It was not until they were seated that Peggy realized that there was not an endless number of rooms, but only about six. The illusion was caused by giant mirrors on either wall, set in arched frames like the arches that separated the rooms. Even so, it was the biggest and busiest restaurant that either she or Amy had ever seen.
“Well, what do you think of it?” Randy asked. When Peggy replied with a smile and a bewildered shake of her head, he continued, “I know. It always affects me that way, too, but I still love to come here. This is what New York was really like in the Gay Nineties, and they haven’t changed a thing that they didn’t have to change. Even the lighting fixtures,” he pointed out, “are the original gaslights, except that they’ve had to wire them for electricity. But the best thing is—as it should be—the food. That hasn’t changed either. Let’s order now, then we can talk.”
The menu, Peggy thought, was of a size to match the restaurant, and it was crammed with dishes she had never heard of, most with German names, many with British names. At Randy’s suggestion, she let him order her dinner, which was sauerbraten, the house specialty. Amy, less adventurous about food, settled for roast beef. Randy ordered a lobster for himself, and Mal asked for roast larded saddle of hare, which made Amy shudder a little.
“I just don’t like the idea of eating rabbits,” she explained. “They’re such cute little things!”
Mal grinned. “If you once start to think like that,” he said, “you’d have a hard time eating at all. Think about all those cute lambs, and those nice, sweet-tempered cows. And think about—”
“I do my best not to think about them,” Amy interrupted, “and if you don’t stop, I’m going to order a vegetable dinner and have an awful time!”
Still, when the food came, she and Peggy consented to try the hare, and were forced to agree that it was one of the most delicious things they had ever tasted. Amy also liked Peggy’s sauerbraten, which was a kind of sweet-and-sour pot roast of beef, done in a rich brown gravy and served with potato dumplings and red cabbage.
“You know, it’s an odd thing the way Americans eat,” Mal said between bites of the saddle of hare. “I’ll wager that there are millions of people in this country who have never eaten anything but beef and pork and perhaps a bit of fish. And I don’t mean poor people, either. I found out on my first tours here that there are many parts of the country where you can’t even get lamb or veal, and mutton is almost unheard of.”
“Is it very different in England?” Peggy asked.
Randy answered before Mal had a chance to reply. “In England they eat things that would make the average American turn pale with fright.” He laughed. “They eat suet puddings and kidney pies and chopped toad....”
“Chopped toad!” Amy almost shrieked.
“It’s not at all what it sounds,” Mal explained in his most British tones. “It’s actually a sort of a hamburger thing, and it’s not made of toads or anything like toads. And, personally, I can’t stand it.”
“Is the food the reason why you left England?” Amy asked teasingly.
“Partly,” Mal said with a smile. “But not because I didn’t like it. I liked it well enough when I could get it. The reason I left was that I wasn’t able to earn enough money to eat with any degree of regularity. When I got a part with an American movie company that was filming a picture in England, I was asked to come back with them, and I jumped at the chance. I made a few films in Hollywood, and then I decided to come to New York.”
“Why did you leave pictures?” Peggy asked. “I mean, if you were working, and if you were starting to be an established actor, why did you come to the Academy to study?”
“I didn’t like the roles I was being given,” Mal answered. “It’s because of my face, you know. I look like a young thug, so I was given nothing but young thug parts. But, when you come to think of it, how many roles are there for young thugs with English accents? Besides, I didn’t want to spend the whole of my life in cops-and-robbers films. I decided that I should try the stage, where I might have a chance to play a variety of roles. Also, I thought I might like to direct. The trouble was that I had no experience with stage technique, so I applied to the Academy for a year of basic training. It was there that I met Randy, who has given me my first chance to direct, and now that I’ve had a taste of it, I know that’s what I really want to do.”
“It’s nice of you to say that I’ve given you a chance to direct,” Randy put in, “but unless Peggy and Amy can produce a theater, I’m afraid that the chance will be a strictly imaginary one. Which reminds me, how are you girls doing with the search?”
Peggy told him about the troubles they had encountered in making up a list, and he nodded sympathetically. “We’re finished with that part of it now,” she said in tones of relief, “and we only have to finish checking against the phone book before we go out to look.”
“And when will you start?” Randy asked.
