“I know not. What’s your own opinion of Baltimore?”
“Why—I’m bewildered. She gave me a necklace he gave her, because she would have none of it. Yet my Lord tells me and Bishop seconds him that she’s his mistress. How shall a plain man tell what’s the truth between them? I thought she scorned him. I have the jewels upstairs in keeping for her, but am not certain ’twas his gift.”
It began to puzzle Mr. Rich’s brain that the Duke was himself so earnest now. He had dropt the screen of the Duchess of Queensbury that he began with and his careless ease went with it. ’Twas a very anxious man that looked Mr. Rich in the face now, and cared not to hide his care.
“I begin to think we wade in deep waters,” says he. “With your kindness we may swim ashore. Alone I cannot. My Lord Baltimore was with me today and made the assertion you speak of, but I believed him not. I propose now to follow all the clues given in these letters. They may be blinds only. They may be more. Where does the player Macheath lodge?”
“That story I reject entirely—now I see the other letter,” cries Mr. Rich. “Indeed I could but half believe it before. I never saw a sign or token of the girl giving him a look more than needful on the stage. He moved his lodging two days ago and I know not the new one.”
“Who should know?” asked the Duke.
“Scawen—old Scawen. She knows all the players’ business, even to which has herrings for breakfast and which beef and ale. Let us to Scawen, my Lord Duke. I’m with you heart and soul. I would not lose my Polly for anything in earth or heaven.”
“I thank you, Sir,” the Duke said briefly. He stood while Mr. Rich was cloaked by his lacquey and another chair spoke for, and then the two were off, swinging down the street, each secluded from further conversation.
’Twas not far from the elegance of Bloomsbury to the somewhat sordid respectability of Mrs. Scawen’s house, and at the window,—it now being six of the clock—they espied the good woman preparing the table for her Scawen’s supper, with a steaming dish of stew before his place and a tankard of home-brewed. She opened the door in the utmost astonishment to see her visitors, wiping her hands hastily on her apron and dropping almost as many curtseys as words in her agitation.
“Why, Mr. Rich, why, my Lord—anything I can do—indeed it’s an honour. Won’t you please to be seated? Scawen will be in any minute. Sure a glass of home-brewed, though but a poor offering, won’t hurt either the one or the other of you.”