A Star Trap

An old man recounts the story of a death he witnessed as a young boy working in the theater: His boss, Mr. Haliday, had married a pretty young lady from the theater, much to the chagrin of the other women working in the company. It was a marriage of convenience, but in the beginning they got along well enough. After a handsome younger man, Henry Mortimer, joins the theater company, Mrs. Haliday and Mortimer start up a romance that everyone but Mr. Haliday seem to notice. However, during a performance one night, something seems to go terrible wrong as a piece of equipment falls from the stage and kills Mortimer. Although it seems like a simple stage malfunction, the young theater boy notices something that the rest do not -- a strange piece of metal that he found on stage immediately following the death of Mortimer that seems to say that Mr. Haliday wasn't as clueless as everyone had thought about the actions of his wife and the handsome young actor. Bram Stoker (1847-1912) was an Irish writer of novels and short stories, most famous for his gothic horror novel Dracula. Although he wrote throughout his life while working as a personal assistant and theatre manager, he did not achieve much literary fame until after his death.