THE MASTER OF GRIFF
ADELE did not speak to him for a long time. Resentment that he should
force his company upon her, and nervousness at the coming ordeal—a
nervousness which became sheer panic as they grew nearer and nearer to
their destination—made conversation impossible.
“I see your Mr. Lawley Foss is with us,” said Michael, glancing over his
shoulder, and by way of making conversation.
“He always goes on location,” she said shortly. “A story has sometimes
to be amended while it’s being shot.”
“Where are we going now?” he asked.
“Griff Towers first,” she replied. She found it difficult to be uncivil
to anybody. “It is a big place owned by Sir Gregory Penne.”
“But I thought we were going to the Dower House?”
She looked at him with a little frown.
“Why did you ask if you knew?” she demanded, almost in a tone of
asperity.
“Because I like to hear you speak,” said the young man calmly. “Sir
Gregory Penne? I seem to know the name.”
She did not answer.
“He was in Borneo for many years, wasn’t he?”
“He’s hateful,” she said vehemently. “I detest him!”
She did not explain the cause of her detestation, and Michael thought it
discreet not to press the question, but presently she relieved him of
responsibility.
“I’ve been to his house twice. He has a very fine garden, which Mr.
Knebworth has used before—of course, I only went as an extra and was
very much in the background. I wish I had been more so. He has queer
ideas about women, and especially actresses—not that I’m an actress,”
she added hastily, “but I mean people who play for a living. Thank
heaven there’s only one scene to be shot at Griff, and perhaps he will
not be at home, but that’s unlikely. He’s always there when I go.”
Michael glanced at her out of the corner of his eye. His first
impression of her beauty was more than confirmed. There was a certain
wistfulness in her face which was very appealing; an honesty in the dark
eyes that told him all he wanted to know about her attitude toward the
admiration of the unknown Sir Gregory.
“It’s queer how all baronets are villains in stories,” he said, “and
queerer still that most of the baronets I’ve known have been men of
singular morals. I’m bothering you, being here, aren’t I?” he asked,
dropping his tone of banter.
She looked round at him.
“You are a little,” she said frankly. “You see, Mr. Brixan, this is my
big chance. It’s a chance that really never comes to an extra except in
stories, and I’m frightened to death of what is going to happen. You
make me nervous, but what makes me more panic-stricken is that the first
scene is to be shot at Griff. I hate it, I hate it!” she said almost
savagely. “That big, hard-looking house, with its hideous stuffed tigers
and its awful looking swords——”
“Swords?” he asked quickly. “What do you mean?”
“The walls are covered with them—Eastern swords. They make me shiver to
see them. But Sir Gregory takes a delight in them: he told Mr.
Knebworth, the last time we were there, that the swords were as sharp
now as they were when they came from the hands of their makers, and some
of them were three hundred years old. He’s an extraordinary man: he can
cut an apple in half on your hand and never so much as scratch you. That
is one of his favourite stunts—do you know what ‘stunt’ means?”
“I seem to have heard the expression,” said Michael absently.
“There is the house,” she pointed. “Ugh! It makes me shiver.”
Griff Towers was one of those bleak looking buildings that it had been
the delight of the early Victorian architects to erect. Its one grey
tower, placed on the left wing, gave it a lopsided appearance, but even
this distortion did not distract attention from its rectangular
unloveliness. The place seemed all the more bare, since the walls were
innocent of greenery, and it stood starkly in the midst of a yellow
expanse of gravel.
“Looks almost like a barracks,” said Michael, “with a parade ground in
front!”
They passed through the lodge gates, and the char-à-banc stopped
half-way up the drive. The gardens apparently were in the rear of the
building, and certainly there was nothing that would attract the most
careless of directors in its uninteresting façade.
Michael got down from his seat and found Jack Knebworth already
superintending the unloading of a camera and reflectors. Behind the
char-à-banc came the big dynamo lorry, with three sun arcs that were to
enhance the value of daylight.
“Oh, you’re here, are you?” growled Jack. “Now you’ll oblige me, Mr.
Brixan, by not getting in the way? I’ve got a hard morning’s work ahead
of me.”
“I want you to take me on as a—what is the word?—extra,” said Michael.
The old man frowned at him.
“Say, what’s the great idea?” he asked suspiciously.
“I have an excellent reason, and I promise you that nothing I do will in
any way embarrass you. The truth is, Mr. Knebworth, I want to be around
for the remainder of the day, and I need an excuse.”
