Kitabı oku: «The Bandbox», sayfa 3
“You won’t tell me who it was in Lucille’s, yesterday?” he harked back pleadingly.
She shook her head gaily as she turned forward to the main companionway entrance: “No; you must find out for yourself.”
“But perhaps it isn’t a practical joke?”
“Then —perhaps– I shall tell you all – sometime.”
He paused by the raised door-sill as she stepped within the superstructure. “Why not stop up and see the tender come off?” he suggested. “It might be interesting.”
She flashed him a look of gay malice. “If we’re to believe Mrs. Ilkington, you’re apt to find it more interesting than I. Good night.”
“Oh – good night!” he muttered, disturbed; and turned away to the rail.
His troubled vision ranged far to the slowly shifting shore lights. The big steamship had come very close inshore – as witness the retarded speed with which she crept toward her anchorage – but still the lights, for all their singular brightness, seemed distant, incalculably far away; the gulf of blackness that set them apart exaggerated all distances tenfold. The cluster of sparks flanked by green and red that marked the hovering tender appeared to float at an infinite remove, invisibly buoyed upon the bosom of a fathomless void of night.
Out of this wind-swept waste of impenetrable darkness was to come the answer to these many questions that perplexed him – perhaps. Something at least would come to influence him; or else Mrs. Ilkington’s promise had been mere blague… Then what?
Afterwards he assured himself that his stupidity had been unparalleled inconceivable. And indeed there seems to be some colour of excuse for this drastic stricture, self-inflicted though it were.
Below him, on the main deck, a squad of deckhands superintended by a petty officer was rigging out the companion-ladder.
Very suddenly – it seemed, because of the immense quiet that for all its teeming life enveloped the ship upon the cessation of the engine’s song – the vessel hesitated and then no longer moved. From forward came the clank of chains as the anchor cables were paid out. Supple to wind and tide, the Autocratic swung in a wide arc, until the lights of the tender disappeared from Staff’s field of vision.
Before long, however, they swam silently again into sight; then slowly, cautiously, by almost imperceptible stages the gap closed up until the tender ranged alongside and made fast to her gigantic sister.
Almost at once the incoming passengers began to mount the companion-ladder.
Staff promptly abandoned his place at the rail and ran down to the main-deck. As he approached the doorway opening adjacent to the companion-ladder he heard a woman’s laugh out on the deck: a laugh which, once heard, was never to be forgotten: clear, sweet, strong, musical as a peal of fairy bells.
He stopped short; and so did his breath for an instant; and so, he fancied, did his heart. This, then, was what Mrs. Ilkington had hinted at! But one woman in all the world could laugh like that …
Almost at once she appeared, breaking through the cluster of passengers on the deck and into the lighted interior with a swinging, vigorous manner suggestive of intense vitality and strength. She paused, glancing back over her shoulder, waiting for somebody: a magnificent creature, splendidly handsome, wonderfully graceful, beautiful beyond compare.
“Alison!” Staff breathed hoarsely, dumfounded.
Though his exclamation could by no means have carried to her ears, she seemed to be instantly sensitive to the vibrations of his emotion. She swung round, raking her surroundings with a bright, curious glance, and saw him. Her smile deepened adorably, her eyes brightened, she moved impulsively toward him with outflung hands.
“Why,” she cried – “Why, Staff! Such a surprise!”
Nothing could have been more natural, spontaneous and unaffected. In an instant his every doubt and misgiving was erased – blotted out and as if it had never been. He caught and held her hands, for the moment speechless. But his eyes were all too eloquent: under their steadfast sincerity her own gaze wavered, shifted and fell. She coloured consummately, then with a gentle but determined manner disengaged her hands.
“Don’t,” she said in the low, intimate voice she knew so well how and when to employ – “don’t! People are looking …” And then with a bewildering shift, resuming her former spirit: “Of all things wonderful, Staff – to meet you here!”
