Late in the afternoon, Gimblet, returning to the flat in Whitehall,
found a visitor awaiting him there.
Higgs, hearing his footstep in the hall, hurried out to meet him and
inform him of the fact.
"A young lady, sir. She gave me this card, and wants to see you on
business. She's been here about ten minutes, and I've taken tea in to
her, not knowing how long you might be, sir."
Gimblet took the card and read: "Miss Seraphina Finner, Inanity
Theatre." "Where is she?" he asked.
"In the waiting-room," replied Higgs; and Gimblet went at once into the
small sitting-room he set apart to be used by people unknown to him.
As he opened the door Gimblet checked himself for a moment on the
threshold with the sensation of entering some one else's room by
mistake. His visitor had pushed most of the furniture back against
the wall, and was, when he first caught sight of her, in the act of
pirouetting round in the middle of the floor, with her skirts lifted
high and one foot raised to the level of the mantelpiece. Her back was
towards him, but at the sound of the opening door she twisted round with
a swinging movement, and confronted him with a laugh.
"They told me you were out," said Miss Finner gaily, and without any
trace of embarrassment, "so I just started doing a bit of practising to
fill up the time while the tea is standing. Waste not, want not, that's
my motto," she added.
"I'm sorry to have kept you waiting," the detective began; "won't you
sit down now?" And he pulled out a chair she had piled with some others
in a corner, and offered it to her.
"I suppose I may as well," admitted the young woman; "though it does
seem a pity not to do a bit of exercising now I've cleared the room. You
see, I dance in 'The Jodeling Girl,' and one has to keep one's limbs
supple, or, if you aren't up to the mark one night, they put on somebody
else. Fact is," she added confidentially, "that's why they took me on.
Dixie Topping, who used to be one of the four of us that do the dance
I'm in, let herself get stiff, and one night when it came to kicking
William Tell's apple off the boy's head, she missed it clean, and, as
it's got to be done in time with the music, that put the conductor out,
so when she had another try, and missed it again, he got so mad that
they sacked her and put me on. Ill wind that blows no one any good,"
said Miss Seraphina philosophically.
Her belongings were strewn about the room: a great bouquet of carnations
lay on a chair, gloves and scarf were thrown on the bookshelf, while an
enormous hat covered with flowers and ribbons was poised on a cabinet.
She had drawn a curtain across the window, no doubt out of consideration
for her complexion, as Gimblet happened to have chosen for this room
hangings of a becoming rose colour; and the air was filled with the
reek of inexpensive scent. The detective compared it mentally, and
extremely unfavourably, with the Arome de la Corse. Altogether he would
not have recognised his own room, to such an extent had ten minutes of
Miss Seraphina Finner's occupation removed all former traces of his own
individuality. He actually started as he suddenly noticed, perched on
the mantelpiece, a pair of small white animals: a smooth-haired cat with
eyes of a greenish yellow, and a dog no bigger, but with a long, silky
coat. It appeared to be one of the tribe known to the unappreciative
as Fidos, and to the admiring owners as Toy Poms. It stood at one end
of the shelf, fidgeting and whining, but not daring to jump. The cat
had retired to the extreme opposite corner, where it sat with its paws
very close together and its tail curled tightly round them, surveying
the restless behaviour of the dog with a look of sleepy disdain. The
feelings with which Gimblet saw these two, but more especially the dog,
sharing this point of vantage with his best blue and white china may be
imagined. He was speechless; and perhaps it was just as well.
"I hope you don't mind Nigger and Pompom," said Miss Finner, as she
accepted a cup of tea, "lots of lumps, please, and heaps of cream too.
Seraphina's pets are her inseparable companions! Don't they look sweet
up there? I put them there to be out of the way while I was on my light
fantastic. It bothers me never to know when my foot will come down on
one of them, instead of the floor. Pompom seems to enjoy being trampled
on by the way he's always in the middle of the room." She seized the
woolly dog by the scruff of the neck and deposited it in her lap. "Was
you frightened of falling on your heady peady, darling," she murmured,
fondling it ecstatically. "No, no, you mustn't lick your auntie's
face; might give you a pain in your little inside. Isn't she a sweet
little affectionate thing?" she asked, raising her eyes for a moment to
Gimblet's. "Yes," she went on, as the little dog danced on her knee in a
frantic effort to make clear his need to share the cake she had taken,
"Pompom shall have a cake too. His auntie wouldn't let her darling go
hungry, no, she wouldn't! And Nigger shall have some cream for a nice
treat."
