“Oh, gosh!” Basil thought. “Oh, my gosh!”
The curtain rose. A clear voice floated up from somewhere. Could it be from that unfamiliar group on the stage?
I will, Miss Saunders. I tell you I will!
But, Miss Leilia, I don’t consider the newspapers proper for young ladies nowadays.
I don’t care. I want to read about this wonderful gentleman burglar they call The Shadow.
It was actually going on. Almost before he realized it, a ripple of laughter passed over the audience as Evelyn gave her imitation of Miss Saunders behind her back.
“Get ready, Basil,” breathed Miss Halliburton.
Basil and Bill Kampf, the crooks, each took an elbow of Victor Van Baker, the dissolute son of the house, and made ready to aid him through the front door.
It was strangely natural to be out on the stage with all those eyes looking up encouragingly. His mother’s face floated past him, other faces that he recognized and remembered.
Bill Kampf stumbled on a line and Basil picked him up quickly and went on.
MISS SAUNDERS: So you are alderman from the Sixth Ward?
RABBIT SIMMONS: Yes, ma’am.
MISS SAUNDERS (shaking her head kittenishly): Just what is an alderman?
CHINAMAN RUDD: An alderman is halfway between a politician and a pirate.
This was one of Basil’s lines that he was particularly proud of—but there was not a sound from the audience, not a smile. A moment later Bill Kampf absent-mindedly wiped his forehead with his handkerchief and then stared at it, startled by the red stains of make-up on it—and the audience roared. The theater was like that.
MISS SAUNDERS: Then you believe in spirits, Mr. Rudd.
CHINAMAN RUDD: Yes, ma’am, I certainly do believe in spirits. Have you got any?
The first big scene came. On the darkened stage a window rose slowly and Mayall De Bec, “in a full evening dress,” climbed over the sill. He was tiptoeing cautiously from one side of the stage to the other, when Leilia Van Baker came in. For a moment she was frightened, but he assured her that he was a friend of her brother Victor. They talked. She told him naively yet feelingly of her admiration for The Shadow, of whose exploits she had read. She hoped, though, that The Shadow would not come here tonight, as the family jewels were all in that safe at the right.
The stranger was hungry. He had been late for his dinner and so had not been able to get any that night. Would he have some crackers and milk? That would be fine. Scarcely had she left the room when he was on his knees by the safe, fumbling at the catch, undeterred by the unpromising word “Cake” stencilled on the safe’s front. It swung open, but he heard footsteps outside and closed it just as Leilia came back with the crackers and milk.
They lingered, obviously attracted to each other. Miss Saunders came in, very kittenish, and was introduced. Again Evelyn mimicked her behind her back and the audience roared. Other members of the household appeared and were introduced to the stranger.
What’s this? A banging at the door, and Mulligan, a policeman, rushes in.
We have just received word from the Central Office that the notorious Shadow has been seen climbing in the window! No one can leave this house tonight!
The curtain fell. The first rows of the audience—the younger brothers and sisters of the cast—were extravagant in their enthusiasm. The actors took a bow.
A moment later Basil found himself alone with Evelyn Beebe on the stage. A weary doll in her make-up she was leaning against a table.
“Heigh-ho, Basil,” she said.
She had not quite forgiven him for holding her to her promise after her little brother’s mumps had postponed their trip East, and Basil had tactfully avoided her, but now they met in the genial glow of excitement and success.
“You were wonderful,” he said—“Wonderful!”
He lingered a moment. He could never please her, for she wanted someone like herself, someone who could reach her through her senses, like Hubert Blair. Her intuition told her that Basil was of a certain vague consequence; beyond that his incessant attempts to make people think and feel, bothered and wearied her. But suddenly, in the glow of the evening, they leaned forward and kissed peacefully, and from that moment, because they had no common ground even to quarrel on, they were friends for life.
When the curtain rose upon the second act Basil slipped down a flight of stairs and up to another to the back of the hall, where he stood watching in the darkness. He laughed silently when the audience laughed, enjoying it as if it were a play he had never seen before.
There was a second and a third act scene that were very similar. In each of them The Shadow, alone on the stage, was interrupted by Miss Saunders. Mayall De Bec, having had but ten days of rehearsal, was inclined to confuse the two, but Basil was totally unprepared for what happened. Upon Connie’s entrance Mayall spoke his third-act line and involuntarily Connie answered in kind.
Others coming on the stage were swept up in the nervousness and confusion, and suddenly they were playing the third act in the middle of the second. It happened so quickly that for a moment Basil had only a vague sense that something was wrong. Then he dashed down one stairs and up another and into the wings, crying:
“Let down the curtain! Let down the curtain!”
The boys who stood there aghast sprang to the rope. In a minute Basil, breathless, was facing the audience.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” he said, “there’s been changes in the cast and what just happened was a mistake. If you’ll excuse us we’d like to do that scene over.”
He stepped back in the wings to a flutter of laughter and applause.
“All right, Mayall!” he called excitedly. “On the stage alone. Your line is: ‘I just want to see that the jewels are all right,’ and Connie’s is: ‘Go ahead, don’t mind me.’ All right! Curtain up!”
In a moment things righted themselves. Someone brought water for Miss Halliburton, who was in a state of collapse, and as the act ended they all took a curtain call once more. Twenty minutes later it was over. The hero clasped Leilia Van Baker to his breast, confessing that he was The Shadow, “and a captured Shadow at that”; the curtain went up and down, up and down; Miss Halliburton was dragged unwillingly on the stage and the ushers came up the aisles laden with flowers. Then everything became informal and the actors mingled happily with the audience, laughing and important, congratulated from all sides. An old man whom Basil didn’t know came up to him and shook his hand, saying, “You’re a young man that’s going to be heard from some day,” and a reporter from the paper asked him if he was really only fifteen. It might all have been very bad and demoralizing for Basil, but it was already behind him. Even as the crowd melted away and the last few people spoke to him and went out, he felt a great vacancy come into his heart. It was over, it was done and gone—all that work, and interest and absorption. It was a hollowness like fear.
“Good night, Miss Halliburton. Good night, Evelyn.”
“Good night, Basil. Congratulations, Basil. Good night.”
“Where’s my coat? Good night, Basil.”
“Leave your costumes on the stage, please. They’ve got to go back tomorrow.”
He was almost the last to leave, mounting to the stage for a moment and looking around the deserted hall. His mother was waiting and they strolled home together through the first cool night of the year.
“Well, I thought it went very well indeed. Were you satisfied?” He didn’t answer for a moment. “Weren’t you satisfied with the way it went?”
“Yes.” He turned his head away.
“What’s the matter?”
“Nothing,” and then, “Nobody really cares, do they?”
“About what?”
“About anything.”
“Everybody cares about different things. I care about you, for instance.”
Instinctively he ducked away from a hand extended caressingly toward him: “Oh, don’t. I don’t mean like that.”
“You’re just overwrought, dear.”
“I am not overwrought. I just feel sort of sad.”
“You shouldn’t feel sad. Why, people told me after the play—”
“Oh, that’s all over. Don’t talk about that—don’t ever talk to me about that any more.”
“Then what are you sad about?”
“Oh, about a little boy.”
“What little boy?”
“Oh, little Ham—you wouldn’t understand.”
“When we get home I want you to take a real hot bath and quiet your nerves.”
“All right.”
But when he got home he fell immediately into deep sleep on the sofa. She hesitated. Then covering him with a blanket and a comforter, she pushed a pillow under his protesting head and went upstairs.
She knelt for a long time beside her bed.
“God, help him! help him,” she prayed, “because he needs help that I can’t give him any more.”
