Murder of a Movie Star

by L. B. Hathaway

  ‘Nope. I take it Mr Mallow’s not your regular extra then?’

  Reggie Jones blew out his cheeks in exasperation and wiped a hand over his sweaty brow.

  ‘Not on your nelly. He might have been, once, but he’s taken things a whole stage further, now. Once upon a time he was just a plain old movie buff, and a regular paid extra on Sunstar’s books, nicely behaved as anything. But then he fell in love with our Miss Hanro and started playing dirty.’

  ‘Dirty? How so?’

  Reggie Jones scowled. ‘He started following her about. Lurking. Waiting in ambush more like. Then there were notes, and letters, and cards. And presents. You know the type of thing.’

  ‘Notes?’

  ‘Declarations of undying love. I seem to remember. I’ve had to throw away a fair few in my time.’

  ‘But nothing dangerous?’

  ‘Dangerous? Why would they be dangerous? You mean loaded with poison or something?’

  ‘Well, no. I suppose I mean threatening, rather than dangerous.’

  Reggie Jones was giving Posie a funny look, and for a minute she thought she might have laid it on a bit thick. She smiled hastily, tucking her dark short hair behind her ear in what she alone knew was a nervous tick.

  ‘I’m just making sure he won’t threaten me, Mr Jones, if I speak to him. I don’t want to put myself in a small, enclosed space with a dangerous man. You never can be too sure.’

  ‘Ah, I see.’ He nodded, placated.

  ‘Well, no. Be assured, Miss Parker. There’s nothing obviously dangerous about Hector Mallow. But he’s a creepy sort. He’s banned from here now, but he gets in, all the same. It’s usually me in charge of checking in the extras every morning, but occasionally I have the weekend off – I am a family man, after all – and then someone else steps in and does the register; someone not so experienced at seeing through all of Hector’s disguises. And there we go again.’

  ‘What was that about the weekends, Mr Jones? I don’t understand.’

  ‘Didn’t I mention? It’s only ever on a Saturday or Sunday that Hector Mallow appears. I’ve never known him show up for a weekday of filming. He must have another job, a regular job, perhaps, in the week?’

  ‘So he’s not around now? And he’s not been around, say, Monday and Tuesday of this week at all?’

  ‘No. He was around on Sunday, though. Chanced his arm and got through the replacement clerk’s security checks. I was back here by early afternoon, thank goodness, and as soon as I spotted him – he had dyed his hair black this time and grown a pencil moustache – I got him escorted off the premises. He went with no objection, mind, quiet as a lamb.’

  ‘How interesting. And do you have the contact details for this Hector Mallow?’

  Reggie shuffled, a bit dubiously. ‘I expect I do have them somewhere, Miss Parker. If you’re quite sure you really must speak to him?’

  ‘Quite sure.’

  ‘Come this way, then. All the paperwork and money is locked up in Mr Samuelson’s office. It’s the only really safe place here on set. It’s at the top, up the stairs.’

  As they walked through the large crowd of underused extras, most reading magazines in the marquee, Reggie Jones gestured at them all appreciatively.

  ‘On the whole we’re very lucky.’ He smiled. ‘Fortunately the Hector Mallows of this world are few and far between. I suppose it seems odd to you, doesn’t it? All these people sitting about with not much to do?’

  Posie smiled winningly. ‘Oh no,’ she trilled airily. ‘Mr Moran explained the arrangement. Most useful in case Mr Langley chooses to film something different to what he had planned.’

  Reggie nodded knowingly. ‘Or if he can’t film what he had planned because of unforeseen events.’

  ‘Like what?’

  ‘Like this morning for instance. He was supposed to be filming Miss Hanro, alone, over and over in that execution scene, from the crack of dawn. What he’s doing now. But she called in very early from home, in central London, with an urgent appointment: said she couldn’t make it in to Worton Hall until coffee time. So then this great gaggle of extras were ushered into position for a big crowd scene at the last minute. Not planned at all. But it was jolly useful that they were around.’

  ‘Quite.’

  And in her head Posie was re-running something that Brian Langley had thrown out in anger at Silvia Hanro before she stepped in front of the cameras.

