“Is it all right?” she whispered.
He nodded. “Very much all right I don’t know what I’ve ever done to deserve it.”
Her eyes widened. “You didn’t leave your mind over there along with the fiddle case?”
“No. I might have married a girl who wasn’t beautiful, or who wasn’t smart, or who couldn’t cook, but instead I married you and everything is very much all right.”
“Idiot! I’m talking about the fiddle case.”
“Oh. Every now and then when I look at you I forget everything else. Yes, the fiddle is back in its case and the whole works is there in the dressing room. Nobody saw me leaving here or going into the Casino.”
He sighed wearily, took off his overcoat, and sank down into a chair. “It’s too late to go to bed and too early to stay up.” He looked up at her wistfully. “And besides, I’m hungry.”
“Now isn’t that an amazing coincidence?” Helene said. “I got hungry myself while you were out, and so the coffee’s all made, and the omelet is practically done, and the ham is all broiled and—stop it, you’re breaking my ribs!”
The last morsel of omelet was gone and the last cup of coffee was poured before Helene said, “And now Jake, about our murder—”
“Look here,” Jake said sternly. “We don’t have a murder. We don’t even know anything about a murder. If the star performer from the Casino has disappeared overnight, we’ll be very sorry and we’ll do our best to help find him, but that’s all.”
Helene sighed. “I was afraid you were going to be stubborn about it.”
“Stubborn hell,” Jake said. “I’m being sensible. If the police learn that we discovered a murder and not only didn’t call them right away, but proceeded to hide the body with an eye to removing it from the Casino, and did everything possible to destroy or conceal evidence, they aren’t going to like it one bit.”
“The police,” Helene said gravely, “take a very narrow-minded view of things.”
“So do I, as far as this particular affair is concerned,” Jake said. “Let the police find out what happened. It’s their worry, not ours.”
“You’re perfectly right,” Helene agreed, just a shade too meekly. She lit a cigarette, leaned on the table, and said, “Aren’t you even the least bit curious?”
“No,” Jake said firmly. “Not the faintest bit curious. I’m not even interested.”
“Well,” Helene said, “let’s forget it then.”
“It’s a funny thing, though,” Jake murmured a few minutes later, “about those stockings.”
She perked up fast. “You mean their all being different sizes?”
“No. I mean there only being eleven of them. If those stockings were used to hang the midget because the Casino chorus was someway involved, why weren’t there twelve stockings? There’s twelve girls in the chorus.”
“I thought of that too. I wonder which girl of the twelve wasn’t included.”
“So do I. Wonder if it would be possible to find out. Not that I think it has any bearing on the murder, but—” He caught Helene’s eye across the table and reddened faintly. “I was just talking. Didn’t mean a thing.”
Before she could say a word, the telephone rang. Jake looked at his watch, scowled, and went into the other room to answer it. When he returned, his scowl had deepened.
“That was Betty Royal. She wants to see us. I told her to come up. She says it’s very important.”
“At six-thirty in the morning,” Helene said, “it must be.” She rose and started making a fresh pot of coffee. “Maybe she murdered the midget and wants us to recommend a good lawyer.”
“I hope that’s it,” Jake said. “Malone needs the money. But I’m afraid it isn’t. What would she want to murder the midget for? She didn’t even know him.”
“Maybe she didn’t like his act,” Helene commented. “A severe form of criticism, but effective.”
A moment later there was a knock on the door. Jake opened it to admit the young debutante, still in evening dress, and a pale, dark-haired young man.
“Hello,” Betty Royal said. “I’m so glad you weren’t asleep. I’m so glad you let me come up. Helene and Jake, this is Pen. Pendleton Reddick.” She spoke breathlessly, and as though she were thinking of something else.
Jake murmured something, and looked curiously at the young man. Pen Reddick had been a joy to the newspapers since he had inherited one of the nation’s larger fortunes at the age of five. He appeared to be a serious, indeed almost glowering young man, totally unlike the gay and debonair character Jake—and the columnists—had imagined. The dark eyes below his thick, heavy eyebrows seemed to contain a smoldering fire; his square jaw was set in a firm, hard line. Not a person to fool with, Jake decided.
“Helene and I went to the same school,” Betty Royal was saying in the same disturbed voice.
“Except that she went to it years later than I did,” Helene murmured. “Sit down. I’ll get you a cup of coffee.”
“Thanks,” the girl said. “I could use one.”
Did that school turn out nothing but beauties? Jake wondered, looking at Helene, and then at the seventeen-year-old Betty Royal. The girl’s chestnut-brown hair, that reached just below her shoulders, had been softly tumbled by the wind. The unusual pallor of her skin was sharp against the shining russet Satin of her dress. Her face wasn’t beautiful, strictly speaking, Jake realized. The brilliant mouth was too wide and full, and the little chin too sharply pointed. Yet somehow she gave the impression of beauty. Yes, even now, worried as she was.
She took the coffee Helene offered her almost absentmindedly, stirred it, sipped it once, set it down, and forgot about it.
“It was terrible of me, barging in on you at an hour like this,” she said. “For all I knew you might have been sound asleep. But I was so frightfully worried. And I didn’t know anyone else to go to. Certainly I couldn’t let any of the family know. In fact; that’s the whole trouble.” She paused for breath.
“What on earth’s the matter?” Helene asked.
“It’s her brother,” Pen Reddick said. “Ned Royal. We’re afraid he’s eloped with a chorus girl.”
“We know he has,” Betty Royal said, her voice shaking a little.
Jake stared at her for a minute. “For the love of Mike!” he said weakly. “Is that all?”
“Isn’t that enough?” Betty Royal demanded. “Don’t you know my family?”
“I know of your family,” Jake said slowly. “And I guess I see what you mean.”
“It’s awful,” she said. “Simply awful.”
Pen Reddick added, “She’s right, you know, Mr. Justus.”
Jake sat down and lit a cigarette before he spoke again. “I understand. But don’t you think you might be taking it a little hard? Chorus girls can be pretty nice people, you know. If they’re really in love with each other, it might turn out to be a very happy marriage.”
“I wish it was like that,” Betty Royal said, “but I know it isn’t.” She drew a long, sighing breath. “I may be only seventeen, but I’m nobody’s fool. Ned only met this girl yesterday, and when I ran into him at the Casino last night, he was drunk as a goat. And he had some perfectly frightful-looking man with him, who was stone cold sober.”
“Oh,”