“I had several changes, Mr. Kennedy,” he replied.  “Part of the time I was Jack Daring, my regular role, but I was also the emissary who looked like Daring.  I went out each time because I make up the emissary to look hard.  Werner wanted to fool the people a little bit, but he didn’t want them to be positive the emissary was Daring, as would happen if both make-ups were the same.”

“Did you have any opportunity to talk to Miss Lamar?”

“None at all.  Werner was pushing us to the limit.”

“Did she seem her usual self at the start of the scene?”

“No, she seemed a little out of sorts.  But”—­Gordon hesitated—­ “something had been troubling her all day.  She hardly would talk to me in the car on the way out at all.  It didn’t strike me that she acted any different when she went in to take the scene.”

“You were engaged to her?”

“Yes.”  Gordon’s eyes caught the body on the davenport before him.  He glanced away hastily, taking his lower lip between his teeth.

“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?”