Chapter VI: Part 6

“’Ere you are!” scornfully said Mr. Tridge, passing him the puff. “’Elp yourself! Go on! Put some on your nose, too. I would, if I was you! Take some ’ome with you in a paper bag. ’Ere, steady!” he ended, snatching the puff out of Mr. Dobb’s hand. “It’s for powdering, not whitewashing, remember!”

“You ain’t got a little complexion cream to spare, I suppose?” asked Mr. Dobb, unabashed. “No, I thought not. Well, then, what about a little drop o’ brilliantine, eh? This it? Thanks.”

“Don’t you be a fool, ’Orace,” earnestly counselled Mr. Tridge. “I’m surprised at you, I am, reely! Runnin’ after gals at your time of life! What would your missis say?”

“I ain’t running after no gals,” denied Mr. Dobb. “I ain’t even slow-marching after ’em. But I wants to look just-so, because I’m making a sort of deboo in ’igh society this evening.”

“Fish supper with the dook and duchess, I suppose?” ironically hazarded Mr. Tridge.

“No; but it’s the opening night at the theayter to-night,” explained Mr. Dobb, “and I’m going to sit somewhere near the front seats. ’Ow’s that for getting on in life, eh?”

“Free complimentaries,” diagnosed Mr. Tridge, “for promising to show window-bills. Why, I’ve got orders for two myself.”

“’Ave you though?” said Mr. Dobb, a little dashed by this discounting of his social value. “Why, I was going to hinvite you to come along with me. We could ’ave tossed up to see ’oo paid for the programme. If you don’t come, I shall only ’ave to take the missis, and I don’t want to waste a seat deliberate like that, if I can ’elp it.”

“I’ve asked Peter Lock to come along with me,” returned Mr. Tridge. “It’s ’is night off from the billiard-room. ’Ere, what about asking old Sam Clark, eh? The four of us going together to the theayter like we used to do in the good old, bad old days of the ‘Jane Gladys.’”

“Right-o!” agreed Mr. Dobb, very readily. “Anything to hencourage my missis in ’ome life. We’ll all four go together. But no getting chucked out in a bunch, though, mind,” he stipulated. “I’ve got business reasons for not wanting to upset the chap what’s running the theayter now.”

“It’s a noo management,” mentioned Mr. Tridge.

“I know. It’s the fifth noo management in fourteen months, so they tells me. Shore’aven don’t seem what you might call a hartistic place, do it? Specially when they done Shakespeare six weeks ago. Only done ’im once, they did, but that was enough. That was what reely led to the sale.”

“What sale?” inquired Mr. Tridge.

“Why, the last time it shut. They ’ad a sale of fixtures up there, when the creditors wouldn’t take out their money in tickets. That was where the glass shandyleary came from.”

“Shandy-’ow-much?” demanded Mr. Tridge.

“Shandyleary. I’ve got it in my shop now. I bought it off a chap what bought it at the sale. Great big thing it is, what used to ’ang in the centre of the roof. ’Andsome thing it is, too, in its way, all made of sparkly bits of glass as big as—”

“As big as a second-’and dealer’s Sunday scarfpin,” pointedly suggested Mr. Tridge.

“Aye, pretty nigh,” accepted Mr. Dobb, with complacency. “I’m going to sell it back soon to the chap what’s running the theayter now.”

“Does ’e know you’re going to?”

“Not yet, ’e don’t,” admitted Mr. Dobb. “Why, ’e don’t even know I’ve got it yet. But I’ve got some one to sound ’im to see whether ’e’s at all inclined to buy it, and ’e said ’e won’t ’ave it at no price. But it takes two to make a quarrel, don’t it? Anyway, whether ’e reely wants it or not, ’e’s going to buy it.”

“And ’ow are you going to make ’im do that?” inquired Mr. Tridge, with every faith in his old shipmate’s commercial omnipotence.

“Ah, I ain’t thought quite so far as that yet,” confessed Mr. Dobb. “All I’ve fixed in my mind is that ’e’s going to give me thirty-five quid for that shandyleary. It’s old Joe Bindley, that retired builder chap, what’s the noo proprietor, you know. ’E bought up the theayter cheap, as a speckylation, and ’e reckons to make a big success out of it. You ought to ’ear ’im talk about what ’e’s going to do at ’is theayter! Anyone might think that the next war was going to be perdooced there as a front piece to the big play of the evening.”

“I see ’e’s starting with a month’s hengagement, straight off, of the world-famous hactress, Miss Margureety Delafayne,” observed Mr. Tridge, studying a printed announcement on his wall. “’Oo’s she, anyway? It’s the first time I’ve ’eard of ’er.”

“Ah, she’s one of the good-old-might-’ave-been-p’r’apsers,” Mr. Dobb somewhat ungallantly informed him. “Not that she ain’t still a fine figure of a woman, far as golden ’air and a sealskin coat and light blue satin goes. But hact? Oh, dear me, no! It’s more like a fit of the dismals that hacting. Bindley reckons she’s going to get all the neighbourhood into the reg’lar ’abit of coming to ’is theayter. She’s more likely to cure ’em of the ’abit, to my way of thinking.”

“You’ve seen ’er, then?”

“I paid to see ’er hact once, at Yarmouth. I’ve always reckoned I’ve been three pints out from that day to this. Well, I’m off now to fix up with old Sam Clark.”

“Meet you outside the show at seven-thirty,” said Mr. Tridge. “Mind you ain’t late.”

“I never am late,” replied Mr. Dobb simply, “when there’s something for nothing.”

Thus it was ordained, and thus it came about that a few hours later, four contiguous seats at the Shorehaven Theatre were occupied by that old-established fellowship of graduates from the baneful academy of the “Jane Gladys.” From the time of their processional entry to the rising of the curtain on the play, each of the quartet expressed his individuality in his customary manner.

Mr. Horace Dobb, reflecting very patently the prosperity of the little shop he had married, leaned back in his seat with an air of bored patronage and made great play with a ring which, when happily it caught the light at a certain elusive angle, gleamed quite visibly. Mr. Joseph Tridge, wearing something new and very arrestive in the way of check suitings, could not but be correspondingly sportive and genial in the truculent, domineering manner. Mr. Peter Lock, trim and brisk and debonair as ever, maintained a joyous flow of scandal about such of the attendance present as had their secret histories discussed in the billiard-room of the “Royal William.” And the plump and venerable Mr. Samuel Clark, his rubicund face aglow with happiness in the reunion, beamed impartially on all around him, and with a conspicuous, festooning forefinger, beat time to the orchestra’s overture.

