Adolphi has been assigned by the World Broadcasting Company to handle
this promotion work."
He introduced each of the girls to the radio director and Mr. Adolphi
smiled pleasantly.
"I shall get at your parts presently," he said. "Please be seated."
They found comfortable chairs at one side of the studio and Janet
enjoyed the opportunity to look around the room for it was here that
they would put on their radio show. The ceiling was high and evidently
covered with a cloth which absorbed sound readily. The walls were also
covered with a cloth of heavy texture and the carpet on the floor felt
an inch thick.
At the rear of the room was a low platform which might be used for an
orchestra and to the left, through a heavy plate glass window, was the
control room where the engineers regulated the volume of the program and
fed it out on the air. Near the door was a desk with a microphone on it
for the announcer, and beyond that was a tall steel stand with several
microphones, attached to adjustable arms, on it. These could be placed
in any portion of the room to pick up the program to the best advantage.
Mr. Adolphi joined them within a few minutes. He carried a handful of
script with him and handed one section to Janet and another to Helen.
"You understand that this company is comparatively small when you think
of the one used in the production of the picture?" he reminded them. "It
will be necessary for you to take several parts, but all of them will be
minor roles since I understand neither of you have had any experience
in broadcasting."
The girls nodded their understanding, and the director plunged on.
"We are going to give only the high spots of the film story over the
air, but in addition we are going to weave in some of the actual drama
and the thrills attached to the shooting of the picture--some of the
behind-the-scenes incidents. Understand?"
Again they nodded.
"We have not been able to get all of this material that we desired and
Mr. Newsom has informed me that you have a fair ability at writing."
This was aimed at Janet and she replied promptly.
"I enjoy writing," she said, "but the question of ability hasn't been
very well determined yet."
"But you sold a script for film purposes only recently," pressed the
director.
"Yes, that's true, but I think it was more luck than anything else."
"Be that as it may, I'd like you to write some of the intimate and
unusual things that go on in the production of such a picture. Get in
all of the thrilling material possible. Get me?"
"I think so," replied Janet, recalling the vivid hours that had marked
the production work on "Kings of the Air" when the company was out in
the desert and she had been kidnaped.
"Then take the rest of the day off and try to get some of the material
into my hands tomorrow morning. We'll have it whipped into shape by the
studio continuity writers, for this program goes on the air day after
tomorrow."
"I'll do my best, Mr. Adolphi," promised Janet, and the director hurried
away to give further instructions to others in the company.
Helen looked at Janet admiringly.
"Well, you certainly get yourself into all kinds of work," she smiled.
"Now you'll have to go back to the hotel room and pound away on a rented
typewriter while I go down and see a show in the Music Hall."
"Oh, don't do that," begged Janet, who was anxious to see the interior
of the world's largest theater. "Wait another day until I can go with
you. There'll be plenty for you to see in New York beside the Music
Hall."
"All right," agreed Helen. "We'll plan on that for tomorrow afternoon."
As they left the studio they bumped into a slender, dark-haired girl who
was hurrying in.
"Clumsy fools," Janet heard the other girl murmur as she went on and
Janet's face flushed for it had been as much the other's fault as their
own.
They dropped down to the street level in the elevator and Janet started
back for the hotel while Helen walked toward Fifth avenue to enjoy a
window shopping tour along the exclusive shops that had made the avenue
famous throughout the world.
Chapter Nineteen
A MANUSCRIPT VANISHES
Janet went directly to their hotel and asked at the desk about renting a
typewriter. Arrangements were made to have one delivered at her room
within half an hour and she went to change into an older dress,
something that wouldn't be hurt by wrinkles that were bound to come as
she labored over the typewriter.
The machine was delivered promptly and Janet used a supply of the hotel
stationary for her writing material. At first the idea of setting down
intimate little things about the filming of the picture had appeared
easy, but now that the task was before her, the words and ideas did not
come freely.
