The Film Mystery Read online

  VII

  ENID FAYE

  Behind Werner was the assistant director, to whom I had given littleattention at the time of the examination of the various people in thePhelps library. Even now he impressed me as one of those rare,unobtrusive types of individuals who seem, in spite of the possessionof genuine ability and often a great deal of efficiency, to lack,nevertheless, any outstanding personal characteristics. As a class theyare human machines, to be neither liked nor disliked, never intrudingand yet always on hand when needed.

  "This is Carey Drexel, my assistant," Werner stated, forgetting thatKennedy had questioned him at Tarrytown, and so knew him. "There are afew people I simply must see and I'm tied up, therefore, for perhapshalf an hour; and Manton's downstairs still trying to locate Millardfor you. But Carey's at your disposal, Mr. Kennedy, to show you thearrangement of the studio and to cooperate with you in any way if youthink there's any possible chance of finding anything to bear uponStella's death here."

  If Werner was the man who had used the towel, I could see that he wasan actor and a cool villain. Of course no one could know, yet, that wehad discovered it, but the very nonchalance with which it had beenthrown into the basket was a mark of the nerve of the guilty man. Itwas more than carelessness. Nothing about the crime had been haphazard.

  Kennedy thanked Werner and asked to be shown the studio floor used inthe making of "The Black Terror." Carey led the way, explaining thatthere were actually two studios, one at each end of the quadrangle,connected on both sides by the other buildings; offices and dressingrooms and the costume and property departments at the side facing thestreet; technical laboratories and all the detail of film manufacturein a four-story structure to the rear. Most of Werner's own picture wasbeing made in the so-called big studio, reached through the dressingrooms from the end of the corridor where we stood.

  I had been in film plants before, but when we entered the hugeglass-roofed inclosure beyond the long hallway of dressing rooms I wasimpressed by the fact that here was a place of genuine magnitude, withmore life and bustle than anything I had ever imagined. The glass had,however, been painted over, because of late years dark stages, with theeven quality of artificial light, had come into vogue in the Mantonstudios in place of stages lighted by the uneven and undependablesunlight.

  The two big sets mentioned by Manton, a banquet hall and a ballroom,were being erected simultaneously. Carpenters were at work sawing andhammering. Werner's technical director was shouting at a group of stagehands putting a massive mirror in position at the end of the banquethall, a clever device to give the room the appearance of at leastdouble its actual length. In one corner several electricians and acamera man were experimenting with a strange-looking bank of lights. Inthe ballroom set, where the flats or walls were all in place, anunexcited paperhanger was busy with the paraphernalia of his craft,somehow looking out of his element in this reign of pandemonium.

  It seemed hard indeed to believe that any sort of order or system laybehind this heterogeneous activity, and the incident which took CareyDrexel away from us only added to the wonder in my mind, a wonder thatanything tangible and definite could be accomplished.

  "Oh, Carey!" Another assistant director, or perhaps he was only aproperty boy, rushed up frantically the moment he saw Drexel. "MissMiller's on a rampage because the grand piano you promised to get forher isn't at her apartment yet, and Bessie Terry's in tears because sheleft her parrot here overnight, as you suggested, and some one taughtthe bird to swear." The intruder, a youth of perhaps eighteen, was indeadly earnest. "For the love of Mike, Carey," he went on, "tell me howto unteach that screeching thing of Bessie's, or we won't get a scenetoday."

  Carey Drexel looked at Kennedy helplessly.

  With all these troubles, how could he pilot us about? Later we learnedthat this was nothing new, once one gets on the inside of picturemaking. Props., or properties, particularly the living ones, causealmost as much disturbance as the temperamental notions of the actorsand actresses. Sometimes it is a question which may become the mostridiculous.

  Kennedy seemed to be satisfied with his preliminary visit to thisstudio floor.

  "We can get back to Manton's office alone," he told Drexel. "We willjust keep on circling the quadrangle."

  Relieved, the assistant director pointed to the door of themanufacturing building, as the four-story structure in the rear wascalled. Then he bustled off with the other youth, quite unruffledhimself.

