“First of all we must keep an eye out for any person showing signs of the itching concoction.  We must observe anyone with noticeably clean hands.  Principally, however, another thing worries me.”

“What’s that, Mr. Kennedy?” asked Mackay.

“Walter and I found a cigarette case belonging to Jack Gordon in the basement; also a butt smoked three-quarters of the way down and left directly in the negative room.  The fire doors between the different film vaults, which are arranged like the safety compartments in a ship, were all open.  I want to know why Gordon was down there and—­well, I seem to sense something wrong.”

“Good heavens!  Craig,” I interposed.  “You don’t attach any importance to the fact that those doors were open!”

“Walter, in a case of real mystery the slightest derangement of matters of ordinary routine is a cause for suspicion.”

I had no answer, and as we re-entered the studio I devoted my attention to the various people we had tabulated as possible suspects, noticing that Kennedy and Mackay did likewise.

Jack Gordon was in the ballroom scene in make-up.  Kauf still was concerned with technical details of the set and lighting, and, although the cameras were set up, they were not in proper place, nor was either camera man in evidence.  With Gordon was Enid.  From a distance they seemed to be engaged in an argument of real magnitude.  There was no mistaking the dislike on the part of each for the other.

Marilyn was the most uneasy of all of the principals.  She was pacing up and down, glancing about in frank distress of mind.  I looked at her hands and saw that she had crushed a tube of grease paint in her nervousness.  Not only her fingers were soiled, but there were streaks on her arms where she had smeared herself unconsciously.  As we watched she left the studio, hurrying out the door without a backward glance.  Marilyn, at least, showed no indications of the salve, nor of painfully recent acquaintance with water.

Both Manton and Phelps were in evidence, decidedly so, I imagined, from, the viewpoint of poor Kauf.  Manton, at the heels of his new director, was doing all he could to help.  Phelps, following Manton about, seemed to be urging haste upon the promoter.  The result was far from advantageous to picture making; it was concentrated distraction.

Millard was poring over the manuscript, perched upon a chair the wrong way so that its back would serve as a desk, engaged busily in making changes here and there in the pages with a pencil.  Like any author, it was never too late for minor improvements and suggestions.  I don’t doubt but that if Manton had permitted it, Millard would have been quite apt to interrupt a scene in the taking in order to add some little touch occurring to him as his action sprang to life in the interpretation of players and director.  At any rate, his hands seemed more clean than those of either Manton or Phelps, proving nothing because he was at a task not so apt to bring him into contact with dirt.