Chapter XIX: The Man at the Theatre Door

Mrs. Walsingham, confronted with the object which Richard had placed before her, recognized that here was one of those critical moments in life in which one has to think quickly, clearly, and decisively, and, keen-witted and hard-headed as she was, she wished heartily that she could put it off. In the few seconds which she permitted herself before she spoke, she saw half a dozen possibilities and eventualities, and she was puzzled and confused by them. Then she suddenly heard Carsdale’s swift step in the ante-room outside, and she became calm and cool-headed again, and knew that she would be able to save the situation. And before Richard had time to notice any hesitation on her part, she had gathered up some papers and risen from her chair.

“Dear boy!” she said. “I really can’t be bothered with that just now--I’m waiting for Carsdale with these papers, and he’s just come in and may be off again in a minute, and I must see him. I shan’t be ready for you for a quarter of an hour--will you wait here?”

“Oh, I’ll wait,” answered Richard, a little surprised at her indifference to ten thousand pound’s worth of diamonds. “I’ll wait.” He picked up the precious package from the blotting-pad and thrust it into his pocket. “Mustn’t leave that lying about,” he said. “It isn’t yours, yet, Sylvie.”

Mrs. Walsingham made no answer. She vanished into the outer office, and Richard heard her voice and Carsdale’s. Then he heard a door slam and knew that they were closeted together. He had learnt that he was never to interrupt these two when they were engaged in business, nor to murmur if he was kept waiting until their conferences were over--sometimes those conferences extended to considerable and vexatious periods. And so, on this occasion, Richard, profiting by past experience, lighted a cigarette, and seating himself in a very easy chair--a recent present from himself to Mrs. Walsingham--proceeded to skim through a pile of French illustrated journals which lay handy.

But Mrs. Walsingham was losing no time. Once within the safe harbour of Carsdale’s private room, with the sound-proof door closed upon Miss Rousby and Griffkin, she turned to its occupant with the look which he knew to signify important business.

“Yes?” said Carsdale, always ready and receptive. “Well?”

“The boy’s here,” she said. “You remember what you said about the--the duplicate? That it would be a good thing to buy it from Burgoyne?”

“Yes, I remember,” he answered. “I remember. So it would.”

“Burgoyne’s offered to sell,” she said. “Ten thousand. That proves that--that he doesn’t know. He thinks he’s selling the real thing.”

“Yes,” said Carsdale. “Yes.”

They remained looking at each other for a full minute.

“The boy’s got the thing with him,” she said suddenly.

Carsdale’s eyebrows arched themselves.

“That’s sure proof that he thinks it’s the genuine article,” he said. “If he’d found out that what he held was a sham, he’d never have parted with that! Unless he was a fool.”

“Well?” she said, after a pause. “What’s best to be done?”

Carsdale took a turn or two about the room, biting the corners of his moustache. Suddenly he turned and threw out his hands.

“Buy it!” he said. “You’ve got ’em both now in your power--real thing and imitation. That makes you safe, don’t you see, Sylvie? Tell the young ’un to buy it, and be done with the matter. Not a soul will ever know, then. That’s better than my scheme of exchanging them. Oh, yes--buy!”

“All right,” she said, and went out without more words. And Richard, surprised at her speedy return, looked up to see a different Mrs. Walsingham to the business-like one who had gone out five minutes earlier with apparently no thought for anything but the papers in her hand.

“Now, child,” she said, when her door--which, like Carsdale’s was sound-proof--was carefully closed, “about this necklace. I suppose you were bad enough to tease Burgoyne into selling them--not that you’ve bought them yet, remember. But weren’t you?”

“Honour bright, no!” replied Richard. “I met him at lunch, and he said, ‘Oh, look here, Dick, I’ve changed my mind, and you can have that necklace; but I won’t take more than ten thousand from you, though the jeweller says the stones are worth twelve.’ Then I told him I wouldn’t buy them without consulting you, and he said, ‘Well, here, show them to Mrs. Walsingham--I dare say she knows a diamond when she sees it--most women do,’ and he gave me the necklace.”

