Kennedy smiled. "See, you're jumping at conclusions too fast. You remember now that we decided that the towel has nothing directly to do with the poison. In a way you cannot assume that this ampulla has, either, although I myself feel sure on that point. But in any case no one is eliminated. It is true Werner did not return in the same automobile. It is also true that he had little opportunity to drop it while others were in the car with him. When McGroarty was away from the car anyone could have lost it, or—as you suggested a moment ago—planted it there deliberately to divert suspicion."

I felt the beginnings of a headache from all these confused threads of the mystery. "Can't—Isn't there anyone we can say is innocent, at least, even if we cannot begin to fasten the guilt upon somebody?" I pleaded.

Kennedy shook his head. "At this stage the one is as hard as the other. I consider myself lucky to have collected as much material as I have for the analysis of the poison." He tapped his pocket significantly.

"Yoo-hoo!" A frankly shrill call in a feminine voice interrupted. We both turned, to see Marilyn Loring hastening toward us.

"Did you think I was going to forget you?" she asked, almost reproachfully and much out of breath. "Let's hurry," she added. "This is roast beef day."

We started toward the gate once more, Marilyn between us, vivacious and rather charming. I noticed that she made no reference to the incident in the hallway, the precipitate manner in which she left us and the very evident confusion of Merle Shirley. Kennedy, too, seemed disposed to drop the matter, although it was obviously significant. For some reason his mind was elsewhere, so that the girl was thrown upon my hands.

It struck me that, after all, she was attractive. At this moment I found her distinctly good-looking.

"Why do you 'vamp'?" I asked, innocently. "You don't seem to me, if you'll pardon the personal remark, at all that type."

She laughed. "It's all the fault of the public. They insist that I vamp. I want to play girly-girly parts, but the public won't stand for it; they won't come to see the picture. They tell the exhibitor, and he tells the producer, and back I am at the vamping again. Isn't it funny?" She paused a moment. "Take Gordon. Doesn't it make you laugh, what the public think he is— clean-cut, hero, and all that sort of thing? Little do they know!"

All at once Kennedy stopped abruptly. We were close to the entrance, just where a smart little speedster of light blue lined with white was parked at the edge of the narrow sidewalk. The sun, after a morning of uncertainty, had just struck through the haze, and it illuminated Marilyn's face and hair most delightfully as we both turned, somewhat in surprise.

"I know you'll never forgive me, Miss Loring," Kennedy began, "but the fact is that just before you came out we stumbled into a new bit of evidence in the case and I believe that Jameson and I will have to hurry in to the laboratory. Much as I would like to lunch with you, and perhaps chat some more during scene-taking this afternoon—"

It seemed to me that her eyes widened a bit. Certainly there was a perceptible change in her face. It was interest, but it was also certainly more than that. I felt that she would have liked to penetrate the mask of Kennedy's expression, perhaps learn just what facts and theories rested in his mind.

"Is it—" Suddenly she smiled, realizing that Kennedy would reveal only the little which suited his purpose. "Is it something you can tell me?" she finished.

He shook his head. His answer was tantalizing, his glance searching and without concealment. "Only another detail concerning the chemical analysis of the poison."

"I see!" If she knew of the ampulla the answer would have been intelligible to her. As it was, her face betrayed nothing. "I guess I'll hurry on over alone, then," she added. She extended a hand to each of us. Her grasp was warm and friendly and frank. "So long, and—and good luck, for Stella's sake!"

"Hello, folks!"

The dancing bantering voice from behind us, with silvery cadence to its laughter, could belong to no one but Enid Faye. I grasped that it was her car which Kennedy leaned upon. I gasped a bit as I saw her directly at my side, her dainty chamois motoring coat brushing my sleeve, the sun which grew in strength every moment casting mottled shadows upon her face through the transparent brim of her bobbing hat, in mocking answer to the mirth in her eyes.

For an instant she gazed after the retreating Marilyn.

"Good-by, Marilyn! DEAR," she called, mega-phoning her hands.

The other girl made no response. Laughing, Enid slipped a hand under my arm, the firm pressure of her fingers thrilling me. She addressed Kennedy, however.

"Do you want a ride in to the city, both of you?"

Kennedy brightened. "That would be fine! How far are you going?"

"The Burrage. I have a luncheon engagement. That's Forty-fourth."

"Can you drop us off at the university?"

"Surely! Climb in. It's a tight fit, three in the seat, but fun. And"—facing me—"I want Jamie between us, next to me!"

As we rolled out of the studio inclosure she leaned forward on the wheel to question Kennedy.

"What did Marilyn Loring want? You seemed in deep confab!"

"She volunteered to initiate us to McCann's, across the street."

"Oh!" She skidded about a corner skillfully. "And—"

"Well, we bumped into an additional piece of evidence and I thought Jameson and I ought to hurry in to my laboratory instead."

"I bet"—Enid giggled, readjusting her hat in the breeze—"I bet she wanted to know what you'd found, right away. Didn't she?"

"Yes!" Kennedy's face was noncommittal, "Why do you say that?"

"Because she came into my room, just as we were getting ready for work this morning. Perhaps I'm wrong, but from the way she kept asking me questions about everyone from Manton down I got the idea she was quizzing me, to see how much I knew. Of course this is only my first day, but it seems to me that Marilyn is talking a great deal, without saying very much. I've come to the conclusion she knows a good deal more than she is telling anyone, and that she'd like to find out just how much everyone else knows."

Kennedy nodded almost absent-mindedly, without responding further.

"Well"—Enid speeded up a bit—"not to change connections on the switchboard, I think I'm going to like it with Manton Pictures."

"Will they do justice to your work," Kennedy inquired, "putting you in a partially finished picture in this way?"

"That's where I'm in luck, real bang-up luck. Werner has directed me before and knows just exactly how to handle me."

"What about the story? That was built for Stella, wasn't it?"

"Yes, but they're changing it here and there to fit me. Larry knows my work, too! That's luck again for little Enid."

"How long have you known Millard?" In a flash I realized Kennedy's cleverness. This was the fact he had wished to unearth. The question was as natural as could be. He had led up to it deliberately. I was sure of that.

"Four, nearly five years," she replied, unsuspiciously. Then suddenly she bit her lip, although her expression was well masked. "That is," she added, somewhat lamely—"that is, in a casual way, like nearly everyone knows nearly everyone else in the film game."

"Oh!" murmured Kennedy, lapsing into silence.



XV

I BECOME A DETECTIVE

Important as it was to watch Enid and Marilyn, Werner and the rest, Kennedy decided that it was now much more important to hold to his expressed purpose of returning to the laboratory with our trophies of the day's crime hunt.

"For people to whom emotion ought to be an old story in their everyday stage life, I must say they feel and show plenty of it in real life," I remarked, as Enid set us down and drove off. "It does not seem to pall."

"I don't know why the movie people buy stories," remarked Craig, quaintly. "They don't need to do it—they live them."

When we were settled in the laboratory once more Kennedy plunged with renewed vigor into the investigation he had dropped in the morning in order to make the hurried trip to the Phelps home in Tarrytown.

I had hoped he would talk further of the probabilities of the connection of the various people with the crime, but he had no comment even upon the admission of Enid that she had known Millard for a period long antedating the trouble with Stella Lamar.

It seemed that, after all, he was quite excited at the discovery of the ampulla and was anxious to begin the analysis of its scale-like contents. I was not sure, but it struck me that this might be the same substance which had spotted the towel or the portieres. If that were so, the finding of it in this form had given him a new and tangible clue to its nature, accounting for his eagerness.

I watched his elaborate and thorough preparations, wishing I could be of assistance, but knowing the limitations of my own chemical and bacteriological knowledge. I grasped, however, that he was concentrating his study upon the spots he had cut from the portieres, in particular the stain where the point of the needle had been, and upon the incrustations on the inner surface of the tube. He made solutions of both of these and for some little time experimented with chemical reactions. Then he had recourse to several weighty technical books. Though bursting with curiosity, I dared not question him, nor distract him in any way.

Finally he turned to a cage where he kept on hand, always, a few of those useful martyrs to science, guinea pigs. Taking one of the little animals and segregating him from the others, he prepared to inoculate him with a tiny bit of the solution made from the stain on the piece cut from the portiere.

At that I knew it would be a long and tiresome analysis. It seemed a waste of time to wait idly for Kennedy to reach his conclusions, so I cast about in my mind for some sort of inquiry of my own which I could conduct meanwhile, perhaps collecting additional facts about those we were watching at the studio.

