“Not yet. Have you been up to your room?”
“I just came from the theater. Got tied up in that mob backstage. You know what a madhouse it was.”
“Nora left a note for you in her room,” Shayne told him gruffly. “Said she was going to look for the sheriff and might not be back in time to play her part.”
“The sheriff? Maybe she found him, then. Maybe everything is all right.” Carson gripped his arm with surprising strength.
Shayne shook his head. “Fleming hasn’t seen her, and he has been right around all the time where she could have located him easily.” He paused, then added drily, “The sheriff was in here a moment ago disarming a drunk named John Mattson who wanted to use a baby cannon on you.”
Frank Carson’s eyelid fluttered uncontrollably. His gaze met Shayne’s brooding eyes and flickered away. He wet his lips and muttered, “We’ve got to find Nora. Nothing else matters.”
Shayne asked, “When did you last see Olivia Mattson?”
A shudder left Carson’s wide shoulders drooping. He tried to smile, but it was a ghastly grin. “You know about that, eh?” With sudden fierceness, he said, “That fool woman! You don’t know how to figure them out here. Kid around a little and they take you seriously. That’s what held me up at the theater,” he confessed. He wiped sweat from his forehead. “God! what a filthy scene. I had to tell her off in front of a lot of people. Imagine her coming around with crazy talk about divorcing her husband. She knows I’m married to Nora. I had to tell her off,” he repeated dismally.
“You shouldn’t lead a lady on,” Shayne grinned. “If you’d met her husband before the sheriff got hold of him you might have carried off a lead souvenir.”
The actor’s sensitive features registered deep disgust. “I didn’t lead her on. She entertained the cast at her home a couple of times. You know how a thing like that gets started.”