Isabel gasped. She wouldn't have been pretty even without her disfigurement; she hadn't the vitality. She wasn't used to outright cruelty, and she didn't know how to respond.
"I said," went on Mr Harris, "is he here now? Under the bed, for instance? Have a look, Sackville."
Sackville lifted the iron bedstead and tipped it over on to the floor. There was nothing beneath it but a faded china chamber-pot. Isabel hid her face.
"Look, Sackville," said Mr Harris, "a dainty little thunder-box. See if he ain't hiding in there."
Sackville aimed a kick at it, and it shattered into a thousand pieces.
"Please -" Isabel began. "He's not here - I promise -"
"Where is he, then?"
"I don't know! I haven't seen him for days! Please -"
"Ah, but you did help him, didn't you? You was seen, you naughty girl. And don't say it wasn't you - you can't hide a dial like that one."
"What do you want?" she cried. "Please, leave me alone! I don't know where he is - I swear it -"
"Well, well. Shame." Mr Harris looked around. "Now the trouble with me is, I'm a sceptical man. I ain't got a simple faith in human nature - and I think you're lying. So what I'll do is this. I'll ask young Sackville here to tear up and burn all your work in front of your eyes. He could smack you about a bit instead, but you look horrible enough as it is, and no one'd notice. Off you go, Sackville, my boy."
"No! No, please! It's all I've got in the world - anything but that! It's my livelihood - I beg you -"
She fell on her knees and clutched his coat. Sackville pulled the tablecloth off and started to tear it into small shreds; she wept and shook Mr Harris's coat, but he took no notice.
"Have a look, Sackville lad. There's bound to be dresses and nightgowns and petticoats and all sorts. Tear 'em up, tear 'em up. Don't feel inhibited by the ladies' presence. These shrieks and cries is a sign, young Sackville, as you're doing your work like a British yeoman."
And though both women tried to restrain him (Mrs Elphick being flung aside, and Isabel knocked down and nearly rendered insensible), within five minutes Sackville systematically destroyed every specimen of her work. There were dresses - there were nightgowns - there were precious christening robes made of lawn that needed the finest and most delicate stitching to repair them. There were items she was making for sale to her regular customers: pretty lace gloves, shawls, fine handkerchiefs, embroidered blouses, goffered widows' caps and filmy muslin petticoats. Everything she owned was hauled out from its tissue-paper wrappings and ripped to shreds.
Finally Isabel flung herself into a chair and sobbed passionately. Mrs Elphick watched, trembling, as Sackville thrust the large snowy pile into the fireplace.
Then Mr Harris opened the one door he hadn't yet touched, and took out a small japanned tin box. He shook it, but it was light and didn't rattle.
Instantly Isabel was on her feet.
"No," she said. "I'll - I'll tell you where you can find him. But don't touch that. Please give it back. Please."
"Ah!" said Mr Harris. "This is our little treasure, is it?" He prised at the lid, but found it locked. "Well, then; tell me where he is and you can keep it. Else young Sackville here can find a use for it."
Her hands reached out for it, but he held it back. She was incapable of taking her eyes from it. Pale and sickly and trembling with the sense of what she was doing, she said in a shaking voice, "He's appearing tomorrow night at the Royal Music-Hall in High Holborn. Please - you won't hurt him?"
He handed her the box, which she clutched at once to her breast.
"Hurt him - well, that's out of my hands now. I cannot influence the wheel of fate. The Royal in High Holborn - yes, I know the place. Here y'are, Sackville."
Mr Harris handed him a box of matches.
"Now," he said, "what you're probably thinking is that as soon as our backs is turned you'll go scuttling off and warn him. I wouldn't if I was you. I wouldn't say a word. I'm keeping Sackville on a leash at the moment, and I wouldn't like to say what he'd do if I let him off it. You just be discreet, that's what I'd do."
"But why? What do you want him for? What's he ever done to you?
