Matters had reached this stage at the castle. Everybody was thoroughly tired of the piece, and, but for the thought of the disappointment which (presumably) would rack the neighboring nobility and gentry if it were not to be produced, would have resigned their places 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," confided Charteris to Jimmy almost tearfully. "It's not good enough. Most of them aren't word-perfect yet."
"It'll be all right—"
"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 one of the few who were feeling reasonably cheerful. He was deriving a keen amusement at present from the maneuvers 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 thoroughness that would have roused the suspicions of a babe. 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 Dodson's Private Inquiry Agency 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 marks of the sleuth. He was usually somewhere round the corner at these moments, and, when collided with, apologized with great politeness. Jimmy decided that he must have come under suspicion in this case vicariously, through Spike. Spike in the servants' hall would, of course, stand out conspicuously enough to catch the eye of a detective on the look out for sin among the servants; and he himself, as Spike's employer, had been marked down as a possible confederate.
It tickled him to think that both these giant brains should be so greatly exercised on his account.