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Page 88
"Manton? Phelps?" suggested the district attorney.
"The promoter," Kennedy rejoined, "is the typical man of the
business world beneath the eccentricity of manner which seems to
cling to everyone in the picture field. Ordinarily his type,
thinking in millions of dollars and juggling nickel and dime
admissions or other routine of commercial detail is apart from
the finer subtle passions of life. When a business man commits
murder he generally uses a pistol because he is sure it is
efficient--he can see it work. The same applies to Phelps."
"Millard?" Mackay hesitated now to face the logic of Kennedy's
keen mind. "He was Stella Lamar's husband!"
"Millard is a scenario writer and so apt to have a brain
cluttered with all sorts of detail of crime and murder. At the
same time an author is so used to counterfeiting emotion in his
writings that he seldom takes things seriously. Life becomes a
joke and Millard in particular is a butterfly, concerned more
with the smiles of extra girls and the favor of Miss Faye than
the fate of the woman whose divorce from him was not yet
complete. A writer is the other extreme from the business man.
The creator of stories is essentially inefficient because he
tries to feel rather than reason. When an author commits murder
he sets a stage for his own benefit. He is careful to avoid
witnesses because they are inconvenient to dispose of. At the
same time he wants the victim to understand thoroughly what is
going to happen and so he is apt to accompany his crime with a
speech worded very carefully indeed. Then he may start with an
attempt to throttle a person and end up with a hatchet, or he may
plan to use a razor and at the end brain his quarry with a chair.
He lives too many lives to follow one through clearly--his own."
"How about Shirley?" I put in.
"At first glance Shirley and Gordon suggest themselves because
both murders were highly spectacular, and the actor, above
everything else, enjoys a big scene. After Werner's death, for
instance, Shirley literally strutted up and down in that set. He
was so full of the situation, so carried away by the drama of the
occasion, that he failed utterly to realize how suspicious his
conduct would seem to an observer. Unfortunately for our
hypotheses, the use of venom and toxin is too cold-bloodedly
efficient. The theatrical temperament must have emotion. An actor
cruel and vicious enough to strike down two people as Miss Lamar
and Werner were stricken, of sufficient dramatic make-up to
conceive of the manner of their deaths, would want to see them
writhe and suffer. He would select poisons equally rare and
effective, but those more slow and painful in their operation.
No, Walter, Shirley is not indicated by this method of reasoning.
The arrangement of the scenes for the murders was simply another
detail of efficiency, not due to a wish to be spectacular. The
crowd about in each case has added greatly to the difficulty of
investigation."
"Do you include Gordon in that?" Mackay asked.
"Yes, and in addition"--Kennedy smiled slightly--"I believe that
Gordon is rather stupid. For one thing, he has had several fights
in public, at the Goats Club and at the Midnight Fads and I
suppose elsewhere. That is not the clever rogue. Furthermore, he
had been speculating, not just now and then, but desperately,
doggedly. Clever men speculate, but scientific men never. Our
unknown criminal is both clever and intelligent."
"That brings you to the girls, then," Mackay remarked.
Kennedy's face clouded and I could see that he was troubled. "To
be honest in this one particular method of deduction," he stated,
"I must admit that both Miss Faye and Miss Loring are worthy of
suspicion. The fact of their rise in the film world, the
evidences of their popularity, is proof that they are clever.
Miss Loring, in my few brief moments of contact with her on two
occasions, showed a grasp of things and a quickness which
indicate to me that she possesses a rare order of intelligence
for a woman. As for Miss Faye"--again he hesitated--"one little
act of hers demonstrated intelligence. When Shirley was standing
guard in the set after Werner's death, and making a fool of
himself, Millard evidently wanted to get over and speak to him,
perhaps to tell him not to let me find him searching the scene as
though his life depended upon it, perhaps something else. But
Miss Faye stopped him. Unquestionably she saw that anyone taking
an interest in the remains of the banquet just then would become
an object of suspicion."
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