I welcomed the chill, raw air of the street after that scented chamber.
After the elegant collector of jewels my crude and commonplace
fellow-citizens seemed all that was honest and sturdy. I was proud of
them. Yet I enjoyed going to Mount's rooms, too. One could count on
being thrilled one way or another.
7
As time went on I dismissed the women of the company from my
calculations--though I still kept an eye on them through Sadie. Of the
men I had most to do with two, Roland Quarles and Kenton Milbourne, the
first because I liked him, and the second because I didn't.
Though I had no evidence against him, the idea that Milbourne was the
thief had little by little fixed itself in my mind. It was largely a
process of elimination. All the others had proved to my satisfaction
one way or another that they couldn't have committed the robbery. With
the exception of Quarles, none of them had the brains to conceive of
such a plan, or to hide it afterwards. I didn't know if Milbourne had
the brains, indeed the more I went with him the less I knew. Yet he
did not seem to have a guard over himself. I laid several ingenious
little traps to get a sight of his bank-book, but did not succeed in
finding out even if he possessed such a thing.
Milbourne was a pasty, hatchet-faced individual, very precise and
conscientious in his manner, and exceedingly talkative. That was what
put me off. He talked all the time, but I learned nothing from it.
With his sharp, foxy features and narrow-set eyes he had the look of a
crook right enough, but after all looks are not so important as
disposition, and this heavy, dull-witted, verbose fellow was the
epitome of respectability. He was not at all popular in the company,
principally, I fancy, because of his over-nicety. He bragged of the
number of baths he took. He was not "a good fellow." He never joked
nor carried on with the crowd. In the play he took the part of a
brutal thug, a sort of Bill Sykes, and played it well though there was
nothing in his appearance to suggest the part. He was the fox, not the
bull-dog. Imagine a man with the appearance of a fox and the voice of
a sheep and you have Milbourne.
Shortly after I joined the company I was allotted to share his
dressing-room. He told me that he had requested the stage-manager to
make the change, because he objected to the personal habits of his
former roommate. So I had every opportunity to observe him. A lot of
good it did me. He talked me to sleep. He would recite all the news
of the day which I had just read for myself, and commented on it like a
country newspaper. You couldn't stop him.
Roland Quarles I cultivated for a different reason. I did not suspect
him. As a popular leading juvenile his life for years had been lived
in the public eye and there was no reason in the world save pure
cussedness why he should be a thief. I liked him. I was working hard,
but one can't be a detective every waking minute. I sought out Roland
to forget my work. I had started disinterestedly with the whole
company, but I gradually came to feel an affection for Roland,
principally because, much to my surprise, he seemed to like me.
I have said he was a morose young man. Such was my first impression.
He did not make friends easily. He was hated by all the men of the
company, because he despised their foolish conceit, and took no pains
to hide it. But the women liked him, I may say all women were
attracted to him. He did not plume himself on this, it was a matter of
great embarrassment to him. He avoided them no less than the men.
He was exceedingly good-looking and graceful, and there was not the
slightest consciousness of it in his bearing. In that among young
actors he stood alone. He had a sort of proud, reserved, bitter air,
or as a novelist would say, he seemed to cherish a secret sorrow. His
mail at the theatre was enormous. He used to stuff it in his pocket
without looking at it.
I got my first insight into his character from his treatment of me. Of
the entire company he and Milbourne were the only members who never
made my meek insignificance a target for unkind wit. Of them all only
this high and mighty young man never tried to make me feel my
insignificance. For a while he ignored me, but it seemed to strike him
at last that I was being put upon by the others, whereupon in an
unassuming way he began to make little overtures of friendship. I was
charmed.
One night after the show he offered me a cigar at the stage door, and
we walked down the street smoking and chatting until our ways parted.
He was not on during the second act, and after my brief scene I got in
the habit of stopping a while in his room before I went up to change.
He had good sense. It was worth while talking to him. We became very
friendly. He was only a year or two younger than I, but to me he
seemed like a mere kid.
One night in the middle of our talk he said: "You're not like an actor.
You're human."
"Don't you like actors?" I asked curiously.
"It's a rotten business for men," he said bitterly. "It unsexes them.
But here I am! What am I to do about it?"
I learned as I knew him better that the popular young actor,
notwithstanding the adulation of women--or perhaps because of it, led
an exemplary life. The dazzling palaces of the Great White Way knew
him not. It was his custom to go home after the show, have a bite to
eat in solitude, and read until he turned in.
One night he invited me to accompany him home. He had a modest flat in
the Gramercy Square neighbourhood with an adoring old woman to look
after him. The cheerful fire, the shaded lamp, the capacious easy
chair, gave me a new conception of bachelor comfort. Books were a
feature of the place.
"Pretty snug, eh?" he said, following my admiring eyes.
"Well, you're not like an actor either," said I.