But soon after the commencement of the play there developed changes of temperament, subtle and slight at first, but broadening progressively as the performance continued. And thus, before the curtain had descended on the first act, Mr. Peter Lock’s brightness was quite gone, and he was sitting in a round-shouldered way, with his arms drooping limply down beside him, while the eyes with which he regarded the stage had in them nothing but dull resignation.

And Mr. Joseph Tridge was fast asleep, and even snoring a little, though this was a venial transgression which appeared to arouse only the emotion of envy among his neighbours. And Mr. Horace Dobb had ceased to look patronizing, but had retained an added intensity to his expression of boredom, and had now come to vehement sighings at frequent intervals. But Mr. Clark showed no such unfavouring listlessness towards the performance as his companions were exhibiting. Manifestly to the contrary, Mr. Clark was craning forward in his seat with so eager an interest in the drama that he was quite unconscious of the repressive glances continually directed at him over her shoulder by the lady whose chair-back he was gripping in his excitement. His face betokened the raptest concentration of attention, and several times he had offered audible and emphatic comment on the goodness of the play, and once he had even stared round him challengingly to see why no one endorsed his high opinions.

And when at length the curtain swept down to terminate the first act, there would have been a complete silence in the auditorium had not Mr. Clark at once begun to beat his vast palms together in emphatic approval. A few hirelings of the management, posted remotely about the building, rather timidly followed Mr. Clark’s lead, and the curtain, after billowing uncertainly for a while, rose again to reveal Miss Marguerite Delafayne standing solitary on the stage. In a way that was not entirely devoid of defiance, Miss Delafayne began to bow her acknowledgments of the tributes to her art.

“Brayvo!” cried Mr. Clark, leaping to his feet and achieving an almost cyclonic quality in his applause. “Brayvo!” Miss Delafayne, moved by such warm partisanship in an otherwise unresponsive world, looked straight at Mr. Clark and curtseyed in the most queenly manner in his direction. Mr. Clark, placing his fingers to his lips, was about to pay the lady still greater homage, when she went on to bow to a pseudo-enthusiastic programme-seller at the back of the gallery, and Mr. Clark sat down with a dazed but happy expression on his face.

The curtain descended again, and immediately a heavy, discouraged hush enwrapped the theatre.

“Well, thank goodness we ain’t bought a programme, anyway!” said Mr. Dobb, at last breaking silence.

“I’m going to buy one now,” announced Mr. Clark.

“Don’t you be an old fool, Sam,” urged Mr. Tridge. “I shouldn’t ’ave thought anyone would want to know more about this blessed show than they could ’elp.”

“I want to know the—the scenes and—and the names,” explained Mr. Clark, hesitantly.

“Then borrer a programme, if you must know the worst,” counselled Mr. Tridge.

“I—I want one to keep,” stated Mr. Clark, shyly.

“To _keep_?” exclaimed Mr. Tridge.

“Sam,” observed the perspicacious Mr. Dobb, “you’re a gay old dorg!”

“Did you see ’er look at me?” demanded Mr. Clark, in a burst of senile vanity. “Straight at me!”

“I’d just as soon be looked at by a sack of flour!” declared Mr. Tridge; and instantly there arose a quarrel so bitter that, in the interests of peace, Mr. Dobb had to take the extreme step of curtailing it by offering to pay for refreshment at some convenient hostelry outside.

Mr. Tridge, closing at once with this invitation, rose to follow Mr. Dobb from the building, and so did Mr. Lock. Mr. Clark, however, created a blank amazement by returning an unprecedented answer to such an offer.

“We might be late and miss a bit of the next hact,” he explained; and his companions, after solemnly shaking their heads at each other for some moments, went silently away.

They did not return in time for the next act, nor for the next act after that, though such were Mr. Clark’s blissful preoccupations of mind that he did not notice the defection of his comrades until he was passing through the lobby at the conclusion of the performance. And even then he went back into the auditorium to look for his friends, and was much mystified by their disappearance.

It was three days later ere Mr. Clark and Mr. Dobb again met. Mr. Dobb, finding himself near the ferry, had strolled thither to have a few words with his old shipmate. To his surprise, he found a substitute on duty in the ferry-boat, and discovered from that gentleman that for the last three days Mr. Clark, utilizing his favourite explanation of colic, had been making holiday and seemingly intended to make holiday for several days longer.

Mr. Dobb, learning that the present whereabouts of Mr. Clark were unknown to his informant, strolled back into the town, and, at the corner of the High Street, he encountered Mr. Clark.

“’Ullo!” said Mr. Clark, awkwardly.

“Why ain’t you at the ferry?” asked Mr. Dobb.

“That’s _my_ business, ’Orace,” stated Mr. Clark, restively.

“I know it is!” retorted Mr. Dobb. “That’s why I’m asking you why you ain’t there!” He apprehended the gala nature of Mr. Clark’s attire, and started in surprise. “You—you ain’t been love-making, ’ave you, Sam—not on your wages?” he asked.

“No such luck!” replied Mr. Clark, ruefully. “But,” he added, “I know where she lodges, anyway.”

“’Oo?”

“Why, Miss Margureety Delafayne,” replied Mr. Clark, voicing the name in cadences of mournful satisfaction.

“Oh, ’er!” said Mr. Dobb, with scant interest. “I’d forgot all about that, and I thought you ’ad, too. You generally does.”

“I’ve been watching ’er go in and out of ’er front door these last two days,” stated the love-lore Mr. Clark. “Watched, unbeknown, from the corner of the road, I ’ave. I’ve just come from there now. Are you going to the theayter to-night?”

Mr. Dobb’s reply was pietistic in form.

“Well, I’m going,” said. Mr. Clark. “I ain’t missed a performance yet.”

And with that proud boast he went on his way, and Mr. Dobb resumed his homeward path. Passing the Magnolia Toilet Saloon, a salvo of taps upon the window claimed his attention, and glancing inside, he found himself being beckoned imperatively by the proprietor.

“Peter Lock’s looking all over the place for you,” Mr. Tridge informed him. “’E wants you to ’urry round to the ‘Royal William’ soon as ever you can.”

