Part 6 (1/2)

”No, no!”

”Well, I should be in to-morrow afternoon, if you cared to look in.”

Roland bleated gratefully.

”I'll write down the address for you,” said Miss Verepoint, suddenly businesslike.

Exactly when he committed himself to the purchase of the Windsor Theater, Roland could never say. The idea seemed to come into existence fully-grown, without preliminary discussion. One moment it was not--the next it was. His recollections of the afternoon which he spent drinking lukewarm tea and punctuating Miss Verepoint's flow of speech with ”yes's” and ”no's” were always so thoroughly confused that he never knew even whose suggestion it was.

The purchase of a West-end theater, when one has the necessary cash, is not nearly such a complicated business as the layman might imagine.

Roland was staggered by the rapidity with which the transaction was carried through. The theater was his before he had time to realize that he had never meant to buy the thing at all. He had gone into the offices of Mr. Montague with the intention of making an offer for the lease for, say, six months; and that wizard, in the s.p.a.ce of less than an hour, had not only induced him to sign mysterious doc.u.ments which made him sole proprietor of the house, but had left him with the feeling that he had done an extremely acute stroke of business. Mr. Montague had dabbled in many professions in his time, from street peddling upward, but what he was really best at was hypnotism.

Altho he felt, after the spell of Mr. Montague's magnetism was withdrawn, rather like a nervous man who has been given a large baby to hold by a strange woman who has promptly vanished round the corner, Roland was to some extent consoled by the praise bestowed upon him by Miss Verepoint. She said it was much better to buy a theater than to rent it, because then you escaped the heavy rent. It was specious, but Roland had a dim feeling that there was a flaw somewhere in the reasoning; and it was from this point that a shadow may be said to have fallen upon the brightness of the venture.

He would have been even less self-congratulatory if he had known the Windsor Theater's reputation. Being a comparative stranger in the metropolis, he was unaware that its nickname in theatrical circles was ”The Mugs' Graveyard”--a t.i.tle which had been bestowed upon it not without reason. Built originally by a slightly insane old gentleman, whose princ.i.p.al delusion was that the public was pining for a constant supply of the Higher Drama, and more especially those specimens of the Higher Drama which flowed practically without cessation from the restless pen of the insane old gentleman himself, the Windsor Theater had pa.s.sed from hand to hand with the agility of a gold watch in a gathering of race-course thieves. The one anxiety of the unhappy man who found himself, by some accident, in possession of the Windsor Theater, was to pa.s.s it on to somebody else. The only really permanent tenant it ever had was the representative of the Official Receiver.

Various causes were a.s.signed for the phenomenal ill-luck of the theater, but undoubtedly the vital objection to it as a Temple of Drama lay in the fact that n.o.body could ever find the place where it was hidden.

Cabmen shook their heads on the rare occasions when they were asked to take a fare there. Explorers to whom a stroll through the Australian bush was child's-play, had been known to spend an hour on its trail and finish up at the point where they had started.

It was precisely this quality of elusiveness which had first attracted Mr. Montague. He was a far-seeing man, and to him the topographical advantages of the theater were enormous. It was further from a fire-station than any other building of the same insurance value in London, even without having regard to the mystery which enveloped its whereabouts. Often after a good dinner he would lean comfortably back in his chair and see in the smoke of his cigar a vision of the Windsor Theater blazing merrily, while distracted firemen galloped madly all over London, vainly endeavoring to get some one to direct them to the scene of the conflagration. So Mr. Montague bought the theater for a mere song, and prepared to get busy.

Unluckily for him, the representatives of the various fire offices with which he had effected his policies got busy first. The generous fellows insisted upon taking off his shoulders the burden of maintaining the fireman whose permanent presence in a theater is required by law.

Nothing would satisfy them but to install firemen of their own and pay their salaries. This, to a man in whom the instincts of the phoenix were so strongly developed as they were in Mr. Montague, was distinctly disconcerting. He saw himself making no profit on the deal--a thing which had never happened to him before.

And then Roland Bleke occurred, and Mr. Montague's belief that his race was really chosen was restored. He sold the Windsor Theater to Roland for twenty-five thousand pounds. It was fifteen thousand pounds more than he himself had given for it, and this very satisfactory profit mitigated the slight regret which he felt when it came to transferring to Roland the insurance policies. To have effected policies amounting to rather more than seventy thousand pounds on a building so notoriously valueless as the Windsor Theater had been an achievement of which Mr.

Montague was justly proud, and it seemed sad to him that so much earnest endeavor should be thrown away.

Over the little lunch with which she kindly allowed Roland to entertain her, to celebrate the purchase of the theater, Miss Verepoint outlined her policy.

”What we must put up at that theater,” she announced, ”is a revue.

A revue,” repeated Miss Verepoint, making, as she spoke, little calculations on the back of the menu, ”we could run for about fifteen hundred a week--or, say, two thousand.”

Saying two thousand, thought Roland to himself, is not quite the same as paying two thousand, so why should she stint herself?

”I know two boys who could write us a topping revue,” said Miss Verepoint. ”They'd spread themselves, too, if it was for me. They're in love with me--both of them. We'd better get in touch with them at once.”

To Roland, there seemed to be something just the least bit sinister about the sound of that word ”touch,” but he said nothing.

”Why, there they are--lunching over there!” cried Miss Verepoint, pointing to a neighboring table. ”Now, isn't that lucky?”

To Roland the luck was not quite so apparent, but he made no demur to Miss Verepoint's suggestion that they should be brought over to their table.

The two boys, as to whose capabilities to write a topping revue Miss Verepoint had formed so optimistic an estimate, proved to be well-grown lads of about forty-five and forty, respectively. Of the two, Roland thought that perhaps R. P. de Parys was a shade the more obnoxious, but a closer inspection left him with the feeling that these fine distinctions were a little unfair with men of such equal talents.

Bromham Rhodes ran his friend so close that it was practically a dead heat. They were both fat and somewhat bulgy-eyed. This was due to the fact that what revue-writing exacts from its exponents is the constant a.s.similation of food and drink. Bromham Rhodes had the largest appet.i.te in London; but, on the other hand, R. P. de Parys was a better drinker.