The landlady suddenly paused, hearing a light step in the hall. She glanced through the window and then turned to Copplestone with an arch smile.
“Talk of the—you know,” she exclaimed. “Here’s Addie Chatfield herself!”
VI
The Leading Lady
Copplestone looked up with interest as the door of the private parlour was thrown open, and a tall, handsome young woman burst in with a briskness of movement which betokened unusual energy and vivacity. He got an impression of the old estate agent’s daughter in one glance, and wondered how Chatfield came to have such a good-looking girl as his progeny. The impression was of dark, sparkling eyes, a mass of darker, highly-burnished hair, bright colour, a flashing vivacious smile, a fine figure, a general air of sprightliness and glowing health—this was certainly the sort of personality that would recommend itself to a considerable mass of theatregoers, and Copplestone, as a budding dramatist, immediately began to cast Addie Chatfield for an appropriate part.
The newcomer stopped short on the threshold as she caught sight of a stranger, and she glanced with sharp inquisitiveness at Copplestone as he rose from his chair.
“Oh!—I supposed you were alone, Mrs. Wooler,” she exclaimed. “You usually are, you know, so I came in anyhow—sorry!”
“Come in,” said the landlady. “Don’t go, Mr. Copplestone. This is Miss Adela Chatfield. Your father has just been to see this gentleman, Addie—perhaps he told you?”
Addie Chatfield dropped into a chair at Mrs. Wooler’s side, and looked the stranger over slowly and carefully.
“No,” she answered. “My father didn’t tell me—he doesn’t tell me anything about his own affairs. All his talk is about mine—the iniquity of them, and so on.”
She showed a fine set of even white teeth as she made this remark, and her eyes sought Copplestone’s again with a direct challenge. Copplestone looked calmly at her, half-smiling; he was beginning, in his youthful innocence, to think that he already understood this type of young woman. And seeing him smile, Addie also smiled.
“Now I wonder whatever my father wanted to see you about?” she said, with a strong accent on the personal pronoun. “For you don’t look his sort, and he certainly isn’t yours—unless you’re deceptive.”
“Perhaps I am,” responded Copplestone, still keeping his eyes on her. “Your father wanted to see me about the strange disappearance of Mr. Bassett Oliver. That was all.”
The girl’s glance, bold and challenging, suddenly shifted before Copplestone’s steady look. She half turned to Mrs. Wooler, and her colour rose a little.
“I’ve heard of that,” she said, with an affectation of indifference. “And as I happen to know a bit of Bassett Oliver, I don’t see what all this fuss is about. I should say Bassett Oliver took it into his head to go off somewhere yesterday on a little game of his own, and that he’s turned up at Norcaster by this time, and is safe in his dressing room, or on the stage. That’s my notion.”
“I wish I could think it the correct one,” replied Copplestone. “But we can soon find out if it is—there’s a telephone in the hall. Yet—I’m so sure that you’re wrong, that I’m not even going to ring Norcaster up. Mr. Bassett Oliver has—disappeared here!”
“Are you a member of his company?” asked Addie, again looking Copplestone over with speculative glances.
“Not at all! I’m a humble person whose play Mr. Oliver was about to produce next month, in consequence of which I came down to see him, and to find this state of affairs. And—having nothing else to do—I’m now here to help to find him—alive or dead.”
“Oh!” said Addie. “So—you’re a writer?”
“I understand that you are an actress?” responded Copplestone. “I wonder if I’ve ever seen you anywhere?”
Addie bowed her head and gave him a sharp glance.
“Evidently not!” she retorted. “Or you wouldn’t wonder! As if anybody could forget me, once they’d seen me! I believe you’re pulling my leg, though. Do you live in town?”
“I live,” replied Copplestone slowly and with affected solemnity, “in chambers in Jermyn Street.”
“And do you mean to tell me that you didn’t see me last year in The Clever Lady Hartletop?” she exclaimed.
Copplestone put the tips of his fingers together and his head on one side and regarded her critically.
“What part did you play?” he asked innocently.
“Part? Why, the part, of course!” she retorted. “Goodness! Why, I created it! And played it to crowded houses for nearly two hundred nights, too!”
“Ah!” said Copplestone. “But I’ll make a confession to you. I rarely visit the theatre. I never saw Lady Hartletop. I haven’t been in a theatre of any sort for two years. So you must forgive me. I congratulate you on your success.”
Addie received this tribute with a mollified smile, which changed to a glance of surprised curiosity.
“You never go to the theatre?—and yet you write plays!” she exclaimed. “That’s queer, isn’t it? But I believe writing people are queer—they look it, anyhow. All the same, you don’t look like a writer—what does he look like, Mrs. Wooler? Oh, I know—a sort of nice little officer boy, just washed and tidied up!”
The landlady, who had evidently enjoyed this passage at arms, laughed as she gave Copplestone a significant glance.
“And when did you come down home, Addie?” she asked quietly. “I didn’t know you were here again.”
“Came down Saturday night,” said Addie. “I’m on my way to Edinburgh—business there on Wednesday. So I broke the journey here—just to pay my respects to my worshipful parent.”
“I think I heard you say that you knew Mr. Bassett Oliver?” asked Copplestone. “You’ve met him?”
“Met him in this country and in America,” replied Addie, calmly. “He was on tour over there when I was—three years ago. We were in two or three towns together at the same time—different houses, of course. I never saw much of