“Why, what’s up?”

“The chap ’oose wife tried to poison ’im with the big eyes—” replied Mr. Tridge, a trifle obscurely.

“Poison ’im with big eyes?” murmured Mr. Dobb, grappling with the enigma.

“In the first hact,” supplied Mr. Tridge, helpfully. “So Peter says. I was asleep.”

“Oh, now I know! Well, what about ’im?”

“’E’s practising ’is billiards at the ‘Royal William.’ Peter thought ’e might come in useful somewhere, sometime, some’ow. You know—that glass shandyleary of yours.”

Mr. Dobb, without wasting time on mere social amenities, straightway turned and set out for the “Royal William.” Entering the billiard-room, he found it to be occupied by but two persons. Of these, one was the marker, Mr. Peter Lock, and the other was an individual of attenuated physique, theoretically clean-shaven, but actually rather blue-chinned. A top hat, worn occipitally, graced the stranger’s head, and an overcoat, featuring some kind of strange fur on its collar, hung on a peg behind the door. These clues, in conjunction with Mr. Tridge’s foreword, enabled Mr. Dobb to exploit the occasion without further assistance from Mr. Lock.

Waiting till his old shipmate held temporary possession of the table, Mr. Dobb approached the other gentleman in a manner which can only be described as reverential.

“I ’ope you’ll pardon me for the liberty I’m taking, sir,” he observed, “but, of course, I recognize you by sight, and I want to thank you for the treat you give me the other night.”

“I—I don’t remember,” returned the stranger. “Was it here, or at—”

“At the theayter, sir. The way you done your part!” breathed Mr. Dobb. “It was wonderful!”

“Oh, _that_!” exclaimed the other, with marked gratification.

“Most henjoyable, sir! Most hinteresting! Most—most hartistic!”

“Very good of you, sir, to say so. Of course it’s a strong part, to begin with, and—”

“Ah, but it takes a strong hactor to make the most of a strong part,” contended Mr. Dobb.

“Well, I must confess that that big scene I have in the second act—”

“Splendid!” roundly asserted Mr. Dobb. “I reg’lar ’ad to grip my chair.”

“And then at the very end, you know,” went on the other, with ready enthusiasm, “when I come forward and say, ‘So, madam, we meet again—’”

“Don’t know when I’ve been more thrilled,” said Mr. Dobb; and turned to frown his disapproval of a slight hissing noise Mr. Lock was making behind his palm.

“Got a bit of a cold, sir,” explained Mr. Lock; and retired into his handkerchief for some moments.

“A wonderful performance, sir,” said Mr. Dobb, addressing the stranger again. “And that of your good lady, too—Miss Delafayne, I mean. Most—”

“Miss Delafayne is not my wife, sir. I appreciate the privilege of being her business manager, but as for being her husband—. In short, her temper! The artistic temperament, of course—the artistic temperament, but— As a matter of fact, Miss Delafayne is indeed Miss Delafayne—she is unmarried. However, you were kind enough to be talking of my humble talents—”

“And marvellous indeed they are!” declared Mr. Dobb. “And I’m glad to ’ave ’ad the chance, sir, of thanking you for the pleasure your performance give me. And I should be much honoured if you’d allow me to offer you some refreshment on the strength of it.”

Very graciously did the other permit Mr. Dobb to achieve this distinction, and Mr. Lock at once performed the necessary evolutions with a tray.

“Your very good ’ealth, Mr.—er—” said Mr. Dobb. “Let me see, what is it? I forgets the name, just for the minnit, but I remember the face. ’Oo could ever forget it, after ’aving seen it once—on the stage, I mean?”

“Bellaby,” declaimed the gentleman in a fine, rolling voice—“Marmaduke Bellaby, sir, at your service.”

Of the swift development that thereupon characterized the friendship thus began, it is unnecessary to write in detail. Suffice it to say that within thirty minutes Mr. Dobb was being addressed, with great frequency, as “laddie.” And, as a pendant to this, it may be added that, at an hour perilously close to that appointed for the raising of the curtain at the theatre, Mr. Bellaby hurriedly emerged from the portal of the “Royal William” and went up the road at a trot, already fumbling alarmedly among his tie and collar-stud and waistcoat buttons as he ran. A cordial invitation he had extended at the last moment to Mr. Dobb to witness the performance again that evening as a guest was refused, regretfully but very definitely, on the score of a previous engagement.

“Not likely!” said Mr. Dobb to Mr. Lock, when they were alone. “Once bit, twice jolly, blessed careful! But I’m glad you sent for me, Peter. I think ’e’ll be useful—when I can see my way to using ’im. Anyway, I’m meeting ’im again to-morrow, and I shall take partic’lar good care to meet ’im again and again for the next few days, and ’oo knows what’s going to ’appen in this strange world?”

“You do!” answered Mr. Lock. “Very often, anyway!”

Superfluous is it to say that Mr. Dobb kept to his expressed intentions with regard to the gifted Mr. Bellaby, for to beat along convivial paths in quest of profitable quarry was ever the form of sportsmanship that appealed most strongly to Mr. Dobb.

So that Mr. Dobb and Mr. Bellaby became the closest of intimates within a very brief while, and there were few of his spare hours which Mr. Bellaby did not pass in the company of Mr. Dobb. And this was a state of affairs which naturally exercised a financial reaction upon the latter gentleman, though he bore philosophically with the expenditure in expectation of the reward it would bring him eventually.

For the moment, however, he had to admit to himself that the precise means to secure this reward was a matter which obstinately eluded his ingenuity, so that his boon companionship with Mr. Bellaby had in it something of that same fatalistic force which impels the gambler to continue to wager optimistically on the same unsuccessful racehorse.

And so, for several days, the friendship bloomed in profuse flower, and behind Mr. Dobb’s artless joviality and pride in the companionship of the gifted Mr. Bellaby there was no hint of the problem that obsessed his mind. It was only when Mr. Dobb was alone that geniality dropped from him and was succeeded by a morose calculativeness.

And this was his mood one evening when, parting from Mr. Bellaby at the very stage-door with the expressed intention of attending to certain neglected business, he encountered the lovesick Mr. Samuel Clark.

Dull and vacant was the look in Mr. Clark’s eyes, dejected was the hump of his shoulders. Had not Mr. Dobb accosted him he would have passed straight on, so apathetic was the stout ferryman towards his surroundings.