She was acting – masking with her admirable art some emotion secret from him. He knew this – felt it intuitively, though he did not understand; and the knowledge affected him poignantly. What place had dissimulation in their understanding? Why need she affect what she did not feel – with him?
Distressed, bewildered, he met evasion with native straightforwardness.
“I’m stunned,” he told her, holding her eyes with a grave, direct gaze; “I’m afraid I don’t understand… How does this happen?”
“Why, of course,” she said, maintaining her artificial elation – “I infer – you’ve finished the play and are hurrying home. So – we meet, dear boy. Isn’t it delightful?”
“But you’re here, on this side – ?”
“Oh, just a flying trip. Max wanted me to see Bisson’s new piece at the Porte St. Martin. I decided to go at the last moment – caught the Mauretania on eight hours’ notice – stayed only three days in Paris – booked back on this tub by telegraph – travelled all day to catch it by this wretched, roundabout route. And – and there you are, my dear.”
She concluded with a gesture charmingly ingenuous and disarming; but Staff shook his head impatiently.
“You came over – you passed through London twice – you stayed three days in Paris, Alison – and never let me know?”
“Obviously.” She lifted her shoulders an inch, with a light laugh. “Haven’t I just said as much?.. You see, I didn’t want to disturb you: it means so much to – you and me, Staff – the play.”
Dissatisfied, knitting his brows faintly, he said: “I wonder …!”
“My dear!” she protested gaily, “you positively must not scowl at me like that! You frighten me; and besides I’m tired to death – this wretched rush of travelling! Tomorrow we’ll have a famous young pow-wow, but tonight – ! Do say good night to me, prettily, like a dear good boy, and let me go… It’s sweet to see you again; I’m wild to hear about the play… Jane!” she called, looking round.
Her maid, a tight-mouthed, unlovely creature, moved sedately to her side. “Yes, Miss Landis.”
“Have my things come up yet?” The maid responded affirmatively. “Good! I’m dead, almost…”
She turned back to Staff, offering him her hand and with it, bewitchingly, her eyes: “Dear boy! Good night.”
He bent low over the hand to hide his dissatisfaction: he felt a bit old to be treated like a petulant, teasing child…
“Good night,” he said stiffly.
“What a bear you are, Staff! Can’t you wait till tomorrow? At all events, you must…”
Laughing, she swept away, following her maid up the companion stairs. Staff pursued her with eyes frowning and perplexed, and more leisurely with his person.
As he turned aft on the upper deck, meaning to go to the smoking-room for a good-night cigarette – absorbed in thought and paying no attention to his surroundings – a voice saluted him with a languid, exasperating drawl: “Ah, Staff! How-d’-ye-do?”
He looked up, recognising a distant acquaintance: a man of medium height with a tendency toward stoutness and a taste for extremes in the matter of clothes; with dark, keen eyes deep-set in a face somewhat too pale, a close-clipped grey moustache and a high and narrow forehead too frankly betrayed by the derby he wore well back on his head.
Staff nodded none too cordially. “Oh, good evening, Arkroyd. Just come aboard?”
Arkroyd, on the point of entering his stateroom, paused long enough to confirm this surmise. “Beastly trip – most tiresome,” he added, frankly yawning. “Don’t know how I should have stood it if it hadn’t been for Miss Landis. You know her, I believe? Charming girl – charming.”
“Oh, quite,” agreed Staff. “Good night.”
His tone arrested Arkroyd’s attention; the man turned to watch his back as Staff shouldered down the alleyway toward the smoking-room. “I say!” commented Mr. Arkroyd, privately. “A bit hipped – what? No necessity for being so bally short with a chap…”
The guess was only too well founded: Staff was distinctly disgruntled. Within the past ten minutes his susceptibilities had been deeply wounded. Why Alison should have chosen to slight him so cavalierly when in transit through London passed his comprehension… And the encounter with Arkroyd comforted him to no degree whatever. He had never liked Arkroyd, holding him, for all his wealth, little better than a theatre-loafer of the Broadway type; and now he remembered hearing, once or twice, that the man’s attentions to Alison Landis had been rather emphatic.
