On the way to the managers' office, with the trailing car behind them, Graham reasoned excitedly:
"For the first time we seem to be actually on the track. Here's a tangible clue that may lead to the heart of the
case. Maria pulled the wool over the maid's eyes, too. She didn't want her to know her plans, but her
instructions show that she had no intention of returning last night. She probably made a bee line for the
Cedars. It was probably she that you saw at the lake, probably she who cried last night. If only she hadn't
written that note! I can't get the meaning of it. It's up to her managers now. If they haven't heard from her it's a
safe guess she's playing a deep game, connected with the crying, and the light at the deserted house, and the
disappearance of Paredes before dawn. You must realize the connection between that and your condition the
other evening after you had left them."
Bobby nodded. He began to hope that at the managers' office they would receive no explanation of Maria's
absence destructive to Graham's theory. Early as it was they found a bald-headed man in his shirt sleeves
pacing with an air of panic a blantantly furnished office.
"Well!" he burst out as they entered. "My secretary tells me you've come about this temperamental Carmen of
mine. Tell me where she is. Quick!"
Graham smiled at Bobby. The manager ran his fingers across his bald and shining forehead.
"It's no laughing matter."
"Then she has definitely disappeared?" Graham said.
"Disappeared! Why did I come down at this ungodly hour except on the chance of getting some word? She
didn't even telephone last night. I had to show myself in front of the curtain and give them a spiel about a
sudden indisposition. And believe me, gentlemen, audiences ain't what they used to be. Did these ginks sit
back and take the show for what it was worth? Not by a darn sight. Flocked to the box office and howled for
their money back. If she doesn't appear to-night I might as well close the house. I'll be ruined."
"Unless," Graham suggested, "you get your press agent to make capital out of her absence. The papers would
publish her picture and thousands of people would look her up for you."
The manager ceased his perplexed massage of his forehead. He shook hands genially.
"I'd thought of that with some frills. 'Has beautiful dancer met foul play? Millions in jewels on her person
when last seen.' Old stuff, but they rise to it."
"That will help," Graham said to Bobby when they were in the car again. "The reporters will find Maria
quicker than any detective I can put my hand on. My man evidently fell down because she had gone before I
got him on the case." At his office they learned that was the fact. The private detective had been able to get no
slightest clue as to Maria's whereabouts. Moreover, Bobby's description of the stranger who had entered the
cafe with her merely suggested a type familiar to the Tenderloin. For purposes of identification it was
worthless. Always followed by the car from Smithtown, they went to the hotel where Paredes had lived, to a
number of his haunts. Bobby talked with men who knew him, but he learned nothing. Paredes's friends had
had no word since the man's departure for the Cedars the day before. So they turned their backs on the city,
elated by the significance of Maria's absence, yet worried by the search and the watchful car which never lost
sight of them. When they were in the country Graham sighed his relief. "You haven't been stopped. Therefore,
nothing was found at your apartment, but if that wasn't planted why should Maria have sent an incriminating
note there?" "Unless," Bobby answered, "she told the truth. Unless she was sincere when she mailed it. Unless
she learned something important between the time she wrote it and her disappearance from her home.