FIASCO
A curious episode marked our arrival at the gallery. On the opposite
side of Bond Street, you may recall that there is a block of offices
and showrooms, occupied by beauty specialists, modistes, and others.
Well, at the entrance to the gallery, where an announcement stated
that an exhibition of modern drawings and art photographs was being
held in aid of, etc., we bumped into one of Nanette’s Madeira
conquests.
“Hallo, Milton!” said I.
The young man, who had been leaning against the doorway and staring
abstractedly across the street, became galvanized into sudden action.
He gave a swift look at me, a second look at Jack, and then:
“Hallo, Decies,” he returned in an oddly guilty way.
Immediately he stared across the street again. At which moment came a
cry from Jack.
“Gad! There’s Nanette!”
“Where?” I asked.
“In that window, on the first floor there. She has seen us, I think.”
I followed the direction of his gaze. The window indicated belonged to
an expert organizer of female hair. An attractive wax bust was visible
but no Nanette. I turned to Milton.
“_Is_ Nanette there?” I asked.
“I couldn’t say,” he replied evasively.
Jack gave him a venomous glance and started across the street.
“We can see for ourselves,” he snapped.
I looked inquiringly at the young man in the doorway, but he returned
my regard with so high a challenge that I wondered, checked the words
on my tongue, and followed Jack.
We mounted the stairway to the first landing, and Jack threw open a
door bearing the simple legend “Pierre” with quite unnecessary
violence. We found ourselves in a discreet waiting room delicately
perfumed. A stout French gentleman, whose wavy gleaming locks were a
credit to his professional acquirements, greeted us. He bowed.
“I have called for a lady who is here,” said Jack. “Please tell her
Mr. Decies and Mr. Kelton.”
“But there is some mistake,” Pierre replied--assuming that this was
none other than the maestro in person. “No one is here at the
moment--unless you mean Mlle. Justine, my assistant.” He raised his
voice. “Justine!”
A trim figure in white appeared at the door of an inner sanctuary
sacred to hair.
“M’sieur?” said Justine, and bestowed upon us a swift glance of
roguish dark eyes.
“You are alone?”
“Yes, m’sieur. I am waiting for Lady Rickaby whose appointment is at
three.”
She bit her lip, suppressing a smile, and disappeared.
“You see?” M. Pierre extended apologetic palms. “There is no one.”
“What’s afoot?” Jack asked as we regained Bond Street. “That fat bird
was lying. The girl gave it away. Nanette is hiding from us.”
We stared at each other, badly puzzled. Then we looked across to where
Milton lounged in the entrance to the Modern Gallery, seemingly
oblivious of our existence.
“Come on!” said Jack savagely.
We joined the waiting Milton.
“Have you seen the famous picture?” I asked.
“No,” he replied, “I haven’t.”
Jack made a snorting noise, then, paying a shilling each, we went into
the exhibition. We found it to be far from crowded, and, indeed, the
artistic donations were not of outstanding merit. Quite the most
interesting exhibit was the lady in charge of the sales department.
And, at the end of a ten minutes’ quest, we sought her aid.
“Perhaps you could tell me,” said I, “where the picture is that was
reproduced in to-day’s _Planet_--a portrait of a girl diving.”
Whereupon the lady addressed began to laugh!
Jack’s expression was worthy of study. In the eyes of poor Jack,
anything touching Nanette was sacred, and this was the second time in
one afternoon that inquiries concerning her had provoked merriment.
“I wish I could!” was the reply. “Really, it’s most absurd. But all
the same the publicity has done the exhibition a lot of good. Forgive
my laughter, but, you see, we know nothing whatever about this
picture!”
“What!”
Jack’s exclamation was not merely rude; it was explosive.
“It has never been here,” she went on. “Dozens of people have asked
about it. But _we_ have never seen it. The secretary ’phoned the
_Planet_ this morning and was told that they had used the photograph
in good faith.”
“But who sent it to them?” I asked.
“I am afraid I can’t tell you,” was the answer. “All we could learn
was that it had been sent in by a responsible agency. Personally, of
course, we are rather grateful.”
