Part 25 (1/2)
Phelps looked from one to the other of us keenly, as if he had thought to surprise us and had been disappointed. Nervously he began to pace the floor.
”Perhaps you know also that things haven't been going just right with Manton Pictures?”
Kennedy straightened. ”When I asked you at Tarrytown, just two mornings ago, whether there was any trouble between Manton and yourself, you answered that there was not.”
Phelps flushed. ”I didn't want to air my financial difficulties with Manton. My--my answer was truthful, the way you meant your question.
Manton and I have had no words, no quarrel, no disagreement of a personal nature.”
”What is the trouble with Manton Pictures?”
”They are wasting money--throwing it right and left. That pay roll of theirs is preposterous. The waste itself is beyond belief--sometimes four and five cameras on a scene, retakes upon the slightest provocation, even sets rebuilt because some minor detail fails to suit the artistic eye of the director. Werner, supposed to watch all the companies, doesn't half know his business. In the making of a five-reel film they will overtake sometimes as much as eighty or a hundred thousand feet of negative in each of two cameras, when twenty thousand is enough overtake for anyone. That alone is five to ten thousand dollars for negative stock, almost fifteen with the sample print and developing. And the cost of stock, Mr. Kennedy, is the smallest item.
All the extra length is long additional weeks of pay roll and overhead expense. I put an auditor and a film expert on the accounts of Stella Lamar's last picture. By their figures just sixty-three thousand dollars was absolutely thrown away.”
Kennedy rose, folding the newspaper carefully while he collected his thoughts. ”My dear Mr. Phelps,” he stated, finally, ”that is simply inefficiency. I doubt if it is anything criminal; certainly there is no connection with the death of Stella Lamar, my only interest in Manton Pictures.”
Phelps was very grave. ”There is every connection with the death of Stella Lamar!”
”What do you mean?”
”Mr. Kennedy, what I'm going to say to you I cannot substantiate in any court of law. Furthermore I'm laying myself open to action for libel, so I must not be quoted. But I want you to understand that Stella was inescapably wound up with all of Manton's financial schemes. His money maneuvers determined her social life, her friends--everything. She was then, as Enid Faye will be now, his come-on, his decoy. Manton has no scruples of any sort whatsoever. He is dishonest, tricky, a liar, and a cheat. If I could prove it I would tell him so, but he's too clever for me. I do know, however, that he pulled the strings which controlled every move Stella Lamar ever made. When she went to dinner with me it was because Manton wished her to do so. She was his right hand, his ears, almost his mouth. I have no doubt but that her death is the direct result of some business deal of his--something directly to do with his financial necessities.”
Kennedy did not glance up. ”Those are very serious a.s.sertions.”
”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 pa.s.sion 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?”