Chapter VIII: The Claws of Jealousy

Margot arrived at Astoria at about ten o’clock on the following morning. She raised clear eyes to the zenith, praising, whatever it was she was accustomed to praise deep in her soul, that the sky in its blue immensity was there above her, promising unseen glorious things beyond her ken. Mere joy of living made her face sparkle in response to the sparkle of the sun, and she took in deep breaths of tingling air, which quickened the flow of blood in her young body, and brought a brighter color to her cheeks.

Probably the one precious gift of the gods which should have meant more to her than beauty or vigor or quick wits, was the one on which she placed the least value, taking it for granted, as those who are very young invariably regard the short-lived possession of _youth_. In spite of three successive sleepless nights, much excitement and considerable nerve strain, youth had refreshed itself from unguessed sources. No one would have imagined, to look at Margot, that she had anything more weighty to consider than whatever immediate and trivial objective might lie before her.

Nevertheless she was conscious of an increasing annoyance as she approached the studio. The impertinence of Corinne Delamar’s imperative dispatch, created an irritation which was close to angry indignation by the time she entered the big edifice. A sudden decision not to appear too hasty in her response to the star’s command, made her take a roundabout way to the dressing-room which she shared with other girls.

A confusion of props and other scenic paraphernalia, stood about near the stairway leading up to the girls’ dressing-room. The place seemed momentarily deserted. She heard hammering and voices over at the end of the vast stage, but at the end near the stairway there appeared to be no one.

With one foot on the bottom step, she heard a slight sound that arrested her. Deliberately she stood still and listened. The sound referred to was the use of her own name in the voice of Miss Delamar, and the voice came from the other side of a large piece of scenery which completely cut off the view of the stairs. Margot had no idea what Corinne had said about her; she heard only her name, but forthwith she determined to know what further the star intended to say about her. The old saying about listeners, might well apply in this case, but Margot felt that in all the circumstances--and the fact that she felt an instinctive mistrust of Stoner--she was justified in using whatever self-defensive weapons chance might offer her.

Then she heard a man’s voice--in a second she recognized it as Stoner’s--saying:

“Don’t let her put anything over on you. She’ll have her own story to tell, of course, but just you stick to the main fact--the only one that cuts any ice with you--that being that she’s got herself in the limelight just when you need all you can damn well get for yourself.”

“What do you want me to say to her? The harm’s done. She’s been headlined in all the papers. That _can’t_ be undone.” Corinne sounded a little querulous.

“You can raise merry hell with her, can’t you? Make her sorry she didn’t put the lid on tight to this idiotic mystery stuff, as I warned her to. Make her sorry she’s alive, if you have to. Sorry so far as her job here is concerned, or any other job in pictures. Between us we could queer her with any other company.” Stoner’s voice was rasping with irritability.

A slight pause, then Corinne said:

“You’ve got a bee in my bonnet and you’re determined to make it keep on buzzing. If you hadn’t put it into my head, I’d never have thought that Margot Anstruther having a mysterious adventure which has got into the papers, could have a thing to do with _my_ getting press publicity. As a matter of fact, why haven’t you seen to it yourself, Fred?”

“Good Lord, I’ve done every damn thing I can to push you, my dear girl, and you know it.”

Strangely familiar words, Margot thought with a smile.

“I’ll tell you flat what I _do_ know!” Corinne’s rather light voice vibrated with sudden feeling. “You’re more interested in that girl than you’re willing to admit. Don’t think me a fool, my dear Fred. Both my eyes and ears are normal, and I’ve seen and heard things.”

Margot heard Stoner’s low laugh of amused contempt.

“Oh, you women! The girl’s got talent of course, and the artist I flatter myself I am, recognized it and made use of it. Why not, will you tell me? All women have to be flattered to get good results, whether it’s work or play.” His laugh was teasing, patronizing. “But as to my feeling any deeply _personal_ interest in Miss Anstruther, why you’re a fool to imagine it for a moment.”

