CHAPTER IV

THE LETTER OF WARNING

BUT isn’t it very early to stop rehearsal?” asked Barrison of John Carlton.

“Of course it is. They ought to have gone over the whole act again, and lots of the scenes several times. That rescue stuff was rotten! But it’s an off day. Something’s wrong; I’m not sure what, though I think I know. Oh, well, it’s all in the day’s work. Wait till you’ve seen as many of your plays produced as I have!”

“It’s as mysterious to me as one of the lost arts of Egypt. I couldn’t think out a scene to save my neck.”

“And yet,” said John Carlton reflectively, “a detective gets an immense amount of raw dramatic material in his business. He must. Now, right here in our own little happy family circle”—he waved an arm toward the stage—“there’s drama to burn! Can’t you see it—or are you fellows trained only to detect crime?”

“How do you mean—drama?” queried Barrison, seeking safety in vagueness.

“Well,” said Carlton, reaching for his hat and stick, “it strikes me that your well-beloved and highly valuable central planet draws drama as molasses draws flies. Pardon the homely simile, but, like most geniuses, I was reared in Indiana.”

“He’s a queer sort of chap,” said Jim, looking at the tall actor as he stood talking to Dukane, his heavy, handsome profile clearly outlined against an electric light.

“Queer? He’s a first-class mystery. ‘He came like water, and like wind he goes’—though I hope he’ll prove a bit more stable as a dramatic investment. Seriously, no one knows anything about him. He’s Western, I believe, and I suppose Dukane fell over him some dark night when he was out prospecting for obscure and undiscovered genius.”

“He’s good looking.”

“My son,” said Carlton, whose familiarity and colloquialism were in striking contrast to the grandiloquent lines he gave his characters to speak, “wait till you see him in khaki, with the foots half up and a little incidental music on the violins going on! Manly beauty is not a hobby of mine, but I’ve had experience with matinée idols, and I bet that Mortimer is there with the goods. What are you laughing at?”

“The difference between your stage dialogue and your ordinary conversation.”

“Oh, well, I can’t help talking slang, and I don’t know how to write it so that it sounds like anything but the talk of a tough bunch in a corner joint.” He stopped abruptly at the entrance to the box and said, as though acting on impulse:

“See here, speaking of Mortimer, did you ever see a three-ring circus?”

“Yes. I always found it very confusing.”

“Me, too. Mortimer doesn’t. He likes it. Takes three at least to make him feel homelike and jolly. He’s been—between ourselves—the temperamental lover with Grace Templeton, and the prospective fiancé with Miss Legaye; at least, that’s how I dope it out; and now it looks as though he was going to be the bold, bad kidnaper with this charming child just arrived in our midst. What do you think, from what you’ve seen to-day?”

“He hasn’t been himself to-day,” answered Barrison. “And, anyhow, there can’t be a three-ring circus with one of the three features absent. Miss Templeton, I understand, is not to be counted any longer.”

He spoke with rather forced lightness. He disliked bringing women into conversation. He did Carlton the justice, however, to see that it was not a vulgar predilection for gossip which centralized his interest in the three who had received Mortimer’s attention. Obviously he looked upon them as cold-bloodedly as did Dukane; they were part of his stock in trade, his “shop.”

“Not to be counted any longer! Isn’t she just? If you’d ever seen the lady you’d know that you couldn’t lose her just by dismissing her.”

Barrison had seen her, but he said nothing.

“However,” went on the author, leading the way out of the box and through the communicating door between the front and back of the house, “it’s none of my business—though I’ll admit it entertains me, intrigues me, if you like. I can talk something besides slang. I’m nothing but a poor rat of an author, but if I were a grand and glorious detective with an idle hour or so to put in, I’d watch that combination. I’m too poor and too honest to afford hunches, as a rule, but I’ve got one now, and it’s to the effect that there’ll be more melodrama behind the scenes in ‘Boots and Saddles’ than there ever will be in the show itself!”

Though Barrison said nothing in reply, he privately agreed with the playwright. Nothing very startling had happened, to be sure, yet he was acutely conscious of something threatening or at least electric in the air—a tension made up of a dozen small trifles which might or might not be important. It would be difficult to analyze the impression made upon him, but he would have had to be much less susceptible to atmosphere than he was not to have felt that the actors in this new production were playing parts other than those given them by Carlton, and that they stood in rather singular and interesting relation to each other.

