Jack stared at him in amazement.

“You’re joking!” he said.

“On the contrary, I am very much in earnest,” said Michael quietly. “But to know the Headhunter, and to bring his crimes home to him, are quite different matters.”

Jack Knebworth sat at his desk, his hands thrust into his trousers pockets, a look of blank incredulity on the face turned to the detective.

“Is it one of my company?” he asked, troubled, and Michael laughed.

“I haven’t the pleasure of knowing all your company,” he said diplomatically, “but at any rate, don’t let the Headhunter worry you. What are you going to do about Mr. Reggie Connolly?”

The director shrugged.

“He doesn’t mean it, and I was a fool to get wild,” he said. “That kind of ninny never means anything. You wouldn’t dream, to see him on the screen, full of tenderness and love and manliness, that he’s the poor little jellyfish he is! As for Mendoza⁠—” he swept his hands before him, and the gesture was significant.

Miss Stella Mendoza, however, was not accepting her dismissal so readily. She had fought her way up from nothing, and was not prepared to forfeit her position without a struggle. Moreover, her position was a serious one. She had money⁠—so much money that she need never work again; for, in addition to her big salary, she enjoyed an income from a source which need not be too closely inquired into. But there was a danger that Knebworth might carry the war into a wider field.

Her first move was to go in search of Adele Leamington, who, she learnt that morning for the first time, had taken her place. Though she went in a spirit of conciliation, she choked with anger to discover that the girl was occupying the star’s dressing-room, the room which had always been sacred to Stella Mendoza’s use. Infuriated, yet preserving an outward calm, she knocked at the door. (That she, Stella Mendoza, should knock at a door rightfully hers was maddening enough!)

Adele was sitting at the bare dressing-table, gazing, a little awestricken, at the array of mirrors, lights and the vista of dresses down the long alleyway which served as a wardrobe. At the sight of Mendoza she went red.

“Miss Leamington, isn’t it?” asked Stella sweetly. “May I come in?”

“Do, please,” said Adele, hastily rising.

“Please do sit down,” said Stella. “It’s a very uncomfortable chair, but most of the chairs here are uncomfortable. They tell me you have been ‘doubling’ for me?”

“ ‘Doubling’?” said Adele, puzzled.

“Yes, Mr. Knebworth said he was ‘doubling’ you. You know what I mean: when an artiste can’t appear, they sometimes put in an understudy in scenes where she’s not very distinctly shown⁠—long shots⁠—”

“But Mr. Knebworth took me close up,” said the girl quietly. “I was only in one long shot.”

Miss Mendoza masked her anger and sighed.

“Poor old chap! He’s very angry with me, and really, I oughtn’t to annoy him. I’m coming back tomorrow, you know.”

The girl went pale.

“It’s fearfully humiliating for you, I realize, but, my dear, we’ve all had to go through that experience. And people in the studio will be very nice to you.”

“But it’s impossible,” said Adele. “Mr. Knebworth told me I was to be in the picture from start to finish.”

Mendoza shook her head smilingly.

“You can never believe what these fellows tell you,” she said. “He’s just told me to be ready to shoot tomorrow morning on the South Downs.”

Adele’s heart sank. She knew that was the rendezvous, though she was not aware of the fact that Stella Mendoza had procured her information from the disgruntled Mr. Connolly.

“It is humiliating,” Stella went on thoughtfully. “If I were you, I would go up to town and stay away for a couple of weeks till the whole thing has blown over. I feel very much to blame for your disappointment, my dear, and if money is any compensation⁠—” She opened her bag and, taking out a wad of notes, detached four and put them on the table.

“What is this for?” asked Adele coldly.

“Well, my dear, you’ll want money for expenses⁠—”

“If you imagine I’m going to London without seeing Mr. Knebworth and finding out for myself whether you’re speaking the truth⁠—”

Mendoza’s face flamed.

“Do you suggest I’m lying?”

She had dropped all pretence of friendliness and stood, a veritable virago, her hands on her hips, her dark face thrust down into Adele’s.

“I don’t know whether you’re a liar or whether you are mistaken,” said Adele, who was less afraid of this termagant than she had been at the news she had brought. “The only thing I’m perfectly certain about is that for the moment this is my room, and I will ask you to leave it!”

She opened the door, and for a moment was afraid that the girl would strike her; but the broad-shouldered Irish dresser, a silent but passionately interested spectator and audience, interposed her huge bulk and good-humouredly pushed the raging star into the corridor.

“I’ll have you out of there!” she screamed across the woman’s shoulder. “Jack Knebworth isn’t everything in this company! I’ve got influence enough to fire Knebworth!”

The unrepeatable innuendoes that followed were not good to hear, but Adele Leamington listened in scornful silence. She was only too relieved (for the girl’s fury was eloquent) to know that she had not been speaking the truth. For one horrible moment Adele had believed her, knowing that Knebworth would not hesitate to sacrifice her or any other member of the company if, by so doing, the values of the picture could be strengthened.

