hen the cameraman stopped cranking, I noticed a very strange thing happen. Alonzo Swift abruptly released his grasp on Kathlyn Williams then casually straightened and smoothed his hair, looking around for someone to bring him water. She righted herself and dropped into a chair, where she started a lively conversation with the villain of the piece, who was stroking the curl of his mustache. We were close enough that I could hear him begin to tell her a story about a turtle in a barn. How strange to see them switch so abruptly out of their pretend world.
“That’s Kathlyn Williams,” Babe Greer told me. “But we have to wait until Mr. Leeder tells them it’s all right to break. So just stay here.” She clutched my sleeve to keep me in place. The producers certainly held everyone in thrall during the process of making the moving pictures. I was content to watch as the tearful heroine relaxed into a very ordinary-looking woman in front of my eyes.
“Kathlyn Williams is quite an important actress here, as I understand it,” I said.
“Oh, they call us ‘pantomimists,’ not actors or actresses,” Babe Greer said. “She’s just like me. I mean, I think she was a minor actress, in stock theater in New York, and she got work with Biograph, that’s another film company back East. That’s how she started. She gets all the melodramas. I only do the comedies…for now.” She turned to look at me. “They say Col. Selig wants her to go out to the studio in Los Angeles. But there’s a bit of a scandal. She sued her husband for divorce and tried to get a lot of money from him. A lot. She’s very attractive to men.” Babe raised her eyebrows in a suggestive manner. “Oh, good. He’s released them. Come on, I’ll introduce you.”
She led me to the blonde woman who looked just a bit tired as she slumped in her chair. When Babe said Col. Selig had sent me, Kathlyn Williams perked up.
“Oh, look,” Babe said. “The mail. Excuse me, I’ll just go tell Mr. Nash he’s needed.” She headed across to a table by the door where a man was emptying some mail bags. I saw Alonzo Swift look up and follow her.
“It’s letters from people who’ve seen the pictures,” Kathlyn Williams told me. “Very nice of them, of course. But sometimes they seem to think we are the people we play in the pictures. Babe is impressed, though. She’s new to this. I let her read my mail when she has none.” She turned her crystal blue eyes on me and asked, “So, what can I do for you, Mrs. Chapman? Did I hear that you’re working with the police?”
She was as self-contained as my friend the famous Bertha Palmer at one of her soirees. Suddenly, I realized that I’d stepped into the film world, where Kathlyn Williams was queen. I tried to picture my elegant friend Clara beside her, and I could feel the animal magnetism that Kathlyn Williams projected so naturally. The force of it reached out to you. It was what made her touch people from the screen. I resented it when I thought of Clara and her children.
“Actually, I came here yesterday in answer to a call about my brother, Mr. Alden Cabot. You know him, don’t you?” I wanted to see how she’d react.
She looked down at the papers spread on the table and straightened them as she spoke. “Of course. Mr. Cabot’s been providing scenarios for Mr. Leeder.” She looked up, straight into my eyes. “He wrote the story for this one.” When she gestured toward the parlor around us, I couldn’t help staring beyond the parlor to the bedroom. The actress followed my gaze.
“Oh. That’s where Mr. Hyde was found shot yesterday morning, isn’t it?” I said.
“Yes. I suppose it shocks you that we can just clean it up and get on with it. It should shock me, but I’m so used to it—the pressure to meet the schedule, you know, not the death, of course. These stories need to be turned out every day just to keep the beast fed…the public. They demand new stories every week and it’s our job to provide them. It’s what we do here.”
“I understand Mr. Hyde was a censor and he refused to pass quite a few of your pictures during the past month. Do you have any idea why he would do that?”
She looked troubled and drew a hand across her brow. I wondered if it was genuine distress or a gesture borrowed from one of her films. I knew I was not necessarily being fair to her, but I wanted badly to chide her for her actions with Alden. I found it impossible to approach the subject directly, though. I couldn’t do it.
“It’s true, Mr. Hyde rejected some of my work but, when we looked at those scenes, there didn’t seem to be any reason for it. I didn’t even know the man. Someone told me he was married when he lived in Indiana, but his wife left him to run away with a salesman, so he sold his place and moved to Chicago. I wonder if I reminded him of his wife or something.” She shrugged. “It was a bother but, luckily for me, I’m popular enough with the public that Col. Selig has supported me. So far, at least.”
“Is it true that you’ve been involved in a very public divorce? Could your husband have anything to do with Mr. Hyde’s death?”
She sat up, offended. “He’s my ex-husband and he’s in New York. I sued him for money he owed me. He disapproved of my acting. I refused to give it up. I support myself now, and we’re completely done. There would be no reason for him to pursue me. We owe each other nothing. That is over. Whatever led to the death of Mr. Hyde, it cannot have anything to do with me. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have another scene to prepare for. And I believe there’s someone looking for you.” As she stood up, she nodded to a figure across the room and I saw Mr. Fitzgibbons waving to me.
“Miss Williams, where were you the night before last?” I asked her, before she could move away.
“When Mr. Hyde was shot?” She shook her head. “I was at home in bed, Mrs. Chapman. In case you haven’t realized it, this is a very tiring profession, and we often work into the evening. That was true Tuesday night. I left at seven and retired immediately when I got home.” She started to turn away but thought better of it and faced me directly. “One thing you should know, Mrs. Chapman, your brother has some great ideas for motion pictures. He could do a lot of really good work. I hope you and other members of his family will support him in that.”
Before I could form a retort, she hurried away.