Shot With Crimson

George Barr McCutcheon was an American popular novelist and playwright: FOR thirty seconds no one moved. An odd sort of paralysis seemed to have gripped every one in the room,—paralysis of the mind as well as of the body. Then puzzled, wondering looks were exchanged. A man sitting near the fireplace glanced sharply, apprehensively at the huge beams in the ceiling and muttered: "What was it! So...