It stood proudly among other abandoned buildings, looking like a relic of fifteenth century Venice.

"Alas, poor Garrick! We knew it well," said Ben morosely. "The great and glorious names of the theatre once played here. Then… vaudeville. Then silent pictures. Then talkies. Then double features. Then Italian films. Then horror movies. Then nothing. And now — only Benjamin X. Nicholas, playing to a ghostly audience and applauded by pigeons." Qwilleran carried the crowbar. They both carried flashlights, and Ben directed the newsman in wrenching the boarding from the stage door. The boards came away easily, as if accustomed to cooperating, and the two men entered the dark, silent, empty building.

Ben led the way down a narrow hall, past the door-keeper's cubicle, past the skeleton of an iron staircase, and onto the stage. The auditorium was a hollow shell, dangling with dead wires, coated with dust, and raw in patches where decorations had been pried from the sidewalls and the two tiers of boxes. Qwilleran beamed his light at the ceiling; all that remained of the Garrick's grandeur were the frescoes in the dome — floating images of Romeo and Juliet, Antony and Cleopatra. If there was nothing left to scrounge, why had Ben brought him here? Soon Qwilleran guessed the answer.

The old actor had taken center stage, and an eerie performance began.

"Friends, Romans, countrymen — " Ben declaimed in passionate tones.

"Friends, Romans — " came a distant reverberating voice.

"Lend me your ears!" said Ben.

"Countrymen — friends, Romans — lend me — countrymen — ears — lend me, " whispered the ghosts of old actors.

"Alas," said Ben when he had spoken the speech and I Qwilleran had applauded with gloved thumps and a bravo or two. "Alas, we were born too late…. But let us to work! What does our heart desire? A bit of carving? A crumb of marble? Not much choice; the wretches have raped the place. But here!" He kicked a heating grille. "A bronze bauble for your pleasure!" The moldings crumbled, and the newsman easily pried the blackened grillwork loose. The dust rose. Both men coughed and choked. There was a whirring of wings in the darkness overhead, and Qwilleran thought of bats.

"Let's get out of here," he said. "But stay! One more treasure!" said Ben, flashing his light around the tiers of boxes. All but one of them had been denuded of embellishment. The first box on the left still bore its sculptured crest supported by cherubs blowing trumpets and wearing garlands of flowers. "It would bring a pretty penny." "How much?" "A hundred dollars from any dealer. Two hundred from a smart collector. Three hundred from some bloody fool." "How would we get it off?" "Others have succeeded. Let us be bold!" Ben led the way to the mezzanine level and into the box. "You hold both lights," Qwilleran told him, "and I'll see what I can do with the crowbar." The newsman leaned over the railing and pried at the carving. The floor of the box creaked.

"Lay on, Macduff!" cried Ben. "Shine the light over the railing," Qwilleran instructed. "I'm working in shadow." Then he paused with crowbar in midair. He had seen something in the dust on the floor. He turned to look at Ben and was blinded by the two flashlights. A shudder in his moustache made him plunge to the rear of the box. There was a wrenching of timbers and a crash and a cloud of choking dust rising from the floor below. Two beams of light danced crazily on the walls and ceiling.

"What the hell happened?" gasped Qwilleran. "The railing let loose!" The railing was gone, and the sagging floor of the box sloped off into blackness.

"The saints were with us!" cried Ben, choked with emotion or dust.

"Give me a light and let's get out of here," said the newsman.

They drove back to Junktown with the brass grille in the back seat, Qwilleran silent as he recalled his narrow escape and what he had seen in the dust.

"Our performance lacked fire this evening," Ben apologized. An icicle glistened on the tip of his nose. "We were frozen to the bone. But come to the pub and witness a performance that will gladden your heart. Come join us in a brandy." The Lion's Tail had been a neighborhood bank in the 1920s-a miniature Roman temple, now desecrated by a neon sign and panels of glass blocks in the arched windows. Inside, it was lofty, undecorated, smoke-filled, and noisy. An assortment of patrons stood at the bar and filled half the tables-men in work clothes, and raggle-taggle members of Junktown's after-dark set.

As Ben made his entrance, he was greeted by cheering, stamping of feet, and pounding of tables. He acknowledged the acclaim graciously and held up his hand for silence.

"Tonight," he said, "a brief scene from King Richard III, and then drinks for the entire house!" With magnificent poise he moved through the crowd, his muffler hanging down to his heels, and disappeared. A moment later he emerged on a small balcony.

"Now is the winter of our discontent…" he began. The man had a ringing delivery, and the audience was quiet if not wholly attentive.

"He capers nimbly in a lady's chamber," came the voice from the balcony, and there was riotous laughter down below.

Ben concluded with a melodramatic leer: "I am determined to prove a villain and hate the idle pleasures of these days!" The applause was deafening, the actor bowed humbly, and the bartender went to work filling glasses.

When Ben came down from the balcony, he threw a wad of folded bills on the bar — bills folded lengthwise. "King Richard or Charley's aunt, what matter?" he said to Qwilleran with a gloomy countenance. "The day of the true artist is gone forever. The baggy-pants comic is an 'artist. So is the bullfighter, tightrope walker and long-haired guitar player.

Next it will be baseball players and bricklayers! Sir, the time is out of joint." The thirsty audience soon demanded an encore.

"Pardon us," Ben said to Qwilleran. "We must oblige," and he moved once more toward the balcony.

The newsman quietly left The Lion's Tail, wondering where Ben acquired the cash to buy the applause that he craved — and whether he had known that the box at the Garrick was a booby trap.

Qwilleran went home. He found the cats asleep on their cushions, which bent their whiskers into half-smiles, and he retired to his own bed, his mind swimming with questions. What was Ben's racket? Was the actor as nutty as he appeared? Was his sudden affluence connected with the Ellsworth house? Ben had been there, Qwilleran was sure. He had seen the evidence in the dust-feathery arabesques made by the tassels of his muffler. Still, Ben's reception at The Lion's Tail indicated that his audience was accustomed to his largess.

The newsman remembered something Cobb had said.

"The nearest Ben ever got to Broadway was Macy's toy department." Then a few minutes later Cobb had contradicted himself. "Ben's got a bundle. He used to make big money." And at this remark Iris had glanced at her husband in surprise.

Did Ben have a shady sideline that supplied him with the money to bribe his audience into attention and applause?

Did Cobb know about it? Qwilleran's answers were only guesses, as unprovable as they were improbable. and the questions kept him awake.

Deliberately he turned his mind to a more agreeable subject: Christmas Eve at the Press Club. He could picture the society writers — and Jack Jaunti — doing a double take when he walked in with Mary, and he could see the newshounds being outwardly casual but secretly impressed by the magic name of Duxbury. QwilIeran realized he ought to cap the evening with a Christmas gift for Mary, but what could he buy for the daughter of a millionaire?

Before he fell asleep, the answer spread over his consciousness like a warm blanket. It was a brilliant idea — so brilliant that he sat up in bed. And if the Daily Fluxion would cooperate, it would save Junktown.