Janet wondered if she dared to record the story of the sabotage when the
company was on desert location. She could imagine that it would make
grand material for broadcasting purposes and so she set resolutely about
the task. The worst that could happen would be for Mr. Adolphi to reject
it entirely. Janet finally got started and once under way the flow of
words came smoothly and her fingers moved rapidly over the keyboard.
She worked steadily for more than an hour, got up, stretched, walked
around the room and returned to the writing. She wasn't attempting to
make it a complete story, just giving the sequences as they had happened
during the filming of "Kings of the Air" and the mysterious events which
had taken place out on the desert. It was natural that Janet should hint
that the plotting was the work of another concern for it had been common
talk in their own company later that Premier Films, also producing an
air story, had attempted to keep their own film from a successful
conclusion. But it had only been talk for there was no definite proof.
Helen came hurrying in just as Janet finished her work.
"How is it going?" she asked.
"All through," replied her companion. "Have a good time?"
"Grand. I never knew there could be so many beautiful shops in such a
small area. Come on now. I want to ride a subway."
"I'll have to change clothes," said Janet.
"Never mind changing for a subway trip. We'll go down to the Battery. I
inquired the way at the desk."
Janet slipped on a light brown coat and followed Helen down and across
to the Times Square subway station where they found themselves engulfed
in the crowd and the noise. Helen dropped two nickels in the turnstile
and they went through the gate, Helen still in the lead and striding
along as though she were the veteran of many a ride in the subway
instead of a rank beginner.
A train roared out of the darkness of the tube and Janet saw a sign,
"South Ferry," on the windows.
"This is our train," cried Helen, shoving her companion ahead of her and
into one of the seats. Other passengers piled in, the doors clanged and
they were roaring through the tunnel far under the street level. Their
train was an express and occasionally they shot past a slower local. The
air was close with an odor that is peculiar to a subway, but Janet
enjoyed the ride, watching the crowd in the car. It was evident that
most of them were accustomed to using the subway several times a day and
they were either visiting or reading evening papers, which they had
folded so they would take up the least possible room.
At the South Ferry station they walked up to the street levels and
entered Battery park. Janet paused a moment, struck by the beauty of the
harbor in the late afternoon. Beyond the Battery was the Statue of
Liberty and even further the tidewater flats of Jersey.
Several freighters, which had cleared their docks a few minutes before,
were going down the harbor and Janet and Helen, standing along the
Battery wondered for what distant port they might be bound.
They walked past the Aquarium. On another afternoon they would come back
and spend several hours going through that fascinating building.
"I'm tired," confessed Janet. "Let's get back to the hotel now, clean
up, and have dinner. Perhaps we'll go to a show after that."
Helen readily agreed to the suggestion and they returned to the South
Ferry station where they caught an uptown express that took them to
Times Square at a dizzy pace.
When they emerged from the tube, the shadows were lengthening in the
heart of the city. Sidewalks were crowded with hundreds of men and women
on their way home after a day's work in the city. They paused for
several minutes to watch the teeming mass of humanity and then turned
and entered their hotel.
Janet was the first to step into their rooms and the instant she passed
the threshold a feeling of foreboding gripped her and she stopped so
suddenly that Helen bumped into her.
"What's the matter?" asked Helen, looking up quickly.
Janet looked a little sheepish. "I don't know. For some reason I thought
there was something wrong in here."
"Want me to scream?" smiled Helen. "I can do a good job of that and I
guarantee to get someone here in less than a minute with one scream."
In spite of the banter Janet was far from reassured for a feeling of
unrest had settled down upon her. She snapped on the lights in the room
and looked around.
Apparently nothing had been disturbed and Helen walked past her and went
on into her own room. A puff of wind stirred the curtains at the
half-opened window and Janet walked over and looked out. There was no
fire escape nearby and it would have been impossible for anyone to have
gained access to their room in that manner. But then, she asked herself,
why would anyone want to enter their room. They carried no personal
jewelry of any value and the money they had left in the room was of such
a small amount that it would not make robbery worth while.