“’Ullo, Misery!” greeted Mr. Dobb.

“’Ullo, ’Orace,” returned Mr. Clark, in slow, unhappy tones.

“When’s the wedding coming off?” bantered Mr. Dobb.

Mr. Clark started violently and said something reprehensible about Mr. Dobb’s inquisitiveness.

“What—is it all off, Sam?” teased Mr. Dobb.

“It are! Not that there was any real chance of it ever being on, but—but—”

He shook his head dolefully and added an unkind aspiration with regard to Mr. Joseph Bindley’s future state.

“Why, what’s ’e to do with it?”

“Heverything! Mind you, I was never fool enough to think that a girl like ’er—well a woman like ’er, then,” he amended, in deference to Mr. Dobb’s startled exclamation—“that a woman like ’er would ever take to a old chap like me. I admit I was romantical, but—but one never knows, do one?”

“You might ’ave been ’er ideal, Sam,” conceded Mr. Dobb. “As you says, one can’t ever know for sure.”

“Of course, if ever I’d got to know ’er properly—” said Mr. Clark. “I did once fetch a cab for ’er,” he went on, smiling pathetically at the happy memory. “And she thanked me and give me thrippence. At least, she sent it out to me with ’er thanks. I ain’t ever spoke to ’er, reely. And now that ’ere Bindley—”

He stopped emotionally, and then again voiced an uncharitable interest in Mr. Bindley’s eventual destination.

“Yes; but what’s Bindley to do with it?” asked Mr. Dobb. “This is a free country, ain’t it?”

“Bindley’s a-carrying on with ’er!” stated Mr. Clark, passionately. “I’ve been keeping my heye on ’er, so I know. This last day or two I’ve stood ’elpless at the corner of ’er road and seen ’im call for ’er and take ’er out time and time again. Good as hengaged to each other, they are, so ’er landlady’s ’usband’s brother told me—and learning _that_ cost me one and seven. Yes; and this very hafternoon I see ’em side by side on a seat on the cliffs, where I’d followed ’em, and they was playing slap ’ands, if you please. What do you make of that?”

“You’ll ’ave to promise to be nothing more than a brother to ’er, after all, Sam,” said Mr. Dobb, with an unsympathetic levity which caused his companion to stare at him in a wounded way and then stalk offendedly on.

Mr. Dobb, resuming his way, reached his abode, and sat down in an arm-chair to indulge in meditation. At the end of twenty minutes he leaped to his feet.

“Good enough!” he cried, joyously.

Mr. Marmaduke Bellaby, sauntering abroad on the morrow, found himself met by Mr. Dobb. In this there was no novelty, nor was there in their consequent adjournment to the “Royal William.”

“And ’ow did the show go last night?” asked Mr. Dobb.

“Great, laddie, great!” returned the other, though not entirely convincingly.

“’Ave a crowded haudience?”

Mr. Bellaby regarded Mr. Dobb quizzically. “Well, we didn’t exactly have to turn them away from the doors,” he confessed.

“I know,” said Mr. Dobb. “I ’appened to look in later on.”

“What for?”

“To make certain,” replied Mr. Dobb. “You see, between you and me, it’s no secret that business is rotten at the theayter, is it? And it certainly was rotten last night—not half it wasn’t, was it?”

“Been like that all the week,” gloomily said Mr. Bellaby.

“Well, that could be haltered,” observed Mr. Dobb sagely. “I got a idea. Do us both good, it will.”

“What’s the scheme?”

“Lose ’er jewels,” whispered Mr. Dobb, mysteriously.

Mr. Bellaby, with a superior smile, stigmatized the suggestion as both stale and threadbare. To this Mr. Dobb replied that, elaborated according to the notion he had in mind, the artifice would none the less prove successful.

“Mind you, it’s quite time we did something,” frankly conceded Mr. Bellaby. “Talk about frosts! She was saying to me only yesterday that if things didn’t improve— Of course for my own sake, I’d like things to improve, but what can one do? We’d all like to hit on something good. But as for losing her jewels, my dear old boy—oh, my dear old boy!”

“Never mind if they did start the idea in the year dot,” retorted Mr. Dobb. “The Shore’aven public ain’t too used to the idea to sit up and take notice, anyway. She’s got plenty of jew’l’ry to lose, ain’t she? For myself, I never ’eard anyone rattle quite so much on the stage as she do. Of course, _we_ knows it ain’t real, but—”

“It’s such an old, old scheme, though, laddie,” objected Mr. Bellaby.

“You wait and listen to me. I tell you candid that I want this idea worked because it’s bound to be a good hadvertisement for me as well as for ’er. She’ll get most good out of it. People’ll talk about it, and they’ll flock to see ’er at the theayter. But they’ll ’ear about my business, too, and that’s what I want.”

“Well, let’s hear, anyway,” said Mr. Bellaby.

“It begins with ’er ’aving ’er jew’l’ry stole. That’s to say, you arrange things with ’er, and brings the whole lot down to me secret. Well, next thing, you plasters all over the town a full list of the missing jewels, except, of course, there’s no need to use the word ’himitation.’”

“Of course not,” agreed Mr. Bellaby.

“You ’eads the bill ‘One ’Undred Pounds Reward,’ promising that to anyone assisting in the recovery of ’er jewels. And you lets the town study that ’ere bill for a day or two. And then a chap brings the jewels to my shop and tries to get me to buy ’em.”

“Eh?”

“’E can’t read print,” explained Mr. Dobb, with a wink, “so ’e don’t know about them bills. I charges ’im with ’aving stolen ’em, and am just going to send for the police, when ’e clears out in a ’urry, leaving the jewels with me.”

“Ah, now I see!” observed the other.

“Hexactly. _I’ve_ ’ad ’em all the time. Well, I now applies for the reward. The affair ’as got into the papers, and every one’s talking about it. There’s a special performance, where she wears all ’er recovered jew’l’ry, and you ’ave me up on the stage and ’and over the reward to me—simply a bit of blank paper in a henvelope, of course, but I get a little publicity and _she_ gets a lot of publicity, and—”

“Not at all bad,” commended Mr. Bellaby. “You being a local man, it looks much more genuine.”

“In course it do. That’s just the idea.”

