The Film of Fear

by Frederic Arnold Kummer

"These stories naturally inflamed her sister's mind. Working for ten dollars a week, she began to compare her state with that of a girl of her own age earning a hundred times as much, and gradually the idea began to possess her that she could become a motion-picture star herself.

"At first she admired Miss Morton immensely and never missed an opportunity to see the pictures in which she appeared. Then, convinced of her own ability as an actress, she made application at the studio at which her sister worked for a position.

"It seems she haunted the studio for several weeks without getting any encouragement. Then, more to get rid of her than for any other reason, one of the directors offered her a place as extra woman in a picture Miss Morton was doing—a very minor part, in which she had to appear momentarily as a saleswoman at a counter in a department store.

"Unfortunately, when Miss Morton saw her she happened to say to the director that she would have preferred a woman of a different type, dark, taller, so as to provide a more effective foil to her own type of beauty. As a result, the girl did not get the position."

"I am so sorry," Ruth cried. "I hadn't the least idea who the girl was, and, of course, I wouldn't have done her any harm for the world."

"I know that," Duvall replied, "but she did not. She is mentally rather erratic, and she at once conceived the idea that you had singled her out for persecution; that, in fact, you were envious of her abilities and meant to prevent her from getting a chance.

"The thing preyed on her mind, and I fancy, unbalanced it a little. She conceived a violent hatred for you, and with her sister began to plot revenge.

"Her first move was to persuade her sister to move to the house on Fifty-seventh Street, close to your apartment. It took them some time to find the place—to secure a room situated as Miss Ford's was, but at last they managed it. Then they went to work.

"The letters were all typewritten on a machine belonging to a public stenographer whom the girls knew. Jane Ford would stop in at this woman's place late in the afternoon and asking permission to use one of the machines would type the threatening letters. The paper she used was procured especially for her by her sister at a stationery store downtown.

"The seal, a curious thing, had belonged to the girls' father, and she conceived the idea of signing the letters with it to add to the grimness of her threats. As a matter of fact, I do not think she ever had the least intention of carrying them out. It was to be solely a campaign of fear. She probably thought that she could so frighten you, Miss Morton, that your health would be broken down, and your work consequently interfered with to such an extent that you would lose your position. As I say, I think she is mentally somewhat unbalanced. I cannot account for some of her actions, otherwise.