Wally uttered an exclamation.
"Do you mean to say ... ?"
"Yes, I do!" said the manager, turning on him. He felt that he had out-maneuvred Wally. "I agreed to let her open in New York, and she"s done it, hasn"t she? Now she can get out. I don"t want her. I wouldn"t have her if you paid me. She"s a nuisance in the company, always making trouble, and she can go."
"But I would prefer not to go," said Jill.
"You would prefer!" The phrase infuriated Mr Goble. "And what has what you would prefer got to do with it?"
"Well, you see," said Jill, "I forgot to tell you before, but I own the piece!"
3.
Mr Goble"s jaw fell. He had been waving his hands in another s.p.a.cious gesture, and he remained frozen with out-stretched arms, like a semaph.o.r.e. This evening had been a series of shocks for him, but this was the worst shock of all.
"You--what!" he stammered.
"I own the piece," repeated Jill. "Surely that gives me authority to say what I want done and what I don"t want done."
There was a silence. Mr Goble, who was having difficulty with his vocal chords, swallowed once or twice. Wally and Mr Pilkington stared dumbly. At the back of the stage, a belated scene-shifter, homeward bound, was whistling as much as he could remember of the refrain of a popular song.
"What do you mean you own the piece?" Mr Goble at length gurgled.
"I bought it."
"You bought it!"
"I bought Mr Pilkington"s share through a lawyer for ten thousand dollars."
"Ten thousand dollars! Where did you get ten thousand dollars?" Light broke upon Mr Goble. The thing became clear to him. "d.a.m.n it!" he cried. "I might have known you had some man behind you! You"d never have been so darned fresh if you hadn"t had some John in the background, paying the bills! Well, of all the ..."
He broke off abruptly, not because he had said all that he wished to say, for he had only touched the fringe of his subject, but because at this point Wally"s elbow smote him in the parts about the third b.u.t.ton of his waistcoat and jarred all the breath out of him.
"Be quiet!" said Wally dangerously. He turned to Jill. "Jill, you don"t mind telling me how you got ten thousand dollars, do you?"
"Of course not, Wally. Uncle Chris sent it to me. Do you remember giving me a letter from him at Rochester? The check was in that."
Wally stared.
"Your uncle! But he hasn"t any money!"
"He must have made it somehow."
"But he couldn"t! How could he?"
Otis Pilkington suddenly gave tongue. He broke in on them with a loud noise that was half a snort and half a yell. Stunned by the information that it was Jill who had bought his share in the piece, Mr Pilkington"s mind had recovered slowly and then had begun to work with a quite unusual rapidity. During the preceding conversation he had been doing some tense thinking, and now he saw all.
"It"s a swindle! It"s a deliberate swindle!" shrilled Mr Pilkington.
The tortoisesh.e.l.l-rimmed spectacles flashed sparks. "I"ve been made a fool of! I"ve been swindled! I"ve been robbed!"
Jill regarded him with wide eyes.
"What do you mean?"
"You know what I mean!"
"I certainly do not! You were perfectly willing to sell the piece."
"I"m not talking about that! You know what I mean! I"ve been robbed!"
Wally s.n.a.t.c.hed at his arm as it gyrated past him in a gesture of anguish which rivalled the late efforts in that direction of Mr Goble, who was now leaning against the safety-curtain trying to get his breath back.
"Don"t be a fool," said Wally curtly. "Talk sense! You know perfectly well that Miss Mariner wouldn"t swindle you."
"She may not have been in it," conceded Mr Pilkington. "I don"t know whether she was or not. But that uncle of her swindled me out of ten thousand dollars! The smooth old crook!"
"Don"t talk like that about Uncle Chris!" said Jill, her eyes flashing. "Tell me what you mean."
"Yes, come on, Pilkington," said Wally grimly. "You"ve been scattering some pretty serious charges about. Let"s hear what you base them on. Be coherent for a couple of seconds."
Mr Goble filled his depleted lungs.
"If you ask me ..." he began.
"We don"t," said Wally curtly. "This has nothing to do with you.
Well," he went on, "we"re waiting to hear what this is all about."
Mr Pilkington gulped. Like most men of weak intellect who are preyed on by the wolves of the world, he had ever a strong distaste for admitting that he had been deceived. He liked to regard himself as a shrewd young man who knew his way about and could take care of himself.
"Major Selby," he said, adjusting his spectacles, which emotion had caused to slip down his nose, "came to me a few weeks ago with a proposition. He suggested the formation of a company to start Miss Mariner in the motion-pictures."
"What!" cried Jill.
"In the motion-pictures," repeated Mr Pilkington. "He wished to know if I cared to advance any capital towards the venture. I thought it over carefully and decided that I was favorably disposed towards the scheme. I ..." Mr Pilkington gulped again. "I gave him a check for ten thousand dollars!"
"Of all the fools!" said Mr Goble with a sharp laugh. He caught Wally"s eye and subsided once more.
Mr Pilkington"s fingers strayed agitatedly to his spectacles.
"I may have been a fool," he cried shrilly, "though I was perfectly willing to risk the money, had it been applied to the object for which I gave it. But when it comes to giving ten thousand dollars just to have it paid back to me in exchange for a very valuable piece, of theatrical property ... my own money ... handed back to me ... !"
Words failed Mr Pilkington.
"I"ve been deliberately swindled!" he added after a moment, harking back to the main motive.
Jill"s heart was like lead. She could not doubt for an instant the truth of what the victim had said. Woven into every inch of the fabric, plainly hall-marked on its surface, she could perceive the signature of Uncle Chris. If he had come and confessed to her himself, she could not have been more certain that he had acted precisely as Mr Pilkington had charged. There was that same impishness, that same bland unscrupulousness, that same pathetic desire to do her a good turn however it might affect anybody else which, if she might compare the two things, had caused him to pa.s.s her off on unfortunate Mr Mariner of Brookport as a girl of wealth with tastes in the direction of real estate.