She poured some cream into a saucer and placed it on the floor at
her feet. The cat, which had watched the attentions showered on
Pompom with the cold eye of indifference, now abandoned its pose of
superiority, and jumping lightly to the ground approached the saucer on
noiseless, unhurried tiptoes. It began to lap the cream with a genteel,
condescending air, and with due regard for its whiskers, shaking its
head sharply if a drop adhered to one of their long, stiff hairs.
Miss Finner contemplated the sight with admiring delight.
"Doesn't it do your heart good to see how he likes it?" she asked, "and
aren't his manners lovely? Oh, Pompom, what an example he is to you,
darling!" she exclaimed, as Pompom snatched at a piece of cake and
swallowed it with one gulp. "Try and behave like your brother does, my
angel. He's always the same," she went on, "I don't care where you put
him, Nigger is always the perfect gentleman. Why! I took them across
to Paris at Easter. Didn't know what a trouble I should have smuggling
Pompom home again, or I should have left her behind in London. I tied
feathers all over her, though, and put her in a bonnet box, so they took
her for a hat, the darling. As if any hat was half as beautiful! But,
as I was saying, we had a beast of a crossing. Oh my! that channel! And
poor Pompom was one of the first to feel it. And much as I love her, I
must say, she just gave way, and never made the tiniest little effort
to hide her feelings. But Nigger! If you'll believe me, that cat was
so ashamed of the way he felt he was going to behave that the tears
streamed down his face, and he just mewed and mewed till I could have
cried; only being so sick myself I really didn't care, as a matter of
fact. But though he felt so bad he didn't forget his manners and he
wouldn't be sick, he simply wouldn't, till I gave him a basin. Then
certainly. Oh Lord!" Miss Finner stopped. The recollection was too much
even for her; she was also slightly out of breath.
Gimblet listened to her with amusement. Though he wondered vaguely what
her business with him could be, he let her run on, supposing that she
would disclose it in time. After a moment she resumed in serious tones:
"It's a good thing, don't you think, to have a fad of some kind? It's so
hard to get noticed, isn't it? Expect you found that when you started
looking for thieves? People won't see that one's any different to
anyone else, do what you like. But manage to have something really out
of the common about you, and you get your chance. That's what I think.
They forget me all right, but they remember my white cat and dog, and
after a little they begin to notice me too. I had a pretty hard time at
first, I tell you," Miss Finner sighed. "But I'm getting on well now,
thanks," she continued, with a return of her former vivacity. "Of course
I haven't got a speaking part yet, but I'm doing a dance, and that's
something at the Inanity. Some one sent me a diamond brooch last week,"
she added with pride, pointing to an ugly little diamond star. "What do
you think of it? You're a judge of stones, I should think, being always
in the society of burglars, as one may say."
Gimblet examined and admired. "I'm afraid, though, I'm not really a
judge," he said.
"That's your modesty. But, as you see, I'm prosperous. And it isn't
after the reward that I've come. Not that I'll deny that the money would
always be useful. Still, it's the ad. I'm thinking about. Will you put
my name in the paper now? 'Miss Seraphina Finner of the Inanity brings
news of the missing ladies.' That's what I'd like to see, right across a
poster."
A flicker of interest showed itself for an instant on Gimblet's face.
"So that's it," he said to himself.
Aloud he answered: "I don't know whether I can promise you that just
yet. It rather depends, you know. But if I am called upon to send any
communication on the subject to the press, you may be sure that, if
possible, your name shall be inserted."
Seraphina pouted. "I call that stingy," she complained. "He might put us
on a poster, Pompom, mightn't he? He's an unkind, cruel man, he is."
"What do you know of the missing ladies?" asked Gimblet, disregarding
these observations.
Miss Finner assumed an air of importance. "I didn't know anything about
it till lunchtime," she said. "Not being what you'd call an early riser,
it's not often I take a squint at the newspapers unless it's in the
afternoon. But to-day a friend came to see me and we had lunch together.
By and by she begins talking about one thing and another, and presently
she says: 'Have you read about these ladies that have disappeared?'
So I said no, what was it, and she said: 'What! haven't you seen the
paper? There's an exciting bit about them in this morning's _Crier_.'
