THE ERASURE
MIKE’S way back did not lead through the little street where Adele
Leamington lived—at least, not his nearest road. Yet he found himself
knocking at the door, and learnt, with a sense of disappointment, that
the girl had been out since seven o’clock in the morning. Knebworth was
shooting on the South Downs, and the studio, when he arrived, was empty,
except for Knebworth’s secretary and the new scenario editor, who had
arrived late on the previous evening.
“I don’t know the location, Mr. Brixan,” said Dicker, the secretary,
“but it’s somewhere above Arundel. Miss Mendoza was here this morning,
asking the same question. She wanted Miss Leamington to go out to lunch
with her.”
“Oh, she did, did she?” said Michael softly. “Well, if she comes again,
you can tell her from me that Miss Leamington has another engagement.”
The other nodded wisely.
“I hope she won’t keep you waiting,” he said. “You never know, when
Jack’s on location——”
“I did not say she had an engagement with me,” said Michael loudly.
“That reminds me, Mr. Brixan,” said the secretary suddenly. “Do you
remember the fuss you made—I mean, there was—about a sheet of
manuscript that by some accident had got into Miss Leamington’s script?”
Michael nodded.
“Has the manuscript been found?” he asked.
“No, but the new scenario editor tells me that he was looking through
the book where Foss kept a record of all the manuscripts that came in,
and he found one entry had been blacked out with Indian ink.”
“I’d like to see that book,” said the interested Michael, and it was
brought to him, a large foolscap ledger, ruled to show the name of the
submitted scenario, the author, his address, the date received and the
date returned. Mike put it down on the table in Knebworth’s private
office and went carefully through the list of authors.
“If he sent one he has probably sent more,” he said. “There are no other
erasures?”
The secretary shook his head.
“That is the only one we’ve seen,” he said. “You’ll find lots of names
of local people—there isn’t a tradesman in the place who hasn’t written
a scenario or submitted an idea since we’ve been operating.”
Slowly Michael’s finger went up the column of names. Page after page was
turned back. And then his finger stopped at an entry.
“The Power of Fear: Sir Gregory Penne,” he read, and looked round at
Dicker.
“Did Sir Gregory submit scenarios, Mr. Dicker?”
Dicker nodded.
“Yes, he sent in one or two,” he said. “You’ll find his name farther
back in the book. He used to write scenarios which he thought were
suitable for Miss Mendoza. He’s not the man you’re looking for?”
“No,” said Michael quickly. “Have you any of his manuscript?”
“They were all sent back,” said Dicker regretfully. “He wrote awful
mush! I read one of them. I remember Foss trying to persuade old Jack to
produce it. Foss made quite a lot of money on the side, we’ve
discovered. He used to take fees from authors, and Mr. Knebworth
discovered this morning that he once took two hundred pounds from a lady
on the promise that he’d get her into the pictures. He wrote Foss a
stinging letter this morning about it.”
Presently Michael found Sir Gregory’s name again. It was not remarkable
that the owner of Griff Towers should have submitted a manuscript. There
was hardly a thinking man or woman in the world who did not believe he
or she was capable of writing for the films.
He closed the book and handed it back to Dicker.
“It is certainly queer, that erased entry. I’ll speak to Foss about it
as soon as I can find him,” he said.
He went immediately to the little hotel where Foss was staying, but he
was out.
“I don’t think he came home last night,” said the manager. “If he did,
he didn’t sleep in his bed. He said he was going to London,” he added.
Michael went back to the studio, for it had begun to rain, and he knew
that that would drive the company from location. His surmise was
correct: the big yellow char-à-banc came rumbling into the yard a few
minutes after he got there. Adele saw him, and was passing with a nod
when he called her to him.
“Thank you, Mr. Brixan, but we lunched on location, and I have two big
scenes to read for to-morrow.”
Her refusal was uncompromising, but Michael was not the type who readily
accepted a “No.”
