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Page 69
As Constance sat toying absently with some food at one of the snowy
white tables, a man entered. A man in a tea room is an anomaly. For
the tea room is a woman's institution, run by women for women. Men
enter with diffidence, and seldom alone. This man was quite
evidently looking for some one.
His eye fell on Constance. Her heart gave a leap. It was her old
enemy, Drummond, the detective. For a moment he hesitated, then
bowed, and came over to her table.
"Peculiar places, these tea rooms," observed Drummond.
Constance was doing some quick thinking. Could this be the detective
Florence Gibbons had mentioned?
"The only thing lacking to make them complete," he rattled on, "is a
license. Now, take those places that have a ladies' bar--that do
openly what tea rooms do covertly. They don't reckon with the
attitude of women. This is New York--not Paris. Such things are
years off. I don't say they'll not come or that women won't use
them--but not by that name--not yet."
Constance wondered what his cynical inconsequentialities masked.
"I think it adds to the interest," she observed, watching him
furtively, "this evasion of the laws."
Drummond was casting about for something to do and, naturally, to a
mind like his, a drink was the solution. Evidently, however, there
were degrees of brazenness, even in tea rooms. The Betsy Ross not
only would not produce a labeled bottle and an obvious glass but
stoutly denied their ability to fill such an order, even whispered.
"Russian tea?" suggested Drummond cryptically.
"How will you have it--with Scotch or rye?" asked the waitress.
"Bourbon," hazarded Drummond.
When the "Russian tea" arrived it was in a neat little pot with two
others, the first containing real tea and the second hot water. It
was served virtuously in tea cups, so opaquely concealed that no one
but the clandestine drinker could know what sort of poison was being
served.
Mrs. Palmer was evidently later than expected. Drummond fidgeted
after the manner of a man out of his accustomed habitat. And yet he
did not seem to be interested really in Constance, or even in Mrs.
Palmer. For after a few moments, he rose and excused himself.
"How did HE come here?" Constance asked herself over and over.
As far as she could reason it out, there could be only one reason.
Drummond was clearly up with Florence. Did he also know that
Constance was shielding her?
The more she thought of it, the more she shuddered at the tactless
way in which the detective would perform the act of "charity" by
discovering the lost girl--and pocketing the reward.
If her family only knew, how eagerly they might let her come back in
her own way. She looked up the address of Everett Gibbons while she
was waiting, a half-formed plan taking definite shape in her mind.
What--she did must be done quickly. Here at the tea room at least
Florence, or rather Viola, was known. Perhaps the best way, after
all, was to let her be discovered here. They could not deny that she
had been working for them acceptably for some time.
Half an hour later, Mrs. Palmer, a bustling business woman, came in
and the waitress pointed her out to Constance.
"Did you have a waitress here named Viola Cole?" began Constance,
watching keenly the effect of her inquiry.
"Yes," replied Mrs. Palmer in a tone of interest that reassured
Constance that, if there were any connection between Drummond's
presence and Mrs. Palmer, it was wholly on his seeking. "But she
disappeared last night. A most peculiar girl--but a splendid
worker."
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