"Had you been having any trouble?"

"No--that is, nothing to amount to anything."

"But you had a quarrel or a misunderstanding."

His face flushed slowly. "She was to obtain her final decree early next week. I wanted her to marry me then at once. She refused. When I reproached her for not considering my wishes she pretended to be cool and began an elaborate flirtation with Merle Shirley."

"You say she only pretended to be cool?"

For a few moments Gordon hesitated. Then apparently his vanity loosened his tongue. He wished it to be understood that he had held the love of Stella to the last.

"Last night," he volunteered, "we made everything up and she was as affectionate as she ever had been. This morning she was cool, but I could tell it was pretense and so I let her alone."

"There has been no real trouble between you?"

The leading man met Kennedy's gaze squarely. "Not a bit!"

Kennedy turned to Mackay. "Mr. Shirley," he ordered.

By a miscalculation on the part of the little district attorney the heavy man entered the room a moment before Gordon left. They came face to face just within the portieres. There was no mistaking the hostility, the open hate, between the two men. Both Kennedy and I caught the glances.

Then Merle Shirley approached the fireplace, taking the chair indicated by Kennedy.

"I wasn't in any of the opening scenes," he explained. "I remained out in the car until I got wind of the excitement. By that time Stella was dead."

"Do you know anything of a quarrel between Miss Lamar and Gordon?"

Shirley rose, clenching his fists. For several moments he stood gazing down at the star with an expression on his face which I could not a.n.a.lyze. The pause gave me an opportunity to study him, however, and I noticed that while he had heavier features than Gordon, and was a larger man in every way, ideally endowed for heavy parts, there was yet a certain boyish freshness clinging to him in subtle fashion. He wore his clothes in a loose sort of way which suggested the West and the open, in contrast to Gordon's metropolitan sophistication and immaculate tailoring. He was every inch the man, and a splendid actor--I knew. Yet there was the touch of youth about him. He seemed incapable of a crime such as this, unless it was in anger, or as the result of some deep-running hidden pa.s.sion.

Now, whether he was angry or in the clutch of a broad disgust, I could not tell. Perhaps it was both. Very suddenly he wheeled upon Kennedy.

His voice became low and vibrant with feeling. Here was none of the steeled self-control of Manton, the deceptive outer mask which Werner used to cover his thoughts, the nonchalant, cold frankness of Gordon.

"Mr. Kennedy," the actor exclaimed, "I've been a fool, a fool!"

"How do you mean?"

"I mean that I allowed Stella to flatter my vanity and lead me into a flirtation which meant nothing at all to her. G.o.d!"

"You are responsible for the trouble between Miss Lamar and Gordon, then?"

"Never!" Shirley indicated the body of the star with a quick, pa.s.sionate sweep of his hand. Now I could not tell whether he was acting or in earnest. "She's responsible!" he exclaimed. "She's responsible for everything!"

"Her death--"

"No!" Shirley sobered suddenly, as if he had forgotten the mystery altogether. "I don't know anything at all about that, nor have I any idea unless--" But he checked himself rather than voice an empty suspicion.

"Just what do you mean, then?" Kennedy was sharp, impatient.

"She made a fool of me, and--and I was engaged to Marilyn Loring--"

"Were engaged? The engagement--"

"Marilyn broke it off last night and wouldn't listen to me, even though I came to my senses and saw what a fool I had been."

"Was"--Kennedy framed his question carefully--"was your infatuation for Miss Lamar of long duration?"

"Just a few weeks. I--I took her out to dinner and to the theater and--and that was all."

"I see!" Kennedy walked away, nodding to Mackay.

"Will you have Miss Loring next?" asked the district attorney.

Kennedy nodded.

Marilyn Loring was a surprise to me. Stella Lamar both on the screen and in real life was a beauty. In the films Marilyn was a beauty also, apparently of a cold, unfeeling type, but in the flesh she was disclosed as a person utterly different from all my preconceived notions. In the first place, she was not particularly attractive except when she smiled. Her coloring, hair frankly and naturally red, skin slightly mottled and pale, produced in photography the black hair and marble, white skin which distinguished her. But as I studied her, as she was now, before she had put on any make-up and while she was still dressed in a simple summer gown of organdie, she looked as though she might have stepped into the room from the main street of some mid-Western town. In repose she was shy, diffident in appearance. When she smiled, naturally, without holding the hard lines of her vampire roles, there was the slight suggestion of a dimple, and she was essentially girlish. When a trace of emotion or feeling came into her face the woman was evident. She might have been seventeen or thirty-seven.

To my surprise, Kennedy made no effort to elicit further information concerning the personal animosities of these people. Perhaps he felt it too much of an emotional maze to be straightened out in this preliminary investigation. When he found Marilyn had watched the taking of the scenes he compared her account with those which he had already obtained. Then he dismissed her.

In rapid succession, for he was impatient now to follow up other methods of investigation, he called in and examined the remaining possible witnesses of the tragedy. These were the two extra players--the butler and the maid, the a.s.sistant director, Phelps's house servants, and Emery Phelps himself. For some unknown reason he left the owner of the house to the very last.

"Why did you wish these scenes photographed out here?" he asked.

"Because I wanted to see my library in pictures."

"Were you watching the taking of the scenes?"

"Yes!"

"Will you describe just what happened?"

Phelps flushed. He was irritated and in no mood to humor us any more than necessary. A man of perhaps forty, with the portly flabbiness which often accompanies success in the financial markets, he was accustomed to obtaining rather than yielding obedience. A bachelor, he had built this house as a show place merely, according to the gossip among newspaper men, seldom living in it.

"Haven't about a dozen people described it for you already?" he asked, distinctly petulant.

Kennedy smiled. "Did you notice anything particularly out of the way, anything which might be a clue to the manner in which Miss Lamar met her death?"

Phelps's att.i.tude became frankly malicious. "If I had, or if any of us had, we wouldn't have found it necessary to send for Prof. Craig Kennedy, or"--turning to me--"the representative of the New York Star."

Kennedy, undisturbed, walked to the side of Mackay. "I'll leave Mr.

Phelps and his house in your care," he remarked, in a low voice.

Mackay grinned. I saw that the district attorney had little love for the owner of this particular estate in Tarrytown.

Kennedy led the way into the living room. Immediately the various people he had questioned cl.u.s.tered up with varying degrees of anxiety.

Had the mystery been solved?

He gave them no satisfaction, but singled out Manton, who seemed eager to get away.