Kennedy glanced about curiously.  “The negative of that snake picture is here, you said?”

Manton went to a little desk where there was a card index.  Thumbing through the records, he found the number and led us to the proper place in the rack.  In the box were only two rolls of negative, both were large.

“This was a split reel,” the promoter began.  “It was approximately four hundred feet and we used it to fill out a short comedy, a release we had years ago, a reel the first part of which was educational and the last two-thirds or so a roaring slap-stick.  We never made money on it.

“But this stuff was mighty good, Mr. Kennedy.  We practically wrote a scenario for those reptiles.  Doctor Nagoya was down himself and for the better part of a day it wasn’t possible to get a woman in the studio, for fear a rattler or something might get loose.”

“Were there rattlers in the film?”

“Altogether, I think.  The little Jap was interesting, too.  Between scenes he told us all about the reptiles, and how their poison—­” Manton checked himself, confused.  Was it because the thought of poison reminded him of the two deaths so close to him, or was it from some more potent twinge of conscience?  “You’ll see it all in the film,” he finished, lamely.

“I may keep these for a little bit?” Kennedy asked.

“Of course!  I can have the two rolls printed and developed and dry sometime this afternoon, if you wish.”

“No, this will do very well.”

Kennedy slipped a roll in each pocket, straining the cloth to get them in.  Manton opened a book on the little table, making an entry of the delivery of the rolls and adding his own initials.

“I have to be very careful to avoid the loss of negative,” he told us.  “Nothing can be taken out of here except on my own personal order.”

I thought that Manton was very frank and accommodating.  Surely he had made no effort to conceal his knowledge of this film made with Doctor Nagoya, and he had even mentioned the poison of the rattlesnakes.  Though it had confused him for a brief moment, that had not struck me as a very decisive indication of guilty knowledge.  After all, no one knew of the use of crotalin to kill Stella Lamar except the murderer himself, and Kennedy and those of us in his confidence.  The murderer might not guess that Kennedy had identified the venom.  Yet if Manton were that man he had covered his feelings wonderfully in telling us about the film.

My thoughts strayed to the towel upstairs.  Had an attempt been made yet to steal it from the locker?  It seemed to me that we were losing too much time down here if we hoped to notice anyone with itching hands.

I realized that Kennedy had been very clever in including all our suspects in hearing at the time he revealed the importance of the clue.  Of the original nine listed by Mackay, Werner was dead and Mrs. Manton had never entered the case.  Enid we had assumed to be the mysterious woman in Millard’s divorce, however, and the other six had all been upon the floor in contact with Kennedy.  First there was Marilyn, the woman.  Then the five men in order had displayed a lively interest in the towel—­Shirley, Gordon, Millard, Phelps, and Manton.