The Film Mystery

by Arthur B. Reeve

The courtyard of the studio of Manton Pictures, Incorporated, was about the same as upon the occasions of our previous visits except that I detected a larger number of cars parked in the inclosure, including a number of very fine ones. Also, it seemed to me that there was a greater absence of life than usual, as though something of particular interest had taken everyone inside the buildings.

The gateman informed us that Werner was working the large studio. We made our way up through the structure containing the dressing rooms and found the proper door without difficulty. When we passed through under the big glass roof we grasped the reason for the lack of interest in the other departments about the quadrangle. Here everyone was gathered to watch the taking of the banquet scene for "The Black Terror." The huge set was illuminated brightly, and packed, thronged with people.

It was a marvelous set in many ways. To carry out the illusion of size and to aid in the deceptive additional length given by the mirrors at the farther end, Werner had decided against the usual one large table arranged horseshoe-like, but had substituted instead a great number of individual smaller tables, about which he had grouped the various guests. The placing of those nearest the mirrors had been so arranged as to give no double images, thus betraying the trick. The waiters, all the characters who walked about, were kept near the front toward the cameras for the same reason. It seemed as if the banquet hall was at least twice its actual size.

I saw that Millard had arrived ahead of us. Either the changing of the scenes in his script to fit Enid had not taken him very long or else the photographing of this particular bit of action had proved sufficiently fascinating to draw him away from his work. I wondered at first if he had come to the studio to use his office here, an infrequent happening, from Manton's account. Then I realized that he was in evening dress. Without doubt he planned to play a minor part in the banquet. His presence was no accident.

Then I picked out Manton himself from our point of observation in a quiet corner selected by Kennedy for that purpose. It was evident that the promoter had cleared up his business at the office rapidly since we had left him there to go to our quarters on the Heights and had departed immediately from the latter place so as to precede the District Attorney here.

Manton as well as Millard was in evening dress. A moment later I recognized Phelps, and he, too, wore his formal clothes. In an instant I grasped that Werner actually was saving money. Not only were these officials of the company present to help fill up the tables, but I was able now to pick out a number of the guests who were uneasy in their make-up and more or less out of place in full-dress attire. They certainly were not actors. One girl I definitely placed as the stenographer from Manton's waiting room at the studio; then other things caught my attention. I could not help but doubt the stories of waste told us by Phelps as I looked over the scene before me. The use of the mirrors to avoid building the full length of the floor did not seem to fit in with the theory that Manton and Werner were making every effort to wreck the company deliberately.

I watched the financier for several moments, but did not detect anything from his manner except that he seemed to feel ill at ease and awkward in make-up. I picked out Millard again and this time found him talking with Enid Faye and Gordon. Immediately I sensed a dramatic conflict, carefully suppressed, but having too many of the outward indications to fool anyone. In fact, a child would have observed that Lawrence Millard and the leading man needed little urging to engage in a scuffle then and there. Though Stella Lamar was dead, this was the heritage she had left. Her touch had embittered two men beyond the point of reconciliation—the husband who had been, and the husband who was to be. Of the two, Millard had far the better control of himself, however.

After a brief word or so Gordon left them. At once I could see the relief in the expressions of both the others. Again I wondered just what might be between these two. It was an easy familiarity which might have been as casual as it seemed to be, no more, or which might have been a mask for something far deeper and more enduring, the schooled outer cloak of an inner perfect understanding.

Werner was by far the busiest of those waiting in the stifling heat beneath the glass roof. He was in evening dress, prepared to take his own place before the camera, and in straight make-up, so that he looked nothing like the slain millionaire, the part he had played in the opening scenes. I saw that he was a master in the art of make-up. I was sure that he was more nervous than usual. It struck me that he needed the stimulus of the drug he used, although later I knew that he must have felt, intuitively, the coming of events which followed close upon the attempt to photograph the action.

As more of the people hurried up from the offices and around from the manuscript and other departments, very conscious of their formal attire, and as the regular players changed and adjusted the make-ups of these amateurs, the banquet took on the proportions of a real affair.