Jack Knebworth bit his lip, scratched his long chin, scowled, and then:
“All right,” he said gruffly. “Maybe you’ll come in handy, though I’ll
have quite enough bother directing one amateur, and if you get into the
pictures on this trip you’re going to be lucky!”
There was a man of the party, a tall young man whose hair was brushed
back from his forehead, and was so tidy and well arranged that it seemed
as if it had originally been stuck by glue and varnished over. A tall,
somewhat good-looking boy, who had sat on Adele’s left throughout the
journey and had not spoken once, he raised his eyebrows at the
appearance of Michael, and, strolling across to the harassed Knebworth,
his hands in his pockets, he asked with a hurt air:
“I say, Mr. Knebworth, who is this johnny?”
“Which johnny?” growled old Jack. “You mean Brixan? He’s an extra.”
“Oh, an extra, is he?” said the young man. “I say, it’s pretty
desperately awful when extras hobnob with principals! And this
Leamington girl—she’s simply going to mess up the pictures, she is, by
Jove!”
“Is she, by Jove?” snarled Knebworth. “Now see here, Mr. Connolly, I
ain’t so much in love with your work that I’m willing to admit in
advance that even an extra is going to mess up this picture.”
“I’ve never played opposite to an extra in my life, dash it all!”
“Then you must have felt lonely,” grunted Jack, busy with his unpacking.
“Now, Mendoza is an artiste——” began the youthful leading man, and
Jack Knebworth straightened his back.
“Get over there till you’re wanted, you!” he roared. “When I need advice
from pretty boys, I’ll come to you—see? For the moment you’re _de
trop_, which is a French expression meaning that you’re standing on
ground there’s a better use for.”
The disgruntled Reggie Connolly strolled away with a shrug of his thin
shoulders, which indicated not only his conviction that the picture
would fail, but that the responsibility was everywhere but under his
hat.
From the big doorway of Griff Towers, Sir Gregory Penne was watching the
assembly of the company. He was a thick-set man, and the sun of Borneo
and an unrestricted appetite had dyed his skin a colour which was
between purple and brown. His face was covered with innumerable ridges,
his eyes looked forth upon the world through two narrow slits. The
rounded feminine chin seemed to be the only part of his face that
sunshine and stronger stimulants had left in its natural condition.
Michael watched him as he strolled down the slope to where they were
standing, guessing his identity. He wore a golf suit of a loud check in
which red predominated, and a big cap of the same material was pulled
down over his eyes. Taking the stub of a cigar from his teeth, with a
quick and characteristic gesture he wiped his scanty moustache on his
knuckles.
“Good morning, Knebworth,” he called.
His voice was harsh and cruel; a voice that had never been mellowed by
laughter or made soft by the tendernesses of humanity.
“Good morning, Sir Gregory.”
Old Knebworth disentangled himself from his company.
“Sorry I’m late.”
“Don’t apologize,” said the other. “Only I thought you were going to
shoot earlier. Brought my little girl, eh?”
“Your little girl?” Jack looked at him, frankly nonplussed. “You mean
Mendoza? No, she’s not coming.”
“I don’t mean Mendoza, if that’s the dark girl. Never mind: I was only
joking.”
Who the blazes was his little girl, thought Jack, who was ignorant of
two unhappy experiences which an unconsidered extra girl had had on
previous visits. The mystery, however, was soon cleared up, for the
baronet walked slowly to where Adele Leamington was making a pretence of
studying her script.
“Good morning, little lady,” he said, lifting his cap an eighth of an
inch from his head.
“Good morning, Sir Gregory,” she said coldly.
“You didn’t keep your promise.” He shook his head waggishly. “Oh, woman,
woman!”
“I don’t remember having made a promise,” said the girl quietly. “You
asked me to come to dinner with you, and I told you that that was
impossible.”
“I promised to send my car for you. Don’t say it was too far away. Never
mind, never mind.” And, to Michael’s wrath, he squeezed the girl’s arm
in a manner which was intended to be paternal, but which filled the girl
with indignant loathing.
She wrenched her arm free, and, turning her back upon her tormentor,
almost flew to Jack Knebworth with an incoherent demand for information
on the reading of a line which was perfectly simple.
Old Jack was no fool. He watched the play from under his eyelids,
recognizing all the symptoms.
“This is the last time we shall shoot at Griff Towers,” he told himself.
For Jack Knebworth was something of a stickler on behaviour, and had
views on women which were diametrically opposite to those held by Sir
Gregory Penne.