“He meant, ‘some women do,’” murmured Mrs. Walsingham. “Well, it’s a wicked temptation, but--let me see it.”

It was with difficulty that she could restrain her laughter when the imitation necklace emerged from its wrappings and was solemnly handed to her by Richard.

“Put it on!” he urged.

“But it belonged to Maria Louisa--and didn’t she have her head cut off?” said Mrs. Walsingham.

“No--that was Marie Antoinette. Put it on!--I want to see you in it,” he said.

And Mrs. Walsingham put the necklace on, and managed to restrain her inclination to laugh, and she even contrived to look a little--or a good deal--sentimental when she allowed Richard to kiss her in her new bravery.

“Do you really want to give them to me very, very much?” she asked, half-plaintively, half-wonderingly.

“I’m going to give them to you,” declared Richard stoutly. “That settles it, now that I’ve seen them on you.”

“Ah, but you can’t tell the effect in daylight,” she said. “Wait until night.”

She was unusually tender to Richard that evening, and the young gentleman went home to Berkeley Square in a state of high delight. Burgoyne had taken up his quarters with him for a time on Richard’s urgent solicitations; there was abundance of room there, he said, and Kedgin, with the assistance of a younger valet, could look after both. And when Richard entered, Burgoyne was enjoying the end of a quiet hour over a pipe and a novel--on the open page of the novel the youth dropped a once-folded slip of pink paper.

“There you are, old chap!” said Richard. “Prompt cash on delivery, eh? It was awfully good of you, though Burgoyne, not to take more--I don’t know whether it’s a commercially honest transaction.”

Burgoyne looked lazily down at the cheque.

“Oh, ah, thanks,” he said. “So the lady approved the gew-gaws.”

“Looked ripping in ’em,” replied Richard.

Burgoyne yawned.

“Fair women do,” he said. And then added: “And I suppose dark women do, too. In fact, all shades. Well--I’m off to bed, young ’un--hard day to-morrow. Pleasant dreams!”

But once within his bedroom, Burgoyne’s lazy indifference disappeared, and his face grew stern and his eyes hard as he looked down at the cheque which Richard had handed him so debonairly.

“And so, Madam thinks that Fortune has thrown a fine turn in her favour!” he muttered. “All right--but we’ll save that boy from her yet. But--how?”

Towards the further solution of that question he next morning repaired to Chelsea and told Blair of the result of his scheme.

“Though I’m still absolutely in the dark as to what you intend to do next,” he said. “It seems to me--I’ve been thinking it out all the way down--that the lady’s got everything and we’ve got nothing.”

“We want to be quietly and unobtrusively certain as to what the lady really has got,” retorted Blair. “How were you going to make sure that she has your necklace without all the machinery of Scotland Yard and the police and all the wearisome, tedious rest of it? You can’t walk into her flat and search her belongings.”

“Well--how are we going to be certain now?” asked Burgoyne, with something approaching scepticism.

“Wait,” said Blair. “The next step is--you are going to give a little supper-party. You will take a box at some theatre--you will bespeak a private supper-room at--wherever you and Shrewsbury decide. For it is of the very essence of things that your young friend and his inamorata should be there--especially the lady. I also shall be there. That will make four of us--a pleasant number.”

“Well?” said Burgoyne. “That’s all right--I can fix that. What then?”

“Oh, well, I think that’s all at present,” answered Blair, nonchalantly. “Except this little detail, which is perhaps the most important of all: You might hint to Shrewsbury that you would like to see how Mrs. Walsingham looks in the necklace which formerly encircled the fair throat of Maria Louisa. Eh?”

Burgoyne pulled at his moustaches, and looked thoughtfully at his friend.

“I believe I see what you’re getting at,” he said at last. “Um--good idea!” And he went off to waylay Richard and sound him about a theatre.

