7

Danger Lurking By

Frank looked at the roadmap. "Well, the suspects all go to the New York University, so that's convenient, since we don't have to go around New York just to check their alibis."

"I just have a hunch that they were all telling the truth," Joe said.

"Can't be. One of them must be lying. Or that person must have come up with a clever trick to get themselves a solid alibi."

But Joe's hunch was right; all three of the suspects' alibis were airtight after all. Frank gritted his teeth impatiently as they got onto the sedan.

"So what now?" George said, leaning forward from the back seat. "I don't think we can do anything more."

"I have an idea," Joe said. "How about us going to that old theater once more and look for a hidden passageway. A theater that old must have one or two of them."

"Joe is right," Nancy said. "We should search the place more thoroughly now." She dug into her purse and grinned. "I even have five flashlights with freshly charged batteries."

The actors already packed up and left the theater when the group of detectives arrived. They entered the building and went straight to the backstage. Frank turned on the light as they closed the door behind them. "Okay, so we should split up. Joe, you can go investigate the hallways with Bess and George. Nancy and I will search the backstage for any concealed entrances."

"Okay," Joe said, also turning on his flashlight. He then left the backstage with Bess and George.

Nancy shone her flashlight around. Everything seemed to be fine and untouched, just as she had left them yesterday. But she had an eerie feeling that someone had been there and that someone was still in the building, spying on Nancy's every move.

Frank, on the other hand, was feeling around for any sign of a knob. He then found something unusual. There were a couple of light switches on the wall, but when he turned the switch on, he didn't see the lights flicker on. The switch was either broken or was tampered with. "Nancy! Come here!" he called.

"What is it?"

"This switch doesn't work. I think it's for the lights, but they don't turn on anything. Here." He then pointed the flashlight toward the switches so Nancy could see where they were. "I think someone could have been tampering with the switch."

Nancy took out her cell phone. She dialed Henry Saraland's cell phone number—which she found on the advertisement for the play she picked up yesterday—and listened. Mr. Saraland answered the call.

"Hello, Mr. Saraland. This is Nancy. I want to know if the actors complained to you about anything."

"Oh, yes," Mr. Saraland said. "They were complaining about the backstage lights being broken or something. I had no idea why that could be, since I just checked on it last week and it worked fine."

"I see… Can you tell us where the circuit breaker is?"

"It's down in the basement. Go straight to the back of the backstage and you'll find a door. Open it and go down the staircase and you'll find the breaker. But be careful; it can be pretty slippery in there."

"Okay, thank you, Mr. Saraland. Oh, by the way, did the actors leave the building for good? Usually, they should be practicing right now."

Mr. Saraland sighed. "They said that there was another accident this morning. But this time, the curtain dropped suddenly while they were rehearsing."

"The curtain! But Mr. Saraland, the curtains in theaters are made to block sounds from coming out of the stage, so it is designed to be extremely heavy! The actor or actress might have been killed! Are they suing you for this?"

"Well, I hope not, since I was not even at the scene when it happened. I was in my hotel room this morning. And I checked the curtains before I left, of course, but they mysteriously break or fall. I seriously think I should sell that old theater to that Townsend man…"

"Townsend?" Nancy asked.

"Yeah, about a month ago, there was a man named Wallace Townsend who wanted the old theater. He said he was interested in buying it. The price was nice, but I worked in here for decades, and I certainly couldn't sell it to a stranger like him! He said he lived in New York all his life, but I've never even heard of the name Townsend. So I said 'No, I don't want to sell this old theater to anyone.' And then he said 'Okay, but you should consider this for your own good.'"

"Did he really say that?"

"Yes! I was spooked by that, but I then thought that he was mad because I didn't sell him the theater. But you should know how connected I was with this place. I certainly couldn't leave it."

"I understand. I think that's all I wanted to ask you. Goodbye."

Nancy hung up. She saw Frank staring at her. "I heard what you said, Nancy. What was that about?"

Nancy explained to Frank in detail what Mr. Saraland had said. Frank put a hand through his dark-brown hair. "I guess we should talk to this Townsend guy."

"But we don't know where he lives," Nancy said, frustrated.

Joe was searching the hallway outside the backstage when he found the small piece of torn paper on the floor. He picked it up and looked at it. It was quite new; it was probably left there last night or the night before that. "But why would someone leave the note like this here? It's not as dusty as the poster pasted on the wall over there."

Bess came and looked at the piece of paper. "What's this?"

"Someone must have dropped this, but what was he doing here?" Joe said.

The blonde girl saw that it was right in front of the door that led to the backstage. "I think someone was going into the backstage when he dropped it. You can see faintly the footprints on the floor." She then pointed to the floor.

Joe nodded. "Those are man's shoes, all right."

"But what's on that torn piece of paper?" Bess asked, taking the piece of paper from Joe.

She turned the piece of paper around in her hand. It read: "OKY: YWWY-BM-B-NBO-OMBMRWY-BFQWOO-DBC. VJY."

"What the…" Joe was surprised. It was a code, obviously, of some sort. Under the first three letters—"OKY"—someone wrote "SUN."

"SUN… Could it mean Sunday?" Bess asked after thinking for a while.

"And by looking at that piece of paper, I'd say someone left there less than three days ago. It's not as dusty as the poster that is pasted on the wall right there."

"So the Saturday mentioned in the message could mean today!" Bess said. But we don't know what the message says."

Joe grinned. "Don't worry about that. Frank and I came up with this software that could decode coded messages."

Bess laughed. "Wow! Did you make this software yourselves?"

Joe shook his head. "We got some help from my dad's friend. He is a cryptographer and he came up with software. If you type what the letters stood for—in this case, three letters—and the computer would identify the right combination from numerous possibilities. I think three letters are enough to decode this simple message."

Joe took out his small notebook and jotted down the code and placed it on the ground just like how he found it.

"I think we should tell this to Frank and Nancy," Bess said. "They will be thrilled to find that we got a clue!"

George was looking at the seats. She looked under the seats and even crawled under them to find a clue of some sort. She then stood up. "Whew! There isn't even a clue here!"

George was about to give up when she saw a footprint on the floor. Someone had stepped into the theater with dirty shoes, and the shoeprints were faintly visible when she crouched.

"Where does this lead to?"

George's curiosity got the better of her sometimes. George started following the footprints.

"Huh?"

She had come to a dead end. To say exactly, she had come to a pillar at the edge of the theater. It was made of marble and she doubted it would move. She turned around.

"That can't be!" she muttered.

The footprints stopped right in front of the pillar! George checked it once again. She went to the entrance and followed the footprints. She again was facing the pillar.

"So this must be the secret entrance!" George said happily. Finally, she had found the secret passageway! But there was one question that was not answered in her investigation: "How do I open it?"

George grabbed the pillar and tried to move it, but it was useless. She then started pushing and pulling it, but the pillar made no effort to move.

George sighed and turned around, about to get help from her friends. But that was when the pillar opened silently, just like a door. A hand came from inside the pillar and grabbed George's arm.

"Huh?" George was shocked and confused at the sudden attack. With a strong pull, the hand pulled George into the pillar!

After that, the pillar closed silently, and the theater turned quiet once again.