Mr. Trasmere walked steadily and at one pace, keeping to the more
populous streets. Then at exactly 8.25 he turned into Peak Avenue, that
wide and pleasant thoroughfare where his house was situated. A man who
had been idling away a wasted half-hour saw him and crossed the road.
“Excuse me, Mr. Trasmere.”
Jesse shot a scowling glance at the interrupter of his reveries. The
stranger was young and a head taller than the old man, well dressed,
remarkably confident.
“Eh?”
“You don’t remember me--Holland? I called upon you about a year ago
over the trouble you had with the municipality.”
Jesse’s face cleared.
“The reporter? Yes, I remember you. You had an article in your rag that
was all wrong, sir--all wrong! You made me say that I had a respect for
municipal laws and that’s a lie! I have no respect for municipal laws
or lawyers. They’re thieves and grafters!”
He thumped the ferrule of his umbrella on the ground to emphasize his
disapproval.
“I shouldn’t be surprised,” said the young man with a cheerful smile,
“and if I made you toss around a few bouquets that was _faire bonne
mine_. I’d forgotten anyway, but it is the job of an interviewer to
make his subject look good.”
“Well, what do you want?”
“Our correspondent in Pekin has sent us the original proclamation of
the insurgent, General Wing Su--or Sing Wu, I’m not sure which. These
Chinese names get me rattled.”
Tab Holland produced from his pocket a sheet of yellow paper covered
with strange characters.
“We can’t get in touch with our interpreters and knowing that you are
a whale--an authority on the language, the news editor wondered if you
would be so kind.”
Jesse took the sheet reluctantly, gripped his bag between his knees and
put on his glasses.
“‘Wing Su Shi, by the favour of heaven, humbly before his ancestors,
speaks to all men of the Middle Kingdom,’” he began.
Tab, note-book in hand, wrote rapidly as the old man translated.
“Thank you, sir,” he said when the other had finished.
There was an odd smirk of satisfaction on the old man’s face, a
strange, childlike pride in his accomplishment.
“You have a remarkable knowledge of the language,” said Tab, politely.
“Born there,” replied Jesse Trasmere, complacently, “born in a go-down
on the Amur River and could speak the three dialects before I was six.
Beat the whole lot of ’em at their own books when I was so high! That
all, mister?”
“That is all, and thank you,” said Tab gravely, and lifted his hat.
He stood looking after the old man as he continued his walk. So that
was Rex Lander’s miserly uncle? He did not look like a millionaire and
yet, when he came to consider the matter, millionaires seldom looked
their wealth.
He had settled the matter of the Wing Su proclamation and was immersed
in a new prison report which had been published that day when he
remembered an item of news which had come his way and duly reported.
“Sorry, Tab,” said the night editor, “the theatre man has ’flu. Won’t
you go along and see the lady?”
Tab snorted, but went.
The dresser, hesitating, thought that Miss Ardfern was rather tired,
and wouldn’t tomorrow do?
“I’m tired, too,” said Tab Holland wearily, “and tell Miss Ardfern that
I haven’t come to this darned theatre at eleven p.m. because I’m an
autograph hunter, or because I’m collecting pictures of actresses I’m
crazy about; I’m here in the sacred cause of publicity.”
To the dresser, he was as a man who spoke a foreign language. Surveying
him dubiously, she turned the handle of the stained yellow door, and
standing in the opening, talked to somebody invisible.
Tab had a glimpse of cretonne hangings, yawned and scratched his head.
He was not without elegance, except in moments of utter tiredness.
“You can come in,” said the dresser and Tab passed into a room that
blazed with unshaded lights.
Ursula Ardfern had made her change and was ready to leave the theatre
except that her jacket was still hung on the back of one chair, and
her cloth cloak with the blue satin lining was draped over another.
She had in her hand a brooch which she was about to put into an open
jewel-case. Tab particularly noticed the brooch. A heart-shaped ruby
was its centre-piece. He saw her pin it to the soft lining of the lid
and close the case.
“I’m extremely sorry to worry you at this hour of the night, Miss
Ardfern,” he said apologetically, “and if you’re annoyed with me, you
have my passionate sympathy. And if you’re not mad at me, I’d be glad
of a little sympathy myself, for I’ve been in court all day following
the Lachmere fraud trial.”
She had been a little annoyed. The set of her pretty face told him that
when he came in.
“And now you’ve come for another trial,” she half-smiled. “What can I
do for you, Mr.----?”
“Holland--Somers Holland of ‘The Megaphone’. The theatre reporter is
sick and we got a rumor tonight from two independent sources that you
are to be married.”
“And you came to tell me! Now, isn’t that kind of you!” she mocked.
