His eyes were bleak as he stalked back to the front door and regained his seat in time for the next curtain.
He was silent and morose through the rest of the performance while Christine Forbes turned her opportunity into a personal triumph, and when the final curtain came down, he again strode out while the ancient playhouse echoed with applause.
Phyllis clung to his arm and was silent until they were on the sidewalk. Then she spoke sharply:
“I can’t see that Nora Carson was particularly missed tonight. The other girl was marvelous.”
Shayne grunted. “Yeh. That’s one of the things that tastes bad to me. The Forbes girl is so damned good that I’m willing to bet Nora Carson has lost her part altogether. First, her father whom she has just found after ten years, then an important role that she’s rehearsed for weeks — all in the space of three hours.”
“But you can’t blame yourself, Michael,” Phyllis wailed.
He looked down at her and some of the grimness went out of his face. “You’re not a cop, angel. You don’t know the feeling of being just too late to prevent murder.”
The vanguard of first-nighters was filing from the opera house. Shayne turned toward the side of the building again. He said, “I’m going to see her if I have to break that damned gate down.”
As they crossed over the flume he noticed that the tremendous rushing sound of water had receded. The wooden gate leading backstage was standing open.
They found a door leading into the shadowy region of props and sliding scenery behind the lowered curtain. The stage was a riot of confusion, with members of the cast receiving congratulations from those of the audience who were fortunate enough to find standing room.
Shayne and Phyllis wormed their way through to find Frank Carson in the midst of a bevy of bare backs and flowing skirts. The young actor saw the detective and signaled to him urgently, thrusting aside feminine admirers to make his way to Shayne.
When they met, Shayne said, “I was worried about your wife. How is she holding up?”
Carson’s face darkened under his heavy make-up. “Isn’t Nora with you? You promised to look after things.”
Shayne’s gray eyes narrowed. “Why should your wife be with me?”
“I thought she’d gone back — up there.”
“Do you mean she isn’t in the theater?”
“Hell, no, she isn’t here. Why would I be asking you? She must have gone out right after the play started. I left her in her dressing-room when I went on. She swore she’d be all right. Then she slipped out without telling anyone.”
“No one?”
“No one knew she was gone until just in time for Christine to get in costume. I thought she’d gone back to find you.” Frank Carson took a backward step. Horror and fear were accentuated by heavy mascara and greasepaint, and his fine features were distorted. He said in a low, furious voice, “You didn’t stay? You don’t know what has become of Nora? You let her go out alone — with a mad killer roaming this damned town? What sort of a detective are you?”
“Sometimes I ask myself that same question,” Shayne said grimly, “and don’t receive a very satisfactory reply.”
Chapter five
PHYLLIS SHAYNE was not one to stand idly by and hear her husband aspersed. She stepped between Shayne and Frank with dark eyes blazing. “You’re a fine one to accuse Michael of letting your wife wander off. Why didn’t you stop her?”
“I didn’t know she was going.” He arched his perfect brows in surprise and modulated his voice. “I had to rush like the devil to get ready for my cue.”
“Well, neither did Michael know she was going,” Phyllis countered angrily.
Shayne chuckled and put Phyllis gently aside. “This little hell-cat is my wife,” he explained. “She only gets belligerent when I’m attacked. If your wife went back up the hill, she’s all right. There were officers up there to take care of her. But if she went wandering off on some tangent of her own, we’d better try to find her. Are you sure she didn’t tell anybody where she was going?”
“I don’t think so,” Carson told him, “else they would have had Christine ready when Nora’s cue came. But I haven’t had time to make any inquiries. I’ll see if Celia Moore knows anything. She shares Nora’s dressing-room. She was with Nora when I saw her last.” He turned away alertly and surveyed the backstage turmoil, then began working his way toward a group near the electrician’s booth.
Shayne followed him, holding Phyllis’s arm. “Be easy on Carson, angel. He has taken a stiff jolt tonight and you can’t blame him for being edgy.”
“That doesn’t justify his ugly insinuations against you. He talked as if you’d been hired as his wife’s bodyguard.”
Shayne laughed easily. “I’ve got a tough hide.”
He saw Carson drawing a middle-aged woman aside and recognized her as the woman they had encountered in Jasper Windrow’s store that afternoon. Her dark hair was parted in the middle and drawn back smoothly in a knot at the nape of her neck. Pressing through the crowd, Shayne heard her say:
“No, Frank. Nora didn’t say a word to me.” There was a look of deep concern in her eyes and her rich voice throbbed with pity. “Poor kid. I didn’t even know anything about her father until the end of the first act.”
“Did she seem terribly upset?” Shayne asked as he reached them.
Celia Moore turned brilliant hazel eyes on him, shaking her head. “Not that I noticed. But Nora is a trouper. God knows she must have been hit hard to let Christine horn in — the way they hated each other’s guts.” Her last words were spoken absently. Her eyes had narrowed upon Shayne’s angular face. “Sa-ay, you’re the lug who almost mixed in with my boy friend this afternoon. I thought Jasper was going to take a swing at you.” She chuckled in a delightful baritone.
Shayne nodded impatiently. “The name is Shayne. Now, about Nora — didn’t she give you any intimation that she might not go on?”
“Not a single damn’ intimation. She was putting on her make-up when I left her in the dressing-room.” Celia Moore pursed her lips and glanced speculatively at Frank Carson. “I don’t know a thing about it,” she ended briskly, and laid an apologetic and slightly damp palm on Shayne’s coat sleeve. She looked at him coyly and said, “You’ll have to excuse me now. There’s a gentleman out there somewhere who’s wondering what the hell’s become of me.”
She glided away. Shayne watched her go, and saw Jasper Windrow waiting for her at the rear of the stage. Windrow wore the conventional dress suit required of first-nighters, and a white tie was tilted rakishly beneath his blunt chin.
“Well, what do you think?” Carson demanded. “Mightn’t Nora have left a note for you? Have you looked for one in her dressing-room?”
“I haven’t had time to do anything,” Carson snapped, but the suggestion appeared to relieve his anguished face, “She does, sometimes. I’ll see.”
He plunged toward the wooden stairs leading down to rows of small dressing-rooms in the basement.
Shayne plunged after him, with Phyllis clinging to his arm. It was cold and damp in the room just off the corridor from the stairs. They saw Carson searching frantically through a disarray of jars and tubes of cosmetics on a small table.
Carson shook his head, his mouth grim. “Nothing here. Looks as if she started to make up, though.”
Shayne said, “It looks as if Nora was putting up a front while Miss Moore was in the room. When she left, Nora realized she couldn’t go on. So, she probably went to the hotel to be alone.”
“It isn’t that simple.” Carson ran long, slender fingers through his black hair. “Nora would never leave us in the lurch. She would have told Christine so she could be getting ready.”