“For me? They’ve nothing on me, Monty.”
He was silent.
“I’m glad you’re not going back to that place to-night. They’ll trail you sure—sure!”
He thought later that it was probably a coincidence that they were there at all. They seemed to show no interest in the box, but were chattering and talking and laughing to one another. Not once did their eyes come up to his level, and after a while he gained in confidence, though he was glad enough when the play was resumed.
There were two scenes in the act: the first was a police station, the second the lawyer’s room. The man was drunk, and the detective had come to warn him that The Ringer was after him. And then suddenly the lights on the stage were extinguished and the whole house was in the dark. It was part of the plot. In this darkness, and in the very presence of the police, the threatened man was to be murdered. They listened in tense silence, the girl craning her head forward, trying to pierce the dark, listening to the lines of intense dialogue that were coming from the blackness of the stage. Somebody was in the room—a woman, and they had found her. She slipped from the stage detective’s grasp and vanished, and when the lights went up she was gone.
“What has happened, Monty?” she whispered.
He did not answer.
“Do you think——”
She looked round at him. His head was resting on the plush-covered ledge of the box. His face, turned towards her, was grey; the eyes were closed, and his teeth showed in a hideous grin.
She screamed.