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                                THE

                            FILM OF FEAR



                                BY

                         ARNOLD FREDERICKS



                            AUTHOR OF

                     THE IVORY SNUFF BOX, ETC.




                        WITH FRONTISPIECE BY

                            WILL FOSTER




                              NEW YORK

                          GROSSET & DUNLAP

                             PUBLISHERS

                        COPYRIGHT, 1917, BY

                        W. J. WATT & COMPANY




THE FILM OF FEAR




PART I




CHAPTER I


Ruth Morton finished her cup of coffee, brushed a microscopic crumb from
her embroidered silk kimono, pushed back her loosely arranged brown
hair, and resumed the task of opening her mail.

It was in truth a task, and one that consumed an inordinate amount of
her valuable time. And her time was extremely valuable. Computed upon
the basis of her weekly salary of one thousand dollars, it figured out
just $142.85 per day, or very nearly $6 per hour, or 10 cents per
minute, for each minute and hour of the twenty-four. As a motion picture
star, she had the satisfaction of knowing that she was paid a slightly
larger salary than had been, until recently, received by the President
of the United States.

The opening of the huge batch of letters that greeted her daily across
her dainty breakfast table was very much of a duty. It was not that she
felt any keen interest in the numberless notes from admirers, both male
and female, from Portland, Me., to Los Angeles, Cal., to say nothing of
South Bend, Opeloosa and Kicking Horse between. These might readily have
been consigned to the depths of the wastebasket unopened, unread. But
there was always the chance that, intermingled with this mass of
adulation, there might be a real letter, from a real friend, or a
business communication of importance from some picture company possibly,
prepared to offer her two thousand dollars per week, instead of one
thousand, at the expiration of her present contract. So the mail had to
be carefully opened, at least, even if the bulk of it was tossed aside
unread.

Her mother usually assisted her in this daily task, but to-day Mrs.
Morton, oppressed by a slight attack of indigestion, slept late, and
Ruth proceeded with the operation alone.

She was a singularly attractive girl, combining a wholesome and quite
unassumed innocence with a certain measure of sophistication, gained by
daily contact with the free and easy life of the studios. Her brown eyes
were large and wondering, as though she still found it difficult to
realize that within four years she had stepped from comparative poverty
to the possession of an income which a duke or a prince might readily
have envied. Her features, pleasing, regular, somewhat large, gave to
her that particular type of beauty which lends itself best to the
eccentricities of the camera. Her figure, graceful, well modeled, with
the soft roundness of youth, enabled her to wear with becoming grace
almost any costume, from the simple frock of the school girl to the
costly gowns of the woman of fashion. Add to this a keen intelligence
and a delightful vivacity of manner, and the reason for Ruth Morton's
popularity among motion picture "fans" from coast to coast was at once
apparent.

She sat in the handsomely appointed dining-room of the apartment on
Fifty-seventh Street which she and her mother had occupied for the past
two years. The room, paneled in dull ivory, provided a perfect setting
for the girl's unusual beauty. In her kimono of Nile green and gold, she
presented a figure of such compelling charm that Nora, her maid, as she
removed the empty coffee-cup, sighed to herself, if not with envy, at
least with regret, that the good God had not made _her_ along lines that
would insure an income of over fifty thousand dollars a year.

Ruth sliced open half a dozen more letters with her ivory paper knife
and prepared to drop them into the waste basket. One was from a
manufacturer of cold cream, soliciting a testimonial. Two others were
from ungrammatical school girls, asking her how they should proceed, in
order to become motion picture stars. Another was an advertisement of a
new automobile. The fifth requested an autographed picture of herself.
She swept the five over the edge of the table with a sigh of relief. How
stupid of all these people, she thought, to take up their time, and her
own, so uselessly.

The sixth letter, from its external appearance, might readily have been
of no greater interest than the other five, and yet, something