“No, I am not going to be married. I don’t think I ever shall marry,
but you need not put that in the newspaper, or people will think I am
posing as an eccentric. Who is the lucky man, by-the-way?”
“That is the identical question that I have come to ask,” Tab smiled.
“I am disappointed,” her lips twitched. “But I am not marrying. Don’t
say that I am wedded to my art, because I’m not, and please don’t
say that there is an old boy and girl courtship that will one day
materialize, because there isn’t. I just know nobody that I ever wanted
to marry and if I did, I shouldn’t marry him. Is that all?”
“That’s about all, Miss Ardfern,” said Tab. “I’m really sorry to have
troubled you. I always say that to people I trouble, but this time I
mean it.”
“How did this information reach you?” she asked as she rose.
Tab’s frown was involuntary.
“From a--a friend of mine,” he said. “It is the first piece of news
that he has ever given to me and it is wrong. Goodnight, Miss Ardfern.”
His hand gripped hers and she winced.
“I’m sorry!” He was all apologies and confusion.
“You’re very strong!” she smiled, rubbing her hand, “and you aren’t
very well acquainted with us fragile women--didn’t you say your name is
Holland? Are you ‘Tab’ Holland?”
Tab coloured. It wasn’t like Tab to feel, much less display,
embarrassment.
“Why ‘Tab’?” she asked, her blue eyes dancing.
“It is an office nick-name,” he explained awkwardly, “the boys say that
I’ve a passion for making my exit on a good line. Really, I believe
it is the line on which a curtain falls. You’ll understand that, Miss
Ardfern, it is one of the conventions of the drama.”
“A tab-line?” she said. “I have heard about you. I remember now. It was
a man who was in the company I played with--Milton Braid.”
“He was a reporter before he fell--before he went on to the stage,”
said Tab.
He was not a theatre man and knew none of its disciples. This was the
second actress he had met in his twenty-six years of life, and she was
unexpectedly human. That she was also remarkably pretty he accepted
without surprise. Actresses ought to be beautiful, even Ursula Ardfern,
who was a great actress, if he accepted the general verdict of the
press and the ecstatic and prejudiced opinion of Rex Lander. But she
had a sense of humour; a curious possession in an emotional actress,
if he could believe all that he had read on the subject. She had grace
and youth and naturalness. He would willingly have stayed, but she was
unmistakably ending the interview.
“Goodnight, Mr. Holland.”
He took her hand again, this time more gingerly and she laughed
outright at his caution.
On the dressing-table was the small brown jewel-case and a glimpse of
it reminded him:
“If there is anything you’d like to go in the ‘Megaphone’,” he
floundered, “there was a paragraph in the paper about your having more
wonderful jewels than any other woman on the stage.”
He was being unaccountably gauche; he knew this and hated himself. It
did not need her quick smile to tell him that she did not wish for that
kind of publicity. And then the smile vanished, leaving her young face
strangely hard.
“No. I don’t think that my jewels and their value are very interesting.
In the part I am playing now it is necessary to wear a great deal of
jewelry--I wish it weren’t. Goodnight. I’m glad to upset the rumor.”
“I’m sorry for the bridegroom,” said Tab gallantly.
She watched him out of the room and her mind was still intent upon this
broad-shouldered, towering young man when her dresser came in.
“I do wish, Miss, you hadn’t to carry those diamonds about with you,”
said the sad-faced dresser. “Mr. Stark, the treasurer, said he would
put them in the theatre safe for you, and there’s a night watchman.”
“Mr. Stark told me that, too,” said the girl quietly, “but I prefer to
take them with me. Help me with my coat, Simmons.”
A few minutes later she passed through the stage-door. A small and
handsome little car was drawn up opposite the door. It was closed and
empty. She passed through the little crowd that had gathered to see her
depart, stepped inside, placed the jewel-case on the floor at her feet
and started the machine. The door-man saw it glide around the corner
and went back to his tiny office.
Tab also saw the car depart. He grinned at himself for his whimsical
and freakish act. If anybody had told him that he would wait at a
stage-door for the pleasure of catching a glimpse of a popular actress,
he would have been rude. Yet, here he was, a furtive and abashed man,
so ashamed of his weakness that he must look upon her from the darkest
corner of the street!
“Well, well,” said Tab, with a sigh. “We live and we learn.”
His flat was in Doughty Street, and stopping only to telephone the
result of his interview, he made his way home.
As he came into the sitting-room a man some two years his junior looked
up over the top of the arm-chair in which he was huddled.
“Well?” he asked eagerly.
Tab went to a large tobacco jar and filled his polished briar before he
spoke.
“Is it true?” asked Rex Lander, impatiently. “What a mysterious brute
you are!”