In the next room Helen was humming to herself as she undressed and
prepared to take a shower. Janet dropped down on the bed to rest a
moment. It had been a hectic day and she was tired. Her eyes dropped and
she fell into a deep sleep.
Helen finished her shower, looked in at Janet, then returned to her own
room, where she partially dressed, put on a dressing gown, and sat down
to write a letter home chronicling the events of her first day in New
York.
Janet awoke as suddenly as she had fallen asleep. Helen had turned out
the light in her room and it was quite dark now, the only light coming
through the half-opened door that led to the bathroom and on to Helen's
room.
Janet turned on the light over the desk where she had been writing and
glanced down at the manuscript she had been working on. She turned and
called sharply to Helen.
"Did you pick up the manuscript I finished this afternoon?" she asked.
"Haven't seen it since we left for the Battery," replied Helen. "The
last I knew it was right beside your typewriter. Maybe you're too sleepy
to see it."
"I'm not that sleepy," retorted Janet.
Perhaps she had put it on the dresser and she turned toward that article
of furniture but there was no sign of the manuscript there. She pulled
open the drawers, but the manuscript was not there and Helen joined her
in the hunt.
"Sure you haven't taken it to your room and mislaid it?" asked Janet, a
deep pucker of worry lining her forehead.
"We'll look to make sure," said Helen and they hastened to her room, but
the search there was just as fruitless as the one in Janet's room. Janet
even looked in the closets, but there was no encouragement there. In a
last hope, she went through the wastepaper basket, but she was doomed to
disappointment and turned to Helen, her voice shaking with emotion.
"There's no doubt about it now," she declared. "Someone entered our
rooms while we were away and stole the manuscript I had been working
on!"
Chapter Twenty
THE MYSTERY DEEPENS
The girls stared helplessly at each other and Helen was finally the
first to speak.
"But Janet, that can't be possible. It must be here somewhere."
Janet shook her head firmly. "It isn't here and we both know it. My
premonition when we entered the room was right. Something is decidedly
wrong."
"But what can we do about it?" asked Helen.
"I'm going to call the clerk," said Janet, picking up the telephone. She
explained briefly what had happened. "The assistant manager is here.
He's coming up in five minutes," she said when she replaced the
instrument on the stand.
Helen rushed back to her own room to finish dressing and was fully
clothed when the assistant manager arrived. He made a careful
examination of the door and the lock and then went all over the rooms
with the girls, but as Janet had felt convinced, there was no further
trace of the missing papers.
"I regret this deeply," said the hotel official, "and can only promise
that every effort will be made to see that the papers are returned if
they are still in the building." He excused himself to question the
housekeeper about any maid who might have been working in the room while
the girls were away.
In less than five minutes he returned, a maid following close behind
him.
"I think the mystery is solved," he explained. "The maid says she came
in to put fresh towels in the bathroom and someone knocked at the door.
She answered and a man from the World Broadcasting Company said he had
come to get your manuscript. He came right on in and picked up the
papers beside the typewriter. Of course she should not have admitted
him, but he appeared to know just what he wanted."
"What did he look like?" Janet asked the maid.
"Well, I didn't pay particular attention, but he was small and I guess
you would call him dark. He had on a hat and it was pulled down over his
forehead. He took the papers and went on out. Said they'd be waiting for
you at the broadcasting office tomorrow."
"I believe this solves the mystery," said the assistant manager.
"I hope so," agreed Janet. "We're sorry to have caused you so much
trouble."
When the hotel official and the maid had taken their departure, Helen
turned to her companion.
"I didn't know the radio people were in such a hurry for the material
you were working on," she said.
"Neither did I," replied Janet, "but I guess it is all right. Let's have
dinner now and then perhaps a show. I feel tremendously relieved about
the manuscript."
They added a dab of powder and a touch of rouge to their faces and went
downstairs. Further down the block they had noticed an attractive Old
English Inn and they walked there where they enjoyed a leisurely dinner.