Mortimer infatuated with Sybil Merivale; Kitty Legaye, he strongly suspected, in love with Mortimer; Crane wildly and youthfully jealous; Miss Templeton in the dangerous mood of a woman scorned and an actress supplanted! It looked like the makings of a very neat little drama, as John Carlton had had the wit to see.

Barrison, however, was still inclined to look upon the whole affair as something of a farce; it was diverting, but not absorbing. There was nothing about it, as yet, to quicken his professional interest. He did, to be sure, recall Grace Templeton’s wicked look in the restaurant, and had a passing doubt as to what she was likely to do next; but he brushed it away lightly enough, reminding himself that players were emotional creatures and that they probably took it out in intensity of temperament—and temper! They were not nearly so likely actually to commit any desperate deeds as those who outwardly or habitually were more calm and conservative.

But something happened at the stage door which disturbed this viewpoint.

When they crossed the stage the company was scattering right and left. Miss Legaye was just departing, looking manifestly out of sorts; Sybil and young Crane were talking together with radiant faces and evident oblivion of their whereabouts; Mortimer was nowhere to be seen. Carlton had stopped to speak to Willie Coster, so Barrison made his way out alone.

He found Dukane standing by the “cage” occupied by the doorkeeper, with an envelope in his hand.

“When did this come, Roberts?” he said.

“About twenty minutes ago, sir. You told me not to interrupt rehearsals, and the boy said there was no answer.”

“A messenger boy?”

“No, sir—just a ragamuffin. Looked like he might be a newsboy, sir.”

Dukane stood looking at the envelope a moment in silence; then he turned to Barrison with a smile.

“Funny thing, psychology!” he said. “I haven’t a reason on earth for supposing this to be any more important than any of the rest of Alan Mortimer’s notes—the saints know he gets enough of them!—and yet I have a feeling in my bones that there’s something quite unpleasant inside this envelope. Here, Mortimer, a note for you.”

The actor came around the corner from a corridor leading past a row of dressing rooms, and they could see him thrust something into his coat pocket.

“Went to his dressing room for a drink,” said Barrison to himself. Indeed, he thought he could see the silver top of a protruding flask.

“Note for me? Let’s have it.”

He took it, stared at the superscription with a growing frown, and then crumpled it up without opening it.

“Wrenn!” he exclaimed in a tone of ungoverned rage. “Where’s Wrenn? Did he bring me this?”

“Wrenn?” repeated Dukane, surprised. “You mean your valet? Why, no; he isn’t here. A boy brought it. Why don’t you read it? You don’t seem to like the handwriting.”

With a muttered oath, the actor tore open the envelope and read what was written on the inclosed sheet of paper. Then, with a face convulsed and distorted with fury, he flung it from him as he might have flung a scorpion that had tried to bite him.

“Threats!” he exclaimed savagely. “Threats! May Heaven curse any one who threatens me! Threats!”

He seemed incapable of further articulation, and strode past them out of the stage door. Barrison could see that he was the type of man who can become literally blind and dazed with anger. Mentally the detective decided that such uncontrolled and elemental temperaments belonged properly behind bars; certainly they had no place in a world of convention and self-restraint.

Quietly Dukane picked up both letter and envelope, and, after reading what was written on them, passed them to Barrison.

“When I have a lunatic to dry nurse,” he observed grimly, “I have no scruples in examining the stuff that is put in his feeding bottles. Take a look at this communication, Barrison. I’ll admit I’m glad that I don’t get such things myself.”

Jim glanced down the page of letter paper. On it, in scrawling handwriting, was written:

The last four words were heavily underlined. There was no signature.

“What do you make of it?” asked Dukane.

“It’s from a woman, of course. Quite an ordinary threatening letter. We handle hundreds of them, and most of them come to nothing at all.”

“Possibly,” said Dukane thoughtfully. “And yet I don’t feel like ignoring it entirely. Not on Mortimer’s own account, you understand. He’s not the type of fellow I admire, and I don’t doubt he richly deserves any punishment that may be in store for him. But he’s my star, and if anything happens to him I stand to lose more money than I feel like affording in these hard times.”

