The bartender paused with the cocktail shaker still in his hand.

Voss began to beat nervously upon the counter with his knuckles.
"We can stand anything but suspense," he declared.

"Get on with your shock-giving." "I believe that the person responsible for the death of Victor Bidlake is in this room at the present moment," Francis declared.
Again the silence, curious, tense and dramatic.

Little Jimmy, the bartender, who had leaned forward to listen, stood with his mouth slightly open and the cocktail-shaker which was in his hand leaked drops upon the counter.

The first conscious impulse of everybody seemed to be to glance suspiciously around the room.