Somehow I could not wholly lose my suspicions of the director, Werner; especially now as I marshaled the evidence against him. First of all he was the only person absolutely in control of the movements of Stella Lamar. If she did not bring up her arm against the curtains in a manner calculated to press the needle against her flesh it certainly would not seem out of the way for him to ask her to do it over again, or even for him to direct changes in her position. This he could do either in rehearsal or in retakes after the scene had actually been photographed. It was not proof, I knew. Practically all of them were familiar with the action of the scene, could guess how Werner would handle it. The point was that the director, next to Millard, was the most thoroughly conversant with the scenes in the script, had to figure out everything down to the very location and angles of the camera.

Another matter, of course, was the placing of the needle in the silk. For that purpose some one had to go to Tarrytown ahead of the others, or at least had to precede the others into the living room. Offhand I was compelled to admit that this was easiest for Phelps—Phelps, the man who had insisted that the scene be taken in his library. At the same time, I knew it was quite possible for the director to have entered ahead of anyone else, possible for him to have issued orders to his people which would keep them out of the way for the brief moment he needed.

A third consideration was the finding of the ampulla in McGroarty's car. Stella, Marilyn, Jack Gordon, Merle Shirley, and Werner had ridden out together. Werner had not returned. While this fact did not indicate definitely that he might have dropped it, coupled with the other considerations it pointed the suspicion of guilt at the director.

Then there was the finding of the towel in the washroom of the office building at the studio. While Kennedy now said it was not used to wipe the needle, while we now knew that the needle remained in the portieres from the morning of Stella's death until late that night, yet Kennedy affirmed the connection of the towel with the crime in some subtle way. It was true that members of the cast sometimes used the washroom, yet it was evident that Manton, Millard, and Werner, who had rooms on the floor, were the more apt to be concerned in the attempt to dispose of it. Against Manton I could see no real grounds for suspicion. In a general way we had been compelled to eliminate Millard early in our investigation. Again I was brought, in this analysis of the mystery, to Werner.

One other point remained—the identity of the nocturnal visitor to Tarrytown. In connection with that I remembered the remark of Marilyn. Werner was acting as he always acted when he was out late the night before, she had said. While my theories offered no explanation of the second man, the watcher, I saw—with an inner feeling of triumph—that everything again pointed to the director.

I determined not to tell my conclusion to Kennedy, yet. I did not want to distract him. Besides, I felt he would disagree.

"What do you think of this, Craig?" I suggested. "Suppose I start out while you're busy and try to dig up some more facts about these people?"

"Excellent!" was his reply. "I can't say how much longer my analysis will keep me. By all means do so, Walter. I shall be here, or, if not, I'll leave a note so you can find me."

Accordingly, I took up my search, determined to go slowly and carefully, not to be misled by any promising but fallacious clues. I knew that Werner would be working at the studio, from all we had heard in the morning. I determined upon a visit to his apartment in his absence.

From the telephone book I discovered that he lived at the Whistler Studios, not far from Central Park on the middle West Side—a new building, I remembered, inhabited almost entirely by artists and writers. As I hurried down on the Subway, then turned and walked east toward the Park, I racked my brain for an excuse to get in. Entering the lower reception hall, I learned from the boy that the director had a suite on the top floor, high enough to look over the roofs of the adjoining buildings directly into the wide expanse of green and road, of pond and trees beyond.

"Mr. Werner isn't in, though," the boy added, doubtfully, without ringing the apartment.

"I know it," I rejoined, hastily. "I told him I'd meet him here this afternoon, however." On a chance I went on, with a knowing smile, "I guess it was pretty late when he came in last night?"

"I'll say so," grinned the youth, friendly all of a sudden. He had interpreted the remark as I intended he should. He believed that Werner and I had been out together. "I remember," he volunteered, "because I had to do an extra shift of duty last night, worse luck. It must have been after four o'clock. I was almost asleep when I heard the taxi at the door."

"I wonder what company he got the taxi from?" I remarked, casually. "I tried to get one uptown—" I paused. I didn't want to get into a maze of falsehood from which I would be unable to extricate myself.

"I don't know," he replied. "It looked like one of the Maroon taxis, from up at the Central Park Hotel on the next block, but I'm not sure."

"I think I won't go upstairs yet," I said, finally. "There's another call I ought to make. If Mr. Werner comes in, tell him I'll be back."

I knew very well that Werner would not return, but I thought that the bluff might pave the way for getting upstairs and into the apartment a little later. Meanwhile I had another errand. The boy nodded a good-by as I passed out through the grilled iron doors to the street. Less than five minutes afterward I was at the booth of the Maroon Taxi Company, at the side of the main entrance of the Central Park Hotel.

Here the starter proved to be a loquacious individual, and I caught him, fortunately, in the slowest part of the afternoon. Removing a pipe and pushing a battered cap to the back of a bald head, he pulled out the sheets of the previous day. Before me were recorded all the calls for taxicab service, with the names of drivers, addresses of calls, and destinations. Although the quarters in the booth were cramped and close and made villainous by the reek of the man's pipe, I began to scan the lists eagerly.

It had been a busy night even down to the small hours of the morning and I had quite a job. As I came nearer and nearer to the end my hopes ebbed, however. When I was through I had failed to identify a single call that might have been Werner's. Several fares had been driven to and from the Grand Central Station, probably the means by which he made the trip to Tarrytown. In each case the record had shown the Central Park Hotel in the other column, not the Whistler Studios. I was forced to give up this clue, and it hurt. I was not built for a detective, I guess, for I almost quit then and there, prepared to return to the laboratory and Kennedy.

But I remembered my first intention and made my way back to the Whistler Studios. Anyhow, I reflected, Werner would hardly have summoned a car from a place so near his home had he wished to keep his trip a secret. It was more important for me to gain access to his quarters. There it was quite possible I might find something valuable. I wondered if I would be justified in breaking in, or if I would succeed if I attempted it.

Things proved easier than I expected. My first visit unquestionably had prepared the way. The hallboy took me up in the elevator himself without telephoning, took me to Werner's door, rang the bell, and spoke to the colored valet who opened it. As I grasped the presence of the servant in the little suite I was glad I had not tried my hand at forcing an entrance. I had quite anticipated an empty apartment.

The darky, pleasant voiced, polite, and well trained, bowed me into a little den and proceeded to lay out a large box of cigarettes on the table beside me, as well as a humidor well filled with cigars of good quality. I took one of the latter, accepting a light and glancing about.

Certainly this was in contrast with Manton's apartment. There was nothing garish, ornate, or spectacular here. Richly, lavishly furnished, everything was in perfect taste, revealing the hand of an artist. It might have been a bit bizarre, reflecting the nervous temperament of its owner. Even the servant showed the touch of his master, hovering about to make sure I was comfortable, even to bringing a stack of the latest magazines. I hope he didn't sense my thoughts, for I cursed him inwardly. I wanted to be alone. Ordinarily I would have enjoyed this, but now I had become a detective, and it was necessary to rummage about, and quickly.

The sudden ringing of the telephone took the valet out into the tiny hall of the suite and gave me the opportunity I wished.

Phelps apparently was calling up to leave some message for Werner, which I could not get, as the valet took it. What, I wondered, was Phelps telephoning here for? Why not at the studio? It looked strange.

I lost no time in speculation over that, however. The moment I was left to myself I jumped up and rushed to a writing desk, a carved antique which had caught my eye upon my entrance, which I had studied from my place in the easy chair. It was unlocked, and I opened it without compunction. With an alert ear, to warn me the moment the colored boy hung up, I first gazed rather helplessly at a huge pile of literary litter. Clearly there was no time to go through all of that.

I gave the papers a cursory inspection, without disturbing them, hoping to catch some name or something which might prove to be a random clue, but I was less lucky than Kennedy had been in his casual look at Manton's desk the afternoon before. Still able to hear the valet at the telephone, I reached down and opened the top drawer of the desk. Here perhaps I might be more fortunate. One glance and my heart gave a startled leap.

There in a compartment of the drawer I saw a hypodermic needle— in fact, two of them—and a bottle. On the desk was a fountain pen ink dropper, a new one which had never been used. I reached over, pressed its little bulb, uncorked the bottle, inserted the glass point, sucked up some of the contents, placed the bulb right side up in my waistcoat pocket, and recorked the bottle. Next I took and pocketed one of the two needles, both of which were alike as far as I could see.

Then I heard a good-by in the hall. I closed drawer and desk hastily. As I caught the click of the receiver of the telephone on its hook I was halfway across the floor. Before the colored boy could enter again I was back in my chair, my head literally in a whirl.

What a stroke of good fortune! I had no expectation of proving Werner to be the guilty man by so simple a method as this, however. If he were the slayer of the star he would be too clever to leave anything so incriminating about. I have always quarreled with Poe's theory in The Purloined Letter, believing that the obvious is no place to hide anything outside of fiction. What I conceived, rather, was that Werner really was a dope fiend. The nature of the drug Kennedy would tell me very easily, from the sample. Establishing Werner's possession of the needles was another point in my chain of presumptions, showing that he was familiar with their use; and added to that was the psychological effect upon him of the habit, a habit responsible in many other cases for murders as skillfully carried out as that of Stella Lamar, often, too, without the slightest shred of real motive.