Swayed by whim, he chose to avoid the smoking-room, after all – having little wish to be annoyed by the chatter of Mr. Iff – and swung out on deck again for a half-hour of cigarettes and lonely brooding…
But his half-hour lengthened indefinitely while he sat, preoccupied, in the deck-chair of some total stranger. By definite stages, to which he was almost altogether oblivious, the Autocratic weighed anchor, shook off her tender and swung away on the seven-day stretch. As definitely her decks became bare of passengers. Presently Staff was quite a solitary figure in the long array of chairs.
Two bells rang mellowly through the ship before he roused, lifted himself to his feet and prepared to turn in, still distressed and wondering – so much so that he was barely conscious of the fact that one of the officers of the vessel was coming aft, and only noticed the man when he paused and spoke.
“I say – this is Mr. Staff, isn’t it?”
Staff turned quickly, searching his memory for the name and status of the sturdy and good-looking young Englishman.
“Yes,” he said slowly, “but – ”
“I’m Mr. Manvers, the purser. If I’m not mistaken, you crossed with us this spring?”
“Oh, yes; I did. How-d’-you-do?” Staff offered his hand.
“Sure I recognised you just now – saw you on the main-deck – talking to Miss Landis, I believe.”
“Yes …?”
“Beg pardon; I don’t wish to seem impertinent; but may I ask, do you know the lady very well?”
Staff’s eyes clouded. “Why …”
“Knew you’d think me impertinent; but it is some of my business, really. I can explain to your satisfaction. You see” – the purser stepped nearer and lowered his voice guardedly – “I was wondering if you had much personal influence with Miss Landis. I’ve just had a bit of a chat with her, and she won’t listen to reason, you know, about that collar.”
“Collar?” Staff repeated stupidly.
“The Cadogan collar, you know – some silly pearl necklace worth a king’s ransom. She bought it in Paris – Miss Landis did; at least, so the report runs; and she doesn’t deny it, as a matter of fact. Naturally that worries me; it’s a rather tempting proposition to leave lying round a stateroom; and I asked her just now to let me take care of it for her – put it in my safe, you know. It’d be a devilish nasty thing for the ship, to have it stolen.” The purser paused for effect. “Would you believe it? She wouldn’t listen to me! Told me she was quite capable of taking care of her own property! Now if you know her well enough to say the right word … it’d be a weight off my mind, I can tell you!”
“Yes, I can imagine so,” said Staff thoughtfully. “But – what makes you think there’s any possibility – ”
“Well, one never knows what sort of people the ship carries – as a rule, that is. But in this instance I’ve got good reason to believe there’s at least one man aboard who wouldn’t mind lifting that collar; and he’s keen enough to do it prettily, too, if what they tell of him is true.”
“Now you’re getting interesting. Who is this man?”
“Oh, quite the swell mobsman – Raffles and Arsène Lupin and all that sort of thing rolled into one. His name’s Ismay – Arbuthnot Ismay. Clever – wonderful, they say; the police have never been able to fasten anything on him, though he’s been known to boast of his jobs in advance.”
“You told Miss Landis this?”
“Certainly – and she laughed.”
This seemed quite credible of the lady. Staff considered the situation seriously for a moment or two.
“I’ll do what I can,” he said at length; “though I’m not hopeful of making her see it from your point of view. Still, I will speak to her.”
“That’s good of you, I’m sure. You couldn’t do more.”
“You’re positive about this Ismay?” Staff pursued. “You couldn’t be mistaken?”
“Not I,” asserted the purser confidently. “He crossed with us last year – the time Mrs. Burden Hamman’s jewels disappeared. Ismay, of course, was suspected, but managed to prove every kind of an alibi.”
“Queer you should let him book a second time,” commented Staff.
“Rather; but he’s changed his name, and I don’t imagine the chaps in Cockspur Street know him by sight.”