“Of course, my dear Fred, don’t get away with the idea that I would make any fuss or try to force an issue with you, where there isn’t one. I mean this. It’s been no question of marriage between you and me. I’d bow to the woman who could inspire you to want to get married. But--and it’s a big one--I’ll not stand for your having an affair with Margot Anstruther or any other girl, and let things go on as before between you and me, no matter how much I happen to be indebted to you for being a star so early in the game.”

“Laying down the law, is that it, my dear?”

“Yes, that’s precisely it. If you can get that girl to take my place to your complete satisfaction--in or out of marriage--why go to it, old dear, but count me out--not only of your personal life but out of your picture.”

“You’re not such a fool as to threaten to quit work on this picture in the middle of it, just out of jealous spite over another woman?” He had raised his voice and it vibrated angrily.

“No, you big nut, I don’t mean that. I’m not going to cut off my nose to spite my face just out of jealousy, but I’ll do it in a jiffy if there’s real foundation for that jealousy.”

“You mean, if you found out that I’m interested in Margot Anstruther--let’s say, for the sake of argument, in love with her--you’d leave me and my big picture high and dry, and I’d have to begin the thing all over again with another actress?”

“Exactly!” Corinne’s voice was crisp and cool. “And I have a sweet picture, dear Freddie, of what you’d hear from the Superfilm production manager when he would find out that your infatuation for a new girl cost the company thousands of dollars.”

“You little devil!” There was nothing jocular in the remark. “Well, now listen to _me_! If I really cared a damn about this girl Margot, I’d see you or any other woman in Jericho, before I’d be threatened or dictated to. But if it’ll smooth your feathers to know the truth, here it is, little one. Personally, Margot means nothing to me. I’m interested in her work, and I’ve got a certain curiosity about this mystery story of hers. Detective stuff _always_ interests me. So if you see me talking to her, you can be sure it’s either about work in the studio or about her ghosts. But as to this publicity stunt, we’ve got to choke it off, and I depend on you, Corinne, to do what you can with her. Give her a scare, and see what _that’ll_ do.”

The tone of finality in Stoner’s long-winded speech, made Margot run lightly away from the staircase. The interview between Corinne and Stoner was probably ended, and the quicker Margot got out of the danger zone, the better. She hurried back to the front entrance, and came sauntering in, again walking directly to the end of the stage where work was going on. She had a vague plan to encounter the director first, see what he might have to say, then go on to the interview with the star.

Funny, Stoner telling Corinne that he liked detective mysteries! Just the opposite of what he’d told Margot.

Coming around the corner of a chrome yellow plaster wall of a Spanish farmhouse, she almost ran into Stoner. He stared, then bent over her, with a surly expression.

“You would do it, wouldn’t you! You _would_ be written up, in spite of what I told you!”

Margot smiled, an enigmatic smile that brought an angry flush to Stoner’s face. Then she said quietly:

“Don’t you think that the initiative was taken out of my hands by the arrival upon the scene of the mysterious girl, Stella Ball?”

“That’s got nothing to do with what I mean, Miss Anstruther. You gave interviews to the reporters, didn’t you?”

“Naturally. They got hold of the story from the police, and they published a lot of bunk that I went to some pains to contradict. You’ll find a much more sane story in to-day’s papers.”

“Makes it all the worse. If you’d let the whole thing drop as a silly pipe dream, after that first night, and sent the police packing, _nothing_ would have got into the papers.”

“O--h!” Margot opened wide her large gray eyes. “You wish I’d taken possession of my room as if nothing had happened, and been all alone to receive and entertain Stella Ball on her informal visit to my quarters?”

“How could _she_ have hurt you, a thin little thing like that?”

“Thin little thing, like that,” Margot repeated, staring at him.

For a second something flashed in his eyes, or she imagined it, then he frowned and said testily:

“Well, that’s the way the papers described her, wasn’t it?”

