MOVIE MEN AND MANNEQUINS

October, with its tang, and the blazoned glory of its skies and sun and tawny trees! Margot Anstruther thanked a kind fate that she could live these brilliant, exhilarating days out of doors. Had she been confined to office or classroom, her restless spirit would have carried her body with it, in reckless escape. Long Island—where the Superfilm Company studio spread over the landscape—although not precisely the Maine woods or sea, or the open spaces of her own wide-flung West, at least spelled trees and grass and fresh air.

Margot stood on the diminutive roof-garden of her New York home, watching the moon rise over the house-tops. It was eight o’clock and her guests would soon arrive. She hoped that Gene Valery would come before the others. It was pleasant to be loved so ardently by Gene, but she surmised that it would be pleasanter if she could love as ardently in return. At any rate, his friendship was invaluable. He was the only one with whom she could share her mental gymnastics, the aspect of her mind which others would regard as rather too serious for human nature’s daily food.

She had Gene to thank for her tiny roof-garden. It was one of those quaint affairs, a covering built over the yard, to be found in many an old New York house. Gene had rigged up a trellis and had brought potted palms and a South American hammock. For to-night he had hung Japanese lanterns. Margot had already lighted them. That small, mock garden took the curse, so to speak, off her lodging-house quarters, which consisted of one large, high-ceilinged room, in which she slept, ate—her breakfasts—and had her being.

She cut short her transport over the moon, stepped across the door-sill into the room, and cast critical eyes over her domain. A brass bed in one far corner was concealed by a screen, which Gene had made and she had decorated. The effect was rather good. She had recently acquired a divan, with many cushions, large and soft and gaily colored. Against one wall was a chest of drawers, a Chinese scarf over its battered top, a brass jar at one end, and a pewter candlestick with orange candle, at the other. The walls were a muddy gray, but there was a Japanese print here and there, and bright cretonne at the windows and on the wicker chairs.

Flanking the old-fashioned fireplace were her bookcases, built and painted by Gene. As catholic in her literary tastes as in her choice of friends, Margot’s books presented a varied diet; fiction ranging from Kipling to Anatole France, poetry from Dante to Millay. A desk-table and an old console table—her own acquisitions—with carved wood book-racks for a few modern novels, and a bit of brass or copper; and two much worn but softly blended Oriental rugs thrown over the antiquated carpet, almost hiding its ugliness. Margot had achieved distinction, beauty and a subtle charm, in a room which previous tenants of the old lodging-house must have accepted as irretrievably barren and sordid.

She glanced in her four-foot mirror and patted her hair. It looked redder than usual in the light from the candles and from the yellow-shaded electric lamp over by the table. She flicked a speck of dust from the mirror-frame, gave a little twist to her soft, straight hung dress of corn color silk, then glanced toward the lanterns swinging in the evening breeze. Yes—it was all rather nice, but she was especially grateful for the roof-garden. Of course, a chilly October night could not be expected to lend exotic warmth to the scene, but in the room, the logs would be burning.

Six weeks since she had first met her expected guests: Frederick Stoner, the director of the Superfilm Company, with his strange, pale eyes; May Cheshire, the little blond girl who had been the first to inspire Margot with a desire to get into pictures; Lulu Leinster, the prize-beauty-contest winner from Texas, whose large brown eyes, beautifully chiseled lips and exquisite skin and yellow hair would have been assets in any profession. These three, and others, men and girls of the company, whose admiring friendship Margot had won during the past six weeks of work in the great studio of the Superfilm Company. Gene Valery was an older friend. That he happened to be an efficient young camera man with the same company was a pleasing coincidence.

Six weeks! A mere point in time, but they had been constructive weeks. To her own satisfaction and to that of her director, it had been proved that she had histrionic talent of a high order and that she screened admirably. Of no less significance the fact that she knew now, beyond all doubt, not only what she could do, but what she wanted to do. The absurd thing was that she should originally have chosen science as her profession! Mentally equipped she might be for scientific work, but oh, how much more interesting it was to act! Certainly more remunerative. That morning in June, when she had applied for work and been taken on as an “extra” by the International, had supplied not only a little extra cash for her summer vacation but the fillip to her vague ambition to be a screen actress. And here she was, at twenty-five, launched on her career.

