“’Cause she said once she’d love to have a sympathetic sister like you. You understand exactly how girls feel.”
Betty sighed.
“Besides,” Dorothy went on, “you know an actress. Frisky knows three—Miss Dwight and the ones that are the hero and heroine in this company. She went to a play they acted here one afternoon called ‘East Lynne,’ and she waited outside by the back door and met them, and they encouraged her.”
“But, Dorothy, I thought you weren’t intimate with Frisky any more since you found out she was the ghost.”
“We never stopped being chums,” said Dorothy, bursting into a sudden flood of tears. “I’m sure she’ll be sick of being by herself by to-night, and scared, and I almost think she’d expect me to send you after her.”
Betty looked at her watch. It was nearly six. The next train to the Junction would be the theatre express. “All right, little sister, I’ll go,” she said cheerfully. “Only I can’t take the whole responsibility. You must let me send a note to Miss Dick.”
So Betty wrote Miss Dick that Francisca Fenton had gone to the Junction alone on a foolish errand, that she was going after her on the theatre train, and that if Miss Dick wished to come too they could go together. “But I’m quite sure I can manage alone,” she added, “and perhaps she would feel less humiliated at having me find her.”
And as Miss Dick didn’t appear at the train, it was to be presumed that she shared the general faith in Betty Wales.
As she sped to the station Betty noted the name of the company—“Pratt Players”—on a dilapidated bill-board, and on the train she planned out her campaign. She would drive to the place where they were playing, and if Frisky was there or they knew where she was, all would be plain sailing. If not, the police and private detectives must be put to work, under pledges of secrecy. She couldn’t see that Miss Dick would be needed, no matter which way things went.
But she had no sooner arrived at the Junction than her plans were suddenly thrown all awry. None of the station officials, none of the cabmen at the corner, knew anything about the Pratt Players.