CHAPTER XI
ON THE TRACK
Professor Le Beau kept a school of dancing in Pimlico, and incessantly trained pupils for the stage. Many of them had appeared with more or less success in the ballets at the Empire and Alhambra, and he was widely known amongst stage-struck aspirants as charging moderately and teaching in a most painstaking manner. He thus made an income which, if not large, was at least secure, and was assisted in the school by his niece, Peggy Garthorne. She was the manager of his house and looked after the money, otherwise the little professor would never have been able to lay aside for the future. But when the brother of the late Madame Le Beau—an Englishwoman—died, his sister took charge of the orphan. Now that Madame herself was dead, Peggy looked after the professor out of gratitude and love. She was fond of the excitable little Frenchman, and knew how to manage him to a nicety.
It was to the Dancing Academy that Jennings turned his steps a few days after the interview with Susan. He had been a constant visitor there for eighteen months and was deeply in love with Peggy. On a Bank Holiday he had been fortunate enough to rescue her from a noisy crowd, half-drunk and indulging in horse-play, and had escorted her home to receive the profuse thanks of the Professor. The detective was attracted by the quaint little man, and he called again to inquire for Peggy. A friendship thus inaugurated ripened into a deeper feeling, and within nine months Jennings proposed for the hand of the humble girl. She consented and so did Le Beau, although he was rather rueful at the thought of losing his mainstay. But Peggy promised him that she would still look after him until he retired, and with this promise Le Beau was content. He was now close on seventy, and could not hope to teach much longer. But, thanks to Peggy's clever head and saving habits, he had—as the French say—"plenty of bread baked" to eat during days of dearth.
The Academy was situated down a narrow street far removed from the main thoroughfares. Quiet houses belonging to poor people stood on either side of this lane—for that it was—and at the end appeared the Academy, blocking the exit from that quarter. It stood right in the middle of the street and turned the lane into a blind alley, but a narrow right-of-way passed along the side and round to the back where the street began again under a new name. The position of the place was quaint, and often it had been intended to remove the obstruction, but the owner, an eccentric person of great wealth, had hitherto refused to allow it to be pulled down. But the owner was now old, and it was expected his heirs would take away the building and allow the lane to run freely through to the other street. Still it would last Professor Le Beau's time, for his heart would have broken had he been compelled to move. He had taught here for the last thirty years, and had become part and parcel of the neighborhood.
Jennings, quietly dressed in blue serge with brown boots and a bowler hat, turned down the lane and advanced towards the double door of the Academy, which was surmounted by an allegorical group of plaster figures designed by Le Beau himself, and representing Orpheus teaching trees and animals to dance. The allusion was not complimentary to his pupils, for if Le Beau figured as Orpheus, what were the animals? However, the hot-tempered little man refused to change his allegory and the group remained. Jennings passed under it and into the building with a smile which the sight of those figures always evoked. Within, the building on the ground floor was divided into two rooms—a large hall for the dancing lessons and a small apartment used indifferently as a reception-room and an office. Above, on the first story, were the sitting-room, the dining-room and the kitchen; and on the third, under a high conical roof, the two bedrooms of the Professor and Peggy, with an extra one for any stranger who might remain. Where Margot, the French cook and maid-of-all-work, slept, was a mystery. So it will be seen that the accommodation of the house was extremely limited. However, Le Beau, looked after by Peggy and Margot, who was devoted to him, was extremely well pleased, and extremely happy in his light airy French way.
In the office was Peggy, making up some accounts. She was a pretty, small maiden of twenty-five, neatly dressed in a clean print gown, and looking like a dewy daisy. Her eyes were blue, her hair the color of ripe corn, and her cheeks were of a delicate rose. There was something pastoral about Peggy, smacking of meadow lands and milking time. She should have been a shepherdess looking after her flock rather than a girl toiling in a dingy office. How such a rural flower ever sprung up amongst London houses was a mystery Jennings could not make out. And according to her own tale, Peggy had never lived in the country. What with the noise of fiddling which came from the large hall, and the fact of being absorbed in her work, Peggy never heard the entrance of her lover. Jennings stole quietly towards her, admiring the pretty picture she made with a ray of dusky sunlight making glory of her hair.
"Who is it?" he asked, putting his hands over her eyes.
"Oh," cried Peggy, dropping her pen and removing his hands, "the only man who would dare to take such a liberty with me. Miles, my darling pig!" and she kissed him, laughing.