When she'd told me all she could remember, I began to get interested. I
had a feeling, you know, as if this was in my part. So I sent out for
a paper, and they brought in one of the evening editions which had the
reward and description of the ladies in it, as well as everything, or so
my friend said, that the _Crier_ had. I read it all out loud, and when
I came to the part about wearing a white dress with mauve cloak heavily
embroidered and a large amount of valuable jewellery, I said to myself:
'This, Seraphina, my dear, is where you walk on.' By the time I'd
finished the paragraph I was certain sure. It was just a fluke," said
Miss Finner reflectively, "that I ever saw that description or heard
anything about it at all, for, as I say, I don't look at the papers more
than about once in a fortnight, unless it's the notices of a new show."
Gimblet's murmured comment might have passed for astonishment,
agreement, or merely encouragement to proceed. He thought it best to let
her tell her story in her own way.
"It's a funny thing," she went on after a moment's silence; "it seems
somehow as if it was meant to be, doesn't it? Well, the reason why I
felt so excited, when I read the description, was because I had seen the
ladies later than anyone else. I saw them on Monday night, after they
left the opera."
"And where did you see them?" asked Gimblet, bending over the cat,
which, having finished the cream, was rubbing itself in a friendly
fashion against his leg, where it left a covering of white hairs on his
dark trousers. "Poor pussy," he said, stroking it.
"I was driving home from the theatre in a taxi," said Seraphina. "I
live up in Carolina Road, N.W. I don't suppose you know it; up beyond
Regent's Park, to the right, as you may say, of Maida Vale. It was a
very hot, sultry night, you remember, and I'd got the cab open so as to
get a little air. I was tired for some reason--it's not often you can
tire me--and I put my head back, and my feet on one of the back seats,
and as near as possible went off into a snooze. That's why I can't tell
you exactly which street it was in, and I'm afraid that makes it very
awkward." Miss Finner's voice was full of regret.
"Suddenly we swung round a corner with such a bump that it roused me,
and I sat up and took notice. We were driving through a nice wide
street, with trees on each side, and good-sized houses set back in
little gardens, all separate from each other. Each garden had two gates,
and just room for a carriage to drive in and out. There wasn't a light
to be seen in one of them, and I thought how early the people in those
parts went to bye-bye. And then I caught sight of an open doorway, with
the light shining from it out into the small yard or garden in front,
and a street lamp standing exactly in front of it; so that between the
two the place was well lit up. There was a carriage just driving out
through the gate, and there were no shrubs or bushes in the garden,
nothing but a little yard it was, I think, so I could see the two ladies
standing in front of the door as plain as the nose on your face.
"I turned round when we'd passed and stared back at them, for the street
wasn't crowded with people in gorgeous opera cloaks and blazing with
diamonds, like one of these two was. I suppose it was Mrs. Vanderstein.
She was standing a little to one side, as if she'd taken a step or two
after the carriage, and was looking after it still. She had on a white
dress, all sparkling, and a mauve or pink cloak thrown open and back on
her shoulders, so I could see the jewels flashing and shining away all
over her as right as rain, just like it says in the papers. There was
a tiara on the top of her head as big as, as--" Seraphina gazed round
searchingly for a simile--"as big as that chandelier. Oh, it can't have
been anyone else! And besides, there was the other young lady; I didn't
look at her so much, but I can swear she had a red cloak on. There now!
As soon as I read about them I remembered what I'd seen on Monday night,
and I said to my friend: 'My dear, I'm going out to keep an appointment
with my photographer. Ta-ta.' I wasn't going to let on to her, of
course. She's a bit of a cat, as a matter of fact."
Miss Finner stopped, fixing on Gimblet a gaze full of modest pride. But
Gimblet sat, to all appearance, lost in thought. Though his eye met
hers, it was with an abstracted look, and this in spite of the fact that
Miss Finner's eyes were blue and darkly fringed. He could not fail to
observe her curls of gold, the pink transparency of her cheek, the broad
green and white stripes of her silken gown. He could not fail to hear,
whenever she moved, the jingling of bracelets, of the many charms that
were suspended from the chain around her white throat, and the merry
peal of her laugh; but all this seemed to be escaping his attention, and
Miss Finner could detect nowhere the glances of admiration, which she
considered the least that was due to her.
Instead, he had nothing but prosaic questions for her.
"What time do you say this was?"
"After the theatre. Nearly midnight. I was late getting away."
"You don't know the name of the street? Could you find your way to it
again?"
"Afraid not, it's not the way one generally goes. I've no idea where it
was, beyond what I've told you."
"And the house? Did you notice nothing about it to distinguish it from
its neighbours?"
