“Her name there at the Globe was Doris Dane,” said Jimmy, “and I imagine that unless she’s left the show business altogether she’ll have kept it; because it would be, in a small way, an asset.  And, as she’ll be easier to find if she has stayed in the business than if she hasn’t, why, that’s the presumption to begin on.”

He lighted his pipe and lapsed into a thoughtful silence.  “There are two things she may have done,” he went on after a while.  “She may have gone to New York, and in that case she’s likely to have applied to the man who put on The Girl out here; that’s John Galbraith.  He took quite an interest in her, I understand; believed she had a future.  But the other thing she may have done strikes me as a little more likely.  How long ago was it you talked to her?”

“It’s the better part of two weeks,” said Rodney.

“Well,” said Jimmy, “they sent out a Number Two company of The Girl Up-Stairs a week ago last Sunday night.  If she had any reason for wanting to leave Chicago she might, I should think, have gone to them and asked them to let her go out on the road with that.  They wouldn’t have done it, of course, unless she’d convinced them that she was going to quit the Chicago company anyway.  But if she had convinced them of that they’d have done it right enough.  On the whole, that seems to me the likeliest place to look.”

“Yes,” said Rodney, “I think it is.  Well, have you any way of finding out where the Number Two company is playing?”

Jimmy was rummaging in the litter of magazines on the top of his desk.  He pulled one out and searched among the back pages of it for a moment.

“Here we are!” he said. “The Girl Up-stairs,” and he began reading off the route.  “They’re playing to-night,” he said, “at Cedar Rapids; to-morrow night in Dubuque.”

“All right,” said Rodney.  “The next thing to find out is whether she’s with the company.  Who is there we can telephone to out there?”

“Why,” said Jimmy, “I suppose we might raise the manager of the opera-house.  They’re at Cedar Rapids to-night, and we might get a good enough wire so that a proper name would be understood.”  He glanced at his watch.  “But there’s a quicker and surer and cheaper way, and that’s to ask Alec McEwen.  He’s the press agent of the company here, and he’d be sure to know.”

“He’d know,” Rodney demurred, “but would he tell?”

“He’d tell me,” said Jimmy.

“Can you find him?” Rodney wanted to know.  “Where would he be at this time of day—­at his office or his house?”

He hadn’t any office nor any house, Jimmy said.  “But since he’s undoubtedly cleaned up the newspaper offices by now, on his weekly round,” he concluded, “we can find him easily enough.  I’ll guarantee to locate him—­within three bars.  There’ll be no one in to see me after this,” he went on, slamming down the roll-top to his desk, getting up and reaching for his overcoat, “so we may as well go straight at it.”