He paused, glancing at me again.  When Kennedy said nothing, Werner went on, growing more and more nervous.  “Jack Gordon plays Jack Daring, the hero—­the handsome young chap who runs down the steps and encounters the butler and the maid in the hall just outside the library—­”

“Wasn’t it his face in the French windows of the library at the same time?” Kennedy asked.  “Wasn’t he the murderer of the father, also?”

“No!” Werner smiled slightly, and there was an instant’s flash of the man’s personality, winning and, it seemed to me, calculated to inspire confidence.  “That is the mystery; it is a mystery plot.  While the parts are played by Jack in both cases now, we explain in a subtitle a little later that the criminal himself, the ‘Black Terror,’ is a master of scientific impersonation, and that he changes the faces of his emissaries by means of plastic surgery and such scientific things, so that they look like the characters against whom he wishes to throw suspicion.  So while Jack plays the part it is really an accomplice of the ’Black Terror’ who kills old Remsen.”

Kennedy turned to me.  “A new idea in the application of science to crime!” he remarked, dryly.  “Just suppose it were practicable!”

“The ‘Black Terror’” Werner continued, “is played by Merle Shirley.  You’ve heard of him, the greatest villain ever known to the films?  Then there’s Marilyn Loring, the vampire, another good trouper, too.  She plays Zelda, old Remsen’s ward, and it’s a question whether Zelda or Stella will be the Remsen heir.  Marilyn herself is an awfully nice girl, but, oh, how the fans hate her!” The director chuckled.  “No Millard story is ever complete without a vamp and Marilyn’s been eating them up.  She’s been with Manton Pictures for nearly a year.”

“You played the millionaire yourself?”

“Yes, I did old Remsen.”

I realized suddenly, for the first time, that Werner was still in the evening clothes he had donned for the part.  On his face were streaks in the little make-up that remained after his frequent mopping of his features with his handkerchief.  Too, his collar was melted.  I could imagine his discomfort.

“Did you have any business with Stella?” Kennedy asked, using the stage term for the minor bits of action in the playing of a scene.  “Did you move at all while she was going through her part?”

“No, Mr. Kennedy, I was ‘dead man’ in all the scenes.”

“Show me how you lay, if you will.”

Obligingly, Werner stretched out on the carpet, duplicating his positions even to the exact manner in which he had placed his hands and arms.  Rather to my own distaste, Kennedy impressed me to represent, I am sure in clumsy fashion, the various positions of Stella Lamar.  Most painstakingly Kennedy worked back from the thirteenth scene to the first, referring to the script and coaxing details of memory from the mind of Werner.

I grasped Kennedy’s purpose almost at once.  He was endeavoring to reproduce the action which had been photographed, so as to determine just how the poison had been administered.  Of course he made no reference to the tiny scratch and Mackay and I were careful to give no hint of it to Werner.  The director, however, seemed most willing to assist us.  I certainly felt no suspicion of him now.  As for Kennedy, his face was unrevealing.