"Too complicated for me," he said. "I consider the whole business
immoral."
I agreed, and switched to talk of solid, permanent investments. He
immediately looked interested.
"You seem to know something about such matters," he said. "Suppose a
man had a little money to invest, what would you advise?"
"Your savings?" I asked with a smile.
"Lord! I couldn't save anything. No, I have a friend who has a few
thousand surplus."
Being anxious to believe well of him I snatched at this straw. Maybe a
friend had entrusted him with money to invest. Hardly likely though,
and still more unlikely that it would be handed over in cash. I gave
him some good advice, and the subject was dropped.
Later we got to talking about acting again. He said in his bitter way:
"I shall soon be out of it now, one way or the other."
"What do you mean?" I asked.
"I mean to leave the stage at the close of this engagement or before."
"What are you going to do?"
"God knows!" he said with his laugh. "Go to the devil, I expect."
I couldn't get anything else out of him. It was all mysterious enough.
He sounded utterly reckless when you got below the surface, but somehow
it was not the recklessness of a crook.
Worse was to follow.
First, however, I must put down how the situation stood with Milbourne,
because I shall not return to him for some time. Kenton Milbourne! I
have to smile every time I write it, the fancy appellation was so
unsuitable to the tallow-cheeked, hatchet-faced talker who bore it. I
believed Milbourne had stolen the pearls, and I worked hard to justify
my belief, but without being able to lay anything bare against him.
Every night he talked me to a standstill. He seemed to be a man
totally devoid of individuality, temperament, a mere windbag. But I
told myself that dullness is the favourite and most effective disguise
of a sharper. His talk was a little too dull to be natural, and once
in a while I received an impression that he was anything but dull.
One night I said to him as Roland had said to me: "You don't seem like
an actor. How did you get into this business?"
"Drifted into it," he said. "Always knew I could act, but was too busy
with other things. I had an attack of typhoid in Sydney four years ago
which shattered my health. When I was getting better a friend gave me
the part of a human monster to play, just to help me pass the time. I
made a wonderful hit in it. They wouldn't let me stop. Since then
I've never been idle. I haven't any conceit, so they offer me the
horrible parts."
"Sydney?" I said.
"I was raised in Australia. I came to America last Fall because there
was a wider field for my art."
I put this down in my mind as a lie. I do not know Australia but I
suppose they have their own peculiarities of speech, and this man
talked good New York.
I asked idly what parts he had played in Australia. He named three or
four and I made careful mental notes of them. I thought I had him
there.
The next day I consulted old files of an Australian stage paper in the
rooms of the Actors' Society. To my chagrin I found his name, Kenton
Milbourne listed in the casts of the very plays he had mentioned. I
was far from being convinced of his genuineness, however. I wrote to
Australia for further information.
Under cover of my meek and gentle air, I continued to watch him close.
I could have sworn he was not aware of it, which shows how you may fool
yourself. His apparent stupidity still blocked me. But one night when
he lifted the tray of his trunk I saw the edge of a book underneath.
"Anything good to read?" I said, picking it up before he could stop me.
A peculiar look chased across his face, which was anything but
stupidity. The title of the book was: "The World's Famous Jewels."
"Aha! my man!" I thought. I dropped it, saying: "That's not in my
line."
This was how matters stood when things began to happen which drove all
thought of Kenton Milbourne out of my mind.
The next day Sadie came into the office to report, looking so
confoundedly pretty that it drove the detective business clean out of
my mind for the moment. What with her thirty dollars a week from the
theatre and her additional salary as operative (which Miss Hamerton
insisted on her taking) Sadie was in affluent circumstances, and for
the first time in her life she was able to dress as a pretty girl
ought. With her Spring hat and suit, her dainty gloves and boots, all
from the best shops, she was as smart a little lady as you'd find from
one end of the Avenue to the other.
"You look sweet enough to eat!" I said, grinning at her like a Cheshire
cat.
"Cut it out!" she said with her high and mighty air. "It's business
hours. I'm operative S.F."
"What's that for, swell figure?"
"Wait till after the whistle blows."
"After hours you're Miss Covington the actress, and I'm not allowed to
know you."
"Well, there's Sunday."
"But this is only Tuesday."
"I've got to respect my boss, haven't I?"
"What if I kissed you anyhow?"
"I'd box your ears!" she said quick as lightning.
And she would. I sighed, and came back to earth. It was not that I
was afraid of the box on the ears, but she was right, and I knew it.
As soon as I started that line of talk I resigned my proper place as
the boss of the establishment.
"What's new?" I asked.
"I found out something interesting to-day," she said. "Miss Hamerton's
in love with Roland Quarles."
"I guessed that long ago," I said calmly.
Sadie was much taken aback. Evidently she had expected to stun me.
"You never said anything about it," she said pouting.
"I left it for you to find out for yourself."
"She never believed he had anything to do with the robbery," Sadie said
with a touch of defiance.
"Then why was she so distressed in the beginning?"
"Well, there was something that would have looked like evidence to a
man," said Sadie scornfully. "So naturally she didn't want to tell
you."
"Did she tell you?" I asked, a little huffed at the thought that Sadie
was getting deeper in the confidence of my client than I.
"Yes, to-day. She didn't tell me about her feelings, of course. I
guessed that part."
"What is this mysterious thing?"
"She only told me because since she saw the cryptogram she knows there
couldn't be anything in it."
This was getting denser instead of more clear. "What was there about
the cryptogram that eased her mind?" I asked.
"She knows that it couldn't have been written to Roland Quarles because
he has no idea of leaving the company."
"Oh, hasn't he!" I thought to myself. How strangely loving women
reason. Aloud I said: "Now for the thing that a mere man would have
considered evidence."
"Don't try to be sarcastic," said Sadie. "It doesn't suit you."
"Who's forgetting that I'm the boss now?" I said severely.
She made a face at me and went on: "It seems that Miss Hamerton and
Roland Quarles had a bet on about the pearls."
This was something new. I pricked up my ears.
"She laughed at him because he thought he knew something about jewels,
and she says he scarcely knows a pearl from an opal. They argued about
it, and she finally bet him a box of cigars against a box of gloves
that he wouldn't be able to tell when she wore the genuine pearls.
That is how she came to wear them the night they were stolen."
"The devil!" I exclaimed.
"But he has never spoken about it since. She believes that he has
forgotten all about the bet."