“’Pon my word, it’s worth doing. Come to think of it, though, there’s no need for the jewels to leave her possession really. As long as they’re hidden—”

“Why, that’s just where you miss the best part of it!” urged Mr. Dobb. “When that chap runs out of my shop, the jewels is spilled all over the place. If you like, ’e ’alf stuns me too, to prevent persoot. I know one or two safe chaps what can be passing a minute or two after it’s supposed to ’ave ’appened, and they can ’elp gather up the jewels and bathe my fore’ead and so on. ’Ow’s that for a yarn for the ‘Shore’aven Gazette,’ eh? Why, it’s as good as a play in itself.”

Mr. Bellaby, critically examining the project in all its facets, came at last to the warmest agreement as to its merits, and there followed a period of undertones. Then, to demonstrate his zeal in her cause, Miss Delafayne’s manager straightway departed to set the scheme before her, and Mr. Dobb ordered himself a drink, which, before he consumed it, he waved at his reflection in a mirror.

In a short while Mr. Bellaby buoyantly returned. He told Mr. Dobb that Miss Delafayne had been suffering very severely indeed from her artistic temperament when first he had broached the subject to her, but he had left her in the sunniest and most compliant of moods. Mr. Joseph Bindley, too, it seemed, was thoroughly convinced of the merits of the scheme, and had directed that his name, as proprietor of the theatre, should figure in conjunction with Miss Delafayne’s as offerers of the reward.

Things being thus satisfactorily in trim, Mr. Bellaby departed again to compile an imaginative list of the jewellery to be lost by the world-famous actress. This done, he left the catalogue with a printer for immediate attention, and repaired once more to the “Royal William,” where he handed to Mr. Dobb an undistinguished-looking parcel.

Mr. Dobb, returning home a little later with this packet under his arm, was hailed by Mr. Tridge from the latter’s doorway.

“What you got there, ’Orace?” asked Mr. Tridge, curiously.

“A order for a glass shandyleary,” replied Mr. Dobb and passed on with lightsome step.

That same evening the town of Shorehaven found itself furnished with material for thrilling gossip, for scarce a thoroughfare was there that did not exhibit somewhere adown its length the tally of the jewels that the talented lady temporarily living in their midst had had the misfortune to lose. In front of every printed handbill, with its fascinating heading of “£100 Reward,” there lingered an absorbed group, reading amazedly of ropes of pearls, and large and small diamond brooches, of valuable rubies, and rare metals. The manner of their disappearance, and the scene whence they had vanished, were details tactfully left vague, so that the ends of publicity were further served by this opportunity to speculate whether the noted absent-mindedness of genius or mere criminal avarice were responsible for the lady’s loss.

For two full days the town theorized and clicked its tongue, and spoke either sympathetically or sneeringly of the affair. Attendance at the theatre suddenly improved, and appreciation which had been denied to Miss Delafayne as a performer was now showered on her as a lady who was supporting material loss with great dignity. Sceptics there certainly were, but these were in a minority, and their number would have been even less had that perfervid admirer, Mr. Samuel Clark, had the physical powers to convert those disbelievers he happened to encounter.

And then one afternoon Mr. Horace Dobb sent a dictatorial and even arrogant message to Mr. Joseph Bindley, demanding that gentleman’s attendance at the little shop in Fore Street at once. Mr. Bindley, a gentleman plain of speech and blunt of manner, went immediately to Mr. Dobb to ask him what he meant by such a message.

“I got a glass shandyleary what belongs by rights to the ceiling of your theayter,” returned Mr. Dobb, equably, “and I want to sell it to you.”

Mr. Bindley, as became a man who had attained the position of theatrical proprietor, heatedly gave his opinion of such impertinence and strode to the door.

“Ain’t you rather mixed up with me to act so ’aughty?” asked Mr. Dobb, in civil accents.

Mr. Bindley halted and swung round to stare at Mr. Dobb.

“Don’t you get trying to play any tricks with me!” he warned Mr. Dobb. “We’ve got a understanding, and you stick to it, and I stick to it, and there’s an end of it! I don’t want no ’anky-panky!”

“Thirty-five quid—that was what I was going to ask for that shandyleary,” mentioned Mr. Dobb. “Only I’ve ’ad a lot of hincidental expenses with it lately, so I’m asking thirty-eight now. And it’s worth it—well worth it. You ’ave a look at it, and you’ll say so, too. It’s a bargain.”

“What’s the game?” said Mr. Bindley, aggressively. “What are you trying on—a sort of blackmail?”

“Well, yes, that’s what it really is,” acquiesced Mr. Dobb, very smoothly. “Only you call it that again, and up goes the price a quid a time! See?”

Mr. Bindley, snorting, laid his palm on the handle of the door.

“They tells me Miss Delafayne ’as got a dooce of a temper,” observed Mr. Dobb, irrelevantly.

Mr. Bindley plucked open the door and marched out. Five yards away he halted and came back again to the threshold.

“What’s that got to do with it?” he demanded.

“It’s a lovely shandyleary,” declared Mr. Dobb.

“To blazes with your shandyleary, and you too!” bawled the choleric Mr. Bindley. “Why don’t you speak straight out?”

“Just what I’m going to,” answered Mr. Dobb; and abruptly abandoned his pose of suavity. “Look ’ere, Bindley, I’ve got you tied up tight! See? ’Ere, glance at that little notice on the wall there. ‘Strictly Business!’ that says, don’t it? Well, that’s my motter. I’ve been planning to sell you that shandyleary, and I’m going to.”

“Huh!” scornfully returned Mr. Bindley.

“Huh-ing or no huh-ing, I’m going to! You can’t ’elp yourself. You’ve been trying a bit of artfulness with the public over them lost jewels, so you can’t squeal if some one else tries ’is artfulness on you. Fust of all, you don’t mind admitting I’ve got that parcel of coloured beads and brass, do you? Suppose I goes and calls in the first ten chaps I meet outside and tells ’em ’ow that jew’l’ry come into my ’ands? That would make you look pretty foolish, wouldn’t it?”

“I could say you stole them.”

“Not good enough. I can prove any amount of alleybys. I could prove there couldn’t be no other way they _could_ ’ave got into my ’ands except through Bellaby.”

“I could say he stole them, and you were the receiver.”

“Yes, so you could,” agreed Mr. Dobb; “and we wouldn’t ’alf ’ave a chatty time in the dock explaining ’ow it all really came about. They wouldn’t overlook your trying to deceive ’em, as you ’ave done, in a ’urry.”