I recalled Werner's habitually nervous manner and was sure now that the needles actually were used by him. Was it due to the high pressure of his profession? Had that constant high tension forced him to find relief in the most violent relaxation?

Elated, I was tempted at first to crowd my luck. I wondered if I could not discover another ampulla such as the chauffeur, McGroarty, had picked up in his car. When Werner's servant, almost apologetically, explained that the telephone message was from a near-by shop and that he would have to leave me for a matter of ten or fifteen minutes, I assured him that it was all right and that I would occupy myself with a magazine. The moment he was out the door I sprang to action and began a minute search of every nook and cranny of the rooms.

But gradually a sense of growing fear and trepidation took hold of me. Suppose, after all, Werner should return home unexpectedly? The colored boy did not seem surprised that I should wait, a slight indication that it was possible. Further, I could never tell when the darky might not return himself, breaking in upon me without warning and discovering me. At the best I was not a skillful investigator. I did not know just where to look for hidden evidences of poison, nor was I able to work fast, for fear of leaving too tangible marks of my actions behind me. A great perspiration stood out on my forehead. Gradually a trembling took hold of my limbs and communicated itself to my fingers.

After all, it was essential that Werner be kept in ignorance of my suspicions, granting they were correct. It would be fatal if I should frighten him inadvertently, so that he would take to flight. Realizing my foolhardiness, I returned to my chair at last, picking up a magazine at random. I did so not a moment too soon. A slight sound caught my ear and I looked up to see the valet already halfway into the room. His tread was so soft I never would have heard him.

"I don't think I'll wait any longer," I remarked, rising and stretching slightly, as though I had been seated all the time. "I'll ring up a little later; perhaps come back after I get in touch with Mr. Werner."

"Who shall I say was here, sah?" the boy asked, with just a trace of darky dialect.

Above all I didn't want to alarm Werner. I could not repeat the explanation I had allowed the attendant downstairs to assume from my remark, that I was a friend who had been out with the director the night before. I should have to take a chance that Werner's servant and the hallboy would not compare notes, and that the latter would say nothing to the director upon his arrival.

"I'm an old friend from the Coast," I explained, with a show of taking the negro into my confidence. "I wanted to surprise him and so"—I slipped a half dollar into a willing palm—"if you'll say nothing until I've seen him—"

He beamed. "Yes, sah! You jus' count on George, sah!"

Downstairs I wondered if I could seal the tongue of the youth who had accommodated me before. Then I discovered that he had gone off duty. It would be extremely unlikely that he would be about until the following day. I smiled and hastened out to the street.

Once in the open air again, I realized the full extent of the risk I had taken. All at once it struck me that no amount of explanation from either Kennedy or myself would serve to mollify Werner if he were innocent and learned of my visit. I doubted, in this moment of afterthought, that I would escape censure from Kennedy, who surely would not want his case jeopardized by precipitate actions upon my part. I began to run, to get away from the Whistler Studios as fast as possible.

Then I saw I had grown panicky and I checked myself. But I hurried to the Subway and up to the university again, and to the laboratory, eager to compare notes with Kennedy.

"If I were Alphonse Dupin," he remarked, calmly, grasping my excitement, "I would deduce that you have discovered something. I would also deduce that you believe it important and that you have no intention of withholding the information from me, whatever it is."

"Correct," I answered, grinning in spite of myself.

Then I handed him the needle, telling him in a few brief words of my visit to Werner's apartment, of the hallboy's confirmation of a nocturnal trip of some sort, of my search of the desk and some other parts of the suite. "I fixed it so that he won't hear of my visit, at least for some time. He won't suspect who it was, in any case."

Kennedy examined the hypodermic.

"Not like the one used," he murmured.

"I thought that," I explained. "It simply indicates he is a dope fiend and is familiar with the use of a needle. Here!" I produced the ink filler which I had used to bring a sample of the contents of the bottle. "This seems to be what he uses. What is it?"

Kennedy sniffed, then looked closely at the liquid through the glass of the tube. "It's a coca preparation," he explained. "If Werner uses this, he's unquestionably a regular drug addict."

"Well," I paused, triumphantly, "the case against the chief director of Manton Pictures grows stronger all the time."

"Not necessarily," contradicted Kennedy, perhaps to draw me out.

"He's familiar with hypodermic syringes," I repeated.

"Which doesn't prove that no one else would use one."

"Anyhow, he was out until four A.M. last night and some one broke into Phelps's house to—"

"You can't establish the fact that he went out there. There are plenty of other places he could have been until four in the morning."

"But I can assume—"

"If you are going to assume anything, Walter, why not assume he was the second man, the man who watched the actual intruder?"

I turned away, despairing of my ability to convince Kennedy. As a matter of fact I had forgotten the other prowler at Tarrytown.

Then I noticed that the one guinea pig in the separate cage was dead. In an instant I was all curiosity to know the results of Kennedy's investigations.

"Did you make any progress?" I asked.

"Yes!" Now I noticed for the first time that he was in fine humor. "I had quite finished the first stage of my analysis when you came in."

"Then what was it? What was the poison that killed Stella Lamar?" I glanced at the stiff, prone figure of the little animal.

Kennedy cleared his throat. "Well," he replied, "I began the study with the discovery I made, which I told you, that strange proteins were present." He picked up the ampulla and regarded it thoughtfully. Then he fingered the bit of silk cut from the portieres. "It is a poison more deadly, more subtle, than any ever concocted by man, Walter."

"Yes?" I was painfully eager.

"It is snake venom!"



XVI

ENID ASSISTS

"A poison more subtle than any concocted by man!" repeated Kennedy.

It was a startling declaration and left me quite speechless for the moment.

"We know next to nothing of the composition of the protein bodies in the snake venoms which have such terrific and quick physiological effects on man," Kennedy went on. "They have been studied, it is true, and studied a great deal, but we cannot say that there are any adequate tests by which the presence of these proteins can be recognized.

"However, everything points to the conclusion now that it was snake venom, and my physiological tests on the guinea pig seem to confirm it. I see no reason now to doubt that it was snake venom. The fact of the matter is that the snake venoms are about the safest of poisons for the criminal to use, for the reason of the difficulty they give in any chemical analysis. That is only another proof of the diabolical cleverness of our guilty person, whoever it may be.

"Later I'll identify the particular kind of venom used. Just now I feel it is more important to discover the actual motive for the crime. In the morning I have a plan which may save me further work here in the laboratory, but for to-night I feel I have earned a rest and"—a smile—"I shall rest by searching out the motives of these temperamental movie folk a little more." As he spoke he slipped out of his acid-stained smock.

"What do you mean?" As often, he rather baffled me.

"It's nearly dinner time and we're going out together, Walter, down to Jacques'."

"Why Jacques'?"

"Because I phoned your friend Belle Balcom and she informed me that that was the place where we would be apt to find the elite of the film world dining."

I acquiesced, of course. We hurried to the apartment first for a few necessary changes and preparations, then we started for the Times Square section in a taxi.

"I never heard of the use of snake venom before," I remarked, settling back in the cushions—"that is, deliberately, by a criminal, to poison anyone."

"There are cases," replied Craig, absently.

"Just how does the venom act?"

"I believe it is generally accepted that there are two agents present in the secretion. One is a peptone and the other a globulin. One is neurotoxic, the other hemolytic. Not only is the general nervous system attacked instantly, but the coagulability of the blood is destroyed. One agent in the venom attacks the nerve cells; the other destroys the red corpuscles."

"You suspected something of this kind, then, when you first examined Stella Lamar?"

"Exactly! You see, the victim of a snake bite often is unable to move or speak. Doctor Blake observed that in the case of the stricken star. Her nerves were affected, resulting in paralysis of the muscles of the heart and lungs and giving us some symptoms of suffocation. Then the blood, as a result of the attack of the venom, is always left dark and liquid. That, too, I observed in the sample sent me from Tarrytown.

"The snake," Kennedy continued, "administers the poison by fangs more delicate than any hypodermic. Nature's apparatus is more precise than the finest appliances devised for the use of a surgeon by our instrument makers. The fangs are like needles with obliquely cut points and slit-like outlets. The poison glands correspond to the bulb of a syringe. They are, in reality, highly modified salivary glands. From them, when the serpent strikes, is ejected a pale straw-colored half-oleaginous fluid. You might swallow it with impunity. But once in the blood, through a cut or wound, it is deadly."

