I glanced at Phelps.  He raised his head slowly, his expression lifting at the thought that production was to continue without interruption.  In another moment, however, there was a change in his face.  His eyes sought Manton and hardened.  His mouth tightened.  Hate, a deep, unreasoning hate, settled into his features.

Kennedy, pausing just long enough to observe the promoter’s appointment of Kauf to Werner’s position, continued on toward the set.  Now as I looked about I saw that Jack Gordon was missing, as well as Marilyn Loring.  Presumably they had gone to their dressing rooms.  All the other actors and actresses were waiting, ill at ease, wondering at the outcome of the tragedy.

Suddenly Kennedy stopped and I grasped that it was the peculiar actions of Merle Shirley which had halted him.

The heavy man was the only one of the company actually in the fabricated banquet hall itself.  Clinging to him still were the grim flowing robes of the Black Terror.  As though he were some old-fashioned tragedian, he was pacing up and down, hands behind his back, head bowed, eyes on the floor.  More, he was mumbling to himself.  It was evident, however, that it was neither a pose nor mental aberration.  Shirley was searching for something, out in the open, without attempt at concealment, swearing softly at his lack of success.

Kennedy pushed forward.  “Did you lose something, Mr. Shirley?”

“No!” The heavy man straightened.  As he drew himself up in his sinister garb I thought again of the cheap actors of a day when moving pictures had yet to pre-empt the field of the lurid melodrama.  It seemed to me that Merle Shirley was overacting, that it was impossible for him to be so wrought up over the slaying of a man who, after all, was only his director, certainly not a close nor an intimate relationship.

“Mr. Kennedy,” he stated, ponderously, “there has been a second death, and at the hand which struck down Stella Lamar in Tarrytown.  Somewhere in this banquet hall interior there is a clue to the murderer.  I have kept a careful watch so that nothing might be disturbed.”

“Do you suspect anyone?” Kennedy asked.  Shirley glanced away and we knew he was lying.  “No, not definitely.”

“Who has been in the set since I left with the doctor?”

“No one except myself, that is”—­Shirley wanted to make it clear—­ “no one has had any opportunity to hide or move or take or change a thing, because I have been right here all the time.”

“I see!  Thanks, and”—­Kennedy seemed genuinely apologetic—­“if you don’t mind—­I would prefer to make my investigation alone.”

Shirley turned on his heel and made for his dressing room.