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.”