de. It seemed good advertising."

Duvall followed his companion back to his office.

"Then this clue, like all the others in this singular case," he
remarked, "seems to end in a blind alley."

"It seems so," assented Mr. Baker, gloomily. "What was your plan about
the new film we're going to show to-night?"

Duvall was about to speak, but before he could do so, they heard a
slight commotion in the hall outside. Then someone rapped violently on
the door.

Both he and Baker sprang to their feet.

"Come in," the latter cried.

The door was flung open, and Mr. Edwards, the director, who was making
the picture upon which Ruth Morton was working, strode hastily into the
room. "Mr. Baker!" he exclaimed, then paused upon seeing Duvall.

"What is it?" Baker replied.

"Will you look here a minute, please?"

Baker went up to him, his face showing the greatest uneasiness.

"What's the matter?" he asked. "Anything wrong?"

"Yes. Miss Morton was going through the scene in the first part, where
she gets the telegram, you know, and when she opened the message, and
read it, she fainted."

"Fainted? What was in the telegram to make her faint?"

"Well, it ought to have read, 'Will call for you to-night, with marriage
license--Jimmy.' That was the prop message we had prepared. But somebody
must have substituted another one for it. This is what she read." He
handed Baker a yellow slip of paper. "I can't make anything out of it."

Baker snatched the telegram from his hand with a growl of rage, and read
it hastily. Then he passed it over to Duvall.

"What do you think of that?" he asked. Duvall gazed at the telegram with
a feeling of helpless anger.

"Twenty-six days more," it read. "When you appear in your new picture at
the Grand to-night, it will be your last. I shall be there." The grinning
death's head seal was appended in lieu of a signature, as before.

A feeling of resentment swept over the detective. It seemed that these
people acted as they saw fit, with supreme indifference to the fact that
he was on their trail. Never before had he felt his skill so flouted,
his ability made so light of. And yet, as usual, the message had
apparently been delivered in such a way as to make tracing it
impossible.

"Still at it, it seems," Mr. Baker remarked. "This thing has got to
stop, and at once. I don't propose to let anybody make a monkey of me."

Duvall turned to the director, Mr. Edwards.

"Who prepared the original t