“All day Friday the Cantab looked rather green, and Charlton and Woulds stuck to him like a couple of bridesmaids, giving any advice that happened to come into their heads. At half past five Holroyd sent for me in the theatre, and I found him in the tiny stage-manager’s office, with Macgregor and Morton W. Penfold. ‘I suppose you know what’s on tonight?’ said he. ‘Scaramouche, surely?’ I said. ‘Don’t be funny with me, boy,’ said Holroyd; ‘you know what I mean.’ ‘Yes, I think I do,’ said I. ‘Then I want you to watch young Ingestree after the play, and follow him, and stay as close to him as you can without being seen, and don’t leave him till he’s back in his hotel.’ ‘I don’t know how I’m going to do that—’ I began, but Holroyd wasn’t having it. ‘Yes, you do,’ he said; ‘there’s nothing green about you, and I want you to do this for the company; nothing is to happen to that boy, do you understand?’ ‘But he’s going with the full intention of having something happen to him,’ I said; ‘you don’t expect me to hold off the girls with a gun, do you?’ ‘I just want you to see that he doesn’t get robbed, or beaten up, or anything worse than what he’s going for,’ said Holroyd. ‘Oh, Nature, Nature, what an auld bitch ye are!’ said Macgregor, who was taking all this very heavily.

“I thought I had better get out before I laughed in their faces; Holroyd and Macgregor were like a couple of old maids. But Morton W. Penfold knew what was what. ‘Here’s ten dollars,’ he said; ‘I hear it’s the only visiting card Old Ma Quiller understands; tell her you’re there to keep an eye on young Ingestree, but you mustn’t be seen; in her business I suppose she gets used to queer requests and odd provisos.’ I took it, and left them, and went off for a good laugh by myself. This was my first assignment as guardian angel.

“All things considered, everything went smoothly. After the play I left Macgregor to do some of my tidy-up work himself, and followed the Cantab after he had been given a back-slapping send-off by Charlton and Woulds. He didn’t walk very fast, though it was a cold January night, and Medicine Hat is a cold town. After a while he turned in to an unremarkable-looking house, and after some inquiries at the door he vanished inside. I chatted for a few minutes with an old fellow in a tuque and mackinaw who was shovelling away an evening snowfall, then I knocked at the door myself.

“Mrs Quiller answered in person, and though she was not the first madam I had seen—now and then one of the sisterhood would appear in search of Charlie, who had a bad habit of forgetting to settle his bills—she was certainly the least remarkable. I am always amused when madams in plays and films appear as wonderful, salty characters, full of hard-won wisdom and overflowing, compassionate understanding. Damned old twisters, any I’ve ever seen. Mrs Quiller might have been any suburban housewife, with a dyed perm and bifocal specs. I asked if I could speak to her privately, and waggled the ten-spot, and followed her into her living-room. I explained what I had come for, and the necessity that I was not to be seen; I was just someone who had been sent by friends of Mr Ingestree to see that he got home safely. ‘I getcha,’ said Mrs Quiller; ‘the way that guy carries on, I think he needs a guardeen.’