“Let’s pay our respects, socially,” suggested Kennedy, at my elbow.

I followed his glance and saw that Marilyn was seated alone, away from the others, apparently forlorn.  As we approached she drew her dressing robe about her, smiling.  With the smile her face lighted.  It was in the rare moments, just as her smile broke and spread, that she was pretty, strikingly so.

“Professor Kennedy,” she exclaimed.  “And Mr. Jameson, too!  Sit down and watch our new star.”

“What do you think of her?” Kennedy asked.

“Enid?” Marilyn’s expression became quizzical.  “I think she’s a clever girl.”

“You mean something by that, don’t you?” prompted Kennedy.

She sobered.  “No!  Honestly!” For an instant she studied him with a directness of gaze which I would have found disconcerting.  “Don’t tell me”—­she teased, again allowing the flash of a smile to illuminate her features—­“don’t tell me the renowned and celebrated Professor Kennedy suspects Enid Faye of murdering poor Stella to get her position.”

Kennedy laughed, turning to me.  “There’s the woman,” he remarked.  “We may deduce and analyze and catalogue all the facts of science, but”—­he spread his palms wide, expressly—­“it is as nothing against a woman’s intuition.”  Facing Marilyn again, he became frank.  “You caught my thought exactly, although it was not as bad as all that.  I simply wondered if Miss Faye might not have had something to do with the case.”

“Why?” I realized now that this Miss Loring, in addition to considerable skill as an actress, in addition to rare beauty on the screen, possessed a brain and the power to use it.  She followed Kennedy with greater ease than I, who knew him.

“Why?” she repeated.

“Perhaps it’s the intuition of the male,” he began, hesitatingly.

She shook her head.  “A man’s intuition is not dependable.  You see, a woman gets her intuition first and fits her facts to it, while a man takes a fact and then has an intuitive burst of inspiration as a result.  The woman puts her facts last and so is not thrown out when they’re wrong, as they usually are.  But the man—­I think, Professor Kennedy, that you have some facts about Enid stored away and that that’s why you put a double meaning in my remark.  Am I right?”

He smiled.  “I surrender, Miss Loring.  You are right.”

“What is the little fact?  Perhaps I can help you.”

“Miss Faye and Lawrence Millard seem to be old friends.”

“Oh!  Maybe you wonder at the contents of the sealed testimony in the case of Millard vs.  Millard?”

Kennedy nodded.

“Do you want to know what I think?” she asked.

“Please.”

“Well, I’ve worked with Stella nearly a year.  It’s my opinion she divorced Millard because he asked her to do so.”

“No, no!” I balked at that, interrupting.  “He could have obtained the divorce himself if he had wanted it.  Stella Lamar and Manton—­”