Constance Dunlap Part 36

"You've been bad boys," pouted the other woman, "but we forgive you--this time."

"Perhaps we may hope to be reinstated after a little--er--tea--and a dance?" suggested the other man.

The four were all moving in the direction of the dining-room and the gay music.

They had disappeared in the crush about the door before Constance noticed that the woman who had been sitting nearest her had dropped an envelope. She picked it up. It was on the stationery of another fashionable hotel, evidently written by one of those who lounge in, and on the strength of a small bill in the cafe use the writing room. In a man's hand was the name, "Mrs. Anita Douglas, The Melcombe Apartments, City"

Before she realized it, Constance had pulled out the card inside and glanced at it. It read:

MY DEAREST A----:

Can you meet us in the Vanderveer to-morrow afternoon at four?

Bring along your little friend.

With many * * * *

Yours,

Mechanically Constance crumpled the card and the envelope in her hand and held them as she regarded the pa.s.sing throng, intending to throw them away when she pa.s.sed a sc.r.a.p basket on the way out.

Still, it was a fascinating scene, this of the comedy and tragedy of human weaknesses, and she stayed much longer than she had intended. One by one the people had either gone to dinner in the main dining-room or elsewhere and Constance had nearly decided on going, too.

She was looking down the corridor toward the desk when she saw something that caused her to change her mind. There was the young lady who had been talking so flippantly to the woman with a grievance, and she was now talking, of all people, to Drummond!

Constance shrank back into her wicker chair in the protecting angle.

What did it mean? If Drummond had anything to do with it, even remotely, it boded no good, at least.

Suddenly a possible explanation crossed her mind. Was it a side-light upon that peculiar industry of divorce as practiced in no place except New York?

It was not only that Constance longed for, lived by excitement. She felt a sense of curiosity as to what the detective was up to now. And, somehow, she felt a duty in the case. She determined to return the envelope and card, and meet the woman. And the more she thought of it the more imperative became the idea.

So it came about that the following forenoon Constance sought out the Melcombe Apartments, a huge stone and brick affair on a street which the uptown trend of population was transforming.

Anita Douglas, she had already found out by an inquiry or two, was the wife of a well-known business man. Yet, as she entered the little apartment, she noticed that there was no evidence about it of a man's presence.

Mrs. Douglas greeted her unexpected visitor with an inquiring look.

"I was pa.s.sing through the corridor of the Vanderveer yesterday afternoon," began Constance, leaping into the middle of her errand, "and I happened to see this envelope lying on the carpet. I thought first of destroying it; then that perhaps you would rather destroy it yourself."

Mrs. Douglas almost pounced on the letter as Constance handed it to her. "Thank you," she exclaimed. "It was very thoughtful of you."

For a moment or two they chatted of inconsequential things.

"Who was your friend?" asked Constance at length.

The woman caught her breath and flushed a bit, evidently wondering just how much Constance really knew.

"The young lady," added Constance, who had put the question in this form purposely.

"Why do you ask?" Mrs. Douglas inquired in a tone that betrayed considerable relief.

"Because I can tell you something of her, I think."

"A friend of mine--a Mrs. Murray. Why?"

"Aren't you just a little bit afraid of--er--friends that you may chance to make in the city?" queried Constance.

"Afraid?" repeated the other.

"Yes," said Constance, coming gradually to the point. "You know there are so many detectives about."

Mrs. Douglas laughed half nervously. "Oh, I've been shadowed," she replied confidently. "I know how to shake them off. If you can't do anything else, you can always take a taxi. Besides, I think I can uncover almost any shadow. All you have to do, if you think you're being shadowed, is to turn a corner and stop. That uncovers the shadow as soon as he comes up to the corner, and after that he is useless. You know him."

"That's all right," nodded Constance; "but you don't know these crooked detectives nowadays as I do. They can fake up evidence to order. That is their business, you know, to manufacture it. You may uncover a six-dollar operative, Mrs. Douglas, but are you the equal of a twenty-dollar-a-day investigator?"

The woman looked genuinely scared. Evidently Constance knew some things she didn't know, at least about detectives.

"You--you don't think there is anything like that, do you?" she asked anxiously.

"Well," replied Constance slowly to impress her, "I saw your friend, Mrs. Murray, after you had left the Vanderveer, talking to a detective whom I have every reason to fear as one of the most unscrupulous in the game."

"Oh, that is impossible!" persisted Mrs. Douglas.

"Not a bit of it," pursued Constance. "Think it over for a moment. Who would be the last person a man or woman would suspect of being a detective? Why, just such an attractive young woman, of course. You see, it is just this way. They reason that if they can only get acquainted with people the rest is easy. For, people, under the right circ.u.mstances, will tell everything they know."

The woman was staring at Constance.

"For example," urged Constance, "I'm talking to you now as if I had known you for years. Why, Mrs. Douglas, men tell their most important business secrets to chance luncheon and dinner companions whom they think have no direct or indirect interest in them. Over tea-tables women tell their most intimate personal affairs. In fact, all you have to do is to keep your ears open."

Mrs. Douglas had risen and was nervously watching Constance, who saw that she had made an impression and that all that was necessary was to follow it up.

"Now, for instance," added Constance quickly, "you say she is a friend of yours. How did you meet her?"

Mrs. Douglas did not raise her eyes to Constance's now. Yet she seemed to feel that Constance was different from other chance acquaintances, to feel a sort of confidence, and to want to meet frankness with frankness.

"One day I was with a friend of mine at the new Palais de Maxixe," she answered in a low voice as if making a confession. "A woman in the dressing-room borrowed a cigarette. You know they often do that. We got talking, and it seemed that we had much in common in our lives. Before I went back to him--"

She bit her lip. She had evidently not intended to admit that she knew any other men. Constance, however, appeared not to notice the slip.

"I had arranged to meet her at luncheon the next day," she continued hastily. "We have been friends ever since."

"You went to luncheon with her, and--" Constance prompted.

"Oh, she told me her story. It was very much like my own--a husband who was a perfect bear, and then gossip about him that so many people, besides his own wife, seemed to know, and--"

Constance shook her head. "Really," she observed thoughtfully, "it's a wonder to me how any one stays married these days. Somebody is always mixing in, getting one or the other so wrought up that they get to thinking there is no possibility of happiness. That's where the crook detective comes in."