The Project Gutenberg eBook, The Magic Curtain, by Roy J. Snell
E-text prepared by Stephen Hutcheson, Rod Crawford, Dave Morgan, and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team (http://www.pgdp.net)
A Mystery Story for Girls
The MAGIC CURTAIN
By ROY J. SNELL
The Reilly & Lee Co. Chicago
COPYRIGHT 1932 BY THE REILLY & LEE CO. PRINTED IN THE U. S. A.
CONTENTS
THE MAGIC CURTAIN
CHAPTER I A FACE IN THE DARK
It was that mystic hour when witches are abroad in the land: one o’clock in the morning. The vast auditorium of the Civic Opera House was a well of darkness and silence.
Had you looked in upon this scene at this eerie hour you would most certainly have said, “There is no one here. This grandest of all auditoriums is deserted.” But you would have been mistaken.
Had you been seated in the box at the left side of this great auditorium, out of that vast silence you might have caught a sound. Faint, indistinct, like the rustle of a single autumn leaf, like a breath of air creeping over a glassy sea at night, it would have arrested your attention and caused you to focus your eyes upon a pair of exceedingly long drapes at the side of the opera hall. These drapes might have concealed some very long windows. In reality they did not.
Had you fixed your attention upon this spot you might, in that faint light that was only a little less than absolute darkness, have seen a vague, indistinct spot of white. This spot, resting as it did at a position above the bottom of the drape where a short person’s head would have come, might have startled you.
And well it might. For this was in truth the face of a living being. This mysterious individual was garbed in a dress suit of solemn black. That is why only his face shone out in the dark.
This person, seemingly a golden haired youth with features of unusual fineness, had called himself Pierre Andrews when, a short time earlier, he had applied for a position as usher in the Opera. Because of his almost startling beauty, his perfect manners and his French accent, he had been hired on the spot and had been given a position in the boxes where, for this “first night” at least, those who possessed the great wealth of the city had been expected to foregather.
They had not failed to appear. And why should they fail? Was this not their night of nights, the night of the “Grand Parade”?
Ah, yes, they had been there in all their bejewelled and sable-coated splendor. Rubies and diamonds had vied with emeralds and sapphires on this grand occasion. Yes, they had been here. But now they had departed and there remained only this frail boy, hovering there on the ledge like a frightened gray bat.
Why was he here? Certainly a timid-appearing boy would not, without some very pressing reason, remain hidden behind drapes at the edge of a great empty space which until that night had been practically unknown to him.
And, indeed, at this moment the place, with its big empty spaces, its covered seats, its broad, deserted stage, seemed haunted, haunted by the ghosts of other years, by all those who, creeping from out the past, had stalked upon its stage; haunted, too, by those who only one or two short years before had paraded there on a “first night” in splendor, but who now, laid low by adverse circumstances, crept about in places of poverty. Yet, haunted or no, here was this frail boy peeking timidly out from his hiding place as the clock struck one.
He had asked a curious question on this night, had this boy of golden locks and expressive blue eyes. It was during the recess between acts while the curtain was down and the pomp that was Egypt had for a moment been replaced by the pomp that is America. Leaning over the balustrade, this thoughtful boy had witnessed the “Grand Parade” of wealth and pomp that passed below him. Between massive pillars, beneath chandeliers of matchless splendor where a thousand lights shone, passed ladies of beauty and unquestioned refinement. With capes of royal purple trimmed in ermine or sable but slightly concealing bare shoulders and breasts where jewels worth a king’s ransom shone, they glided gracefully down the long corridor. Bowing here and there, or turning to whisper a word to their companions, they appeared to be saying to all the throng that beheld them:
“See! Are we not the glory that is America in all her wealth and power?”
Then it was that this mysterious boy, poised there upon the ledge still half hidden by drapes, had asked his question. Turning to a white-haired, distinguished-looking man close beside him, a man whom he had never before seen, he had said:
“Is this life?”
The answer he received had been quite as unusual as the question. Fixing strangely luminous eyes upon him, the man had said:
“It is a form of life.”
“A form of life.” Even at this moment the boy, standing in the shadows timid and terribly afraid, was turning these words over in his mind. “A form of life.”
There had been about him, even as he had performed his simple duties as usher in the boxes on this night, an air of mystery. He had walked—more than one had noted this—with the short, quick steps of a girl. His hair, too, was soft and fine, his cheeks like the softest velvet. But then, he was French. His accent told this. And who knows what the French are like? Besides, his name was Pierre. He had said this more than once. And Pierre, as everyone knows, is the name of a boy.
It was during the curtain before the last act that an incident had occurred which, for a few of the resplendent throng, had dimmed the glory of that night.
No great fuss was made about the affair. A slim girl seated in the box occupied by the man whose great wealth had made this opera house possible, had leaned over to whisper excited words in this gray-haired millionaire’s ears. With fingers that trembled, she had touched her bare neck.
