THE TRAP THAT FAILED
AND then Michael heard a faint creak in one corner of the room. It was
followed by the almost imperceptible sound of bare feet on the thick
pile carpet, and the noise of quick breathing.
He did not hesitate. Feeling again for the keyhole of the shutter, he
pulled out his pistol and fired twice at the lock. The sound of the
explosion was deafening in the confined space of the room. It must have
had an electrical effect upon the intruder, for when, with a wrench, the
shutter opened, and at a touch the white blind sprang up, flooding with
light the big, ornate room, it was empty.
Almost immediately afterwards the door opened through which the baronet
had passed. If he had been panic-stricken before, his condition was now
pitiable.
“What’s that? What’s that?” he whimpered. “Did somebody shoot?”
“Somebody shot,” said Michael calmly, “and I was the somebody. And the
gentlemen you sent into the room to settle accounts with me are very
lucky that I confined my firing practice to the lock of your shutter,
Penne.”
He saw something white on the ground, and, crossing the room with quick
strides, picked it up. It was a scarf of coarse silk, and he smelt it.
“Somebody dropped this in their hurry,” he said. “I guess it was to be
used.”
“My dear fellow, I assure you I didn’t know.”
“How is the interesting invalid?” asked Michael with a curl of his lip.
“The lunatic lady who screams?”
The man fingered his trembling lips for a moment as though he were
trying to control them.
“She’s all right. It was as I—as I thought,” he said; “she had some
sort of fit.”
Michael eyed him pensively.
“I’d like to see her, if I may,” he said.
“You can’t.” Penne’s voice was loud, defiant. “You can’t see anybody!
What the hell do you mean by coming into my house at this hour of the
morning and damaging my property? I’ll have this matter reported to
Scotland Yard, and I’ll get the coat off your back, my man! Some of you
detectives think you own the earth, but I’ll show you you don’t!”
The blustering voice rose to a roar. He was smothering his fear in weak
anger, Michael thought, and looked up at the swords above the
mantelpiece. Following the direction of his eyes, Sir Gregory wilted,
and again his manner changed.
“My dear fellow, why exasperate me? I’m the nicest man in the world if
you only treat me right. You’ve got crazy ideas about me, you have
indeed!”
Michael did not argue. He walked slowly down the passage and out to meet
the first sector of a blazing sun. As he reached the door he turned to
the man.
“I cannot insist upon searching your house because I have not a warrant,
as you know, and, by the time I’d got a warrant, there would be nothing
to find. But you look out, my friend!” He waved a warning finger at the
man. “I hate dragging in classical allusions, but I should advise you to
look up a lady in mythology who was known to the Greeks as Adrastia!”
And with this he left, walking down the drive, watched with eyes of
despair by a pale-faced girl from the upper window of the tower, whilst
Sir Gregory went back to his library and, by much diligent searching,
discovered that Adrastia was another name for Nemesis.
Michael was back at the Dower House in time for breakfast. It was no
great tribute to his charm that his absence had passed unnoticed—or so
it appeared, though Adele had marked his disappearance, and had been the
first to note his return.
Jack Knebworth was in his most cheery mood. The scenes had been, he
thought, most successful.
“I can’t tell, of course, until I get back to the laboratory and develop
the pictures; but so far as young Leamington is concerned, she’s
wonderful. I hate predicting at this early stage, but I believe that
she’s going to be a great artiste.”
“You didn’t expect her to be?” said Michael in surprise.
Jack laughed scornfully.
“I was very annoyed with Mendoza, and when I took this outfit on
location, I did so quite expecting that I should have to return and
retake the picture with Mendoza in the cast. Film stars aren’t born,
they’re made; they’re made by bitter experience, patience and suffering.
They have got to pass through stages of stark inefficiency, during which
they’re liable to be discarded, before they win out. Your girl has
skipped all the intervening phases, and has won at the first time of
asking.”
“When you talk about ’my girl,’” said Michael carefully, “will you be
good enough to remember that I have the merest and most casual interest
in the lady?”
“If you’re not a liar,” said Jack Knebworth, “you’re a piece of cheese!”
“What chance has she as a film artiste?” asked Michael, anxious to turn
the subject.
Knebworth ruffled his white hair.