"Oh, me personally? Nothing at all. But my master wants to speak to him somewhat urgent on a matter of family business. See, I'm a lawyer. Did I mention that? Kind of a lawyer, anyway. Now you better stand back, because what'll probably happen in a minute is that the chimney'll catch fire. That could be dangerous, so him and me'll leave in a little while. But I trust you're grateful to us for making the importance of this clear to you. Perhaps you'd care to reimburse me for my time and Sackville's effort? I paid him a sovereign for this job. Course, it comes out of my master's pocket, but think how pleased he'll be if he finds that small expense defrayed already."
There was something in his mock-ingratiating manner that was chilling and horrible; Isabel had no strength left to resist, and with trembling fingers she opened her purse and took out a sovereign. Sackville took it from her.
"Say thank you, Sackville," said Mr Harris.
"Thank you, miss," he said dutifully.
"And as this is thirsty work, I think half-a-crown to buy us a drink would be a nice way of showing your appreciation for what we've done."
Another coin changed hands.
"It's all I have," she said faintly. "I have nothing to eat. Please. . ."
"Yes," said Mr Harris thoughtfully, "I ain't eaten since breakfast neither. A nice chop'd go down a treat. What d'you say, Sackville? But I don't expect you to pay for that," he added to her; "a man's got to eat in the way of nature. I'll pay for that."
"What am I going to do?" she said helplessly.
"I don't know, I must confess. I find that a hard question to answer. Come on, Sackville, strike a match, my boy."
"No!" cried Mrs Elphick, but she shrank back as Mr Harris wagged a finger at her, and clutched her mouth as Sackville lit the edge of the cloth crammed into the fireplace. It caught at once with a roar.
Isabel was sobbing like a child, still clutching the tin to herself, and rocking to and fro with misery and guilt. Mr Harris patted her on the head.
"Never mind," he said. "Put it down to experience, is my advice. Never fall in love with a Scotchman - they can't be trusted. Come, Sackville, let these ladies deal with the fire, we don't want to get in the way, that's bad manners. Good day to you both."
Chapter Eleven
THE DEMON-TRAP
Next morning, before the sun was up, a hand thrust a scribbled note through the letter-box at 45 Burton Street, and a veiled figure slipped away into the grey light.
Jim was the first to find it. He hadn't slept well; images of Lady Mary haunted his pillow, and more than once he'd groaned aloud as he thought of her warm coral cheeks, her cloud-filled eyes, her urgent whisper. . . Finally he decided there was no more sleep to be had, and dragged himself down to the kitchen, yawning and scratching and cursing, and lit the fire to make himself some tea.
As he put the kettle on the hob, he heard the letter-box snap in the empty shop and blinked fully awake. He looked up at the clock on the mantelpiece; it wasn't yet six. Turning up the collar of his dressing-gown against the draught, he went through into the shop and saw the little scrap of white paper in the dimness. He raised the blind and read:
TO MR TAYLOR:
Mr Mackinnon is in great danger. There are two men going to lie in wait for him tonight at the Royal Music-Hall in High Holborn. One of them is called Sackville. I beg you to help by any means possible. There is no one else to ask and I can do nothing for him.
I.M.
I.M.? . . . Isabel Meredith, of course.
Jim grabbed the key from the hook and, wrenching the door open, ran out to stare up and down the silent street. The gas-lamps were still glowing, haloed by mist, the sky was lightening and, though he could hear the quiet clop of hooves and the trundle of wheels from the next street as a trader made his way to market, there was no one in sight, and nothing to show
which way she'd gone.
Sally hadn't forgotten Axel Bellmann's threat. She was conscious every time she went to her office that there were many workers in the building who watched her go in and out; there was the landlord's chief clerk on the ground floor to whom she paid rent, there was a small import agency (currants, dates, tobacco from Turkey) in the office next door with whom she shared a coal supply - and any of them could be working for Bellmann.
She'd wondered briefly whether, to safeguard herself, she ought to employ some respectable woman as a blazon of propriety; but then she'd have to find something for her to do, teach her to do it, and pay her money she couldn't really afford. In the end she decided to take no notice of the threat and carry on as normal. But she was glad every time she opened her door to find a woman standing there and not a man, and she was cross with her own weakness for feeling glad.