“What name does he travel under now?”
The purser smiled softly to himself. “I fancy you won’t be pleased to learn it,” said he. “He’s down on the passenger-list as Iff – W. H. Iff.”
V
ISMAY?
When Staff went below a little later, he was somewhat surprised to find his stateroom alight, – surprised, because he had rather expected that Mr. Iff would elect to sleep off his potations in darkness.
To the contrary, the little man was very much awake, propped up in his berth with a book for company, and showed no effects whatever of overindulgence, unless that were betrayed by a slightly enhanced brightness of the cool blue eyes which he brought to bear upon his roommate.
“Good morning!” he piped cheerfully. “What on earth got you up so early? The bar’s been closed an hour and more.”
“Is that why you came to bed?” enquired Staff.
“Sure,” agreed Mr. Iff complacently.
Staff quietly began to shed his clothing and to insert his spare frame into pajamas. Iff lay back and stared reflectively at the white-painted overhead girders.
“Got to slip it to you,” he observed presently, “for perfect mastery of the dignified reserve thing. I never knew anybody who could better control his tumultuous emotions.”
“Thanks,” said Staff drily as he wound up his watch.
“Anything ’special troubling you?”
“Why do you ask?”
“You talk so darn much.”
“Sorry if I’m keeping you awake,” said Staff politely.
“Oh, I don’t mean to seem to beef about it, only … I was wondering if by any chance you’d heard the news?”
“What news?”
“About me.”
“About you!” Staff paused with his fingers on the light-switch.
“About my cute little self. May I look now?” Iff poked his head over the edge of the upper berth and beamed down upon Staff like a benevolent, blond magpie. “Haven’t you heard the rumour that I’m a desperate character?”
“Just what do you mean?” demanded Staff, eyeing the other intently.
“Oh, simply that I overheard the purser discussing me with his assistant. He claims to recognise in me a bold bad man named Ismay, whose specialty is pulling off jobs that would make Sherlock Holmes ask to be retired on a pension.”
“Well?”
“Well what?”
“Are you Ismay?”
A broad, mocking grin irradiated the little man’s pinched features. “Don’t ask me,” he begged: “I might tell you.”
Staff frowned and waited a minute, then, receiving no further response to his enquiry, grunted “Good night,” turned off the light and got into his berth.
A moment later the question came out of the darkness overhead: “I say – what do you think?”
“Are you Iff or Ismay – you mean?”
“Aye, lad, aye!”
“I don’t know. It’s for you to say.”
“But if you thought I was Ismay you’d shift quarters, wouldn’t you?”
“Why?”
“Because I might pinch something of yours.”
“In the first place,” said Staff, yawning, “I can’t shift without going into the second cabin – and you know it: the boat’s full up. Secondly, I’ve nothing you could steal save ideas, and you haven’t got the right sort of brains to turn them to any account.”
“That ought to hold me for some time,” Iff admitted fairly. “But I’m concerned about your sensitive young reputation. Suppose I were to turn a big trick this trip?”
“As for instance – ?”
“Well, say I swipe the Cadogan collar.”
“Then I’d stand just so much the better chance of catching you red-handed.”
“Swell notion you’ve got of the cunning of the Twentieth Century criminal, I must say. D’ you for an instant suppose my work’s so coarse that you could detect grits in it?”
“Then you are Ismay?”
“My son,” said the other solemnly, “your pertinacity shan’t go unrewarded: I will be frank with you. You shall know all. I am Iff – the eternal question.”
“Oh, go to thunder!” said Staff indignantly.