In silence Jack and I departed. Milton was standing in Bond Street
just outside the doorway.
“Good-bye, Milton,” I said. “Let’s hope it keeps fine.”
“Good-bye, Decies,” said he, jauntily imperturbable.
Jack glanced sharply up at M. Pierre’s windows; but only the wax bust
rewarded his scrutiny.
“I am beginning to hate your friend Milton,” he confided.
“He is not so popular with _me_,” I confessed.
“Come round to the club,” Jack suggested. “This thing calls for cool
reflection.”
I left him at four o’clock. We had telephoned Nanette’s mother, only
to learn that Nanette had not returned. The whole thing was
provokingly mysterious. It had entirely diverted my thoughts from the
more serious problem of the capture of Adolf Zara. In fact, I could
not shake my mind free of it.
That Nanette had been hiding in the establishment of M. Pierre, I no
longer doubted. And that Milton had some part in the comedy was clear
enough. Poor fellow, I regarded him in a more charitable spirit than
Jack had at command. Nanette had been using him--for what purpose I
could not imagine--and his reward would be small.
Some association between Nanette, at M. Pierre’s, and Milton, in the
entrance of the Modern Gallery, seemed to be established. But since
Nanette’s photograph was not in the gallery, why this association--and
conveying what?
Nothing--in so far as my bewildered brain served me.
So I mused, as I drifted along Pall Mall. I determined to hunt up
O’Shea, when, suddenly, I saw something which called me to prompt
action.
A taxi turned a corner at the very moment I was about to cross. In it
sat Nanette--and Adolf Zara!
It is in such moments of stress as this that vacant cabs magically
disappear from the streets. No fewer than five taximen had solicited
my patronage during the few minutes that had elapsed since I had left
Jack.
Now, with a dangerous agitator wanted by the British Government
disappearing in the distance, from end to end of Pall Mall not a taxi
was in sight!
When at last one crept into view, pursuit was out of the question.
If I had been perplexed before, perplexity now gave place to
consternation. The comedy of Bond Street had been no more than a gay
curtain draped before a stage set for drama. I tried in vain to allot
the actors their proper rôles. What part did the missing photograph
play? How came Zara in the cast? What of Milton? And what of Nanette?
It was not far to my chambers, and I hurried back, with the intention
of ’phoning O’Shea.
I met him at the door.
Those who enjoyed the privilege of seeing Edmond O’Shea in action
relate that when things were going hopelessly wrong he would fix his
monocle immovably in his eye and retain it there, contrary to
regulations, throughout the hottest fighting. He was wearing it now.
“Hallo, O’Shea!” I called. “This is lucky! I want to see you badly.”
“I came to see _you_, Decies,” said he. “There is something I wish you
to know.”
Having opened the door and hurried him upstairs:
“Don’t jump to conclusions,” I began. “But Nanette met Zara this
afternoon.”
O’Shea stared at me incredulously.
“Where?” he demanded.
“I don’t know where. But I saw them together not ten minutes ago.”
He hesitated for a moment; then:
“Tell me all about it,” he said calmly.
In as few words as possible I outlined the events of the day,
terminating with my glimpse of Nanette and Adolf Zara together in Pall
Mall.
“It is a blank mystery to me, O’Shea,” I said. “I simply cannot
understand what it’s all about.”
“To me,” he replied, “it is equally, but painfully, clear.”
“What do you mean?”
“In the first place,” said he, “our friend the inspector borrowed your
negative of Nanette.”
“The inspector! In heaven’s name, what for?”
“Because he happens to be a clever man at his trade. I declined to
allow him to insert a paragraph in Nanette’s name. But he was by no
means defeated. He employed certain official channels and secured the
publication of her photograph.”
“With what object?”
“You recall the words that appeared under the picture?”
“Clearly. But the original was _not_ in Bond Street.”
“Quite unnecessary that it should be, Decies. Our friend the inspector
was in Bond Street, however.”
I think I was gaping like an imbecile.
“You are simply confusing me, O’Shea,” I managed to say.
