When she and Judge Walbrough--the Walbroughs sent their car for her at
nine-thirty--arrived in the offices of Zenda Films, they were ushered
into an inner office by the same overdressed youth who had shown Clancy
in there yesterday.
The meeting that loomed ahead of her was fraught, she believed, with
tremendous dramatic possibilities. Of course, none of the people who
would take part in it knew that she had visited the office of Morris
Beiner, yet she might be called again by the name "Florine" in the
presence of some one who knew.
Zenda was already there, seated at the large table. At the far end of it
were Weber and Grannis. There were no introductions. Zenda greeted the
new arrivals, and merely stated:
"Judge Walbrough will act as my attorney. If you want a lawyer, Grannis,
you, of course, are entitled to one."
Grannis grunted unintelligibly. Zenda drummed a moment on the table with
his slender fingers. Then he spoke.
"I won't go over everything again, Grannis. I've the goods on you. I've
plenty on Weber, too. Judge Walbrough is prepared to offer you, on
behalf of a client, seventy-five for your stock."
Here the judge nodded acquiescently. He opened an important-seeming
wallet and withdrew a check.
"I went to the bank first thing this morning, Zenda," he said. "It's
certified. Three hundred and seventy-five thousand dollars for half the
stock--five thousand shares."
"That's correct," said Zenda. "It doesn't take account of my poker
losses, but"--he leaned toward Weber--"I'm not going to slug you, Ike.
I'm not going to sue you. I'm not going to do anything. Not now. But, so
surely as you stay in this town, so surely as you mix into the film
business _anywhere_, I'm going to land you in jail." He turned to his
erstwhile partner. "I haven't much to say to you, Grannis. The judge is
offering you a price that's fair, considering that he's deducted about
what you and Ike trimmed me of from his offer. That's O.K. I'm willing
to let his client in, sort of at my expense, in order to get rid of you.
Now, do you accept?"
Clancy held her breath. But Zenda and Grannis must have held some
earlier conversation this morning or last night. For Grannis produced a
sheaf of engraved documents. He put them on the table. Zenda reached for
them and handed them to the judge. The latter examined them carefully,
then nodded in acceptance.
"The certificates are properly endorsed in blank, Zenda. It's all
right." He pushed across the table his certified check. Grannis took it.
He rose and looked uncertainly at Zenda.
The film-director met his glance fairly.
"You're a pretty wise bird, Grannis," he said slowly. "But it isn't
_really_ wise to double-cross your friend and partner."
That was all that was said. Grannis and Weber had left the room when
Clancy suddenly remembered something.
"The ten thousand dollars they gave me!" she cried. "Have you returned
it?"
She had given it, for safe-keeping, into Walbrough's hands last night.
Zenda laughed.
"My dear Miss Deane," he said, "I've lost scores of thousands at stud to
Grannis and Weber. That ten thousand dollars is my money. That is, it
_was_ my money."
Clancy stared at him. The judge chuckled.
"Considering that your evidence saved Zenda from a nasty lawsuit, that
it ridded him of a crooked partner, that it gave him a chance to
continue his business with a partner who will not interfere with him,
both he and myself agree that you are entitled to that ten thousand
dollars."
Clancy had been pale as wax. But now the color surged into her cheeks.
"For simply doing what I ought to do? No, indeed!" she cried.
Nor could their united protests move her. Zenda finally ceased. An idea
struck him. He beamed upon her.
"You said, last night, that you had film ambitions. Well, Miss Deane,
here's my chance to repay you."
Her eyes lighted.
"Oh, I don't want you to feel that----"
Zenda scribbled upon a card.
"Take this to the studio. Johansen will make a test of you. He'll do it
right away. On Monday, you telephone----"
"And then begins the big career!" cried the judge. "Well, well, Miss
Deane; I shall expect to see Zenda Films advertising the newest star
all over the city. Eh, Zenda?"
Zenda smiled.
"I can always use a pretty girl with intelligence," he said. "Miss Deane
is certainly pretty and just as certainly intelligent. If she screens as
well as I hope----"
His unuttered promise seemed to open the gates of Fortune to Clancy. She
hardly knew afterward what she said by way of thanks. She only knew that
Judge Walbrough insisted that she use his limousine--stating that he
himself was going to take the subway down-town--and that Zenda wrung her
hand warmly, and that, a moment later, she had descended in the elevator
and was in the big motor, on her way to the East-Side studio of Zenda
Films, Incorporated.
