I

A CAMERA CRIME


"Camera!"

Kennedy and I had been hastily summoned from his laboratory in
the city by District-Attorney Mackay, and now stood in the
luxurious, ornate library in the country home of Emery Phelps,
the banker, at Tarrytown.

"Camera!--you know the call when the director is ready to shoot a
scene of a picture?--well--at the moment it was given and the
first and second camera men began to grind--she crumpled--sank to
the floor--unconscious!"

Hot and excited, Mackay endeavored to reenact his case for us
with all the histrionic ability of a popular prosecutor before a
jury.

"There's where she dropped--they carried her over here to this
davenport--sent for Doctor Blake--but he couldn't do a thing for
her. She died--just as you see her. Blake thought the matter so
serious, so alarming, that he advised an immediate investigation.
That's why I called you so urgently."

Before us lay the body of the girl, remarkably beautiful even as
she lay motionless in death. Her masses of golden hair,
disheveled, added to the soft contours of her features. Her