Motion Picture Magazine (Feb-Jul 1925)

Whose Hand? Part iv — In which the press screams, the haunted house yields a secret, and Mar got summons a silent witness from its tomb By W. Adolphe Roberts (A synopsis of Parts I-I1I will be found on page 115) M ARGOT sat after luncheon with Gene Yalery in the new room she had $ken in the house of mystery. It was not merely that the old one seemed a perilous place, where no woman familiar with what had passed there could ever sit, much less sleep, again. But, in addition, the room of the bodiless hand from under the bed, the room the mutilated Stella Ball had so strangely re-entered, was now become public property in a sense. The police laid claim to it, as the principal field of research in a case they chose to insist was neither criminal nor supernatural. It was being visited every few hours by reporters and news photographers. For the moment, the fickle attention of the crowd was concentrated upon it. It was under the limelight as the setting for the latest number in the Follies of New York. So Margot had moved. That she had not left the house altogether was astonishing, a little disturbing, too, to Gene. But she had met his arguments with a cryptic smile, hac told him .to say nothing more until "she was ready to explain herself. He was wise enough to perceive that she must always work out her problems in her own way. The almost incredible boon of her love had been given to him, and in return he was willing to obey her slightest wish. Two days had passed since Margot had last reported for work at the studio. She and her whole adventure had acquired news value by the midnight arrest of Stella, and she had been well aware of it. But the sensation had broken at too late an hour for the morning papers to act. She had slipped safely away to Astoria before nine o'clock, to be met with the announcement that the screening of A Toreador's Love was held up for a few days, possibly for a week. A blunder on the part of the art director had been made the occasion of a revamping of the set, a hysterical movie comedy of errors. Stoner was in a condition of blasphemous wrath. Corinne Delamar, the star, darted acid comments thru the slats of her dressing-room on wheels. The minor members of the cast had been told to get out of the way. Without a confidential word to anyone, Margot had returned to the city. The head-lines of early afternoon editions had greeted her. Head-lines about herself. Bantering, hateful head-lines: spooks pursue film beauty — ACTRESS AND COP GET GHOSTLY BURGLAR MOVIE GIRL REPORTS room haunted. Well, she had anticipated that sort of thing. It could be checked, however. Margot had placed herself at the disposal of all the reporters that called, and within Eugene sighed. "You are too deep for me, Margot. I'm afraid I'm not going to be much help to you in this business." "Oh, yes, you are, dear. I'll need masculine support when I challenge the police. And there's a physical job or two I may ask you to tackle" twenty-four hours their stories had sobered down. ' But it was significant that Stoner, who had tried to bully her into silence, had emphasized his displeasure by neither telephoning nor calling since the matter had reached the press. She leaned toward Gene now, her eyebrows puckered. ''Listen, dear," she said. "I've been analyzing our melodramatic problem, and I'm ready to talk it over with you, if you'd care to have me do so." '•You bet I would," he flashed back. "All right. As I see it, we have to do with a mystery, but a perfectly normal one. It will turn out to be important to students of crime, rather than to the Society for Physical Research. The best detective methods are the surest, in fact, the only methods that will solve it." "It's in the right hands, then," commented Gene. "Cornelius Hart and his assistants are hot on the trail." Margot snapped her fingers impatiently. "I wish I shared your good opinion of the police department. Hart seems a bungler to me. He laughed at my story, even n PAfili '