at this stage i cannot better carry my story forward than by continuing to quote from the reports of different operatives. to me these are fascinating documents. their sober matter-of-factness is more thrilling than the most exciting yarn. with a wealth of seemingly irrelevant detail they build up a picture more convincing than any except those of a master of fiction. one has to be in the secret, of course. the operatives themselves are not supposed to know what it is all about, though they may guess a little. but to be in the secret of a case and to read the reports bearing on it from a hundred angles, gives one a strange sense of power.
report of d. b.
according to my instructions i applied for board at number — west forty-ninth street, mrs. atwood, landlady. i gave my name as winston darnall, and made out i was a character actor just in from the road. i engaged the rear hall room top floor. the place is an ordinary actor's house, considerably run down. the landlady has only lately bought the business from another woman, so it hasn't got the familiar friendly air of a long-established place.
at the supper table i recognised my man kenton milbourne from the description furnished. he's an unusual looking man—unusually homely. he doesn't keep to himself at all, like a fellow with something on his mind. he seems to be on good enough terms with the other boarders, but they keep out of his way because he's such a tiresome talker. there's one or two old fellows that go around with him. they sit in the parlour and talk by the hour about what dandy actors they are.
milbourne has the large front room on the third floor. as luck would have it, the hall room adjoining was vacant, and there is only a thin board partition between, because the hall-room was originally an alcove. but i judged this was too much of a good thing. i was afraid of taking the hall room for fear of putting m. wise. maybe later, when we're friends i can move.
i wasn't in any rush to pick up milbourne. thought i'd better wait awhile and give him a chance to make up to me. meanwhile i jollied the landlady. she was a talker like all of them. milbourne, it seems, is her pet. she holds him up as a model for the other boarders because he paid her four weeks board in advance when her rent fell due. this seems to indicate he means to stay a while.
all the boarders look up to milbourne with a kind of respect because he's just closed his season with a first-class company, while the rest are mostly with repertoire companies, and cheap road shows.
the second night i was there, milbourne braced me in the parlour. looking for a new listener, i guess. he started in to tell me what a hit he made with the irma hamerton production. if this man is a crook he's the smoothest article i ever ran up against. because he isn't smooth at all. he talks all the time about himself as simple as a child, but at that he don't tell you much. he's got a dull eye which don't seem to take in nothing, and he talks in a slow, monotonous way and says a thing over and over until you're doped.
a couple of nights later some of the younger boarders were having a bit of a rough house in the parlour and m. asked me up to his room where we could talk in peace. his room was bare like. he don't show any photographs or pictures or gimcracks. seems he never even unpacks his trunk. it was a big trunk even for an actor, and packed neat and full as a honeycomb. whenever he wants a little thing he unlocks it, takes out what he's after, and locks it again, even though he's right in the room. the key is on a chain fastened to his waistband.
his talk was mostly about the irma hamerton company. he told me what he says is the rights of the story about her sickness, and the unexpected closing in the middle of good business. she was in love with her leading man, roland quarles, according to him. nothing was too bad for him to say about quarles.*
* my operative went into considerable detail here as to milbourne's opinion of roland. most of it i have deleted, since it was no more than meaningless abuse.
b.e.
i didn't take much stock in all this. it is the way a poor actor likes to talk about one who rises above him.
about quarles and miss hamerton; milbourne said that just as she was going to marry him she found out that he had a wife already. without exactly saying so, he let on that it was he, milbourne, who had put her wise to the young man. that's the way they go on. she had hysterics, he said, and broke up the show. as proof of his story, he said that quarles had disappeared and nobody knew where he was, not even his old servant.
as i talk more with milbourne i see that he isn't so simple as he likes to make out. he has a way of sandwiching in little questions in his dull talk, that amounts to pretty effective cross-examining in the end. he didn't get anything on me though. my story hasn't any holes in it yet. i have an idea that i've had considerably more experience acting than he has.
sometimes he lets slip a clever remark that don't fit in with his character of a bonehead at all. for instance, we were talking about the chatfield case that all the papers are full of now, and milbourne says:
"put a police helmet on any man, and right away his brain seems to take the shape of it. cops think as much alike as insects. let a crook once get on to their way of thinking, and he can play with them like a ball on a rubber string."
he let this out by accident. afterwards he looked at me sharp to see if i had taken anything amiss. i never let on.
