P. Q. gruffly gave him permission to go off duty at one o'clock. He hurried back to the telephone and told her that he would be able to see her. She gave him an address in Hollywood.
"You will be stopped at the door," she told him, "but tell whoever stops you that you are the gentleman I am expecting and there won't be any further difficulty. I'll look for you at two, then."
When he reached the address she gave him, shortly before two o'clock, John's first feeling was that he had misunderstood the directions she had given him. Before him, inclosed by a high fence over the horizon of which he could see the tops of queer structures, stood the rambling studio of the Peerless Pictures, Inc., one of the largest motion picture producing concerns in the capital of filmdom. At one side of a large open gateway, near an oddly shaped sentry box, was a fat, red-faced man tilted back in a kitchen chair.
The man was eyeing him as he approached the gateway.
"Hey, just a minute, son, where do you think you're going?" the man shouted, turning his head to glare at the intruder.
"Inside," John said.
"Well, you don't say—Hey, there, just a minute!" this last as John, who had a secret delight in baiting officiousness, continued toward the gateway.
"Who do you think you want to see in there?" demanded the guard.
"I don't THINK I want to see anyone; Miss Carrillo sent for me," said John, wondering if this would be the password and feeling a thrill go up his backbone at the thought he might be at the wrong place.
"What's your name?"