Part 10

“Better not,” Peggy answered. “Someone may remember having seen it there, and if it’s missing, it might give them the idea that somebody’s been here. And we don’t want anyone to get ideas like that.”

Amy agreed reluctantly with the sense of Peggy’s argument, and shifted her position. “No wonder Pip was so tired,” she whispered. “A whole twelve hours of crouching like this must be a terrible thing to go through! We’ve only been here for about fifteen minutes, and I’m beginning to get pins and needles already.”

The next hour and a half, spent mostly in silence, and in trying to get used to the cramped position beneath the stairs, passed by with terrible slowness. Every so often, the roar of a truck would be heard in the street, and the girls would grow tense, waiting for it to turn into the alley. But it always went by, leaving an even deeper silence behind it.

“It’s almost time for Randy and Mal to come,” Peggy whispered. “I don’t envy them their night, but I’ll sure be glad to get out of here!”

“So will—quiet! I hear another truck,” Amy said.

Quietly shifting into new positions of comparative comfort, the girls held their breath and waited to hear the sound of the truck passing the alley. But this one didn’t pass.

A bright beam of headlights swept down the alley and lighted up the court as the truck turned in off the street.

“Those headlights!” Peggy whispered. “When they turn the corner into the court, they’re bound to light up this whole stairway!”

“Just hope the driver doesn’t look this way!” Amy whispered in return.

But before the truck came into sight, the headlights were switched off, and the driver came in under the soft glow of the parking lamps. The truck was an ordinary-looking, box-body affair, a little shabby, dented, and in need of both a washing and a paint job. Faded, once-gold letters high up on its side read “O & O TRUCKING Co.” The forlorn appearance of the truck was belied by the soft, powerful sound of its well-tuned engine as it turned into the alley and was expertly backed up to the loading platform.

Two men silently leaped out of the cab and carefully closed the doors. Moving on rubber-soled shoes, they climbed onto the platform, unlocked the rear doors of the truck and swung them back. A third man, holding a rifle in his hand, stepped out of the truck.

“Okay,” he said quietly. “You get the stuff out, and I’ll keep watch.”

He jumped lightly down and stationed himself at the corner by the alley, his rifle held ready, while the other men unlocked the elevator doors and opened them.

They worked swiftly and quietly in the darkness, which was relieved only by a very dim work light mounted in the truck body. By its pale glow, Peggy and Amy saw only an anonymous series of boxes being transferred from the truck to the elevator. There was no way to tell what they held but, Peggy thought, it couldn’t have been anything legal—not if it had to be loaded secretly at night and under an armed guard.

Thinking of the armed guard, she suddenly shivered with fright as a new thought came to her. The boys! Randy and Mal! What if they should choose this moment to make their appearance? The man with the rifle stood motionless and poised for action. Peggy was sure he would not hesitate to shoot anyone who walked into that alley. Biting her lip and holding tightly to the steel support of the stair, she prayed that Randy’s engine would give him more trouble, or that they would run into heavy traffic or want to stop for dinner or ... or anything! Anything to keep them from coming here until the truckmen had finished their business and gone.

At least she was not kept long in suspense. The men were quick and efficient, and their cargo was not a very large one. In a very few minutes, the elevator was loaded and, with a smooth whir not at all like the Academy elevators, it ascended to the theater. It returned not long after, emptied of its crates, and the workmen shut off the mechanism, swung the doors closed, and clicked the lock on them.

The watchman with the rifle nodded his approval, climbed back into the rear of the truck and once more allowed himself to be locked in. Without a word, the truckmen took their places in the cab, soundlessly shut the doors, and the battered truck swung smoothly into the courtyard, backed up, and turned down the alley.

It seemed like the first time in ten minutes that Peggy had breathed.

“I was frightened to death that the boys would come!” she said.

“That’s all I could think of, too,” Amy whispered in a shaky voice.

“Now all I want is for them to come fast!” Peggy said. “We’ve got all the evidence we need for the police, I think, and I just want to get out of here!”

“If we do get this theater for our play,” Amy said, “I wonder if I’ll feel good about it. I’m afraid I’ll never feel quite right about this place after tonight!”

“Oh, we’ll make it all over,” Peggy said with enthusiasm. “We’ll put bright lights in the little marquee, and we’ll put up lighted theater posters on the walls, and I think we could paint the wall behind the loading platform white with gilt trim on the pillars on each side of the elevator. Then, if we can find a fountain for the court, the way I suggested before, and maybe a few stone benches, we—Oh!” She gave a start of fright as a male voice laughed close to her ear.

“Just like a woman!” Randy said. “Supposed to be keeping a lookout, and you’re decorating an alley! But where are Pip and Tom? And what are you doing here? And—”

“We’ll tell you everything over coffee,” Peggy said. “Oh, Randy! It’s all over! We’ve got our crooks—and they’re crooks all right—and we’ve got our theater, I’m sure—and I’m so glad you didn’t come ten minutes earlier, and.... Oh, let’s get out of here!”

“Let’s,” Mal said. “This is hardly my idea of a place for a date! Amy, take my arm. I have a feeling you need it. And Randy, get a firm grip on Peggy, if you please.”

“Stop directing, Mal,” Randy laughed. “I think I’ve already written this scene quite nicely, and the hero has the heroine well in hand!”