Her laboratory work would not be wasted; nothing excellent was ever wasted, she knew, and she was grateful for any acquisitive experience which she owed to her college course. But mental activities on the side, she would regard as a hobby; for an actress she was by temperament, and a good actress she proposed to be by intelligent use of her powers.

Funny, how Stoner had engaged her that day, and given her a real part in the new picture, A Toreador’s Love! Funny how he had chosen her, instead of the lovely Lulu, for apparently no good reason! When Lulu proceeded to weep and look like a piece of broken Dresden china, he had weakened to the extent of giving the latter a very small rôle, but it was still a mystery to Margot why he had given her the important part for which she and Lulu—and many others—had applied, in response to an advertisement. She had forgotten, or hadn’t had time, to tell Gene about it. She must remember to tell him sometime. It would amuse him and perhaps he’d be able to dispel the vague sense of mystery aroused in her by Stoner, with his strange pale eyes, from that first moment when she had given him her name and address.

Margot smiled, recalling Gene’s absurd jealousy of Frederick Stoner. Ridiculous to suppose that she could ever give the director a second thought except in relation to her work. He wasn’t a bad sort, really, but his rather brutish good looks repelled her. And he was a good director, although, as everyone had told her, he belonged to the old school of directors; very old-fashioned in his methods. There were few, if any, of his kind left in the motion picture industry, for which those working under him were devoutly thankful. Stoner’s notion of discipline was to shout his orders and conduct himself generally as if everything were melodrama.

Gene was rather annoying with his jealous suspicions. She didn’t dare tell him that she endured Stoner’s boring attentions as much for Gene’s sake as for her own. Stoner had never liked Gene, and now he made his dislike very evident. If she were to let it become obvious that she preferred Gene’s friendship to Stoner’s, the director would be quite capable of discharging him and queering him with other directors and managers. Men often did contemptible things out of jealousy. If she explained all this to Gene, ten to one he would resign, just when his chances for promotion were so good. Gene was a rank outsider. He had been taken on almost by accident and retained because he was so amazingly clever with the camera. But all the cleverness in the world wouldn’t help you if you were an outsider and an influential director considered you undesirable.

Speaking of jealousy! She smiled again, remembering that the only member of the cast of A Toreador’s Love, who had declined her invitation for to-night, was the star, Corinne Delamar. To be sure, she was younger than Corinne—somewhat—and perhaps prettier, but there was no reason for fearing that she had designs upon the director. Margot had treated Corinne with consistent and amiable courtesy, but had made no attempt to overcome her antagonism, by catering to her up-stage exactions. In token of her good-will and to celebrate her success in the Superfilm’s new picture, she had asked them all to her informal home for a “party.” The word covered a multitude of sins—of excess or boredom. Silly of Corinne not to come! Silly of her to advertise her jealousy of Margot! There had been gossip about it already, some of it a trifle malicious.

At that point in her rapid reflections, Gene appeared, carrying a bunch of yellow roses. He brought candy also, and cigarettes, and a bottle or two under his arm. Gene was tall, clear-skinned and plain of feature, except for his blue eyes. He was well knit, had brilliant teeth and a smile which made one forget that his mouth was too wide and his nose crooked—it had been broken in a football game. At times his smile quickened his face to actual beauty.

With bright eyes smiling in unison with her red, parted lips, Margot watched him unwrap his packages. Then he stood looking at her, longing to take her in his arms, and daring only to stare at her adoringly.

“You are a darling, Gene!” Her voice cooed at him, and she took a step nearer, smiling at him.

Well, that wasn’t so bad in the way of a greeting, his expansive smile told her.

“And you are a darling—an exquisite darling!”

She went a little nearer to him.

“If you won’t muss me, and won’t get too rapturous, I’ll let you kiss me—once—just to give you a good start for the evening.”

“Sweetheart!” Impetuously he tried to put an arm around her, then, gingerly, as she drew away with a laugh of warning, he put his hands on her shoulders and bending down, kissed her lips. It was a kiss pregnant with emotion but short-lived, as she freed herself, with another gay laugh.

“Look, Gene! You haven’t even noticed my new divan and my lovely cushions.”

He glanced at the divan without interest, turned his gaze back to Margot, and seeing her mouth droop in disappointment, he made an effort to smile approval.