“Tomorrow afternoon, I think,” she said. “We ought to be done with the telephone book by noon, if we don’t sleep the whole morning away as a result of this heavy dinner. Then we can look in the afternoon.”
“Sounds good,” Randy said. “It looks as if the best help we can give you is to see to it that you work off this dinner so that you don’t waste the morning in sleep! What do you suggest, Mal?”
“Dancing,” Mal said firmly. “Best way to get rid of the full feeling. But, unfortunately, I can’t dance on an empty stomach, so we’d best order a sweet, right?”
The girls and Randy protested with groans, but somehow managed to eat every scrap of the thin pancakes with lingonberries that Mal ordered for them. A final cup of coffee, and then it was time to go.
“I feel as if my dress is going to split any minute!” Peggy whispered to Amy. “I don’t know if I’ll be able to walk to the door, much less dance!”
Stepping out of Luchow’s, leaving its noise, gaiety, and glitter behind, was once more like making a transition between worlds. Fourteenth Street, now almost deserted, looked even sadder and more run-down than before. The night lights in the windows of the closed shops cast baleful gleams on the pavement; the thin sound of a cheap dance band far off lent its sad jazz beat to the relatively quiet night. Peggy shivered a little in the first chill of autumn.
“It’s like two different cities, in there and out here,” she said. “It’s a shame, isn’t it, that the real one is out here?”
Catching her mood, Randy put a reassuring arm about her shoulders. “It’s two hundred different cities,” he said, “and the real one is wherever you happen to be at the moment. So let’s leave this one, to make it unreal, and go uptown. By the time we turn our backs on this, it will disappear.”
And it did disappear, or nearly, in the sophisticated decor and subdued harmonies of the St. Regis Roof. Randy was, as Peggy had suspected, a fine dancer. His lightness and his certainty helped her, and she knew that she had never danced so well before. But even as they floated about the gleaming floor, the sounds of the elegant music could not quite drown out the tinny jazz sound of Fourteenth Street that echoed in her mind.
No, she thought, Randy had not been altogether right. This beautiful room, these handsome, well-dressed people were not nearly so real as the world outside. And it was that world, in which she would start her search tomorrow, that stayed uppermost in her thoughts through the rest of the dreamlike night with its dancing, its carriage ride around the park and (or was this too a dream?) Randy’s gentle good-night kiss on the steps of the Gramercy Arms.
When the list was completed, Peggy had found over forty theaters built since 1890 and not currently listed as theaters in the classified phone book. Now there was nothing to do except visit each one to see if it was still there at all, and if there, to see what it was being used for. Checking the addresses against her city map and street-number guide, Peggy listed those that she would visit first.
“I’ve started out with a group I think we can cover in one afternoon,” she explained to Amy. “And the district I’ve picked is not too far away from most of the off-Broadway theaters in Greenwich Village. I’d like it best if we could find a theater near where people are used to going, or at least in districts that are easy to get to by bus or subway.”
“Don’t worry too much about that,” Greta commented from the depths of an easy chair. “If you can just find a place to put on the play, and if the play is good, people will come. Even if they have to walk, or pay tremendous cab fares. That’s one wonderful thing about New York. People love the theater, and they’re willing to go through all kinds of hardships to see a good play.”
“The proof of that is the prices people pay to see a Broadway show,” Amy agreed. “Six and eight dollars a seat for some of them!”
“And that’s at box-office prices,” Irene commented. “They pay twenty-five dollars to a ticket broker sometimes to see a really popular show. I think that the thing to be in this business is a broker, not an actress. That’s where the big money is!”
“We’ll remember that when we get our theater,” Peggy said, laughing. “I’ll put aside a whole lot of seats in my name, and if the show’s a hit I’ll make a fortune on them!”
“No theater, no tickets,” Amy said dryly. “And no show either. We’d better get going now.”
The area that Peggy had decided to cover first was a section south of Fourteenth Street, and somewhat farther east than where they had been. This was an old part of town, in which the theater had once been centered even before it had moved “uptown” to Fourteenth Street. (Fourteenth Street itself is now very much downtown from the present theater district in the west Forties and Fifties.)
This old district had seen wave after wave of immigrants come from various lands. Each nation had left its mark. There were Russian stores, Rumanian restaurants, Irish bars, Jewish delicatessens, Italian grocery stores, and Spanish shops of all sorts.
