“Notoriety for Paquita, you mean,” corrected another. “I hear she plans to get back into musical comedy this fall. She’s not at The White Light any longer.”
“Well, I think she’ll make good,” agreed Conigsby. “I wonder who the angel is for her new show?”
The conversation was now hopelessly drifting, and I excused myself. At least I had learned enough to give me an insight into another phase of the life of Marshall Maddox.
Pondering what I had just heard, I decided to wander over toward the café and theater district, and drop into the cabaret which they had mentioned—The White Light.
As I entered the place in broad daylight I was struck by the sordidness of it. Deserted except by those who were cleaning up for the coming late afternoon and evening, it was positively tawdry. It needed the glamour of bright faces and night life, and even then it must be viewed through the bottom of a glass to wear even the semblance of attraction.
In the main dining-room of the café, grouped about the little dancing floor before the platform on which sat the orchestra when things were in full swing, stood innumerable little white tables. Just now there seemed to be no one there except a man at the piano and a girl who was evidently rehearsing her dance steps.
I paused for a moment and a waiter who had been arranging the tables for the coming crowd moved over to tell me that the place was not yet open.
I satisfied him that it was on other business that I had come, then asked him whether Paquita was at The White Light any more.
“No, sir,” he replied, brusquely. “She hasn’t been here for several days. I’ve heard that she has gone away to the country—has another contract. It is a rehearsal for the girl who is to do her number that is going on now. Is there anything I can do for you?”
I thanked him. It was not the waiter I wanted, but the proprietor, Henri.