"You have every assurance of it," I told him.
He fidgeted about, listening with obvious suffering to the girl's
raucous voice.
"Ever been in the profession?" I enquired.
"Never," was the hasty reply.
"What's your line to-night?"
"Tenor. Your pianist will be able to do what I want. I've heard her."
"If you win the prize, do you want a job?" I asked, more for the sake of
making conversation than from any real curiosity.
He shook his head.
"I've other work on."
"Down at the docks?"
"That's of no consequence, is it?" was the somewhat curt
reply.--"There, she's finished, thank heavens! Let me get this over."
I escorted him to the wings. The young lady, amidst a little volley of
good-natured chaff, jumped off the stage and returned to her friends.
Her successor crossed quickly towards Rose, who was still seated at the
piano. I slipped back behind the scenes. Mr. Richard Thomson was
examining the lock of the men's dressing room.
"He's got the key," I told him.
There was no reply. Then I saw that our patron held something in his
hand made of steel, which glittered in the light of an electric torch
which he had just turned towards the keyhole. A moment later the door
was opened and he disappeared. Out on the stage, Rose was playing the
first chords of a well-known Irish ballad. Then the young man began to
sing, and, notwithstanding my state of excitement, I found myself
listening with something like awe. The silence in the hall was of itself
an extraordinary tribute to the singer. Shuffling of feet, whispering
and coughing had ceased. I felt myself holding my own breath, listening
to those long, sweet notes with their curious, underlying surge of
passion. Then I heard Mr. Thomson's voice in my ear, curt and brisk.
"You've a telephone somewhere. Where is it?"
"In the passage," I pointed out.
He disappeared and returned just as a roar of applause greeted the
conclusion of the song. The young man hurried in from the stage. The Jew
shopkeeper was seated in the same chair, with his hands in his pockets
and a disconsolate expression upon his face. Outside, the audience was
literally yelling for an encore.
"You'll have to sing again," I told him.
"I don't want to," he declared passionately. "I was a fool to come."
"Nonsense!" I protested, for the uproar outside was becoming unbearable.
"Listen! They'll have the place down if you don't."
"I sha'n't go on," his rival competitor grumbled sombrely, thrusting a
cigar into his mouth and feeling in his pockets for a match. "You've
queered my pitch all right. They're all Irish down in this quarter.
You've fairly got 'em by the throat."
The young man stood still for a moment, listening to the strange cries
which came from the excited audience. Suddenly inspiration seemed to
come to him. His eyes flashed. He turned away and strode out on to the
stage almost with the air of a man possessed by some holy purpose. I
followed him to the wings, and from there I had a wonderful view of all
that happened during the next few minutes. The young man stood in the
middle of the stage, waved his hand towards Rose, to intimate that he
needed no music, waited for a few more moments with half-closed eyes and
a strange smile upon his face, and commenced to sing. I realised then
what inspiration meant. He sang against his will, carried away by an
all-conquering emotion, sang in Gaelic, a strange, rhythmic chant, full
of deep, sweet notes, but having in it something almost Oriental in its
lack of compass and superficial monotony. Again the silence was amazing,
only this time, as the song went on, several of the women began to sob,
and a dozen or more men in the audience stood up. Afterwards I knew
what that song meant. It was the Hymn of Revolution, and every line was
a curse.
From my place in the wings I was able to follow better, perhaps, than
any one else in the room, the events of the next sixty seconds. I saw
two policemen push their way along the stone passage, past the box
office and into the back of the hall, led by a man in plain clothes, a
stalwart, determined-looking man with a look of the hunter in his face.
Almost at the same moment the singer saw them. His song appeared somehow
to become suspended in the air, ceased so abruptly that there seemed
something inhuman in the breaking off of so wonderful a strain. He stood
gazing at the slowly approaching figures like a man stricken sick and
paralysed with fear. Then, without a word, he left the stage, pushed
past me, sprang for the dressing room, and, turning the key in the lock,
disappeared inside. I followed him for a few yards and then hesitated.
Behind, I could hear the heavy, slowly moving footsteps of the police,
making their way with difficulty through the crowd, a slight
altercation, the stern voice of the detective in charge. Then, facing
me, the young man emerged from the dressing room, ghastly pale, shaking
the coat in which he had arrived, distraught, furious, like a man who
looks upon madness. Mr. Richard Thomson leaned back in his chair, his
mouth open, his whole attitude indicative of mingled curiosity and
surprise.
"What you break off for like that, young man?" he demanded. "Have you
forgotten the words? You've won the quid all right, anyway."
"I've been robbed!" the singer called out. "Something has been stolen
from the pocket of this coat!"
"You locked it up yourself," I reminded him, with a sudden sinking of
the heart.
"I don't care!" was the wild reply. "It was there and it is gone!"
He flung the coat to the ground with a gesture of despair. The advancing
footsteps and voices were louder now. The man in the plain clothes
pushed his way through the wings, beckoned the police to follow and
pointed to the young man.
