The Ear in the Wall

  XIV

  THE BEAUTY PARLOUR

  "It seems strange," remarked Kennedy the following morning when we hadmet in his laboratory for our daily conference to plan our campaign,"that although we seem to be on the right trail we have not a word yetabout Betty Blackwell herself. Carton has just telephoned that hermother, poor woman, is worrying her heart out and is a mere shadow ofher former self."

  "We must get some word," asserted Miss Kendall. "This silence is almostlike the silence of death."

  "I'm afraid I shall have to impose on you that task," said Kennedythoughtfully to her. "There seems to be no course open to us but totransfer our watch from Dr. Harris to this Marie. Of course it is tooearly to hear from our search by means of the portrait parle. But wehave both seen Dr. Harris and Marie enter the beauty parlour of MadameMargot. Now, I don't mean to cast aspersions on your own good looks,Miss Kendall. They are of the sort with which no beauty parlour exceptNature can compete."

  A girl of another type than Clare would probably have read a half dozenmeanings into his sincere compliment. But then, I reflected that a manof another type than Craig could not have made the remark withoutexpecting her to do so. There was a frankness between them which, Imust confess, considerably relieved me. I was not prepared to loseKennedy, even to Miss Kendall.

  She smiled. "You want me to try a course in artificial beautification,don't you?"

  "Yes. Walter doesn't need it, and as for me, nothing could make me amodern Adonis. Seriously, though, a man couldn't get in there, Isuppose. At least that is one of the many things I want you to findout. Under the circumstances, you are the only person in whom I haveconfidence enough to believe that she can get at the facts there. Findout all you can about the character of the place and the people whofrequent it. And if you can learn anything about that Madame Margot whoruns the place, so much the better."

  "I'll try," she said simply.

  Kennedy resumed his tests of the powder in the packets which Dr. Harrishad been distributing, and I endeavoured to make myself as little inthe way as possible. It was not until the close of the afternoon that ataxicab drove up and deposited Miss Kendall at the door.

  "What luck?" greeted Kennedy eagerly, as she entered. "Do you feelthoroughly beautified?"

  "Don't make me smile," she replied, as she swept in with an air thatwould have done credit to the star in a comic opera. "I'd hate to crackor even crease the enamel on my face. I've been steamed and frozen,beaten and painted and---"

  "I'm sorry to have been the cause of such cruel and unusualpunishment," apologized Craig.

  "No, indeed. Why, I enjoyed it. Let me tell you about the place."

  She leaned against the laboratory table, certainly an incongruouspicture in her new role as contrasted with the stained and dirtybackground of paraphernalia of medico-legal investigation. I could nothelp feeling that if Clare Kendall ever had decided to go in for suchthings, Marie herself would have had to look sharp to her laurels.

  "As you enter the place," she began, "you feel a delightful warmth andthere is an odour of attar of roses in the air. There are thickhalf-inch carpets that make walking a pleasure and dreamy Sleepy Hollowrockers that make it an impossibility. It is all very fascinating.

  "There are dull-green lattices, little gateways with roses, whiteenamel with cute little diamond panes of glass for windows, invitingbowers of artificial flowers and dim yellow lights. It makes you feellike a sybarite just to see it. It's a cosmetic Arcadia for thatfundamental feminine longing for beauty.

  "Well, first there are the little dressing-rooms, each with a bed, adresser and mirror, and everything in such good taste. After you leavethem you go to a white, steamy room and there they bake you. It's along process of gentle showers, hot and cold, after that, and massage.

  "I thought I was through. But it seems that I had only just started.There was a battery of white manicure tables, and then the hairdressersand the artists who lay on these complexions--what do you think ofmine? I can't begin to tell all the secrets of the curls and puffs, andreinforcements, hygienic rolls, transformations, fluffy puffers, andall that, or of the complexions. Why, you can choose a complexion, likewall-paper or upholstery. They can make you as pale as a sickly heroineor they can make you as yellow as a bathing girl. There is nothing theycan't do. I asked just for fun. I could have come out as dusky as agipsy.

  "They tried electrolysis on my eyebrows, and one attendant suggested ahypodermic injection of perfume. Ever hear of that? She thought 'newmown hay' was the best to saturate the skin with. Then anothersuggested, as long as I had chosen this moonbeam make-up, that perhapsI'd like a couple of dimples. They could make them permanent or lastingonly a few hours. I declined. But there is nothing so wild that theyhaven't either thought of themselves or imported from Paris orsomewhere else. I heard them discussing someone who wanted oddeyes--made by pouring in certain liquids. They don't seem to care howthey affect sight, hearing, skin, or health. It is decoration run mad."

  "How about the people there?" asked Kennedy.