"What shall we do now?" asked Helen as she finished the dish of ice
cream which was their dessert.
"Shall we go back to Radio City and see the Music Hall?" asked Janet.
"I'd like nothing better. We're on our way."
They strolled along at a leisurely pace, turned into Sixth Avenue and
headed north toward the great mass of gray limestone which was Radio
City. Overhead the trains rumbled along the elevated, but Janet and
Helen had eyes only for Radio City.
Ahead of them opened the doors of the world's largest theater and with
their hearts beating faster than usual they purchased their tickets and
walked into the grand foyer, the most majestic, breath-taking enclosure
either of them had ever been in. Their feet sank into the heavy pile of
the great carpet and their eyes feasted on the beauty of the towering
bronze doors which led into the theater itself.
Then they went on into the Music Hall, which with its sixty-two hundred
seats, was the largest of the world's modern theaters. A great expanse
of space greeted their eyes, the theater sloping gently forward to the
huge stage. An orchestra, in full dress, was rising from the depths of
its pit as though lifted by the hand of some unseen giant. The orchestra
broke into a full swell of music and Janet and Helen, sinking into deep,
comfortable seats, were enraptured. Above them hidden lights changed the
color effect of the ceiling continuously. Then the overture was over and
the curtains of the stage parted and for half an hour they enjoyed a
musical entertainment based on Coney Island, the famed fun center of the
city. After that came the feature picture, and they enjoyed every moment
of the nearly three hours of entertainment.
When it was over they walked out slowly, for the Music Hall was one
great part of Radio City. Tomorrow, across the street and up on the
twenty-seventh floor, they would be in another but very vital part of
Radio City, in the broadcasting studios of the World Broadcasting
Company. As they walked down Sixth Avenue they glanced aloft and far up
in the building a blaze of light shone from windows. Some company was
busy up there tonight, providing thousands of radio fans with drama or
music for their entertainment and they thrilled at the thought that
within a very short time, they, too, would be a part of the radio world.
Back in their rooms that night Janet glanced at the place beside the
typewriter where the manuscript had disappeared. She would have liked to
have telephoned Curt Newsom and told the lanky cowboy about the incident
but he had not mentioned where he was staying. She thought of
telephoning Mr. Adolphi, their radio director, but dismissed that for
she felt that he might think her foolish. Undoubtedly he had sent for
the manuscript.
They were up early the next morning, refreshed after a night of sound
sleep. A quick shower was followed by a rapid but thorough toilet and
they were ready for what they might have in store for them. They had
breakfast in the grill room which opened off the main lobby of their
hotel and then started for Radio City.
There was a touch of fall in the air and they walked briskly, pushing
through other hurrying throngs of men and women who were on their way to
work.
The elevator shot them up to the twenty-seventh floor in a dizzy,
breathless rush and they stepped out into the reception room. A page
took them to studio K and there were only two others there when they
entered--Ben Adolphi, their director, and Curt Newsom. The cowboy star
looked a little pale.
"Sick?" asked Janet.
Curt shook his head. "Not exactly, but I didn't sleep very well last
night. Too much noise here in the city. I'm going to move. My hotel's
right on Times Square."
"Why, we're staying there too," said Helen. "Our hotel is the
Dorchester. We slept fine."
"I'm staying there," replied Curt, "but I don't see how you slept. I
heard fire engines and police patrols and street cars and newsboys all
night. I might as well have been down in the subway trying to sleep on
an express train."
The radio director looked at Janet.
"Manuscript ready?" he asked.
Janet stared at him and he repeated the question.
"Haven't you got it?" she asked.
"Certainly not," he snapped, evidently a little provoked at what he
considered dull wits.
"But the maid at the hotel said someone from the studio called yesterday
afternoon for it. It's gone!"
"Certainly I didn't send for it," he retorted. "Evidently it was some
one's idea of a practical joke."
"I don't think it was much of a joke," said Curt quietly. "If the
manuscript Janet was working on has disappeared, it vanished because
someone was afraid of what she might write."
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."