"There could be no snake in this case," I remarked. "The fangs of a serpent make two punctures, don't they; while here there was just the one scratch—"

"Of course there were no fangs when the deed was actually done," he rejoined, impatiently. "We've traced everything to the needle in the portieres and it is my belief that it was part of an all- glass hypodermic with a platinum-iridium point. It could hardly have been anything like the coarser syringe used by Werner, nor do I think it possible that the point of an ordinary needle would hold sufficient venom, since it would dry and form a coating like the incrustation on the inside of the ampulla McGroarty found."

"That was the venom?" I asked.

"Yes, I found it in the ampulla and in the stain on the portiere where the needle had pierced through."

"The towel, though—"

"Is something else. First thing in the morning we'll follow that up, as I promised you. Meanwhile let's concentrate on motives."

A long line of private cars and taxicabs outside Jacques' testified to the popularity of the restaurant. At the door stood a huge, bulking negro resplendent in the glaring finery of his uniform. It seemed to me that people literally were thronging into the place, for it was cleverly advertised as a center of night life.

Inside, the famous darky jazz band was in full swing. There was lilt and rhythm to the melody produced by the grinning blacks, and not a free arm or foot or shoulder or head of any of them but did not sway in time to their syncopated music.

We were shown to a table on a sort of gallery or mezzanine floor which extended around three sides of the interior. Below, in the center, was the space for dancing, surrounded by groups and pairs of diners. Stairs led to the balcony on both sides, as though the management expected none of their guests to resist the lure of the dance between courses. The band, I noticed, was at the farther end, on an elevated dais, so that the contortions of the various players could be seen above the heads of those on the floor.

We were at the rail so that we commanded a view of the entire place, a location I guessed had been maneuvered by Kennedy with a word to the head waiter. The only tables invisible to us were those directly beneath, but it would be a simple matter to cross around during any dance number to view them.

As we took our seats the lights were dimmed suddenly. I realized that we had arrived in the midst of the cabaret and that it was the turn of one of the performers. Kennedy, however, seemed to enjoy the entertainment, an example of his ability to gain recreation whenever and however he wished, to find relaxation under the oddest or most casual circumstances, out of anything from people passing on the street to an impromptu concert of a street band. In scanty garments, in the glare of a multi-colored spotlight, the girl danced a hybrid of every dance from the earliest Grecian bacchanal to the latest alleged Apache importation from Paris.

I have often wondered at Jacques' and places of the sort. The intermingling of eating and drinking and dancing was curious. What possible bearing this terpsichorean monstrosity might have upon the gastronomic inclinations of the audience it would have been difficult to fathom.

The lights flashed bright again and Kennedy gave our order. Meanwhile I glanced about at the people below us. There was no one in sight I knew until I leaned well over the rail, but upon doing that I felt little chills of excitement run from the top to the bottom of my spine, for I discovered in a very prominent situation at the very edge of the dance floor a party of four, of whom three very much concerned us. Lloyd Manton, back to the polished space behind him, was unmistakable in evening clothes. These bunched at his neck and revealed his habitual stoop as impartially as his business suits. Across from him, lounging upon the table likewise, but more immaculately and skillfully tailored, was Lawrence Millard. The writer, I noticed, flourished his cigarette holder, fully a foot in length, and emphasized his remarks to the girl on his right with a rather characteristic gesture made with the second finger of his left hand. The girl was Enid, quite mistress of herself in a gown little more than no gown; and the remarks were obviously confidential. The other girl, engrossed in Manton, seemed a dangerously youthful and self-conscious young lady. Her hair flamed Titian red and her neck, of which she displayed not half as much as Enid, gave her much concern.

"Kennedy! Look!" I reached over to attract his attention.

"Who's the second girl, I wonder?" He became as interested as I was.

With a blatant flourish of saxophone and cornet and traps the band began a jazzy fox-trot. Instantly there was a rush from the tables for the floor. Enid jumped to her feet, moving her bare shoulders in the rhythm of the music. Then Millard took firm hold of her and they wove their way into the crush. It seemed to me that the little star was the very incarnation of the dance. I envied her partner more than I dared admit to myself.

Manton and his companion rose also, but more leisurely. On her feet the girl did not seem so young, although the second impression may have been the result of the length of her skirt and the long slim, lines of her gown. We watched both couples through the number, then gave our attention to the food we had ordered. Another dance, a modified waltz, revealed Enid in the arms of Manton. I tried to determine from her actions if she felt any preference for the producer, or for Millard when again she took the floor with him. It was an idle effort, of course. The people surged out perhaps three or four times while we were at our meal. Each time the party below jumped up in response to the music. At our cigars, finally, I took to observing the other diners, wondering what we had gained by coming here.

Suddenly I realized that Kennedy was rising to greet some one approaching our table. Turning, rising also, I went through all the miseries of the bashful lover. It was Enid herself.

"I caught sight of you looking over the rail while I was dancing," she told Kennedy, accepting a chair pulled around by the waiter. "I knew you saw me. Also I glanced up and found that you were perfectly well aware of the location of our table. So"— engagingly—"unsociable creature! Why didn't you come down and say 'Hello!' or ask me for a dance?"

"Perhaps I intended to a little later."

"Yes!" she exclaimed, in mockery. "You see, since Mecca won't go to the pilgrim, the pilgrim has to come to Mecca."

"Did you ever hear of Mohammed and the mountain, Miss Faye?" Kennedy asked.

"Of course! That's the regular expression. But I agree with Barnum. As he said, some people can be original some of the time and some people can be original all of the time, and I propose to be original always, like a baby with molasses."

Kennedy laughed, for indeed she was irresistible. Then she turned to me, placing one of her warm little hands upon mine.

"And Jamie!" she purred. "Have you forgotten little Enid altogether? Won't—won't YOU come down and dance?"

"I—I can't!" I exploded, in agony. "I don't know how!" And I thought that I would never dare trust myself with her glistening shoulders clasped close to me, with her slim bare arm placed around my neck as I had watched it slip about the collar of Millard.

"Now that the pilgrim is at Mecca—" Kennedy suggested, interrupting cruelly, as I thought.

"Oh!" In an instant I sensed that I was forgotten, and I was hurt. "There's something which came out this afternoon at the studio," she began, "and I wonder if you know. Larry—that's Mr. Millard—assures me it is true, and—and I think you ought to hear about it. I—I want to assist all I can in solving the mystery of Stella Lamar's death, even though Stella's unfortunate end has meant my opportunity."

"What is it, Miss Faye?" Kennedy was studying her.

"It's about Jack Gordon. He's been trying to hold up the company for fifteen hundred a week, which would double his salary— perhaps you've heard that?"

Kennedy nodded, although it was news to him. "I've been thinking about Gordon," he murmured.

"Anyway," she went on, "it's gone around that he's desperately in need of money and that that is why he's so insistent upon the increase. It seems he owes everyone. In particular he owes Phelps some huge sums and old Phelps is on his tail, hollering and raising Ned. Phelps, you know, has uses for money himself just now. You had heard?"

Again Kennedy evaded a direct answer. "Money is fearfully tight, of course," he remarked, encouraging her to continue.

"Yes," she repeated, "Phelps is terribly hard up and after Gordon. And that's not all about our handsome leading man, Mr. Kennedy." She leaned forward. A certain intensity crept into her voice. She began to toy with his sleeve with the slender fingers of one hand, as though in that manner to compel his greater attention. "You know Stella Lamar really was in love with Jack Gordon. In fact she was daffy over him. And now I've found out that he was borrowing money from her, was taking nearly every cent she earned to sink in his speculations. Do you get that?" Enid's eyes snapped.

Most certainly I understood. I knew well the type of Stella. She had made many men give up to her motor cars, expensive furs, jewelry, all manner of presents. But in the end she had found one man to whom she in turn was willing to yield all. But what of him?

"In the last few weeks, they tell me, poor Stella disposed of many of her handsome presents from men like Manton and Phelps and others, all to get money to give to him. At the end she even raised money on her jewelry. I—I think you'll find it all in pawn now, if you'll investigate. I don't doubt but that poor Stella died without a penny to her name."

I was so surprised at this information that I failed to study Kennedy's face. I was completely jolted from my own rapt contemplation of the very soft curves of Enid's back. For here was a motive at last! Gordon was a possible suspect I had failed to take even halfway seriously. Yet the leading man was desperately pressed for money, had had a disgraceful fight with Phelps as we already knew; and not only owed huge sums to his fiancee as Enid now explained, but had quarreled with her just prior to her death, according to his own admission in the investigation at Tarrytown.

Suddenly the music struck up once more. Enid rose, adjusting the straps of her gown.

"There!" she exclaimed, smiling abruptly. "I thought you ought to know that, though I hate to peddle gossip. Now I must hurry back. I've been away long enough. But come down later and dance."

She swept off without further formality. An instant afterward we saw her in the clasp of Millard once again. We watched during the number and encore; then Kennedy called for the check.

