Ah, there it was, the event he'd been waiting for. As he was not engaged in conversation but already had his eyes on the stalls and the stage Landis was probably the first in their box to see the bodies drop limply from above, all bulging eyes and lolling heads as they swung faintly in a row. What a damning commentary on their performance! He wondered how Ira had arranged for it to happen so quickly after the actors had left the stage.

He, of course, made all the appropriate showings of surprise.

He rose from his seat with a slow, cautious air, not as quick as Rascal who was now just behind him to better see the stage. Landis did not pale but he did stare, his narrow eyes opened wider than their usual and his blonde brows perfect arcs of astonishment for the sake of anyone who might care to look at him. "Those people are dead." Rosier spoke behind him. Landis shook his head without turning to see the other man. "Was it the broken necks that tipped you off?" he asked in reply as he turned his gaze away from the stage and began to look over the audience and those in the opposite stalls with hard, searching eyes. He was ostensibly reading the crowd, hunting for those who reacted differently, looking as many were now for an explanation behind the corpses that dangled onstage. But he also drank in the sights for his own purposes, a mental image to turn over later when he was alone and could be properly amused by the way some in the stalls had begun to scramble over their seats  in horror and surprise like rats fleeing a sinking ship. If this sudden macabre shock was enough to provoke a stampede that left anyone injured, he imagined Ira would consider the night to be even more of a success.