She glided away. Shayne watched her go, and saw Jasper Windrow waiting for her at the rear of the stage. Windrow wore the conventional dress suit required of first-nighters, and a white tie was tilted rakishly beneath his blunt chin.
“Well, what do you think?” Carson demanded. “Mightn’t Nora have left a note for you? Have you looked for one in her dressing-room?”
“I haven’t had time to do anything,” Carson snapped, but the suggestion appeared to relieve his anguished face, “She does, sometimes. I’ll see.”
He plunged toward the wooden stairs leading down to rows of small dressing-rooms in the basement.
Shayne plunged after him, with Phyllis clinging to his arm. It was cold and damp in the room just off the corridor from the stairs. They saw Carson searching frantically through a disarray of jars and tubes of cosmetics on a small table.
Carson shook his head, his mouth grim. “Nothing here. Looks as if she started to make up, though.”
Shayne said, “It looks as if Nora was putting up a front while Miss Moore was in the room. When she left, Nora realized she couldn’t go on. So, she probably went to the hotel to be alone.”
“It isn’t that simple.” Carson ran long, slender fingers through his black hair. “Nora would never leave us in the lurch. She would have told Christine so she could be getting ready.”
“Maybe not.” Shayne frowned. “Miss Moore spoke of them hating each other.”
Carson didn’t reply immediately. He appeared more relieved than at any time since Shayne approached him. He faced Shayne squarely and said, “That’s not the way we do things in the theatrical world. There is plenty of professional jealousy everywhere. Nora suspected Christine of plotting to supplant her, but Nora wouldn’t let that cut any ice if it came to a showdown.”