She turned away to recover herself. What was I to make of it? One would almost have said that she was a party to the theft of her own jewels.
And yet only a few minutes later she burst out in a passionate plea to me to discover the thief.
"It tortures me!" she cried, "the suspense, the uncertainty! This atmosphere of doubt and suspicion is suffocating! I wish I never had had any pearls! I wish I were a farmer's daughter or a mill girl! Please, please settle it one way or the other. I shall never have a quiet sleep until I know!"
"Know what?" I asked quietly.
But she made believe not to have heard me.
4
I spent the next two or three days in quiet work here and there. The most considerable advance I made was in picking an acquaintance with McArdle, the property man of Miss Hamerton's company. Watching the stage door I discovered that the working-force behind the scenes frequented the back room of a saloon on Sixth avenue for lunch after the show. The rest was easy. By the third night McArdle and I were on quite a confidential footing.
From him I heard any amount of gossip. McArdle was of the garrulous, emotional type and very free with his opinions. The star was the only one he spared. From his talk I got the principal members of the company fixed in my mind. Beside Mr. Quarles there was George Casanova, the heavy man, a well-known actor but, according to McArdle, a loud-mouthed, empty braggart, and Richard Richards, the character heavy, a silly old fool, he said, devoured by vanity. Among the women the next in importance after the star was Miss Beulah Maddox, the heavy lady, who in the opinion of my amiable informant giggled and ogled like a sewing-machine girl, and she forty if she was a day.
Discreet questioning satisfied me that McArdle was quite unaware that a robbery had been committed in the theatre. If he didn't know it, certainly it was not known.