"Let's go up to the apartment," he suggested. "I'd like to talk some of these things out with you. It will help me clarify my own impressions."

Underneath the balcony I noticed Kennedy turn for a last glance at Manton's party. I paused to look, also. Enid was leaning forward, talking to Millard earnestly, emphasizing what she had to say with characteristic movements of her head.

"She's pumping Millard for more information about Stella Lamar," I remarked.

Kennedy had no comment.



XVII

AN APPEAL

We strolled up Broadway, resisting the attraction of a garish new motion-picture palace at which Manton's previous release with Stella Lamar was now showing to capacity—much to the delight of the exhibitor who greatly complimented himself on his good fortune in being able to take advantage of the newspaper sensation over the affair.

On we walked, Kennedy mostly in silent deduction, I knew, until we came to the upper regions of the great thoroughfare, turned off, and headed toward our apartment on the Heights, not far from the university.

We had scarcely settled ourselves for a quiet hour in our quarters when the telephone rang. I answered. To my amazement I found that it was Marilyn Loring.

"Is Professor Kennedy in?" she asked.

"Yes, Miss Loring. Just a—"

"Never mind calling him to the phone, Mr. Jameson. I've been trying to find him all evening. He was not at the laboratory, although I waited over an hour. Just tell him that there's something I am very anxious to consult him about. Ask him if it will be all right for me to run up to see him just a few minutes."

I explained to Kennedy.

"Let her come along," he said, as surprised as I was. Then he added, humorously, "I seem to be father confessor to-night."

After sinking back in my seat in comfort once more I observed a quiet elation in Kennedy's manner. All at once it struck me what he was doing. The multitude of considerations in this case, the many cross leads to be followed, had confused me. But now I realized that, after all, this was only the approved Kennedy method, the mode of procedure which had never failed to produce results for him. Without allowing himself to be disturbed by the great number of people concerned, he had calmly started to pit them one against the other, encouraging each to talk about the rest, making a show of his apparent inaction and lack of haste so that they, in turn, would shake off the excitement immediately following the death of the girl and thereby reveal their normal selves to his keen observation.

Not five minutes passed before Marilyn was announced. Evidently she had been seeking us eagerly, for she had probably telephoned from a near-by pay station.

"Mr. Kennedy," she began, "I am going to find this very hard to say."

"Really," he assured her, "there is no reason why you should not repose your confidence in me. My only interest is to solve the mystery and to see that justice is satisfied. Beyond that nothing would give me greater happiness than to be of service to you."

"It's—it's about Merle Shirley—" she started, bravely. Then all at once she broke down. The strain of two days had been too much for her.

Kennedy lighted a fresh cigar, realizing that he could best aid her to recover her composure by making no effort to do so. For several moments she sobbed silently, a handkerchief at her eyes. Then she straightened, with a half smile, dabbing at the drops of moisture remaining. With her wet eyes and flushed cheeks she was revealed to me again as a very genuine girl, wholly unspoiled by her outward mask of sophistication. Furthermore, at this instant she was gloriously pretty.

"Again—why do you play vampire roles, Miss Loring?" I asked, as quickly as the thought flashed to me. "I think you'd be an ideal ingenue!"

"About a thousand people have told me that," she rejoined. As she replied her smile took full possession of her features. My idiotic repetition, entirely out of place, had served to restore her self-control to her. "No, the public won't stand for it. They've been trained to know me as a vamp, and a vamp I remain."

Facing Kennedy, she sobered. "Merle Shirley and I were engaged," she went on. "That you know. Then poor Stella made a fool of him. She didn't mean any harm, any real harm, but I don't think she knew how deep he feels or just what a fiery temper he has. Finally he found out that she was only playing with him. He was perfectly terrible. At first I thought he had killed her in a burst of passion. I really thought that."

"Yes?" Kennedy was interested. He needed no pretense.

"When I asked him point blank he said he didn't." A very wonderful light came into Marilyn Loring's eyes at this instant. "Whatever else he would do, Professor Kennedy, he wouldn't lie to me; that I know. He would tell me the truth because he knows I would shield him, no matter what the cost."

"You simply want to assure me of his innocence?" suggested Kennedy.

"No!" There was a touch of scorn to the little negative. "You don't believe him guilty; you didn't even when I did."

"Then—"

"But he knows something—something about the murder of Stella— and he won't tell me what it is. I—I'm afraid for him. He isn't sleeping at night, and I believe he's watching somebody at the studio, and I know—it's the WOMAN'S intuition, Professor"—she emphasized the word, and paused—"he's in danger. He's in some great threatening danger!"

"What do you wish me to do, Miss Loring?"

"I want you to protect him and"—slowly she colored, up and around and about her eyes as she always did, until she wasn't unlike an Indian maid—"and no one must know I've been up to see you."

Gravely Kennedy bowed her to the door, assuring her he would do all that lay in his power. When he returned I was ready for him.

"Now!" I exclaimed. "Now say it isn't Werner! Here is Merle Shirley watching some one at the studio. Isn't that likely to be the director? And if Shirley is watching Werner you have the explanation for the second intruder at Tarrytown last night. Shirley is big enough and strong enough to have given the deputy a nice swift tussle."

"A little tall, I'm afraid," Kennedy remarked.

"You can't go by the deputy's impressions. He didn't really remember much of anything. Certainly he was unobserving."

"Perhaps you're right, Walter." Kennedy smiled. "But how about Gordon?" he added. "There's genuine motive—money!"

"Or Shirley himself!" I attempted to be sarcastic. "There's genuine motive. Stella made a fool out of him."

"It wasn't a murder of passion," Kennedy reminded me. "No one in a white heat of rage would study up on snake venoms."

"If it were a slow-smoldering—"

"Shirley's anger wasn't that kind."

"But good heavens!" As usual I arrived nowhere in an argument with Kennedy. "Circumstantial evidence points to Werner almost altogether—"

"You've forgotten one point in your chain, Walter."

"What's that?"

"Whoever took the needle from the curtain last night scratched himself on it and left blood spots on the portieres, tiny ones, but real blood spots, nevertheless. That means the intruder inoculated himself with venom. I doubt that the poison was so dry as to be ineffectual. If it was Werner, how do you account for the fact that he is still alive?"

"Do you"—I guess my eyes went wide—"do you expect to dig up a dead man somewhere? Is there some one we suspect and haven't seen since yesterday?"

He didn't answer, preferring to tantalize me.

"How do you account for it yourself?" I demanded, somewhat hotly.

"Let's call it a day, Walter," he rejoined. "Let's go to bed!"



XVIII

THE ANTIVENIN

I slept late in the morning, so that Kennedy had to wake me. When we had finished breakfast he led the way to the laboratory, all without making any effort to satisfy my curiosity. There he started packing up the tubes and materials he had been studying in the case, rather than resuming his investigations.

"What's the idea?" I asked, finally, unable to contain myself any longer.

"You carry this package," he directed. "I'll take the other."

I obeyed, somewhat sulkily I'm afraid.

"You see," he added, as we left the building and hurried to the taxi stand near the campus, "the next problem is to identify the particular kind of venom that was used. Besides, I want to know the nature of the spots on the towel you found. They certainly were not of venom. I have my suspicions what they really are."

He paused while we selected a vehicle and made ourselves comfortable. "To save time," he went on, "I thought I'd just go over to the Castleton Institute. You know in their laboratories the famous Japanese investigator, Doctor Nagoya, has made some marvelous discoveries concerning the venom of snakes. It is his specialty, a matter to which he has practically devoted his life. Therefore I expect that he will be able to confirm certain suspicions of mine very quickly, or"—a shrug—"explode a theory which has slowly been taking form in the back of my head."

When we dismissed the taxi in front of the institute I realized that this would be my first visit to this institution so lavishly endowed by the multi-millionaire, Castleton, for the advancement of experimental science. Kennedy's card, sent in to Doctor Nagoya, brought that eminent investigator out personally to see us. He was the very finest type of Oriental savant, a member of the intellectual nobility of the strange Eastern land only recently made receptive to the civilization of the West. When he and Kennedy chatted together in low tones for a few moments it was hard for me to grasp that each belonged to a basic race strain fundamentally different from the other. East and West had met, upon the plane of modern science. The two were simply men of specialized knowledge, the Japanese pre-eminent in one field, Kennedy in another.

Carefully and thoroughly Kennedy and Nagoya went over the results which Kennedy had already obtained. After a moment Doctor Nagoya conducted us to his research room.

"Now let me show you," said the Oriental.

In a moment they were deep in the mysteries of an even more minute analysis than Kennedy had made before. I took a turn about the room, finding nothing more understandable than the study holding Kennedy's interest. Though I could not grasp it, curiosity kept me hovering close.

"You see"—Nagoya spoke as he finished the test he was making at the moment—"without a doubt it is crotalin, the venom of the rattlesnake, Crotalus horridus."