“Bully, darling! It adds fifty per cent to this room.” His eyes roved about. “Color scheme’s fine!” His wandering glance reached the corner where the screen did not entirely conceal the large brass bed. “Why on earth don’t you get rid of that incubus?”

Margot’s smile clouded. “Now, you don’t imagine I keep it for sheer love of the beastly thing? I told Mrs. Bellew that I was going to buy a divan, and she promised to remove that monster over there. But when the divan arrived the other day, she told me I’d have to keep the bed till she could have one of her rooms done over. I can’t throw the darn thing out the window. It makes me so mad!”

“Sorry I mentioned it, dearest. Don’t bother about it. That screen hides it and the room’s so huge you can forget that corner.”

“Anyway,” she smiled cheerfully, “I’ve managed to cover her hideous old Wilton, except in spots, especially that torn place near the bed. Dad sent the Orientals from home. Worn a bit, but the coloring’s lovely. She wouldn’t take up her old carpet. Says the paint’s off the floor and the boards cracked and rough. I don’t believe she’s had that carpet up for years.”

“By the way,” said Gene irrelevantly, “Stoner coming to-night?”

“Why, of course he is!”

“Precisely—why—‘of course’?”

“How silly of you, Gene! I can’t snub Stoner, and it would have been worse than a snub not to ask him to-night. Why, he gave me the job I’m celebrating! How could I leave him out?”

“Suppose you’re right.” Gene’s agreement was sulky. “But I don’t like Stoner and I hate to see him hanging around you.”

She went up to him and gave him a light, swift kiss on the end of his chin, then ran back before he could seize her.

“Be a good sport, Gene, dear. A man of Stoner’s type couldn’t possibly hurt me in anyway, for I’d never want him as a friend, let alone as a lover. But it’s policy to be decent to him, and I’m not a fool.”

“All the same I hate to see his familiar manner with you. All the logic in the universe isn’t going to change that.”

“And I can’t help that! If you will be jealous of an inferior, then you just prove an inferiority complex.” Her smile sweetened the words, then she added with a laugh: “The same kind of complex that made Corinne Delamar decline my invitation for to-night.”

Before Gene could reply, the door-bell rang. To Margot’s relief, the first arrivals were May Cheshire and Lulu Leinster, with several other girls and men from A Toreador’s Love. She was glad that Stoner had not come in time to make an embarrassing trio with Gene and herself.

Amid the chatter and laughter and admiring exclamations regarding Margot’s room and the tiny roof-garden, the bell rang again. This time it would be Stoner, she knew. She ran to the door to admit him, standing with her back to the room.

Stoner was tall and heavily built, with thick eyebrows that gave him a fierce expression when he frowned. He was handsome, of a crude, slightly brutal type. He possessed, at least, that illusive quality, personality. He smiled down at Margot and extended a large, well-groomed hand.

Her cordial but impersonal greeting of: “Why, hello, Mr. Stoner! Awfully glad to see you!” sounded innocent enough, which was for Gene’s benefit, but only Stoner saw the roguish, upturned corners of her mouth, and the smile of challenge in her lovely eyes. After all, one must play a game with finesse. If she didn’t coquette a little with Stoner, just to keep the ball rolling, either she’d antagonize him, or run the risk of bringing on a crisis by goading him to a less oblique attack.

Before she turned and sauntered with him across the room, the color had deepened in her cheeks. Whenever Stoner looked at her with his critical, predatory eyes, Margot always grew uncomfortably conscious of her physical assets: of the long, gently curved lines of her body; of the clearness of her white skin, with its pink shadings; of the golden auburn of her bobbed hair; of her nose, straight, except for a slight uptilt at the end, which harmonized with the way her lips deepened and lifted at the corners of her mobile mouth. She had no unwarranted conceit, but the trained appraisal of Stoner’s glance had brought to her to-night, as on previous occasions, the conviction that she was more beautiful than she had supposed.

An hour later, Margot, sitting Turk-fashion on her divan, and flashing a smile over the rim of her cocktail glass at the girls and men standing or lolling about the room, answered their toast to her success, with one of her own.

“If Shakespeare were alive to-day, he’d be writing scenarios, and instead of saying: ‘The play’s the thing!’ he’d say: ‘The movies are the only thing!’ Drink to the drama of the screen! May it live long and prosper, and have lots of—of offspring!”

