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Page 69
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!"
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