"The game's up, Mountjoy," he said curtly. "We don't want any shooting
here," he added, as he saw the flash of a revolver in the other's hand.
"I've half a dozen men outside besides these two."
The trapped man seemed in some measure to recover himself. He half faced
me, and the revolver in his hand was a wicked looking instrument.
"Some one has been at my clothes," he muttered, his great black eyes
glaring at me. "If I thought that it was you----"
I was incapable of reply, but I imagine that my obviously dazed
condition satisfied him. He turned from me towards where Mr. Richard
Thomson was seated, watching the proceedings with stupefied interest,
breathing heavily with excitement, his mouth still a little open.
"Or you," the young man added menacingly.
Thomson held out his hands in front of his face.
"You put that up, Mister," he enjoined earnestly. "If you're in a bit of
trouble with the cops, you go through with it. Don't you get brandishing
those things about. I've known 'em go off sometimes."
The singer's suspicions, if ever he had any, died away. He tossed the
revolver to the officer, who had halted a few yards away.
"Better take me out the back away," he advised. "There'll be trouble if
the crowd in front gets to know who I am."
The officer clinked a pair of handcuffs on his captive's wrists with a
sigh of satisfaction. They moved off down the passage. All the time
there had been a queer sort of rumble of voices in front, which might
well have been a presage of the gathering storm. I moved back to the
wings just in time to see the torch thrown. The girl who had been seated
with the young man, suddenly leaped upon a bench. She snatched off her
hat and veil as though afraid that they might impede her voice. A coil
of black hair hung down her back, her face was as white as marble, but
the strength of her voice was wonderful. It rang through the hall so
that there could not have been a person there who did not hear it.
"You cowards!" she shouted. "You have let him be taken before your eyes!
That was Mountjoy who sang to you--our liberator! Rescue him! Is there
any one here from Donegal?"
Never in my life have I looked upon such a scene. The men came streaming
like animals across the benches and chairs, which they dashed on one
side and destroyed as though they had been paper. I was just in time to
seize Rose and draw her back to the farthest corner when the sea of
human forms broke across the stage. Nobody took any notice of us. They
went for the back way into the street, shouting strange cries,
brandishing sticks and clenched fists, fighting even one another in
their eagerness to be first. Until they were gone, the tumult was too
great for speech. Rose clung to my arm.
"What does it mean, Maurice?" she asked breathlessly. "Who is he?"
"I have no idea," I answered, "but I can tell you one thing. To-night
has been our début."
"Talk plain English," Leonard begged. "Remember we had to be on the
stage all the time."
"It means," I explained, "that we've begun our little job as spokes in
the wheel which our friend Mr. Richard Thomson is turning. You remember
the other competitor, a man who never sang at all, who looked like a Jew
fishmonger in his best clothes?"
"What about him?" Rose demanded.
"He was Mr. Richard Thomson," I told her. "You and I, Leonard, are
simply mugs at making up. It was the most wonderful disguise I ever saw
in my life."
"That accounts for it," she declared, with a little shiver. "He has been
here before, watching. I told you that I felt him around, without ever
recognising him."
"Where is he now?" Leonard asked abruptly.
We searched the place. There was no sign of our patron. Just as
mysteriously as he had come, he had disappeared. The young lady in blue
satin came up and claimed her sovereign. We went down into the
auditorium and inspected the damage. Finally, as we were on the point of
leaving, a smartly dressed page came in through the back door and handed
me a note. It was dated from the Adelphi Hotel and consisted only of a
few lines:
Mr. Richard Thomson presents his compliments and will be glad
to see Miss Mindel, Mr. Lister and Mr. Cotton to supper
to-night at eleven-thirty.
History repeated itself. When we presented ourselves at the Adelphi
Hotel and enquired for Mr. Richard Thomson, doors seemed to fly open
before us, a reception clerk himself hurried out with smiles and bows,
and conducted us to the lift. We were ushered into a luxurious sitting
room on the first floor and welcomed by our host, whose carefully donned
dinner clothes and generally well-cared-for appearance revealed gifts
which filled me with amazement.
"This is a very pleasant meeting," Mr. Thomson declared, as he placed us
at the table and gave orders that the wine should be opened. "We met
last on the east coast, I remember. I trust that you are finding
business better?"
"Business is wonderfully good," I acknowledged.
"We turned away money last week," Leonard announced.
There was something a little unreal about the feast which was presently
served, excellent though it was, and I am quite sure that we three
guests breathed a sigh of relief when at last the table was cleared and
the waiter dismissed. Our host lit a cigar and leaned back in his high
chair. With the passing of that smile of hospitality from his lips, his
face seemed to have grown hard and unpropitious.
"I trust," he said slowly, "that you are all satisfied with our
arrangement so far?"
"We are more than satisfied," I assured him, trying to infuse as much
gratitude as I could into my tone. "I am thankful to say that we are
able to put by a little every week, too, towards the capital which you
advanced. The new costumes, songs and posters are bringing something of
their own back."
Mr. Thomson waved his hand.
"That is a matter of no concern," he pronounced. "Have you anything
further to say?"