“Taking liberties with the famous old toast of Rip Van Winkle. Very clever of you, Margot, I’ll tell the world!” It was Stoner speaking.

Surprising, Margot thought, that Stoner, with all his crudities, should have recognized her paraphrasing of the toast of Rip Van Winkle. She was sure that no one else but Gene in that room had education enough for that. She studied Stoner through lowered eyes. He was standing by the table, compounding bright-colored cocktails with much orange juice and not much gin. The bottles were emptying rather early in the evening.

Stoner, liking to be in evidence wherever there were pretty women about, had insisted upon presiding over the mixing of drinks. He swung the big shaker with a loud tinkling of ice, and boisterous jests thrown carelessly to one or another. He smiled, it seemed to Gene’s watchful and jealous eyes, a little possessively at Margot, as he said, with a laugh:

“I’ll hand it to you, Margot, for knowing how to maneuver the drinks so that we’ll stay sober and yet enjoy ourselves. Most women, when they entertain, can’t strike that happy medium. They’re either stingy with the booze, or they turn on the hose and send you home wall-eyed. You’re the perfect little entertainer, I’ll tell the world.”

“And why on earth, Margot, did you think you had to apologize for this room of yours?” Lulu glanced about with wondering admiration. “I call it a swell room, and fine for a party!”

Margot smiled, and her gray eyes twinkled.

“It’s really just a bedroom, Lulu, as I warned you. I can’t pretend it’s anything else, while that monstrous brass bed stands over in that corner.”

“Well, you’ve got it screened, haven’t you?” Lulu argued.

“That’s a weak camouflage. And when I go to bed, of course I remove the screen, and then, when I look around the room, I feel as if I were in a regular movie bedroom. They’re always so funny, you know. Aren’t they, Mr. Stoner?”

For a second his expression showed that he thought she might be making fun of him.

“We have to rig up those fancy bedrooms, to please the fans who’ve never seen a really swell bedroom in their lives. They think they’re getting the real dope when we show them beds all covered with lace and satin and the Lord knows what not.”

“Beds don’t scare me,” laughed May Cheshire, shaking her little blond, bobbed head. “Ain’t they among our best little props? Ain’t we jumpin’ in and out of ’em in half the scenes?”

Margot laughed with the others. Hers was too human a sense of humor to resent the obviousness of such an exhibition of another girl’s wit. It was spontaneous at least.

“As to beds,” Stoner evidently thought the subject not yet exhausted; “you aren’t the only young actress, Margot, who’s living in one room. Lots of them in the ‘Roaring Forties.’ I’ve seen rooms that weren’t a patch on this one for looks and comfort, and I’ve sat on more beds than I could count, when there weren’t enough chairs to go round.”

“At least you won’t be put to that trouble in my room.”

Gene exulted at the slight coolness in her tone. Damn cheeky Stoner, with his remarks about sitting on beds. Stoner gave her a sharp look, then stared across the room to where the brass bed peeked around a corner of the screen.

“Wouldn’t be any trouble, I assure you.” What was it, in his voice? Irony, ridicule, effrontery or just plain nerve?

For the first time in weeks, Margot had a vivid memory of the look in Stoner’s eyes when she had first given him her address, and the following day, when he first suggested calling on her. The impression of something vaguely sinister, had faded with more familiar knowledge of the man, and his amiable crudities of mind and manner.

“Guess you’ll soon be movin’ up town into some big swell flat on Riverside Drive. You’ll be a star I bet, in the next picture they shoot.” There was faint envy in Lulu’s big blue eyes.

“If I move up town,” said Margot, with a laugh, “it certainly won’t be to Riverside Drive. Too many murders of young actresses and dancers in that neighborhood. And I’m in no hurry to move away from here. This house has atmosphere, hasn’t it, Gene?” She turned her head to smile directly into Gene’s watchful eyes. “It was built in the sixties, you know, Mr. Stoner.” Her glance shifted to the director, who was sitting on the arm of an old chair, and imperiling its usefulness. “Picturesque old moldings, high ceilings and all that sort of thing. Don’t you like these brownstone relics, Mr. Stoner?”

“Gene, there, knows more about them than I do. He has to shoot them every now and then. But the inside dope on architecture and periods is the bluff of the art director. ‘Ain’t it the truth,’ Valery?”