  He had referred to ‘your mysterious appointment’, something which had messed up his scheduled filming early this morning, delaying things, which had made him angry.

  What had that been about? And why hadn’t Silvia mentioned it to Posie earlier?

  And why had Tom Moran insisted that the couple hadn’t stayed at his flat in the Albany for an age, when in fact they, or just Silvia, had been there the very night before.

  It could be something, and it could be nothing.

  But Posie stored it up for later. In case it was useful.

  ****

  Eight

  ‘You got the grand tour earlier, did you?’ said Reggie Jones in his sing-song Welsh accent as they entered the house again.

  Posie hadn’t had any tour of any kind, but she mumbled something about having seen the studio, which was all she was really concerned about.

  ‘Ah, well, folks are busy I suppose,’ said Reggie wearily. He gestured around him, at the corridor where Silvia’s dressing room was. ‘Down here are the main actors’ dressing rooms, and the props and costume rooms. This here is the centre of the house.’

  They passed into the old entrance hall of the house, cool and inviting, if a bit dilapidated, where the telephone booth and a reception desk were now located. Everything was painted a sharp blinding white.

  ‘Over there is the ballroom, and next to it in the old parlour is the staff canteen.’

  Posie looked about as best she could as they started to mount the great curving staircase made of white planed wood. She could just see that several women and a man were standing on ladders in the white ballroom, fixing what looked like hundreds of strings of tiny lights and several rows of silver glittery decorations around the place, presumably in preparation for tomorrow’s Wrap Party.

  The canteen next door with its white walls looked more austere, rows of wooden benches and great tables, much like at a boys’ boarding school. But it wasn’t very big. At all.

  ‘Does everyone eat in there?’ Posie asked, puzzled.

  ‘Nope. Only the film crew and the leading actors. The labourers and the extras either bring a sandwich and a thermos from home or else they nip off down the Royal Oak for lunch. It’s a favourite haunt, and only three minutes’ walk from here, on the Worton Road. They do a good sausage sandwich, mind.’

  Posie felt her stomach growl at the thought, despite the halfpenny buns she had devoured.

  They had reached the top floor of the house. Here everything was painted white, too. Rows of doors on long corridors led away in every direction from a round central landing, above which a huge skylight shaped like a giant flower allowed the light to flood in, illuminating what could otherwise have felt like quite a dark, poky space.

  Reggie Jones jerked his head quickly in the direction of the rows of doors away to the right.

  ‘Over there are a whole load of rooms for the main film crew and staff. It’s a bit like a hotel up here, really. And there are a couple of little flats over there, too, for the principal movie stars themselves. A home from home.’

  ‘I see. How cosy.’

  ‘Brian Langley wanted exclusive use of this place when he signed the lease last year. Normally Mr Samuelson, the owner, he operates shifts here, so two films might be being filmed at any one time, by two producers, from two different companies; all day and all night, sometimes. Mr Langley didn’t want that this time. So a condition of the exclusive use of this place was that he took the whole house, as well as the studios outside. That included all this accommodation. And he also had to take on Mr Samuelson�
�s permanent staff, too.’

  ‘Sorry? Permanent staff?’

  ‘Yes. It was all set out in the contract. I should know, I had to study the thing until I was blue in the face! Brian had to take on the cook and an army of cleaners, plus the in-house carpenters and the scenery painters. The receptionist downstairs is Mr Samuelson’s, too. As are a couple of cameramen, a projectionist and a couple of dressers for the main movie stars. You might have seen me talking to Elaine, who’s supposed to look after Miss Hanro? She’s one of Mr Samuelson’s permanent staff and she’s been helping me a bit with the extras. It’s been very handy, actually; having someone who knows the place like the back of her hand and knows where everything is.’

  ‘I can see that would be helpful.’ Again, Posie was thinking what a huge waste of money and what a non-slick operation the whole film industry seemed to be, but just then she realised that Reggie Jones was looking more animated than she had seen him, and his face had lost its fishyness. He had stopped outside a big door with a large safety bar across its double width, and was motioning over excitedly.

