Murder at Bridge Part 39

Dundee's heart begged him to ask for more details of Penny's triumph, but his job demanded that he keep the now too-voluble Miss Earle to the business in hand.

"And Flora Hackett----?" he prompted.

"Well, the next day after the play the Easter vacation began, you know, and Flora _forged_ a letter from her father, giving her permission to spend the ten-days' Easter holiday with one of the girls who lived in Atlanta," Miss Earle continued, with great relish. "Well, sir, right in the middle of the holidays, here came her father and mother--they were both alive then--and asked for Flora! They wired the girl in Atlanta, and Flora wasn't there, and the Hacketts were nearly crazy. But as luck would have it, Mr. Hackett ran into a friend of theirs on Broadway, and this friend began to tease Mr. Hackett about his daughter's being a chorus girl!"

"A chorus girl!" Dundee echoed, taking care not to show his disappointment.

"Of course they nabbed her right out of the show, but that wasn't the worst of it!" Miss Earle went on dramatically and mysteriously. "They tried to hush it up, of course, but the word went through the school like wildfire that Flora wasn't only in the chorus, but that she was _living with an actor_ she'd been writing fan letters to long before the Easter play went on!"

"Did you hear his name?" Dundee asked.

"No," Miss Earle acknowledged regretfully. "But I'll bet anything it was the truth!... Why, Flora Hackett was so man-crazy she flirted scandalously with every male teacher in the school. The golf 'pro' we had then got so scared of her he quit his job!"

"I suppose," Dundee prompted craftily, "she wasn't any worse than some of the other Hamilton girls."

"We-ell," Miss Earle admitted reluctantly, "nothing ever _came out_ on any of the others, but it looked mighty funny to me when Janet Raymond's mother took her out of school right in the middle of a term and hauled her off to Europe _for a whole year_!... I guess,"--she suggested, with raised eyebrows, "you know what it _usually_ means when a girl has to spend a whole year abroad, and her mother says she's taking her away for her health--and Janet looking as healthy as any other girl in the school, except that she was crying half the time, and smuggling special delivery letters in and out by one of the maids--"

"Did you tell Nita these stories and point out the pictures of the girls?" Dundee had to risk asking.

Miss Earle froze instantly. "Naturally she was interested in the school, and once when she said it always made her mad the way chorus girls were run down, I told her that in my opinion society girls were worse than actresses, and--well, of course I gave her some examples, a lot of them worse than anything I've told you about Flora Hackett and Janet Raymond.... I hope," she added viciously, "that Nita dropped a hint or two if Flora or Janet had the nerve to high-hat her when she was in Hamilton!"

"Perhaps she did," Dundee agreed softly. "By the way, how did Nita happen to get the job here of directing the Easter plays?"

"That's what the reporters wanted to know," Miss Earle smiled. "But Miss Pendleton wouldn't tell them, for fear Serena wouldn't like it, and maybe be drawn into the scandal, when everybody knows she's as straight as a string----"

"Did Serena Hart get her the job?" Dundee was amazed.

"Yes.... Wait, I'll show you the letter of recommendation she wrote for Nita to Miss Pendleton," Miss Earle offered eagerly. "Remember, now, you're not to tell on me!"

She went to a tall walnut filing cabinet, and quickly returned with a note, which she thrust into Dundee's willing hands. He read:

_"Dear Miss Pendleton: The bearer, Juanita Leigh, is rather badly in need of a job, and I have suggested that she apply to you for a chance to direct the Easter play. I have known Miss Leigh personally for ten years, and have the highest regard, both for her character and for her ability. Since you usually stage musical comedies, I think Miss Leigh, who has been a specialty dancer as well as an actress in musical comedy for about twelve years, would be admirably suited for the work. Knowing my love for Forsyte as you do, I do not have to a.s.sure you that I would suggest nothing which would be detrimental to the school's best interests.... Fondly yours, Serena Hart."_

"She was wrong there, but I know it wasn't Nita's fault," Miss Earle, who had been looking over his shoulder, commented upon the last sentence of the letter.

