“Not with me, she wasn’t.” Chaplin took a quick drag from his cigarette. “I’m not with Essanay anymore—not in Chicago, anyway. I dropped by only because Spoor wanted to hire me back. But I’m very happy here at their Niles studio.”

He flashed Farina another false smile. “I met the girl for only a minute, she and another girl were extras in a movie that was being filmed,” he explained. “I happened to be in the room and the publicist wanted a photo with her. A Wallace Beery movie. He’s got a reputation for young girls, maybe you should talk to him?”

“Police in Chicago already have. No one thinks you’re a suspect, Mr. Chaplin. Just, you left town that same day, and they’re trying to get as much information as they can. The other girl, she said you’d whispered something to Miss Walewski that made her blush. Like maybe you and her had met before. Can you remember what you said to her?”

Chaplin felt his face grow hot. “No,” he lied. “Probably I said the same thing I say to every girl I meet—that she’s lovely as a bluebell. That’s an English flower. I don’t think you have them here.”

“No, I expect not.” Farina dropped his cigarette to the floor and ground it out. “So, nothing else comes to mind?”

“I’m afraid not.”

Farina clapped his hands on his knees. “I told them this was a wild-goose chase. I’m sorry for taking your time. Where are you staying? I’ll help you get a taxi.”

“That would be very kind.”

They walked back through the station and into the burning gold of late afternoon. People milled around, porters heaving trunks onto carts, women wilting beneath their hats. Chaplin saw the men from the Los Angeles Times grabbing a smoke by a telegraph pole. He turned to Farina and made a show of laughing and shaking his hand.

“Thanks for being so congenial,” Farina said. He squinted at a black taxi pulling in from the main street and raised a hand to summon the driver. “Here’s one now. Before you go, would you mind…?”

The policeman pulled out his notebook and a fountain pen. Chaplin grinned. “I thought you’d never ask.”

Chapter 64

Chapter 64

HE SLEPT DEEPLY, and woke early to grey light. His hand throbbed painfully where the girl had bitten him. Someone would have discovered the body last night, but he wouldn’t have been recognized. One man in a crowd inside a movie palace? He’d seen no policeman, no indication that the usher had noticed anything awry.