  ‘This here is the projection room,’ he whispered in reverent tones. ‘Right next to the cutting room. Care to have a look?’

  Before Posie could utter anything, Reggie Jones had pushed the bar down, and was indicating that she should follow him inside. She did so gladly, and screwed up her eyes again as what met her for a second time that afternoon was pitch-black darkness, again punctured by the glowing ends of cigarettes here and there about the place.

  As far as she could make out, the room was fairly large, and packed with rows of hard-backed chairs, like a mini cinema. The room was empty save for about five men mainly seated in the front row. A large screen, almost as full sized as in a real cinema, dominated the room. It was flickering madly just now, busy with nothing, just a crackly grey with blobs of black and snowflakes of white hissing in-between.

  A sharp voice called over:

  ‘Who’s there? Who’s opened the door?’

  ‘Relax, Bernard. It’s just me, Reggie. I’m showing a journalist from The Lady around. Thought she might like to see a bit of the final thing.’

  ‘Brian know about this, does he?’

  ‘Yep. He’s authorised it all.’

  ‘I see. Well, there’s not much to see at the moment. Willie back there is changing the reel. Oh! Here we go!’

  The invisible Bernard’s voice softened instantly. It became almost dream-like.

  ‘Attagirl! Does anyone do that better? Betty Balfour eat your heart out!’

  And Posie stared up and saw the screen had stopped crackling and that the now-familiar wide face of Silvia Hanro was up there instead; huge and blown up, with all of the focus of the camera trained intently on the kohl-rimmed eyes, dark and anguished and smouldering.

  ‘I say!’

  Posie saw at once that the camera loved Silvia Hanro; that the make-up which had looked odd and over-the-top in daylight was perfect on the silver screen. That the blonde wig and velvet clothes seemed eminently right up there. She understood too that when you started to look at Silvia Hanro, here seen pleading with Robbie Fontaine, you couldn’t take your eyes off her.

  ‘Quite something, isn’t she?’ said Reggie Jones softly. ‘Cinema dynamite. And everyone here knows it.’

  Posie nodded mutely. She agreed with him wholeheartedly.

  ‘Let’s get out of here. Bernard and his lads are busy putting yesterday’s reels together so Brian Langley can view it late on tonight. Or in the early hours, more like. He can spend the whole night in here working, can Brian. Anything could happen outside and he wouldn’t know about it.’

  Out on the corridor again they approached a room at the very end with a glass-stencilled door. Reggie Jones took a key from around his neck on a bit of string.

  ‘Here we go. This is Mr Samuelson’s office. I’ll have a look for that address you want…if you’re certain…’

  Posie nodded and stared around unabashedly while Reggie went over to a huge dark-wooded desk which took up most of the room, and retrieved a huge grey box-file.

  He started to flip through the unwieldy file while Posie took in the oak-panelled walls, the green velvet sofa in the corner and the traditional British hunting scenes which lined the walls. There was a small humidor on the desk and a cut-glass ashtray, clean. The place felt much like a gentleman’s club in Mayfair, a real man’s stronghold perched high above the white and unreal fairy-tale blaze of Worton Hall Studios below. A window behind the desk gave on to rolling scorched countryside with a view of unbroken blue skies overhead.

  ‘Here you go,’ Reggie said, scribbling something down on a piece of lined notepaper and thrusting it at Posie. ‘But you might rue the day you took this.’

  ‘Thank you, Mr Jones. I appreciate it.’

  If Reggie Jones had been about to say anything else on the subject of Hector Mallow, he didn’t, for just at that moment the glazed door swung open and a huge figure entered the room, taking up all the space. The man who stood there was very tall, and very wide and very round. He was impeccably dressed in a three-piece suit, with a maroon dickie-bow tie and immaculate white spats over his shoes, despite the blistering heat. The man was surprisingly young, perhaps only a couple of years older than Posie herself, although the weight he carried lent him a much older aspect. He had a ruddy complexion with small blue eyes which twinkled with a crisp intelligence.

