The white hand rested on Roberta’s knee as the voice continued kindly: “If you were my sister, I would say don’t, don’t take up the stage as a profession. It’s such a weary, thankless life. Only a few of us reach the top, little girl, and it’s such a hard grind. Too, if you want to live right, theatrical folk think you are queer and you don’t win their friendship. They say you’re not their kind.”
“But, you—” Roberta breathed with very evident admiration, “you are a star. You do not need their friendship.” She was thinking of the small florid man who had suggested a top.
The actress smiled, and then hurriedly added in a low voice, for the maid was returning: “I haven’t time to talk more, now, but dear girl, even as a star I say don’t.”
Bobs impulsively caught the frail hand and held it in a close clasp. She wondered why there were tears in the dark-lashed eyes. As she was closing the door after her, she heard the maid address the star as Miss Merryheart.
“Another fictitious name that doesn’t fit,” Bobs thought. How she longed to go back to the little dressing room and ask Miss Merryheart if there was something, anything she could do for her; but instead, with a half sigh, she turned toward an open door beyond which she could hear laughter and joking.
Bobs wondered if among those chorus girls she would find the one she sought.
The door to the larger room was ajar, and Roberta entered. As she had guessed, there was a bevy of girls in the room. A dozen mirrors lined the walls and before each of them stood a young girl applying paint or powder to her face, or adjusting a wig with long golden curls. Some of them were dressed in spangled tights and others in very short skirts that stood out stiffly.
This was unmistakably the chorus.
“Hello, sweetie,” a buxom maiden near the door sang out when she observed the newcomer. “What line of talk are you goin’ to give us? The last guy as was here asked us if our souls was saved. Is that the dope you’ve got up your sleeve?”
Roberta smiled so frankly that she seemed to disarm their fears that they were to be preached to. “I say,” she began, as she sat on a trunk near the door, “do you all like this life?”
Another girl whirled about and, pausing in the process of applying a lip stick, she winked wisely at the one who had first spoken. “Say, Pink,” she called, “I got ’er spotted. She’s an ink-slinger for some daily.”
“Wrong you are,” Bobs merrily replied. Then she turned to a slender girl who was standing at the mirror next to her, who had appeared quite indifferent to the newcomer’s presence. “How is it with you?” Roberta asked her directly. “Do you like this life?”
But it was one of the bolder girls who replied: “Sure thing, we all like the life. It’s great.”
“Goin’ to join the high kicks?” This question was asked by still another girl who, having completed her toilet, now sauntered up and stood directly in front of Bobs. For one moment the young detective’s heart beat rapidly, for the newcomer’s resemblance to the picture was striking, but another girl was saying: “Bee, there, has been with this here show for two years, and she likes the life, don’t you, Bee?”
So, after all, this wasn’t the one whom she sought.
Bobs decided to take them into her confidence. Smiling around in the winning way that she had, she began: “Girls, you’ve had three guesses and missed, so now I’ll put you wise. I’m looking for a Winifred Waring-Winston, whose mamma-dear wishes to see her at once, if not sooner. Can you tell me at which theater I can find her?”
The others grouped about Roberta, but all shook their heads. “Dunno as I’d squeal on her if I did know,” said the one called Pink. “But as it happens, I don’t.”
Nor did the others, it would seem, and when Roberta was convinced that Winnie was not to be found there, she left, but, as the curtain had raised on the first scene, she paused near the front door to hear Miss Merryheart sing. Truly she was an actress, Bobs thought, for no one in that vast audience who saw the star could have guessed that only a brief time before there had been tears in those dark-lashed eyes that now seemed to be brimming with mirth.
At the next theater she entered, Bobs had an unexpected and rather startling experience. Just as she appeared in the dimly lighted space back of the scenes, she was pounced upon by a man who was undoubtedly the stage manager.
“Miss Finefeather,” he said, in a hoarse whisper, “What? You late again? Two minutes only to get into your riggin’.” Then giving Bobs a shove toward an open door, he called hoarsely: “Here’s that laggard, Stella. Help her and be quick. We don’t want any hitches in this scene. No time for explainin’. That, an’ settlin’ accounts will come later,” he added when Bobs tried to turn back to explain that she was not Miss Finefeather.
