Paul Kelly, Killer Actor

Before and after the fatal fight, Mackaye had simply decided to deny the affair, no matter what the evidence.

"My husband was always accusing me about Paul Kelly, but his accusations were untrue," she told police. "Paul was my friend. Our friendship was so clean, lovely and beautiful that I didn't want to give him up."

Yet Kelly's house boy, a young Japanese immigrant known as 'Jungle,' revealed that he had served breakfast to Mrs. Raymond after a number of their all-night pajama parties in Kelly's bachelor pad. Her insistence that their friendship was innocent became even more absurd when a stack of Kelly's love letters were found tucked in her marital mattress. The letters showed Paul Kelly was sublimely in love — a run-giggling-through-the-daisies sort of rapture.

"I am so terribly in love with you — so terribly," Kelly wrote. "I am miserable without you. I love you-love you-love you-love you."

It was torture for them to be apart.

Mackaye had won featured roles in the Los Angeles staging of two comedies, "The Dove" and "The Son-Daughter." The work took her to San Francisco briefly, and she and Kelly daily exchanged telegrams filled with yearning prose. She signed her cables with the curious "E. Mrs. K." She later sheepishly explained that it stood for "Elegant Mrs. Kelly."

Although she steadfastly insisted they were mere friends, it became increasingly obvious that she loved him-loved him-loved him-loved him back.