“It’s like looking at a cross section of certain kinds of rocks,” Peggy said. “You know, the kinds that give you a million-year history of the earth and the kinds of life that have come and gone. Finding all these traces of different languages and peoples is sort of like geology.”
“Yes,” Amy agreed, “and you can tell pretty well which groups came to the neighborhood first and which ones followed, and which are the latest. I’d say the Irish were first, and then the Rumanians and the Russians, a lot of whom were Jewish, and finally the Puerto Ricans. Look at that store!”
She pointed to an old building with store windows lettered “Carnecería,” which is Spanish for “butcher shop.” Over the windows was a faded old signboard which the present tenants had neglected to remove. Its gilt letters, nearly illegible, read, “A. Y. Ravotsky, Inc.,” and on either side of the lettering, carved into the wood, was an Irish shamrock and harp.
“It’s like a one-stop history of New York!” Peggy said. “I’ll bet if you dug underneath it you’d find Dutch shoes and Indian arrowheads!”
A few blocks’ walk brought them to their first address. There was no sign of a theater at all. In its place was a large, squat hospital; on its cornerstone appeared the date it was built—1912.
“Well, that takes care of Hewett’s Theater,” Peggy said sadly, crossing off the name on her list. “Now let’s try the Emperor. It’s only two blocks away.”
The Emperor Theater was now effectively disguised as a Greek Orthodox church, complete with a turnip-shaped steeple and a Russian signboard outside. The next theater on the list was a large and gaudy caterer’s hall, used for weddings, parties, lodge meetings, and dances, according to its poster. The next two on the list had also totally disappeared, giving way to a garage and an apartment house.
“This is hardly encouraging,” Amy said. “I somehow feel already that we’re on a wild-goose chase.”
“Amy, this is no time to get discouraged!” Peggy said. “Why, we’ve only gone to five places, and we’ve got nearly forty more on the list! And, after all, it’s not as if we were looking for a dozen theaters. All we want is one, so I don’t care if all but one prove to be shut or converted. And we have to see them all, just in case it’s the last one that turns out to be for us!”
“That makes sense,” Amy agreed, “and I certainly don’t want to quit. It’s just that I wish we had hit it right the first time!”
“You’re a lazy girl,” Peggy reproached her. “Do you know the way I feel about it? Even if we had found a good theater on our first call, I’d still want to see everything else on the list, just to make sure that we had the best one!”
After some more walking, in which they found two more missing theaters and one that had been converted to a funeral parlor, they decided to stop for lunch in a delicatessen where sausages of every shape and size hung like decorations from the ceiling. They sat at a small table near open barrels of pickles, pickled tomatoes, and sauerkraut and stuffed themselves with corned-beef sandwiches on fresh, fragrant rye bread dotted with caraway seeds, homemade potato salad, cole slaw, and pickles. Afterward, they felt much better, and more heartened for the rest of the day’s search.
As they worked their way downtown, the neighborhood began to change once more, and the girls were unable to guess what might be the nationality of the dark, strong-faced people they now saw about them. The signs on the windows didn’t help either, being in a language they could not identify.
It might have remained a mystery, had they not been stopped by a policeman who said, “What are a couple of nice-looking girls like you doing in the Gypsy section? This is no place to sight-see, you know. I’d advise you to take a guided tour.”
“We’re not sight-seeing,” Peggy said. “We’re looking for an address—actually for an old theater. Maybe you can help us. We want to find the Burke Theater, if it still exists.”
The policeman was puzzled until Peggy showed him the address, and then he smiled broadly. “Well, you might just as well forget it,” he said. “It might have been a theater once, but not any longer. The Settlement House has it now, and it’s the local boys’ club, complete with a gymnasium equipped for every sport. It’s done a lot of good in this neighborhood, I can tell you.”
Peggy and Amy thanked him, and then asked him about the Gypsies. They hadn’t realized there were any in the city—or at least not enough to make up a whole district.
“It’s not a large district,” he said. “No more than a thousand or so, at the most. At least that’s what they say, but it’s not easy getting them to hold still to be counted. They’re good people, once you get to know them. Only they speak a language nobody can understand, and their ways are different. If I were you, I wouldn’t hang around here much.”
