“Jake,” Helene said. “Call Malone.”
“Oh yes,” Betty Royal said. “I know about him. He could do something. I know he could.”
Helene said, “Call him right away. If he could get hold of the girl as soon as they got back from Crown Point—and arrange for everything to be kept quiet—”
Jake turned to Betty Royal. “How much cash money could you and your brother raise, in a hurry?”
She shook her head helplessly. “Not much. The family has money, but we just have our allowances, and they aren’t too big.”
“Well,” Jake told her, “don’t worry. There’s other ways of handling these things.” He looked at the phone, said, “Malone is going to love being called at this hour of the morning. Lawyers really aren’t supposed to be called out for emergencies in the middle of the night. They aren’t like doctors.”
“This lawyer is,” Helene said firmly.
Jake carried the phone into the kitchenette, shut the door, and was gone a long time. When he returned, he was scowling heavily.
“Malone is out”
Helene stared at him. “Out! Why we just took him home a little while ago!”
“I know it,” Jake said crossly, “and there was a message there for him to call somebody, and he called her from the lobby and told her he’d be right over, and went out.”
Helene opened her mouth to speak, shut it again, caught her breath, and said, “Did the clerk tell you who left the message for him?”
Jake nodded grimly. “One of the girls in the Casino chorus. Annette Ginnis. I suppose I can reach him there—”
Betty Royal had leaped to her feet, her face dead white. “Oh no! Annette Ginnis! No, it can’t be her! Because that’s the girl Ned went to Crown Point to marry!”
Chapter 7
“Well,” Jake said very quietly, “either you were mistaken, or else they didn’t lose much time sending for a lawyer. Maybe they thought a preacher wasn’t legal enough.”
Betty Royal sank back into her chair. “I don’t understand it. Where’s Ned?”
“He may be there,” Jake said, “and if he is, he’s in good hands. Or—wait a minute.” He went back to the phone, looked up the number of the Edward R. Royal town apartment and called it. A sleepy-voiced manservant answered. “Is Mr. Royal Junior in?” Jake asked.
“Yes, sir. But I’m afraid he can’t be disturbed. He’s sleeping, sir.”
“You don’t know what time he got in, do you?”
“No, sir. I have no idea. Is there any message?”
“Just tell him George Washington called,” Jake said, and hung up. He returned to the living room and said, “Well, your brother’s home and sleeping too soundly to be disturbed.”
The girl gasped. “But why did he go home?”
“I don’t know,” Jake said. “Maybe he thought the cooking was better.” He wondered if it would be polite to add, “Why don’t you go home too?”
“You see?” Helene said consolingly. “You really haven’t anything to worry about. The whole thing may have been a mistake.”
“It couldn’t have been,” the girl insisted.
“Well, if it wasn’t,” Jake told her, “it’s on the road to being straightened out right now.”
“You’d better let me take you home, Betty,” Pen Reddick said. “There isn’t anything you can do now in any case, and you need sleep.”
She nodded absentmindedly, her brows still knit.
“Don’t worry about it,” Helene said. “Everything’s all right.”
Betty Royal managed a faint smile. “I hope so. I’m sorry I bothered you about all this.”
“It’s perfectly all right. It wasn’t any bother,” Jake lied. “Just any time at all. It’s part of our regular service to the Casino’s guests.”
The smile widened a little at that. “I’m crazy about the Casino. And the show is wonderful.”
“That midget!” Pen Reddick said. “He’s absolutely tops. I’m coming back to see him tonight.”
“Do!” Helene said warmly.
“And good morning,” Jake said cordially, opening the door. He closed it after them and stood for a minute clinging to the knob.
“I wish to heaven I’d never heard of the midget. What am I going to do about tonight’s show?”
“Nothing,” Helene said. “If the midget’s disappearance—or murder—is in the papers today, you’ll draw a crowd from curiosity. And if it isn’t in the papers, you’ll have a crowd anyway, of people who’ve come back to see the midget. And you’ll have to tell them he’s vanished. It’s tomorrow night’s show you need to worry about.”
“That’s right,” Jake said wearily. He slumped down in a big easy chair and ran one hand through his red hair. “Annette Ginnis. What do you know about her—as a person, I mean?”
Helene frowned. “She isn’t the kind of girl who would rush a rich young man off to Crown Point when he was plastered and marry him before he knew what had hit him, if that’s what you want to know.”
“That’s what I thought about her, too,” Jake said. “Of course, we could be mistaken.”
“I doubt it. She’s a gentle, sort of wishy-washy little thing. It takes a certain amount of cool nerve to pull off that sort of business, and Annette certainly doesn’t have it.”
“Still,” Jake said, “those kitteny, soft-looking little brown-eyed blondes can be crafty as hell. I remember once in Detroit—” He paused and added, “That was a long time before I met you.”
Helene sniffed indignantly. “Stop trying to look as if you knew anything about women, outside of what you learned from me.”
“The fact remains,” Jake said, scowling, “that it looks as though Annette Ginnis and Ned Royal at least started for Crown Point. And I don’t think she called up Malone at five o’clock in the morning because she admires his handsome face.”
“It’s possible you’re right,” Helene said, starting to clear up the coffee cups. “At least, Ned Royal is the sort of young man you’d expect that sort of thing to happen to, sooner or later.”
“I’ve seen ideas expressed more clearly,” Jake said, “but you’ve been without sleep all night, and anyway I know what you mean. What is the sort of young man Ned Royal is?”
She made a face at him, carried the cups into the kitchenette, and returned. “He’s the kind of rich young man that makes everybody hate rich young men. Not bad, or vicious or anything like that. Just a kind of combination of limp and vague. Always getting drunk and noisy in night clubs and having to be tossed out.”
“And marrying chorus girls who promptly send him on home and telephone for a lawyer,” Jake added.
Helene yawned and stretched. “Well, it’s none of our business. And you said yourself Malone needed a few clients.”
Jake looked at his watch. “It’s seven-thirty. Do you think it’s bedtime?”
She looked at him. His lean, pleasant face was pale and drawn, his red hair was rumpled. “I don’t know whether you should be put to bed, or just buried the way you are. Wait right there, and I’ll get your slippers for you.”