"Come to my house some evening, and I'll tell you all about being a 'movie' star"
She thanked him with a smile, this time quite genuine.
"I'm not feeling very well this afternoon," she said. "Come to my home some evening, or better still, on Sunday, and I'll tell you all I know about being a 'movie' star. So glad to have met you." She was just about to turn away, when a small boy came up, carrying in his hand a flat package, wrapped in brown paper. Duvall observed that the package had upon it a typewritten address.
"Something for you, Miss Morton," he said, and placed the package in Ruth's hand.
The girl looked at it for a moment in dismay. Then realizing that the eyes of the two men were bent curiously upon her, she recovered herself and tore open the brown paper envelope. Duvall, with one eye on the boy, saw that he had disappeared through the door leading to the company's executive offices.
Suddenly Ruth, who had been examining the contents of the package, gave a faint cry, and swayed backward, as though about to fall. Duvall's companion sprang to her assistance, while Duvall himself snatched the object which had so affected her from her hand and hastily examined it.
It was a photograph of Ruth Morton herself, but Duvall, as he gazed at it, comprehended instantly the effect it had produced upon the girl's over-wrought nerves. Some clever hand had been at work upon the photograph, retouching it, changing its lovely expression, until the portrait, instead of being a thing of beauty, grinned up at him in frightful hideousness. The blank, sightless eyes, the haggard cheeks, the thin wasted lips, the protruding and jagged teeth, all created an impression shocking beyond belief. And yet, the result had been obtained by the addition of but a few simple lines and shadows.
Along the blank space at the bottom of the picture a line of typewritten characters had been placed. Duvall glanced at them. "As you will look soon," the words read. Below them was fixed the grinning Death's head seal. Unobserved in the confusion, Duvall thrust the photograph into his pocket, and turned to Ruth and the others.
The girl had recovered herself by now, and was being conducted to her dressing room by a solicitous crowd. So far as Duvall would see, she had said nothing to those about her as to the cause of her sudden indisposition, and with the exception of the man who had been Duvall's guide, none of them had observed the opening of the package containing the photograph, nor its immediate effect upon her.