“So, I’m to buy the shandyleary to prevent the truth coming out, am I?” said Mr. Bindley, not without admiration. “It’s pretty smart, but not smart enough.”

“You’ve been smart enough in your time, from what they tells me about you,” returned Mr. Dobb. “You ought to be smart enough now to see you’re cornered. Why, I’ve got you any number of ways. I could sue you for the reward, for example, if I went about the thing carefully.”

“Well, couldn’t I deny they were the jewels? They won’t agree exact with the description, you know.”

“Ah, I thought you might say that! That’s my trump card. You say they ain’t ’er jewels? Very well, I hexibits the ’ole jolly collection in the very front of my window, and pastes the reward bill over ’em, and writes a paper beside ’em what says: ‘These jewels ’ave been found and ’ave not been claimed by anyone. They are all false, and Miss Margureety Delafayne says they ain’t ’ers.’ That’ll start people putting two and two together, won’t it?”

“Let ’em!” cried Mr. Bindley, forcefully. “Before ever I’ll be blackmailed out of—”

“Easy enough to talk like that,” said Mr. Dobb, reproachfully. “But ’aven’t you any consideration for _’er_? Why soon as ever the story gets round the town, she’ll be the laughing-stock of the place. ’Er and ’er false jewellery will be ’eld up to ridicule wherever she goes. Besides, a little bird ’as told me that you and ’er are doing a bit of courting. Well, if what I’ve ’eard of ’er temper is true, she’ll ’ave something to say to you for allowing ’er to be made ridic’lous like that, when you could ’ave prevented it. Straight, if I was you, Bindley, I wouldn’t lose a fiancy like that and a bargain of a shandyleary for thirty-nine paltry quid!”

Mr. Bindley, his complexion of a fine purple hue, stood staring at Mr. Dobb.

“It’s a dirty trick!” he gasped at last.

“Dessay,” said Mr. Dobb. “We’ve all got to live.”

“And if—if I was fool enough to buy your confounded shandyleary, how do I know you wouldn’t diddle me again? You might keep some of them jewels back and—”

“Not a bit of it,” said Mr. Dobb, quite eagerly. “I’d be glad to ’ave finished with such trickery on the public. You give me a cheque for that shandyleary, and you can take the jew’l’ry away with you when you go, if you like. You’ll know it ain’t safe to stop the cheque, because that would lead to all sorts of hinquiries, and—”

“I shouldn’t dream of giving you a cheque. You’d blackmail me again over that, some’ow. But I’ve got some notes on me—”

“Forty quid?” asked Mr. Dobb, urbanely. “That’s the price up-to-date, you know.”

“Where’s the shandyleary?” growled Mr. Bindley.

“Downstairs in my cellar. And ’ere’s the jew’l’ry.”

“All of it?”

Mr. Dobb, lifting a package from beneath his counter, opened the wrapping and displayed a mass of personal ornament.

“You compare that with the list and you’ll find there ain’t a thing missing,” he said, tying up the parcel again and returning it beneath the counter.

“Well, let’s see the shandyleary,” grunted Mr. Bindley, with ill grace, “and maybe I’ll offer you a price for it.”

“Spoke like a sensible man!” declared Mr. Dobb. “It’s in three parts. I’ll carry ’em up.”

Elatedly he tripped down into his cellar. He was just about to pick up the nearest portion of the chandelier, when a sudden anguish assailed him. With an anxious cry he ran back up the stairway again. The shop was empty. Mr. Dobb darted behind his counter. The parcel was gone. He raced out into the roadway, and was rewarded with a view of Mr. Bindley, the parcel tight-clutched beneath his arm, rapidly retiring down the perspective.

Mr. Dobb opened his mouth to shout, then blinked and became thoughtful. And, at long last, he made a helpless, fluttering gesture with his hands and retired forlornly into his shop.

That same evening Mr. Clark, in a state of considerable jubilation, came to see him.

“I’ve ’ad a bit of luck to-day!” babbled the stout ferryman. “I met ’er face to face, and I’m cured! Why, close to, she’s nearly ’alf as old as I am! Bindley was with ’er, and that’s what I come to see you about, to see if you can hexplain the mystery. He saw me ’anging about the corner, as usual, and ’e asked me if I’d do a little job for ’im, seeing as ’e reckoned to ’ave a busy time before the hopening of the theayter.”

“Well?” sourly prompted Mr. Dobb.

“Well, first of all, ’e give me a bob, and then ’e give me a letter to deliver by ’and, marked ‘Hurgent,’ to the heditor of the ‘Shore’aven Gazette.’”

“Ah!” commented Mr. Dobb.

“But that ain’t the mystery. Then ’e give me another bob and a ’eavy little parcel to be left at the stage-door. It was addressed to Miss Margureety Delafayne, and on it was written in pencil, ‘_From one ’oo repents_.’ Now, seeing ’e was with ’er at the time, what did ’e want to send that there parcel to the theayter for? And what did that bit about repenting mean? Can _you_ see any sense in it?”

“No,” said Mr. Dobb, churlishly and untruthfully.

_EPISODE IX_ THE GREEN EYES OF THE LITTLE BIRMINGHAM GOD

Mr. Horace Dobb sharply closed the tattered volume which had been occupying his leisure, and looked up as if something were momentarily dazzling him. And next he removed his slippered feet from the mantelshelf and very slowly and carefully described an arc with his heels until he was sitting erect in his chair, alertly yet contemplatively, and also with a suggestion of breathlessness, in the manner of one who is visited by an inspired idea.

For a full minute Mr. Dobb remained thus, and then he rose and shuffled out into his shop. Here he opened a cupboard to take from it a small metallic object. Returning to his parlour, he placed this object on the table, and it stood revealed as a posturing figure of tarnished brass, ostensibly Oriental in origin.

And now for a long, long while Mr. Dobb stared at this figure in deep meditation, with his eyelids twitching and flickering impatiently when, now and then, he found that his inventiveness had stampeded him into some mental cul-de-sac. And then he began to pace the narrow confines of the room, walking in a tense, rigid way, as though his thoughts were so delicately balanced on each other that the slightest disturbance of their equilibrium would send them scattering uselessly in all directions.