“Precious little,” he said. “There isn’t a chance for a girl in England.
That’s a horrible thing to say, but it’s true. You can count the
so-called English stars on the fingers of one hand; they’ve only a local
reputation and they’re generally married to the producer. What chance
has an outsider got of breaking into the movies? And even if they break
in, it’s not much good to them. Production in this country is streets
behind production either in America or in Germany. It is even behind the
French, though the French films are nearly the dullest in the world. The
British producer has no ideas of his own; he can adopt and adapt the
stunts, the tricks of acting, the methods of lighting, that he sees in
foreign films at trade shows; and, with the aid of an American
camera-man, he can produce something which might have been produced a
couple of years ago at Hollywood. It’s queer, because England has never
been left behind as she has been in the cinema industry. France started
the motor-car industry: to-day, England makes the finest motor-car in
the world. America started aviation: to-day, the British aeroplanes have
no superior. And yet, with all the example before them, with all the
immense profits which are waiting to be made, in the past twenty years
England has not produced one film star of international note, one film
picture with an international reputation.”
It was a subject upon which he was prepared to enlarge, and did enlarge,
throughout the journey back to Chichester.
“The cinema industry is in the hands of showmen all the world over, but
in England it is in the hands of peep-showmen, as against the Barnums of
the States. No, there’s no chance for your little friend, not in this
country. If the picture I’m taking makes a hit in America—yes. She’ll
be playing at Hollywood in twelve months’ time in an English
story—directed by Americans!”
In the outer lobby of his office he found a visitor waiting for him, and
gave her a curt and steely good morning.
“I want to see you, Mr. Knebworth,” said Stella Mendoza, with a smile at
the leading man who had followed Knebworth into his office.
“You want to see me, do you? Why, you can see me now. What do you want?”
She was pulling at a lace handkerchief with a pretty air of penitence
and confusion. Jack was not impressed. He himself had taught her all
that handkerchief stuff.
“I’ve been very silly, Mr. Knebworth, and I’ve come to ask your pardon.
Of course, it was wrong to keep the boys and girls waiting, and I really
am sorry. Shall I come in the morning? Or I can start to-day?”
A faint smile trembled at the corner of the director’s big mouth.
“You needn’t come in the morning and you needn’t stay to-day, Stella,”
he said. “Your substitute has done remarkably well, and I don’t feel
inclined to retake the picture.”
She flashed an angry glance at him, a glance at total variance with her
softer attitude.
“I’ve got a contract: I suppose you know that, Mr. Knebworth?” she said
shrilly.
“I’d ever so much rather play opposite Miss Mendoza,” murmured a gentle
voice. It was the youthful Reggie Connolly, he of the sleek hair. “It’s
not easy to play opposite Miss—I don’t even know her name. She’s
so—well, she lacks the artistry, Mr. Knebworth.”
Old Jack didn’t speak. His gloomy eyes were fixed upon the youth.
“What’s more, I don’t feel I can do myself justice with Miss Mendoza out
of the cast,” said Reggie. “I really don’t! I feel most awfully,
terribly nervous, and it’s difficult to express one’s personality when
one’s awfully, terribly nervous. In fact,” he said recklessly, “I’m not
inclined to go on with the picture unless Miss Mendoza returns.”
She shot a grateful glance at him, and then turned with a slow smile to
the silent Jack.
“Would you like me to start to-day?”
“Not to-day, or any other day,” roared the old director, his eyes
flaming. “As for you, you nut-fed chorus boy, if you try to let me down
I’ll blacklist you at every studio in this country, and every time I
meet you I’ll kick you from hell to Halifax!”
He came stamping into the office, where Michael had preceded him, a
raging fury of a man.
“What do you think of that?” he asked when he had calmed down. “That’s
the sort of stuff they try to get past you! He’s going to quit in the
middle of a picture! Did you hear him? That cissy-boy! That mouse! Say,
Brixan, would you like to play opposite this girl of mine? You can’t be
worse than Connolly, and it would fill in your time whilst you’re
looking for the Head-Hunter.”
Michael shook his head slowly.
“No, thank you,” he said. “That is not my job. And as for the
Head-Hunter”—he lit a cigarette and sent a ring of smoke to the
ceiling—“I know who he is and I can lay my hands on him just when I
want.”