The director looked the police official squarely in the eyes.

"I was," he admitted. "I considered myself engaged to her—for a time."

"The engagement was broken?" "It was," said Tad Boone shakily. "By Miss Storme."

"And the reason?"

"She gave none," said the director, almost too quickly.

"Of course you asked her if there was— another man?" queried the man-hunter smoothly.

"She—she said," breathed Boone, after an inward struggle, "that there was. I had no wish to know who he was. All I wanted was to see her happy. I asked her, in the event she remained in pictures, to stay under my direction. For I have been all over the world, and never expected to see her like again."

"You have been in our Eastern possession, then?" queried Corot.

"Oh, yes; Hawaii, the Philippines, all that."

"You know what a bolo is?" came the casual tone.

"Of course; I have one in my rooms. I made a silent picture—The Black Virgin—and—" He stopped, with a terrible thought. "I see," he faltered, "just what your questions are leading up to. Just—just what do you want of me?"

"You say you have the knife in your rooms?" remarked the inspector noncommittally. "Suppose I send Detective Carroll along to fetch it to Headquarters." The director nodded dumbly as the inspector turned to the newspaper man who still tagged him. "Think I'll take a little stroll about the lot. Anything being shot today, Dawson?"

"Not much," said the reporter. "I saw 'em at work on one picture—just a Western."

But as he strolled about the lot, Inspector Corot seemed to have little interest in picture- making. He was bored with the taking of the "Western," seemed hardly to hear young Dawson talking. He never even gave a second glance to the Ajax's new cowboy star, Ned Lane, resplendent in snow-white sombrero and jeweled belt. He did give a moment's time, though, to admiration of the cowboy's beautiful Great Dane. Corot liked dogs.