But as he slipped off to sleep he could hear the man overhead chuckling quietly, beneath his breath…
The next few days would have provided him with ample opportunity in which to ponder the question of his roommate’s identity, had Staff chosen so to occupy his time. As it happened, Heaven was kind to the young man, and sent a gale of sorts, which, breaking upon the Autocratic the following morning, buffeted her for three days and relegated to their berths all the poor sailors aboard, including the lady with the pink soul and underthings. Of Mrs. Thataker, indeed, Staff saw nothing more until just before the vessel docked in New York. He wasn’t heartless by any manner of means; he was, as a matter of fact, frankly sorry for the other poor passengers; but he couldn’t help feeling there was a lot of truth in the old saw about an ill wind…
Otherwise the bad weather proved annoying enough in several ways. To begin with, Alison Landis herself was anything but a good sailor, and even Miss Searle, though she missed no meals, didn’t pretend to enjoy the merciless hammering which the elements were administering to the ship. Alison retired to her suite immediately after the first breakfast and stuck religiously therein until the weather moderated, thus affording Staff no chance to talk with her about the number of immediately interesting things on his mind. While Miss Searle stayed almost as steadily in her quarters, keeping out of harm’s way and reading, she told Staff when they met at meals. Mrs. Ilkington, of course, disappeared as promptly as Mrs. Thataker. In consequence of all of which, Staff found himself thrown back for companionship on Bangs, who bored him to the point of extinction, Arkroyd, whom he didn’t like, and Iff, who kept rather out of the way, dividing his time between his two passions and merely leering at the younger man, a leer of infinite cunning and derision, when chance threw them together.
In despair of finding any good excuse for wasting his time, then, Mr. Staff took unto himself pens, ink, paper and fortitude and – surprised even himself by writing that fourth act and finishing his play. Again – an ill wind!
And then, as if bent on proving its integral benevolence so far as concerned Mr. Staff, the wind shifted and sighed and died – beginning the operation toward sundown of the third day out from Queenstown. The morning of the fourth day dawned clear and beautiful, with no wind worth mentioning and only a moderate sea running – not enough to make much of an impression on the Autocratic. So pretty nearly everybody made public appearance at one time or another during the morning, and compared notes about their historic sufferings, and quoted the stewardess who had been heard to say that this was the worst westbound passage the boat had ever made, and regained their complexions, and took notice of the incipient flirtations and – well, settled down in the usual way to enjoy an ocean voyage.
Staff, of course, was on deck betimes, with an eye eager for first sight of Alison and another heedful of social entanglements which might prevent him from being first and foremost to her side when she did appear. But for all his watchfulness and care, Mrs. Ilkington forestalled him and had Alison in convoy before Staff discovered her; and then Arkroyd showed up and Mrs. Ilkington annexed him, and Bangs was rounded up with one or two others and made to pay court to Mrs. Ilkington’s newly snared celebrity and … Staff went away and sulked like a spoiled child. Nor did his humour become more cheerful when at lunch he discovered that Mrs. Ilkington had kept two seats at their table reserved for Miss Landis and Arkroyd. It had been a prearranged thing, of course; it had been Alison with whom Mrs. Ilkington had talked about him in Paris; and evidently Alison had been esquired by Arkroyd there. Staff didn’t relish the flavour of that thought. What right had Arkroyd to constitute himself Alison’s cavalier on her travels? For that matter, what right had Alison to accept him in such a capacity?.. Though, of course, Staff had to remind himself that Alison was in reality not bound in any way…
But he had his reward and revenge after lunch. As the party left the table Alison dropped behind to speak to him; and in interchange of commonplaces they allowed the others to distance them beyond earshot.
“You’re a dear,” the young woman told him in a discreet tone as they ascended the companionway.
“I’m bound to say,” he told her with a faint, expiring flicker of resentment, “that you hardly treat me like one.”
Her eyes held his with their smiling challenge, half provocative, half tender; and she pouted a little, prettily. In this mood she was always quite irresistible to Staff. Almost against his will his dignity and his pose of the injured person evaporated and became as if they had never been.
“Just the same,” she declared, laughing, “you are a dear – if you don’t deserve to be told so.”
“What have I done?” he demanded guiltily – knowing very well on what counts he was liable to indictment.
