Chapter 1

MOVIE MEN AND MANNEQUINS

Mid 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.