XVIII _Forecast—Fair!_

Seated at the desk in her room, Peggy selected a fresh sheet of paper. She was on the fifth page of a letter to her friend Jean Wilson.

So you see I was right. There _were_ crooks using the theater all the time. The next day, Amy and I told the police what we had seen in the alley, and I think they were really pleased, even though they did bawl us out for poking around in police affairs. At that, they admitted that if we had come to them the first time with nothing but suspicions, they probably wouldn’t have been able to do anything. Anyway, they put a guard under the stairs and stationed some more policemen around, and two nights later they caught the gang.

It seems they were hijackers, which means that they held up trucks on the road and stole valuable cargo from them. They were using the theater as a warehouse for the stolen goods until they could dispose of them in whatever way crooks get rid of stolen goods. When the police searched the place, they found thousands and thousands of dollars’ worth of furs and silverware and liquor and appliances and all sorts of things. The cartons that we saw them unload the night we were there turned out to contain nylon stockings, and they were worth about twenty thousand dollars, which is an awful lot of nylon stockings.

The police say we’re going to get a big reward from the insurance people. The boys wanted to give it all to me, but I refused it. I’m going to give it to the players’ group, which really means to Randy and Mal, to rent the theater on a long-term lease and to fix it up properly. They said once before that they didn’t want to be in the real estate business, but I think that they’re changing their minds about that.

The police got in touch with the owner of the building, who is retired and has been living in Florida for a long time. He didn’t know anything about what was going on in the theater and was quite grateful that we had gotten his crooked tenants out of the place. It seems he has been so long away from the New York real-estate scene, that he didn’t know his property was in demand as a theater. He says it hasn’t been used as one for over fifty years! Of course, he could get more money renting it as a theater than as a warehouse, but he says he doesn’t need more money, and we need a theater. He has offered it to us on a ten-year lease for the same rent he was getting before.

Randy says that the rent is so low that even a moderately successful season would give him and Mal enough profit to live on comfortably, so they’re now beginning to talk about becoming managers, doing their own shows and, when they don’t happen to have a show for a particular season, renting the theater to other groups.

What’s more, the rent covers the whole building, and the boys are thinking of turning part of it into apartments for themselves, and the rest of it into apartments for other young actors, something like a Gramercy Arms for boys!

Incidentally, the theater is beautiful. The police let us in to take a look at it today, and even with all those boxes and crates and fur coats and things stacked around, we could see how nice it is. It’ll need new seats, I’m afraid, and a new lighting system and a switchboard and a curtain and loads of other things, but the reward money will more than cover all that. And we even have a name for it—the Penthouse Theater. How does that strike you? I only hope you can come to New York to see it when it’s all ready.

Or, better than that, plan to come to New York next season when, with luck, I might have a part in a play there. One of the things I like best about Randy and Mal is that, even though they’re just bursting with gratitude and they keep calling me a heroine, they haven’t tried to ‘pay me off’ by offering me a part in the play. I’m still going to help just by painting scenery and selling ads in the program and running errands and things like that. This way, I know that if I ever get a part in one of their plays, it will be because I deserve it as an actress.

Another thing I like about Randy is that he’s coming to take me out again tonight. Which reminds me—I’d better sign off now, before Irene and Amy install themselves in the bathrooms!

Do you suppose that’s what they mean when they say that one of the most important things for an actress to learn is timing?

More next time from Peggy

PEGGY FINDS THE THEATER

As far back as she can remember, Peggy Lane—young, pretty, and talented—has wanted to become an actress. Ambitious but realistic, Peggy knows her name isn’t going to be in lights immediately but finally persuades her cautious parents to let her spend a year in New York to try to gain a foothold in the fabled world of the theater.

Peggy’s first big test is an audition at the New York Dramatic Academy, whose eccentric director will decide whether she shows sufficient promise to be accepted for professional training. Meanwhile, Peggy becomes friends with Randy Brewster, a young playwright, and Mal Seton, who will direct Randy’s experimental play if and when they can find an off-Broadway theater in which to produce it. Peggy eagerly volunteers to help in their desperate search and, exploring the byways of the city for a forgotten theater, unwittingly stumbles into a mysterious and dangerous situation.

The launching of Peggy’s career, her struggle to make her dreams become a reality, is a delightful and heart-warming story.

_Peggy Lane Theater Stories_

Peggy Finds the Theater Peggy Plays Off-Broadway Peggy Goes Straw Hat Peggy on the Road

_Peggy Lane Theater Series_

By VIRGINIA HUGHES

Peggy Lane, the young heroine of this exciting new series, is an aspiring and talented actress. Her adventures as a drama student in New York City, and her slow climb to success, with dedicated young theater people like herself, make the theme of this inspiring new career series for girls.

1 PEGGY FINDS THE THEATER 2 PEGGY PLAYS OFF-BROADWAY 3 PEGGY GOES STRAW HAT 4 PEGGY ON THE ROAD

GROSSET & DUNLAP _Publishers_ NEW YORK

Transcriber’s Notes

--Copyright notice provided as in the original—this e-text is public domain in the country of publication.

--In the text versions, delimited italics text in _underscores_ (the HTML version reproduces the font form of the printed book.)

--Silently corrected palpable typos; left non-standard spellings and dialect unchanged.

End of Project Gutenberg's Peggy Finds the Theatre, by Virginia Hughes