creator of the part----” suggested Mr Carlyle.

Stokesey rattled a provocative laugh at the back of his throat.

“You run a theatre for a few seasons, my dear fellow, and then talk,” he retorted. “You can’t explain; you can’t do anything; you can only just sit there. People cease to be rational beings when they set out for a theatre. If you breathe on a howling success it goes out. If you move a gold mine of a piece from one theatre to another, next door, everyone promptly decides to stay away. Don’t ask me the reasons; there are none. It isn’t a business; it ought to come under the Gaming Act.”

“Mr Stokesey is also faced by the alternative that after he had announced Miss Linknorth, Miss Roscastle might appear any time and claim her place.”

The manager nodded. “That’s another consideration,” he said.

“But could she?” inquired Mr Carlyle. “After absenting herself in this way?”

“Oh, goodness knows; I dare say she could--agreements are no good when it comes to anything happening. At any rate here am I with an element of success after a procession of distinct non-stops. If we get well set, whatever happens will matter less. Now I haven’t gone to any Machiavellian lengths in arranging this, but I have taken the chance as it came along. I’ve told you everything I know. Is there any reason why you shouldn’t do us all a good turn by keeping it strictly to yourselves?”

“I don’t know that I particularly owe you any consideration, Mr Stokesey, or that you owe me any,” announced Mr Enniscorthy. “Just now I am only concerned in discovering what has become of Miss Roscastle. You know her address?”

“In Kensington?”

“Well, yes.”

“74 Westphalia Mansions.”

“You sent there of course?”

“Heavens, yes! The various forms of messages must be six inches deep all over the hall by now. Last Friday I had a man sitting practically all day on her doorstep.”

“But she has someone there--a housekeeper or maid?”

“I don’t think so. She told me that she was taking a little furnished flat--asked me if the neighbourhood was a suitable one. I imagine there was something about a daily woman until she found how she liked it. We’ve had no one from there anyway.”

“Then it comes to this, that for a week there has been absolutely no trace of Miss Roscastle’s existence! Do you quite realise your responsibility, Mr Stokesey?” demanded Enniscorthy with increased misgivings.

The manager, who had turned to go, caught Mr Carlyle’s eye over the concerned young man’s shoulder. “I don’t think that Miss Roscastle’s friends need have any anxiety about her personal safety,” he replied with expression. “At all events I’ve done everything I can for you; I hope that you will not fail to meet my views. If there’s anything else that occurs to you, Mr Carrados, I shall be in my office. Good-night.”

“Callous brute!” muttered Mr Enniscorthy. “He ought to have put it in the hands of the police a week ago.”

Mr Carlyle glanced at Carrados, who had transferred his interest to the rendering of the last musical item of the interval.

“Possibly Miss Roscastle would prefer a less public investigation if she had a voice in the matter,” said the professional man.

“If she happens to be shut up in some beastly underground cellar I imagine she would prefer whatever gets her out the soonest. I dare say it sounds fantastic, but such things really do happen now and then, you know, and why not?”

“You don’t know of any threats or blackmailing letters?”

“No,” admitted the young man; “but I do know this, that if Una was at liberty she would never allow another actress to take her place and use her name in this way.”

“A very significant suggestion,” put in Carrados from his detached attitude. “Mr Enniscorthy has given you a really valuable hint, Louis.”

“I don’t mean that Miss Roscastle is really out-of-the-way jealous,” Enniscorthy hastened to add, “but in her profession----”

“Oh, most natural, most natural,” agreed the urbane Carlyle. “Everyone has to look after his own interest. Now----”

“I don’t suppose that you are particularly keen on this act,” interposed the blind man. “Are you, Mr Enniscorthy?”

“I’d much rather be doing something,” was the reply.

“I was going to suggest that you might go round to Westphalia Mansions, just to make sure that there is no one there now. Then if you would find your way to our table at the Savoy we could hear your report.”

“Yes, certainly. I shall be glad to think that I can be of some assistance by going.”

Mr Carlyle’s optimistic temper was almost incapable of satire, but he could not refrain from, “You can--poor beggar!” on Enniscorthy’s departure. “I suppose,” he continued, turning to his friend, “I suppose you think that Stokesey may----? Eh?”

“I fancy that in the absence of our young friend he may be induced to become more confidential. He may have some good ground for believing that the missing lady will not upset his ingenious plan. He, at all events, discounts the ‘underground cellar.’”