  When we passed through the heavy steel fire door we found ourselves inanother long hallway of fire-brick and reinforced-concreteconstruction. Unquestionably there was no danger of a seriousconflagration in any part of Manton's plant, despite the highinflammability of the film itself, of the flimsy stage sets, ofpractically everything used in picture manufacture.

  Immediately we entered this building I detected a peculiar odor, atwhich I sniffed eagerly. I was reminded of the burnt-almond odor of thecyanides. Was this another clue?

  I turned to Kennedy but he smiled, anticipating me.

  "Banana oil, Walter," he explained, with rather a superior manner. "Iimagine it's used a great deal in this industry. Anyway"--achuckle--"don't expect chance to deliver clues to you in wholesalequantities. You have done very well for today."

  A sudden whirring noise, from an open door down the hall, attracted us,and we paused. This, I guessed, was a cutting room. There were a numberof steel tables, with high steel chairs. At the walls were cabinets ofthe same material. Each table had two winding arrangements, a handle atthe operator's right hand and one at his left, so that he could wind orunwind film from one reel to another, passing it forward or backward infront of his eyes.

  There were girls at the tables except nearest the hall. Here a manstopped now and then to glance at the ribbon of film, or to cut out asection, dropping the discarded piece into a fireproof can and splicingthe two ends of the main strip together again with liquid film cementfrom a small bottle. He looked up as he sensed our presence.

  "Isn't it hell?" he remarked, in friendly fashion. "I've got to cut allof Stella Lamar out of 'The Black Terror,' so they can duplicate herscenes with another star, and meanwhile we had half the negativematched and marked for colors and spliced in rolls, all ready for theprinter."

  Without waiting for an answer from us, or expecting one, he gave one ofhis reels a vicious spin, producing the whirring noise; then graspingboth reels between his fingers and bringing them to an abrupt stop, sothat I wondered he did not burn himself from the friction, he locatedthe next piece to be eliminated.

  We followed the hall into the smaller studio and there found a comedycompany at work. Without stopping to watch the players, ghastly underthe light from the Cooper-Hewitts and Kliegel arcs, we found aprecarious way back of the set around and under stage braces, to thecovered bridge leading once more to the corridor outside Manton'soffice.

  Now the girl was absent from her place in the little waiting room.Manton's door stood open. Without ceremony Kennedy led the way in anddropped down at the side of the promoter's huge mahogany desk.

  "I'm tired, Walter," he said. "Furthermore, I think this picture worldof yours is a bedlam. We face a hard task."

  "How do you propose to go about things?" I asked.

  "I'm afraid this is a case which will have to be approached entirelythrough psychological reactions. You and I will have to become familiarwith the studio and home life of all the long list of possiblesuspects. I shall analyze the body fluids of the deceased and learn thecause of death, and I will find out what it is on the towel,but"--sighing--"there are so many different ramifications, so many--"

  Suddenly his eye caught the corner of a piece of paper slid under theglass of Manton's desk. He pulled it out; then handed it to me.

  MEMORANDUM FOR MR. MANTON

  Have learned Enid Faye is out of Pentangle and can be engaged for abouttwelve hundred if you act quickly. Why not cancel Lamar contract after"Black Terror," if she continues up-stage?

  WERNER.

/>   "I caught the name Lamar," Kennedy explained. Then an expression ofgratification crept into his face. "Miss Lamar was 'up-stage'?" hemused. "That's a theatrical word for cussedness, isn't it?"

  I paid little attention. The name of Enid Faye had attracted my owninterest. This was the little dare-devil who had breezed into thePacific Coast film colony and had swept everything before her. Not onlyhad she displayed amazing nerve for her sex and size, but she had beenpretty and beautifully formed, had been as much at home in a ballroomas in an Annette Kellermann bathing suit. In less than six months shehad learned to act and had been brought to the Eastern studios ofPentangle. Now it was possible that she would be captured by Manton,would be blazoned all over the country by that gentleman, would becomeanother star of his making.

