Nor did the evening papers add anything material to the account,
except to say that Brandes had been interviewed in his office at the
Silhouette Theatre and that he stated that he had not engaged in any
personal encounter with anybody, had not seen Max Venem in months, had
not been near the Hotel Knickerbocker, and knew nothing about the
affair in question.
He also permitted a dark hint or two to escape him concerning possible
suits for defamation of character against irresponsible newspapers.
The accounts in the various evening editions agreed, however, that
when interviewed, Mr. Brandes was nursing a black eye and a badly
swollen lip, which, according to him, he had acquired in a playful
sparring encounter with his business manager, Mr. Benjamin Stull.
And that was all; the big town had neither time nor inclination to
notice either Brandes or Venem any further; Broadway completed the
story for its own edification, and, by degrees, arrived at its own
conclusions. Only nobody could discover who was the young girl
concerned, or where she came from or what might be her name. And,
after a few days, Broadway, also, forgot the matter amid the tarnished
tinsel and raucous noises of its own mean and multifarious
preoccupations.