“No, sir—just a ragamuffin. Looked like he might be a newsboy, sir.” Dukane stood looking at the envelope a moment in silence; then he turned to Barrison with a smile. “Funny thing, psychology!” he said. “I haven’t a reason on earth for supposing this to be any more important than any of the rest of Alan Mortimer’s notes—the saints know he gets enough of them!—and yet I have a feeling in my bones that there’s something quite unpleasant inside this envelope. Here, Mortimer, a note for you.” The actor came around the corner from a corridor leading past a row of dressing rooms, and they could see him thrust something into his coat pocket. “Went to his dressing room for a drink,” said Barrison to himself. Indeed, he thought he could see the silver top of a protruding flask. “Note for me? Let’s have it.” He took it, stared at the superscription with a growing frown, and then crumpled it up without opening it. “Wrenn!” he exclaimed in a tone of ungoverned rage. “Where’s Wrenn? Did he bring me this?” “Wrenn?” repeated Dukane, surprised. “You mean your valet? Why, no; he isn’t here. A boy brought it. Why don’t you read it? You don’t seem to like the handwriting.” With a muttered oath, the actor tore open the envelope and read what was written on the inclosed sheet of paper. Then, with a face convulsed and distorted with fury, he flung it from him as he might have flung a scorpion that had tried to bite him. “Threats!” he exclaimed savagely. “Threats! May Heaven curse any one who threatens me! Threats!” He seemed incapable of further articulation, and strode past them out of the stage door. Barrison could see that he was the type of man who can become literally blind and dazed with anger. Mentally the detective decided that such uncontrolled and elemental temperaments belonged properly behind bars; certainly they had no place in a world of convention and self-restraint. Quietly Dukane picked up both letter and envelope, and, after reading what was written on them, passed them to Barrison. “When I have a lunatic to dry nurse,” he observed grimly, “I have no scruples in examining the stuff that is put in his feeding bottles. Take a look at this communication, Barrison. I’ll admit I’m glad that I don’t get such things myself.” Jim glanced down the page of letter paper. On it, in scrawling handwriting, was written: You cannot always escape the consequences of your wickedness and cruelty—don’t think it! Just now your future looks bright and successful, but you cannot be sure. You are about to open in a new play, and you expect to win fame and riches. But God does not forget, though He seems to. God does punish people, even at the last moment. I should think you would be afraid that lightning would strike the theater, or that a worse fate would overtake you. Remember, Alan, the wages of sin; remember what they are. Who are you to hope to escape? I bid you farewell, _until the opening night_!