  "Oh, I must tell you about that. There's so much to tell, I hardly knowwhere to begin--or stop. I saw some flashy people. You know onecustomer attracts her friends and so on. There is every class therefrom the demi-monde up to actresses and really truly society. And theyhave things for all prices from the comparatively cheap to the mostextravagant. They're very accommodating and, in a way, democratic."

  "Did it seem--straight?" asked Kennedy.

  "On the surface, yes, as far as I could judge. But I'll have to go backagain for that. For instance, there was one thing that seemed queer tome. I had finished the steaming and freezing and was resting. A maidbrought a tray of cigarettes, those dainty little thin ones with gilttips. There seemed to be several kinds. I managed to try some of them.One at least I know was doped, although I only had a whiff of it. Ithink after they got to know you they'd serve anything from a cocktailin a teacup to the latest fads. I am sure that I saw one woman takingsome veronal in her coffee."

  "Veronal?" commented Craig. "Then that may be where Dr. Harris comesin."

  "Partly, I think. I've got to find out more about what is hidden there.Once I heard a man's voice and I know it was Dr. Harris's."

  "Harris! Why, the elevator boy at the Montmartre said he was paintingthe town," I observed.

  "I don't believe it. I think he has all he can do keeping up with thebeauty shop. You see, it is more than a massage parlour. They do realdecorative surgery, as it is called. They'll engage to give you a newskin as soft and pink as a baby's. Or they will straighten a nose, orturn an ear. They have light treatment for complexions--the ruby ray,the violet ray, the phosphorescent ray.

  "You would laugh at the fake science that is being handed out to thosegullible fools. They can get rid of freckles and superfluous hair, ofcourse. But they'll even tell you that they can change your mouth andchin, your eyes, your cheeks. I should be positively afraid of some oftheir electrical appliances there. They sweat down your figure or buildit up--just as you please.

  "Oh, no one need be plain in these days, not as long as Madame Margot'sexists. That is where I think Dr. Harris comes in. He can pose as afull-fledged, blown-in-the-bottle cosmetic surgeon. I'll bet there isno limit to the agonized beautification that they can put you throughif they think they can play you for a sucker."

  "By the way, did you see Madame Margot herself?" asked Craig.

  "No. I made all sorts of discreet inquiries after her, but they seemedto know nothing. The nearest I could get was a hint from one of thegirls that she was away. But I'll tell you whom I think I heard,talking to the man whose voice sounded like Dr. Harris's, and that wasMarie. Of course I couldn't see, but in the part of the shop that lookslike a fake hospital I heard two voices and I would wager that Marie isgoing through some of this beautification herself. Of course she is.You remember how artificial she looked?"

  "Did you see anyone else?"

  "Oh, yes. You know the place is two doors from the Montmartre. Well, Ithi
nk they have some connection with that place between them and theMontmartre. Anyhow it looks as if they did, for after I had been therea little while a girl came in, apparently from nowhere. She was thegirl we saw paying money to Ike the Dropper, you remember--the one noneof us recognized? There's something in that next house, and she seemsto have charge of it."

  "Well, you have done a good day's work," complimented Kennedy.

  "I feel that I have made a start, anyhow," she admitted. "There is alot yet to be learned of Margot's. You remember it was early in the daythat I was there. I want to go back sometime in the afternoon orevening."

  "Dr. Harris is apparently the oracle on beauty," mused Kennedy.

  "Yes. He must make a lot of money there."

  "They must have some graft, though, besides the beauty parlour," wenton Kennedy. "They wouldn't be giving up money to Ike the Dropper ifthat was all there was."

  "No, and that is where the doped cigarette comes in. That is why I wantto go again. I imagine it's like the Montmartre. They have to know youand think you are all right before you get the real inside of theplace."

  "I don't doubt it."

  "I can't go around looking like a chorus girl," remarked Miss Kendallfinally, with a glance at a little mirror she carried in her bag."I'm afraid you'll have to excuse me until I get rid of thisbeautification."

  The telephone rang sharply.

  As Kennedy answered, we gathered that it was Carton. A few minutes ofconversation, mostly on Carton's part, followed. Kennedy hung up thereceiver with an exclamation of vexation.

  "I'm afraid I did wrong to start anything with the portrait parle yet,"he said. "Why, this thing we are investigating has so many queer turnsthat you hardly know whom to trust."

  "What do you mean?"

  "I don't know who could have given the thing away, but Carton says itwasn't an hour after the inquiries began about Marie that it becameknown in the underworld that she was being looked for in this way. Oh,they are clever, those grafters. They have all sorts of ways of keepingin touch. I suppose they remember they had one experience with theportrait parle and it has made them as wary as a burglar is overfinger-prints. Carton tells me that Marie has disappeared."

  "I could swear I heard her or someone at Margot's," said Clare.

  "And Harris has disappeared. Of course you thought you overheard him,too. But you may have been mistaken."

  "Why?"

  "As nearly as Carton can find out," said Kennedy quickly, "Marie isMadame Margot herself."