“Oh, that!” commented Carlyle with an indulgent smile. “But, after all, what is the answer, Max? Enniscorthy is a thoroughly eligible young fellow and this was the first chance of her career. What is the inducement?”

“That much we can safely emphasise. What, in a word, would induce an ambitious young lady to throw up a good engagement, Louis?”

“A better?” suggested Mr Carlyle.

“Exactly,” agreed Carrados; “a better.”

It is unnecessary to follow the course of Mr Carlyle’s inquiry on the facts already disclosed, for, less than twenty-four hours later, the whole situation was changed and Mr Stokesey’s discreet prevarication had been torn into shreds. The manager had calculated in vain--if he had calculated and not just accepted the chance that presented itself. At all events the fiction proved too elaborate to be maintained and late in the afternoon of the following day all the evening papers blazed out with the

“SENSATIONAL DISAPPEARANCE OF POPULAR LONDON ACTRESS”

The event was particularly suited to the art of the contents bill, for when the news came to be analysed there was little else to be learned beyond the name of the missing actress and the fact that “at the theatre a policy of questionable reticence is being maintained towards all inquiry.” That phrase caused two men at least to smile as they realised the embarrassment of Mr Stokesey’s dubious position.

The conditions being favourable, the Missing Actress sensation caught on at once and effectually asphyxiated public interest in all the other sensations that up to that moment had been satisfying the mental requirements of the nation--a “Mysterious Submarine,” an “Eloping Dean” (three wives), and an “Are We Becoming Too Intellectual?” correspondence. Supply followed demand, and it very soon became difficult to decide, not where Miss Roscastle was, but where she was not. Public opinion wavered between Genoa, on the authority of a retired lime and slate merchant of Hull who had had a presentiment while directing a breathless lady to the docks, when a Wilson liner was on the point of sailing; Leatherhead, the suggestion of a booking-office clerk who had been struck by the peculiar look in a veiled lady’s eyes as she asked for a third-class return to Cheam; and Accrington, where a young lady with a marked Irish accent and a theatrical manner had inquired about lodgings at three different houses and then abruptly left, saying that she would come back if she thought any more about it.

Before the novelty was two days old Scotland Yard had been stirred into recognising its existence. A London clue was forthcoming, apparently the wildest and most circumstantial of them all. A plain-clothes constable of the A Division reported that an hour after midnight three days before he had noticed a shabby-genteel man, who seemed to be waiting for someone, loitering on the Embankment near the Boadicea statue. There was nothing in the circumstance to interest him, but when he repassed the spot ten minutes later the man had been joined by a woman. The sharp eyes of the constable told him that the woman was well and even fashionably dressed, although she had made some precaution to conceal it, and the fact quickened his observation. As he shambled past--an Embankment dead-beat for the occasion--he heard the name “Roscastle” spoken by one of the two. He could not distinguish by which, nor the sense in which the word was used, but his notebook, with the name written down under the correct date, corroborated so much. On neither occasion had he seen the face of the man distinctly--the threadbare individual had sought the shadows--but he was able to describe that of the woman in some detail. He was shown half-a-dozen photographs and at once identified that of Miss Roscastle. The crowning touch requisite to make this story entirely popular was supplied by an inspector of river police. According to the newspaper account, the patrol boat was off the Embankment near Westminster Bridge between one and a quarter-past on the night in question when a distinct splash was heard. The crew made for the spot, flashed the lights about and drifted up and down several times, but without finding a trace of any human presence. At once the public voice demanded that the river should be dragged from Chelsea to The Pool, and, pending the result, every shabby wastrel who appeared on the Embankment arrested.

In his private office Mr Carlyle threw down the last of his morning papers with an expression that began as a knowing smile but ended rather dubiously. For his own part he would have much preferred that the disappearance of Miss Roscastle had not leaked out--that he had been left to pursue his course unaided, but, in the circumstances, he carefully read everything on the chance of a useful hint. The Embankment story both amused and puzzled him.

He dismissed the subject to its proper mental pigeonhole and had turned to deal with his most confidential correspondence when something very like an altercation breaking the chaste decorum of his outer office caused him to stop and frown. The next moment there was a hurrying step outside, the door was snatched open and Mr Enniscorthy, pale and distracted, stumbled into the room. Behind him appeared the indignant face of Mr Carlyle’s chief clerk. Then the visitor extinguished the outraged vision by flinging back the door as he went forward.

