“About a thousand people have told me that,” she rejoined.  As she replied her smile took full possession of her features.  My idiotic repetition, entirely out of place, had served to restore her self-control to her.  “No, the public won’t stand for it.  They’ve been trained to know me as a vamp, and a vamp I remain.”

Facing Kennedy, she sobered.  “Merle Shirley and I were engaged,” she went on.  “That you know.  Then poor Stella made a fool of him.  She didn’t mean any harm, any real harm, but I don’t think she knew how deep he feels or just what a fiery temper he has.  Finally he found out that she was only playing with him.  He was perfectly terrible.  At first I thought he had killed her in a burst of passion.  I really thought that.”

“Yes?” Kennedy was interested.  He needed no pretense.

“When I asked him point blank he said he didn’t.”  A very wonderful light came into Marilyn Loring’s eyes at this instant.  “Whatever else he would do, Professor Kennedy, he wouldn’t lie to me; that I know.  He would tell me the truth because he knows I would shield him, no matter what the cost.”

“You simply want to assure me of his innocence?” suggested Kennedy.

“No!” There was a touch of scorn to the little negative.  “You don’t believe him guilty; you didn’t even when I did.”

“Then—­”

“But he knows something—­something about the murder of Stella—­ and he won’t tell me what it is.  I—­I’m afraid for him.  He isn’t sleeping at night, and I believe he’s watching somebody at the studio, and I know—­it’s the woman’s intuition, Professor”—­she emphasized the word, and paused—­“he’s in danger.  He’s in some great threatening danger!”

“What do you wish me to do, Miss Loring?”

“I want you to protect him and”—­slowly she colored, up and around and about her eyes as she always did, until she wasn’t unlike an Indian maid—­“and no one must know I’ve been up to see you.”

Gravely Kennedy bowed her to the door, assuring her he would do all that lay in his power.  When he returned I was ready for him.

“Now!” I exclaimed.  “Now say it isn’t Werner!  Here is Merle Shirley watching some one at the studio.  Isn’t that likely to be the director?  And if Shirley is watching Werner you have the explanation for the second intruder at Tarrytown last night.  Shirley is big enough and strong enough to have given the deputy a nice swift tussle.”

“A little tall, I’m afraid,” Kennedy remarked.

“You can’t go by the deputy’s impressions.  He didn’t really remember much of anything.  Certainly he was unobserving.”

“Perhaps you’re right, Walter.”  Kennedy smiled.  “But how about Gordon?” he added.  “There’s genuine motive—­money!”

“Or Shirley himself!” I attempted to be sarcastic.  “There’s genuine motive.  Stella made a fool out of him.”

“It wasn’t a murder of passion,” Kennedy reminded me.  “No one in a white heat of rage would study up on snake venoms.”