In the car, she managed to collect herself. Once again she saw herself
the peer of the famous women of the screen; she saw herself famous,
rich. Oddly enough, she thought of David Randall. She wondered how he
would feel if he knew that she was on the threshold of international
fame. For she never doubted it. She knew that all she needed was
opportunity.
Johansen, a thin, bald, worried-seeming Swede, eyed her keenly with
deep-set blue eyes. He was in his shirt-sleeves, superintending the
erection of a "set." But he ceased that work and summoned a camera-man.
The Zenda command caused all to put themselves at her service. Johansen
even superintended her making-up process, of which she was abysmally
ignorant. Also, he rearranged her hair. Then he conducted her to the
"set" which he was erecting.
There was a table in the middle of the scene. Johansen instructed her.
He put a letter on the table.
"Now, Miss Deane, you enter from the left there, you're kinda blue,
downhearted--see? Then you spy this letter. You pick it up. It's for
you, and you recognize the handwriting. It's from your sweetie--get me?
You smile. You open the letter. Then your smile fades away and you weep.
Get me? Try it. Now, mind, it don't really matter if you can act or not.
Zenda wouldn't care about that. He could teach a wooden image to act.
It's just your registering--that's all. Ready? Camera!"
In Zenith, when she had played in the high-school shows, Clancy had been
self-conscious, she knew. And here, with only a bored assistant director
and an equally bored camera-man to observe her, she was even more
self-conscious. So she was agreeably surprised when Johansen
complimented her after the scene had been taken.
"You done fine!" he said. "Now let's try another. This time, you come in
from the right, happy-like. You see the letter and get blue. You read it
and get happy. Got it? Shoot!"
She went through the little scene, this time with less
self-consciousness. Johansen smiled kindly upon her.
"I think you got something," he told her. "Can't tell, of course, yet.
The screen is funny. Prettiest girl in the world may be a lemon on the
screen. Same goes both ways. But we'll hope."
But he couldn't dash her sense of success. She rode on air to Sally
Henderson's office. Her employer was not there, Clancy had telephoned
before meeting Walbrough, asking permission to be late, and also
apologizing for not having returned to the office the afternoon before.
"Miss Henderson's gone out of town for the week-end," young Guernsey,
the too foppishly-dressed office-manager, told her. "She left this for
you."
"This" was an envelope which Clancy quickly opened. It contained, not
her discharge, which she had vaguely expected--why should her employer
write to her otherwise?--but twenty-five dollars, half a week's salary.
And Clancy was down to her last dollar!
"We close at one on Saturdays," Guernsey informed her. He himself was
beating the closing-time by three-quarters of an hour, but Clancy waited
until one o'clock. Then she left. She called upon Miss Conover, but the
plump, merry little dressmaker had nothing ready to try on her newest
customer.
It didn't matter. Nothing mattered. Zenda had caused a test to be made
of her--and Clancy Deane would be upon the screen.
She wondered just what sort of parts Zenda would give her. Of course,
she'd have to begin with little "bits," as Fanchon had called them. But
soon--oh, very soon!--she'd work up to great rôles. She wanted emotional
parts; she felt that she could bring to the screen something new in the
way of interpretation. All the Clancys of the world, whether it is
acting or writing or singing that they wish to do, feel the same.
She took in a matinée in the afternoon. She supped, in lonely splendor,
at the Trevor. And, equipped with a novel, she went to bed early. But
she could not concentrate. Her mind wandered; and it didn't wander to
the mystery of Morris Beiner's death, or to the possibility that some
one in Vandervent's office would definitely decide that she _was_
Florine Ladue, nearly so often as it wandered to the Zenda studios.
She had fooled Philip Vandervent yesterday. Grannis and Weber had
passed, so she believed, out of her life. Why should she worry? She had
done no wrong. Resolutely, she refused to fret. Instead, she went off to
sleep, prepared for roseate dreams. She had them, but the awakening was
not so roseate.
Mrs. Gerand, who, by request, roused all her lodgers on week-days,
permitted them to slumber as late as they chose on Sundays. The
lodging-house, usually from seven o'clock until nine a noisy place,
filled with the bustle of departing men and women, was silent as the
tomb on Sunday morning. And Clancy slept until eleven o'clock, to be
awakened by the landlady.
"I hate to do it, Miss Deane," she apologized, "but when letters come by
special messenger, they're important as telegrams, I think. So I brought
this up."
Clancy, sitting up in bed, took the note from Mrs. Gerand's hand. After
the landlady had gone, she opened it. And then she put her head upon the
pillow and wept. For Zenda had written: