Up to this point, at all events, Shiel did not allow his friendship with Lilian to blind him to the fact that he was cultivating her acquaintance with a set object.  He frequently sounded her to see how much she knew of the inner workings of the Firm, and he satisfied himself that she knew very little.

“They never discuss their powers in my presence,” she told him, “but I see them do very queer things, Mr. Kelson seldom walks to his room, he flies.  He takes a little jump into the air, moves his arms and legs as if he were swimming, and flies upstairs and along the corridor.  And what do you think happened the other day?  Some men were carrying into the building a huge, oak chest and several large pictures that Mr. Hamar had bought at a sale, when Mr. Kelson arrived on the scene.

“‘There is no need to lift these things,’ he said to the men, ’put them down.’  He then made some rapid signs in the air and muttered something; whereupon the chest and pictures rose in the air, and followed him into the building, and up the stairs to their respective quarters.”

“The men must have been surprised,” Shiel said.

“Surprised!” Lilian Rosenberg ejaculated.  “They were simply bowled over, and looked at one another with such idiotic expressions in their bulging eyes and gaping mouths, that I nearly died with laughter.”

“And you’ve no idea how Kelson did that trick?”

“None, excepting, of course, that the signs he made, and what he said, must have had something to do with it.”

It was on the tip of Shiel’s tongue to ask her, if she would try and find out for him, but he checked himself.  Even at this juncture of their friendship he dare not appear too curious.  He must wait.

To go back to Hamar.  He had seen Gladys act; he had become more infatuated with her than ever; and his passion was stimulated by the knowledge that she was universally admired, and that half the men in London were dying to be introduced to her.

“Money will do anything,” one of Hamar’s friends—­they were all Jews—­remarked to him.  “Offer the manager of the Imperial a hundred pounds and he’ll do anything you like with regard to the girl.  Every manager can be bought and every actress, too.”

The suggestion was a welcome one, and Hamar acted on it.  But whether or not the exception proves the rule, he was immeasurably disconcerted to find that with regard to money and managers, his friend had deceived him.  Far from being pleased at the offer of a bribe, the manager of the Imperial, an old Harrovian, raised his foot, and Hamar, who invariably paled at the prospect of violence, hurriedly withdrew.

On the eve of the initiation into Stage Three, the trio were very much perturbed.

“I hope to goodness nothing will appear to me,” Kelson said.  “My heart isn’t strong enough to stand the shock of seeing striped figures.  They should come to you, Curtis—­a few jumps wouldn’t do you any harm—­you’re fat enough.”