“Oh--yes, of course, I forgot!”

Surely her thoughts were taking erratic twists and turns. Why had she been struck by an undefined familiarity with the appearance of the girl Stella, in Stoner’s casual comment? A vague impression, going as quickly as it had come, and leaving her with the sense of being somehow a trifle foolish.

“Can’t see,” Stoner went on with the argument, “what there’d have been particularly scary about having a girl sneak thief come into your room. You don’t strike me as a coward, Margot. Probably the girl would have been more scared of you than you of her.”

Margot laughed. Stoner was unconsciously amusing.

“You certainly have it all doped out what I should have done, Mr. Stoner, under any and all circumstances. But what I did is done, and I can’t see why all this fuss about it now.”

“You can’t, eh!” He grew threatening. His anger was evidently not far beneath the surface. “Well, you say that to Miss Delamar. She’s wild. She’s all primed to give you a good calling down.”

Margot studied him with a deliberately judicious stare.

“Are you _quite_ sure, Mr. Stoner, that Miss Delamar is as wild as all that?”

“Am I quite sure! Say, how do you get that way?” He seemed to become slangy in proportion as he grew angry or amorously familiar. “Go on in and see her, and find out for yourself just how wild she is. She’s likely to tell you you’re fired.”

She felt that he had over-reached himself, and she took quick advantage.

“Oh, really! I thought that no one but you had the power to engage or discharge members of this cast. But if it’s in Miss Delamar’s province to do what you hint that she may do, why I’ll save her and myself the boredom of an interview. I can tender my resignation right here and now.”

“Oh, come on!” He hadn’t expected her to call his bluff, and she almost grinned into his blustering countenance. “Don’t take a fellow up so sharp. Don’t be so literal. What I was going to say is this: No matter how mad she is or what she says, I can calm her down afterwards. But you’ll have to meet me half way. I’m not going to let myself in for a scrap with Corinne Delamar, unless you promise me two things.”

Sheer curiosity to see to what lengths Stoner could conceivably go, made Margot say with a faint smile:

“_Two_ things! What are they, Mr. Stoner?”

“First, cut loose from this haunted house bunk. It’s going to do you and all of us harm if you persist in being connected with it. I’d like to have you forget the thing ever happened.” His words were spoken calmly enough, but she noted a slight twitching of his face.

Certainly the man was nervous. Probably he drank and smoked too much. Most persons did.

“I might possibly be persuaded to buy the security of my job in your picture at that price, although I’d lose a lot of fun.” Her levity brought no smile to his lips. Then she said: “And what is the other condition?”

“Well, I suppose you’ll think I’ve got my nerve, but I want you to let me be your friend, and see you often. I’m not asking to make love to you--though God knows I’m crazy about you, Margot--but at least give me the chance to help you as I can’t while you’re running around with Valery.”

This last offer of selfish patronage of her career was more bald than previous offers or hints had been, but why let it anger her, she wisely concluded, giving a non-committal smile.

“You’re very kind, Mr. Stoner. I’ll give the matter thought when I have more time, and not so many absorbing things to think about. Then I’ll let you know what I decide to do.”

Her delicate irony did not altogether miss its mark. He scowled heavily, but apparently could think of no effective retort, so he stood with shoulders thrown back, and head in air, as she walked off and left him.

A negro maid edged out of the narrow compartment as Margot entered Corinne’s dressing room. The star was sitting in a wicker chair beside a table strewn with cosmetics. A disproportionately large mirror hung above the table, flanked by hooks on which were draped a variety of startlingly gaudy Spanish bolero-jackets and shawls. There seemed to be no place for a visitor to sit, so Margot stood, in graceful and well-bred disregard of having to stand.

Corinne was certainly beautiful, Margot thought, looking down at her. Margot was always generous in her enthusiasm over another woman’s beauty or charm. The star might be somewhat over thirty, but her strange gold-colored eyes, her ivory-palid cheeks and throat, and her fierce red pouting lips, had all the splendor of early youth.