"There was no snake actually present," I hastened to explain, breaking in. Then at a glance from Kennedy I stopped, abashed, for all this had been made clear to the scientist.

"It is not necessary," Nagoya replied, turning to me with the politeness characteristic of the East. "Crotalin can be obtained now with fair ease. It is a drug used in a new treatment of epilepsy which is being tried out at many hospitals."

I nodded my thanks, not wanting to interrupt again.

Kennedy pressed on to the next point he wished established. "That was the spot on the portieres. Now the ampulla."

"Also crotalin." Doctor Nagoya spoke positively.

"How about this solution?" Kennedy took from my package the tube with the liquid made from the faint spots on the towel which I had found and which had been our first clue. "It is not crotalin."

The Japanese turned to his laboratory table.

Kennedy muttered some vague suggestions which were too technical for me but which seemed to enable Nagoya to eliminate a great deal of work. The test progressed rapidly. Finally the savant stepped back, regarding the solution with a very satisfied smile.

"It is," he explained, carefully, "some of the very anticrotalus venin which we have perfected right here in the institute."

Kennedy nodded. "I suspected as much." There was great elation in his manner. "You see, I had heard all about your wonderful work."

"Yes!" Nagoya waved his hand around at the wonderfully equipped room, only one detail in the many arrangements for medical research made possible by the generosity of Castleton. "Yes," he repeated, proud of his laboratory, as he well might be, "we have made a great deal of progress in the development of protective sera—antivenins, we call them."

"Are they distributed widely?" Kennedy asked, thoughtfully.

"All over the world. We are practically the only source of supply."

"How do you obtain the serum in quantity?"

"From horses treated with increasing doses of the snake venom."

A question struck me as I remembered the peculiar double action of the poison. "Can you tell me just how the antivenin counteracts the effects of the venom?" I inquired of the savant.

"Surely," he replied. "It neutralizes one of the two elements in the venom, the nervous poison, thus enabling the individual to devote all his vitality to overcoming the irritant poison. It is the nervous poison that is the chief death-dealing agent, producing paralysis of the heart and respiration. We advise all travelers to carry the protective serum if they are likely to be exposed to snake bites."

Kennedy picked up the tube containing the solution made from the towel spots. "This antivenin was your product, doctor?"

"Probably so," was the precise answer.

"Then the purchasers can be identified," I suggested.

"We have no record of ordinary purchasers," Nagoya explained, slowly.

Kennedy was keenly disappointed at that, and showed it. However, he thanked the scientist cordially, and we departed. Outside, he turned to me.

"Do you understand now why the night intruder at Tarrytown did not die—if he is one of our suspects—from the scratch of the needle?"

"You mean he had taken an injection of antivenin before—"

"Exactly! We are dealing with a criminal of diabolical cleverness. Not only did he make all his plans to kill Miss Lamar with the greatest possible care, but he prepared against accident to himself. He was taking no chances. He inoculated himself with a protective serum. The needle of the syringe he used for that purpose he wiped upon the towel you discovered in the washroom."



XIX

AROUND THE CIRCLE

"I'd like to have another talk with Millard about that Fortune Features affair," remarked Kennedy.

It was the third morning after the death of Stella Lamar, and I found him half through breakfast when I rose. About him were piled moving picture and theatrical publications, daily, weekly, and monthly. At the moment I caught him he had spread wide open the inner page of the Daily Metropolitan, a sheet devoted almost exclusively to sports and the amusement fields.

I went around to glance over his shoulder. He pointed to a small item under a heading of recent plans and changes.

FORTUNE FEATURES

It is hinted to the Metropolitan Man-about-Broadway, by those in a position to know but who cannot yet be quoted, that Fortune Features is about to absorb a number of the largest competing companies. Rumors of great changes in the picture world have been current for some weeks, and this is the first reliable information to be given out. It is premature to give details of the new combination, or to mention names, but Fortune's strong backing in Wall Street will, we are assured, have a stabilizing influence at a critical time in the industry.

"Seems to be a lot of hot air," I said. "There isn't a name mentioned. Everything is 'by those in a position to know' and 'rumors of and 'it is premature to give details... or mention names'—Bah!"

Kennedy turned to places he had marked in several of the other periodicals and papers and I read them. Each was substantially to the effect of the note in the Metropolitan, although worded differently and generally printed as a news item.

"It's a feeler," Kennedy stated. "There's something back of it. When I caught the reference to Fortune Features in the Metropolitan, which I've been reading the past two days, I sent the boy out for every movie publication he could find. Result: half a dozen repetitions of the hint that Fortune is expanding. That means that it is deliberate publicity."

"You think this has something to do with the case?"

"I don't see the name of Manton mentioned once. Manton is a man who seeks the front page on every opportunity. You remember, of course, what Millard told us. Somehow I smell a rat. If nothing else develops for this morning, I want to find Millard and talk to him again. I believe Manton is up to something."

The sharp sound of our buzzer interrupted us. Because I was on my feet I went to the door. To my amazement I found it was Phelps who was our very early visitor.

"I hope you'll excuse this intrusion," he apologized to Kennedy, pushing by me with the rudeness which seemed inherent in the man. Then he recognized the sheet still spread out on the table. "I see you, too, have been reading the Metropolitan."

"Yes," Kennedy admitted, languidly. "There is nothing about Manton Pictures, though."

"Manton Pictures, hell!" In an instant Phelps exploded and the thin veneer of politeness was gone. With a shaking finger he pointed to the item which we had just been reading and discussing. "Did you read that! Did you see the reference to stabilizing the industry? STABILIZING! It ought to be spelled stable-izing, for they lead all the donkeys into stalls and tie them up and let them kick." He stopped momentarily for sheer inability to continue.

"I suppose you don't know Manton is behind this Fortune Features?"

"We were aware of the fact," Kennedy told him, quietly.

Phelps looked from one to the other of us keenly, as if he had thought to surprise us and had been disappointed. Nervously he began to pace the floor.

"Perhaps you know also that things haven't been going just right with Manton Pictures?"

Kennedy straightened. "When I asked you at Tarrytown, just two mornings ago, whether there was any trouble between Manton and yourself, you answered that there was not."

Phelps flushed. "I didn't want to air my financial difficulties with Manton. My—my answer was truthful, the way you meant your question. Manton and I have had no words, no quarrel, no disagreement of a personal nature."

"What is the trouble with Manton Pictures?"

"They are wasting money—throwing it right and left. That pay roll of theirs is preposterous. The waste itself is beyond belief—sometimes four and five cameras on a scene, retakes upon the slightest provocation, even sets rebuilt because some minor detail fails to suit the artistic eye of the director. Werner, supposed to watch all the companies, doesn't half know his business. In the making of a five-reel film they will overtake sometimes as much as eighty or a hundred thousand feet of negative in each of two cameras, when twenty thousand is enough overtake for anyone. That alone is five to ten thousand dollars for negative stock, almost fifteen with the sample print and developing. And the cost of stock, Mr. Kennedy, is the smallest item. All the extra length is long additional weeks of pay roll and overhead expense. I put an auditor and a film expert on the accounts of Stella Lamar's last picture. By their figures just sixty-three thousand dollars was absolutely thrown away."

Kennedy rose, folding the newspaper carefully while he collected his thoughts. "My dear Mr. Phelps," he stated, finally, "that is simply inefficiency. I doubt if it is anything criminal; certainly there is no connection with the death of Stella Lamar, my only interest in Manton Pictures."

Phelps was very grave. "There is every connection with the death of Stella Lamar!"

"What do you mean?"

"Mr. Kennedy, what I'm going to say to you I cannot substantiate in any court of law. Furthermore I'm laying myself open to action for libel, so I must not be quoted. But I want you to understand that Stella was inescapably wound up with all of Manton's financial schemes. His money maneuvers determined her social life, her friends—everything. She was then, as Enid Faye will be now, his come-on, his decoy. Manton has no scruples of any sort whatsoever. He is dishonest, tricky, a liar, and a cheat. If I could prove it I would tell him so, but he's too clever for me. I do know, however, that he pulled the strings which controlled every move Stella Lamar ever made. When she went to dinner with me it was because Manton wished her to do so. She was his right hand, his ears, almost his mouth. I have no doubt but that her death is the direct result of some business deal of his— something directly to do with his financial necessities."

Kennedy did not glance up. "Those are very serious assertions."

"It is a very serious matter. To show how unscrupulous Manton is, I can demonstrate that he is wrecking Manton Pictures deliberately. I've told you of the waste. Only the other day I came into the studio. Werner was putting up a great ballroom set. You saw it? No, that isn't the one I mean. I mean the first one. He had it all up; then some little thing didn't suit him. The next day I came in again. All struck—sloughed—every bit of it— and a new one started. 'Lloyd,' I said, 'just think a minute— that's my money!' What good did it do? He even began to alter the new set! He would only go on, encouraging Werner and the other directors to change their sets, to lose time in trying for foolish effects, anything at all to pad the expense.