“Oh, nothing,” said Alison – “nothing whatever. You’ve only been haughty and aloof and icy and indifferent and everything else that men seem to consider becoming to them when they think they’re neglected.”
“You certainly don’t expect me to like seeing Arkroyd at your side all the time?”
“Oh!” she laughed contemptuously – “Arkroyd!” And she dismissed that gentleman with a fine sweeping gesture. “Can I help it if he happens to travel on the same ship?”
They halted at the top of the steps.
“Then it was accidental – ?” he asked seriously.
“Staff!” The young woman made an impatient movement. “If I didn’t like you —you know how much – upon my word I’d snub you for that. You are a bear!”
“A moment ago I was a dear.”
“Oh, well, I’m fond of all sorts of animals.”
“Then I advise your future husband to keep you away from zoos.”
“Oh, Staff! But wouldn’t you want me to come to see you once in a while?”
He jerked up one hand with the gesture of a man touched in a fencing-bout. “You win,” he laughed. “I should’ve known better…”
But she made her regard tender consolation for his discomfiture. “You haven’t told me about the play – our play —my play?”
“It’s finished.”
“Not really, Staff?” She clasped her hands in a charmingly impulsive way. He nodded, smiling. “Is it good?”
“You’ll have to tell me that – you and Max.”
“Oh – Max! He’s got to like what I like. When will you read it to me?”
“Whenever you wish.”
“This afternoon?”
“If you like.”
“Oh, good! Now I’m off for my nap – only I know I shan’t sleep, I’m so excited. Bring the ’script to me at two – say, half-past. Come to my sitting-room; we can be alone and quiet, and after you’ve finished we can have tea together and talk and – talk our silly heads off. You darling!”
She gave him a parting glance calculated to turn any man’s head, and swung off to her rooms, the very spirit of grace incarnate in her young and vigorous body.
Staff watched her with a kindling eye, then shook his head as one who doubts – as if doubting his own worthiness – and went off to his own stateroom to run over the type-script of his fourth act: being fortunate in having chosen a ship which carried a typist, together with almost every other imaginable convenience and alleged luxury of life ashore.
Punctual to the minute, manuscript under his arm, he knocked at the door of the sitting-room of the suite de luxe occupied by the actress. Her maid admitted him and after a moment or two Alison herself came out of her stateroom, in a wonderful Parisian tea-gown cunningly designed to render her even more bewilderingly bewitching than ever. Staff thought her so, beyond any question, and as unquestionably was his thought mirrored in his eyes as he rose and stood waiting for her greeting – very nearly a-tremble, if the truth’s to be told.
Her colour deepened as she came toward him and then, pausing at arm’s length, before he could lift a hand, stretched forth both her own and caught him by the shoulders. “My dear!” she said softly; and her eyes were bright and melting. “My dear, dear boy! It’s so sweet to see you.” She came a step nearer, stood upon her tiptoes and lightly touched his cheek with her lips.
“Alison …!” he cried in a broken voice.
But already she had released him and moved away, with a lithe and gracious movement evading his arms. “No,” she told him firmly, shaking her head: “no more than that, Staff. You mustn’t – I won’t have you – carry on as if we were children —yet.”
“But Alison – ”
“No.” Again she shook her head. “If I want to kiss you, I’ve a perfect right to; but that doesn’t give you any licence to kiss me in return. Besides, I’m not at all sure I’m really and truly in love with you. Now do sit down.”
He complied sulkily.
“Are you in the habit of kissing men you don’t care for?”
“Yes, frequently,” she told him, coolly taking the chair opposite; “I’m an actress – if you’ve forgotten the fact.”
He pondered this, frowning. “I don’t like it,” he announced with conviction.
“Neither do I – always.” She relished his exasperation for a moment longer, then changed her tone. “Do be sensible, Staff. I’m crazy to hear that play. How long do you mean to keep me waiting?”
