I SAID GOOD-BYE to Ariana at the place where I usually veer off to go home.
I walked a block in the right direction, until she was out of sight. Then I broke into a sprint toward the high school.
When I got there, the front door was locked. I could see Mr. Sarro, our custodian, through the glass. He was pushing a broom across the lobby floor, holding his customary can of Coke in his free hand. I knocked loudly and got his attention.
He opened the door and said, “What’s up, doc?”
“Some emergency yearbook work,” I lied. “You heard about our problem?”
He nodded solemnly. “Say no more. Come on in.”
Picking a key from the jangling arsensal attached to his belt, he let me into the office.
I thanked him, shut the door behind me, and stayed there listening to his off-key whistling in the hallway. When it faded away, I opened the door softly and bolted.
The backstage door was opposite a row of lockers around the corner from the office. I pulled it open and went inside.
In the dim light I saw tent flaps and circus props lying among brooms, wires, and empty paper cups. It all brought back fond memories of Smut as Billy Bigelow in Carousel, falling into the orchestra pit during a knife fight, then climbing back onstage after he was supposed to be dead.
It was a dramatic highlight of the year.
Across the stage I saw what looked like a round cage with an open gate. As I walked closer, I could see that the cage surrounded a spiral staircase leading into the basement.
My mind was racing faster than my feet. Chief Pudgy had talked about “secret societies” and “high-toned frats” in 1950. The newspaper clippings had mentioned “Communist agitators” meeting in the high school basement, which had to be “sealed off until further notice.”
Nowadays the drama society had a scenery shop directly under the stage. I’d never been there, and I didn’t know how big it was, but the school was sprawling and that meant the basement must be, too.
Plenty of room for a high-toned frat to meet.
A light shone from below. I went through the gate and descended into a large room crammed with all kinds of stuff I recognized from past plays.
The ratty sofa from Arsenic and Old Lace, the wheelchair from The Man Who Came to Dinner, the butter churn from Oklahoma!, the fake car from Grease — plus dressers, chairs, tables, chests, and mannequins. A bookcase lined one whole wall, and even that looked familiar.
Along another wall was a long, wooden workbench stocked with tools, supplies, and countless paint cans. Costume racks were jammed against a third wall.
The furniture, all different styles but all cheap-looking, had been arranged to create a kind of Living-Room-from-Hell effect against the fourth wall. It seemed like a perfect setting for a Delphic Club meeting.
I assumed they were still off rowing. (The Wampanoag River widens about three miles up the road in Baldwin Township, where the high school crew teams share a boathouse and have their meets and practices.) I also assumed they’d be back any minute. I had no time to hang out and enjoy the scenery.
I headed back upstairs. Had I found the great secret? I wished I could know.
Against the back wall of the stage I noticed a huge flat, covered with Day-Glo stars. It was left over from a corny scene in which Smut went to heaven. (Really, you had to see this play.) I hid behind it. If The Delphic Club didn’t show up within ten minutes, I’d go back to the drawing board.
The first seven minutes were not pleasant. Mr. Sarro wandered onstage and sang “Memory” from Cats so loud and terribly, I almost barked. I stayed put until long after he left, just in case he decided to come back for an encore.
I was glad I did, because soon after I heard voices.
From the basement.
I couldn’t believe it. Where had they been, hiding among the costumes?
The voices got louder, punctuated by clanging footsteps against the metal stairs. “I think Hamlet was a putz,” one person said.
“A putz?” Mr. DeWaart repeated. “Hmmm, I like it … ‘O what a putz and peasant slave am I’ ”
“ ‘In action how like an angel, in apprehension how like a putz!’ ” someone else said.
Laughter echoed across the stage. They were walking toward the door to the hallway. One of them started humming, and they all joined in, harmonizing. I have to admit it sounded pretty good, especially after Mr. Sarro.
I took a step closer to the edge of the flat. I was angled so that I could see the group from behind.
Smut’s arm was around Monique’s shoulder.
Yes! Yes!
There it was! Eyewitness proof! Smut being a two-timing jerk!
I felt resentment toward Monique, anger toward Smut, sympathy for Ariana.
But let’s face it, many nice possibilities were opening up for me.
I had found out one thing Ariana wanted to know. Now I was determined to find another: The Delphic Club hiding place. Obviously the basement was larger than the scenery shop. I just had to find the entrance to the rest of it.
I ran toward the cage. Its gate was shut but not locked. The light no longer shone from below, and I didn’t see a light switch, so I stepped downward into pitch darkness.
The stage light cast a pale circle onto the scenery shop floor. I went to the section of the wall I could see, then groped along it to the right, into darkness, carefully stepping over props and around furniture.
I came to the corner and went right. My fingers told me I’d reached the bookcase. No switch likely there. As I turned to go back, my foot hooked under something ankle-high.
I tumbled against the bookcase. Old, smelly classics rained down on me, one of which must have been an unabridged dictionary.
As I rubbed my poor aching head, I looked toward the stairs. From my low position I could now see a string hanging from the ceiling. I got up slowly, walked toward it, and pulled.
And there was light.
(I know. What a genius.)
Around me was the same ugly room I’d seen before. With several books missing from the bookcase. And a heavy barbell on the floor next to it.
My ankle was starting to throb, so I had to hobble around the room. I pushed aside the costume rack from the wall, but no door was behind it, and I got a mouthful of fake fur and a noseful of mothball stink.
I lifted a dusty old Oriental rug off the floor, hoping to see a trapdoor. Instead I saw a troupe of dust bunnies slam-dancing on linoleum tiles.
Some sleuth. For all I knew, The Delphic Club had beamed itself down from a spaceship into the basement, just to annoy me.
I limped over to the bookcase to replace the books I’d knocked down. As I bent to pick up the heaviest one, which happened to be War and Peace (ouch), I noticed that my fall had actually moved the bookcase. I could see where the bottom of the case had slid inward.
I had to stand on my toes to reach the shelf I had emptied.
“Aaagh!” I came down on my ankle too hard. My arm shot out toward the shelves to brace myself.
The bookcase moved again.
Great. One more time, I thought, and the whole thing would topple.
I bent to pick up another book, and then I froze.
I remembered where I had seen the bookcase before.
It was in a picture from the 1950 yearbook. Reggie Borden was emerging from behind it, in a stage set.
I dropped the book and leaned against the case firmly.
With a creak it swung away, into a vast, empty blackness.