Chapter Twenty-one

INSINUATIONS

At the cool words of the cowboy star, the radio director whirled to face him.

"Just what do you mean by that," he demanded, his face flushing.

"I mean just this," retorted Curt. "There was a very real attempt made on the coast to stop the filming of 'Kings of the Air' and it begins to look like that attempt is being carried on even in New York in an effort to stop the promotion of the picture. All I've got to say is that someone had better be careful."

"Are you insinuating anything?" demanded the radio director.

"I'm not insinuating; I'm just saying," said the cowboy star firmly.

The director turned back to Janet.

"You're sure the manuscript was stolen?"

"It was unless someone in the studio here has it," she replied.

"I'll make inquiries," he promised, "but I am sure no one in the studio would have sent for it."

Mr. Adolphi left studio K and Janet, Helen and Curt Newsom were alone.

"You're not kidding about the manuscript being missing?" Curt asked.

"No, Curt, I'm terribly serious. We went out for a time yesterday afternoon. While we were gone the maid came in to leave clean towels and while she was in the room a man came in. He said he was from the studio here and had come for the manuscript. Naturally the girl didn't object and he walked out with the papers."

"What did you have in the story?"

"Oh, a lot about the final days in the desert. How the attempts were made to stop the picture, the bombing from the sky and my own kidnaping."

"Did you hint that some other company was responsible for this?" The question was snapped at Janet.

"Come to think of it, I did, but of course I didn't mention any company by name."

Curt scratched his head in frank worry.

"You know," he confessed, "this thing has got me puzzled. There is some powerful agency at work to stop the picture Helen's father made and I believe its influence must extend right here into this studio. You girls be sure and watch your step and especially at night."

"But nothing will happen to us," protested Helen.

"No, I don't suppose there will, but you keep on the alert just the same," Curt warned them.

Mr. Adolphi returned and shook his head in response to Janet's inquiring gaze.

"I've checked everyone in the studio," he said, "and no one knows anything about it. Can you do the manuscript over?"

"Probably," assented Janet, "but I'd prefer not to under the circumstances."

The director did not insist and Janet thought perhaps he even seemed a little relieved.

Other members of the company arrived. Several of them had been in the film company on the coast but most of them were from the regular stock company which the studio maintained for its dramatic needs. Most of them were pleasant enough. Only one of them turned Janet against her and that was the small, dark-haired actress who had bumped into her the day before and called her a "clumsy fool." That was Rachel Nesbit and Janet thought her eyes a trifle too close together and her mouth too hard. It looked as though it was difficult for Rachel to look pleasant and there was a sulky twist to her lips.

Janet soon found that Rachel was the pampered member of the studio's stock company. She was considered an actress of ability and she arrived late and left early during rehearsals. Her one redeeming grace was that she came through when she was before a microphone. Janet also learned that Rachel was writing in addition to her acting and that she had had several of her skits produced on the air.

As soon as the company was assembled, Director Adolphi plunged into the task of rehearsing. Sound men brought in the necessary paraphernalia and through the hours of the morning they went over the first scene which was to be presented in their radio show. The program was to be unusual, running half an hour for five consecutive nights, each of them increasing the tempo and mystery of the action. Janet, reading the script, could feel the thing getting into her blood and she was anxious for the hour to come when they would actually go on the air.

She had no fear of the microphone, now, for that had vanished while she was working for Billy Fenstow in the westerns with Curt Newsom and Helen.

The trio had lunch together that noon, and returned immediately to the studio, where rehearsals continued into the afternoon and at the close of the day the director rather grudgingly conceded that the company had made excellent progress.

"Be here tomorrow sharply at nine," he cautioned as he dismissed them for the day.

Members of the company scattered quickly, some of them hurrying away to catch trains for their suburban homes.

Janet, Helen, and Curt Newsom walked slowly toward the elevators. The corridor down which they walked was practically deserted for none of the studios flanking it were in use. They entered the main lobby of the World Broadcasting Company office. From a loudspeaker on the reception desk came the voice of a world-famous crooner which Helen recognized instantly.

"That's a program I'd like to see," she told Curt.

"Come on, then. Now that we are members of a radio company, we ought to be able to crash the gates."

The cowboy star inquired the way to the proper studio and they turned and walked down a long corridor to Studio A, the largest and most costly of all of the broadcasting rooms of the World Company. It was like a little theater, with sloping seats and a stage upon which the performers worked before the microphone. At the back was a large orchestra, while up to the front of the stage the famous crooner was singing into a "mike."

"Why, he doesn't look at all like I thought he would," exclaimed Helen as they peered through the plate glass windows which flanked one wall of the studio. "He's much older."

"Many of us are disillusioned about our heroes and heroines," said Curt quietly. "Let's eat. I'd like a steak."

"Sounds good to me," agreed Janet, and even Helen was willing to leave the studio after another minute or two of gazing at the crooner.

They ate in a small but attractive restaurant off Sixth Avenue and after a leisurely meal Curt hurried away to keep an appointment and Janet and Helen, though tired from the long day's grind of rehearsals, strolled over to Fifth Avenue to look into shop windows. After half an hour on the avenue, they started back to their Times Square hotel, heading west on one of New York's dark and little-frequented cross streets.

They were halfway down the long, dimly lit block when Helen seized Janet's arm.

"Someone's following us!" she whispered.