He looked at his programme. There in the list of the dancers was the name. The part of the girl was to be danced by Margarita Sorya. So that was her name: Margarita Sorya. She was a Margaret, as he had thought, but she was his, meant to be his, given back to him from the grave by some miracle of life. She was the other half of his uncompleted being. She was there on the other side of the old, torn, mothy, red-and-yellow curtain, probably talking with her husband, he thought bitterly, or in some foul and littered, cold dressing-room, trying to get changed for the next ballet. She would probably be in that. It would be Les Circasses, he supposed. Well, he had half an hour to wait, probably, for it generally took a ballet company twenty minutes between dances, and this company seemed likely to take longer than most. He rose up. As he did so, he saw the girl behind him nudge her companion, puff a blast of smoke from her rouged lips and heard her drawclass="underline" “The skunk who shut Spirr Wood.” He turned and looked at them as he went out; the young man seemed somewhat scared at her remark, but she was defiant; she stared back, though with half-shut eyes, and blew another blast of smoke right at him. At that instant, Tiger Mike appeared and addressed her.
“Madam,” he said, “will you please put your cigarette on this ash-tray?”
“I’ve not finished it yet,” she said.
“I know, madam,” he answered, “but the orders of the police are that no one is to smoke here. But there is a fine yard at the back, if you should want the use of it. You could smoke there and welcome.”
She relinquished her cigarette with the remark, that she had never before been in a place where she couldn’t smoke.
Frampton went out into the rain. Somewhere within a few yards of him, in one of the ignobler dens of that mean building, was his Margaret given back to him. He was in such a turmoil that he knew not quite what to do. Going back presently to the entrance corridor, he saw Tiger Mike talking to the young man who took the tickets. He was talking about the lady who had smoked.
“She said: ‘I’ve never before been in a place I couldn’t smoke.’ Indade there’s few times that painted Jezebel has been in the inside of a church. Did ye mark her nails now? All done up red as though she’d been scratching her lips. Can I do anything for ye, sorr?”
“Yes,” Frampton said, “indeed you can. Might I have a few words with you?”
“Deed you can. Will you just run round to the light boy, young fellow, and say it’ll be all of twenty minutes before there’s one of ’em ready?”
The young man went off into the heart of the gloomy building. Frampton was alone with the Tiger.
“You haven’t changed much since I saw you win your title,” Frampton said. “I’d like to shake hands with you, if I might be allowed.”
“Indeed, I’ll be proud,” the Tiger said.
“This company,” Frampton asked: “I gather you had trouble in getting here.”
“Trouble, is it? Begob, you’re right, sorr. We’ve been in one long mess and that’s the truth. The manager, that was, cleared out on us with the gate. He’s the boy let us in about these tickets. Then our lorry broke down on the road, and our ’bus, that we tour in, went the wrong road. Still, here we are.”
“How about lodgings for the night?” Frampton asked. “Have they all got lodgings in this place? It’s a noisome hole.”
“Ah, they’ll find some place,” the Tiger said, “between the act and to-night’s show; they’ll all find some place.”
“You mean they haven’t yet?”
“Not a one of them. But there’s pubs and places. It’s nothing. They’ll find spots. There’s always places in England’ll take ’em. The police’ll fix them, if they can’t find any for themselves.”
“It’s no great fun running round a place like this in a storm,” Frampton said. “It will be dark by the time this show’s over. Do you mean to say these poor souls have to change from their dancing things, fly off to find lodgings, get food of some sort and then fly back to the evening show?”
“They’re used to it. It’s nothing. Use is second nature.”
“Have you any place to go?”
“Sure, sorr. I go to my garage: he’s promised me a bed.”
“I could give five of them shelter,” Frampton said. “I’m not married, but I’ve got a big house doing nothing, and I could take them to and fro. You may think perhaps I’m running a bawdy house. I’m not. I’m interested in the show and would like to help. It’s going to be a bad night. Do you go on to Sulhampton to-morrow?”
“No, Sorr, we’d go on to Sulhampton Monday morning.”
“I’ve got a housekeeper,” Frampton said. “She’d look after the women.”
“I doubt there’s many housekeepers is used to this sort,” Mike said.
Frampton had thought that, too, but he was ready to try.
“Here is my card,” Frampton said. “If you will take my offer to five of the women, and tell them that I have a housekeeper who will make them at home, and who will come for them in a car at the end of this performance, if they choose to take the offer. But perhaps you have married couples. Two married couples and a girl, I could take those, if they would like.”
“We got no married couples, worse luck,” Mike said. “This bunch isn’t like the circus, nor yet like a touring company, with East Lynne and the Harbour Lights. I never was with a menagerie before, and begob it’s my last time. I’ll take your offer to them, Sorr, and in the meantime, I thank you kindly.”
Frampton saw that Mike acquitted him of running a brothel, and put him down as an odd sort of madman, such as was said to inhabit these islands. He closed the unwanted tickets; it was unlikely that anyone would ask for a seat now. He said:
“Will you just wait here, Sorr? I’ll bruit it to them.”
He took the card, glanced at it carefully, and vanished down the passage which led to the dressing-rooms. Faint wafts of cheap scent and cigarette smoke came from those parts. As Frampton waited, the young man and woman from the house came slowly out of the hall. The young woman was smoking. She stared at Frampton, who stared back. At the passage end, she paused and said:
“Shall we go to their dressing-rooms and tell them how lousy they are?”
“I wouldn’t,” the young man said, “Circassian blood, you know. These chaps are very handy with the knife.”
“Lousy day,” the young woman said, looking out of the outer door.
“Absooty pute.”
“I suppose they take us for the bloods, waiting for the soubrettes.”
“Like to cut?”
“What else can we do, till it’s time for Crissies?”
“You could see over the church,” the young man said. They giggled.
“What’s the time now?”
“Twelve past five. We’ll wait till half-past and then cut and have a cocktail at Paggies’. We’ll have earned it.”
They sauntered back past Frampton; she stared at him as she passed; he returned her stare. Tiger Mike returned just as she passed him. Tiger Mike was like a living conscience.
“Lady,” he said, “will you put that cigarette out now? Smoking’s not allowed in here, neither in the hall nor in any passage. The orders of the police are clear. Put it out now. I told you of that before.”