But at last he halted, nodded his head thrice with keen satisfaction at the idol on the table, and then came to the greatest animation, whistling, snapping his fingers, and even pirouetting a little.

“Green heyes and all, just like it says in the book,” he remarked, enigmatically.

And with that he bundled the idol back into its cupboard, and set forth to confabulate with Mr. Peter Lock at his place of employment.

The hour happily being that usually devoted to siesta, Mr. Dobb found Mr. Lock quite alone at his post in the billiard-room at the “Royal William Hotel.”

Mr. Dobb at once put to Mr. Lock a direct question.

“Well, I don’t know,” murmured Mr. Lock, reflectively. “There’s two or three of ’em. ’Specially at billiards. But, on the whole, I should say that Sinnett is. Come to think of it, I’m pretty certain he is. I don’t know where you’d find a bigger, anyway.”

“Ah, but does ’e think ’e’s smart?” asked Mr. Dobb. “That’s the kind of mug _I’m_ after.”

“He’s the sort what’s so busy thinking about his cleverness,” replied Mr. Lock, “that he don’t have a moment to spare for finding out what a fool he really is.”

“That’s the sort what’s good for trade,” declared Mr. Dobb, appreciatively. “’E’s just the kind of chap I’m needing.”

“What’s the game this time?” asked Mr. Lock.

“Hidols’ heyes,” said Mr. Dobb. “I been reading a book,” he continued in response to Mr. Lock’s uncomprehending stare. “And there was a hidol in it what ’ad real hemerald heyes, and this ’ere hidol was stole from a temple somewhere out foreign by a couple of chaps what didn’t know about its heyes, and there wasn’t half some murders and niggers and things in it.”

“Why, that’s a old, old plot,” said Mr. Lock, disparagingly. “You’re losing your dash, ’Orace. Fancy you having to go to books to learn anything!”

“P’r’aps it’ll be a noo enough plot so far as this ’ere Mr. Sinnett is concerned,” observed Mr. Dobb, unruffled.

He tarried some while longer in intimate discussion with Mr. Lock, and then departed to interview another member of the translated crew of the obsolete “Jane Gladys,” in the plump and venerable person of Mr. Samuel Clark, the ferryman.

Mr. Clark, perceiving the advent of Mr. Dobb, came forward to greet him with marked expectancy.

“Sam, do you know a chap called Sinnett—Mr. George Sinnett?” queried Mr. Dobb.

“Squeaky voice, leather gaiters, nose like a fox?” sketched Mr. Clark.

“That’s ’im.”

“_Know_ ’im? I _’ate_ ’im!” stated Mr. Clark.

“Just as well,” sagely remarked Mr. Dobb. “Nothing like a bit of feeling to make a man sincere in his hefforts.”

“Meaning—”

“Why, this ’ere Sinnett is the next down on our list, Sam,” announced Mr. Dobb. “’E’s down for a Hindian hidol—fifteen pounds.”

“And us?” quickly asked Mr. Clark.

“’Alf of it between the three of you,” promised the master-mind of the confederacy. “I can hafford to be generous. It only cost me three-and-six.”

“Brummagem?” next inquired Mr. Clark.

“Oh, no,” denied Mr. Dobb, flippantly. “Real native Hindian work—that’s why I give such a ’igh price for it.”

“And Sinnett’s going to pay fifteeen quid for it?” raptly cried Mr. Clark. “Oh, ’appy day! A dozen times ’ave I ferried ’im across, and never so much as a a’penny for a tip! And then ’e ’ad the sauce to say that the fare ought to be less at low tide, because the distance ain’t so far!”

“Never mind,” said Mr. Dobb, “everything comes to ’im ’oo don’t mind laying low for a bit. What’s ’is ’ouse of call, do you know?”

“The ‘Flag and Pennant’ yonder, when ’e ain’t trying to play billiards at the ‘Royal William.’”

“Another thing,” mentioned Mr. Dobb. “’Ave you got any old scars or wounds on you?”

“There’s this old cut on the back of my ’and, what I done that night I was shaving in the fo’c’sle when Alf Runnett come down and tickled me, playful, because ’is gal ’ad gone off with some one else.”

“Just right,” said Mr. Dobb, examining the cicatrice; and forthwith adopted a preceptory attitude towards the stout ferryman.

Mr. Clark, at the end of ten minutes of instruction, asked a few questions to dispel one or two uncertainties of mind, and then professed a complete trust in his ability to carry out Mr. Dobb’s directions. Mr. Dobb, after satisfying himself by something in the nature of a rehearsal that Mr. Clark’s confidence was well founded, then passed on for the purpose of seeking an interview of connective interest with Mr. Joseph Tridge, fourth member of the confederacy established long ago in the bowels of the inglorious “Jane Gladys.”

That same evening Mr. George Sinnett was taking his ease in the bar-parlour of the “Flag and Pennant” when Mr. Samuel Clark entered the apartment a little precipitously and flung himself into a chair beside Mr. Sinnett.

“Never mind!” passionately remarked Mr. Clark. “I’ll get me rights yet! Fair’s fair, ain’t it, Sinnett?”

Mr. Sinnett turned and regarded the ferryman with considerable coldness, for Mr. Clark was presumptuously flinging a bridge across a well-defined social space. Mr. Sinnett, noting that the ferryman was a little glassy of orb and rather reckless about the disposition of his legs, frowned unencouragingly and looked away again.

“Fair’s fair!” again asserted Mr. Clark, dogmatically. “’Im and me was both in it, and that’s what I got for a start-off! Look!”

Mr. Sinnett aloofly disdained the invitation, and next became aware that the back of a huge hand was floating to and fro a few inches below his nose.

“You look at that afore it slips!” directed Mr. Clark, forcefully. “See that scar? That’s what I got for _my_ share.”

“Indeed,” said Mr. Sinnett, not quite comfortably.

“In-blooming-deed!” asserted Mr. Clark. “Just as I was climbing over the railings of the temple.”

“Temple? What temple?” asked Mr. Sinnett puzzled.

“Ah, I ain’t such a fool as to tell you that!” vaunted Mr. Clark. “But the nigger on guard gave me a lick across the back of the ’and with ’is sword, and— My chum got away all right, though. At least, ’e was my chum in those days. But _now_—”

Mr. Clark concluded his sentence with a deep-throated snarl, eloquent of hatred, contempt, and smouldering fury.

