“And that—she bought a revolver to-day at the pawnshop near Thirty-ninth Street. I saw her. I suppose she got a permit somehow. But I hope I’ll never again see any one look the way she did when she came out with the parcel!” CHAPTER VII THE DARK SCENE It was a little after eight in the evening of September the fifteenth—the opening night of “Boots and Saddles” at the Mirror Theater. Already the house was filling up. From his seat on the aisle half a dozen rows back, Jim Barrison saw that it was going to be a typical first-night audience. As this was a comparatively early opening, there were a goodly number of theatrical people present, and practically every one in the social world who had already returned to town was to be seen. Max Dukane’s productions were justly celebrated all over the country, and Carlton was a popular playwright. Then there was much well-stimulated curiosity in regard to Alan Mortimer. Dukane’s press agent had done his work admirably, and the mystery surrounding the handsome new light in the dramatic heavens had been so artistically exploited as to pique the interest even of jaded theatergoers. It was an oppressively hot evening, though September was so far advanced. All the electric fans in the world could not keep the theater cool and airy. To Barrison the air was suffocating. The gayly dressed people crowded down into neat rows; the hurrying, perspiring ushers in overheavy livery; the big asbestos curtain that shut them all into a simmering inclosure—these things in combination were strangely oppressive, even in a sense imprisoning. Moreover, he was not free from a half-sincere, half-humorous sense of apprehension. Hardly anything so definite, so full-fledged, or so grave; but undoubtedly a mental tension of sorts which would not readily conform to a perfunctory festal spirit. Dukane, for all his coolness and poise, had insisted on taking the warning letter seriously—at least to the extent of taking every conceivable precaution against danger, of arranging every possible protection for Mortimer. It was understood that, while Jim Barrison had his allotted seat in the front of the house, he would spend most of the evening back of the scenes. Tony Clay was also on duty. There was a husky young guard on the communicating door which was back of the right-hand boxes and opened on the world behind. No one was to be allowed to pass through that door that night but Dukane, Barrison, and his assistant. Roberts, at the stage door, had been similarly cautioned to let no one enter the theater on any pretext whatsoever after the members of the company had come for the performance.