XIII
MARILYN LORING
The magic of Manton's name admitted us to the studio courtyard, and atonce I was struck by the change since the day before. Now the tank wasa dry, empty, shallow depression of concrete. The scenery, all theparaphernalia assembled for the taking of water stuff, was gone. Exceptfor the parked automobiles in one corner and a few loitering figureshere and there the big quadrangle seemed absolutely deserted.
In the general reception room Kennedy asked for Millard, but was toldhe had not been out since the previous day. That was to be expected.But Manton, it developed, was away also. He had telephoned in that hewould be detained until late afternoon on important business. I knowthat I, for one, wondered if it were connected with Fortune Features.
"It's just as well," Kennedy remarked, after convincing the boy at thedesk it was Manton's wish that we have the run of the place. "My realobject in coming was to watch the cast at work."
We found our way to the small studio, called so in comparison with thelarger one where the huge ballroom and banquet sets were being built.In reality it possessed a tremendous floor space. Now all the othercompanies had been forced to make room for "The Black Terror" onaccount of the emergency created by the death of Stella Lamar, andthere were any number of sets put up hastily for the retakes of thescenes in which Stella had appeared. The effect of the whole upon astrange beholder was weird. It was as though a cyclone had sweptthrough a town and had gathered up and deposited slices and corners andsections of rooms and hallways and upper chambers, each complete withfurniture and ornaments, curtains, rugs, and hangings. Except for theartistic harmony of things within the narrow lines of the camera'sview, nothing in this great armory-like place had any apparent relationto anything else. Some of the sets were lighted, with actors andtechnical crews at work. Others were dark, standing ready for use.Still others were in varying states of construction or demolition.Rising above every other impression was the noise. It was pandemonium.
We saw Werner at work in a distant corner and strolled over. Thedirector was bustling about feverishly. I do not doubt that the grimnecessity of preparing the picture for a release date which was alreadyannounced had resulted in this haste, without even a day of idleness inrespect for the memory of the dead star, yet it seemed cold-blooded andmercenary to me. I thought that success was not deserved by anenterprise so callous of human life, so unappreciative of human effort.
Most of the cast were standing about, waiting. The scenes were beingtaken in a small room, fitted as an office or private den, butfurnished luxuriously. Later I learned it was in the home of themillionaire, Remsen, close off the library for which the actual room inPhelps's home was photographed.
Shirley and Gordon, I noticed, kept as far apart as possible. It wasquite intentional and I again caught belligerent glances between them.On the other hand, both Enid and Marilyn Loring were calm andself-possessed. Yet between these two I caught a coolness, a sort ofarmed truce, in which each felt it would be a sign of weakness to admitconsciously even the near presence of the other.
Werner was irascible, swearing roundly at the slightest provocation,raging up and down at every little error.
"Come now," he shouted, as we approached, "let's get this scenenow--number one twenty-six. Loring--Gordon! Shake a leg--here, I'llread it again. 'Daring enters. He is scarcely seated at the desk,examining papers, when Zelda enters in a filmy negligee. Daring looksup amazed and Zelda pretends great agitation. Daring is not unkind toher. He tells her he has not discovered the will as yet. Spoken title:"I am sure that I can find a will and that you are provided for."Continuing scene, Daring speaks the above. Zelda thanks him andundulates toward the door with the well-known swaying walk of thevampire. Daring turns to his papers and does not watch her further. Shelooks over her shoulder, then exits, registering that she will get himyet.'" Werner dropped his copy of the script. "Understand?" he barked."Make it fast now. We shouldn't do this over, but you were lousybefore, both of you!" Gordon extinguished a cigarette and entered theset with a scowl. Marilyn rose and slipped out of a dressing gownspotted with make-up and dark from its long service in the studios.Underneath the wrapper the finest of silken draperies clung to her,infinitely more intimate here in actuality and in the bright studiolights than it would be upon the screen. I noticed the slim trimness ofher figure--could not help myself, in fact. And I saw also that sheshrank back just the least little bit before stepping to her place atthe door. It was modesty, a genuine girlish diffidence. In a moment Irevised my conception of her. Before, I had not been able to decidewhether Marilyn Loring was a woman with a gift for looking young, or aflapper with the baffling sophistication affected these days by so manyof them. Now I knew somehow that she was just all girl, probably in herearly twenties. The brief instant of shyness had betrayed her.