i have been in this house a week now, and milbourne and i are supposed to be quite intimate friends. last night on my way up stairs i saw a light under his door, so i knocked. his door is always locked. he wasn't any too glad to see me, but he couldn't very well keep me out, because he hadn't started to undress yet. he was having a little supper: a bottle of a syrupy kind of wine and biscuits with some blackish stuff he said was caviare. i didn't take any. i marked the labels, and to-day i went into a swell store and inquired the prices. the wine was imperial tokay. it is $2.50 the small bottle. the caviare was $1.50 for a little pot. i give this for what it's worth. seems funny if a man has a taste for such swell eats he should put up at a joint like mrs. atwood's.
d. b.
report of a. n.
operative s.c. and i were instructed to trail a certain k. milbourne, supposed to be an actor, and report on his habits and his associates. we were furnished with his description, and sent to watch the building at no. — west 49th street, where he boards. this house is a few doors from eighth avenue. we kept watch from outside a corner saloon over the way. we turned up our collars and stood around like the regular corner loafers.
at 10:05 a.m. our man came out and walked up the long block to broadway. we followed across the street. he turned down broadway with the crowd. we split up, one on one side of the street, one on the other. he often stopped in front of store windows, but didn't seem to mind the windows so much as to look sideways to see who was passing. he turned in at 1402 broadway, a big office building. i slicked up and went after him. went up in the same elevator. he gave everybody in the car a sharp look. got out at the eighth floor, and went into an office marked: "mrs. mendoza: theatrical agency."
i went back down-stairs to wait. this building has an entrance on broadway and one on thirty-ninth street. s. c. took the broadway door, and i watched the side street.
forty minutes later or 11:15 he came out my door. he walked around into broadway, and s. c. picked us up again. he took us down as far as thirty-fourth, and then turned around and went back to forty-second, without leaving broadway or stopping anywhere. turned west on forty-second, and went into the office of the d. and e. booking agency in the forrest theatre. stayed twenty-five minutes. came out and went down west side of broadway. at thirty-ninth street met an actor and stood with him twenty minutes talking loud, and looking around them the way they do, to see if anybody is noticing. the talk was all theatrical gossip which i was instructed not to report.
looked at his watch and went on down to the 36th-37th street block, where he walked up and down about seven times, stopping at each end to look in the same store window, and then coming back. we watched from a music store where we were making out to listen to the piano-player.
at 12:50 he met a man as if by surprise. they greeted each other so loud everybody rubbered. but it was all a stall. right away they came down to business and talked low and serious to each other. my partner and i brushed against them, but we couldn't hear much. too much noise in the street.
i heard milbourne say: "the grub is rotten! more than flesh and blood——"
his friend replied: "my dear fellow, it's worth it, isn't it? be reasonable. you're safe. we're all safe——"
the two of them turned north walking arm in arm, still talking low. at the forty-ninth street corner they parted. milbourne turned west, on his way home presumably, and his friend continued north. s. c. went with m. and i took after the stranger.
he was a big fat man, but energetic. he looked like a theatrical manager or a promoter. he wore a silk hat and a cutaway coat which flapped out as he walked. he had very big feet which slapped the pavement loudly as he walked along in his energetic way. it was a regular fat man's walk, the knees giving a little with every step. height about 5 foot 10: weight about 220: dark brown hair and eyes. eyes with a bright, hard expression. heavy brown moustache with curled ends. carried a cigar in his mouth which he never lighted, but kept twisting around while he talked.
at fiftieth street he crossed over and went down the subway stair spry as a kid. got on the first train: i took a seat in the adjoining car. at the next station, columbus circle, he suddenly jumped up and left the train. but i was with him. he stayed on the station platform. for a little while the two of us were alone there. he gave me a good hard look. when the next train came along he took it. i was in the next car again.
at seventy-second street he got out again. this time he went up to the street. he stood on the corner for a while. i watched from behind the glass doors of the subway station. i thought he was waiting for somebody. but suddenly he made a run for a passing car. i had to hump myself to get on it, but i did.
for near an hour we rode around, hopping from car to subway, and back to a car again, with a ride in a taxi in between. of course i knew by this time that he was on to me, but i stuck, hoping for a bit of luck.
later at the ninety-sixth street station he darted down the steps again, me a good second. this station is always crowded. a woman blocked me at the gate, and he gained a few seconds. there was an express train waiting. just as i reached it the guard closed the door in my face. fatty was just inside. as the train started he turned around and thumbed his nose at me. i felt cheap.
a. n.
