Read Ebook: The avenger by Wallace Edgar

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Ebook has 1554 lines and 53832 words, and 32 pages

"A detective?" he croaked. "A--a detective! What do you want here?"

"I heard somebody scream," said Michael.

"One of the servants, maybe. We've got a Papuan woman here who's ill: in fact, she's a little mad, and we're moving her to-morrow. I'll go and see if you like?"

He looked toward Michael as though seeking permission. His whole attitude was one of humility, and Michael required no more than the sight of that pallid face and those chattering teeth to turn his suspicion to certainty. Something was happening in this house that he must get to the bottom of.

"May I go and see?" asked Penne.

Michael nodded. The stout man shuffled out of the room as though he were in a hurry to be gone, and the lock clicked. Instantly Michael was at the door, turned the handle and pulled. It was locked!

He looked round the room quickly, and, running to one of the windows, flung back the curtain and pulled at the shutter. But this, too, was locked. It was, to all intents and purposes, a door with a little keyhole at the bottom. He was examining this when all the lights in the room went out, the only illumination being a faint red glow from the fire.

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."

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