Thanking him, the girls left, not without casting a few glances back over their shoulders until they were sure they were clear of the area.
The remaining theaters on their first day’s list were to the west of the Gypsy district, and these too proved to offer nothing. The district they now found themselves in was on the outskirts of Chinatown, and was half Chinese and half mixed-New-York. Of the theaters on the list for this part of town, one had been at one time a Chinese movie house, and was now a Rescue Mission. Signboards in rusty black with large white lettering warned sinners to repent, and offered soup and bread to anyone who attended the services. From inside, the girls heard some wheezy voices and an even wheezier organ sounding the plaintive notes of a hymn.
Peggy realized with a start that this was the Bowery, the sinister, pathetic district inhabited by the poorest examples of humanity—those who had almost resigned from the human race. Looking about her, she saw tattered men in doorways, sleeping figures huddled under stairs, groups of tough-looking tramps standing idly on street corners. She was suddenly aware that she and Amy were the only women in sight.
“Amy,” she said in a shaky voice, “I’m afraid we shouldn’t have come here! This is the Bowery, and you remember what the guide said about it when we took that bus trip. He called it the worst district of the city!”
“Oh dear!” Amy whispered, looking nervously about her. “What should we do now?”
“I think we’d better go,” Peggy said. “Chinatown starts right across the street, and I remember what the guide said about that, too. He said not to believe all the old mystery stories; Chinatown is just about the safest place in the city. The Chinese have practically no criminals among them, and any tourist is safe there. Let’s go!”
Trying to look as inconspicuous as possible, and doing all they could to avoid the appearance of hurrying, Peggy and Amy crossed the street and turned into a narrow alley between two Chinese food shops whose windows were filled with things that neither girl could identify.
Once more they were made aware of the sudden changeability of the city. In no time at all, they were out of the frightening streets of the Bowery and in the crowded, noisy, bright-colored center of Chinatown. The streets, so narrow that in some places the sidewalks were scarcely a foot wide, were lined with restaurants, gift shops, importing houses that specialized in tea and spices, and more of the oddly stocked Oriental groceries and markets. Somewhat shaken by their fear on the Bowery, they stopped for tea and rice cookies in a large Chinese restaurant, where they sat at a small table on a balcony overhanging the main street of the district.
“I think we’d better stop looking for theaters today,” Peggy suggested. “Besides, it’s after five-thirty now, and almost time for dinner. Why don’t we look around some of the shops here, and then come back to this restaurant for dinner? We can look for theaters again tomorrow.”
Amy agreed, but looked pained at the suggestion that they do more searching the next day. “I don’t know how you can stand it,” she said. “My feet are killing me from today’s walk. Why don’t we wait awhile?”
“Because tomorrow’s Sunday,” Peggy replied firmly, “and it’s our last chance to get in a full day’s looking before next week. After-school hours just aren’t enough. If we really want to check out this whole list, we have to work weekends.”
Amy sighed. “My worst habit isn’t laziness,” she said, “it’s picking the wrong kind of friends. If I had known, when we first met, how much energy you have, I would have refused to know you!”
Sunday, like Saturday, produced one blank after another.
Peggy and Amy saw theaters that had been turned into television studios, union halls, social clubs, and lodges; theaters converted to restaurants and supermarkets; sites of theaters long vanished and forgotten now occupied by office buildings, apartment houses or the blank-faced, featureless warehouses that fill much of lower Manhattan.
On Monday, when their last class was over at two-thirty, Peggy once more took up her list and her bundle of city maps and guides. “Let’s go, Amy,” she said in tones of mixed determination and resignation. “We’ve got a couple of hours this afternoon, and we might as well use them.”
“Why don’t we take the afternoon off?” Amy asked. “My feet are just killing me, and I’m sure if I walk for another two hours I’ll come down with an awful blister. We can look again tomorrow, after a day’s rest.”
Peggy considered the suggestion for a moment. It would be a relief to take an afternoon off and just loaf about the house. But then she shook her head. “No. If we don’t have any luck, we can take tomorrow off, but I’d like to go out again today. There’s a meeting of the players tonight at Connie’s, you know, and I’d love to be able to report that we found something today. Let’s give it a try.”
