Constance Dunlap Part 24

And so Charmant had prevailed on Constance to take a full course in beautification and withhold the wrinkle at the source.

"Besides, you know, my dear," she purred, "there's nothing discovered by the greatest minds of the age that we don't apply at once."

Constance was not impervious to feminine reason, and here she was.

"Has Miss Larue gone?" she asked when at last she was seated in a comfortable chair again sipping a little aromatic cup of coffee.

"No, she's resting in one of the little dressing rooms."

She followed Floretta down the corridor. Each little compartment had its neat, plain white enameled bed, a dresser and a chair.

Stella smiled as Constance entered. "Yes," she murmured in response to the greeting, "I feel quite myself now."

"Mr. Warrington on the wire," announced Floretta a moment later, coming down the corridor again with a telephone on a long unwinding wire.

"h.e.l.lo, Alfred--oh, rocky this morning," Constance overheard. "I said to myself, 'Never again--until the next time. Vera? Oh, she was as fresh as a lark. Can I lunch with you downtown? Of course.'" Then as she hung up the receiver she called, "Floretta, get me a taxi."

"Yes, Miss Larue."

"I always have a feeling here," whispered Stella, "that I am being listened to. I mean to speak to Vera about it some time. By the way, wouldn't you like to join us to-night? Vera will be along and Mr.

Warrington and perhaps 'Diamond Jack' Braden--you know him?"

Constance confessed frankly that she did not have the pleasure of the acquaintance of the well-known turfman and first nighter.

She hesitated. Perhaps it was that that Stella liked. Almost any one else would have been overeager to accept. But to Constance, sure of herself now, nothing of the sort was worth scrambling for. Besides, she was wondering how a man with the fight of his life on his hands could find time to lunch downtown even with Stella.

"I've taken quite a fancy to you," pressed Stella.

"Thank you, it's very kind of you," Constance answered. "I shall try very hard to be there."

"I'll leave a box for you at the office. Come around after the performance to my dressing room."

"Miss Larue, your taxi's waiting," announced Floretta.

"Thanks. Are you going now, Mrs. Dunlap? Yes? Then ride down in the elevator with me."

They parted at the foot of the elevator and Constance walked through the arcade of the office building in which the beauty parlor occupied the top floor. She stopped at a florist's stand to admire the flowers, but more for an excuse to look back at Stella.

As Stella stepped into a taxicab, showing a generous wealth of silken hosiery beneath the tango gown, Constance was aware that the driver of another cab across the street was also interested. She noticed that he turned and spoke to his fare through the open window.

The cab swung around to follow the other and Constance caught a fleeting glimpse of a familiar face.

"Drummond," she exclaimed almost aloud.

What did it mean? Why had the detective been employed to follow Stella?

Instinctively she concluded that he must be engaged by Mrs. Warrington.

"I must accept Stella's invitation," she said to herself excitedly. "At least, she should be put on her guard."

That evening, as she was looking over the newspapers, her eye caught the item in the Wall Street edition:

RUBBER SYNDICATE DISSENSION

Break in Stock Follows Effort of Strong Minority to Oust Warrington from Presidency

Then followed a brief account of the struggle of a powerful group of directors to force Warrington, Braden, and the rest out, with a hint at the scandal of which every one now was talking.

"I never yet knew a man who went in for that sort of thing that lasted long in business," she observed. "This is my chance--a crowd riding for a fall."

Constance chose a modest orchestra seat in preference to the place in a box which Stella had reserved for her at the office, and, aside from the purpose which was rapidly taking shape in her mind, she enjoyed the play very much. Stella Larue, as the "Gra.s.s Widow," played her part with a piquancy which Constance knew was not wholly a matter of book knowledge.

As the curtain went down, the audience, its appet.i.te for the risque whetted, filed out on Broadway with its myriad lights and continuous film of motion. Constance made her way around to Stella's dressing room.

She had scarcely been welcomed by Stella, whose cheeks beneath the grease paint were now genuinely ablaze with excitement, when a man entered. He was tall, spare, the type whose very bow is ingratiating and whose "delighted, I a.s.sure you" is suave and compelling.

Alfred Warrington seemed to be on very good terms indeed with Stella as she introduced him to Constance.

"You will join us, Mrs. Dunlap?" he asked, throwing an opera cloak over Stella's shoulders. "Vera Charmant and Jack Braden are waiting for us at the Little Montmartre."

As he mentioned the famous cabaret, Constance took a little tighter grip on herself and decided to take the plunge and see the affair out, although that sort of thing had very little attraction for her.

They were leaving the theater when she saw lurking in the crowd the familiar figure of Drummond. She turned her head quickly and sank back into the dark recesses of the limousine.

Should she tell them now about him?

She leaned over to Warrington. "I saw a man in the crowd just now who seemed to be quite interested in us," she said quickly. "Can't we drive around a bit to throw him off if he should get into a cab?"

Warrington looked at her keenly. It was quite evident that he thought it was Constance who was being followed, not Stella or himself.

Constance decided quickly to say nothing more that would prejudice Stella, but as Warrington directed his driver to run up through the park she saw that, far from alarming him, the words had only added a zest of mystery about herself.

They left the Park and the car jolted them quickly now over the uneven asphalt to the palace of pleasure, where already the two advance guards were holding one of the best tables in a house crowded with all cla.s.ses from debutantes to debauchees.

"Diamond Jack" Braden was a heavy-set man with a debonnaire, dapper way about him. He wore a flower in his b.u.t.tonhole, a smart touch which seemed very fetching, evidently, to the artistic Vera.

Constance fell to studying him, as she did all men and women. "His hands betray him," she said to herself, as she was introduced.

They were in fact shielded from view as he bowed, one with the thumb tucked in the corner of his trousers pocket, the other behind his back.

"He is hiding something," flashed through her mind intuitively. And, when she a.n.a.lyzed it, she felt still that there was nothing fanciful about the idea. It was simply a little unconscious piece of evidence.

From the start the cabaret was pretty rapid. When they entered, two of the performers were rendering the Apache dance with an abandon that improved on its namesake. Scarcely had they finished when the orchestra began all over again, and a couple of diners from the tables glided past them on the dancing floor, then another couple and another.

"Tanguez-vous?" bowed Braden, leaning over to Stella.

"Oui, je tanguerai," she nodded, catching the spirit of the place.

It left Warrington and Constance at the table with Vera, and as Constance looked eagerly after the graceful form of the little actress, Warrington asked, "Will you dance!"