He seemed to take in everything at a single comprehensive glance. He was pale, and his fingers trembled, but Helen noticed that he had taken pains to arrange his attire before coming out to ascertain the cause of the commotion. His long and glossy hair was neatly combed, his cravat was carefully adjusted, and just the proper width of cuff showed beyond the edge of his sleeve. She watched him narrowly while he questioned those about him. Somehow she sensed that it was in keeping with Vincent Starr's character to be squeamish about the minor details of his appearance even when face to face with a tragedy. Suddenly, as she heard him issue orders to right and left, she remembered the note Virginia Darrow had sent him, and she wondered, without knowing exactly why, whether he would say anything about it.
At the same time she was forced to admire his quickness of wits and the ease with which he mastered his feelings. In an incredibly short time the police had been notified of the occurrence and the doorkeepers had been given orders to allow no one to leave the building. Starr, in his habitually suave tones, asked his guests to be seated and expressed his regrets that such an unpleasant affair should have taken place under the roof of the Thelma. There would be an investigation and a great deal of questioning, he explained, but it would be only a formality. If the mysterious Mr. Shei--he smiled queerly as he spoke the name--had invaded the Thelma, he would undoubtedly be caught.
The crowd scattered among the seats in the auditorium and lapsed into the small talk with which one sometimes masks an inward turbulence. Helen, seated beside her father on a lounge in a corner, let her glance roam aimlessly over the scene. She supposed she would be questioned along with the others, and she wondered how much or how little she would be able to tell. Now that she tried to clarify the confusion in her mind, she saw that during the evening she had received two sets of impressions. Both had been equally strong at the time, but now they seemed to clash and quarrel with each other, and one of them had all but vanished with the drop of the curtain. Yet she felt it was the more important one of the two. The other had to do with the face she had glimpsed in the shadows. With the varicolored lights glowing on all sides, her recollection of it seemed unreal and fanciful. It appeared to be a thing of darkness and dreams. Her one remaining impression of it was a sense of malignity and horror. She felt words were inadequate to describe it.