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Chapter 1

The Actress

‘The Actress’ was first published as ‘A Trap for the Unwary’ in The Novel Magazine, May 1923

The shabby man in the fourth row of the pit leant forward and stared incredulously at the stage His shifty eyes narrowed furtively

‘Nancy Taylor!’ he muttered ‘By the Lord, little Nancy Taylor!’

His glance dropped to the prograer type than the rest

‘Olga Stormer! So that’s what she calls herself Fancy yourself a star, don’t you,a pretty little pot of otten your name was ever Nancy Taylor, I daresay I wonder now – I wonder nohat you’d say if Jake Levitt should remind you of the fact?’

The curtain fell on the close of the first act Hearty applause filled the auditoriureat emotional actress, whose name in a few short years had beco yet another triuel

Jake Levitt did not join in the clapping, but a slow, appreciative grin gradually distended his mouth God! What luck! Just when he was on his beam-ends, too She’d try to bluff it out, he supposed, but she couldn’t put it over on hiold-mine!

On the following old--rooa Storhtfully Her pale face, with its exquisitely mobile features, was a little reen eyes under the level brows steadily envisaged the h she contemplated the threat behind rather than the actual words of the letter

In that wonderful voice of hers which could throb with ea called: ‘Miss Jones!’

A neat young woman with spectacles, a shorthand pad and a pencil clasped in her hand, hastened fro room

‘Ring up Mr Danahan, please, and ask him to come round, immediately’

Syd Danahan, Olga Storer, entered the room with the usual apprehension of the aries of the artistic feether, such was his daily routine To his relief, Olga appeared calm and composed, and merely flicked a note across the table to him

‘Read that’

The letter was scrawled in an illiterate hand, on cheap paper

Dear Madam,

I el last night I fancy we have a o An article regarding her is to be published shortly If you would care to discuss same, I could call upon you at any time convenient to yourself

Yours respectfully,

Jake Levitt

Danahan l

ooked slightly bewildered

‘I don’t quite get it Who is this Nancy Taylor?’

‘A girl ould be better dead, Danny’ There was bitterness in her voice and a weariness that revealed her 34 years ‘A girl as dead until this carrion crow brought her to life again’

‘Oh! Then’

‘Me, Danny Just me’

‘This means blackmail, of course?’

She nodded ‘Of course, and by a hly’

Danahan frowned, considering the , slender hand, watched him with unfathomable eyes

‘What about bluff? Deny everything He can’t be sure that he hasn’t been misled by a chance resemblance’

Olga shook her head

‘Levitt h’

‘The police?’ hinted Danahan doubtfully

Her faint, derisive sh he did not guess it, was the i a slower brain laboriously cover the ground it had already traversed in a flash

‘You don’t – er – think ityourself to Sir Richard? That would partly spike his guns’

The actress’s engagement to Sir Richard Everard, MP, had been announced a feeeks previously

‘I told Richard everything when he asked me to marry him’

‘My word, that was clever of you!’ said Danahan adly

Olga smiled a little

‘It wasn’t cleverness, Danny dear You wouldn’t understand All the same, if this man Levitt does what he threatens, my nuoes ss to do’

‘Well?’

‘To pay – and that of course is endless! Or to disappear, start again’

The weariness was again very apparent in her voice

‘It isn’t even as though I’d done anything I regretted I was a half-starved little gutter waif, Danny, striving to keep straight I shot a man, a beast of a man who deserved to be shot The circumstances under which I killed him were such that no jury on earth would have convicted htened kid – and – I ran’

Danahan nodded