In the scene she changed. Marilyn Loring was an actress. The moment shecaught the click of the camera's turn there was a hardness about hermouth, a faint dishonest touch to the play of her eye, a shamelessboldness to her movements concealed without concealment. In the flashof a second she was Marilyn no longer, but Zelda, the ward of oldRemsen, an unscrupulous and willing ally of the "Black Terror."
Werner damned the amount of footage used in the scene, then turned tothe next, with Enid and Gordon, in the same set, one of the necessaryretakes for which the room had been put up again.
Enid had not noticed me and I somehow failed to shake off the feelingof fear that the glance of Millard had given me. Faint heart I was, andthe answer was that I had yet to win the fair lady. To excuse myself Ipretended she was different under the lights. It was really true that,as Zelda Remsen, Enid was not the fascinating creature I had met inWerner's office. There was too much Mascaro on her lashes, too great anamount of red and blue and even bright yellow in her make-up. Instriking contrast was the little coloring used by Stella Lamar, or evenMarilyn Loring.
Enid's scene was a close-up in which the beginning of the love interestin the story was shown. I noticed that as the cameras turned upon theaction the girl inch by inch shifted her position, almostimperceptibly, until she was practically facing the lens. Theconsequence was that Gordon, playing the lover, was forced to move alsoin order to follow her face, and so was brought with his back towardthe camera. It was the pleasant little film trick known as "taking thepicture away" from a fellow actor. Enid was a "lens hog."
The moment the scene was over Gordon rushed to Werner to protest. Thedirector, irritated and in a hurry, gave him small satisfaction. Bothplayers were called back under the lights for the next "take." AsWerner's back was turned Enid favored Gordon with a mischievous,malicious glance. The leading man possessed very few friends, from whatI had heard. The new star evidently did not propose to become one ofthem.
"Let's pay our respects, socially," suggested Kennedy, at my elbow.
I followed his glance and saw that Marilyn was seated alone, away fromthe others, apparently forlorn. As we approached she drew her dressingrobe about her, smiling. With the smile her face lighted. It was in therare moments, just as her smile broke and spread, that she was pretty,strikingly so.
"Professor Kennedy," she exclaimed. "And Mr. Jameson, too! Sit down andwatch our new star."
"What do you think of her?" Kennedy asked.
"Enid?" Marilyn's expression became quizzical. "I think she's a clevergirl."
"You mean something by that, don't you?" prompted Kennedy.
She sobered. "No! Honestly!" For an instant she studied him with adirectness of gaze which I would have found disconcerting. "Don't tellme"--she teased, again allowing the flash of a smile to illuminate herfeatures--"don't tell me the renowned and celebrated Professor Kennedysuspects Enid Faye of murdering poor Stella to get her position."
Kennedy laughed, turning to me. "There's the woman," he remarked. "Wemay deduce and analyze and catalogue all the facts of science, but"--hespread his palms wide, expressly--"it is as nothing against a woman'sintuition." Facing Marilyn again, he became frank. "You c
aught mythought exactly, although it was not as bad as all that. I simplywondered if Miss Faye might not have had something to do with the case."
"Why?" I realized now that this Miss Loring, in addition toconsiderable skill as an actress, in addition to rare beauty on thescreen, possessed a brain and the power to use it. She followed Kennedywith greater ease than I, who knew him.
"Why?" she repeated.
"Perhaps it's the intuition of the male," he began, hesitatingly.
