“Abby, it will turn out to be the sheep of Little Bo-Peep.”
“Have your own way about it.”
When they arrived at the studio Abbott telephoned promptly. Nothing had been heard. They were substituting another singer.
“Call up the Herald,” suggested Courtlandt.
Abbott did so. And he had to answer innumerable questions, questions which worked him into a fine rage: who was he, where did he live, what did he know, how long had he been in Paris, and could he prove that he had arrived that morning? Abbott wanted to fling the receiver into the mouth of the transmitter, but his patience was presently rewarded. The singer had not yet been found, but the chauffeur of the mysterious car had turned up ... in a hospital, and perhaps by night they would know everything. The chauffeur had had a bad accident; the car itself was a total wreck, in a ditch, not far from Versailles.
“There!” cried Abbott, slamming the receiver on the hook. “What do you say to that?”
“The chauffeur may have left her somewhere, got drunk afterward, and plunged into the ditch. Things have happened like that. Abby, don’t make a camel’s-hair shirt out of your paint-brushes. What a pother about a singer! If it had been a great inventor, a poet, an artist, there would have been nothing more than a two-line paragraph. But an opera-singer, one who entertains us during our idle evenings—ha! that’s a different matter. Set instantly that great municipal machinery called the police in action; sell extra editions on the streets. What ado!”
“What the devil makes you so bitter?”
“Was I bitter? I thought I was philosophizing.” Courtlandt consulted his watch. Half after four. “Come over to the Maurice and dine with me to-morrow night, that is, if you do not find your prima donna. I’ve an engagement at five-thirty, and must be off.”
“I was about to ask you to dine with me to-night,” disappointedly.