He knew her well enough to understand that her moods and whims must be humoured like a – well, like any other star’s. She was pertinaciously temperamental: that is to say, spoiled; beautiful women are so, for the most part – invariably so, if on the stage. That kind of temperament is part of an actress’ equipment, an asset, as much an item of her stock in trade as any trick of elocution or pantomime.
So, knowing what he knew, Staff took himself in hand and prepared to make the best of the situation. With a philosophic shrug and the wry, quaint smile so peculiarly his own, he stretched forth a hand to take up his manuscript; but in the very act, remembering, withheld it.
“Oh, I’d forgotten …”
“What, my dear?” asked Alison, smiling back to his unsmiling stare.
“What made you send me that bandbox?” he demanded without further preliminary; for he suspected that by surprising the author of that outrage, and by no other method, would he arrive at the truth.
But though he watched the woman intently, he was able to detect no guilty start, no evidence of confusion. Her eyes were blank, and a little pucker of wonder showed between her brows: that was all.
“Bandbox?” she repeated enquiringly. “What do you mean?”
“I mean,” he pursued with a purposeful, omniscient air, “the thing you bought at Lucille’s, the day before we sailed, and had sent me without a word of explanation. What did you do it for?”
Alison relaxed and sat back in her chair, laughing softly. “Dear boy,” she said – “do you know? – you’re quite mad – quite!”
“Do you mean to say you didn’t – ?”
“I can’t even surmise what you’re talking about.”
“That’s funny.” He pondered this, staring. “I made sure it was you. Weren’t you in London last Friday?”
“I? Oh, no. Why, didn’t I tell you I only left Paris Saturday morning? That’s why we had to travel all day to catch the boat at Queenstown, you know.”
He frowned. “That’s true; you did say so… But I wish I could imagine what it all means.”
“Tell me; I’m good at puzzles.”
So he recounted the story of the bandbox incognito, Alison lending her attention with evident interest, some animation and much quiet amusement. But when he had finished, she shook her head.
“How very odd!” she said wonderingly. “And you have no idea – ?”
“Not the least in the world, now that you’ve established an alibi. Miss Searle knows, but – ”
“What’s that?” demanded Alison quickly.
“I say, Miss Searle knows, but she won’t tell.”
“The girl who sat next to Bangs at lunch?”
“Yes – ”
“But how is that? I don’t quite understand.”
“Oh, she says she was in the place when the bandbox was purchased – saw the whole transaction; but it’s none of her affair, says she, so she won’t tell me anything.”
“Conscientious young woman,” said Alison approvingly. “But are you quite sure you have exhausted every means of identifying the true culprit? Did you examine the box yourself? I mean, did you leave it all to the housemaid – what’s her name – Milly?”
He nodded: “Yes.”
“Then she may have overlooked something. Why take her word for it? There may be a card or something there now.”
Staff looked startled and chagrined. “That’s so. It never occurred to me. I am a bonehead, and no mistake. I’ll just take a look, after we’ve run through this play.”
“Why wait? Send for it now. I’d like to see for myself, if there is anything: you see, you’ve roused a woman’s curiosity; I want to know. Let me send Jane.”
Without waiting for his consent, Alison summoned the maid. “Jane,” said she, “I want you to go to Mr. Staff’s stateroom – ”
“Excuse me,” Staff interrupted. “Find the steward named Orde and ask him for the bandbox I gave him to take care of. Then bring it here, please.”
“Yes, sir,” said Jane; and forthwith departed.
“And now – while we’re waiting,” suggested Alison – “the play, if you please.”
“Not yet,” said Staff. “I’ve something else to talk about that I’d forgotten. Manvers, the purser – ”
“Good Heavens!” Alison interrupted in exasperation. She rose, with a general movement of extreme annoyance. “Am I never to hear the last of that man? He’s been after me every day, and sometimes twice a day… He’s a personified pest!”
“But he’s right, you know,” said Staff quietly.
“Right! Right about what?”
“In wanting you to let him take care of that necklace – the what-you-may-call-it thing – the Cadogan collar.”
