CHAPTER XXIII.

FIASCO

A curious episode marked our arrival at the gallery. On the opposite side of Bond Street, you may recall that there is a block of offices and showrooms, occupied by beauty specialists, modistes, and others. Well, at the entrance to the gallery, where an announcement stated that an exhibition of modern drawings and art photographs was being held in aid of, etc., we bumped into one of Nanette’s Madeira conquests.

“Hallo, Milton!” said I.

The young man, who had been leaning against the doorway and staring abstractedly across the street, became galvanized into sudden action. He gave a swift look at me, a second look at Jack, and then:

“Hallo, Decies,” he returned in an oddly guilty way.

Immediately he stared across the street again. At which moment came a cry from Jack.

“Gad! There’s Nanette!”

“Where?” I asked.

“In that window, on the first floor there. She has seen us, I think.”

I followed the direction of his gaze. The window indicated belonged to an expert organizer of female hair. An attractive wax bust was visible but no Nanette. I turned to Milton.

“_Is_ Nanette there?” I asked.

“I couldn’t say,” he replied evasively.

Jack gave him a venomous glance and started across the street.

“We can see for ourselves,” he snapped.

I looked inquiringly at the young man in the doorway, but he returned my regard with so high a challenge that I wondered, checked the words on my tongue, and followed Jack.

We mounted the stairway to the first landing, and Jack threw open a door bearing the simple legend “Pierre” with quite unnecessary violence. We found ourselves in a discreet waiting room delicately perfumed. A stout French gentleman, whose wavy gleaming locks were a credit to his professional acquirements, greeted us. He bowed.

“I have called for a lady who is here,” said Jack. “Please tell her Mr. Decies and Mr. Kelton.”

“But there is some mistake,” Pierre replied--assuming that this was none other than the maestro in person. “No one is here at the moment--unless you mean Mlle. Justine, my assistant.” He raised his voice. “Justine!”

A trim figure in white appeared at the door of an inner sanctuary sacred to hair.

“M’sieur?” said Justine, and bestowed upon us a swift glance of roguish dark eyes.

“You are alone?”

“Yes, m’sieur. I am waiting for Lady Rickaby whose appointment is at three.”

She bit her lip, suppressing a smile, and disappeared.

“You see?” M. Pierre extended apologetic palms. “There is no one.”

“What’s afoot?” Jack asked as we regained Bond Street. “That fat bird was lying. The girl gave it away. Nanette is hiding from us.”

We stared at each other, badly puzzled. Then we looked across to where Milton lounged in the entrance to the Modern Gallery, seemingly oblivious of our existence.

“Come on!” said Jack savagely.

We joined the waiting Milton.

“Have you seen the famous picture?” I asked.

“No,” he replied, “I haven’t.”

Jack made a snorting noise, then, paying a shilling each, we went into the exhibition. We found it to be far from crowded, and, indeed, the artistic donations were not of outstanding merit. Quite the most interesting exhibit was the lady in charge of the sales department. And, at the end of a ten minutes’ quest, we sought her aid.

“Perhaps you could tell me,” said I, “where the picture is that was reproduced in to-day’s _Planet_--a portrait of a girl diving.”

Whereupon the lady addressed began to laugh!

Jack’s expression was worthy of study. In the eyes of poor Jack, anything touching Nanette was sacred, and this was the second time in one afternoon that inquiries concerning her had provoked merriment.

“I wish I could!” was the reply. “Really, it’s most absurd. But all the same the publicity has done the exhibition a lot of good. Forgive my laughter, but, you see, we know nothing whatever about this picture!”

“What!”

Jack’s exclamation was not merely rude; it was explosive.

“It has never been here,” she went on. “Dozens of people have asked about it. But _we_ have never seen it. The secretary ’phoned the _Planet_ this morning and was told that they had used the photograph in good faith.”

“But who sent it to them?” I asked.

“I am afraid I can’t tell you,” was the answer. “All we could learn was that it had been sent in by a responsible agency. Personally, of course, we are rather grateful.”

