She waved her hand and tiptoed lightly away in the direction of the stage door. Barrison turned to look through a crack onto the stage. They were almost—yes, they were actually ready for the dark scene. In another moment the lantern crashed upon the floor. There were shouts from the performers, and audible gasps from the audience. For a full half minute not a light showed anywhere in the house. Barrison felt oddly uncomfortable. The confusion, the noises from the stage, the inky blackness, all combined to arouse and increase that troubled, suffocating feeling of which he had been conscious earlier in the evening. The dark seemed full of curious sounds that were not all associated with the play. He almost felt his hair rise. A single one-candle electric bulb was turned on somewhere. Its rays only made the darkness more visible, rendered it more ghostly. A hand grasped his arm. “I thought—I saw a woman pass!” murmured Dukane’s voice. “Hello! There goes Mortimer to his entrance. He’s all right so far, anyway.” The actor’s huge bulk and characteristic swagger were just visible in the dimness as he left his room, closing the door behind him at once. “Barrison, like a good fellow, go out to Roberts and find out if any one has tried to come in to-night.” Dukane’s tone was strangely urgent, and Barrison groped his way to the stage door. The old doorkeeper, when questioned, shook his head. “No one’s passed here since seven o’clock,” he declared emphatically. “No one except Miss Legaye, just a minute ago.” “You’re sure?” “Sure!” exclaimed the man, misunderstanding him. “I guess there ain’t any two ladies with a coat the color of that one! I see it at dress rehearsal, and it sure woke me up. I like lively things, I does; pity there ain’t more ladies wears ’em.” Barrison laughed. “I didn’t mean that,” he said. “I know Miss Legaye went out; but you’re sure no one came in?” “I tell you, no one’s gone by here since——” Barrison did not wait for a repetition of his asseverations, but went back toward the stage. The “rescue scene” was just beginning. Willie Coster, a faint silhouette against the one dim bulb, was conducting the shots like the leader of an orchestra: “One! Two! Three! Four! Five! Six!” The six shots rang out with precision and thrilling resonance. And then Jim Barrison grew icy cold from head to foot. For there came a seventh shot. And it was followed by the wild and terrifying sound of a woman’s scream. CHAPTER VIII AWAITING THE POLICE That scream echoed across the blackness. There was a smell of gunpowder in the air. It seemed an interminably long time before the lights flared up, and the big curtain was rung down. At last it formed a wall between the people on the stage and the people in the audience, all about equally excited by this time. “What is it—oh, what is it that’s happened?” gasped Claire McAllister.