Part 4

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.

8

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.