"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—God! 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."