Gene disdained to attempt the sort of repartee which Stoner could have understood. He got up, and poured himself a drink, and drank it unsociably, except for a glance over his glass at Margot. She decided hastily to make conversation of a kind that would entertain the crowd, and avoid personalities, and danger of sword crossing between Gene and Stoner. She would strike the note of mystery. That would intrigue them all, at a minimum of effort.

“Listen, people,” she began, her mouth widening in a smile which included everyone. “The best thing about this house is that it makes good on its appearance. Mysterious lodgers have lived here. Strange things have happened here.”

In her roving glance from one guest to the other, her eyes met Stoner’s. Their pale blue looked dark in the shaded lighting of the room. He sat quite still, staring intently at her. Certainly the man had strange eyes. One moment colorless and without expression, even when his mouth suggested significant things when he smiled or spoke to her; the next moment taking on depth and color and a vague suggestion of mystery. She was conscious of a slight effort in withdrawing her glance from his arresting gaze.

Lulu dragged her chair closer, and May sprang to the divan, and cuddled close to Margot.

“Do go on!” May’s voice shrilled excitedly. “What strange things have happened here?”

“I only heard about it yesterday.” Margot determined to keep her glance carefully away from Stoner’s direction. He made her nervous for some reason. “I was talking to the landlady—trying to get her to take away her old brass bed. She told me that a girl who was living in this very room, disappeared in the funniest way, about three months ago. She didn’t just walk out, bag and baggage. She disappeared—literally. Left all her belongings, even her comb and tooth brush. And—she’s never come back!”

“That’s interesting!” Stoner’s comment came as he walked to the table and poured a drink. His back was turned to Margot. “What sort of a girl was she?” He stood now facing the others, and looking at Margot. He frowned as if mentally groping with an abstract problem. “Anybody have a drink?” he added genially.

Cries from the girls, begging for silence, and telling the men to pour drinks, if they must, without talking about it or interrupting Margot’s story; then silence and absorbed attention as Margot continued:

“The girl’s name was Stella Ball. She was supposed to be working at Macy’s, half time, in the afternoons. But Mrs. Bellew communicated with the manager at Macy’s, after the girl left here, and they’d never even heard of her!”

Stoner leisurely blew rings of smoke from his cigarette, and said lazily:

“She may have been run over in the street. Obscure people often disappear that way. Sudden accident, and no identification possible. No papers on them, and nobody claims them at the morgue. Nothing so mysterious about that.”

“Wait till you hear the rest of it!” Margot’s eager glance avoided the chair where Stoner was lounging. “The very same day that the girl left here, an elderly man named Murchison, who had a garret room on the top floor, also disappeared, with equal finality.”

“A really old man?” Lulu’s instinct for romance jumped to the obvious conclusion.

“No, dear, just middle-aged. He was about fifty-five. Agile and wiry, Mrs. Bellew says. Young in strength, but very unprepossessing. He was round-shouldered, and had a thin, ugly, hatchet sort of face. No girl could have looked twice at him. And in the evenings he stuck in his rooms like a hermit, and he seemed to hate women.”

“Did he have a job anywhere?” someone asked.

“Nobody knows. He never gave any information about himself. Of course landladies like Mrs. Bellew would draw blood out of a stone, in the way of gossip, but, apparently, she never found out anything about that particular lodger. She didn’t care, so long as he gave no trouble and paid his rent regularly.”

“Perhaps the old bird had money, and the girl, Stella, may have fallen for that.” Lulu’s sense of romance was not to be crushed.

“Nonsense, Lulu. He wasn’t a miser, with bags of gold in his trunk. He went out every day, so presumably he worked somewhere, but, judging by the way he lived, he certainly earned very little.”

“Call it a case of hypnotism, and be done with it!” Stoner’s suggestion came flippantly.

Margot turned her head quickly, and again met Stoner’s eyes, staring at her through the shadows of the room, and the smoke from his cigarette.

“I thought of that. But the man’s only motive in hypnotizing the girl would have been an immoral one, which wouldn’t have required his taking her out of the house. No one here bothers about his neighbors. You could literally get away with murder, and not a soul be the wiser.”

“Gosh! Catch me living in a spooky place like this!” May glanced over her shoulder, at the darker corner of the room where the brass bed hid its plebeian head.

