"Still, although you cannot tell who has taken the picture, it seems clear enough that it must have been removed by some one employed in the studio."
"Even that is by no means certain. So many people come here every day. All sorts of visitors, writers, actors, and the like. After business hours I don't doubt any number of persons enter this room, to look at the pictures of our great successes that hang on its walls. And then there are the caretakers, the scrub-women, and their friends. I find that they, many of them, bring in outsiders, after working hours, to look at the studio, and the famous offices. Of course it should not be, and it will not be, in the future, but up to now we have rather welcomed people from outside. It seemed good advertising."
Duvall followed his companion back to his office.
"Then this clue, like all the others in this singular case," he remarked, "seems to end in a blind alley."
"It seems so," assented Mr. Baker, gloomily. "What was your plan about the new film we're going to show to-night?"
Duvall was about to speak, but before he could do so, they heard a slight commotion in the hall outside. Then someone rapped violently on the door.
The door was flung open, and Mr. Edwards, the director, who was making the picture upon which Ruth Morton was working, strode hastily into the room. "Mr. Baker!" he exclaimed, then paused upon seeing Duvall.
Baker went up to him, his face showing the greatest uneasiness.
"What's the matter?" he asked. "Anything wrong?"
"Yes. Miss Morton was going through the scene in the first part, where she gets the telegram, you know, and when she opened the message, and read it, she fainted."
"Fainted? What was in the telegram to make her faint?"
"Well, it ought to have read, 'Will call for you to-night, with marriage license--Jimmy.' That was the prop message we had prepared. But somebody must have substituted another one for it. This is what she read." He handed Baker a yellow slip of paper. "I can't make anything out of it."
Baker snatched the telegram from his hand with a growl of rage, and read it hastily. Then he passed it over to Duvall.
"What do you think of that?" he asked. Duvall gazed at the telegram with a feeling of helpless anger.