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Page 8
I picked out the electrician in the semi-gloom and with him his
fellow members of the technical staff needed in the taking of the
scenes in the library. The camera men I guessed, and a property
boy, and an assistant director. The last, at any event, of all
those in the huge room, had summoned up sufficient nonchalance to
bend his mind to details of his work. I saw that he was thumbing
a copy of the scenario, or detailed working manuscript of the
story, making notations in some kind of little book, and it was
that which enabled me to establish his identity at a glance.
In a different corner were the principals, two men and a girl
still in make-up, and with them the director, and Manton and
Phelps. Apart from everyone else, in a sort of social ostracism
common to the studios, the two five-dollar-a-day extras waited, a
butler and a maid, also in make-up. Oddly enough the total number
of these material witnesses to the tragedy was just thirteen, and
I wondered if they had noticed the fact.
Doctor Blake turned to Kennedy the moment we left the library.
"Do you feel it is necessary for me to remain any longer?" he
asked. He was apologetic, yet distinctly impatient. "I have
neglected several very important calls as it is."
Kennedy and Mackay both hastened to assure the physician that
they appreciated his co-operation and that they would spare him
as much notoriety and inconvenience as possible. Then the three
of us hurried across and to the little den which had been
converted into a dressing room for Stella's use.
Here were all the evidences of femininity, the little touches
which a woman can impart to the smallest corner in a few brief
moments of occupancy. It was a tiny alcove shut off from the rest
of the living room by heavy silk hangings, drawn now and pinned
together so as to assure her the privacy she wished. The one
window was high and fitted with leaded glass, but it was raised
and afforded the maximum of light. Stella's traveling bag
sprawled wide open, with many of her effects strewn about in
attractive disarray. Her suit, in which she had made the trip to
Tarrytown, was thrown carelessly over the back of a chair. Her
mirror was fastened up ruthlessly, upon a handsome woven Oriental
hanging, with a long hatpin. Powder was spilled upon the couch
cover, another Oriental fabric, and her little box of rouge lay
face downward on the floor.
As we pulled the curtains aside I caught the perfume which still
clung to her clothes in the library beyond. As Mackay sniffed
also, Kennedy smiled.
"Coty's Jacqueminot rose," he remarked.
With his usual swift and practiced certainty Kennedy then
inspected the extemporized dressing room. He seemed to satisfy
himself that no subtle attack had been made upon the girl here,
although I doubt that he had held any such supposition seriously
in the first place. In my association of several years with
Kennedy, following our first intimacy of college days, I had
learned that his success as a scientific detective was the result
wholly of his thoroughness of method. To watch him had become a
never-ending delight, even in the dull preliminary work of a case
as baffling as this one. Mackay also seemed content just to enact
the role of spectator.
Kennedy thumbed through the delicate intimacies of her traveling
bag with the keen, impersonal manner which always distinguished
him; then he found her beaded handbag and proceeded to rummage
through that. Suddenly he paused as he unfolded a piece of note
paper, and we gathered around to read:
MY DEAR STELLA: Have something very important to tell you. Will
you lunch Tuesday at the P. G. tearoom? LARRY.
"Tuesday--" murmured Kennedy. "And this is Monday. Who--who is
Larry, I wonder?"
I hastened to answer the question for him. It was my first
opportunity to display my knowledge of the picture players.
"Larry--that's Lawrence, Lawrence Millard!" I exclaimed. Then I
went on to tell him of the divorce and the circumstances
surrounding Stella's life as I knew it. "It--it looks," I
concluded, "as if they might have been on the point of composing
their differences, after all."
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