THE BROWN MAN FROM NOWHERE
WITH a brand-new grievance against life, Lawley Foss gathered his forces
to avenge himself upon the world that had treated him so harshly. And
first and most powerful of his forces was Stella Mendoza. There was a
council of war held in the drawing-room of the pretty little house that
Stella had taken when she joined the Knebworth Corporation. The third of
the party was Mr. Reggie Connolly. And as they were mutually
sympathetic, so were they mutually unselfish—characteristically so.
“We’ve been treated disgracefully by Knebworth, Mr. Foss, especially
you. I think, compared with your case, mine is nothing.”
“It is the way he has handled you that makes me sore,” said Foss
energetically. “An artiste of your standing!”
“The work you’ve done for him! And Reggie—he treated him like a dog!”
“Personally, it doesn’t matter to me,” said Reggie. “I can always find a
contract—it’s you——”
“For the matter of that, we can _all_ find contracts,” interrupted
Stella with a taste of acid in her voice: “I can have my own company
when I please, and I’ve got two directors mad to direct me, and two men
I know would put up every cent of money to give me my own company—at
least, they’d put up a lot. And Chauncey Seller is raving to play
opposite me, and you know what a star he is; and he’d let me be featured
and go into small type himself. He’s a lovely man, and the best juvenile
in this country or any other.”
Mr. Connolly coughed.
“The point is, can we get the money _now_?” asked Foss, practical for
once.
There was no immediate and enthusiastic assurance from the girl.
“Because, if not, I think I can get all I want,” said Foss surprisingly.
“I won’t say from whom, or how I’m going to get it. But I’m certain I
can get big money, and it will be easier to get it for some specific
object than to ask for it for myself.”
“Less risky?” suggested Connolly, with a desire to be in the
conversation.
It was an unfortunate remark, the more so since by chance he had hit the
nail on the head. Foss went a dull red.
“What the hell do you mean by ‘less risky’?” he demanded.
Poor Reggie had meant nothing, and admitted as much in some haste. He
had meant to be helpful, and was ready to sulk at the storm he had
aroused. More ready because, as the conversation had progressed, he had
faded more and more into the background as an inconsiderable factor.
There is nothing quite so disheartening to a conspirator as to find the
conspiring taken out of his hands, and Reggie Connolly felt it was the
moment to make a complete _volte face_, and incidentally assert what he
was pleased to call his “personality.”
“This is all very well, Stella,” he said, “but it looks to me as if I’m
going to be left out in the cold. What with your thinking about Chauncey
Seller—he’s let down more pictures than any two men I know—and all
that sort of thing, I don’t see that I’m going to be much use to you. I
don’t really. I know you’ll think I’m a fearful, awful rotter, but I
feel that we owe something to old Jack Kneb, I do really. I’ve
jeopardized my position for your sake, and I’m prepared to do anything
in reason, but what with pulling Chauncey Seller—who is a bounder of
the worst kind—into your cast, and what with Foss jumping down my
throat, well, really—really!”
They were not inclined to mollify him, having rather an eye to the
future than to the present, and he had retired in a huff before the girl
realized that the holding of Reggie would at least have embarrassed
Knebworth to the extent of forcing a retake of those parts of the
picture in which he appeared.
“Never mind about Connolly. The picture is certain to fail with that
extra: she’s bad. I have a friend in London,” explained Foss, after the
discussion returned to the question of ways and means, “who can put up
the money. I’ve got a sort of pull with him. In fact—well, anyhow, I’ve
got a pull. I’ll go up to-night and see him.”
“And I’ll see mine,” said Stella. “We’ll call the company The Stella
Mendoza Picture Corporation——”
Lawley Foss demurred. He was inclined to another title, and was prepared
to accept as a compromise the Foss-Mendoza or F.M. Company, a compromise
agreeable to Stella provided the initials were reversed.
“Who is Brixan?” she asked as Foss was leaving.
“He is a detective.”
She opened her eyes wide.
“A detective? Whatever is he doing here?”
Lawley Foss smiled contemptuously.
“He is trying to discover what no man of his mental calibre will ever
discover, the Head-Hunter. I am the one man in the world who could help
him. Instead of which,” he smiled again, “I am helping myself.”
With which cryptic and mystifying statement he left her.
Stella Mendoza was an ambitious woman, and when ambition is directed
toward wealth and fame it is not attended by scruple. Her private life
and her standard of values were no better and no worse than thousands of
other women, and no more belonged to her profession than did her passion
for good food and luxurious environment. The sins of any particular
class or profession are not peculiar to their status or calling, but to
their self-education in the matter of the permissible. As one woman
would die rather than surrender her self-respect, so another would lose
her self-respect rather than suffer poverty and hardship, and think
little or nothing of the act or the deceit she practised to gain her
ends.
After Foss had gone, she went up to her room to change. It was too early
to make the call she intended, for Sir Gregory did not like to see her
during the daytime. He, who had not hesitated to send Bhag on a
fantastic mission, was a stickler for the proprieties.
Having some letters to post, she drove into Chichester late in the
afternoon, and saw Mike Brixan in peculiar circumstances. He was the
centre of a little crowd near the market cross, a head above the
surrounding people. There was a policeman present: she saw his helmet,
and for a moment was inclined to satisfy her curiosity. She changed her
mind, and when she returned the crowd had dispersed and Michael had
disappeared, and, driving home, she wondered whether the detective had
been engaged professionally.
Mike himself had been attracted by the crowd which was watching the
ineffectual efforts of a Sussex policeman to make himself intelligible
to a shock-haired, brown-faced native, an incongruous figure in an
ill-fitting suit of store clothes and a derby hat which was a little too
large for him. In his hand he carried a bundle tied up in a bright green
handkerchief, and under his arm a long object, wrapped in linen and
fastened with innumerable strings. At the first sight of him Michael
thought it was one of Penne’s Malayan servants, but on second thoughts
he realized that Sir Gregory would not allow any of his slaves to run
loose about the countryside.
Pushing his way through the crowd, he came up to the policeman, who
touched his helmet rim and grinned.
“Can’t make head or tail of this fellow’s lingo, sir,” he said. “He
wants to know something, but I can’t make out what. He has just come
into the city.”
The brown man turned his big dark eyes upon Mike and said something
which was Greek to the detective. There was a curious dignity about the
native that even his ludicrous garments could not wholly dissipate, an
erectness of body, a carriage of head, an imponderable air of greatness
that instantly claimed Michael Brixan’s attention.
Then suddenly he had an inspiration, and addressed the man in Dutch.
Immediately the native’s eyes lit up.
“_Ja, mynheer_, I speak Dutch.”
Mike had guessed that he came from Malaya, where Dutch and Portuguese
are spoken by the better class natives.
“I am from Borneo, and I seek a man who is called Truji, an Englishman.
No, _mynheer_, I wish to see his house, for he is a great man in my
country. When I have seen his house I will go back to Borneo.”
Mike was watching him as he talked. It was a particularly good-looking
face, except for the long and ugly scar that ran from his forehead to
the point of his jaw.
A new servant for Gregory Penne, thought the detective, and gave him
directions. Standing by the policeman’s side, he watched the queer
figure with its bundles till it disappeared.
“Queer language, that, sir,” said the officer. “It was Dutch to me.”
“And to me,” chuckled Mike, and continued his way to the hotel.