As it happened, her first client that morning was a woman. She was a vivacious, bright-eyed Lancashire girl who'd come to London to study to be a teacher, and she was looking for advice on how best to manage the small amount of money her grandfather had left her. When Sally had described a number of possibilities, and they'd settled on the best she said, "I was ever so surprised to find S. Lockhart was a lady. I mean, pleased as well, of course. How on earth did you manage to get a job like this?"
Sally told her, and then said, "Where do you come from, Miss Lewis?"
"Barrow-in-Furness," she said. "But I don't want to stay in a little corner of Lancashire all my life. I want to go abroad. I'd like to see Canada and South America and Australia. . . That's why I'm going to train as a teacher, you see. So I'll have something useful that I can always turn to."
"Barrow," said Sally. "Shipbuilding - is that right?"
"Yes, and docks and railways. My brothers are both in the docks. Clerks. They were ever so put out when Grandad left his bit of money to me instead of them - thought they had a right to it, being men. But I was the one who always listened to his tales - he was a sailor, you see. He told me all about Niagara Falls and the Amazon and the Barrier Reef and everything, and I got that excited I couldn't wait to see them for myself. We used to look at pictures in the old stereoscope, and he'd tell me all about them. He was lovely."
Sally smiled. Then a thought struck her.
"I don't suppose you've heard of a firm called North Star, by any chance?"
"North Star - yes, that's in Barrow. North Star Castings. Something to do with railways? I don't know. There was a bit of trade union trouble, I think. Or perhaps I'm wrong. I tell you who would know - there's a lady who lives in Muswell Hill, wherever that is - is that in London? I thought it was - I'll write down her address. She used to be my Sunday school teacher till she got married and came down here. Her brother used to work for North Star, or the firm that North Star took over, anyway. She'd be able to tell you more about it. Mrs Seddon, 27 Cromwell Gardens, Muswell Hill. Give her my regards, won't you. Tell her I'll come and see her myself when I've settled in at the college. . ."
At last, thought Sally. I must be lucky after all.
"Let me know if you need any more advice," she said as Miss Lewis left, "and good luck with your teaching."
After she'd finished for the day and locked the office, she stood for a while on the step, deciding whether to go to Muswell Hill there and then or write a letter. She was still standing there when Jim found her.
"Sal! Game for a lark? You're not going home, are you?"
"Well. . . What sort of lark?"
"Come to the music-hall. Mackinnon's in trouble, and Fred and I are going to keep an eye on things."
They walked along together through the early evening crowd, the bowler-hatted clerks, the office boys, the newspaper vendors, the crossing-sweepers, and Jim told her about Isabel's note. They waited outside a chop-house for the road to clear so they could cross, and in the fragrant steam and the warm light she caught a glimpse of the Jim she'd first met six years before, a scruffy, inky office-boy himself, tough and bright as a sparrow, and she laughed with happiness.
"Game for a lark?" she said. "I should bloody say so, mate. Lead me to it!"
Chaka caught her mood, and wagged his tail.
She went home and changed her dress, and the three of them met in the queue outside the Royal Music-Hall at half-past seven. Frederick was in evening dress and carrying a stick, and to his immense surprise she kissed him.
"Worth coming," he said. "What's on the bill, Jim?"
Jim had been studying the poster on the stand outside the doors. He came back to his place in the queue and said quietly, "I reckon Mackinnon's calling himself The Great Mephisto. I don't suppose he's one of Madame Tarocszy's Female Hungarian Velocipede Troupe or Senor Ambrosio Chavez, the Boneless Wonder.. ."
"I wonder what a female velocipede is," said Frederick. "Pit or gallery? I suppose we ought to be close to the stage, in case we need to get up there. What d'you think?"
"There's no quick way down from the gallery here," said Jim. "We want to be as far forward as we can get. The only trouble with that is, we won't be able to watch the audience and look out for this Sackville geezer."
The doors were opened, and the queue moved forward into the gaudy foyer, where flaring gaslights shone on gilt and mahogany and glass. They paid one shilling and sixpence each for seats at the end of the front row, and sat down in the smoke-laden atmosphere to watch the members of the orchestra taking their places and tuning up. Jim looked round from time to time at the rest of the audience.