"You think I am romancing, but you don't understand the film world," Phelps hurried on angrily. "Do you know that Enid Faye's contract is not with Manton Pictures but with Manton himself? That means he can take her away from me after he has made her a star with my money, at my expense. Why should he wreck Manton Pictures, you ask? Do you know that, bit by bit, on the pretext that he needed the funds for this that, or the other thing, Manton has sold out his entire interest in the company to me? It is all mine now. I tell you," complained Phelps, bitterly, "he couldn't seem to wreck the company fast enough. Why? Do you realize that there isn't room both for this older company and the new Fortune Features? Can you see that if Manton Pictures fails the Fortune company will be able to pick up the studio and all the equipment for a song? I'm the fall guy!

"And yet, Kennedy, all the efforts to wreck Manton Pictures would have failed, because 'The Black Terror' was too sure a success. In spite of all the expense, in spite of every effort to wreck it, that picture would have made half a million dollars. Stella's acting and Millard's story and script would have put it over. But now Millard's contract has expired and Manton has signed him for Fortune Features. Enid Faye will be made a star by 'The Black Terror,' but she is not now the drawing power to put it over big, as Stella would have done. I tell you, Kennedy, the death of Stella Lamar has completed the wreck of Manton Pictures!"

Kennedy jumped to his feet. There was a hard light in his eyes I had never seen before.

"Do I understand you, Phelps?" he snapped. "Are you accusing Manton of the cold-blooded murder of Stella Lamar to further various financial schemes?"

"Hardly!" Phelps blanched a bit, and I thought that a shudder swept over him. "I don't mean anything like that at all. What I mean is that Manton, in encouraging various sorts of dissension to wreck the company, inadvertently fanned the flames of passion of those about her, and it resulted in her death."

"Who killed her?"

"I don't know!" Grudgingly I admitted that this seemed open and frank.

"At Tarrytown," Kennedy went on, "I asked you if Stella Lamar was making any trouble, had threatened to quit Manton Pictures, and you said no. Is that still your answer?"

"For several months she had been up-stage. That was not because she wanted to make trouble, but because she had fallen in love. Manton found he couldn't handle her as he had previously."

"Do you suspect Manton of killing her himself?"

"I don't suspect anyone. That is an honest answer, Mr. Kennedy."

"What do you know about Fortune Features?"

The banker's eye fell on the newspaper again. "I know who this new Wall Street fellow is. I've got my scouts out working for me. It's Leigh—that's who it is. And I'm sore; I have a right to be."

Phelps was getting more and more heated, by the moment. "I tell you," he almost shouted, "this fake movie business is the modern gold-brick game, all right. Never again!"

I was amazed at the Machiavellian cleverness of Manton. Here he was, on one hand openly working with, yet secretly ruining, the Manton Pictures, while on the other hand he was covertly building up the competing Fortune Features.

Kennedy paced out into the little hall of our suite and back. He faced our visitor once more.

"Why did you come to see me this morning? At our last encounter, you may recall you said you wished you could throw me down the steps."

Phelps smiled ruefully. "That was a mistake. It was the way I felt, but—I'm sorry."

"Now—?"

Again the black clouds overshadowed the features of the financier. "Now I want you to bring out and prove the things I've told you." The malice showed in his voice plainly, for the first time. "I want it proved in court that Manton is a cheap crook. When you uncover the murderer of Stella Lamar you will find that the moral responsibility for her death traces right back to Lloyd Manton. I want him driven out of the business."

Kennedy's attitude changed. As he escorted Phelps to the door his tones were self-controlled. "Anything of the sort is beyond my province. My task is simply to find the person who killed the girl."

When the financier was gone I turned to Kennedy eagerly. "What do you think?" I asked.

"I think, more than ever, that we should investigate Fortune Features. Let's have a look at the telephone book."

There was no studio of the new corporation in New York, but we did find one listed in New Jersey, just across the river, at Fort Lee. We walked from the university down the hill and over to the ferry. On the other side a ten minutes' street-car ride took us to our destination.

Facing us was a huge barn-like structure set down in the midst of a little park. Inquiry for Manton brought no response whatever; rather, surprise that we should be asking for him here. However, I reflected that that was exactly what we ought to expect if Manton was working under cover. The girl at the telephone switchboard, smiling at Kennedy, had a suggestion.

"They're taking a storm exterior down in the meadow," she explained. "Perhaps he's down there, among the visitors—or perhaps there's someone who will be able to give you some information."

I glanced outdoors at the brightly shining sun. "A storm?" I repeated, incredulously.

"Yes," she smiled. "It might interest you to see it."

Following her directions, we started across country, leaving the studio building some distance behind and entering a broad expanse of meadow beyond a thin clump of trees. At the farther end we could see a large group of people and paraphernalia which, at the distance, we could not make out.

However, it was not long after we emerged from the trees that we perceived they were photographing squarely in our direction. Several began waving their arms wildly at us and shouting. Kennedy and I, understanding, turned and advanced, keeping well out of the camera lines, along the edge of the field.

"Hello!" a voice greeted us as we approached the group standing back and watching the action.

To my surprise it was Millard, with the spectators. I looked about for Manton but did not see him, nor anyone else we knew.

"It's a storm and cyclone," said Millard, his attention rather on what was going on than on us.

For the moment we said nothing.

The scene before us was indeed interesting. Half a dozen aeroplane engines and propellers had been set up outside the picture, and anchored securely in place. The wind from them was actually enough to knock a man down. Rain was furnished by hose playing water into the whirling blades, sending it driving into the scene with the fury of a tropical storm. Back of the propellers half a dozen men were frantically at work shoveling into them sand and dirt, creating an amazingly realistic cyclone.

We arrived in the midst of the cyclone scene, as the dust storm was ending and the torrential rain succeeded. For the storm, a miniature village had been constructed in break-away fashion, partially sawed through and tricked for the proper moment. Many objects were controlled by invisible wires, including an actual horse and buggy which seemed to be lifted bodily and carried away. Roofs flew off, walls crashed in, actors and actresses were knocked flat as some few of them failed to gain their cyclone cellars. Altogether, it was a storm of such efficiency as Nature herself could scarcely have furnished, and all staged with the streaming sunlight which made photography possible.

Pandemonium reigned. Cameras were grinding, directors were bawling through megaphones, all was calculated chaos. Yet it took only a glance to see that some marvelous effects were being caught here.

At the conclusion I recognized suddenly the little leading lady, It was the girl we had seen with Manton at Jacques' cabaret.

"That's the way to take a picture," exclaimed Millard. "Everything right—no expense spared. I came over to see it done. It's wonderful."

"Yes," was Kennedy's answer, "but it must be very costly."

"It is all of that," said Millard. "But what of it if the film makes a big clean-up? I wouldn't have missed this for anything. Werner never staged a spectacle like this in his life. Fortune Features are going to set a new mark in pictures."

"But can they keep it up? Have they the money?"

Millard shrugged his shoulders. "Manton Pictures can't—that's a cinch. Phelps has reached the end of his rope, I guess. I'm afraid the trouble with him was that he was thinking of too many things besides pictures."

There was no mistaking the meaning of the remark. Millard was still cut by Stella's desertion of him for the broker. I caught Kennedy's glance, but neither of us cared to refer to her.

"Where can I find Manton now?" Kennedy asked.

"Did you try his office at seven hundred and twenty-nine?" was Millard's suggestion.

"No; I wanted to see this place first."

"Well, you'll most likely find him there. I've got to go back to the city myself-some scenes of 'The Black Terror' to rewrite to fit Enid better. I'll motor you across the ferry and to the Subway."

At the Subway station, Millard left us and we proceeded to Manton's executive offices in a Seventh Avenue skyscraper, built for and devoted exclusively to the film business.

Manton's business suite was lavishly furnished, but not quite as ornate and garish as his apartment. The promoter himself welcomed us, for no matter how busy he was at any hour, he always seemed to have time to stop and chat.

"Well, how goes it?" He pushed over a box of expensive cigars. "Have you found out anything yet?"

"Had a visit from Phelps this morning." Kennedy plunged directly into the subject, watching the effect.

Manton did not betray anything except a quiet smile. "Poor old Phelps," he said. "I guess he's pretty uneasy. You know he has been speculating rather heavily in the market lately. There was a time when I thought Phelps had a bank roll in reserve. But it seems he has been playing the game on a shoestring, after all."

