"I do not know."
"Whose duty was it to look after the reflector?"
"I do not know."
"Did the curtain blow to pieces?"
"It seemed all right. There was no hole in it that I saw."
ANOTHER STORY AS TO WHY THE CURTAIN DID NOT LOWER.
Joe Dougherty, the man who attempted to lower the asbestos curtain, says that the reason it stuck and would not come down was that it stuck on the arc spot light in the first entrance near the top of the proscenium arch. He was the last man to leave the fly loft and at the time he attempted to lower the asbestos curtain he was twenty feet or more above it, so that when it caught on the arc spot light he was unable to extricate it. The opening of the big double doors at the rear of the stage, he says, caused such a draft that the curtain could not be raised again to free it from the obstruction.
Dougherty denies that the wire used by the flying ballet had anything to do with the obstruction of the curtain. The regular curtain was within a few inches of the asbestos sheet and had been operated a few minutes before the fire occurred. If one curtain worked the other would if the flying ballet rigging was not in the way.
THE THEATER FIREMAN'S NARRATIVE.
W. C. Saller was the fireman employed by the theater managers to look after fire protection. He was formerly connected with the city fire department.