The young reporter saw, standing at the head of an aisle that led directly to the center of the stage, the decorated foreigner who had signaled to the two men the hour of ten. And it was but a little past that now.
This man stood there in plain view, his eyes fixed on the slowly falling curtain that was hiding the frightened singer from view, and on his face was a mocking smile. Then he turned and walked slowly from the place. No one but Larry seemed to have noted him, as the eyes of all others were turned on the stage.
“Oh, what was it?” gasped Molly Mason, clinging to Larry’s arm. “Something has happened! She must be ill!”
“I think she has fainted,” said a lady sitting next to Larry’s companion. “Singers often do so from stress of emotion, or from the heat and strain. She has only fainted. She will probably be all right in a little while.”
The orchestra, in answer to a signal from the conductor had swung into a gay number. The curtain had fallen, concealing what was going on behind it.
“It was a faint—just a faint,” every one was saying.
But Larry Dexter thought:
“It was more than a faint. If ever there was deadly fear on a woman’s face, it was on hers. There’s something going on here that the audience knows nothing about, and I’m going to have a try at it. That big man, and those two others are in it, too, I’ll wager. Maybe I’ve stumbled on something more than just an assignment to cover a concert.”
After events were soon to prove Larry Dexter was right.