The man was gone and the leading chorus girl pounced upon her and, with the aid of two others, she was being disrobed. To her amusement as well as amazement, she soon found herself arrayed in tights with a short spangled overskirt. Resignedly she decided to see it through. Just at that moment a buzzer sounded, which seemed to be a signal for the entrance of the chorus. “Here you, Miss Finefeather,” someone was saying, “can’t you remember overnight where your place is? Just back of me, and do everything I do and you’ll get through all right.” The voice was evidently intended to be kind.
Bobs followed the one ahead, trying to suppress an almost uncontrollable desire to laugh. Who in the world did they suppose her to be? she wondered. The girls had divided into two long lines and they entered the stage from opposite sides. Bobs was thinking, “I’ve heard folk say it’s hard to get on the stage. Strikes me it’s just the other way. I jolly wish, though, I had some idea what I’m supposed to do.”
Roberta’s reverie was interrupted by her kindly neighbor, who whispered: “Gimme your paw. Here’s where we swing, an’ don’t forget to keep your feet going all the time. There’s no standing still in this act.”
Being in it, Bobs decided to try to do her best, and, having been a champion in school athletics, she was limber and mentally alert and went through the skipping and whirling and various gyrations almost as well as though she had been trained. However, when the act was finished and the chorus girls, with a burst of singing laughter, had run from the stage, the man whom she had first seen came up to her, profuse with apologies. He had just received a message telling him that Miss Finefeather was very ill and wouldn’t be able to keep on with the work. “You’re a wonder,” he exclaimed, with very sincere admiration. “How you went through that act and never missed so’s one could notice it proves you’re the girl for the place. Say you’d like it and the position’s yours.”
Bobs paused, but in that moment she seemed to hear Miss Merryheart’s one word: “Don’t!”
Roberta thanked the man, but said that her business engagements for that afternoon were so urgent that she could not even remain for another act.
Having learned that Miss Finefeather had been with them but a few days, Bobs, believing that she might be the girl whom she sought, asked for her address, and departed.
Her heart was filled with hope, “I believe I’ve hit the right trail,” she thought, as she hurried out of the theater.
CHAPTER XVIII
WHO WAS MISS FINEFEATHER
Roberta stepped into a drug store to inquire the way to the address that she had upon a slip of brown paper. The clerk happened to know the locality without referring to the directory, and Bobs was thanking him when one of the customers exclaimed in a voice that plainly expressed the speaker’s great joy: “Bobsy Vandergrift, of all people! Where in the world are you girls living? Dick wrote me that you had left Long Island, but he failed to tell me where you had located?”
It was Kathryn De Laney who, as she talked, drew Bobs into a quiet booth. The girls seated themselves and clasped hands across the table.
“Oh, Kathy,” Bobs said, her eyes glowing with the real pleasure that she felt, “I’ve been meaning to look you up, for Gloria’s sake, if for no other reason. I h
eard Glow say only the other day that she wanted to see you. I believe you’d do her worlds of good. You’re so breezy and cheerful.”
Kathryn looked troubled. “Why, is anything especially wrong with Glow?”
“She’s brooding because Gwen doesn’t write,” Bobs said. Then she told briefly all that had happened: how Gwen had refused to come with the others to try to earn her living, and how instead she had departed without saying good-bye to them to visit her school friend, Eloise Rochester, and how letters, sent there by Gloria, had been returned marked “Whereabouts unknown.”
“I honestly believe that Gloria thinks of nothing else. I’ve watched her when she was pretending to read, and she doesn’t turn a page by the hour. I had just about made up my mind to put an advertisement of some kind in the paper. Not that I’m crazy about Gwen myself. There’s no excuse for one sister being so superlatively selfish and disagreeable as she is, but Gloria believes, she honestly does, that if we are patient and loving, Gwen will change in time, because after all she is our mother’s daughter.”
