Constance Dunlap Part 29

"Viola Cole," answered Florence.

"Rest here," soothed Constance. "Here at least you are safe. I have an idea. I shall be back soon."

The Betsy Ross was still open after the rush of tired shoppers and later of business women to whom this was not only a restaurant but a club. Constance entered and sat down.

"Is the manager in?" she asked of the waitress.

"Mrs. Palmer? No. But, if you care to wait, I think she'll be back directly."

As Constance sat toying absently with some food at one of the snowy white tables, a man entered. A man in a tea room is an anomaly. For the tea room is a woman's inst.i.tution, run by women for women. Men enter with diffidence, and seldom alone. This man was quite evidently looking for some one.

His eye fell on Constance. Her heart gave a leap. It was her old enemy, Drummond, the detective. For a moment he hesitated, then bowed, and came over to her table.

"Peculiar places, these tea rooms," observed Drummond.

Constance was doing some quick thinking. Could this be the detective Florence Gibbons had mentioned?

"The only thing lacking to make them complete," he rattled on, "is a license. Now, take those places that have a ladies' bar--that do openly what tea rooms do covertly. They don't reckon with the att.i.tude of women. This is New York--not Paris. Such things are years off. I don't say they'll not come or that women won't use them--but not by that name--not yet."

Constance wondered what his cynical inconsequentialities masked.

"I think it adds to the interest," she observed, watching him furtively, "this evasion of the laws."

Drummond was casting about for something to do and, naturally, to a mind like his, a drink was the solution. Evidently, however, there were degrees of brazenness, even in tea rooms. The Betsy Ross not only would not produce a labeled bottle and an obvious gla.s.s but stoutly denied their ability to fill such an order, even whispered.

"Russian tea?" suggested Drummond cryptically.

"How will you have it--with Scotch or rye?" asked the waitress.

"Bourbon," hazarded Drummond.

When the "Russian tea" arrived it was in a neat little pot with two others, the first containing real tea and the second hot water. It was served virtuously in tea cups, so opaquely concealed that no one but the clandestine drinker could know what sort of poison was being served.

Mrs. Palmer was evidently later than expected. Drummond fidgeted after the manner of a man out of his accustomed habitat. And yet he did not seem to be interested really in Constance, or even in Mrs. Palmer. For after a few moments, he rose and excused himself.

"How did HE come here?" Constance asked herself over and over.

As far as she could reason it out, there could be only one reason.

Drummond was clearly up with Florence. Did he also know that Constance was shielding her?

The more she thought of it, the more she shuddered at the tactless way in which the detective would perform the act of "charity" by discovering the lost girl--and pocketing the reward.

If her family only knew, how eagerly they might let her come back in her own way. She looked up the address of Everett Gibbons while she was waiting, a half-formed plan taking definite shape in her mind.

What--she did must be done quickly. Here at the tea room at least Florence, or rather Viola, was known. Perhaps the best way, after all, was to let her be discovered here. They could not deny that she had been working for them acceptably for some time.

Half an hour later, Mrs. Palmer, a bustling business woman, came in and the waitress pointed her out to Constance.

"Did you have a waitress here named Viola Cole?" began Constance, watching keenly the effect of her inquiry.

"Yes," replied Mrs. Palmer in a tone of interest that rea.s.sured Constance that, if there were any connection between Drummond's presence and Mrs. Palmer, it was wholly on his seeking. "But she disappeared last night. A most peculiar girl--but a splendid worker."

"She has been ill," Constance hastened to explain. "I am a friend of hers. I have a business downtown and could not come around until to-night to tell you that she will be back to-morrow if you will take her back."

"Of course I'll take her back. I'm sorry she's ill," and Mrs. Palmer bustled out into the kitchen, not unfeelingly but merely because that was her manner.

Constance paid her check and left the tea room. So far she had succeeded. The next thing she had planned was a visit to Mr. Gibbons.

That need not take long, for she was not going to tell anything. Her idea was merely to pave the way.

The Gibbons she found, lived in a large house on one of the numerous side streets from the Park, in a neighborhood that was in fact something more than merely well-to-do.

Fortunately she found Everett Gibbons in and was ushered into his study, where he sat poring over some papers and enjoying an after-dinner cigar.

"Mr. Gibbons," began Constance, "I believe there is a one thousand dollar reward for news of the whereabouts of your daughter, Florence."

"Yes," he said in a colorless tone that betrayed the hopelessness of the long search. "But we have traced down so many false clues that we have given up hope. Since the day she went away, we have never been able to get the slightest trace of her. Still, we welcome outside aid."

"Of detectives?" she asked.

"Official and private--paid and volunteer--anybody," he answered. "I myself have come to the belief that she is dead, for that is the only explanation I can think of for her long silence."

"She is not dead," replied Constance in a low tone.

"Not dead?" he repeated eagerly, catching at even such a straw as an unknown woman might cast out. "Then you know--"

"No," she interrupted positively, "I cannot tell you any more. You must call off all other searchers. I will let you know."

"When?"

"To-morrow, perhaps the next day. I will call you on the telephone."

She rose and made a hasty adieu before the man who had been prematurely aged might overwhelm her with questions and break down her resolution to carry the thing through as she had seen best.

Cheerily, Constance turned the key in the lock of her door.

There was no light and somehow the silence smote on her ominously.

"Florence!" she called.

There was no answer.

Not a sign indicated her presence. There was the divan with the pillows disarranged as they had been when she left. The furniture was in the same position as before. Hastily she went from one room to another.

Florence had disappeared!

She went to the door again. All seemed right there. If any one had entered, it must have been because he was admitted, for there were no marks to indicate that the lock had been forced.

She called up the tea room. Mrs. Palmer was very sympathetic, but there had been no trace of "Viola Cole" there yet.

"You will let me know if you get any word?" asked Constance anxiously.