CHAPTER XXIII

TWIXT THE CUP AND THE LIP

RITA received them in her dressing room, which was frankly a utilitarian apartment. Since she had to share it in turn with other performers, she had not much chance to impress her individuality upon it. And, for that matter, she was not the type of woman, probably, who would have thought it worth her while to take the trouble. She scorned frivolities.

When they saw her at close range, they were both struck by the fact that she was scarcely made up at all. Doubtless, if she had taken the trouble, she could have softened her face and expression, and made herself less hard and repellent. Not that she was ugly. She was not; her features were regular enough, and her black eyes quite splendid in their smoldering sort of way. If she had not bound up her hair so tightly, its masses and luster would have been a sensation; and her figure was good, in a lean, wiry style all its own.

The truth was that she was uncompromising, unyielding, ungraceful as she was ungracious.

If Rita had really experienced a shock during her act, she certainly had recovered from it, so far as the eyes of outsiders could determine.

After greeting them, she eyed her visitors coldly and sharply.

“Wanted to talk to me?” she demanded, in rather a metallic voice.

“Please, for the Blaze,” said Teddy Lucas, in his most insinuating tone.

But Rita the Daredevil shook her head with a slight scowl.

“Waste of time,” she stated. “We aren’t playing here after next week, and——”

“I beg your pardon!” slid in Teddy smoothly but firmly. “You are not playing at this theater, but you have time at——”

“I tell you——” she began hotly. But another voice made itself heard. It was, as they were somewhat surprised to find, the voice of Rita’s subservient partner, who had appeared just behind them, and who now confronted them with a curious little air of authority, in spite of his plump body and his very ancient evening dress.

“If you will excuse me for interrupting,” he said courteously, and made them a bow which was quite proper and dignified. It was the bow of—what was it? Jim tried to think. Was it the bow of a head waiter, or a floorwalker, or—a ringmaster? That was it, a ringmaster. This man was used to the exacting proprieties of the circus. No one else could be so perfect! Instantly, Jim placed him as Blankley himself.

“If you will excuse me for interrupting,” he repeated gently. “Our plans have changed. Vaudeville performers live, unfortunately, in a world of changes. We had expected to play in and around New York for some weeks; our expectations have not materialized. We leave New York to-night.”

“To-night!” repeated Teddy Lucas, sitting up and opening his eyes. “Isn’t that rather short notice?”

“It is,” said the fat man, and Jim saw his hand shake as he raised it to wipe the perspiration from his forehead. But he was firm enough, for all that. “It is extremely sudden, but—it is—advisable.”

“More advantageous time, I suppose?” said Teddy, watching him with seeming indifference.

“Yes, yes,” said the fat man eagerly, and his hand shook more than ever. “More advantageous time! Meanwhile, if you care to interview Mrs. Blankley——”

Barrison pricked up his ears. Mrs. Blankley!

“She—I—we would be glad to be mentioned in your paper,” went on the fat man hurriedly. “You could hardly give your space to a more scintillating—a more——”

“Nick,” said Rita the Daredevil shortly, “I don’t want to be interviewed. You arranged with Coyne for this gentleman to come, representing his paper, but I don’t stand for it. You never can get it out of your head that we’re not running our own show any longer, and that the public doesn’t care a continental about us. You keep hanging on to the old stuff. You keep thinking that because you used to be a big noise in your own little gramophone, you’re loud enough to take in Broadway nowadays. It doesn’t get across, Nick. If these gentlemen want a story,” and her voice was keen and bitter, “they’d better get after something else.”

“Miss—er—I mean, Mrs. Blankley,” said Teddy, “weren’t you hurt, when that bullet exploded to-night?”

She changed color; oh, yes, she did change color. But she said with a swiftness that made Jim Barrison admire her the more: “That? Oh, that was just advertising! Didn’t you guess?”

Teddy Lucas looked at her. “H’m!” he said, deliberating. “I confess I did think it was advertising at first, but——”

Rita looked strange; for a moment it seemed that she was going to strike the newspaper man. Then she let her heavy, dark eyes sink, and turned away with a muttered remark that none of them could catch.

It was Jim’s moment; the only moment that had been put straight into his hands that night. He seized it boldly. The fat man was talking nervously and volubly to the reporter; there was a chance.

“Miss Wrenn,” said Jim Barrison deliberately, “will you let me talk to you alone?”

He never forgot the look that came into those big black eyes, as she raised them then to meet his. He could not have told whether it was horror or hatred, but he was sure that it was one or the other. For a full half minute she stared at him so, her face white as chalk. Then she drew a deep breath, and took a step back.

“Since I must,” she said, answering his request. “But I warn you, it will be to very little purpose—I know why you are here. Do you truly think that—this—this investigation—is worth your while?”

“I don’t know that,” he said steadily, but still in a voice that was audible to her alone. “I only know that it is necessary; that it is my duty. I know that you are the girl I am seeking. Your name is Wrenn. Is it not?”

“It is,” she replied. “Marita Wrenn!”

Marita! So the initials were to be explained logically after all! M for Marita; W for Wrenn. The two engraved in that odd fashion which he could quite understand had been of her inspiration.

“Will you believe,” he went on, steadying his voice, and keeping all excitement out of it, “that I am only trying to get at the facts? That I——”

“Marita!” came the voice of the fat man sharply. “This gentleman”—he indicated Lucas—“has asked us to take supper with him and his friend. We will go?”

“I should be delighted,” she said, in the mechanical way, which one felt was her way of accepting all pleasures in life, however they came.

Blankley turned to them with his anxious little bow. “If you would pardon us——” he begged. “My wife must take off a little make-up, and then—may we join you at the stage door?”

Barrison hated to let the woman out of his sight, but he scarcely knew how to refuse so simple a request. He was here as Teddy Lucas’ guest, and not in his professional capacity. So the two young men went out to the stage door to wait.

They waited until, with a short laugh, the reporter showed his watch. Almost sixty minutes had gone by.

“I don’t know just your game, my dear fellow,” he said, as he turned away. “But, for my part, I think you’ve been jolly well sold!”

“How about you?” said Barrison, raw about his part of it, and yearning to be disagreeable.

Lucas laughed. “I’m fixed all right,” he said amiably. “I’m going to write a peach of a story about the shock which led to the canceling of the Blankley engagement!”

“What shock?” asked Barrison.

Lucas looked at him in polite scorn. “My dear friend,” he said, in a tired voice, “didn’t you see Dukane in the box to-night?”

Barrison jumped. “You mean you saw him?” he exclaimed.

Lucas sighed heavily. “Saw him?” he said. “My dear fellow, I’m a reporter!”