“I can have a couple of men detailed to keep an eye on him,” suggested Barrison.

Dukane shook his head. “He’d find it out and be furious,” he returned. “Whatever else he is, he’s no coward, and he detests having his personal affairs interfered with. Hello! What is it you want?”

The thin, gaunt, white-haired man whom he addressed was standing, hat in hand, in the alley just outside the stage door, and he was evidently waiting to speak to the manager.

“If you please, sir,” he began, half apologetically, “Mr. Mortimer told me to——”

“You’re Mortimer’s man, aren’t you?”

“Yes, sir; I’m Wrenn. I came down in the car for Mr. Mortimer, sir. He—he seemed a bit upset-like this morning.” His faded old eyes looked appealingly at the manager.

“He did,” assented that gentleman dryly. “You take very good care of Mr. Mortimer, Wrenn,” he added, in a kinder tone. “I’ve often noticed it.”

“Thank you, sir. I try——”

“He sent you back for something?”

“Yes, sir.” The old servant was clearly anxious and ill at ease, and the answer came falteringly: “A—a letter, sir, that he forgot——”

Barrison had already thrust that letter into his own pocket. He knew that Dukane would prefer him not to produce it. As a specimen of handwriting it was worth keeping, in case of possible emergencies in the future.

Dukane affected to hunt about on the floor.

“Here is the envelope,” he said, giving it to the valet. “I don’t see any letter. Mr. Mortimer must have put it in his pocket; indeed, I think I saw him do so. He seemed a good deal excited, and probably doesn’t remember.”

“Yes, sir, but——” Wrenn still hesitated.

“That’s all. Go back to your master and say the letter is nowhere to be found. Tell him I said so.”

“Yes, sir.”

Unwillingly Wrenn walked away.

“A decent old chap,” commented Dukane, looking after him. “I can’t understand why he sticks to that ill-tempered rake, but he seems devoted to him.”

They went out together, and saw Wrenn say something at the window of the great purring limousine that was waiting in the street at the end of the court. After a minute he got in, and the car moved off immediately.

“No,” said the manager, as though there had been no interruption to his talk with Barrison, “I hardly think that we’d better have him shadowed, even for his own protection. I think that the writer of that note means to save her—er—sensational effect for the first night, don’t you?”

“Well,” admitted the detective, “it would be like a revengeful woman to wait until a spectacular occasion of that sort if she meant to start something. Particularly”—he spoke more slowly—“if she happened to be a theatrical woman herself.”

“Ah, yes,” said Dukane calmly. “Especially if she happened to be a theatrical woman herself.”

He was silent for a long minute as they walked toward Broadway. Then, as he stopped to light a cigar, he said:

“Every woman is a theatrical woman in that sense. My dear fellow, women are the real dramatists of this world. If a man wants to do a thing—rob a bank, or elope with his friend’s wife, or commit a murder, or anything like that—he goes ahead and does it as expeditiously and as inconspicuously as possible. But a woman invariably wants to set the stage. A woman must have invented rope ladders, suicide pacts, poisoned wine cups, and the farewell letter to the husband. Next to staging a love scene, a woman loves to stage a death scene—whether it’s murder, suicide, tuberculosis, or a broken heart. Would any man in Mimi’s situation have let himself be dragged back to die in the arms of his lost love? Hardly! He’d crawl into a hole or go to a hospital.”

“It was a man who wrote the story of Mimi,” Barrison reminded him.

“A man who, being French, knew all about women. Yes, I think we can safely leave our precautions until September the fifteenth. Just the same, Barrison, I shall be just as well pleased if you’ll manage to drop in at rehearsals fairly often during the next fortnight. There might be developments. I’ll leave word with Roberts in the morning that you are to come in when you like.”

Barrison promised, and left him at the corner of Broadway.

As he walked back to his own rooms, Dukane’s words lingered in his memory:

“Women are the real dramatists of this world!”

He thought of the same phrase that evening when, while he was in the middle of his after-dinner brandy and cigar, his Japanese servant announced:

“A lady on business. Very important.”

Barrison started up, hardly able to believe his eyes. The woman who stood at his door was Miss Templeton!