The manager, who had been listening with some restlessness to the conversation, now intervened. He was a man with a sense of fitness of things, and he objected to having his private room made the scene of what appeared to be a reunion of old college chums. He hinted as much.
'Ha! Prrumph!' he observed, disapprovingly. 'Er--Mr Bentley, that is all. You may return to your work--ah'mmm! Kindly be more careful another time in stamping the letters.'
'Yes, by Jove,' said Mr Prosser, suddenly reminded of his wrongs, 'that's right. Exercise a little ordinary care, you ivory-skulled young son of a gun. Do you think Miss Delane is _made_ of twopences? Keep an eye on him,' he urged the manager. 'These young fellows nowadays want someone standing over them with a knout all the time. Be more careful another time, young man. Eleven-fifteen, remember. Make a note of it, or you'll go forgetting _that_.'
* * * * *
The seat Audrey had bought for him at the Piccadilly Theatre proved to be in the centre of the sixth row of stalls--practically a death-trap. Whatever his sufferings might be, escape was impossible. He was securely wedged in.
The cheaper parts of the house were sparsely occupied, but the stalls were full. Owen, disapproving of the whole business, refused to buy a programme, and settled himself in his seat prepared for the worst. He had a vivid recollection of _White Roses_, the novel, and he did not anticipate any keen enjoyment from it in its dramatized form. He had long ceased to be a member of that large public for which Miss Edith Butler catered. The sentimental adventures of governesses in ducal houses--the heroine of _White Roses_ was a governess--no longer contented his soul.
There is always a curiously dream-like atmosphere about a play founded on a book. One seems to have seen it all before. During the whole of the first act Owen attributed to this his feeling of familiarity with what was going on on the stage. At the beginning of the second act he found himself anticipating events. But it was not till the third act that the truth sank in.
The third was the only act in which, in his dramatization, he had taken any real liberties with the text of the novel. But in this act he had introduced a character who did not appear in the novel--a creature of his own imagination. And now, with bulging eyes, he observed this creature emerge from the wings, and heard him utter lines which he now clearly remembered having written.
Audrey had been right! Serpent Edith Butler had stolen his play.
His mind, during the remainder of the play, was active. By the time the final curtain fell and he passed out into the open air he had perceived some of the difficulties of the case. To prove oneself the author of an original play is hard, but not impossible. Friends to whom one had sketched the plot may come forward as witnesses. One may have preserved rough notes. But a dramatization of a novel is another matter. All dramatizations of any given novel must necessarily be very much alike.
He started to walk along Piccadilly, and had reached Hyde Park Corner before he recollected that he had an engagement to take supper with Mr Prosser at the Savoy Hotel. He hailed a cab.
'You're late,' boomed the author of sociological treatises, as he appeared. 'You're infernally late. I suppose, in your woollen-headed way, you forgot all about it. Come along. We'll just have time for an olive and a glass of something before they turn the lights out.'
Owen was still thinking deeply as he began his supper. Surely there was some way by which he could prove his claims. What had he done with the original manuscript? He remembered now. He had burnt it. It had seemed mere useless litter then. Probably, he felt bitterly, the woman Butler had counted on this.
Mr Prosser concluded an animated conversation with a waiter on the subject of the wines of France, leaned forward, and, having helped himself briskly to anchovies, began to talk. He talked loudly and rapidly. Owen, his thoughts far away, hardly listened.
Presently the waiter returned with the selected brand. He filled Owen's glass, and Owen drank, and felt better. Finding his glass magically full once more, he emptied it again. And then suddenly he found himself looking across the table at his Host, and feeling a sense of absolute conviction that this was the one man of all others whom he would have selected as a confidant. How kindly, though somewhat misty, his face was! How soothing, if a little indistinct, his voice!
'Prosser,' he said, 'you are a man of the world, and I should like your advice. What would you do in a case like this? I go to a theatre to see a play, and what do I find?'
He paused, and eyed his host impressively.
