Again dead silence, timed only by wildly- beating hearts. Then another scream, smothered, this time in a different key. As it echoed, the lights flashed on, their pitiless rays revealing the frozen faces of those present.

Tad Boone was the first to partly recover his wits. With a dazed look, he lurched onto the stage to stare at the crumpled figure of his leading woman stretched on the floor! His eyes dilated with horror as a crimson splotch showed on the bodice of the snowy evening gown and slowly spread. He dropped on one knee and gropingly felt for the pulse as the life blood continued to well from the heart.

"Dead!" he choked, looking wildly about at the ring of terror-stricken faces. His eyes settled on an assistant director. "Call—call the police!" he croaked. "This—this is murder!"

He jerked to his feet and faced the company. "None of you are to move from your places!" he cried. "Some one has killed Helene Storme!"

So frozen with horror were the east that none of them had moved. Then from out of their ranks, despite the orders of the director, one of them tottered—Miriam Foye, a blonde slip of a woman who still managed to play youthful roles.

"The—the murderer brushed by me, Tad!" she quavered. "That's why I cried out. Crawling across the stage—" Her voice died out and she clutched at his arm for support.

"Some one crawled past you?" barked Boone. "When?"

"Right after that terrible scream ... I felt a body against my legs in the dark ... I was—"

"In what direction was it going?"

"Towards the left side of the set, I think," she said shakily.

"Jock!—Danny!" the director shouted to an assistant and a property man, standing woodenly behind his chair. "One of you circle the set, the other see that the gates are closed and no one allowed out!"

THE sound of running feet caused him to jerk about. Several studio executives were hurrying towards the scene, in their rear a throng of crowding players.