Mr. Sinnett, for lack of more intelligent comment, sipped at his glass in a non-committal way.

“Ah, it’s a sailor’s life for fun and hadventure!” cried Mr. Clark; and uttered a few tuneful roulades bearing upon his statement.

“’Ere!” he said, ceasing suddenly to be lyrical and leaning forward to address Mr. Sinnett in a kind of large confidence. “There’s people fool enough to think that I’m ’anging about Shore’aven just to work the ferry! They thinks _that_, they do. Let ’em, says I. So much the better.”

“Well, what _are_ you doing here?”

Mr. Clark bent a little further forward and impressively tapped Mr. Sinnett on the knee.

“_’E’s_ ’ere!” he whispered.

“_He_? Who?”

“Why, the chap I’ve been telling you about. The chap ’oo ’elped me to steal the hidol out of that sacred temple. Run away with it, ’e did, but I been tracking ’im down all these years, and now I’ve found ’im! And if he ain’t got that hidol still—”

“Valuable, is it?” asked Mr. Sinnett, intrigued.

“Can’t say. ’Im and me only sneaked it for a lark, only them niggers took it so serious. It don’t look vallyble, any’ow. Just a fat thing with a fat face and a couple of bits of green glass for heyes. ’Tain’t as if it was made of gold, as you could see at a glance. There wasn’t ’alf a outcry when we took it, though. After us, they was, for ever so long, and we ’ad to—to take to the jungle to give ’em the slip. And then, one night while I was asleep, my chum took the hidol out of my pocket and ’ooked off with it.”

“And you followed him?” asked Mr. Sinnett, with lively interest.

“Everywhere! Worst of it was, wherever I follered ’im, ’e’d ’ad about a year’s start. But at last I’ve found ’im, and—”

With a species of incredulous annoyance at his own garrulity, Mr. Clark stopped abruptly and rose from his chair.

“You been letting me say more than I ought to!” he remarked, severely.

“Oh, no!” returned Mr. Sinnett, smoothly. “Why, you have not even told me the name of—”

“No; and I ain’t going to, neither!” truculently interrupted Mr. Clark; and marched from the apartment.

“Queer!” murmured Mr. Sinnett. “Very queer!”

A little later in the evening that gentleman, directing his course homeward by accustomed paths, came to a length of quiet, ill-lit thoroughfare, and here he found himself beholding the unusual. For, in the very middle of the roadway, he could clearly discern two men, who grappled earnestly with each other, swaying this way and that in furious embrace, and yet preserving an eerie and almost complete silence.

For some moments, Mr. Sinnett viewed this phenomenon in amazement, and then he hurried forward. His advent appeared to alarm the antagonists, for, as soon as he drew near, they parted. One of them, presenting a stout figure tolerably familiar to Mr. Sinnett, ran clumsily away down the road; the other man, breathing exhaustedly, stood fumbling at his collar in a dazed way. Mr. Sinnett, peering at his features through the gloom, discovered him to be the man who kept the Magnolia Toilet Saloon, one Mr. Joseph Tridge, to wit.

“What’s the game?” demanded Mr. Sinnett.

“No game,” puffed Mr. Tridge. “Dead serious!”

“Wasn’t that the ferryman?”

“Eh?” cried Mr. Tridge, guiltily. “No—oh, no! It wasn’t ’im. It wasn’t anybody _you’d_ know. It—it wasn’t anybody _I_ know!”

“But I’m certain— Did he attack you sudden? Why didn’t you call for the police?”

“We—we’d rather not ’ave the p’lice mixed up with it. It’s a—a private affair. I—I’m all right now.”

Mr. Tridge then stumbled dizzily against the other man.

“Here—here!” cried Mr. Sinnett, in concern. “Why, man, you’re shaking all over! Here, take my arm and lean on me. The ‘Cutlass and Cannon’ is quite close; you’d better have something there to pick you up and pull you together.”

Mr. Tridge lurched again, most convincingly, and Mr. Sinnett, with many encouraging remarks, began to lead him towards the tavern he had named.

“All the same,” muttered Mr. Tridge, hazily, “’e—’e didn’t get it.”

“Get what?”

“Oh, nothing—nothing! I—I wasn’t thinking.”

A minute or so after they reached the “Cutlass and Cannon.” Here Mr. Tridge, with obvious effort, forced himself to a normal deportment, thus escaping the curiosity of the few patrons present in the tap-room. Under direction of Mr. Sinnett, he sat down in a quiet corner, and soon, under the influence of his companion’s prescription, became quite animated. A second potion having been swallowed, and a third ordered, to make quite sure that the required dose should lack nothing in strength, Mr. Sinnett coughed delicately and addressed Mr. Tridge in winning accents.

“You were telling me just now, when—when you were taken queer out in the road—that that ferryman didn’t get what he was after.”

“Did I tell you it was the ferryman? I never meant to.”

“Oh, well, you did! But there’s no harm done. A secret is a secret with me. Same as I shan’t tell anyone,” continued Mr. Sinnett, watching his companion very closely, “that what he was after was an Indian idol.”

Mr. Tridge started violently. “’Ow did you know _that_?” he asked.

“Why, you told me so yourself. Don’t you remember?” returned Mr. Sinnett, with a disarming smile.

“No; I—I don’t remember. My ’ead was going round and round, and— Well, I _am_ a mug!”

He raised his glass and emptied it. Mr. Sinnett, eyeing him with intensity, immediately had the measure refilled.

“After all,” said Mr. Tridge, defensively, “it’s as much mine as ’is!”

“Quite,” readily agreed Mr. Sinnett. “Oh, quite!”

“’E tried to serve me a dirty trick,” said Mr. Tridge, placing an argumentative forefinger on Mr. Sinnett’s necktie, “and _I_ served ’im one instead. See? That’s fair, ain’t it?”

“Certainly,” acquiesced Mr. Sinnett, with a straining quality of helpfulness underlying his tone. “Fair is fair, all the world over, of course!”

“’Course it is. And, mind you, I’m hobstinit. If ’e’d come to me, fair and reasonable, in the first place— You see what I mean? But ’e didn’t. Same as them nigger chaps what ’ave follered me about from time to time, wanting to buy it back. I told ’em once I wouldn’t sell it, and what I says I sticks to. See?”

“Clear as clear. When your mind’s made up, it’s made up.”