“All right, Peggy,” Amy agreed, “if you’re game, so am I. And it would be nice to have some good news for the gang tonight. I’m just afraid that we’ll put a damper on the evening when we show up all tired out with some more of our usual bad news.”
Peggy half agreed, but knew that if she gave in and let down her pace, she might never again get up the kind of drive she had been working on for the last week. With a deep breath and a determined expression, she swept Amy off with her.
“The section we’re looking in today,” she explained as they walked to the subway, “is a little west and south of Greenwich Village. It’s mostly warehouses now, but there were once several theaters there, and since there’s been almost no new construction in the area in the last fifty years, there’s a chance that some of the theaters have been left alone. I’m particularly interested in two of them that I think have a better chance of being there than the others we’ve looked for.”
“Why should these two have a better chance?” Amy asked.
“The licenses show that there were several theaters built in the city at one time in a way that got around the fire laws. The law said that you couldn’t build a theater with any other kind of space over it, and with land so expensive, it kept a lot of people from building theaters. So a few smart builders put theaters on the top floors of office buildings, and got more rentable space on their ground that way. I’ve found permits for over a dozen of these top-floor theaters.”
“But why should they still be there,” Amy asked, “any more than any of the other old theaters?”
“Two reasons,” Peggy answered. “In the first place, nobody would want to convert a top-floor theater to a restaurant or a garage or anything like that. And in the second place, the district we’re going to has practically no apartment buildings in it, and that means that there aren’t residents in the neighborhood to want to use a theater for a social club or a church or a funeral parlor. I have a feeling that we’re going to find our theater here, if we find it anywhere.”
Amy agreed with Peggy’s logic and further noted that, if they did find a theater in this district, it would be a good location. There were two subway lines that had stops on either side of the area, and several bus lines as well.
These observations gave them a somewhat more cheerful outlook, and it was with a renewed sense of anticipation that they came up from the subway and started their search in this promising new district.
The streets in this part of town were narrow, and crowded with trucks that were backed up at all angles to loading platforms that ran like boardwalks along the fronts of the buildings. Most of the buildings were produce markets where wholesale food merchants received the meats, vegetables, fruits, and packaged goods that fed the city. Wide protective canopies that overhung their fronts gave the loading platforms the appearance of old-fashioned porches. Other buildings were warehouses, obviously designed for storage. Their blank windowless walls and heavy steel doors made them look like ancient fortresses. Here and there, between these and the produce markets, stood the most familiar kind of New York business building, the so-called “loft,” used for light industry or, occasionally, offices. It was in front of one of these that Peggy stopped.
“Here’s our first address,” she said. “According to my list, a theater was licensed here by the original construction permit in 1892.”
Amy looked at the worn, red brick front, unconvinced. “A theater here? I can’t imagine it! Maybe this place was built later, after the original building with the theater was torn down.”
Peggy shook her head. “No, I don’t think so. I’ve gotten pretty good at architecture in the last few days, and I think I can guess the date of a New York building within a couple of years. This wasn’t built much later than 1892. It must be the original building with the theater. Let’s see if we can get any clue to it.”
The girls walked across the street in order to get a better view of the building and, as soon as they turned to look, Peggy’s eyes lighted. “Look up!” she said. “There’s a theater up there, all right!”
“How do you know?” Amy asked wonderingly.
“Look at the windows! The first five floors have windows all the same height—a normal ceiling height. But the top floor has windows that must be twenty feet high! That means that the ceiling height is over twenty feet up there. What else could it be but the theater?”
“You must be right!” Amy agreed with excitement. “What do we do now?”
“Let’s see if there’s a janitor or anyone who can tell us about it; if it’s being used, and what for. Even if someone’s using it, we might be able to rent it from him if we can pay him more than he’s paying now. Let’s go and look!”
They ran across the street and into the vestibule of the building, but when Peggy tried the door, she found it locked. A small sign on the door readO & O TRUCKING Co. And the same name was written over the bank of mailboxes. Apparently there were no other tenants in the building, and nobody seemed to be in the O & O offices.
“We can always write to them,” Amy suggested, “or we can try them on the phone until we find someone in.”
