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Page 119
The promoter had no more to say.
"Now what connection has the towel with the case? Simply this!"
Kennedy picked up one of the tiny pieces he had cut out of it.
"The poison used to kill Miss Lamar was snake venom." He paused
while a little murmur went through his audience, the first sound
I had detected. "These spots on the towel are antivenin. The
venom itself is exceedingly dangerous to handle. The guilty man--
or woman--took no chances, but inoculated himself with antivenin,
protection against any chance action of the poison. The marks on
the towel are the marks made by the needle used by that person in
taking the inoculation.
"If you will follow me closely you will understand the
significance of this. Miss Lamar was killed by the scratch of a
needle secreted in the portieres through which she came, playing
the scene in Mr. Phelps's library. That I will prove to you when
I show you the film. The night following her death some one broke
into the room there at Tarrytown and removed the needle. In
removing the needle that person scratched himself, or herself. On
the portieres I found some tiny spots of blood." Kennedy paused
to hold up the bit of heavy silk. "I analyzed them and found that
the blood serum had changed in character very subtly. I
demonstrated that the blood of the person who took the needle
contained antivenin, and if necessary I can prove the blood to
come from the same individual who wiped the needle on the towel
in the studio."
Kennedy pressed the button before him, twice. "Now I want you to
see, actually see Miss Lamar meet her death."
The lights went out, then the picture flashed on the screen
before us, revealing the gloom and mystery of the opening scene
of "The Black Terror." We saw the play of the flashlight, finally
the fingers and next the arm of Stella as she parted the
curtains. In the close-up we witnessed the repetition of her
appearance, since the film was simply spliced together, not
"matched" or trimmed. Following came all the action down to the
point where she collapsed over the figure of Werner on the floor.
Before the camera man stopped, Manton rushed in and was
photographed bending over her.
Kennedy's voice was dramatically tense, for not one of us but had
been profoundly affected by the reproduction of the tragedy.
"Did you notice the terror in her face when she cried out? Was
that terror, really? If you were watching, you would have
detected a slight flinch as she brushed her arm up against the
silk. For just a moment she was not acting. It was pain, not
pretended terror, which made her scream. The devilish feature to
this whole plot was the care taken to cover just that thing-her
inevitable exclamation. Now watch closely as I signal the
operator to run the same action from the other camera. Notice the
gradual effect of the poison, how she forces herself to keep
going without realization of the fact that death is at hand, how
she collapses finally through sheer inability to maintain her
control of herself a moment longer."
During the running of the second piece the tense silence in the
room was ghastly. Who was the guilty person? Who possessed such
amazing callousness that an exhibition of this sort brought no
outcry?
"Now"--Kennedy glanced around in the dim light, switched on
between the running of the different strips--"I'm going to
project the banquet scenes and show you the manner of Werner's
death."
Scene after scene of the banquet flashed before us. Here the
cutter had not been sure just what Kennedy wanted and had spliced
up everything. We saw the marvelous direction of Werner, who
little realized that it was to be his last few moments on earth,
and we grasped the beauty and illusion of the set caused by the
mirrors and the man's skill in placing his people. Yet there was
not a sound, because we knew that this was a tragedy, a grim
episode in which there was no human justification whatever.
Werner rose at his place. He proposed his toast. He drank the
contents of his glass. Then, his expression changed to wonderment
and from that to fear and realization, and he dropped to the
floor.
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