Part 5 (1/2)

Bernie proved to be as stupid a youth as any I had ever seen. He possessed frightened semi-liquid eyes and overshot ears and hair which might have been red beneath its acc.u.mulation of dust. Without doubt the boy had been coached by the electrician, because he began to affirm his innocence in similar fas.h.i.+on the moment he entered the door.

”I don't know nothin', honest I don't,” he pleaded. ”I was out in the hall, I was, and I didn't come in at all until the doc. came.”

”I suppose you were anxious to see if the cable was becoming hot,”

Kennedy suggested, gravely.

”That's it, sir! We was lookin' at it because it was on the varnish and the butler he says--”

”Where's the locket?” interrupted Kennedy. ”The one Miss Lamar wore in the scenes.”

”Oh!” in disdain, ”that thing!” With some effort Bernie fished it from the capacious depths of a pocket, disentangling the sharp corners from the torn and ragged lining of his coat.

I glanced at it as Kennedy turned it over and over in his hands, and saw that it was a palpable stage prop, with gla.s.s jewels of the cheapest sort. Concealing his disappointment, Kennedy dropped it into his own pocket, confronting the frightened Bernie once more.

”Do you know anything about Miss Lamar's death?”

”No! I don't know nothing, honest!”

”All right!” Kennedy turned to Mackay. ”Werner, the director.”

Of Stanley Werner I had heard a great deal, through interviews, character studies, and other press stuff in the photoplay journals and the Sunday newspaper film sections. Now I found him to be a high-strung individual, so extremely nervous that it seemed impossible for him to remain in one position in his chair or for him to keep his hands motionless for a single instant. Although he was of moderate build, with a fair suggestion of flesh, there were yet the marks of the artist and of the creative temperament in the fine sloping contours of his head and in his remarkably long fingers, which tapered to nails manicured immaculately. Kennedy seemed to pay particular attention to his eyes, which were dark, soft, and amazingly restless.

”Who was in the cast, Mr. Werner? What were they playing and just exactly what was each doing at the time of Miss Lamar's collapse?”

”Well”--Werner's eyes s.h.i.+fted to mine, then to Mackay's, and there was a subtle lack of ease in his manner which I was hardly prepared to cla.s.sify as yet--”Stella Lamar was playing the part of Stella Remsen, the heroine, and--uh, I see your a.s.sociate has the script--”

He paused, glancing at me again. When Kennedy said nothing, Werner went on, growing more and more nervous. ”Jack Gordon plays Jack Daring, the hero--the handsome young chap who runs down the steps and encounters the butler and the maid in the hall just outside the library--”

”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 subt.i.tle 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 s.h.i.+rley.

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.”