“It is a very serious matter.  To show how unscrupulous Manton is, I can demonstrate that he is wrecking Manton Pictures deliberately.  I’ve told you of the waste.  Only the other day I came into the studio.  Werner was putting up a great ballroom set.  You saw it?  No, that isn’t the one I mean.  I mean the first one.  He had it all up; then some little thing didn’t suit him.  The next day I came in again.  All struck—­sloughed—­every bit of it—­ and a new one started.  ‘Lloyd,’ I said, ’just think a minute—­ that’s my money!’ What good did it do?  He even began to alter the new set!  He would only go on, encouraging Werner and the other directors to change their sets, to lose time in trying for foolish effects, anything at all to pad the expense.

“You think I am romancing, but you don’t understand the film world,” Phelps hurried on angrily.  “Do you know that Enid Faye’s contract is not with Manton Pictures but with Manton himself?  That means he can take her away from me after he has made her a star with my money, at my expense.  Why should he wreck Manton Pictures, you ask?  Do you know that, bit by bit, on the pretext that he needed the funds for this that, or the other thing, Manton has sold out his entire interest in the company to me?  It is all mine now.  I tell you,” complained Phelps, bitterly, “he couldn’t seem to wreck the company fast enough.  Why?  Do you realize that there isn’t room both for this older company and the new Fortune Features?  Can you see that if Manton Pictures fails the Fortune company will be able to pick up the studio and all the equipment for a song?  I’m the fall guy!

“And yet, Kennedy, all the efforts to wreck Manton Pictures would have failed, because ‘The Black Terror’ was too sure a success.  In spite of all the expense, in spite of every effort to wreck it, that picture would have made half a million dollars.  Stella’s acting and Millard’s story and script would have put it over.  But now Millard’s contract has expired and Manton has signed him for Fortune Features.  Enid Faye will be made a star by ’The Black Terror,’ but she is not now the drawing power to put it over big, as Stella would have done.  I tell you, Kennedy, the death of Stella Lamar has completed the wreck of Manton Pictures!”

Kennedy jumped to his feet.  There was a hard light in his eyes I had never seen before.

“Do I understand you, Phelps?” he snapped.  “Are you accusing Manton of the cold-blooded murder of Stella Lamar to further various financial schemes?”

“Hardly!” Phelps blanched a bit, and I thought that a shudder swept over him.  “I don’t mean anything like that at all.  What I mean is that Manton, in encouraging various sorts of dissension to wreck the company, inadvertently fanned the flames of passion of those about her, and it resulted in her death.”

“Who killed her?”

“I don’t know!” Grudgingly I admitted that this seemed open and frank.