Women rushed to get wraps, looking about with anxious eyes for the opportunity of making cautious exits. Only Elinor Benton seemed not to think of escape as she wept over the still figure of the man on the floor. But that escape was out of the question was obvious in but a moment when the apartment began to fill with excited, curious tenants who had heard the shot and crowded forward morbidly to see what was going on. Orders, suggestions, flew backward and forward. Apparently the only calm person in the apartment was Howard Benton. He had walked unseeingly to a bench at one side of the room and dropped on it. He was too stunned to speak. Attempts to speak to him were met with a dazed incomprehension. Teddy Martin touched him on the shoulder and offered: “I’m sorry, Benton. Is there anything I can do for you?” The not unkindly touch helped to bring him out of himself. “Is he—is he—dead—or only wounded?” he asked quietly. “We don’t know yet,” Martin answered. “The doctor will be here in a minute, and then we will find out. Here he is now.” Doctor Adams looked on in surprise while one of the girls pulled Elinor away from Druid, trying to make the hysterical girl understand that the doctor had arrived. “What’s happened here?” the medical man inquired brusquely. Harold Westley stepped forward. “Two men had a quarrel,” he informed, “and one of them was shot—accidentally.” “Humph! Looks more like a free-for-all fight,” the doctor answered, glancing around the room. He bent over the still form; turned him over. His examination lasted but a few seconds. “Dead,” he announced solemnly. “A clean shot through the heart—died instantaneously.” “No! No!” Elinor moaned, attempting to rush forward again. “Are you his wife?” the doctor inquired more gently. Elinor shook her head, but sobs wracked her. “Oh—well—it is my duty to inform the authorities. Of course, you know no one must leave before their arrival?” He rose from beside the body. Howard reached for the only friendly hand outheld to him and gripped it. “Martin,” he asked, “will you try to locate my father? Call the club, and if he isn’t there, try our home. If you get him, give him an idea of what had happened, and ask him to come to me.” “I’ll do all that I can,” Teddy assured him, and hurried out to the telephone. He was fortunate in locating Hugh Benton at the Club, catching him just as he was leaving for home. In a very few moments, he gave him a brief outline of the tragic affair. “I—I’ll be over at once,” said the father in a choked voice. The catastrophe stunned him. He could barely make himself understood, but he added, as assurance for Howard: “I’m going to try to reach my attorney and have him go with me.”