'What's that tune they're playing?' said Mr Prosser. 'You hear it everywhere. One of these Viennese things, I suppose.'
Owen was annoyed. He began to doubt whether, after all, Mr Prosser's virtues as a confidant were not more apparent than real.
'I find, by Jove,' he continued, 'that I wrote the thing myself.'
'It's not a patch on _The Merry Widow_,' said Mr Prosser.
Owen thumped the table.
'I tell you I find I wrote the thing myself.'
'What thing?'
'This play I'm telling you about. This _White Roses_ thing.'
He found that he had at last got his host's ear. Mr Prosser seemed genuinely interested.
'What do you mean?'
Owen plunged on with his story. He started from its dim beginning, from the days when he had bought the novel on his journey from Bath to Cheltenham. He described his methods of work, his registering of the package, his suspense, his growing resignation. He sketched the progress of his life. He spoke of Audrey and gave a crisp character-sketch of Mr Sheppherd. He took his hearer right up to the moment when the truth had come home to him.
Towards the end of his narrative the lights went out, and he finished his story in the hotel courtyard. In the cool air he felt revived. The outlines of Mr Prosser became sharp and distinct again.
The sociologist listened admirably. He appeared absorbed, and did not interrupt once.
'What makes you so certain that this was your version?' he asked, as they passed into the Strand.
Owen told him of the creature of his imagination in Act III.
'But you have lost your manuscript?'
'Yes; I burnt it.'
'Just what one might have expected you to do,' said Mr Prosser, unkindly. 'Young man, I begin to believe that there may be something in this. You haven't got a ghost of a proof that would hold water in a court of law, of course; but still, I'm inclined to believe you. For one thing, you haven't the intelligence to invent such a story.'
Owen thanked him.
'In fact, if you can answer me one question I shall be satisfied.'
It seemed to Owen that Mr Prosser was tending to get a little above himself. As an intelligent listener he had been of service, but that appeared to be no reason why he should constitute himself a sort of judge and master of the ceremonies.
'That's very good of you,' he said; 'but will Edith Butler be satisfied? That's more to the point.'
'I _am_ Edith Butler,' said Mr Prosser.
Owen stopped. 'You?'
'You need not babble it from the house-tops. You are the only person besides my agent who knows it, and I wouldn't have told you if I could have helped it. It isn't a thing I want known. Great Scott, man, don't goggle at me like a fish! Haven't you heard of pseudonyms before?'
'Yes, but--'
'Well, never mind. Take it from me that I _am_ Edith Butler. Now listen to me. That manuscript reached me when I was in the country. There was no name on it. That in itself points strongly to the fact that you were its author. It was precisely the chuckle-headed sort of thing you would have done, to put no name on the thing.'
'I enclosed a letter, anyhow.'
'There was a letter enclosed. I opened the parcel out of doors. There was a fresh breeze blowing at the time. It caught the letter, and that was the last I saw of it. I had read as far as "Dear Madam". But one thing I do remember about it, and that was that it was sent from some hotel in Cheltenham, and I could remember it if I heard it. Now, then?'
'I can tell it you. It was Wilbraham's. I was stopping there.'
'You pass,' said Mr Prosser. 'It was Wilbraham's.'
Owen's heart gave a jump. For a moment he walked on air.
'Then do you mean to say that it's all right--that you believe--'
'I do,' said Mr Prosser. 'By the way,' he said, 'the notice of _White Roses_ went up last night.'
Owen's heart turned to lead.
'But--but--' he stammered. 'But tonight the house was packed.'
'It was. Packed with paper. All the merry dead-heads in London were there. It has been the worst failure this season. And, by George,' he cried, with sudden vehemence, 'serve 'em right. If I told them once it would fail in England, I told them a hundred times. The London public won't stand that sort of blithering twaddle.'
Owen stopped and looked round. A cab was standing across the road. He signalled to it. He felt incapable of walking home. No physical blow could have unmanned him more completely than this hideous disappointment just when, by a miracle, everything seemed to be running his way.