Meanwhile I had noticed a bit of by-play between Enid Faye and Lawrence Millard, the only others of our possible suspects about.  Enid first had caught my eye because she seemed to be pleading with the writer, trying to hold him.  I gathered from the look of disgust on Millard’s face that he wanted to get Shirley out of the set before Kennedy should observe the heavy man’s odd reaction to the tragedy.  While I had never seen Millard and Shirley together, so as to establish in mind the state of their feelings toward each other, this would seem to indicate that they were friendly.  Certainly Shirley was making a fool of himself.  Enid acted, I guessed, so as to prevent Millard’s interference, probably with the idea that Millard in some fashion might bring suspicion upon himself.  It struck me that Enid had a wholesome respect for Kennedy.

At any rate, Millard watched the little scene between Kennedy and Shirley with a quizzical expression.  As Shirley left he shrugged his shoulders, then he gave Enid’s cheeks a playful pinch each and started out after the heavy man in leisurely fashion.

Just about the same moment Kennedy called me to his side.

“Walter,” he pleaded, in a low voice, “will you hurry out to the dressing room where the doctor and I took Werner and get the blood smears and sample of the stomach contents?  I don’t want to leave this, because we must work fast and get all the data we need before the police arrive.  With perhaps a hundred people to question they’ll be apt to make a fine mess of everything.  This is an outlying precinct where we’ll draw the amateurs, you know.”

I saw that Mackay was helping him and so I left cheerfully, making my way as fast as I could toward the door through which both Shirley and Millard had passed.

In the hallway of the building devoted to dressing rooms I found that I did not know which one contained Werner’s body.  This corridor was familiar.  Here Kennedy and I had waited for Marilyn Loring and had witnessed the scene between Shirley and herself.  Now I did not even remember the location of her room.

At last, on a chance, I tried a door softly.  From within came whispered voices of deep intensity.  About to close it quickly, I realized suddenly that I recognized the speakers in spite of the whispers.  It was Marilyn and Shirley.  They were together.  Now I recollected the figured chintz which covered the wall and was to be seen through the crack made by the open door.  It was her room.  They had not heard my hand on the knob, nor the catch, did not know that anyone could eavesdrop.

“You see!” Her tones were the more vibrant “You waited!”

“I had to!”

“No!  I advised you to act at once.”

“I couldn’t!  I can’t even now!”

“All right!” Her tone became bitter.  “Go ahead, your own way.  But you must count the cost.  You may lose me again, Merle Shirley.”

“How do you mean?”