Charlot went to the door and peered through a narrow opening at the thoughtless intruder.
“Fancy making all this bother over a letter!” he growled. “Urgent? Of course: they always are urgent,” and he shut the door on the messenger and gave the letter to Valgrand. “A woman brought it,” he said.
Valgrand looked at it.
“H’m! Mourning! Will you bet, Charlot?”
“Deep mourning,” said Charlot: “then I bet it is a declaration. I expect you will win again, for very likely it is a begging letter. Black edges stir compassion.”
Valgrand was reading the letter, carelessly to begin with, then with deep attention. He reached the signature at the end, and then read it through again, aloud this time, punctuating his reading with flippant comments: “ ‘In creating the part of the criminal in the tragedy tonight, you made yourself up into a most marvellous likeness of Gurn, the man who murdered Lord Beltham. Come tonight, at two o’clock, in your costume, to 22 rue Messier. Take care not to be seen, but come. Someone who loves you is waiting for you there.’ ”
“And it is signed—?” said the dresser.
“That, my boy, I’m not going to tell you,” said Valgrand, and he put the letter carefully into his pocketbook. “Why, man, what are you up to?” he added, as the dresser came up to him to take his clothes.
“Up to?” the servant exclaimed: “I am only helping you to get your things off.”
“Idiot!” laughed Valgrand. “Didn’t you understand? Give me my black tie and villain’s coat again.”
“What on earth is the matter with you?” Charlot asked with some uneasiness. “Surely you are not thinking of going?”
“Not going? Why, in the whole of my career as amorist, I have never had such an opportunity before!”
“It may be a hoax.”
“Take my word for it, I know better. Things like this aren’t hoaxes. Besides, I know the—the lady. She has often been pointed out to me: and at the trial—By Jove, Charlot, she is the most enchanting woman in the world: strangely lovely, infinitely distinguished, absolutely fascinating!”
“You are raving like a schoolboy.”
“So much the better for me! Why, I was half dead with fatigue, and now I am myself again. Be quick, booby! My hat! Time is getting on. Where is it?”
“Where is what?” the bewildered Charlot asked.
“Why, this place,” Valgrand answered irritably: “this rue Messier. Look it up in the directory.”
Valgrand stamped impatiently up and down the room while Charlot hurriedly turned over the pages of the directory, muttering the syllables at the top of each as he ran through them in alphabetical order.
“J … K … L … M … Ma … Me … —Why, M. Valgrand—”
“What’s the matter?”
“Why, it is the street where the prison is!”
“The Santé? Where Gurn is—in the condemned cell?” Valgrand cocked his hat rakishly on one side. “And I have an assignation at the prison?”
“Not exactly, but not far off: right opposite; yes, number 22 must be right opposite.”
“Right opposite the prison!” Valgrand exclaimed gaily. “The choice of the spot, and the desire to see me in my costume as Gurn, are evidence of a positive refinement in sensation! See? The lady, and I—the counterpart of Gurn—and, right opposite, the real Gurn in his cell! Quick, man: my cloak! My cane!”
“Do think, sir,” Charlot protested: “it is absolutely absurd! A man like you—”
“A man like me,” Valgrand roared, “would keep an appointment like this if he had to walk on his head to get there! Good night!” and carolling gaily, Valgrand strode down the corridor.
Charlot was accustomed to these wild vagaries on his master’s part, for Valgrand was the most daring and inveterate rake it is possible to imagine. But while he was tidying up the litter in the room, after Valgrand had left him, the dresser shook his head.
“What a pity it is! And he such a great artiste! These women will make an absolute fool of him! Why, he hasn’t even taken his gloves or his scarf!” There was a tap at the door, and the doorkeeper looked in.
“Can I turn out the lights?” he enquired. “Has M. Valgrand gone?”
“Yes,” said the dresser absently, “he has gone.”
“A great night,” said the doorkeeper. “Have you seen the last edition of the Capitale, the eleven o’clock edition? There’s a notice of us already. The papers don’t lose any time nowadays. They say it is a great success.”
“Let’s look at it,” said the dresser, and, glancing through the notice, added, “yes, that’s quite true: ‘M. Valgrand has achieved his finest triumph in his last creation.’ ” He looked casually through the newspaper, and suddenly broke into a sharp exclamation. “Good heavens, it can’t be possible!”
“What’s the matter?” the doorkeeper enquired.
Charlot pointed a shaking finger to another column.
“Read that, Jean, read that! Surely I am mistaken.”
The doorkeeper peered over Charlot’s shoulder at the indicated passage.
“I don’t see anything in that; it’s that Gurn affair again. Yes, he is to be executed at daybreak on the eighteenth.”
“But that is this morning—presently,” Charlot exclaimed.
“May be,” said the doorkeeper indifferently; “yes, last night was the seventeenth, so it is the eighteenth now! Are you ill, Charlot?”
Charlot pulled himself together.
“No, it’s nothing; I’m only tired. You can put out the lights. I shall be out of the theatre in five minutes; I only want to do one or two little things here.”
“All right,” said Jean, turning away. “Shut the door behind you when you leave, if I have gone to bed.”
Charlot sat on the arm
