“No,” said the manager, as though there had been no interruption to his talk with Barrison, “I hardly think that we’d better have him shadowed, even for his own protection. I think that the writer of that note means to save her—er—sensational effect for the first night, don’t you?” “Well,” admitted the detective, “it would be like a revengeful woman to wait until a spectacular occasion of that sort if she meant to start something. Particularly”—he spoke more slowly—“if she happened to be a theatrical woman herself.” “Ah, yes,” said Dukane calmly. “Especially if she happened to be a theatrical woman herself.” He was silent for a long minute as they walked toward Broadway. Then, as he stopped to light a cigar, he said: “Every woman is a theatrical woman in that sense. My dear fellow, women are the real dramatists of this world. If a man wants to do a thing—rob a bank, or elope with his friend’s wife, or commit a murder, or anything like that—he goes ahead and does it as expeditiously and as inconspicuously as possible. But a woman invariably wants to set the stage. A woman must have invented rope ladders, suicide pacts, poisoned wine cups, and the farewell letter to the husband. Next to staging a love scene, a woman loves to stage a death scene—whether it’s murder, suicide, tuberculosis, or a broken heart. Would any man in _Mimi’s_ situation have let himself be _dragged_ back to die in the arms of his lost love? Hardly! He’d crawl into a hole or go to a hospital.” “It was a man who wrote the story of _Mimi_,” Barrison reminded him. “A man who, being French, knew all about women. Yes, I think we can safely leave our precautions until September the fifteenth. Just the same, Barrison, I shall be just as well pleased if you’ll manage to drop in at rehearsals fairly often during the next fortnight. There might be developments. I’ll leave word with Roberts in the morning that you are to come in when you like.” Barrison promised, and left him at the corner of Broadway. As he walked back to his own rooms, Dukane’s words lingered in his memory: “Women are the real dramatists of this world!” He thought of the same phrase that evening when, while he was in the middle of his after-dinner brandy and cigar, his Japanese servant announced: “A lady on business. Very important.” Barrison started up, hardly able to believe his eyes. The woman who stood at his door was Miss Templeton! CHAPTER V MISS TEMPLETON She was in full evening dress, with her splendid shoulders and arms bare, and her brilliant hair uncovered and elaborately dressed. Her tightly clinging gown was black, embroidered in an orchid design of rose color and gold. A long black lace scarf, thrown over one arm, was her only apology for a wrap. She was just then, as Barrison was obliged to confess to himself, one of the handsomest women he had ever seen in his life. He realized now that she was younger than he had thought.