“Gloria is right,” was the quiet answer. “I am sure of that. You all helped to spoil Gwen when she was a child because she was frail. Then later you let her have her own way because you dreaded her temper spells, but I honestly believe that a few hard knocks will do much toward readjusting Gwendolyn’s outlook upon life.”
“But, Kathryn!” Bobs exclaimed. “Don’t you know that Gwen couldn’t stand hard knocks? If it were a case of sink or swim, Gwen would just give up and sink.”
“I’m not so sure,” the girl who had been next door neighbor to the Vandergrifts all her life replied. “It’s an instinct with all of us to at least try to keep our heads above water.” Then she added: “But didn’t I hear you asking the clerk about an address? That was what first attracted my attention to you, because it is the same locality as my destination. I’m visiting nurse now on the lower West Side.”
Then, after glancing at the slip of paper Bobs held up, Kathryn continued: “I’ll call a taxi, and while we are riding down there you can tell me all about yourself.”
When they were settled for the long ride, Bobs blurted out: “Say, Kathy, before I begin, please tell me why you’ve taken up nursing? A girl with a thousand dollars a month income hardly needs the salary derived from such service, and, of course, I know that you take none. Phyl said she thought you ought to be examined by a lunacy board.”
Kathryn laughed good-naturedly as she replied: “Oh, Phyl means all right. She does think I’m crazy, but honestly, Bobsy, anyone who lives the idle, selfish butterfly life that Phyllis does is worse than not sane, I think: but she will wake up as Gwen will, some day, and see the worthlessness of it all. Now tell me about yourself. Why are you bound for the lower West Side?”
Bobs told her story. How Kathryn laughed. “A Vandergrift a detective!” she exclaimed. “What would that stately old grandfather of yours have to say if he knew it?”
Roberta’s eyes twinkled. “Just about the same thing that he would say about aircraft or radio. Impossible!”
The recounting of their recent experiences had occupied so much time that, as its conclusion was reached, so too was Bobs’ destination.
“I’ll get out with you, if you don’t mind,” Kathryn said, “for, since Miss Finefeather is ill, I may at least be able to give her some advice that will help her.”
Roberta glanced gratefully at her friend. “I had hoped that you would want to come with me,” she said, “but I did not like to ask, knowing that your own mission might be imperative.”
“No, it is not.” Then, having dismissed the taxi driver. Kathryn said: “I know this building. It is where a large number of poor struggling artists have rooms. On each floor there is one community kitchen.”
A janitor appeared from the basement at their ring. She said that Miss Finefeather lived on the very top floor and that the young ladies might go right up, and she did hope that they would be on time.
“On time for what?” Kathryn paused to inquire. The woman gave an indifferent shrug.
“Oh,” she informed them, “ever so often one of the artists gets discouraged, and then she happens to remember that the river isn’t so very far away. Also they just go to sleep sometimes.” Another shrug, and, with the added remark that she didn’t blame them much, the woman returned to her dreary home.
Bobs shuddered. What if they were too late? Poor Miss Finefeather, if she were really Winnie Waring-Winston, as Roberta so hoped, would not need be discouraged when she had a fine home and a mother whose only interest in life was to find her.
They were half-way up the long, steep flight of stairs leading to the top floor when Bobs paused and looked back at her friend, as she said: “I’m almost afraid that this girl cannot be the one I am seeking. Winnie could not be discouraged in only three days.”
“I thought that at once,” Kathryn replied, “but she is someone in trouble, and so I must go to her and see if I can help.”
In silence they continued to climb to the top floor, which was divided into four small rooms. Three of the doors were locked, but the fourth opened at their touch, revealing a room so dark that, at first, they could only see the form of the bed, and were relieved to note that someone was lying upon it. But at their entrance there was no movement from the silent figure.
“Maybe—after all—we came too late,” Bobs said softly, and how her heart ached for the poor girl lying there, and she wondered who it might be.