For an appreciable moment, Corinne did not even turn her head. Then she twisted slowly around in her chair, and looked up at Margot out of narrowed eyes. Her voice was modulated to the velvet softness of the woman whose pose is to appear better bred than she is.

“Miss Anstruther,” she began softly, “I understand that this wild story about you in the papers is the result of a play for publicity. Doesn’t it strike you as taking an unpardonable liberty, while you have a part supporting me?” At least she had gone directly to the point.

“Who has given you to understand such a thing, Miss Delamar? It’s Mr. Stoner, isn’t it?”

“Yes. What of it?” Corinne’s voice was a trifle less suave.

Of a sudden, and most unexpectedly, Margot wanted intensely to convince Corinne, even to propitiate her, not at all for professional reasons, but because of some deep and mysterious urge to make a friend of the young woman, whose antagonism she had so unwittingly aroused. A swift decision came to her. She would tell the star her so-called ghost story, from beginning to end, or rather to the point it had reached. She would offer neither explanations nor excuses, she would stick to narrative and description of the persons in her little drama.

“Miss Delamar,” she began gently, “will you be kind enough to let me tell you frankly just what has happened? I’m sorry if I’ve done anything to annoy you, but I’d really like you to know the facts at first hand.”

Corinne stared at her intently, then she said, pulling out a stool from under the table:

“Please sit down. I’m sorry I haven’t a comfortable chair. I’ll be glad to hear what you have to say, Miss Anstruther.”

Margot’s shrewd and watchful eyes did not miss the brightening of Corinne’s eyes, or the eager play of her lips, as she listened to the odd and arresting tale. She had held the star’s interest and she had won her trust, at least, so far as her mysterious adventure was concerned.

“You certainly put the whole thing in a different light, Miss Anstruther. I’ll talk to you again later in the week. I want to think over the matter.”

Margot could not restrain the impulse that made her bend over, with an eager smile, as she stood up to go, and say:

“Please do your own thinking, unassisted by Mr. Stoner. For some reason he’s determined to put me in the wrong in this matter and make me drop the investigation. I don’t know what it’s all about, but I can’t see why he’s so keen about it.”

At her first words, Corinne’s eyes flashed angrily, but it became clear to her that Margot meant no personal offense, and she nodded a good-by with the first amiable smile that she had ever conferred upon Margot.

On the trip back to town, Margot felt suddenly tired and depressed. Such a fuss and bother and so much confusion to face in the immediate future. She hated rows. She hated having people dislike her or suspect her of mean motives. A sudden overwhelming yearning rushed over her, for the mother who had died when she was sixteen. She had loved her mother, and she had needed her always, but the years in their swift passing, had made her more self-reliant and less given to lonely meditation.

With a return to her normal cheerfulness, Margot put her key in the lock of the front door, and ran up to her room. Gene, the dear boy, was coming to take her to dinner. Her glance fell on a yellow telegram on the table. She ran to it, tore it open and read:

_Terribly sorry. Can’t come for dinner. Stoner requires that I work in the studio to-night. Been transferred to another unit. See you to-morrow night without fail._

Gene.

Now, what in creation did that mean! It was most unusual to transfer a camera man to another unit, in the middle of a picture. Of course it was done occasionally, but rarely. Besides, why did Stoner call upon Gene at such short notice! He seemed to be under her feet at every turn.

She had dinner alone, then returned to her room, after a brief but not to be avoided conversation with Mrs. Bellew, on the subject of reporters and other kindred matters. Margot had some mending to do, and it struck her with ironic force, that, in the midst of so much mental confusion, she should be sitting alone in the so-called “haunted” house, mending her stockings.

About a half hour later a tap sounded on her door. Wondering if it could be Gene, after all, or another message from him, she opened her door. On the threshold stood Stoner, the landlady vaguely and apologetically in the dim background of the hall.