Albert Ullman - The Talkie Murder

Sudden Darkness—the Grim Hand of Death Strikes—And the Unknown Murderer There on the Movie Lot!

ON THE sound stage of the Ajax Picture Studios the members of the cast had resumed the exact positions they had occupied before lunch. Chalk lines, resembling the outlines of so many pairs of feet, enabled them do this to the satisfaction of the exacting Tad Boone.

It was the climax of "Processional," from the play of the Russian master, and the famous director, after six weeks of tireless effort, was confident that he had achieved the great picture of his career. Momentarily the tense look left his face, and his smile embraced the eleven characters. Then he frowned once more. "Lights!" he barked. "All set!" A dazzling shower of light fell on the stage, and from the sides a battery of Kliegs projected their blinding shafts.

"Miss Storme," he said, in more gentle tones, as he looked at the still-faced leading woman, "your cue is 'you lie!' —and then you denounce Leonid... You work yourself into a fury gradually—your motions become more violent— in the end you are like a creature demented... And then you break—the storm of your words ends in mad gibberings—you fall at the feet of the man who has betrayed you!"

HELENE STORME gazed at him somberly, but as he finished, a gleam of fire came into her dark eyes. In her lovely husky voice, she started to recite the words of her role. Slowly, then, as she faced the camera, her burning eyes uplifted, her lips parted as if about to speak the solemn words of the heroine.

But the words were never spoken. For at that instant the lights flashed out, leaving the stage and studio in pitch darkness.

For a moment there was dead silence, then out of the Stygian blackness came a piercing, shattering scream of agony, a frenzied cry that froze the blood. Then a thud, as of a falling body.

Again dead silence, timed only by wildly- beating hearts. Then another scream, smothered, this time in a different key. As it echoed, the lights flashed on, their pitiless rays revealing the frozen faces of those present.

Tad Boone was the first to partly recover his wits. With a dazed look, he lurched onto the stage to stare at the crumpled figure of his leading woman stretched on the floor! His eyes dilated with horror as a crimson splotch showed on the bodice of the snowy evening gown and slowly spread. He dropped on one knee and gropingly felt for the pulse as the life blood continued to well from the heart.

"Dead!" he choked, looking wildly about at the ring of terror-stricken faces. His eyes settled on an assistant director. "Call—call the police!" he croaked. "This—this is murder!"

He jerked to his feet and faced the company. "None of you are to move from your places!" he cried. "Some one has killed Helene Storme!"

So frozen with horror were the east that none of them had moved. Then from out of their ranks, despite the orders of the director, one of them tottered—Miriam Foye, a blonde slip of a woman who still managed to play youthful roles.

"The—the murderer brushed by me, Tad!" she quavered. "That's why I cried out. Crawling across the stage—" Her voice died out and she clutched at his arm for support.

"Some one crawled past you?" barked Boone. "When?"

"Right after that terrible scream ... I felt a body against my legs in the dark ... I was—"

"In what direction was it going?"

"Towards the left side of the set, I think," she said shakily.

"Jock!—Danny!" the director shouted to an assistant and a property man, standing woodenly behind his chair. "One of you circle the set, the other see that the gates are closed and no one allowed out!"

THE sound of running feet caused him to jerk about. Several studio executives were hurrying towards the scene, in their rear a throng of crowding players.

"Stay where you are!" yelled Boone. "No one can come on this set until the police give the word! Some one has killed Miss Storme!"

And none of that terror-stricken crowd did move for what seemed to them, in their chattering excitement, an eternity, until there came the heavy tread of feet, and two towering bluecoats forced their way through the huddle of players and came striding towards Stage A.

"Stand back, all of yuh!" vociferated one of the policemen, as he caught sight of the body. He lumbered towards the stage as if to brush aside the players with his club.

"One moment, Officer!" called Tad Boone, bolting after him. "These people were standing where they are when this happened. Some one close at hand must have attacked Miss Storme, so I thought—"

"And quite right, too," remarked a quiet voice at his elbow; then: "Officer, you and your team-mate can rope off the space about here, and keep everybody out until further orders."

INSPECTOR COROT, head of the Homicide Squad, shot a swift glance at the dead woman on the stage. Then his gray eyes swept the members of the company and returned to the pallid face of the director.

"As you were saying, Mr.—er—"

"Boone is my name. I am the director." He caught sight of a younger man behind Inspector Corot. "Oh, hello, Dawson," he said weakly. "Have the newspapers already—"

"Just happened to be calling at the precinct station with the inspector when the flash came," the Blade reporter interjected.

"Am I to understand, Mr. Boone," remarked the inspector, "that no one has left the scene since this happened?"

"Absolutely no one—except two of my men I sent on errands." He told of the precautions he had taken, gave a hasty outline of the tragic occurrence.

"In the dark—and a knife," observed Corot quietly. "I take it you have not found the weapon?"

"I have made no search," said the director jerkily. "I rather thought I might bungle things up."

"Ah!" breathed the officer. "If there were more like you, a copper's lot might be easier."

He walked across the stage and bent his slight form over the body of the dead actress. Then he straightened up, his keen eyes darting in every direction. One moment they appeared to be measuring the distance between some players and the body, the next following different angles from the cameras and batteries of standing light. The arrival of the Medical Examiner interrupted these proceedings. He walked back to where Tad Boone stood, waiting.

"I imagine your actors are about ready to drop," he commented to the director. "Suppose we assemble them somewhere where I can question them later... We may have to make a search, you know." He called two uniformed men to him. "Escort the members of the company to the room Mr. Boone shows you," he ordered "and don't let them out of your sight." To Detective Sergeant Moody, one of his aides from Headquarters, he added: "Those fellows—cameramen, electricians—so on—get them together somewhere; Detective Carroll will take charge."

THE Medical Examiner glanced up. "Death instantaneous, Inspector!" he exclaimed. "A savage wound, a thrust through the heart! Why, man, the slayer had to work the blade up and down before he could withdraw it!"

"The man?" "Only a man—with the strength of a brute— could inflict such a wound," vigorously asserted the examiner. "It's demoniacal!"

"Then that lets the women out," said Corot, with a short laugh. "Except as accessories. Can you figure out anything about the size of the knife, Doctor?"

An unusual one," was the startling answer. "If I were back in the Philippines, on my old job, I'd swear it was made by a bolo."

"A bolo!" repeated the head of the Homicide Squad.

"A. terrible weapon," explained the physician. "Really a cane-knife, but used by the Igorottes in war—and head-hunting!"

"Then it was not a knife that one ordinarily would carry?"