CHAPTER XIX
THE LOST IS FOUND
Kathryn crossed to the one window and drew up the shade. It was late afternoon and almost dusk on that north side of the house. The dim light revealed on the pillow a face so still and white that Bobs was sure only death could make it so. For one long moment she gazed before she recognized the girl lying on the bed, and no wonder, for great was the change in her.
“Gwen! It’s our own Sister Gwen!” she cried as one who can scarcely believe the evidence of her senses.
Down by the bedside Roberta knelt and took one of the lifeless white hands in her own. “Oh, Gwen,” she implored, “why did you do it? You thought we didn’t want you. You believed that in all the world there was no one who loved you, no home in which you were welcome. Oh, how selfish I’ve been! Gwen, forgive me, Sister. I should have tried to help you. I was the one really who was selfish, for I wanted adventure. I didn’t try to think what it would mean to you; but O, I will, I will, Gwen, if only you will live. Why don’t you open your eyes, Gwen?”
Then, as there was no response from the apparently lifeless form on the bed, Bobs looked up at her friend as she implored: “Kathryn, why doesn’t Gwen open her eyes? Are we too late? O, don’t say that we are. It will kill Glow. She thinks that it is her fault that Gwen left. She feels that she turned one of Mother’s own daughters out of our home.”
Kathryn, who had been hunting about the room as though in search of something, as indeed she had been, gave an exclamation of relief and, going to Bobs, she held out a small vial. “Gwen isn’t dead,” she said. “It wasn’t poison that she took. Just a heavy dose of sleeping powder. However, she will probably continue in this deathlike sleep for hours, and yet she may soon recover. We have no time to delay. I will remain here while you go to the corner drug store and telephone to my hospital for an ambulance. Just say that it is for Miss De Laney and they will respond at once. While she is unable to protest, we will take her to your home.”
Bobs had arisen, but lovingly she stooped and kissed the white face that was so unlike the proud, beautiful one she had last seen on that never-to-be-forgotten day when they had planned leaving their Long Island home.
Tears fell unheeded as Roberta whispered to ears that could not hear: “And when you waken, Sister dear, you will be in a home that wants you, and our Gloria, who has tried to be Mother to us all these years will be at your side smiling down, and a new life will begin for you and for us all.”
Then, almost blinded by her tears, Roberta desc
ended the long, dark flight of stairs and telephoned not only to the hospital, but also to Gloria, telling her the wonderful news and bidding her prepare Bobs’ own room for the sister who was coming home.
Two hours later Gwendolyn, who had not awakened, was lying in the comfortable bed in Bobs’ room. Her three sisters and their friend, Kathryn De Laney, stood watching her in the shaded lamp-light. The expression on the face of Gloria told more than words could have done what it meant to her to have this one of her dear mother’s daughters back in the home.
“And a real home it is going to be to her from now on if patient love can make it so,” Gloria said. Then to the nurse she turned, asking, “Will it be long before she wakens, Kathryn?”
“It ought not to be long,” was the reply, which had hardly been given when Roberta whispered eagerly, “Glow, I think Gwen moved.”
The eyes that looked so wearily out at them were about to close as though nothing mattered, when suddenly they were again opened with a brightening expression, and yet they did not look quite natural.
Holding out her arms toward the oldest sister, the girl on the bed cried eagerly: “Mother, I have come to you after all. I took something. I wanted to come—” Her voice trailed away and again she closed her eyes.
Gloria was the one of the girls who looked most like their mother. “Dear, dear Sister,” Glow said, trying not to sob, “you are home again. I am sure that our mother led us to you. Try to get strong. We will help you, Gwendolyn, for truly we love you. No one knows, little Gwen, how your big sister has wanted you. Can’t you try to forgive me for having spoken impatiently, if not for my sake, at least for the sake of our mother?”
Gwendolyn looked at the face bent close above her as though trying to recall the past. Then, reaching out a frail hand, she said, “I, Glow, am the one who should be forgiven.”
Then she closed her eyes, and a moment later Kathryn said that she was asleep, but that this time it was a natural sleep from great weariness.
The Girl Detective Megapack: 25 Classic Mystery Novels for Girls Page 270