“What about tea? You’ve got to drink tea, my good lady, though you have
fifty scenes to study. And you can’t read and eat too. If you do, you’ll
get indigestion, and if you get indigestion——”
She laughed.
“If my landlady will loan me her parlour, you may come to tea at
half-past four,” she said; “and if you have another engagement at five
o’clock, you’ll be able to meet it.”
Jack Knebworth was waiting for him when he went into the studio.
“Heard about that entry in the scenario book?” he asked. “I see you
have. What do you think of it?” Without waiting for a reply: “It looks
queer to me. Foss was an unmitigated liar. That fellow couldn’t see
straight. I’ve got a little bone to pick with him on the matter of a fee
he accepted from a screen-struck lady who wished to be featured in one
of my productions.”
“How’s the girl?” asked Michael.
“You mean Adele? Really, she’s wonderful, Brixan! I’m touching wood all
the time”—he put his hand on the table piously—“because I know that
there’s a big shock coming to me somewhere and somehow. Those things do
not happen in real life. The only stars that are born in a night are the
fireworks produced by crazy vice-presidents who have promised to do
something for Mamie and can’t break their word. And Mamie, supported by
six hundred extras and half a million dollars’ worth of sets, two
chariot races and the fall of Babylon, all produced regardless of
expense, manages to get over by giving a fine imitation of what the
Queen of Persia would look like if she’d been born a chorus girl and
trained as a mannequin. And she’s either got so few clothes that you
don’t look at her face, or so many clothes that you don’t notice her
acting.
“Those kind of stars are like the dust of the Milky Way: there is so
much splendour all round them that it wouldn’t matter if they weren’t
there at all. But this girl Leamington, she’s getting over entirely and
absolutely by sheer, unadulterated grey matter. I tell you, Brixan, it’s
not right. These things do not happen except in the imagination of press
agents. There’s something wrong with that kid.”
“Wrong?” said Michael, startled.
Knebworth nodded.
“Something radically wrong. There’s a snag somewhere. She’s either going
to let me down by vanishing before the picture’s through, or else she’s
going to be arrested for driving a car along Regent Street in a highly
intoxicated condition!”
Michael laughed.
“I think she’ll do neither,” he said.
“Heard about Mendoza’s new company?” asked old Jack, filling his pipe.
Michael pulled up a chair and sat down.
“No, I haven’t.”
“She’s starting a new production company. There’s never a star I’ve
fired that hasn’t! It gets all written out on paper, capital in big
type, star in bigger! It’s generally due to the friends of the star, who
tell her that a hundred thousand a year is a cruel starvation wage for a
woman of her genius, and she ought to get it all. Generally there’s a
sucker in the background who puts up the money. As a rule, he puts up
all but enough, and then she selects a story where she is never off the
screen, and wears a new dress every fifty feet of film. If she can’t
find that sort of story, why, she gets somebody to write her one. The
only time you ever see the other members of the company is in the long
shots. Half-way through the picture the money dries up, the company goes
bust, and all the poor little star gets out of it is the Rolls-Royce she
bought to take her on location, the new bungalow she built to be nearer
the lot, and about twenty-five per cent. of the capital that she’s taken
on account of royalties.”
“Mendoza will not get a good producer in England?”
“She may,” nodded Jack. “There _are_ producers in this country, but
unfortunately they’re not the men on top. They’ve been brought down by
the craze for greatness. A man who produces with a lot of capital behind
him can get easy money. He doesn’t go after the domestic stories, where
he’d be found out first time; he says to the money-bags: ‘Let’s produce
the Fall of Jerusalem. I’ve got a cute idea for building Ezekiel’s
temple that’s never been taken before. It’ll only cost a mere trifle of
two hundred thousand dollars, and we’ll have five thousand extras in one
scene, and we’ll rebuild the Colosseum and have a hundred real lions in
the arena! Story? What do you want a story for? The public love crowds.’
