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Page 16
"Wasn't it his face in the French windows of the library at the
same time?" Kennedy asked. "Wasn't he the murderer of the father,
also?"
"No!" Werner smiled slightly, and there was an instant's flash of
the man's personality, winning and, it seemed to me, calculated
to inspire confidence. "That is the mystery; it is a mystery
plot. While the parts are played by Jack in both cases now, we
explain in a subtitle a little later that the criminal himself,
the 'Black Terror,' is a master of scientific impersonation, and
that he changes the faces of his emissaries by means of plastic
surgery and such scientific things, so that they look like the
characters against whom he wishes to throw suspicion. So while
Jack plays the part it is really an accomplice of the 'Black
Terror' who kills old Remsen."
Kennedy turned to me. "A new idea in the application of science
to crime!" he remarked, dryly. "Just suppose it were
practicable!"
"The 'Black Terror'" Werner continued, "is played by Merle
Shirley. You've heard of him, the greatest villain ever known to
the films? Then there's Marilyn Loring, the vampire, another good
trouper, too. She plays Zelda, old Remsen's ward, and it's a
question whether Zelda or Stella will be the Remsen heir. Marilyn
herself is an awfully nice girl, but, oh, how the fans hate her!"
The director chuckled. "No Millard story is ever complete without
a vamp and Marilyn's been eating them up. She's been with Manton
Pictures for nearly a year."
"You played the millionaire yourself?"
"Yes, I did old Remsen."
I realized suddenly, for the first time, that Werner was still in
the evening clothes he had donned for the part. On his face were
streaks in the little make-up that remained after his frequent
mopping of his features with his handkerchief. Too, his collar
was melted. I could imagine his discomfort.
"Did you have any business with Stella?" Kennedy asked, using the
stage term for the minor bits of action in the playing of a
scene. "Did you move at all while she was going through her
part?"
"No, Mr. Kennedy, I was 'dead man' in all the scenes."
"Show me how you lay, if you will."
Obligingly, Werner stretched out on the carpet, duplicating his
positions even to the exact manner in which he had placed his
hands and arms. Rather to my own distaste, Kennedy impressed me
to represent, I am sure in clumsy fashion, the various positions
of Stella Lamar. Most painstakingly Kennedy worked back from the
thirteenth scene to the first, referring to the script and
coaxing details of memory from the mind of Werner.
I grasped Kennedy's purpose almost at once. He was endeavoring to
reproduce the action which had been photographed, so as to
determine just how the poison had been administered. Of course he
made no reference to the tiny scratch and Mackay and I were
careful to give no hint of it to Werner. The director, however,
seemed most willing to assist us. I certainly felt no suspicion
of him now. As for Kennedy, his face was unrevealing.
"When the film in the camera is developed--" I suggested to
Kennedy, suddenly.
He silenced me with a gesture. "I haven't overlooked that, but
the scenes will be from one angle only and in a darkened set. I
can determine more this way."
Somewhat crestfallen, I continued my impersonation of the slain
star not altogether willingly. Soon Kennedy had completed his
reconstruction of the action.
"Who else entered the scene besides Gordon?" he asked.
"The butler and the maid, after the lights were flashed on."
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