
The room that Dundee had entered was an office with another door on the far side. Going through that
door, Dundee reached a hallway belonging to an adjacent building. At the end was a door that looked
like a locked closet. There was fresh wallpaper beside the door and when Dundee pushed a bulge in that
paper, a button responded underneath. An elevator rumbled and stopped; Dundee opened the door,
entered, and pressed the car button that took him to the third floor.
Here was another corridor leading through the rear of a Broadway building. Opening what looked like
the door of a fire exit, Dundee went through a short passage, pulled up before another door and pressed
a visible button that buzzed a coded signal.
It wasn't long before a heavy bolt was drawn and Terry Dundee was admitted to the most lavish lair
known to man or beast.
Though many persons had heard about these premises, few had seen them, and still fewer knew of the
special entrance with its private buzz-signal. Terry Dundee had reached the innermost of the private
offices of Meigs Thurland, Manhattan's most eccentric and energetic theatrical producer.
The ways of Meigs Thurland were both stupendous and unscrupulous and his huge private office proved
it. The place was a mass of plush, in furniture and draperies, while the other decorations consisted of
framed show-bills advertising the numerous productions that Thurland had presented to the hungry
public.
All the setting lacked were the financial statements. They were in the big safe behind the even bigger desk
that stood upon an elevated platform. Those records were a tribute to Thurland's talent for turning red ink
into black, simply by letting other people take the loss.
Thurland's show-bills formed a veritable cavalcade of successful shows that had been gathered from the
junk-pile, polished, and refurbished for popular consumption at a fraction of the cost that the original
investors had squandered.
Nothing wrong with that sort of business, at least not the sort that Thurland openly avowed. Of course
there was the side that Thurland seldom talked about and then only by innuendo. How had some of those
magnificent productions hit the junk pile in the first place?
As for Thurland himself, he could most aptly be described by the term "a presence." He was showing that
quality now, after admitting Dundee into the plush-lined rendezvous. Back behind the huge desk that
showed his replica in its highly polished surface, Thurland was leaning upon his folded arms in a
Napoleonic fashion.
Even Terry Dundee felt uneasy in this presence.
No special characteristic of Thurland gave him that singular importance. There was nothing formidable
about thin, sleek hair, carefully parted above a rounded face that wore a perpetual half-smile. Thurland's
eyes were mild, in a way inquiring, with their lazy lids that lifted only on occasion.
However, when added, those features formed a whole which by its very lack of individual strength
precluded all notion of weakness. Somehow Dundee's self-assurance was always deflated when he met
with Thurland. Subtly, almost accidentally, Thurland made such visitors worry, giving him an immediate
edge.
What jarred Dundee on this occasion was the fact that Thurland hadn't bolted the private door.
All Thurland had done was drop the big plush curtain hiding the door's alcove. That gesture meant that he