Matters had reached this stage at the abbey. Everybody was thoroughly tired of the piece, and, but for the thought of the disappointment which—presumably—would rack the neighboring nobility and if it were not to be produced, would have resigned without a twinge of regret. People who had schemed to get the best and longest parts were wishing now that they had been content with First Footman or Giles, a villager.
"I'll never run an amateur show again as long as I live,"
Charteris to Jimmy, almost tearfully the night before the production.
"It's not good enough. Most of them aren't word-perfect yet. And we've
just had the dress !"
"It'll be all right on——"
"Oh, don't say it'll be all right on the night."
"I wasn't going to," said Jimmy. "I was going to say it'll be all right after the night. People will soon forget how badly the thing went."
"You're a nice, comforting sort of man, aren't you?" said Charteris.
"Why worry?" said Jimmy. "If you go on like this, it'll be Westminster
Abbey for you in your prime. You'll be getting brain fever."
Jimmy himself was feeling particularly cheerful. He was a keen amusement at present from the manoeuvres of Mr. Samuel Galer, of New York. This lynx-eyed man, having been instructed by Mr. McEachern to watch Jimmy, was doing so with a which would have made a man with the snowiest of consciences suspicious. If Jimmy went to the billiard room after dinner, Mr. Galer was there to keep him company. If, during the course of the day, he had occasion to fetch a handkerchief or a cigarette case from his bedroom, he was sure, on emerging, to stumble upon Mr. Galer in the corridor. The employees of Wragge's Detective Agency, Ltd., believed in earning their salaries. Occasionally, after these encounters, Jimmy would come upon Sir Thomas Blunt's valet, the other man in whom Spike's trained eye had discerned the distinguishing trait of the detective. He was usually somewhere round the corner at these moments, and, when collided with, apologized with great politeness. It Jimmy to think that both these giant brains should be so greatly exercised on his account.
Spennie, meanwhile, had been doing quite an amount of thinking. Quite an intellectual pallor had begun to appear on his normally pink cheeks. He had discovered the profound truth that it is one thing to talk about paying one's debts, another actually to do it, and that this is more particularly the case when we owe twenty pounds and possess but six pounds seven shillings and fourpence. Spennie was acutely conscious of the fact that, if he could not follow up his words to Wesson with actual coin, the result would be something of an . Somehow or other he would have to get the money—and at once. The difficulty was that no one seemed at all inclined to lend it to him.
There is a good deal to be said against stealing as a habit; but it cannot he denied that, in certain circumstances, it offers an admirable solution of a difficulty, and if the penalties were not so exceedingly unpleasant, it is probable that it would become far more fashionable than it is.
Spennie's mind did not turn immediately to this from his . He had never stolen before, and it did not occur to him directly to do so now. There is a conservative strain in all of us. But gradually, as it was borne in upon him that it was the only course possible, unless he to his stepfather—a task for which his courage was not sufficient—he found himself the possibility of having to secure the money by unlawful means. By lunch time, on the morning of the day for the , he had definitely to do so. By dinner time he had fixed upon the object of his attentions.
With a vague idea of keeping the thing in the family, he had resolved to make his raid upon Sir Thomas Blunt. Somehow it did not seem so bad robbing one's relatives.
A man's first crime is, as a rule, a shockingly affair. Now and then, it is true, we find beginners forging with the accuracy of old hands or breaking into houses with the finish of experts. But these are cases. The average lacks generalship altogether. Spennie may be cited as a typical . It did not strike him that might be instituted by Sir Thomas, when he found his money gone, and that Wesson, finding a man whom he knew to be suddenly in possession of twenty pounds, might have suspicions. His mind was filled with the thought of getting the money. There was no room in it for any other reflection.
His plan was simple. Sir Thomas, he knew, always carried a good deal of money with him. It was unlikely that he kept this on his person in the evening. A man to whom the set of his clothes is as important as it was to Sir Thomas, does not carry a pocket-book full of banknotes when he is dressed for dinner. He would leave it somewhere, reasoned Spennie. Where, he asked himself. The answer was easy. In his room. Spennie's plan of campaign was complete.
The theatricals began at half-past eight. The audience had been
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