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The Cabaret Rouge
by
They drove off without seeing us and a moment later Du Mond and Bernice Bentley appeared.
“Thank you for the tip,” I heard him whisper. “I thought the best thing was to get them away without me. I’ll catch them in a taxi later. You’re off at seven? Ritter will call for you? Then we’ll wait and all go out together. It’s safer out there.”
Just what it all meant I could not say, but it interested me to know that young Ritter Smith and Bernice Bentley seemed on such good terms. Evidently the gay party were transferring the scene of their gayety to the country place of the Cabaret Rouge. But why?
We parted at the door with Franconi, who repeated his invitation to visit his shop down at the beach.
I started to follow Franconi out, but Kennedy drew me back. “Why did you suppose I let them go?” he explained under his breath, as we retreated to the angle again. “I wanted to watch that little woman who came in alone.”
We had not long to wait. Scarcely had Du Mond disappeared when she came out and stood in the entrance while a boy summoned a taxicab for her.
Kennedy improved the opportunity by calling another for us and by the time she was ready to drive off we were able to follow her. She drove to the Prince Henry Hotel, where she dismissed the machine and entered. We did the same.
“By the way,” asked Kennedy casually, sauntering up to the desk after she had stopped to get her keys and a letter, “can you tell me who that woman was?”
The clerk ran his finger down the names on the register. At last he paused and turned the book around to us. His finger indicated: “Mrs. Katherine Du Mond, Chicago.”
Kennedy and I looked at each other in amazement. Du Mond was married and his wife was in town. She had not made a scene. She had merely watched. What could have been more evident than that she was seeking evidence and such evidence could only have been for a court of law in a divorce suit? The possibilities which the situation opened up for Gloria seemed frightful.
We left the hotel and Kennedy hurried down Broadway, turning off at the office of a young detective, Chase, whom he used often on matters of pure routine for which he had no time.
“Chase,” he instructed, when we were seated in the office, “you recall that advertisement of the lost necklace in the Star by La Rue & Co.?”
The young man nodded. Everyone knew it. “Well,” resumed Kennedy, “I want you to search the pawnshops, particularly those of the Tenderloin, for any trace you can find of it. Let me know, if it is only a rumor.”
There was nothing more that we could do that night, though Kennedy found out over the telephone, by a ruse, that, as he suspected, the country place of the Cabaret Rouge was the objective of the gay party which we had seen.