"Is Miss Hart appearing in a play now?" Dundee asked.

"No, but she's rehearsing in one--'Temptation'--which will open at the Warburton Theater next Monday night," the secretary answered. "At commencement Tuesday night, Serena told Miss Pendleton how awfully sorry she was about Nita, and gave me tickets for the opening.... You go to see her, but don't tell her _I_ told you anything.... I know she's rehearsing at the theater this afternoon, because she said she would be all week, and couldn't go to the boat to see Miss Pendleton and Miss Macon off for Europe."

"I will!" Dundee accepted the suggestion gratefully, as if it had not occurred to him. "But first I want you to come out to lunch with me. I'm sure you know of some nice tearoom or roadhouse in the neighborhood."

During the luncheon, which Miss Earle devoured avidly, without its interfering with her flow of reminiscences concerning the girls she hated, Dundee was able to learn nothing more to the detriment of Forsyte's Hamilton alumnae, but he did add considerably to his knowledge and pity of female human nature.

It was nearly three o'clock when he presented his card, with a message pencilled upon its back, to the aged doorkeeper who drowsed in the alley which led to the stage entrance of the Warburton Theater, just off Broadway near Times Square, and fifteen minutes later he was being received in the star's dressing-room by Serena Hart herself.

"You're working on poor Nita's murder?" she began without preamble, as she seated herself at her dressing-table and indicated a decrepit chair for the detective. "I was wondering how much longer I could keep out of it.... Of course you've been pumping that poor, foolish virgin--Gladys Earle.... Why girls who look like that are always called _Gladys_--G.o.d!

I'm tired! We've been at it since ten this morning, but thank the Lord we're through now for the day."

Dundee studied her with keen interest, and decided that, almost plain though she was, she was even more magnetic than when seen from the footlights.... Rather carelessly dressed, long brown hair rather tousled, her face very pale and haggard without the make-up which would give it radiance on Monday night, Serena Hart was nevertheless one of the most attractive women Dundee had ever met--and one of the kindest, he felt suddenly sure....

"When did I first meet Nita Leigh?" she repeated his question. "Let me think--Oh, yes! The first year after I went on the stage--1917. We were in the chorus together in 'Teasing Tilly'--a rotten show, by the way.

The other girls of the chorus were awfully snooty to me, because I was that anathema, a 'society girl', but Nita was a darling. She showed me the ropes, and we became quite intimate--around the theater only, however, since my parents kept an awfully strict eye on me. The show was a great hit--ran on into 1918, till February or March, I believe."

"Then do you know, Miss Hart, whether Nita got married during the winter?" Dundee asked.

"Why, yes, she did!" Serena Hart answered, her brow clearing after a frown of concentration. "I can't remember exactly when, but it was before the show closed--certainly a few weeks before, because the poor child was a deserted bride days before the closing notice was posted."

"Deserted!" Dundee exclaimed. "Did you meet her husband, Miss Hart?"

"No," Serena Hart replied. "As a matter of fact, she told me extraordinarily little about him, and did not discuss her marriage with the other girls of the chorus at all. I got the impression that Mr.

Selim--Mat, she called him--wanted it kept secret for a while, but I don't know why.... This was early in 1918, as I've told you, though I have no way of fixing even the approximate date, and New York was full of soldiers. I remember I jumped to the conclusion that Nita had succ.u.mbed to a war romance, but I don't think she said anything to confirm my suspicion."

"When did she tell you of her marriage--that is, when--in relation to the date of the wedding itself?" Dundee asked.

"The very day she was married," Serena Hart answered. "She was late for the matinee. Our dressing-tables were side by side, and as she slipped out of her dress----"

"This dress?" Dundee asked, and handed her the photograph of dead Nita in the royal blue velvet dress she had kept for twelve years.

