Part 39 (2/2)
Some time later Manton rushed in from the office. Kennedy maneuvered his way to the promoter's side and waited his chance to borrow that man's pocket knife under conditions when Manton would be the least apt to remember it. Then he made his way around to Mackay and I saw that both the acquisitions went into little envelopes of the sort used to take the blood smears after the explosion and falling gla.s.s.
Kennedy now seemed rather elated. Millard entered and he borrowed the scenario writer's knife in exactly the same fas.h.i.+on as the others. No one of the three men noticed his loss. I thought it lucky that all three carried the article, and tried to guess how far Kennedy intended to carry this little scheme.
Kauf's announcement of lunch gave me my answer. It seemed that there would be just half an hour and that the entire cast was expected to make s.h.i.+ft at McCann's rather than attempt to go to any better place at a greater distance. Immediately Kennedy turned to me.
”Hurry, Walter! Twenty minutes' quick work and then it's the laboratory and the solution of this mystery.”
With Mackay and the bag we stole to the dressing rooms, waiting until sure that everyone was downstairs. In Enid's chamber Kennedy glanced about carefully but swiftly. When nothing caught his attention he picked up her finger-nail file, gingerly, from the blunt end, slipping it into one of the little envelopes which Mackay held open. Thereupon the district attorney put his identifying mark upon the outside and we went to the next room.
It proved to be Gordon's. The general search was barren of result, but the dressing table yielded another finger-nail file, handled in the same manner as before. Then we entered Marilyn's room and left with the file from her dressing stand. In s.h.i.+rley's quarters, the last we visited, we were in greater luck, however. While Kennedy and Mackay abstracted the usual file, I discovered some bits of tissue paper used in shaving. There was caked soap left to dry just as it had been wiped from the razor. More, there was a blood stain of fair proportions.
”Here's your smear, Kennedy,” I exclaimed.
”Good! Fine!” He faced Mackay. ”Now I lack just one thing, a sample of the blood of Miss Loring.”
”Is that all?” The district attorney brightened. ”Let me try to get it!
I--I'll manage it in some way!”
”All right!” Kennedy took the bag. ”Explain your marks so I'll know--”
He stopped suddenly. ”No, don't tell me anything. I'll make my chemical a.n.a.lyses and microscopic examinations without knowing the ident.i.ty in the case either of the blood samples or the finger-nail files. If I obtain results by both methods, and they agree, I'll return armed with double-barreled evidence. Meanwhile, Mackay, you get a smear from Miss Loring and follow us to the laboratory. I'll coax McGroarty to drive us down, so you'll have your car and you can bring us back.”
The district attorney nodded. ”Me for McCann's,” he muttered. ”That's where she went to eat.” He rushed off eagerly.
Kennedy had no difficulty persuading McGroarty to put his particular studio car at our disposal without an order from Manton or from the director who had called him. In a very brief s.p.a.ce of time we were at the laboratory.
”You expect to find the blood of one of those people showing traces of the antivenin?” I grasped Kennedy's method of procedure, but wanted to make sure I understood it correctly. Already I was blocking out the detailed article for the Star, the big scoop which that paper should have as a result of my close a.s.sociation with Kennedy on the case. ”One of those samples should correspond, I suppose, to the trace of blood on the portieres?”
”Exactly!” He answered me rather absently, being concerned in setting out the apparatus he would need for a hasty series of tests.
”Will the antivenin show in the blood after four, perhaps five days?”
”I should say so, Walter. If it does not, by any chance, I will be able to identify the blood, but that is much more involved and tedious--a great deal more actual work.”
”I've got it straight, then. Now--” I paced up and down several times.
”The finger-nail files should show a trace of the itching salve? Is that correct, Craig?”
For a moment he didn't answer, as his mind was upon his paraphernalia.
Then he straightened. ”Hardly, Walter! The salve is soluble in water.
What I shall find, if anything, is some of the fibers of the towel. You see, a person's finger nails are great little collectors of bits of foreign matter, and anyone handling that rag is sure to show some infinitesimal trace for a long while afterward. If the person stealing the towel filed or cleaned his nails there will be evidence of the fibers on his pocket knife or finger-nail file. I impregnated the towel with that chemical so that I would be able to identify the fibers positively.”
”The use of the itching salve was unnecessary?”
A quizzical smile crept across Kennedy's face. ”Did you think I expected some one to go walking around the studio scratching his hands?
Did you imagine I thought the guilty party would betray his or her ident.i.ty in such childish fas.h.i.+on, after all the cleverness displayed in the crimes themselves?”
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