“I guess we’ll have to,” Peggy agreed. But then she noticed the doorbell, almost invisible under many layers of thick green paint. “Wait a minute! Let’s see if the bell works. Maybe there’s a watchman, or somebody else.”
The door swung open
A push at the button produced a loud ringing from deep within the building. Its sound seemed to echo for seconds after Peggy released the button.
“If there’s anybody in there, that’s going to bring him,” she said. After a few minutes’ wait, she decided to try again. This time, at the same instant that she touched the doorbell, the door swung open, revealing a man in dirty overalls who stood blinking at the light and regarding them with a scowl.
“Whatta ya want?” he grated.
“Are you the superintendent?” Peggy asked politely.
“I’m the janitor. Whatta ya wanta know for?”
“Well, we’re just wondering about the theater upstairs—”
“Theater? Ain’t no theater here, kid,” the man growled, and started to shut the door.
“Wait!” Peggy said, holding the door open. “There is a theater upstairs! We know there is! All I want to know is what it’s used for.”
“It ain’t used for nothin’,” the janitor started angrily. Then he stopped himself, remembering his first statement. “Besides, you got the wrong place. Like I said, no theater here. Now beat it!” With an extra push, he slammed the door shut, and Peggy and Amy once more were faced with nothing more enlightening than the O & O sign.
“Why, I’ve never in my life seen such awful manners!” Amy said, almost with a stamp of her foot. “I’m going to write to that company as soon as we get home and tell them about—”
“Amy,” Peggy interrupted, “I think you’re getting excited about the wrong thing. Let’s get away from here and talk this over.”
But before leaving the district, she crossed the street once more to be sure that she was not mistaken about the building. Her second look convinced her that she had been right. Those windows could only mean a high-ceilinged room of some sort, and the license clearly stated that it had been a theater.
“Amy, there’s just one thing to do now. We’ve got to check the city records again, this time to see the plans of this building. Then, once we’re sure it’s a theater, we’ve got some thinking to do before we act.”
“But why would that janitor say there was no theater there if there is one?” Amy said.
“That’s the question,” Peggy agreed darkly. “I want to know why he said that, and I want to know what the place is being used for.”
“But, Peggy,” Amy protested, “why should we go poking into other people’s business? We already know that they’re not going to rent us this theater, and that they’re downright unpleasant people. Why don’t we just cross this one off, and go look at the others on your list?”
“Amy, you’re not thinking clearly,” Peggy said patiently. “It seems to me that the only reason anyone would have for acting the way that janitor did is that there’s something wrong going on in there—something that makes it important for them to keep people out.”
“If that’s the case,” Amy said reasonably, “why did the janitor act so suspiciously? If he had just said that the theater’s been converted to some other use and isn’t for rent, we would have gone away and not thought a thing about it.”
“That’s true,” Peggy agreed, “but I think we caught him off guard. After all, it’s undoubtedly the first time anyone’s come around to ask him about the theater, and he just didn’t know what to say. Besides, I don’t think he’s very smart. He’s certainly not the man in charge of whatever crooked business is going on in there.”
“If you’re sure it’s something crooked, why don’t we just report it to the police?” Amy asked.
“We can’t go to the police with just our suspicions,” Peggy replied. “They want some kind of indication that there’s something illegal before they can investigate. In fact, I know they can’t even get a search warrant without evidence. No, I’m afraid we’ll have to look into this on our own.”
“But, Peggy,” Amy protested, “we’re supposed to be looking for a theater, not playing cops and robbers!”
“Thisislooking for a theater,” Peggy said intently. “If we uncover something crooked going on in there, and if we can convince the police of it, that building’s going to be vacant pretty soon. Come on! Let’s dig up the plans for this place before the Bureau closes for the night! I want to see what kind of stage the group is going to have to play on!”
This time, knowing the name and address of the theater, and knowing exactly what they were looking for, the girls had little trouble finding the file set of plans for the theater, kept with the Fire Department as a record of the seating plan, capacity, and exits.
Mason’s Starlight Theater, as the place had originally been called, had a good working stage plan, not too wide, but with extraordinarily good depth. It accommodated four hundred seats, which was a small auditorium by Broadway standards, but larger than most of the off-Broadway houses. Wing and fly space was generous, to allow for easy movement of scenery off to the sides (or wings) or up on ropes and pulleys to the flies. The dressing rooms were small, but they were well located. It seemed to Amy and Peggy like the perfect jewelbox of a theater that they had dreamed of since they had started their search.