"No, I didn't look at it specially. Yes, I did, though; there was a
board with 'To Let' on it, up on the railings. The light from the lamp
showed it very clearly."
"That's the only thing you can remember?"
"Yes," said Seraphina.
"You said the door was open. Could you see anything of the inside of the
house?"
"No, or at least I didn't notice anything. There might have been some
one standing in the hall. I don't know."
"Try and remember," urged Gimblet.
Miss Finner shut her eyes, contracted her brows, and gave herself up to
reflection.
"No good," she remarked, after an interval in which one might have
counted twenty.
"Did you notice the carriage which was driving away?"
"Can't say I did. It was a brougham, I think. I looked at the people on
the pavement."
"Did you see lights in the house--in the windows, I mean?"
"No, I think the only light came from the door."
"Were you able to observe the expression on the ladies' faces?"
"Oh no, we went by too quick for anything of that sort. I didn't notice
their faces at all, except that I believe they were both more or less
young women."
"You can't think of anything else, however trivial?"
Miss Finner could not.
"If anything else comes back to me, I'll let you know," she said
hopefully. "Don't you think you can find them from what I've told you?"
"I don't think there ought to be much difficulty in discovering the
house, or at all events the street," said the detective, "thanks for
your information, which may prove most valuable. You must allow me to
present you with the reward offered in the papers."
After a slight show of protest she did allow him.
"Well, I must be off now," she said, after that formality was
accomplished, and proceeded to gather her things together. "Thank you
for the tea. But, I say, don't you want to know a little more of the
beauteous stranger who is the bearer of the good tidings? You don't even
know my name."
"Oh yes, Miss Finner, I do know it," Gimblet assured her. "You left a
card in the hall; I saw it as I came in, but I should of course be
delighted to know more of you than that."
"Know then," said Seraphina, speaking in high, clear tones and with an
assumption of affectation, "know then that I am not what I seem. My
name, indeed, is a disguise, for my father, worthy man, was a Fynner
with a y, an obscure relation of the noble house of Fynner of Loch
Fyne. Though honest, he was poor; and my beloved and beautiful mother
came of a line as well connected and impecunious as his own. The
marriage aroused the wrath of both families, and the head of my father's
house, proud and haughty earl that he was, would never be brought to
acknowledge his unhappy cousins. I was educated in a convent, and, at
the death of my parents, found myself at the age of sixteen alone, and
without a penny in the world. Scorning to beg, I adopted the profession
of the stage, chiefly with a view to supporting an aged and suffering
relative, the aunt of my father's cousin. Now you know all there is to
know about the innocent and unfortunate daughter of a gallant gentleman,
the scion of a proud, but noble race."
Miss Finner tilted her nose skyward and drew herself up haughtily. Then,
with a disconcerting suddenness, she winked at Gimblet, and burst into a
peal of laughter.
"If you can't detect something fishy in that story," she cried, "you're
not the detective you're cracked up to be! But I often say that piece
about my family. A poor chap I used to know in my young days, when I
was in the provinces, made it up for me. A poet, he called himself, and
was always making up things; very pretty some of them were--if you like
that sort of thing. It was him that thought of my name, and I've never
regretted it really. But I never heard that he got anyone else to take
any notice of his composings, poor fellow." Miss Finner sighed and
looked rather sadly out of the window. "He was a good sort," she added
reminiscently; "one of the best. I put that bit in myself about being
educated in a convent," she concluded, pulling at her gloves. "It's the
usual thing."
With a white dog under one arm and a white cat under the other, Miss
Seraphina Finner, of the Inanity, talked herself out into the hall, and,
after an interval for the purpose of regaling Gimblet with an anecdote
of her earlier struggles, finally talked herself through the door and
out of the flat altogether.
Gimblet, returning to the little room and absently rearranging the
displaced chairs and tables in their habitual order, found it more
silent and lonely than before Seraphina had ever entered there, with her
incessant chatter, her boisterous mirth, and her happy vulgarity. As
he moved about the place, restoring to it the appearance of every-day
tidiness, his mind was busy with the information she had brought and the
question of his next move. He decided on it quickly as he was finishing
his task, and only lingered to pull back the curtain and throw open the
window, so that the odour of scent that Seraphina had bequeathed might
have an opportunity of dispersing. This he did, and then taking his hat
and a light overcoat, for the evening was chilly and the weather had
turned afresh to rain, he went down to the street and hailed a taxi.