"Will I?" he laughed. "Your only trouble will be to keep me away from your door, this trip." He gathered up his ma.n.u.script and steamer-cap, then with his hand on the door-k.n.o.b paused. "Oh, I forgot that blessed bandbox!"
"Never mind that now," said Alison. "I"ll have Jane repack it and take it back to your steward. Besides, I"m in a hurry, stifling for fresh air. Just give me twenty minutes...."
She offered him a hand, and he bowed his lips to it; then quietly let himself out into the alleyway.
VI
IFF?
Late that night, Staff drifted into the smoking-room, which he found rather spa.r.s.ely patronised. This fact surprised him no less than its explanation: it was after eleven o"clock. He had hardly realised the flight of time, so absorbed had he been all evening in argument with Alison Landis.
There remained in the smoking-room, at this late hour, but half a dozen detached men, smoking and talking over their nightcaps, and one table of bridge players--in whose number, of course, there was Mr. Iff.
Nodding abstractedly to the little man, Staff found a quiet corner and sat him down with a sigh and a shake of his head that ill.u.s.trated vividly his frame of mind. He was a little blue and more than a little distressed. And this was nothing but natural, since he was still in the throes of the discovery that one man can hardly with success play the dual role of playwright and sweetheart to a successful actress.
Alison was charming, he told himself, a woman incomparable, tenderly sweet and desirable; and he loved her beyond expression. But ... his play was also more than a slight thing in his life. It meant a good deal to him; he had worked hard and put the best that was in him into its making; and hard as the work had been, it had been a labour of love. He wasn"t a man to overestimate his ability; he possessed a singularly sane and clear appreciation of the true value of his work, harbouring no illusions as to his real status either as dramatist or novelist. But at the same time, he knew when he had done good work. And _A Single Woman_ promised to be a good play, measured by modern standards: not great, but sound and clear and strong. The plot was of sufficient originality to command attention; the construction was clear, sane, inevitable; he had mixed the elements of comedy and drama with the deftness of a sure hand; and he had carefully built up the characters in true proportion to one another and to their respective significance in the action.
Should all this then, be garbled and distorted to satisfy a woman"s pa.s.sion for the centre of the stage? Must he be untrue to the fundamentals of dramaturgic art in order to earn her tolerance? Could he gain his own consent to present to the public as work representative of his fancy the misshapen monstrosity which would inevitably result of yielding to Alison"s insistence?
Small wonder that he sighed and wagged a doleful head!
Now while all this was pa.s.sing through a mind wrapped in gloomy and profound abstraction, Iff"s voice disturbed him.
"Pity the poor playwright!" it said in accents of amus.e.m.e.nt.
Looking up, Staff discovered that the little man stood before him, a furtive twinkle in his pale blue eyes. The bridge game had broken up, and they two were now alone in the smoking-room--saving the presence of a steward yawning sleepily and wishing to "Eaven they"d turn in and give "im a charnce to s.n.a.t.c.h a wink o" sleep.
"h.e.l.lo," said Staff, none too cordially. "What d" you mean by that?"
"h.e.l.lo," responded Iff, dropping upon the cushioned seat beside him. He snapped his fingers at the steward. "Give it a name," said he.
Staff gave it a name. "You don"t answer me," he persisted. "Why pity the poor playwright?"
"He has his troubles," quoth Mr. Iff cheerfully, if vaguely. "Need I enumerate them, to you? Anyway, if the poor playwright isn"t to be pitied, what right "ve you got to stick round here looking like that?"
"Oh!" Staff laughed uneasily. "I was thinking...."
"I flattered you to the extent of surmising as much." Iff elevated one of the gla.s.ses which had just been put before them. "Chin-chin," said he--"that is, if you"ve no particular objection to chin-chinning with a putative criminal of the d"p"st dye?"
"None whatever," returned Staff, lifting his own gla.s.s--"at least, not so long as it affords me continued opportunity to watch him cooking up his cunning little crimes."
"Ah!" cried Iff with enthusiasm--"there spoke the true spirit of Sociological Research. Long may you rave!"
He set down an empty gla.s.s.
Staff laughed, sufficiently diverted to forget his troubles for the time being.
"I wish I could make you out," he said slowly, eyeing the older man.
"You mean you hope I"m not going to take you in."
"Either way--or both: please yourself."
"Ah!" said the little man appreciatively--"I am a deep one, ain"t I?"
He laid a finger alongside his nose and looked unutterably enigmatic.
At this point they were interrupted: a man burst into the smoking-room from the deck and pulled up breathing heavily, as if he had been running, while he raked the room with quick, enquiring glances. Staff recognised Mr. Manvers, the purser, betraying every evidence of a disturbed mind. At the same moment, Manvers caught sight of the pair in the corner and made for them.
"Mr. Ismay--" he began, halting before their table and glaring gloomily at Staff"s companion.
"I beg your pardon," said the person addressed, icily; "my name is Iff."
Manvers made an impatient movement with one hand. "Iff or Ismay--it"s all one to me--to you too, I fancy--"
"One moment!" snapped Iff, rising. "If you were an older man," he said stiffly, "and a smaller, I"d pull your impertinent nose, sir! As things stand, I"d probably get my head punched if I did."
"That"s sound logic," returned Manvers with a sneer.
"Well, then, sir? What do you want with me?"
Manvers changed his att.i.tude to one of sardonic civility. "The captain sent me to ask you if you would be kind enough to step up to his cabin,"
he said stiltedly. "May I hope you will be good enough to humour him?"
"Most a.s.suredly," Iff picked up his steamer-cap and set it jauntily upon his head. "Might one enquire the cause of all this-here fl.u.s.ter?"
"I daresay the captain--"
"Oh, very well. If you won"t talk, my dear purser, I"ll hazard a shrewd guess--by your leave."
The purser stared. "What"s that?"
"I was about to say," pursued Iff serenely, "that I"ll lay two to one that the Cadogan collar has disappeared."
Manvers continued to stare, his eyes blank with amazement. "You"ve got your nerve with you, I must say," he growled.
"Or guilty knowledge? Which, Mr. Manvers?"
A reply seemed to tremble on Manvers" lips, but to be withheld at discretion. "I"m not the captain," he said after a slight pause; "go and cheek him as far as you like. And we"re keeping him waiting, if I may be permitted to mention it."
Iff turned to Staff, with an engaging smile. "Rejecting the guilty knowledge hypothesis, for the sake of the argument," said he: "you"ll admit I"m the only suspicious personage known to be aboard; so it"s not such a wild guess--that the collar has vanished--when I"m sent for by the captain at this unearthly hour.... Lead on, Mr. Manvers," he wound up with a dramatic gesture.
The purser nodded and turned toward the door. Staff jumped up and followed the pair.