Knebworth was alone when his ex-star was announced, and his first instinct was not to see her. Whatever his intentions might have been, she determined his action by appearing in the doorway just as he was making up his mind what line to take. He fixed her with his gimlet eyes for a second, and then, with a jerk of his head, called her in. When they were alone:

“There are many things I admire about you, Stella, and not the least of them is your nerve. But it is no good coming to me with any of that let-bygones-be-bygones stuff. You’re not appearing in this picture, and maybe you’ll never appear in another picture of mine.”

“Is that so?” she drawled, sitting down uninvited, and taking from her bag a little gold cigarette case.

“You’ve come in to tell me that you’ve got influence with a number of people who are financially interested in this corporation,” said Jack, to her dismay. She wondered if there were telephone communication between the dressing-room and the office, then remembered there wasn’t.

“I’ve handled a good many women in my time,” he went on, “and I’ve never had to fire one but she didn’t produce the President, Vice-President or Treasurer and hold them over my head with their feet ready to kick out my brains! And, Stella, none of those holdups have ever got past. People who are financially interested in a company may love you to death, but they’ve got to have the money to love you with; and if I don’t make pictures that sell, somebody is short of a perfectly good diamond necklace.”

“We’ll see if Sir Gregory thinks the same way,” she said defiantly, and Jack Knebworth whistled.

“Gregory Penne, eh? I didn’t know you had friends in that quarter. Yes, he is a stockholder in the company, but he doesn’t hold enough to make any difference. I guess he told you that he did. And if he held ninety-nine percent of it, Stella, it wouldn’t make any difference to old Jack Knebworth, because old Jack Knebworth’s got a contract which gives him carte blanche, and the only getting out clause is the one that gets me out! You couldn’t touch me, Stella, no, ma’am!”

“I suppose you’re going to blacklist me?” she said sulkily.

This was the one punishment she most feared⁠—that Jack Knebworth should circulate the story of her unforgivable sin of letting down a picture when it was half-shot.

“I thought about that,” he nodded, “but I guess I’m not vindictive. I’ll let you go and say the part didn’t suit you, and that you resigned, which is as near the truth as any story I’ll have to crack. Go with God, Stella. I guess you won’t, because you’re not that way, but⁠—behave!”

He waved her out of the office and she went, somewhat chastened. Outside the studio she met Lawley Foss, and told him the result of the interview.

“If it’s like that you can do nothing,” he said. “I’d speak for you, Stella, but I’ve got to speak for myself,” he added bitterly. “The idea of a man of my genius truckling hat in hand to this damned old Yankee is very humiliating.”

“You ought to have your own company, Lawley,” she said, as she had said a dozen times before. “You write the stuff and I’ll be the leading woman and put it over for you. Why, you could direct Kneb’s head off. I know, Lawley! I’ve been to the only place on God Almighty’s earth where art is appreciated, and I tell you that a four-flusher like Jack Knebworth wouldn’t last a light-mile at Hollywood!”

“Light-mile” was a term she had acquired from a scientific admirer. It had the double advantage of sounding grand and creating a demand for an explanation. To her annoyance, Foss was sufficiently acquainted with elementary physics to know that she meant the period of time that a ray of light would take to traverse a mile.

“Is he in his office now?”

She nodded, and without any further word Lawley Foss, in some trepidation, knocked at his chief’s door.

“The truth is, Mr. Knebworth, I want to ask a favour of you.”

“Is it money?” demanded Jack, looking up from under his bushy brows.

“Well, it was money, as a matter of fact. There have been one or two little bills I’ve overlooked, and the bailiffs have been after me. I’ve got to raise fifty pounds by two o’clock this afternoon.”

Jack pulled open a drawer, took out a book and wrote a cheque, not for fifty pounds, but for eighty.

“That’s a month’s salary in advance,” he said. “You’ve drawn your pay up to today, and by the terms of your contract you’re entitled to one month’s notice or pay therefore. You’ve got it.”

Foss went an ugly red.

“Does that mean I’m fired?” he asked loudly.

Jack nodded.

“You’re fired, not because you want money, not because you’re one of the most difficult men on the lot to deal with, but for what you did last night, Foss.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean I am taking Mr. Brixan’s view, that you fastened a white label to the window of Miss Leamington’s room in order to guide an agent of Sir Gregory Penne. That agent came and nearly kidnapped my leading lady.”

The man’s lip curled in a sneer.

“You’ve got melodrama in your blood, Knebworth,” he said. “Kidnap your leading lady! Those sort of things may happen in the United States, but they don’t happen in England.”

“Close the door as you go out,” said Jack, preparing for his work.

“Let me say this⁠—” began Foss.

“I’ll let you say nothing,” snarled Knebworth. “I won’t even let you say ‘goodbye.’ Get!”

And, when the door slammed behind his visitor, the old director pushed a bell on his table, and, to his assistant who came:

“Get Miss Leamington down here,” he said. “I’d like contact with something that’s wholesome.”