“You'll have to spend half of it at John the Barber's getting your voice marceled and your face manicured,” snarled Pinkie. “Come, Reg, and dance with me: these bounders bore me.”
“Run along, Pinkie, and fox-trot your grouch away with Shine Taylor. Here comes the wine I ordered—What's your name, girlie? Where did you meet Grimsby?”
“Oh, we're old friends,” and Helene maliciously spilled a bottle over the interrogator's waistcoat, as she reached forward to shake his hand. “My name's Bonbon, you wouldn't believe me if I told you my real name, anyway. Who are you?”
“I'm not Neptune,” he retorted, as he mopped the bubbles with a napkin. “You've started in badly.” Shirley mentally disagreed. His stupor still obsessed him, but he noted with interest that Warren paid the check for his bottle with a new one-hundred dollar bill. Warren could elicit nothing from Helene but silly laughter, and so he arose impatiently, as Shine Taylor returned to whisper something in his ear. “I must be getting back to my apartment. Bring Grimsby up to it to-night: a little bromo will bring him back to the land of the living. I'll have a jolly crowd there—top floor of the Somerset, on Fifty-sixth Street, you know, near Sixth Avenue. Come up after the show.”
“We're going to the Winter Garden,” suggested Helene, at a nudge from Shirley, and Warren nodded.
“I'll try to see you later, anyway. Goodbye!”
Losing interest in the proceedings, as the time for reckoning the bill approached, the other gallants followed these two. Alone, again, Shirley ordered some black coffee, and smiled at his assistant.
“He told the truth for once.”
“What do you mean?”
“He will try to see us later. That man is a member of the murderous clan whom we seek. 'To-night is the night' for the exit of William Grimsby—but, perhaps we may have a stage wait which will surprise them.”