In silence Jack and I departed. Milton was standing in Bond Street just outside the doorway.

“Good-bye, Milton,” I said. “Let’s hope it keeps fine.”

“Good-bye, Decies,” said he, jauntily imperturbable.

Jack glanced sharply up at M. Pierre’s windows; but only the wax bust rewarded his scrutiny.

“I am beginning to hate your friend Milton,” he confided.

“He is not so popular with _me_,” I confessed.

“Come round to the club,” Jack suggested. “This thing calls for cool reflection.”

I left him at four o’clock. We had telephoned Nanette’s mother, only to learn that Nanette had not returned. The whole thing was provokingly mysterious. It had entirely diverted my thoughts from the more serious problem of the capture of Adolf Zara. In fact, I could not shake my mind free of it.

That Nanette had been hiding in the establishment of M. Pierre, I no longer doubted. And that Milton had some part in the comedy was clear enough. Poor fellow, I regarded him in a more charitable spirit than Jack had at command. Nanette had been using him--for what purpose I could not imagine--and his reward would be small.

Some association between Nanette, at M. Pierre’s, and Milton, in the entrance of the Modern Gallery, seemed to be established. But since Nanette’s photograph was not in the gallery, why this association--and conveying what?

Nothing--in so far as my bewildered brain served me.

So I mused, as I drifted along Pall Mall. I determined to hunt up O’Shea, when, suddenly, I saw something which called me to prompt action.

A taxi turned a corner at the very moment I was about to cross. In it sat Nanette--and Adolf Zara!

It is in such moments of stress as this that vacant cabs magically disappear from the streets. No fewer than five taximen had solicited my patronage during the few minutes that had elapsed since I had left Jack.

Now, with a dangerous agitator wanted by the British Government disappearing in the distance, from end to end of Pall Mall not a taxi was in sight!

When at last one crept into view, pursuit was out of the question.

If I had been perplexed before, perplexity now gave place to consternation. The comedy of Bond Street had been no more than a gay curtain draped before a stage set for drama. I tried in vain to allot the actors their proper rôles. What part did the missing photograph play? How came Zara in the cast? What of Milton? And what of Nanette?

It was not far to my chambers, and I hurried back, with the intention of ’phoning O’Shea.

I met him at the door.

Those who enjoyed the privilege of seeing Edmond O’Shea in action relate that when things were going hopelessly wrong he would fix his monocle immovably in his eye and retain it there, contrary to regulations, throughout the hottest fighting. He was wearing it now.

“Hallo, O’Shea!” I called. “This is lucky! I want to see you badly.”

“I came to see _you_, Decies,” said he. “There is something I wish you to know.”

Having opened the door and hurried him upstairs:

“Don’t jump to conclusions,” I began. “But Nanette met Zara this afternoon.”

O’Shea stared at me incredulously.

“Where?” he demanded.

“I don’t know where. But I saw them together not ten minutes ago.”

He hesitated for a moment; then:

“Tell me all about it,” he said calmly.

In as few words as possible I outlined the events of the day, terminating with my glimpse of Nanette and Adolf Zara together in Pall Mall.

“It is a blank mystery to me, O’Shea,” I said. “I simply cannot understand what it’s all about.”

“To me,” he replied, “it is equally, but painfully, clear.”

“What do you mean?”

“In the first place,” said he, “our friend the inspector borrowed your negative of Nanette.”

“The inspector! In heaven’s name, what for?”

“Because he happens to be a clever man at his trade. I declined to allow him to insert a paragraph in Nanette’s name. But he was by no means defeated. He employed certain official channels and secured the publication of her photograph.”

“With what object?”

“You recall the words that appeared under the picture?”

“Clearly. But the original was _not_ in Bond Street.”

“Quite unnecessary that it should be, Decies. Our friend the inspector was in Bond Street, however.”

I think I was gaping like an imbecile.

“You are simply confusing me, O’Shea,” I managed to say.