“Choice of house and supper place to rest with Mrs. Walsingham, of course,” he said gallantly, when he had made known his desire to show hospitality to Richard and his fiancée. “Hope she’ll like to come.”

Mrs. Walsingham, duly informed of Captain Burgoyne’s polite wish to entertain her, was only too well disposed to be gracious to the last degree. She had, as she fondly imagined, just got rid of two affairs which had long caused her uneasiness, and she was disposed to enjoy herself to the full. And so she sent her prettiest thanks to Captain Burgoyne, and having also thanked her stars that she had a new theatre gown which she had never worn, she communicated to Richard the important intelligence that she meant, out of compliment to their host, to wear the famous necklace.

“Yes,” said Richard, who had been astute enough, in spite of his callowness, to wait a little before giving the hint, “yes, that would be a sort of delicate attention, wouldn’t it? And besides, I’d like it.”

So the box in which Mrs. Walsingham and her three cavaliers were seated that night attracted some attention, not merely because of the lady’s good looks, but also because the diamonds at her white throat sparkled like white fire in the glow of the electric lamps. And, of all the men and women there who occasionally looked in her direction, none were so much interested when they did look, as a certain man who sat in a dark but a convenient corner of the pit, and took good care that whatever he knew of the movements of the people on the stage, he kept himself fully conversant with the doings of the people in that particular box.

Ten minutes before the curtain rose on the first act of the drama which Mrs. Walsingham had selected, this man was walking aimlessly along the Strand. He was distinctly of the partially-broken-down order, but his tightly-buttoned tweed jacket was still quite presentable, his linen was clean and fresh, his boots were polished and uncracked. His dark, clean-shaven face bore the signs of a hard life; there were queer seams and wrinkles in it and a sinister, watching look in the gleaming eyes that showed themselves under the rim of a hat which had not originated on this side of the Atlantic. As he strolled along, he seemed to look at nothing--in reality, he was looking at every face he met.

The stroller came to the porticoed door of one of the theatres just as an electric brougham drove up and set down Mrs. Walsingham and her faithful Richard. The lights fell full on the woman’s face, and the strange man saw it for a full second as it moved past him and into the theatre. And with a subtle instinct he drew back, quickly, silently. When he looked again, Richard and his charge had disappeared amidst the blaze of lights within.

The man turned back on his steps and lounged a few yards up the Strand. He thrust his right hand into his trousers pocket and fingered some loose silver that lay there; he put a finger into the pocket of his waistcoat and rubbed the milled edge of a half-sovereign which nestled in solitude in a corner. And, half-doubtfully, and staring at the coloured lights which blazed over the pavement, he went back and approached the uniformed functionary who contemplated patrons and public from the lobby steps.

“What’s it cost to get into this place, anyway?” he asked.

The functionary looked his man up and down and gained an impression of him.

“Gallery one shilling--first turning on the right,” he answered.

“Guess I prefer the ground floor,” said the questioner, calmly.

“Pit--two shillings. First turning to the left,” said the uniform.

The stranger turned without further word, and finding a side-alley, lighted by one miserable lamp, walked up it until he ran into a small knot of people who were struggling to enter an almost indiscernible door, over which a feeble gas-jet threw out the word “Pit.” Within, the house was nearly full; at first he saw no sign of a seat. That concerned him little; he began to wander round the semi-circle at the back of the pit, searching the regions above for as far as he could see them. And suddenly, seated in a box on the dress-circle tier, with three men grouped about her, he saw Mrs. Walsingham. Also, now that she had removed her dainty cloak, he saw the diamonds which glittered round her dainty neck.

“That’s Sylvie, sure!” he said. “Well, that was real luck!”

Then he slid into a favourable seat, near a pillar, which was greatly of use to him when the lights went up. There he stayed all the evening, watchful. But when the final curtain fell, he was quickly outside, and he watched the little party of four emerge, and he followed them across the Strand until they passed into the courtyard of the _Hotel Cecil_.