Or maybe he wants to build a new Vesuvius and an eruption at the rate of
fifty dollars a foot. There’s many a big reputation been built up on
sets and extras. Come in, Mr. Longvale.”
Michael turned. The cheery old man was at the door, hat in hand.
“I am afraid I am rather a nuisance,” he said in his beautiful voice.
“But I came in to see my lawyer, and I could not deny myself the
satisfaction of calling to see how your picture is progressing.”
“It is going on well, Mr. Longvale, thank you,” said Jack. “You know Mr.
Brixan?”
The old man nodded and smiled.
“Yes, I came in to see my lawyer on what to you will seem to be a
curious errand. Many years ago I was a medical student and took my final
examination, so that I am, to all intents and purposes, a doctor, though
I’ve not practised to any extent. It is not generally known that I have
a medical degree and I was surprised last night to be called out
by—er—a neighbour, who wished me to attend a servant of his. Now, I am
so hazy on the subject that I wasn’t quite sure whether or not I’d
broken the law by practising without registration.”
“I can relieve your mind there, Mr. Longvale,” said Michael. “Once you
are registered, you are always registered, and you acted quite within
your rights.”
“So my lawyer informed me,” said Longvale gravely.
“Was it a bad case?” asked Michael, who guessed who the patient was.
“No, it was not a bad case. I thought there was blood poisoning, but I
think perhaps I may have been mistaken. Medical science has made such
great advance since I was a young man that I almost feared to prescribe.
Whilst I am only too happy to render any service that humanity demands,
I must confess that it was rather a disturbing experience, and I
scarcely slept all night. In fact, it was a very disturbing evening and
night. Somebody, for some extraordinary reason, put a motor-bicycle in
my garden.”
Michael smiled to himself.
“I cannot understand why. It had gone this morning. And then I saw our
friend Foss, who seemed very much perturbed about something.”
“Where did you see him?” asked Michael quickly.
“He was passing my house. I was standing at the gate, smoking my pipe,
and bade him good night without knowing who he was. When he turned back,
I saw it was Mr. Foss. He told me he had been to make a call, and that
he had another appointment in an hour.”
“What time was this?” asked Michael.
“I think it must have been eleven o’clock.” The old man hesitated. “I’m
not sure. It was just before I went to bed.”
Michael could easily account for Foss’s conduct. Sir Gregory had hurried
him off and told him to come back after the girl had gone.
“My little place used to be remarkable for its quietness,” said Mr.
Longvale, and shook his head. “Perhaps,” turning to Knebworth, “when
your picture is finished you will be so good as to allow me to see it?”
“Why, surely, Mr. Longvale.”
“I don’t know why I’m taking this tremendous interest,” chuckled the old
man. “I must confess that, until a few weeks ago, film-making was a
mystery to me. And even to-day it belongs to the esoteric sciences.”
Dicker thrust his head in the door.
“Will you see Miss Mendoza?” he asked.
Jack Knebworth’s expression was one of utter weariness.
“No,” he said curtly.
“She says——” began Dicker.
Only the presence of the venerable Mr. Longvale prevented Jack from
expressing his views on Stella Mendoza and all that she could say.
“There’s another person I saw last night,” nodded Mr. Longvale. “I
thought at first you must be shooting—is that the expression?—in the
neighbourhood, but Mr. Foss told me that I was mistaken. She’s rather a
charming girl, don’t you think?”
“Very,” said Jack dryly.
“A very sweet disposition,” Longvale went on, unconscious of the utter
lack of sympathy in the atmosphere. “Nowadays, the confusion and hurry
which modernity brings in its trail do not make for sweetness of temper,
and one is glad to meet an exception. Not that I am an enemy of
modernity. To me, this is the most delightful phase of my long life.”
“Sweet disposition!” almost howled Jack Knebworth when the old man had
taken a dignified farewell. “Did you get that, Brixan? Say, if that
woman’s disposition is sweet, the devil’s made of chocolate!”