The mysterious Mr. Quin
"You are the man who is always right," she said, nodding her head
slowly at him. "What do you make of my screen?"
He felt that in some way the words were a challenge to him, and he
answered almost haltingly, stumbling over the words a little. "Why,
it's--it's beautiful. More, it's unique."
"You're right." Denman had come up behind him. "We bought it early
in our married life. Got it for about a tenth of its value, but even
then--well, it crippled us for over a year. You remember, Anna?"
"Yes," said Mrs. Denman, "I remember."
"In fact, we'd no business to buy it at all--not then. Now, of course,
it's different. There was some very good lacquer going at Christie's
the other day. Just what we need to make this room perfect. All
Chinese together. Clear out the other stuff. Would you believe it,
Satterthwaite, my wife wouldn't hear of it?"
"I like this room as it is," said Mrs. Denman.
There was a curious look on her face. Again Mr. Satterthwaite felt
challenged and defeated. He looked round him, and for the first time he
noticed the absence of all personal touch. There were no photographs,
no flowers, no knickknacks. It was not like a woman's room at all. Save
for that one incongruous factor of the Chinese screen it might have
been a sample room shown at some big furnishing-house.
He found her smiling at him.
"Listen," she said. She bent forward, and for a moment she seemed
less English, more definitely foreign. "I speak to you, for you will
understand. We bought that screen with more than money--with love. For
love of it, because it was beautiful and unique, we went without other
things, things we needed and missed. These other Chinese pieces my
husband speaks of, those we should buy with money only, we should not
pay away anything of ourselves."
Her husband laughed. "Oh! have it your own way," he said, but with a
trace of irritation in his voice. "But it's all wrong against this
English background. This other stuff, it's good enough of its kind,
genuine, solid, no fake about it--but mediocre. Good plain late
Hepplewhite."
She nodded. "Good, solid, genuine English," she murmured softly.
Mr. Satterthwaite stared at her. He caught a meaning behind these
words. The English room--the flaming beauty of the Chinese screen--No,
it was gone again.
"I met Miss Stanwell in the lane," he said conversationally. "She
tells me she is going to be Pierrette in this show tonight."
"Yes," said Denman. "And she's awfully good, too."
"She has clumsy feet," said Anna.
"Nonsense," said her husband. "All women are alike, Satterthwaite.
Can't bear to hear another woman praised. Molly is a very good-looking
girl, and so of course every woman has to have their knife into her."
"I spoke of dancing," said Anna Denman. She sounded faintly surprised.
"She is very pretty, yes, but her feet move clumsily. You cannot tell
me anything else, because I know about dancing."
Mr. Satterthwaite intervened tactfully. "You have two professional
dancers coming down, I understand?"
"Yes. For the ballet proper. Prince Oranoff is bringing them down in
his car."
"Sergius Oranoff?"
The question came from Anna Denman. Her husband turned and looked at
her.
"You know him?"
"I used to know him--in Russia."
Mr. Satterthwaite thought that John Denman looked disturbed.
"Will he know you?"
"Yes. He will know me."
She laughed--a low, almost triumphant laugh. There was nothing of
the Dutch Doll about her face now. She nodded reassuringly at her
husband. "Serge. So he is bringing down the two dancers. He was always
interested in dancing."
"I remember."
John Denman spoke abruptly, then turned and left the room. Mr. Quin
followed him. Anna Denman crossed to the telephone and asked for a
number. She arrested Mr. Satterthwaite with a gesture as he was about
to follow the example of the other two men.
"Can I speak to Lady Roscheimer. Oh! it is you. This is Anna Denman
speaking. Has Prince Oranoff arrived yet? What? _What?_ Oh! my dear!
But how ghastly."
She listened for a few moments longer, then replaced the receiver. She
turned to Mr. Satterthwaite.
"There has been an accident. There would be with Sergius Ivanovitch
driving. Oh! he has not altered in all these years. The girl was not
badly hurt, but bruised and shaken, too much to dance tonight. The
man's arm is broken. Serge Ivanovitch himself is unhurt. The devil
looks after his own, perhaps."
"And what about tonight's performance?"
"Exactly, my friend. Something must be done about it."
She sat thinking. Presently she looked at him. "I am a bad hostess, Mr.
Satterthwaite. I do not entertain you."
"I assure you that it is not necessary. There's one thing though, Mrs.
Denman, that I would very much like to know."
"Yes?"
"How did you come across Mr. Quin?"
"He is often down here," she said slowly. "I think he owns land in this
part of the world."
"He does, he does. He told me so this afternoon," said Mr.
Satterthwaite.
"He is--" She paused. Her eyes met Mr. Satterthwaite's. "I think you
know what he is better than I do," she finished.
"I?"
"Is it not so?"
He was troubled. His neat little soul found her disturbing. He felt
that she wished to force him further than he was prepared to go, that
she wanted him to put into words that which he was not prepared to
admit to himself.
"_You_ know!" she said. "I think you know most things, Mr.
Satterthwaite."
Here was incense, yet for once it failed to intoxicate him. He shook
his head in unwonted humility. "What can anyone know?" he asked. "So
little--so very little."
She nodded in assent. Presently she spoke again, in a queer, brooding
voice, without looking at him.
"Supposing I were to tell you something--you would not laugh? No,
I do not think you would laugh. Supposing, then, that to carry on
one's"--she paused--"one's trade, one's profession, one were to make
use of a fantasy--one were to pretend to oneself something that did not
exist--that one were to imagine a certain person. It is a pretense, you
understand, a make-believe--nothing more. But one day--"
"Yes?" said Mr. Satterthwaite. He was keenly interested.
