JANET OPENS A DOOR
A half stifled scream escaped from her lips. Someone was staring at her intently through the small opening. The light from the desk lamp was just strong enough to reveal two eyes. That was all, but Janet saw the desperate intentness with which they were focused upon her.
Then the eyes vanished and there was no sound from the corridor. Involuntarily Janet leaped to her feet, her trembling hands seeking the curtain and closing the gap. She wanted to cry out, but the words stuck in her throat and she realized that to scream would be useless for there was no one along the corridor at this hour of the night who could help her.
Stepping back from the curtained window, Janet listened intently for the sound of footfalls in the corridor. Then she remembered that it was heavily carpeted and one could move along it without making a noise.
Visibly shaken, she finally rallied her nerves and stooped down to pick up the sheet of copy which had fallen from the desk. Almost mechanically she placed the sheets in order and stacked them neatly. That done she sat down at the desk to decide what to do.
There was no question in her own mind but what someone was after the manuscript she had finished and someone outside the studio. The disappearance of the manuscript from her hotel room tied up with this latest event and Janet knew that some agency was determined that the story of the last eventful days of the filming of “Kings of the Air” should never be told as a part of the radio play they were to present. Whether the unknown force was the Premier Film Company or a radio rival of the World Broadcasting Company, she couldn’t even guess, but in either case she knew that she was in a particularly unpleasant position, and wished that Jim was with her.
Janet unlocked the right hand drawer of Jim’s desk and pulled it out. For ordinary purposes it was strong enough, but to place a valuable manuscript in it was something that made her hesitate.
She turned around and stared at the curtains at the windows and the door along the corridor. They were drawn tightly now. It would be impossible for anyone to see in the office.