Other women in the company echoed the bewildered and frightened cry. Panic was loose among them—panic and that horror of the unknown and uncomprehended which is the worst of all horrors. “What is it?” ran the quivering question from mouth to mouth like wind in the grass. Barrison and Dukane knew what had happened even before, with one accord, they dashed to the little flight of steps where Mortimer must have been waiting for his entrance cue. One look was enough. Then the manager’s voice, clear and authoritative, rang out: “Quiet there, every one. Mr. Mortimer has been shot.” And swiftly upon the startling statement came Barrison’s command, given with professional sharpness: “Nobody is to leave the theater, please, until the police have been here!” Shuddering and silent now, the men and women drew back as though the quiet figure upon the floor were a living menace, instead of something which never again could commit an action of help or of harm. Alan Mortimer must have died instantly. He lay at the foot of the steps, with his painted face upturned to the blaze of the glaring electric lights, and an ugly crimson patch of moisture upon the front of his khaki uniform. There was something indescribably ghastly in the sight of the make-up upon that dead countenance. Old Wrenn, the valet, was kneeling at the side of his dead master, trying to close the eyes with his shaking, wrinkled fingers, and making no attempt to hide the tears that rolled silently down his cheeks. But, after one look into the stony, painted face of the murdered man, Jim Barrison turned his attention elsewhere. At the head of the four little steps stood Sybil Merivale, in the white costume of _Lucille_, as motionless as if she were frozen, with her hands locked together. No ice maiden could have been more still, and there was a chill horror in her look. “Miss Merivale,” said Barrison quickly, “you were standing there when he was shot?” Slowly she bent her head in assent, and seemed to be trying to speak, but no sound came from her ashen lips. “Was it you who screamed?” “I—think so.” She spoke with obvious difficulty. “I was frightened. I think—I screamed. I don’t know.” Then every one who was watching started and suppressed the shock they felt; for she had moved her hands at last—the hands which had been so convulsively clasped before her. And on her white frock was a long splash of scarlet. One of the slim hands, as every one could see, was dyed the same sinister hue. She raised it, and looked at it, with her eyes dilating strangely. “His blood!” she murmured, in a barely audible voice. Dukane had sent Willie Coster out before the curtain to disperse the audience. The police had been sent for; the doors were guarded. Some of the girls in the company were sobbing. Only Sybil Merivale preserved that attitude of awful calm. She seemed unable to move of her own volition, and remained blind and deaf to every effort to help her down the four steps.