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hid the figure and the face, and so it lay, an uncertain, shapeless blob of white in the middle of a fine drawing room set.

The group dissolved in pairs and threes, everybody evidently feeling unequal to solitude and loneliness at that moment. The doctor turned to me, seeming to sense that I was a representative of the law.

“If there is nothing else at this moment,” he said, “I think I will go. There is a lady waiting for me. . . .”

“Nothing, I think,” I said. ‘Thanks awfully for your trouble, doctor. I hope that we will meet some time under rather more auspicious circumstances. You will give me your address, won’t you?” I added. “I hate to bother you further, but you will undoubtedly be called at the coroner’s inquest.”

He nodded. “Of course. Not at all. I don’t mind. I realize these things are necessary.” He handed me a card neatly engraved with his name, which I put into my wallet. “Glad to have been of service.”

We shook hands and he made his way off the stage. I sent for one of the policemen stationed in the lobby, and had him stay with the body. All the others had gone off to their dressing rooms, and some one—a stage hand, or the stage manager—had switched off most of the lights, leaving just one unshaded light burning at the side of the stage, in the wings. The body of the house and corners of the stage were