"Yes," and Serena Hart shuddered. "And her hair was dressed like that, too, although she had been wearing it in long curls, and had to take it down before she would go on for the opening number. She whispered to me that she had been married that day, that she was terribly happy, very much in love, and that her husband had asked her to dress her hair in the French roll, a favorite hair-dress with him. Between numbers she whispered to me again, telling me that her husband was 'so different', 'such a lamb'--totally unlike any man she had met on Broadway, poor child.... For she was a child still--only twenty, but she had been in the 'show business' since she was a motherless, fatherless little drifter of sixteen.... No, she did not tell me how old he was, where he came from, his business, or what he looked like, and I did not inquire.

As the days pa.s.sed--weeks, probably, she became more and more silent and reserved, though once or twice she protested she was still 'terribly happy.' Then came a day when she did not show up for the performance at all. The next night she told me--in just a few words, that her husband had left her, after a quarrel, and had not returned. It seems that she had innocently told him how she had 'vamped' Benny Steinfeld, the big revue producer, you know, into giving her a 'spot' in his summer show, and that her 'Mat' had flown into a rage, accusing her of having been untrue to him. She never mentioned his desertion to me again, but----"

"Yes?" Dundee prompted.

"Well," Serena Hart went on, uncomfortably, "I'm afraid I rather forgot poor Nita after 'Teasing Tilly' closed, for my next work was in stock in Des Moines. After a year of stock I got my chance in a legitimate show on Broadway, and one day I met her on the street. Not having much to talk with her about, I asked her if she and her husband were reconciled.

She said no, that she had never seen him again. Then, in a burst of confidence, she told me that she had hired a private detective out of her meager earnings to investigate him in his home town, or rather the city he had told her he came from. The detective had reported that no such person as Mat or Matthew Selim had ever lived there, so far as he could find out. I asked her if she was going to get a divorce and she said she was not--that being already married was a protection against getting married in haste again. After that, I rather lost sight of Nita, and practically forgot her, our paths being so very divergent."

"And you never saw her again?" Dundee asked, very much disappointed.

"Oh, yes, two or three times--at openings, or on the street, but we never held any significant conversation," Serena Hart answered, reaching for her plain, rather dowdy little hat. "Wait! I was about to forget! I had quite a shock in connection with Nita. One afternoon--let's see, that was when I opened in 'Hullabaloo,' in which I made my first real success, you know--I bought _The New York Evening Star_, which devotes considerable s.p.a.ce to theatrical doings, to see what sort of review the show had got, and on the first page I saw a picture of Nita, beneath a headline which said, 'Famous Model Commits Suicide'----"

"What!" Dundee exclaimed, astounded.

"Oh, it wasn't Nita Leigh," Serena Hart rea.s.sured him. "There was a correction the next day. You see, an artists' model named Anita Lee--spelled L-e-e, instead of Le-i-g-h--had committed suicide, and, as the _Star_ explained it the next day, the similarity of both the first name and the last had caused the error in getting a photograph from the 'morgue' to accompany the story. There was a picture of Nita Leigh, with Nita's statement that 'the report of my death has been exaggerated,' and a picture of the real Anita Lee."

"When did the mistake occur?" Dundee asked, in great excitement.

"Let me think!" Serena Hart frowned. "'Hullabaloo' opened in--yes, about the first of May, 1922.... Just a little more than eight years ago."

Dundee reached for his own hat, in a fever to be gone, but to his surprise the actress stopped him, a faint color in her pale cheeks.

"Since you're from Hamilton, and are investigating the murder, you have undoubtedly met little Penelope Crain?"

"I know her very well. It happens that she is private secretary to the district attorney, under whom I work.... Why?"

"I saw her play the lead in the Easter show at Forsyte four or five years ago," Miss Hart explained, her face turned from the detective as she dusted it with powder, "and I was impressed with her talent. In fact, I advised her father, who had come from Hamilton to witness the performance, as proud parents are likely to do, to let her go on the stage."

"So you met Roger Crain?" Dundee paused to ask.

"Oh, yes.... A charming man, with even more personality than his daughter," the actress answered carelessly, so carelessly that Dundee had a sudden hunch.