"The fantasy came true! The thing one imagined--the impossible thing,
the thing that could not be--was real! Is that madness? Tell me, Mr.
Satterthwaite. Is that madness--or do you believe it too?"
"I--" Queer how he could not get the words out. How they seemed to
stick somewhere at the back of his throat.
"Folly," said Anna Denman. "Folly."
She swept out of the room and left Mr. Satterthwaite with his
confession of faith unspoken.
He came down to dinner to find Mrs. Denman entertaining a guest, a
tall, dark man approaching middle age.
"Prince Oranoff--Mr. Satterthwaite."
The two men bowed. Mr. Satterthwaite had the feeling that some
conversation had been broken off on his entry which would not be
resumed. But there was no sense of strain. The Russian conversed
easily and naturally on those subjects which were nearest to Mr.
Satterthwaite's heart. He was a man of very fine artistic taste, and
they soon found that they had many friends in common. John Denman
joined them, and the talk became localized. Oranoff expressed regret
for the accident.
"It was not my fault. I like to drive fast--yes, but I am a good
driver. It was Fate--chance"--he shrugged his shoulders--"the masters
of all of us."
"There speaks the Russian in you, Sergius Ivanovitch," said Mrs. Denman.
"And finds an echo in you, Anna Mikalovna," he threw back quickly.
Mr. Satterthwaite looked from one to the other of the three of them.
John Denman, fair, aloof, English, and the other two, dark, thin,
strangely alike. Something rose in his mind--what was it? Ah! he had
it now. The first act of the _Walküre_. Sigmund and Sieglinde--so
alike--and the alien Hunding. Conjectures began to stir in his brain.
Was this the meaning of the presence of Mr. Quin? One thing he believed
in firmly--wherever Mr. Quin showed himself, there lay drama. Was this
it here--the old hackneyed three-cornered tragedy?
He was vaguely disappointed. He had hoped for better things.
"What's been arranged, Anna?" asked Denman. "The thing will have to be
put off, I suppose. I heard you ringing the Roscheimers up."
She shook her head. "No--there is no need to put it off."
"But you can't do it without the ballet?"
"You certainly couldn't have a Harlequinade without Harlequin and
Columbine," agreed Anna Denman dryly. "I'm going to be Columbine, John."
"You?" He was astonished--disturbed, Mr. Satterthwaite thought.
She nodded composedly. "You need not be afraid, John. I shall not
disgrace you. You forget--it was my profession once."
Mr. Satterthwaite thought, _What an extraordinary thing a voice is. The
things it says--and the things it leaves unsaid and means! I wish I
knew--_
"Well," said John Denman grudgingly. "That solves one half of the
problem. What about the other? Where will you find Harlequin?"
"I _have_ found him--there!"
She gestured toward the open doorway where Mr. Quin had just appeared.
He smiled back at her.
"Good Lord, Quin," said John Denman. "Do you know anything of this
game? I should never have imagined it."
"Mr. Quin is vouched for by an expert," said his wife. "Mr.
Satterthwaite will answer for him."
She smiled at Mr. Satterthwaite, and the little man found himself
murmuring, "Oh! yes, I--I answer for Mr. Quin."
Denman turned his attention elsewhere. "You know there's to be a fancy
dress dance business afterward. Great nuisance. We'll have to rig you
up, Satterthwaite."
Mr. Satterthwaite shook his head very decidedly. "My years will excuse
me." A brilliant idea struck him. "A table napkin under the arm. There
I am, an elderly waiter who has seen better days."
He laughed.
"An interesting profession," said Mr. Quin. "One sees so much."
"I've got to put on some fool Pierrot thing," said Denman gloomily.
"It's cool anyway, that's one thing. What about you?" He looked at
Oranoff.
"I have a Harlequin costume," said the Russian. His eyes wandered for a
minute to his hostess's face.
Mr. Satterthwaite wondered if he was mistaken in fancying that there
was just a moment of constraint.
"There might have been three of us," said Denman, with a laugh. "I've
got an old Harlequin costume my wife made me when we were first married
for some show or other." He paused, looking down on his broad shirt
front. "I don't suppose I could get into it now."
"No," said his wife, "you couldn't get into it now." And again her
voice said something more than mere words.
She glanced up at the clock. "If Molly doesn't turn up soon, we won't
wait for her."
But at that moment the girl was announced. She was already wearing her
Pierrette dress of white and green, and very charming she looked in it,
so Mr. Satterthwaite reflected.
She was full of excitement and enthusiasm over the forthcoming
performance. "I'm getting awfully nervous, though," she announced, as
they drank coffee after dinner. "I know my voice will wobble, and I
shall forget the words."
"Your voice is very charming," said Anna. "I should not worry about it
if I were you."
"Oh! but I do. The other I don't mind about--the dancing, I mean.
That's sure to go all right. I mean, you can't go very far wrong with
your feet, can you?"
She appealed to Anna, but the older woman did not respond. Instead she
said, "Sing something now to Mr. Satterthwaite. You will find that he
will reassure you."
Molly went over to the piano. Her voice rang out, fresh and tuneful in
an old Irish ballad:
"_Sheila, dark Sheila, what is it that you're seeing?
What is it that you're seeing, that you're seeing in the fire?
'I see a lad that loves me--and I see a lad that leaves me,