The entrance to the theater, they found, was not through the street door of the loft building, but down an L-shaped alley that ran alongside the building and, when it turned, opened into a sort of courtyard. Playgoers had been taken up to the top floor on an oversized freight elevator which also had served for bringing in scenery and props, and which was rated to carry fifty passengers at once. Two additional exits were provided by fire-escapes outside the building. There was no way to enter or leave the theater from the rest of the building, and the elevator stopped only at the theater level. The loft floors were served by a regular-sized passenger elevator reached through the front hall.
“Well, it looks just perfect,” Peggy said triumphantly. “Now all we have to do is find out what it’s being used for, expose it, and move in when the crooks move out!”
“I think you’re jumping to conclusions,” Amy said. “It seems to me that the janitor might actually not have known about the theater. After all, it can’t be reached through the building, and if he’s never been told about the back elevator, or never been allowed to use it, he might not know what’s up there.”
“Maybe,” Peggy said doubtfully, “but it seemed to me that he looked awfully guilty about something. I’m sure he’s part of whatever’s going on there.”
Amy protested. “That’s just the point! Maybe there’s nothing going on there! Maybe the janitor doesn’t know about the theater, and it’s not being used by crooks, but just sitting up there empty, gathering dust! Wouldn’t that be wonderful?”
“It sure would,” Peggy agreed, “but I don’t think we’re that lucky. Of course we could look up the name of the owner of the building and ask him about the theater, but if it is a crooked game, and if the owner is in on it.... No. I don’t think that’s the way to do it.”
“How do you think we should handle it, then?” Amy asked.
“I think we ought to go back to the place right now,” Peggy said, “before it gets dark. I want to look around that back alley and theater entrance just to see if we can pick up any clues. Then we’ll talk it over with the boys and listen to their ideas.”
“I can believe that you’ll talk it over with them,” Amy laughed, “but I have my doubts about your listening to anybody’s ideas! Still, I said I’d go theater hunting with you, and I’m not going to back out now!”
By the time they had turned in their plans and charts to the file clerk and returned to the loft-theater building, it was almost six o’clock. Most of the trucks that had filled the streets were gone now, not to return until after midnight, when the produce market would open for one more business “day.” A few of the offices, small manufacturing businesses and printing shops that filled the surrounding lofts, were still open, judging by the lights in their windows, but for the most part the streets and buildings were empty in the pearly twilight.
Making every effort to be inconspicuous, the girls ducked down the alley to the rear courtyard entrance of the Starlight Theater. A miniature marquee bearing the name “Mason’s” overhung a short flight of stairs that led up to a loading platform, at the back of which was a wide, high elevator door with pillars on either side. Above it, a plaster arch was decorated with the twin masks of Comus—comedy and tragedy.
“Do you still think that the janitor didn’t know there was a theater in the building?” Peggy whispered. “He’d have had to be blind as well as dumb.”
Walking very quietly, the girls ascended the steps and approached the huge elevator door. “Look!” Peggy whispered, pointing to the metal doorsill. Amy nodded, clearly understanding the meaning of the bright metal.
“It’s being used regularly,” Peggy said. “You can see where the sill is dark and rusted toward the sides, and bright in the center, where people have been walking over it.”
“And the lock!” Amy said. She and Peggy examined the heavy padlock that secured the door to the frame by stout hasps. It was bright and clean, of modern design and well-oiled. Any further doubts they might have had were dispelled by examination of the door hinges, which were coated with a heavy layer of fresh grease.
“Not only is the theater in use,” Peggy whispered, “but whoever is using it is being awfully careful that he doesn’t make any noise opening and shutting these doors. Are you convinced now?”
Amy nodded, wide-eyed. “I surely am. And I’m convinced that we’d better get out of here before the man with the keys comes along! I’d hate to be caught snooping around!”
Feeling not in the least as calm as she hoped she looked, Peggy motioned Amy to wait while she took a last look around to be sure that there was nothing she had missed. Then, her heart beating wildly, she and Amy left the alley as cautiously as they had entered it. But neither of them felt really safe until they were blocks away, and on their way to Connie’s for the meeting of the players.
