Chapter XVII: Backstage Fright

Peggy giggled uneasily as she and Amy inspected themselves in the hall mirror before leaving the Gramercy Arms. “We look like a couple of character actors dressed up for a skit on the Beat Generation.”

“Or like a couple of weird vampires from a horror movie,” Amy replied with a nervous laugh.

Greta surveyed them critically. “At least you don’t have to worry about anything,” she said acidly. “Those getups would frighten off any man in the world. If the crooks do catch sight of you, all it’ll take is one look before they scream and run!”

Both girls were dressed identically, having taken their cue from Pip in the matter of appropriate clothes for playing detective in a dark alley. They wore black skirts and sweaters, black stockings and black shoes. They carried black gloves and black scarves. The scarf was necessary for Amy to cover her bright, blond hair, and Peggy thought it was a good idea for her to take one, too, as a face covering. Neither wore any jewelry at all, so there would be nothing to rattle or jingle or catch the light.

“If we’re not back by morning,” Peggy said wryly, “send out the bloodhounds for us.”

“I’m waiting up for you,” Greta said. “And if you’re not back by one-thirty, the first bloodhound to pick up your trail is going to be me. With an appropriate police escort,” she added.

“Don’t worry,” Peggy said. “We’ll be all right. Just wish us luck, and we’ll be on our way.”

“All right, then. Good luck,” Greta said, opening the door for them. “I just hope the police don’t pick you up, for looking like suspicious characters.”

Peggy and Amy left, feeling a little foolish about their costumes, but after walking for a block or two, they realized that nobody was even looking at them.

“That’s the wonderful thing about New York,” Peggy said. “You can wear anything, or do anything, and nobody seems to care as long as you don’t disturb the peace.”

Amy nodded in agreement. “The other day I noticed a man with a beard down to his waist. He was wearing a long Biblical-looking white robe and a pair of sandals, and nobody on the street was paying the least bit of attention to him. Just try to picture him passing unnoticed in Pine Hollow or in Rockport!”

“Just try to picture us passing unnoticed in Pine Hollow or in Rockport!” Peggy laughed. “We’d probably have a crowd of people and barking dogs and small boys throwing stones by now!”

The driver scarcely glanced at them as they boarded a bus.

“I suppose it’s nice to know that nobody bothers about you in New York,” Peggy said when they were seated, “but in a way it’s kind of scary. I mean, supposing something were to happen to us, do you think that anyone would even notice it if we screamed?”

Amy shivered. “I know what you mean,” she said. “I suppose a lot of people would notice it, and then they’d just put it out of their minds and do nothing about it. They’d just figure it was none of their business, after all, and go right on doing what they were doing.”

The thought was not a happy one, and both girls lapsed into a tense silence as the bus bore them downtown into the deepening twilight.

They got off in a district of office buildings, shops, and showrooms, all dark now. The streets were empty, save for an occasional car or taxi and the taillights of their bus, receding in the distance. As they turned to the west, down a narrow side street, the street lights came on. They seemed to accentuate the darkness rather than relieve it. The girls hurried on past closed doors and shuttered windows. Each block they walked brought them past older and lower buildings. The smell of the river was brought to them by an incoming mist. Somewhere in the distance a foghorn sounded two short, mournful blasts and then was still.

They were in the market and warehouse district now. Parked trucks stood silently by darkened loading docks, and shadows crouched behind tall stacks of crates and boxes. One shadow suddenly detached itself from the rest and shot by them with a wail! Peggy’s heart leaped and she clutched Amy’s arm before she realized it was only an alley cat.

“A cat!” she exclaimed, her voice trembling in mixed fear and relief. “Just a cat! Oh dear, if I let that sort of thing scare me, I’m not going to be much good tonight!”

“I ... I was frightened, too,” Amy said. “It was so sudden! We’ll probably see more of them here, chasing the rats that must live around these food markets. We’d better get used to it.”

But the thought of rats did nothing to calm Peggy’s nerves, or Amy’s either. What if, in the alley behind the theater, rats should come? What if they should come at the same time as the crooks? What if, under the fire stairs, there should come a quiet scratching...? Peggy wondered if she would be able to keep her silence then.

But they were near the theater alley now, and Peggy resolutely put her fear of rats out of her mind. Let’s just worry about one thing at a time, she told herself. The street was deserted, as she had hoped it would be, and they were able to slip into the alley unobserved.

They walked cautiously, taking care with each step. If there was any work going on in the alley now, this would be no time to disturb it. Before turning the corner into the back court, they paused and listened for what seemed a very long time. Not a sound disturbed the night. The immediate silence was so perfect that they could hear, far in the distance, the never-ending rumble and stir of the city, the growl of subways and motors, the far-off drone of airplanes.

They turned into the empty courtyard, darted noiselessly for the fire stairs and crouched in the shadows, their hearts drumming loudly and the blood roaring in their ears like the noise of the distant subways.

It was some time before they felt calm enough to take stock of their position. The fire stair was, as Peggy had told the boys, a perfect place to hide. Most of it mounted out of sight in an airshaft on the side of the building opposite the entrance alley. Only the last six steps came out into the court, having turned the corner of the building at a landing. The space below the landing made a cramped little lean-to, protected by the steps themselves on one side and by a latticework of metal on the other. The space was open only in the rear, from which direction nobody could approach them.

The steps themselves were steel, and the risers between the steps were of the same metal grillwork as that on the side. It was almost impossible for anyone to see into the shadowed cubbyhole behind the grill, but quite an easy matter for the girls to see out.

“I think we’re safe enough here,” Peggy whispered, tactfully restraining herself from adding, “as long as no rats come around.”

“It seems safe,” Amy agreed, “but I wouldn’t exactly call it comfortable. It’s too low to stand in, and I hate the thought of sitting down on the dirt that’s collected here. There’s a box out there in the courtyard. Why don’t we bring it in to sit on?”

“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!”