“Are you sure you’ve noticed nothing unusual while taking pictures for The Iron Horse? Nothing out of the ordinary? Nothing different than you’d expect or have seen on other jobs?”

Marion pondered his question. “Only one thing. There’s a film-stock shortage. Everyone in Los Angeles is talking about it. For a month or so, film’s become hard to get and very expensive. Yesterday, Billy and Dave came to me with long faces. Their stock was old. It smelled awful, and they said the pictures would be terribly overexposed. I telephoned Irina. In less than one hour a truck raced up with more than we could use of the most pristine stock you could ask for. It was precisely perforated and smelled fresh as a meadow. You should have seen Billy and Dave rubbing their hands like Silas Marner counting his gold.”

“Where did it come from?”

“It was Eastman Kodak stock, straight from the factory.”

“But Imperial is independent. Eastman made a deal with the Edison Trust: they won’t sell to independents.”

“Where they got it, I don’t know. But for Imperial, at least, there is no shortage.” Anyway, if you’ll limp into the dining room, I’ll bring dinner.”

“What is our first married home-cooked meal?”

“The same as our first-ever home-cooked meal. Do you remember what I made you?”

“I remember you invited me to dinner and cooked pot roast and vegetables. It was splendid, though I have a vague memory that we got sidetracked before dessert— Marion, I’ll bet you’ve some cowboys in The Iron Horse.”

“Bunkhousesful.”

“Got room for one more?”

“Texas Walt?”

Bell nodded. “Just to be on the safe side.”

“If that will make you feel better, of course.”

“I would feel much better knowing my good friend the deadly gunfighter was looking out for you.”

Marion smiled. “Walt may not be a deadly gunfighter much longer. Movie people are all talking about ‘the tall Texan’ playing cowboy parts. Some people think he could be a star.”

“Please don’t turn his head until we’re sure you’re safe and sound.”

38

PAULINE GRANDZAU HAD BEEN MEMORIZING the St. Germain section of her Baedeker on the train when suddenly she had to run from a gendarme who demanded her papers at a station stop. The last few miles of what should have been a twelve-hour train ride stretched to another full day clinging to the underside of a slow-moving coal car that finally dumped her near an open-air market in Paris in the rain. Thanks to the tourist guidebook and the foldout map, she found the Rue du Bac as night fell, climbed a steep flight of stairs, and staggered into the Van Dorn Detective Agency’s Paris field office, exhausted, wet, and hungry.

An enormous man seated next to a bright light asked, “What do you want here, miss?”