They dined that evening in the Argyll Rooms, a Haymarket resort not far from Laurent's Dancing Academy. The Argyll had private supper-rooms in which the indiscreet might spend an entire night.
Sybil was mystified by the choice of a private room. Mick was certainly not ashamed to be seen with her in public. Midway through the lamb, however, the waiter admitted a stout little gentleman with pomaded red hair and a gold chain across a taut velvet waistcoat. He was round and plush as a child's doll.
"Hullo, Corny, " Mick said, without bothering to put down his knife and fork.
"Evening, Mick," the man said, with the curiously un-placeable accent of an actor, or a provincial long in service to city gently. "I was told you'd need of me."
"And told correctly. Corny." Mick neither offered to introduce Sybil nor asked the man to sit. She began to feel quite uncomfortable. " 'Tis a brief part, so you should have little trouble remembering your lines." Mick produced a plain envelope from his coat and handed it to the man. "Your lines, your cue, and your retainer. The Garrick, Saturday night."
The man smiled mirthlessly as he accepted the envelope. "Quite some time since I played the Garrick, Mick." He winked at Sybil and took his leave with no more formality than that.
"Who's that, Mick?" Sybil asked. Mick had returned to his lamb and was spooning mint sauce from a pewter serving-pot.
"An actor of parts," Mick said. "He'll play opposite you in the Garrick, during Houston's speech."
Sybil was baffled. "Play? Opposite me?"
"You're a 'prentice adventuress, don't forget. You can expect to be called on to play many roles, Sybil. A political speech can always benefit from a bit of sweetening."
"Sweetening?"
"Never mind." He seemed to lose interest in his lamb, and pushed his plate aside. "Plenty of time for rehearsal tomorrow. I've something to show you now." He rose from the table, crossed to the door, and bolted it securely. Returning, he lifted the proofed canvas portmanteau from the carpet beside his chair and placed it before her on the Argyll's clean but much mended linen.
She'd been curious about the portmanteau. Not curious that he'd carried it with him, from the Garrick's pit, first to the printers, to examine the handbills for Houston's lecture, then on to the Argyll Rooms, but because it was of such cheap stuff, nothing at all like the gear he so obviously prided himself on. Why should Dandy Mick choose to carry about a bag of that sort, when he could afford some flash confection from Aaron's, nickel clasps and silk woven in Ada checkers? And she knew that the black bag no longer contained the kino cards for the lecture, because he'd wrapped those carefully in sheets of The Times and hidden them again behind the stage-mirror.
Mick undid the wretched tin clasps, opened the bag, and lifted out a long narrow case of polished rosewood, its corners trimmed with bright brass. Sybil wondered if it mightn't contain a telescope, for she'd seen boxes of this sort in the window of a firm of Oxford Street instrument-makers. Mick handled it with a caution that was very nearly comical, like some Papist called upon to move the dust of a dead Pope. Caught up in a sudden mood of childlike anticipation, she forgot the man called Corny and Mick's worrying talk about playing opposite him at the Garrick. There was something of the magician about Mick now, as he placed the gleaming rosewood case on the tablecloth. She almost expected him to furl back his cuffs: nothing here, you see, nothing here.
His thumbs swung tiny brass hooks from a pair of miniature eyelets. He paused for effect.
Sybil found that she was holding her breath. Had he brought a gift for her? Some token of her new status? Something to secretly mark her as his 'prentice adventuress?
Mick lifted the rosewood lid, with its sharp brass corners.
It was filled with playing cards. Stuffed end to end with them, a score of decks at the least. Sybil's heart fell.
"You've seen nothing like this before," he said. "I can assure you of that."
Mick pinched out the card nearest his right hand and displayed it for her. No, not a playing card, though near enough in size. It was made of some strange milky substance that was neither paper nor glass, very thin and glossy. Mick flexed it lightly between thumb and forefinger. It bent easily, but sprang
rigid again as he released it.
It was perforated with perhaps three dozen tightly spaced rows of circular holes, holes no larger than those in a good pearl button. Three of its corners were slightly rounded, while the fourth was trimmed off at an angle. Near the trimmed corner, someone had written "#I" in faint mauve ink.
"Camphorated cellulose," Mick declared, "the devil's own stuff, should it touch fire, but naught else will serve the finer functions of the Napoleon."
Napoleon? Sybil was lost. "Is it a sort of kino card, Mick?"
He beamed at her, delighted. She seemed to have said the right thing.
"Have you never heard of the Great Napoleon ordinateur, the mightiest Engine of the French Academy? The London police Engines are mere toys beside it."