“Rex, you’re related to the Canards of Duckville,” said the other,
puffing solemnly. “You’re a spreader of false tidings and a creator of
alarm and despondency amongst the stage-door lizards--whose ancient
fraternity I have this night joined, thanks to you.”
Rex relaxed his strained body into a more easy and even less graceful
posture.
“Then she isn’t going to be married?” he said, with a sigh.
“You meant well,” said Tab, flopping into a chair, “and I know of no
worse thing that you can say about a man than that he ‘meant well!’ But
it isn’t true. She’s not going to be married. Where did you get hold of
this story, Baby?”
“I heard it,” said the other vaguely.
He was a boyish looking young man with a pink and white complexion.
His face was so round and cherubic that the appellation of ‘baby’ had
good excuse, for he was plump of person and lazy of habit. They had
been school fellows and when Rex had come to town at the command of
his one relative, his uncle, the sour Mr. Jesse Trasmere, to take up a
torturous training as an architect, these two had gravitated together
and now shared Tab’s small flat.
“What do you think of her?”
Tab thought before replying.
“She’s certainly handicapped with good looks,” he said cautiously. At
another time he would have added a word of disparagement or would have
spoken jokingly of Rex Lander’s intense interest in the lady, but now,
for some reason, he treated the other’s enquiry with more seriousness
than was his wont.
Ursula Ardfern stood for the one consistently successful woman
management in town. Despite her youth she had chosen and cast her own
plays and in four seasons had not known the meaning of the word failure.
“She’s quite charming,” Tab said. “Of course, I felt a fool;
interviewing actresses is off my beat anyway. Who is the letter from?”
He glanced up at the envelope propped on the mantelpiece.
“From Uncle Jesse,” said the other without looking up from his book. “I
wrote to him, asking him if he would lend me fifty.”
“And he said?-- I saw him today, by-the-way.”
“Read it,” invited Rex Lander with a grin.
Tab took down the envelope and extracted a thick sheet of paper written
in a crabbed, school-boy-hand.
“Dear Rex (he read), your quarterly allowance is not due until the
twenty-first. I regret, therefore, that I cannot agree to your request.
You must live more economically, remembering that when you inherit my
money you will be thankful for the experience which economical living
has given to you and which will enable you to employ the great wealth
which will be yours, in a more judicious, far-seeing manner.”
“He’s a miserable old skinflint,” said Tab, tossing the letter back to
the mantelshelf. “Somebody was telling me the other day that he’s worth
a million--where did he make it?”
Rex shook his head.
“In China, I think. He was born there and started in quite a humble
way as a trader on the Amur River Goldfields. Then he bought property
on which gold was discovered. I don’t know,” he said, scratching his
chin, “that I ought to complain. After all, there may be a lot in all
he says, and he has been a good friend of mine.”
“How often have you seen him?”
“I spent a week with him last year,” said Rex, with a little grimace at
the memory. “Still,” he hastened to add, “I owe him a lot. It may be
if I wasn’t such a lazy slug and didn’t like expensive things, I could
live within my income.”
Tab pulled at his pipe in silence. Presently he said:
“There are all sorts of rumors about old Jesse Trasmere. A fellow told
me the other day that he is a known miser; keeps his money in the
house, which, of course, is a romantic lie.”
“He hasn’t a banking account,” said the other surprisingly, “and I
happen to know that he does keep a very large sum of money at Mayfield.
The house is built like a prison and it has an underground strong-room
which is the strongest room of its kind. I have never seen it, but I
have seen him go down to it. Whether or not he sits down and gloats
over his pieces of eight, I have never troubled to discover. But it is
perfectly true, Tab,” he said earnestly, “he has no banking account.
Everything is paid out in cash. I suppose he does have transactions
through banks, but I have never heard of them. As to his being a
miser,” he hesitated, “well, he is not exactly generous. For example,
six months ago, he discovered that the man and his wife who looked
after Mayfield, which is a very small house, were in the habit of
giving the pieces of food left over to one of their poorer relatives,
and he fired them on the spot! When I was there this year, he was
shutting up all the rooms in the house except his own bedroom and his
dining-room, which he uses also as a study.”
“What does he do for servants?” asked Tab, and the other shook his head.
“He has his valet, Walters, and two women who come in every day, one to
cook and one to clean. But for the cook he has built a small kitchen
away from the house.”
“He must be a cheerful companion,” said Tab.
“He is not exactly exhilarating. He has a fresh cook every month. I
met Walters the other day and he told me that the new cook is the best
they’ve had,” admitted the other, and there followed a silent interval
of nearly five minutes.
Then Tab got up and knocked the ashes from his pipe.
“She certainly is pretty,” he said, and Rex Lander looked at him
suspiciously, for he knew that Tab was not talking about the cook.