“Yes,” he admitted. “No doubt the scheme is difficult to grasp. You
see--the inspector banked on Zara’s infatuation for Nanette. He judged
it, no doubt, by the risk that Zara ran in communicating with her.”
“Good heavens!” I cried. “I see it all! He hoped in this way to lure
Zara to the gallery?”
“Certainly. He thought that Zara would probably come, first, to secure
the picture, and, second, possibly to obtain a glimpse of Nanette in
person.”
“And you say the inspector was there? I didn’t see him.”
“I did!” said O’Shea grimly. “He was in an office at the end of the
gallery--with the door ajar. The girl in charge knew he was there on
some police business, but she did not know that it had any connection
with the missing print. I gave him a crisp five minutes. But,
officially, he was within his rights--and he knew it, dash him!”
“O’Shea,” I said, “I can’t fit Nanette and young Milton into the
picture.”
O’Shea’s expression changed, softened.
“I wonder?” he murmured. “She has a high spirit, and, I am beginning
to think, a keen brain. Decies!”--he suddenly grasped my
shoulder--“how happy some man is going to be, some day!”
He turned aside abruptly, and walked into the inner room where my
modest library formed a haven of refuge. Vaguely, as we had talked, I
had grown aware of voices below. My man was one of the speakers; the
other voice had been inaudible throughout.
Then I heard the door open behind me. I looked. And there was Nanette!
But, even as I was about to greet her, I checked the words. I had seen
Nanette merry; I had seen her sad. I knew her moods of coquetry and of
contrition. But, always, save once, I had thought of her as a child. I
did not know her as I saw her now.
“I thought you were my friend,” she said. “I thought I could trust
you. If I had had one little doubt I would never have told you----”
“Nanette,” I began----
But she checked me with a sad, angry gesture.
“You are no better than _he_ is,” she went on bitterly; “for you
helped him. Heavens, what a fool I have been! And he only thinks of me
as a _bait_ for his traps!”
“Stop!” I cried. “For heaven’s sake, stop, Nanette!”
“He was right,” she pursued, stonily ignoring me, and looking
unseeingly, miserably, before her as she spoke. “Captain Slattery
came. But I had arranged to warn him.”
I remembered Milton and his watch upon the window of M. Pierre. Then,
abruptly, her mood changed. The blue eyes, which were so sweetly
childish, blazed at me.
“No man, however bad he is, shall ever be lured to ruin by _me_. Tell
Major O’Shea that Captain Slattery is laughing at him!”
“He is entitled to laugh, Nanette,” said a grave voice.
O’Shea came out from the recess and stood watching her.
A moment she confronted him, then:
“Good-bye!” she said.
Turning, Nanette ran from the room. I heard the street door slam.
“O’Shea!” I cried. “Why didn’t you tell her?”
“It is better she should think as she does,” he replied. “Fate has
done what I failed to do. Now she will forget.”
I have often wondered, since, if he believed it would be so. I have
tried, knowing the man’s honesty of soul, to conceive that he hoped it
would be so. What _I_ believed or what I hoped I cannot pretend to
record. But, at some hour past midnight, I learned that Nanette was
unwilling to ignore the promptings of her heart.
Dejectedly, I sat smoking a lonely pipe, when the ’phone bell rang. I
took up the receiver. I think I knew who had called me, even before I
heard her voice.
“Is that you, Mr. Decies?”
“Yes, Nanette.”
“I am so miserable, because----”
She hesitated.
“Because of what?” I prompted gently.
“Because I never gave you a chance to explain. Oh, Mr. Decies! Tell
me--_is_ there something I don’t know?”
“Why, yes--there is,” I replied. “You don’t know that Major O’Shea and
I were totally ignorant of the plot to trap the man you call Captain
Slattery.”
“Oh!” came, as a sort of sigh, broken by a sob. “And I told him----
Mr. Decies, do you think you can ever forgive me?”
“I _do_ forgive you, Nanette.”
“And do you think---- Good-night!”
“Nanette!” I called. “Nanette!” But there was no answer.