“We seem to be practically living in alleys,” Amy said as they let themselves in through the street gate and started down the passage to Connie’s little house.
“Yes, but I feel a lot better in this one than in the last,” Peggy said. “When we get the theater, we’ll have to fix up that alley like this one, with flower borders and lights to make it cheerful. We can fix up the courtyard, too, with a little fountain and some garden seats and—”
“You’re awfully confident about getting that theater,” Amy interrupted. “I hope that you’re not going to be disappointed.”
“I won’t be,” Peggy said. “I know that it was just meant for us, and I mean to make sure that we get it!”
Connie let the girls in, and while they were saying hello to her and the others, the buzzer announced the arrival of Tom Galen and Mona Downs.
“I’m so glad everyone’s here at once!” Peggy said. “We’re so full of news that if we had to wait for anyone, I think we’d burst!”
“Don’t tell us you’ve found a theater!” Randy exclaimed.
“I will tell you,” Peggy answered, “because we did!”
“What’s wrong with it?” Mal asked.
“Where is it?” Connie said at the same time.
“And how much is it?” Randy put in, in the same instant.
“Whoa! One at a time!” Peggy protested. “If everybody will get settled and hold the questions for a few minutes, I’ll tell you all about it. Now,” she said, when the players were seated in expectant attitudes, “now I’ll tell you everything you want to know. It’s called Mason’s Starlight Theater; it’s on the top floor of a loft in the market area southwest of Greenwich Village; we don’t know the rent; it’s a perfect theater, just the right size, and—.”
“I feel abutcoming, rather than anand,” Randy said.
“Well, only a smallbut,” Peggy said. “The place happens to be in use right now.”
“Great,” Mal said sarcastically. “You can now add your name to the long list of those among us who have located perfect theaters that happen to be in use!”
“Wait!” Peggy said. “This is different. In the first place, nobody will admit to using it; in the second place, we think there’s something crooked going on there; and if we do a little bit of detective work, I think we can find out what it is. If I’m right, and if it’s being used by crooks, we can get the theater for ourselves by getting the crooks out!”
Their interest aroused by this unusual statement, the players began to question Peggy and Amy about their suspicions and about the circumstances that surrounded their discovery of the Starlight Theater. When the girls had told them about their interview with the janitor, and about their later visit to the alley behind the building, everyone seemed convinced that there was something peculiar going on at the place.
“The polished doorsill and the greased hinges and the new lock prove that it’s being used,” Peggy concluded. “And the janitor’s attitude seems to indicate that it’s being used for something illegal.”
“It sounds like an airtight case to me,” Pip said. “Why don’t we just take the facts to the police and let them investigate?”
“Because there are no facts yet,” Peggy said. “All we have are guesses. There must be thousands of places in use in the city, and thousands of janitors who don’t want to be friendly and tell what they’re used for, and I don’t think that the police would be willing to agree that they’re all run by gangsters.”
“Peggy’s right. We can’t go to the police without more evidence,” Randy said. “Before they’ll swear out a search warrant, we have to have something more definite for them.”
“Then let’s get it!” Pip said with enthusiasm. “What do you suggest, Peggy?”
“I think we ought to set up a lookout post in that back alley,” she answered decisively. “There’s a place under the fire stairs on the far side of the building where two people could hide and see without being seen, and it shouldn’t take more than a couple of nights of looking to find out what’s going on.”
“Why nights?” Randy asked. “They might be doing whatever it is they do in the daytime, too. I’m afraid we’d have to set up a twenty-four-hour watch to be sure of finding anything out.”
“I don’t think so, Randy,” Peggy argued. “If they were using the place by day, they probably wouldn’t have taken so much care with the hinges. What’s more, I’m sure the janitor was sleeping when we rang the bell, which is why he took so long in answering it. I would guess that he works at night with the rest of the gang. Besides, that neighborhood would be perfect for night work. The markets are practically deserted between six and midnight. Probably after midnight, when the markets open up, the crooks run a legitimate trucking business as a cover-up.”
“The girl’s a positive Sherlock,” Mal said fondly. “Anyway, we can try a few nights, and if nothing shows up, we can then worry about extending the watch during the daytime as well.”
“When do we start?” Tom Galen asked.