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Page 100
"Now what?" I asked, as we drew away.
"Shirley's dressing room, and the studio floor and Mackay."
As we rather expected, the heavy man's quarters were deserted. I
thought that Kennedy would stop now to make a careful search, but
he seemed anxious to compare notes with the district attorney.
"Nothing here," reported Mackay.
"Shirley?"
"Hasn't been a sign of him."
I looked about the moment we arrived under the big glass roof.
"Marilyn Loring?" I inquired.
"She's been missing, too!" All at once Mackay grinned broadly.
"You know, either there's no efficiency in making moving pictures
at all, or these people have all gone more or less out of their
heads as the result of the two tragedies. Look!" He pointed.
"When you left me Phelps and Manton were stepping on each other's
toes, trying to help that new director and about half driving him
crazy; and now Millard seems to have figured out some new way of
handling the action and he's over in the thick of it. It's worse
than Bedlam, and better than a Chaplin comedy."
I was compelled to smile, although I knew that this was not
uncommon in picture studios. Manton, Phelps, Millard, and Kauf
were in the center of the group, all talking at once. Clustered
about I saw Enid and Gordon, both camera men, and a miniature mob
of extra people. But as I looked little Kauf seemed to come to
the end of his patience. In an instant or two he demonstrated
real generalship. Shutting up Manton and the banker and Millard
with a grin, but with sharp words and a quick gesture which
showed that he meant it, he called to the others gathered about,
clearing the set of all but Enid and Gordon. He sent the camera
men to their places; then confronted Phelps and Manton and the
scenario writer once more. We could not hear his words, but could
see that he was asserting himself, was forcing a decision so that
he could proceed with his work.
This seemed uninteresting to me. I remembered my success in my
visit to Werner's apartment, when I had essayed the role of
detective.
"Listen, Kennedy!" I suggested. "Suppose I go out by myself and
see if I can locate Shirley or Marilyn. Everyone else is right
here where you can--"
At that instant a deafening explosion shook the studio and every
building about the quadrangle, the sound echoing and re-echoing
with the sharpness of a terrific thunderclap.
Mixed with the reverberations, which were intensified by the high
arch of the studio roof, were the screams of women and the
frightened calls of men. Following immediately upon the first
roar were the muffled sounds of additional explosions, persisting
for a matter of ten to fifteen seconds.
With every detonation the floor beneath our feet trembled and
rocked. Several flats of scenery stacked against a wall at our
rear toppled forward and struck the floor with a resounding
whack, not unlike some gigantic slap-stick. One entire side of
the banquet set, luckily unoccupied, fell inward and I caught the
sound as the dainty gold chairs and fragile tables snapped and
were crushed as so much kindling wood.
Then--a fitting climax of destruction, withheld until this
moment--there followed the terrifying snap of steel from above.
An entire section of roof literally was popped from place, the
result of false stresses in the beams created by the explosion.
Upon the heads of the unlucky group in the center of the ballroom
set came a perfect hailstorm of broken and shattered bits of
heavy ground glass.
For an instant, an exceedingly brief instant, there was the
illusion of silence. The next moment the factory siren rose to a
shrill shriek, with a full head of steam behind it--the fire
call!
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