“Yes,” he admitted. “No doubt the scheme is difficult to grasp. You see--the inspector banked on Zara’s infatuation for Nanette. He judged it, no doubt, by the risk that Zara ran in communicating with her.”

“Good heavens!” I cried. “I see it all! He hoped in this way to lure Zara to the gallery?”

“Certainly. He thought that Zara would probably come, first, to secure the picture, and, second, possibly to obtain a glimpse of Nanette in person.”

“And you say the inspector was there? I didn’t see him.”

“I did!” said O’Shea grimly. “He was in an office at the end of the gallery--with the door ajar. The girl in charge knew he was there on some police business, but she did not know that it had any connection with the missing print. I gave him a crisp five minutes. But, officially, he was within his rights--and he knew it, dash him!”

“O’Shea,” I said, “I can’t fit Nanette and young Milton into the picture.”

O’Shea’s expression changed, softened.

“I wonder?” he murmured. “She has a high spirit, and, I am beginning to think, a keen brain. Decies!”--he suddenly grasped my shoulder--“how happy some man is going to be, some day!”

He turned aside abruptly, and walked into the inner room where my modest library formed a haven of refuge. Vaguely, as we had talked, I had grown aware of voices below. My man was one of the speakers; the other voice had been inaudible throughout.

Then I heard the door open behind me. I looked. And there was Nanette!

But, even as I was about to greet her, I checked the words. I had seen Nanette merry; I had seen her sad. I knew her moods of coquetry and of contrition. But, always, save once, I had thought of her as a child. I did not know her as I saw her now.

“I thought you were my friend,” she said. “I thought I could trust you. If I had had one little doubt I would never have told you----”

“Nanette,” I began----

But she checked me with a sad, angry gesture.

“You are no better than _he_ is,” she went on bitterly; “for you helped him. Heavens, what a fool I have been! And he only thinks of me as a _bait_ for his traps!”

“Stop!” I cried. “For heaven’s sake, stop, Nanette!”

“He was right,” she pursued, stonily ignoring me, and looking unseeingly, miserably, before her as she spoke. “Captain Slattery came. But I had arranged to warn him.”

I remembered Milton and his watch upon the window of M. Pierre. Then, abruptly, her mood changed. The blue eyes, which were so sweetly childish, blazed at me.

“No man, however bad he is, shall ever be lured to ruin by _me_. Tell Major O’Shea that Captain Slattery is laughing at him!”

“He is entitled to laugh, Nanette,” said a grave voice.

O’Shea came out from the recess and stood watching her.

A moment she confronted him, then:

“Good-bye!” she said.

Turning, Nanette ran from the room. I heard the street door slam.

“O’Shea!” I cried. “Why didn’t you tell her?”

“It is better she should think as she does,” he replied. “Fate has done what I failed to do. Now she will forget.”

I have often wondered, since, if he believed it would be so. I have tried, knowing the man’s honesty of soul, to conceive that he hoped it would be so. What _I_ believed or what I hoped I cannot pretend to record. But, at some hour past midnight, I learned that Nanette was unwilling to ignore the promptings of her heart.

Dejectedly, I sat smoking a lonely pipe, when the ’phone bell rang. I took up the receiver. I think I knew who had called me, even before I heard her voice.

“Is that you, Mr. Decies?”

“Yes, Nanette.”

“I am so miserable, because----”

She hesitated.

“Because of what?” I prompted gently.

“Because I never gave you a chance to explain. Oh, Mr. Decies! Tell me--_is_ there something I don’t know?”

“Why, yes--there is,” I replied. “You don’t know that Major O’Shea and I were totally ignorant of the plot to trap the man you call Captain Slattery.”

“Oh!” came, as a sort of sigh, broken by a sob. “And I told him---- Mr. Decies, do you think you can ever forgive me?”

“I _do_ forgive you, Nanette.”

“And do you think---- Good-night!”

“Nanette!” I called. “Nanette!” But there was no answer.