  "Let's go, Walter!" Kennedy, impatient, rose. I noticed that he foldedthe little note, slipping it into his pocket.

  Out in the hall voices came to us from Werner's office. After somelittle hesitation Kennedy opened the door unceremoniously. At thetable, littered with blue prints and drawings and colored plates offamous home interiors, was the director. With him was Manton. Seatedfacing them, in rare good humor, was a fascinating little lady.

  The promoter rose. "Professor Kennedy, I want you to meet Miss EnidFaye, one of our real comers. And Mr. Jameson, Enid, of the New YorkStar."

  She acknowledged the introduction to Kennedy gracefully. Then sheturned, rising, and rushed to me most effusively, leading me to aleather-covered couch and pulling me to a seat beside her.

  "Mr. Jameson," she purred. "I just love newspaper men; I think they'reperfectly wonderful always. Tell me, do you like little Enid?"

  I nodded, confused and unhappy, and as red as a schoolboy.

  "That's fine," she went on, in the best modulated and most wonderfulvoice I thought I had ever heard. "I like you and I know we're going tobe the best of friends. Tell me, what's your first name?"

  "Now, Enid," reproved Manton, in fatherly tones, "you'll have plenty oftime to vamp your publicity later. For the present, please listen tome. We're talking business."

  "Shoot every hair of this old gray head!" she directed, pertly.

  She did not move away, however, I could feel the warmth of her, couldcatch the delicacy of the perfume she used. I noted the play of herslender fingers, the trimness of her ankle, the piquancy of a noserevealed to me in profile--and nothing else.

  "This is your chance, Enid," Manton continued, earnestly and rathereagerly. "You know the film will be the most talked about one thisyear. We've got the Merritt papers lined up and that's the bestadvertising in the world. Everyone will know you took Stella's place,and--well, you'll step right in."

  She studied the tips of her boots, stretching boyish limbs straight infront of her, then smoothing the soft folds of her skirt.

  "Talk money to me, Mr. Man!" she exclaimed. "Talk the shekels, thegolden shekels."

  "We're broke," he protested. "A thousand--"

  She shook her head.

  Werner broke in, suddenly anxious. "Don't pass up the chance, Enid," hepleaded. "What can Pentangle do for you? And I've always wanted todirect you again--"

  "I'll make it twelve hundred," Manton interrupted, "if you'll make thecontract personally with me. Then if Manton Pictures--"

  "All right!" She jumped to her feet, extending a hand straight forwardto each, the right to Manton, the left to Werner. "You're on!"

  I thought that I was forgotten. A wave of jealousy swept over me. Afterall, she simply wanted me to write her up. In a daze I heard Manton.

  "You're a wise little girl, Enid," he told her. "Play the game rightwith me and you'll climb high. The sky's the limit, now. I'll makeyou--make you big!"

  With a full, warm smile she swung around to me and I knew I was notbeing slighted, after all.

  "That's what Longfellow said, isn't it, Mr. Jameson?"

  "What?" My heart began to beat like a trip hammer.

  "Excelsior! Excelsior! It packs them in!"

  She laughed so infectiously that we all joined in. Then Manton turnedto Kennedy.

  "I've located Millard for you. He's to meet us at my apartment atseven. It's six-thirty now. And you, Enid"--facing her--"if you'llcome, too, there's another man I want you to meet, and Larry, ofcourse, will be there--"

  Enid studied Kennedy. He was hesitating as though not sure whether toaccompany Manton or not. I never did learn what other course of actionhad occurred to him.

  But I did notice that the little star, with her pert, upturned face,seemed more anxious to have Kennedy go along than she was to meet themysterious individual mentioned without name by Manton. For an instantshe was on the point of addressing him, flippantly, no doubt. Then, Ithink she was rather awed at Craig's reputation.

  All at once she shrugged her shoulders and turned to me, plucking mysleeve, her expression brightening irresistibly. "You'll come,too"--dimpling--"Jamie!"