“You go in and sit down. But give me the ticket stubs. I’ll make them fix this up.” Kate did not whisper or even lower her voice. She spoke calmly, with assurance. Underneath she was as diffident as the other two, but hers was not a nature to tolerate such injustice supinely.
Elsie, with one quick, surprised glance, thrust the stubs into this country cousin’s hand, and Kate was off up the steep aisle, bent on business. When she had pushed her way through the incoming crowds out into the upper foyer the first thing she saw was the detective, leaning against the wall trying to look unconcerned and as though he belonged there. In spite of the crowds their eyes happened to meet. Kate’s cool look said, “So you are here.” Then she turned away and fought her passage down the stairs.
The young man scowled. Well, this was not the niece he was to watch. She had light curls, and his chief had said she would be wearing a green silk suit. Even so this bobbed-haired one was of the party. He was troubled by her movements. What was she leaving her seat for? Where was she going? He really ought to find out, but, on the other hand, if he forsook his post here he might miss Miss Elsie if she should come out. No, he must stay, but it was annoying all the same.
At the box office they were turning people away. “No seats left,” Kate heard on every side. But that did not stop her. “They can put a chair in the aisle,” she thought. “They must do something. People should have what they pay for.”
But the man at the ticket window gave her no hope. “All sold out,” he assured her before she had had time to say a word. When he heard her complaint he merely said, “Well, we’ll give you your money back. I could sell that post seat a hundred times over in the next five minutes. All you need is to lean a little. Where’s your stub?”
“I don’t want the money,” Kate protested. “I want to see the play. It was a cheat, selling a seat like that. I want another one. In fact, I want three other seats, for we have to sit together.”
The man laughed, much amused at that. And several by-standers laughed, too. Kate’s cheeks fired.
“Where can I find the manager?” she asked, straightening her spine and looking hard at the amused young man.
The man strangled his laugh and pointed across the lobby to a door marked “Private.” “There, if he’s in. Much good it’ll do you.”
As Kate left the window and crossed to the door indicated she heard several titters. That made her determination deeper. She knocked firmly right in the middle of the word “Private.”