“Speaking of mysteries!” Margot glanced with surprise at Gene, whose voice had broken the momentary silence in the room.—“Any of you happen to read about the disappearance from the Fellowe Institute, of a fraction of a gram of radium, a few months ago?”

“Yes, I read about it,” said Margot eagerly. “They haven’t the faintest idea who took it, but of course it was stolen. Any of you know anything about radium?” She glanced from one to another.

“Not a damn thing. I’ll speak for the crowd.” It was Stoner’s voice, bland, a little ironical. “We motion picture people, Margot, aren’t wise to all that scientific stuff. Ain’t it the truth?” He laughed, throwing his glance around the room.

“Aren’t you even interested when you read of such things in the papers, Mr. Stoner?” Margot regarded him with curious eyes. He was such a strange contradiction, with his unexpected knowledge along some lines, and his equally surprising lack of it along others.

“Can’t say I am. As a matter of fact, I don’t have much time for reading, except of course movie fan stuff, and the sports columns, and local politics and all the bunk they write and call dramatic criticism.”

“But a thing like the disappearance of that radium is most interesting news. Even a tiny bit of radium is worth a lot of money, and they’ve had detectives on the case without getting a glimmer of light or a single clue.”

“The odd part of it is,” went on Gene, “that no one but an employee could have access to their stock of radium, and the mystery lies in the difficulty entailed in concealing it and getting out of the building with it. It seems that all persons engaged in work at the Institute are subject to search before they leave the building.”

Margot could see by their faces that, so far as the others were concerned, the subject of radium was exhausted. But her own mystery narrative still held interest, she felt sure.

“Well, to get back to the girl Stella, and old Murchison—” began Margot.

“Why get back to them?” Stoner drawled the words, and rolled his eyes in comic supplication. “Much better turn on the jazz and let me shake another round of Bronxes.”

“Righto!” laughed Margot, getting up and going toward the victrola. Without looking at Stoner she added:

“Evidently, Mr. Stoner, you haven’t got the detective sort of mind.”

“Have you?”

Through the high-pitched chatter of the girls, and the deeper cadence of the men’s voices, Margot heard the brief, low-toned question. She turned around, facing Stoner.

“Yes, I have. Ever since I’ve been old enough to read, I’ve had a slant for mystery and detective stories. I adore unraveling mysteries.”

“Is that so?” Stoner’s drawl expressed tolerant amusement. The slight scorn so often shown by rather ignorant men for intelligent women.

Margot put on a record, wound the victrola, then walked slowly to where Stoner stood. She let him light a cigarette for her as she said, smilingly:

“Ever read ‘The House and the Brain,’ by Bulwer-Lytton? Fascinating and gruesome. In fact quite blood-curdling.”

“Any more so than Monsieur Dupin?”

“Oh, mercy, yes.” She saw Gene approaching, and included him in the conversation. “Who’s your favorite, Gene, in detective fiction?”

“Gaboriau,” said Gene briefly, “and Maurice le Blanc.”

“They would be,” laughed Margot. “You’re of French descent, and I suppose you read them in the original. Well, as for me, I vote for Conan Doyle’s immortal Sherlock! Although I’ll admit that Le Blanc’s ‘Memoirs of Arsene Lupin’ are thrilling and clever.”

“You and Valery are some pair of highbrows to be in the motion picture industry.” Stoner sounded sarcastic, and Gene frowned darkly, but Margot answered gaily:

“I’ve never heard detective fiction called high-brow before. Except, of course, that I take it more seriously than most readers do, Mr. Stoner. You see, I was a medical student and specialized in chemistry before you gave me the chance of my young life to become an actress. I’ve had lots of fun analyzing the methods of most of the great fiction detectives. How’s that?” Her upturned face challenged him with a bright smile.

“Hot stuff for your press agent, when I’m directing you as a star, some day.”

Gene turned abruptly on his heel. Margot stood, her eyes held by Stoner’s veiled scrutiny. For veiled it was; that expressed it exactly. For a few seconds his gaze held hers, then—again—what was it—that sudden dilating of the pupil; the queer overtone as of a yellowish shadow darkening the pale blue of the iris; a shimmer in the eyeball, like dust specks seen in a sunbeam.…

Margot lowered her head, and walked slowly to the door leading to the roof garden. Strange eyes! A little shiver shook her bare shoulders. The night was sultry. The room was heavy with smoke and the warm essence from many human bodies.