“Well, he came rather late yesterday afternoon, and I’d taken him round for just about ten or a dozen minutes when word was suddenly brought to me that the representative of one of the biggest managers in the country had just called with reference to an important order, so, of course, I put back to the office as quickly as I could foot it, young Stan quite naturally following me, as he didn’t know his way about the place alone, and, being a modest, retiring sort of boy, didn’t like facing the possibility of blundering into what might prove to be private quarters, and things of that sort. He said as much to me at the time.
“Well, when I got back to the office, I soon found that the business with my visitor was a matter that would take some time to settle—you can’t give a man an estimate all on a jump, and without doing a bit of figuring, you know—so I told young Stan that he might cut off and go over the place on his own, if he liked, as it had been arranged that, when knocking-off time came, I was to go back with him to Miss Larue’s flat, where we all were to have supper together. When I told him that, he asked eagerly if he might go up to the wax-figure department, as he was particularly anxious to see Loti at work, and so——”
“Loti!” Cleek flung in the word so sharply that Trent gave a nervous start. “Just a moment, please, before you go any further, Mr. Trent. Sorry to interrupt, but, tell me, please: is the man who models your show-window effigies named Loti, then? Is, eh? Hum-m! Any connection by chance with that once famous Italian worker in wax, Giuseppe Loti—chap that used to make those splendid wax tableaux for the Eden Musée in Paris some eighteen or twenty years ago?”
“Same chap. Went all to pieces all of a sudden—clear off his head for a time, I’ve heard—in the very height of his career, because his wife left him. Handsome French woman—years younger than he—ran off with another chap and took every blessed thing of value she could lay her hands upon when—but maybe you’ve heard the story?”
“I have,” said Cleek. “It is one that is all too common on the Continent. Also, it happened that I was in Paris at the time of the occurrence. And so you have that great Giuseppe Loti at the head of your waxwork department, eh? What a come-down in the world for him! Poor devil! I thought he was dead ages ago. He dropped out suddenly and disappeared from France entirely after that affair with his unfaithful wife. The rumour was that he had committed suicide; although that seemed as improbable as it now turns out to be, in the face of the fact that on the night after his wife left him he turned up at the Café Royal and publicly——No matter! Go on with the case, please. What about the boy?”
“Let’s see, now, where was I?” said Trent, knotting up his brow. “Oh, ah! I recollect—just where he asked me if he could go up and see Loti at work. Of course, I said that he could; there wasn’t any reason why I shouldn’t, as the place is open to inspection always, so I opened the door and showed him the way to the staircase leading up to the glass-room, and then went to the speaking-tube and called up to Loti to expect him, and to treat him nicely, as he was the nephew of the great Miss Larue and would, in time, be mine also.”
“Was there any necessity for taking that precaution, Mr. Trent?”
“Yes. Loti has developed a dashed bad temper since last autumn and is very eccentric, very irritable—not a bit like the solemn, sedate old johnnie he used to be. Even his work has deteriorated, I think, but one daren’t criticise it or he flies into a temper and threatens to leave.”
“And you don’t wish him to, of course—his name must stand for something.”
“It stands for a great deal. It’s one of our biggest cards. We can command twice as much for a Loti figure as for one made by any other waxworker. So we humour him in his little eccentricities and defer to him a great deal. Also, as he prefers to live on the premises, he saves us money in other ways. Serves for a watchman as well, you understand.”