The producer stared at him.
"But why do you come to me?"
"For the very important reason that you once employed a man named Nathan Everill," answered the Saint directly. "I'm hoping you'll be able to tell me something useful about him."
"Good God, you're not suggesting that Everill is the Z-Man, are you?" asked the other incredulously. "He's such a poor specimen — a chinless, weak-minded fool—"
"But you employed him as your secretary for five years."
"That's true," confessed Sentinel hesitantly. "He was efficient enough — too damned efficient, as a matter of fact. But he always had a weak streak in him, and it came out in the end. He forged my name to some cheques — perhaps you know about that… But Everill! It doesn't seem possible—"
The Saint shook his head.
"I didn't say he was the Z-Man. But I know that he's very closely connected with him. So if you can help me to locate Everill you'll probably help me to get to close quarters with the Z-Man himself. And he interests me a lot."
"If you can get him, Templar, you'll not only earn my gratitude, but the gratitude of the whole film business," said Hubert Sentinel, rising to his feet and pacing up and down with undisguised agitation. "If he's a real person at least that gives us something to fight. Up to now he's just been a name that people have tried to stick onto something they couldn't explain any other way. But when we see our stars having mysterious breakdowns just when pictures are in their last scenes — getting hysterical over something you can't make them talk about — well, we have to put it down to something."
"Then you've had trouble yourself?"