She shook her head. "A man's intuition is not dependable. You see, awoman gets her intuition first and fits her facts to it, while a mantakes a fact and then has an intuitive burst of inspiration as aresult. The woman puts her facts last and so is not thrown out whenthey're wrong, as they usually are. But the man--I think, ProfessorKennedy, that you have some facts about Enid stored away and thatthat's why you put a double meaning in my remark. Am I right?"
He smiled. "I surrender, Miss Loring. You are right."
"What is the little fact? Perhaps I can help you."
"Miss Faye and Lawrence Millard seem to be old friends."
"Oh! Maybe you wonder at the contents of the sealed testimony in thecase of Millard VS. Millard?"
Kennedy nodded.
"Do you want to know what I think?" she asked.
"Please."
"Well, I've worked with Stella nearly a year. It's my opinion shedivorced Millard because he asked her to do so."
"No, no!" I balked at that, interrupting. "He could have obtained thedivorce himself if he had wanted it. Stella Lamar and Manton--"
"That's talk!" she rejoined, with a show of feeling. "That's the thingI hate about pictures. It's always talk, talk, talk! I'm not sayingStella and old Papa Lloyd, as we used to call him, never were mixed upwith each other, but it's one thing to repeat a bit of gossip and quiteanother thing to prove it. I'm not one to help give currency to anyrumor of immoral relationship until I'm pretty dog-gone sure it's true."
"You think Miss Lamar wasn't as bad as painted?" asked Kennedy.
"I'm sure of it, Mr. Kennedy. I've known Stella and I've known othersof her type. Fundamentally they're the kindest, truest, biggest-heartedpeople on earth. When Stella and I shared a dressing room I oftencaught her giving away this or that--frequently things she neededherself. I've known her to draw against her salary to lend money tosome actor or actress whom she well knew would never repay her.Stella's biggest fault was an overbalancing quality of sympathy. If sheever did get mixed up with anyone you may bet it was because thatperson played upon her feelings."
"Have you any theory as to who killed her?" It was a direct question.
"No!" The answer was quick, but then an amazing thing happened. Marilynsuddenly colored, a flush which gathered up around her eyes above themake-up and made me think of a country girl. She started to saysomething else and then bit her tongue. Her confusion was surprising,due, probably, to the unexpectedness of Kennedy's query.
Kennedy seemed to wish to spare her. Undoubtedly her prompt negativehad been the truth. Some afterthought had robbed her of herself-control. "Tell me why you said Miss Faye was a clever girl," hedirected.
"Just because she puts her ambition above everything else and workshard and honestly and sincerely, and will get there. That's what peoplecall being clever."
"I see."
Werner's voice, roaring through a megaphone, announced an interval forlunch. Marilyn rose, laughing now, but still in a high color, consciousperhaps that she had revealed some strong undercurrent of feeling.
"If you'll escort me to my dressing room," she said, coaxingly, "andwait until I slip into a skirt and waist, I'll initiate both of you toMcCann's across the street. We all eat there, players, stage hands,chauffeurs--all but the stars, who have machines to take themelsewhere."
Kennedy glanced at me. "Delighted!" said I.
"We haven't much time," she went on, leading the way. "Werner's on arampage to-day."
"He isn't usually that way?"
"It's Stella's death, I guess." She opened one of the steel fire doors."He's always that way, though, when he's been out the night before."
I flashed a look at Kennedy. Could Werner have been at Tarrytown?
In the long hallway of dressing rooms Marilyn stopped, grasping theknob of her door. "It'll only take me--" she began.
Then her face went white as the concrete of the floor, and that wasimmaculate. An expression which might have been fear, or horror, orhate--or all three, spread over her features, transforming her.
Following the direction of her stare, I saw Shirley down the hall, justas he stopped at his own door. He caught her glance suddenly, and hisown face went red. I thought that his hands trembled.
Marilyn wheeled about, lips pressed tightly together. Throwing open thedoor, she dashed into her room, slamming it with a bang which echoedand re-echoed up and down the little hall. She had forgotten ourpresence altogether.