"The trouble is," he grumbled, "we don't know what we're looking for. They're not going to carry placards round their necks, after all."
"What about the fellows you saw when you got Mackinnon out of the Britannia?" said Frederick.
"Well. . . There's a lot of people here, Fred. And they could be backstage anyway - but I don't think so, somehow. They've got a good stage doorman here. I think they'll come at him from the front if they do it at all."
Then Sally, looking around herself, glanced up at the boxes on the other side. There were half a dozen of them and four were dark, but in one of the other two sat three men - and one of them was looking directly at her through opera-glasses.
He saw her look, took the glasses away, smiled and bowed slightly. She saw the glint of light on gold-rimmed spectacles.
"Mr Windlesham," she said involuntarily, and looked away.
"What's that?" said Frederick.
"Bellmann's secretary. He's in that box - the second one along - and he's seen me. What do we do now?"
"Well, we're in the same game, that's plain to see," said Frederick, and turned to stare up. "No point in trying to hide now - he can tell we're together. There's another fellow in there, Jim - no, two of them. Can you make them out?"
Jim was craning up as well, but he shook his head. "No," he said. "They're hanging back in the shadow. The shorter one could be the bloke I saw in Mackinnon's dressing-room, but I wouldn't like to swear to it. Bloody nuisance. I'd go up and lock 'em in the box, same as I did that night, but they'd see me coming."
Frederick gave them a friendly wave and turned back to the stage. The orchestra was about to begin. He said to the others, "They can watch us, but we can get to the stage more quickly. If it comes to a scrap, Jim, we'll hold 'em off while Sally sticks to Mackinnon. Got your knuckles?"
Jim nodded. "That door behind the Chairman's desk leads straight into the wings," he said. "They picked the wrong place to wait when they chose that box. It's the one advantage we got."
"Unless there are some more of them backstage," said Sally.
They couldn't say any more because the orchestra began, with a crash of cymbals and a thump on the bass drum, and sitting where they were they could hear nothing else. Jim, at the end of the row, cast an eye up to the box every few seconds, while Frederick gave himself up to enjoying the entertainers.
Madame Tarocszy's Female Hungarian Velocipede Troupe came and went, and so did Miss Ellaline Bagwell (soprano), the Lightning Sketch
er and Mr Jackson Sinnott (comic and patriotic songs); and still the three men didn't leave their box. Sally looked up once to find Mr Windlesham's curious and mild expression, complete with glinting spectacles, still fixed on her, and felt unpleasantly naked. She turned back and tried to ignore it.
Finally the Chairman announced The Great Mephisto. There was a drum-roll, the conductor's left hand rumbled at a chord in the bass of the piano while his right hand urged the four string players to a mysterious shimmer and then, with a flourish of cymbals, the curtain rose. Frederick and Sally sat up.
There was a slender figure in tail-coat and white tie in the centre of the stage. He wore a white mask. Sally had never seen Mackinnon, but she knew at once who it was, and not only because Jim sat up alertly on her left and whispered, "That's him, the perisher."
Frederick was as relaxed as ever on her other side. She looked at him, saw an expression of pure, childlike enjoyment on his face, and found herself smiling in response. He turned and winked at her, and then the act began.
Whatever else he was, Mackinnon was an artist. It was clear that the mask was not only a means of concealing his identity but a positive part of the act he was developing - as important as the white-face make-up he'd worn previously. He didn't speak, and the atmosphere he engendered was sinister - emphasized by the number of tricks he performed that featured knives and swords, cutting and piercing and severing. Movement, mime and above all the expressionless, mesmeric mask, all added to the sense of danger and horror. The audience, which had been rowdy and cheerful until then, fell still - but not with distaste or disapproval: they were awed. So was Sally. He was a phenomenal performer.
They had been watching him for some minutes, unable to take their eyes away, when Jim turned his head briefly to glance up at the box - and shook Sally's arm.
"They've gone!" he whispered.
Alarmed, she turned as well, and saw that the box was empty. Jim swore, and Frederick sat up.
"They had more sense than we did," he said under his breath. "Dammit, they must have got backstage. As soon as he goes off, Jim, we'll make a run for it--"