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THE CINEMA MURDER
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interested in the play, too. Mr. Raymond Greene, shake hands with Mr. Merton Ware."

Mr. Raymond Greene, smiling and urbane, turned around with outstretched hand, which Philip, courteous, and with all that charm of manner which was making him speedily one of the most popular young men in New York, grasped cordially.

"I am very happy to meet you, Mr. Greene," he said. "You represent an amazing development. I am told that we shall all have to work for you presently or find our occupation gone."

With a cool calculation which had come to Philip in these days of his greater strength, he had purposely extended his sentence, conscious, although apparently he ignored the fact, that all the time Mr. Raymond Greene was staring in his face with a bewilderment which was not without its humorous side. He was too much a man of the world, this great picture producer, to be at a loss for words, to receive an introduction with any degree of clumsiness.

"But surely," he almost stammered, "we have met before?"

Philip shook his head doubtfully.

"I don't think so," he said, "As a matter of fact, I am sure we haven't, because you are one of the men whom I hoped some day to come across over here. I couldn't possibly have forgotten a meeting with you."

Mr. Raymond Greene's blue eyes looked as though they saw visions.

"But surely," he expostulated, "the Elletania—my table on the Elletania, when Miss Dalstan crossed—"