require could safely be left in the hands of this expert.
With considerable fervor, Mr. McEachern congratulated himself on his
astuteness. With Jimmy above stairs and Spike below, the sleuth-
hound would have his hands full.
CHAPTER XV
MR. MCEACHERN INTERVENES
Life at the castle during the first few days of his visit filled
Jimmy with a curious blend of emotions, mainly unpleasant. Fate, in
its pro-Jimmy capacity, seemed to be taking a rest. In the first
place, the part allotted to him was not that of Lord Herbert, the
character who talked to Molly most of the time. The instant
Charteris learned from Lord Dreever that Jimmy had at one time
actually been on the stage professionally, he decided that Lord
Herbert offered too little scope for the new man's talents.
"Absolutely no good to you, my dear chap," he said. "It's just a
small dude part. He's simply got to be a silly ass."
Jimmy pleaded that he could be a sillier ass than anybody living;
but Charteris was firm.
"No," he said. "You must be Captain Browne. Fine acting part. The
biggest in the piece. Full of fat lines. Spennie was to have played
it, and we were in for the worst frost in the history of the stage.
Now you've come, it's all right. Spennie's the ideal Lord Herbert.
He's simply got to be him-self. We've got a success now, my boy.
Rehearsal after lunch. Don't be late." And he was off to beat up the
rest of the company.
From that moment, Jimmy's troubles began. Charteris was a young man
in whom a passion for the stage was ineradicably implanted. It
mattered nothing to him during these days that the sun shone, that
it was pleasant on the lake, and that Jimmy would have given five
pounds a minute to be allowed to get Molly to himself for half-an-
hour every afternoon. All he knew or cared about was that the local
nobility and gentry were due to arrive at the castle within a week,
and that, as yet, very few of the company even knew their lines.
Having hustled Jimmy into the part of CAPTAIN BROWNE, he gave his
energy free play. He conducted rehearsals with a vigor that
occasionally almost welded the rabble he was coaching into something
approaching coherency. He painted scenery, and left it about--wet,
and people sat on it. He nailed up horseshoes for luck, and they
fell on people. But nothing daunted him. He never rested.
"Mr. Charteris," said Lady Julia, rather frigidly, after one
energetic rehearsal, "is indefatigable. He whirled me about!"
It was perhaps his greatest triumph, properly considered, that he
had induced Lady Julia to take a part in his piece; but to the born
organizer of amateur theatricals no miracle of this kind is
impossible, and Charteris was one of the most inveterate organizers
in the country. There had been some talk--late at night, in the
billiard room--of his being about to write in a comic footman role
for Sir Thomas; but it had fallen through, not, it was felt, because
Charteris could not have hypnotized his host into undertaking the
part, but rather because Sir Thomas was histrionically unfit.
Mainly as a result of the producer's energy, Jimmy found himself one
of a crowd, and disliked the sensation. He had not experienced much
difficulty in mastering the scenes in which lie appeared; but
unfortunately those who appeared with him had. It occurred to Jimmy
daily, after he had finished "running through the lines" with a
series of agitated amateurs, male and female, that for all practical
purposes he might just as well have gone to Japan. In this confused
welter of rehearsers, his opportunities of talking with Molly were
infinitesimal. And, worse, she did not appear to mind. She was
cheerful and apparently quite content to be engulfed in a crowd.
Probably, he thought with some melancholy, if she met his eye and
noted in it a distracted gleam, she put it down to the cause that
made other eyes in the company gleam distractedly during this week.
Jimmy began to take a thoroughly jaundiced view of amateur
theatricals, and of these amateur theatricals in particular. He felt
that in the electric flame department of the infernal regions there
should be a special gridiron, reserved exclusively for the man who
invented these performances, so diametrically opposed to the true
spirit of civilization. At the close of each day, he cursed
Charteris with unfailing regularity.
There was another thing that disturbed him. That he should be unable
to talk with Molly was an evil, but a negative evil. It was
supplemented by one that was positive. Even in the midst of the
chaos of rehearsals, he could not help noticing that Molly and Lord
Dreever were very much together. Also--and this was even more
sinister--he observed that both Sir Thomas Blunt and Mr. McEachern
were making determined efforts to foster the state of affairs.
Of this, he had sufficient proof one evening when, after scheming
and plotting in a way that had made the great efforts of Machiavelli
and Eichlieu seem like the work of raw novices, he had cut Molly out
from the throng, and carried her off for the alleged purpose of
helping him feed the chickens. There were, as he had suspected,
chickens attached to the castle. They lived in a little world of
noise and smells at the back of the stables. Bearing an iron pot
full of a poisonous-looking mash, and accompanied by Molly, he had
felt for perhaps a minute and a half like a successful general. It
is difficult to be romantic when you are laden with chicken-feed in
an unwieldy iron pot, but he had resolved that this portion of the
proceedings should be brief. The birds should dine that evening on
the quick-lunch principle. Then--to the more fitting surroundings of
the rose-garden! There was plenty of time before the hour of the
sounding of the dressing-gong. Perhaps, even a row on the lake--
"What ho!" said a voice.
Behind them, with a propitiatory smile on his face, stood his
lordship of Dreever.
"My uncle told me I should find you out here. What have you got in
there, Pitt? Is this what you feed them on? I say, you know, queer
coves, hens! I wouldn't touch that stuff for a fortune, what? Looks
to me poisonous."
He met Jimmy's eye, and stopped. There was that in Jimmy's eye that
would have stopped an avalanche. His lordship twiddled his fingers
in pink embarrassment.
"Oh, look!" said Molly. "There's a poor little chicken out there in
the cold. It hasn't had a morsel. Give me the spoon, Mr. Pitt. Here,
chick, chick! Don't be silly, I'm not going to hurt you. I've
brought you your dinner."
She moved off in pursuit of the solitary fowl, which had edged
nervously away. Lord Dreever bent toward Jimmy.
"Frightfully sorry, Pitt, old man," he whispered, feverishly.
"Didn't want to come. Couldn't help it. He sent me out." He half-
looked over his shoulder. "And," he added rapidly, as Molly came
back, "the old boy's up at his bedroom window now, watching us
through his opera-glasses!"
The return journey to the house was performed in silence--on Jimmy's
part, in thoughtful silence. He thought hard, and he had been
thinking ever since.
He had material for thought. That Lord Dreever was as clay in his
uncle's hands he was aware. He had not known his lordship long, but
he had known him long enough to realize that a backbone had been
carelessly omitted from his composition. What his uncle directed,
that would he do. The situation looked bad to Jimmy. The order, he