The girl rose. "It is one-thirty," she said. "Perhaps I had better be starting. Do I have to have a pa.s.s or something of that sort in order to be admitted to the theaters?"

Mr. Jewett also rose and pinned a badge under the lapel of the girl's jacket. "Show that," he told her, "and it will be all the pa.s.s that you will need."

Then as he held open the door, he smilingly added, "Good luck to you, Miss Dolittle Vandergrift."

Bobs flashed a merry smile back at the young man. "I sincerely hope that I will do more than I did last time," she said, but, when she was seated in the taxi which was to take her to her destination on Broadway, her thoughts were not of the little would-be actress, but of Gwendolyn. Day after day Roberta had noted that, try as she might to be cheerful, her oldest sister, the one who had been Mother to them all, grew sadder and more troubled.

"Glow will not be really happy," Bobs was thinking, "until Gwen comes back to us. I cannot see where she can be, for she had only one month's allowance with her and she could not live long on that."

Bobs' reverie was suddenly interrupted by the stopping of the taxi, and, looking up, the girl found that they were in front of one of the festively adorned theaters. With a rapidly beating heart, she descended to the walk, made her way through the throng, showed her badge and was admitted. At her request an usher led her behind the scenes.

Bobs felt as though she were on the brink of some momentous discovery.

CHAPTER XVII.

BOBS TRIES ACTING

When they were behind the scenes, a short, flashily attired man advanced to meet Roberta and the usher departed. For one panicky moment Bobs wondered whether she should tell that she was a detective. Would the director wish her to interfere with his plans, as she undoubtedly would be doing were she to take from him one of his chorus girls?

The alert little man, however, did not need to be told, for he had caught a glimpse of Roberta's badge when a projecting bit of scenery had for a moment pulled at her coat.

Rubbing his hands, and smiling ingratiatingly, he said in a voice of oily smoothness: "Is it one of our girls, ma'am, that you're wishing to see?"

Bob realized that he had guessed her mission and so she thought best to be perfectly frank with him and tell the whole story. The little man seemed greatly relieved, and shook his head many times as he talked. "No such girl here," he a.s.sured her. "I'd turn her over to her Ma if there was. Come and see."

The small man spun around with the suddenness of a top, and Bobs could not help thinking that his build suggested the shape of that toy. Then he darted away, dodging the painted trees with great dexterity, leading the way down dark aisles among the scenes that were not to be used that day.

At last they reached the dressing rooms. "Look in all of 'em," he said.

"Don't knock. Just walk in."

Then, with a flourish of his plump diamond-bedecked hands, which seemed to bestow upon her the freedom of the place, the small man gave another of his top-like spins and disappeared among the scenery.

Roberta found herself standing near a door on which was a large gilt star.

No need to go in there, she decided, for of course the girl whom she sought would not be the company's star, but since she had the open sesame of all the rooms, why not enter? She had always been wild to go behind the scenes when she and her sisters had been seated in a box in this very theater.

Little had she dreamed in those days that now seemed so far in the past, that day would come when she would be behind the scenes in the role of an amateur detective.

As Roberta stood gazing at the closed door, she saw it open and a maid, dressed trimly in black and white, hurried out, leaving the door ajar.

Glancing in, Bobs saw a truly beautiful young woman lounging in a comfortable chair in front of a long mirror. The maid had evidently been arranging her hair. Several elaborate gowns were hanging about the room.

Suddenly Roberta flushed, for she realized that a pair of darkly lashed eyes were observing her in the mirror. Then the beautiful face smiled and a slim white hand beckoned.

Entering the small dressing room, Roberta also smiled into the mirror.

"Forgive me for gazing so rudely," she apologized, "but all my life I have wished that I might meet a real star."

The young woman turned and with a graceful yet indolent gesture bade Roberta be seated on a low chair that was facing her.

"Don't!" was all that she said, and the visitor thought that even that harsh word was like music, so deep and rich was the voice that uttered it.

Bobs was puzzled. She looked up inquiringly: "Don't what?" she asked.

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 fict.i.tious 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 spangly tights and others in very short skirts that stood out stiffly.

This was unmistakably the chorus.

"h.e.l.lo, 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 br.i.m.m.i.n.g with mirth.

At the next theater she entered, Bobs had an unexpected and rather startling experience. Just as she appeared in the dimly lighted s.p.a.ce back of the scenes, she was pounced upon by a man who was undoubtedly the stage manager.

"Miss Finefeather," he said, in a hoa.r.s.e whisper, "What? You late again?

Two minutes only to get into your riggin'." Then giving Bobs a shove toward an open door, he called hoa.r.s.ely: "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 amus.e.m.e.nt 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.