Manton casually flicked the ashes from his cigar into a highly polished cuspidor as he leaned over. "I happen to have learned that, to make his bluff good, he has been taking money from his brokerage business"—here he nodded sagely—"his customers' accounts you know. Leigh knows the inside of everybody's affairs in Wall Street. They say a quarter of a million is short, at least. To tell you the truth, poor Stella took a good deal of Phelps's money. Certainly his Manton Pictures holdings wouldn't leave him in the hole as deep as all that."

I reflected that this was quite the way of the world—first framing up something on a boob, then deprecating the ease with which he was trimmed.

Was it blackmail Stella had levied on Phelps, I wondered? Was she taking from him to give to Gordon? Had Stella broken him? Was she the real cause of the tangle in his affairs? And had Phelps in insane passion revenged himself on her?

In the conversation with Manton there was certainly no hint of answer to my queries. With all his ease, Manton was the true picture promoter. Seldom was he betrayed into a positive statement of his own. Always, when necessary, he gave as authority the name of some one else. But the effect was the same.

A hurried call of some sort took Manton away from us. Kennedy turned to me with a whimsical expression.

"Let's go!" he remarked.

"What do you make of it, offhand?" I asked, outside.

"We're going about in a circle," he remarked. "Strange group of people. Each apparently suspects the other."

"And, to cover himself, talks of the other fellow," I added.

Kennedy nodded, and we made our way toward the laboratory.

"I'll bet something happens before the day is over," I hazarded, for no reason in particular.

Kennedy shrugged.

As we went, I cast up in my mind the facts we had learned. The information from Manton was disconcerting, coming on top of what had already been revealed about the inner workings of his game. If Phelps had secretly "borrowed" from the trust accounts in his charge a quarter of a million or so, I saw that his situation must indeed be desperate. To what lengths he might go it was difficult to determine.



XX

THE BANQUET SCENE

For once I qualified as a prophet. We were hardly in our rooms when the telephone rang for Kennedy. It was District-Attorney Mackay, calling in from Tarrytown.

"My men have positive identification of one of the visitors to the Phelps home the night after the murder," he reported.

"Fine!" exclaimed Kennedy. "Who was it? How did you uncover his trail?"

"You remember that my deputy heard the sound of a departing automobile? Well, we have been questioning everyone. A citizen here, who returned home late at just about that hour, remembers seeing a taxicab tearing through the street at a reckless rate. He came in to see me this morning. He made a mental note of the license number at the time, and while nothing stuck with him but the last three figures, three sixes, he was sure that it was a Maroon taxi. We got busy and have located the driver who made the trip, from a stand at Thirty-third all the way out and back. On the return he dropped his fare at the man's apartment. The identification is positive."

"Who is it?" Kennedy became quite excited.

"Werner, the director."

"Werner!" in surprise. "What are you going to do?"

"Arrest him first—examine him afterward. I've sworn out the warrant already, and I'm going to start in by car just as soon as we hang up. I thought I'd phone you first in case you wanted to accompany me to the studio."

"We'll hurry there," Kennedy replied, "and meet you."

"Outside?"

"No, up on the floor."

"You'll be there fifteen minutes to half an hour ahead of me. I hope there is no way for anyone to tip him off so he can escape."

"We'll stop him if he attempts it."

"Good!"

The courtyard of the studio of Manton Pictures, Incorporated, was about the same as upon the occasions of our previous visits except that I detected a larger number of cars parked in the inclosure, including a number of very fine ones. Also, it seemed to me that there was a greater absence of life than usual, as though something of particular interest had taken everyone inside the buildings.

The gateman informed us that Werner was working the large studio. We made our way up through the structure containing the dressing rooms and found the proper door without difficulty. When we passed through under the big glass roof we grasped the reason for the lack of interest in the other departments about the quadrangle. Here everyone was gathered to watch the taking of the banquet scene for "The Black Terror." The huge set was illuminated brightly, and packed, thronged with people.

It was a marvelous set in many ways. To carry out the illusion of size and to aid in the deceptive additional length given by the mirrors at the farther end, Werner had decided against the usual one large table arranged horseshoe-like, but had substituted instead a great number of individual smaller tables, about which he had grouped the various guests. The placing of those nearest the mirrors had been so arranged as to give no double images, thus betraying the trick. The waiters, all the characters who walked about, were kept near the front toward the cameras for the same reason. It seemed as if the banquet hall was at least twice its actual size.

I saw that Millard had arrived ahead of us. Either the changing of the scenes in his script to fit Enid had not taken him very long or else the photographing of this particular bit of action had proved sufficiently fascinating to draw him away from his work. I wondered at first if he had come to the studio to use his office here, an infrequent happening, from Manton's account. Then I realized that he was in evening dress. Without doubt he planned to play a minor part in the banquet. His presence was no accident.

Then I picked out Manton himself from our point of observation in a quiet corner selected by Kennedy for that purpose. It was evident that the promoter had cleared up his business at the office rapidly since we had left him there to go to our quarters on the Heights and had departed immediately from the latter place so as to precede the District Attorney here.

Manton as well as Millard was in evening dress. A moment later I recognized Phelps, and he, too, wore his formal clothes. In an instant I grasped that Werner actually was saving money. Not only were these officials of the company present to help fill up the tables, but I was able now to pick out a number of the guests who were uneasy in their make-up and more or less out of place in full-dress attire. They certainly were not actors. One girl I definitely placed as the stenographer from Manton's waiting room at the studio; then other things caught my attention. I could not help but doubt the stories of waste told us by Phelps as I looked over the scene before me. The use of the mirrors to avoid building the full length of the floor did not seem to fit in with the theory that Manton and Werner were making every effort to wreck the company deliberately.

I watched the financier for several moments, but did not detect anything from his manner except that he seemed to feel ill at ease and awkward in make-up. I picked out Millard again and this time found him talking with Enid Faye and Gordon. Immediately I sensed a dramatic conflict, carefully suppressed, but having too many of the outward indications to fool anyone. In fact, a child would have observed that Lawrence Millard and the leading man needed little urging to engage in a scuffle then and there. Though Stella Lamar was dead, this was the heritage she had left. Her touch had embittered two men beyond the point of reconciliation—the husband who had been, and the husband who was to be. Of the two, Millard had far the better control of himself, however.

After a brief word or so Gordon left them. At once I could see the relief in the expressions of both the others. Again I wondered just what might be between these two. It was an easy familiarity which might have been as casual as it seemed to be, no more, or which might have been a mask for something far deeper and more enduring, the schooled outer cloak of an inner perfect understanding.

Werner was by far the busiest of those waiting in the stifling heat beneath the glass roof. He was in evening dress, prepared to take his own place before the camera, and in straight make-up, so that he looked nothing like the slain millionaire, the part he had played in the opening scenes. I saw that he was a master in the art of make-up. I was sure that he was more nervous than usual. It struck me that he needed the stimulus of the drug he used, although later I knew that he must have felt, intuitively, the coming of events which followed close upon the attempt to photograph the action.

As more of the people hurried up from the offices and around from the manuscript and other departments, very conscious of their formal attire, and as the regular players changed and adjusted the make-ups of these amateurs, the banquet took on the proportions of a real affair.

The members of the cast were placed at the table in the foreground. Enid, Gordon, Marilyn, and a fourth man were assigned locations; after which Werner proceeded to fill the seats in the rear. With the exception of Millard and Phelps, none of the inexperienced people were allowed to face the camera. Manton, whose features were familiar through published interviews in many publicity campaigns, was placed to one side opposite Phelps. Millard was given charge of a group containing a number of giddy extra girls in somewhat diaphanous costume, and seemed to be in his element.

The tables themselves were prepared with perfect taste. I could see that real food was being used, in order to achieve a greater degree of realism, for a caterer had set up a buffet some distance out of the scene from which to serve the courses called for in the script. Many of the dishes were being kept hot, the steam curling from beneath the covers in appetizing wisps. The wine, supposed to be champagne, was sparkling apple juice of the best quality, and I don't doubt but that before the days of prohibition Werner would have insisted upon the real fizz water. In details such as these the director was showing no economy.

"All ready now?" Werner called, stepping back to a place at a table which he had reserved for himself. "All set? Remember the action of the script?"

Instantly the buzz of conversation died and everyone turned to him.

"No, no, no!" he exclaimed in vexation. "Don't go dead on your feet. This is a banquet. You are having a good time. It's not a funeral! You were all in just the right state of mind before, and you don't have to stop and gape to listen to me. Keep right on talking and laughing. My voice will carry and you can hear without getting out of your parts."

I turned to Kennedy, to see how the picture-making struck him. I saw that he was watching the two girls at the forward table closely and so I faced about to follow his glance. Marilyn's face was red with anger, while Enid, calm and rather malicious, was ignoring her to devote all attention to Gordon. The leading man, bored and irritated, made no effort to conceal a heavy scowl. In the momentary interval following Werner's instructions, Marilyn lost all control of herself.