“Indeed I am,” he said glibly, and dared to pronounce the name of that widely-circulated sheet upon which the sun seldom sets. “Though I’m not a great actress, and fear I never shall be, I like to believe it is because I’ve never had a chance—I’ve a horrible suspicion that Mr. Knebworth knows instinctively that I am no good.” Mike Brixan had found a new interest in the case, an interest which, he was honest enough to confess to himself, was not dissociated from the niece of Francis Elmer. He had never met anybody quite so pretty and quite so unsophisticated and natural. “You’re going to the studio, I suppose?” She nodded. “I wonder if Mr. Knebworth would mind my calling to see you?” She hesitated. “Mr. Knebworth doesn’t like callers.” “Then maybe I’ll call on him,” said Michael, nodding. “It doesn’t matter whom I call on, does it?” “It certainly doesn’t matter to me,” said the girl coldly. “In the vulgar language of the masses,” thought Mike as he strode down the street, “I have had the bird!” His inquiries did not occupy very much of his time. He found the little news shop, and the proprietor, by good fortune, remembered the coming of Mr. Francis Elmer. “He came for a letter, though it wasn’t addressed to Elmer,” said the shopkeeper. “A lot of people have their letters addressed here. I make a little extra money that way.” “Did he buy a newspaper?” “No, sir, he did not buy a newspaper; he had one under his arm—the _Morning Telegram_. I remember that, because I noticed that he’d put a blue pencil mark round one of the agony advertisements on the front page, and I was wondering what it was all about. I kept a copy of that day’s _Morning Telegram_: I’ve got it now.” He went into the little parlour at the back of the shop and returned with a dingy newspaper, which he laid on the counter. “There are six there, but I don’t know which one it was.” Michael examined the agony advertisements. There was one frantic message from a mother to her son, asking him to return and saying that “all would be forgiven.” There was a cryptogram message, which he had not time to decipher. A third, which was obviously the notice of an assignation. The fourth was a thinly veiled advertisement for a new hair-waver, and at the fifth he stopped. It ran: “Troubled. Final directions at address I gave you. Courage. Benefactor.” “Some ‘benefactor,’” said Mike Brixan. “What was he like—the man who called? Was he worried?” “Yes, sir: he looked upset—all distracted like. He seemed like a chap who’d lost his head.” “That seems a fair description,” said Mike. CHAPTER IV THE LEADING LADY IN the studio of the Knebworth Picture Corporation the company had been waiting in its street clothes for the greater part of an hour.