Yet the presence of this brigade of light-headed cavaliers helped the barrister far more than he could have foreseen or even hoped.
At last the ex-lady’s maid appeared, dressed in a showy winter costume and jaunty toque. She was on very friendly terms with two older girls, on whom the stage had set its ineffaceable seal, and the reason was soon apparent.
“Come along,” she cried, her words being evidently intended to have an effect on others in the throng less favored than those whom she addressed; “let us get into a hansom and go to Scott’s for supper. Here, cabby!”
She was on the step of a hansom when a tall, good-looking boy, faultlessly dressed, and with something of Sandhurst or Woolwich in his carriage, darted forward.
“Hello, Millie,” he said to one of Jane Harding’s companions. “How are you? A couple of fellows have come up with me for the night. Let’s all go and have something to eat at the Duke’s,” thereby indicating a well-known club usually patronized by higher class artistes than this trio.
After a series of introductions by Christian names, among which Bruce failed to catch the word “Jane,” the party went off in three hansoms, a pair in each.
Claude was not a member of the “Duke’s,” though he had often been there. But there was a man close at hand who was a member of everything in London that in any way pertained to things theatrical. Every one knew Billy Sadler and Billy Sadler knew every one. A brief run in a cab to a theatre, a restaurant, and another restaurant, revealed the large-hearted Billy, drinking a whisky and soda and relating to a friend, with great gusto and much gesticulation, the very latest quarrel between the stage-manager and the leading lady. He hailed Claude with enthusiasm.
“’Pon my soul, Bruce, old chap, haven’t seen you for an age. Where have you bin? An’ what’s the little game now?”
Mr. Sadler was fully aware of the barrister’s penchant for investigating mysteries. The two had often foregathered in the past.