“Have you seen the papers?” he demanded. “Is there anything dreadful in them?”

“I have seen the papers, yes,” replied the puzzled agent. “I am not aware----”

“I mean the evening papers--just out. No, I see you haven’t. Here, read that and tell me. I haven’t--I dare not look.”

Mr Carlyle took the journal that Enniscorthy thrust under his eyes--it was the earliest _Star_--glanced into his visitor’s face a little severely and then focussed on the column.

“Good heavens!” he exclaimed, “what is this! ‘MISSING ACTRESS. EMBANKMENT CLUE. BODY FOUND!’”

“Ah!” groaned Enniscorthy. “That was on the bills. Is it----?”

“It’s all right, it’s all right, my dear sir,” reported Mr Carlyle, glancing along the lines. “This is the body of a man ... the man who was seen ... most extraordinary....”

“My God!” was wrung from the distressed young man as he dropped into a chair. “Oh, my God! I thought----” He took out his handkerchief, wiped and fanned his face, and for the next few minutes looked rather languidly on things.

“Very distressing,” commiserated Mr Carlyle when he had come to the end of the report. “Can I get you anything--brandy, a glass of water----? The mere act of sipping, I am medically informed, has a beneficial effect in case of faintness. I have----”

“Nothing, thanks. I shall be all right now. Sorry to have made an ass of myself. You have heard--anything?”

“Nothing definite so far,” was the admission. “But there may be something worth following in this story after all. I shall go down to the mortuary shortly. Do you care to accompany me?”

“No, thanks,” replied the visitor. “I have had enough of that particular form of excitement for one morning.... Unless, of course, there is anything I----”

He was assured that there was nothing to be effected by his presence and half-an-hour later Mr Carlyle made his way alone to the obscure mortuary where the unclaimed dead hold their grim reception.

An inspector of the headquarters investigation staff who had been put on to the case was standing by the side of one of the shells when Carlyle entered. He was a man whom the private agent had more than once good-naturedly obliged in small matters that had come within his reach. He now greeted Mr Carlyle with consideration and stood aside to allow him to approach the body.

“The Embankment case, I suppose, sir?” he remarked. “Not very attractive, but I’ve seen many worse in here.” He jerked off the upper part of the rough coverlet and exposed a visage that caused Mr Carlyle to turn away with a “Tch, tch!” of emotion. Then a sense of duty drew him round again and he proceeded to note the descriptive points of the dead man in his pocket-book.

“No marks of violence, I suppose?” he asked.

“Nothing beyond the usual abrasions that we always find. A clear case of drowning--suicide--it seems to be.”

“And the things?”

The inspector nodded towards a seedy suit laid out for identification and an overcoat, once rakish of its fashion and now frayed and mouldering, put with it.

“Fur collar too, Mr Carlyle,” pointed out his guide. “‘Velvet and rags,’ isn’t it? ‘Where moth and rust doth corrupt.’ A sermon could be made out of this.”

“Very true; very true indeed,” replied Mr Carlyle, who always responded to the sentimentally obvious. “It is a sermon, inspector. But what have we here?”

Beside the garments had been collected together a heap of metal discs--quite a considerable heap, numbering some hundreds. Carlyle took up a few and examined them. They were all alike--flat, perfectly round and somewhat under an inch in diameter. They were quite plain and apparently of lead.

“H’m, curious,” he commented. “In his pockets?”

“Yes; both overcoat pockets. Very determined, wasn’t he? They would have kept him down till the Day of Judgment. I’ve counted them--just five hundred.”

“Any money?”

The inspector smiled his tragi-comic appreciation--the coin embellished the moral of his unwritten sermon--and pointed.

“A halfpenny!” he replied.

“Poor fellow!” said Mr Carlyle. “Well, well; perhaps it is better as it is. You might pull up the cloth again now, please.... There are no letters or papers, I see.”

The detective hesitated a moment and then recalled the obligation he was under.

“There is a scrap of paper that I have kept from the Press so far,” he admitted. “It was tightly clenched in the man’s right hand--so tight that we had to use a screw-driver to get it out, and the water had barely reached it.” He was extracting a slip of paper from his notebook as he spoke and he now unfolded it. “You won’t put it about, will you, Mr Carlyle? I don’t know that there’s anything tangible in it, but--well, see for yourself.”

“Extraordinary!” admitted the gentleman. He read the words a second time: “‘Fool! What does it matter now?’ Why, it might almost----”