  ‘Ah!’ said Reggie Jones subserviently, ‘Mr Samuelson! I’m just collecting some necessary bits from my box-file, sir.’

  Mr Samuelson put up a large, fleshy hand as if stopping traffic. When he spoke it was in a booming voice:

  ‘Carry on, by all means! No need to explain! I did give you the key to my office, after all.’ He looked at Posie expectantly. She smiled and held out her ungloved hand.

  ‘Miss Parker, sir. I’m here with The Lady. I’ve been seeing everything there is to see, and meeting Silvia Hanro, of course.’

  ‘Ah, yes. Miss Parker. I know all about you! Would you like to interview me, too?’

  He sat down heavily in his padded leather desk chair.

  ‘Perhaps Mr Jones here could give us some time alone?’

  Reggie Jones positively gaped, and as Posie watched him back out of the room hastily, she was just in time to see Mr Samuelson suppress a laugh.

  ‘Be a good girl and go and peep out of that window in the door and check that Reggie Jones has actually gone, would you?’ Mr Samuelson said, lighting a cigar. ‘What we need to discuss has no need of an audience, now, does it?’

  Posie did as she was told, checked the corridor outside, shook her head to confirm that no-one was around, and returned to a comfortable chair which Mr Samuelson indicated to on the other side of the desk. She looked up and saw that a tobacco-coloured cloud of brown had distempered the immaculate white ceiling right above the desk, presumably over a long period of time.

  ‘I saw you in the projection room,’ said Mr Samuelson between puffs. He spoke in a low undertone now. ‘I thought “Aha! There’s the lady detective Brian Langley told me about this morning.” I’ve heard all about you anyhow, of course. You’re that famous explorer’s girlfriend, aren’t you?’

  Posie nodded fairly primly, hoping Mr Samuelson would just carry right on, which he did:

  ‘So I snatched myself away from the lures of Miss Hanro and came to speak to you.’

  ‘Thank you, Mr Samuelson. Can you shed any light on these death threats?’

  ‘No, I’m afraid not.’ He shook his head. ‘Don’t know the first thing about them, except they keep on coming, apparently. Brian Langley thinks it’s a known stalker: wants to keep things quiet, naturally, until filming is all wrapped up tomorrow. Can’t say I blame him, either. Hopefully the whole thing is just a wretched hoax.’

  ‘Mnnn.’

  ‘You don’t think so, Miss Parker?’

  ‘I think we ought to be looking at these notes as serious death threats, Mr Samuelson. That’s what I t
hink.’

  The eyes of the owner of Worton Hall no longer twinkled, and he held his cigar a moment too long over the tooled leather inlay on his desk. There was a horrible burning smell.

  ‘I see. Well, in that case I’ll give you this, then.’

  Mr Samuelson had unlocked a small drawer in his desk, and reached into the back. He took out a plain-looking silver key on a length of worn string. He passed it over to Posie.

  ‘This is a master key. It unlocks every single door in this place, the house and studios included. You have my full permission to look absolutely anywhere you please, in the course of this investigation.’

  Posie put the key into the pocket of her yellow dress. She thought that the clues to the death threats lay elsewhere, other than at Worton Hall, but she appreciated the gesture of the key anyhow. Perhaps she might need it, who knew?

  ‘Is there anything else I can help you with, Miss Parker?’

  Posie had just spotted the shining black telephone apparatus on the desk beside Mr Samuelson’s substantial right elbow. She had two calls to make, and she didn’t really fancy making either of them downstairs in that public telephone booth again.

  Mr Samuelson’s eyes followed her gaze and he nodded enthusiastically. ‘Please, be my guest. All of my facilities are at your service, use the telephone here as much as you like. Just lock the door again to this office when you leave. I’ll let you get on.’

  ‘That really is most kind of you.’

  Bertie Samuelson was rising now, making his way over towards his door. ‘You’re sure there’s nothing else I can do for you?’

  ‘Well. Actually, how often does the bus or train run back into central London? I need to go again fairly soon.’

  Mr Samuelson smiled. ‘That’s typical of Brian Langley, not to have thought of getting you home. He’s only got the one car and the one driver, and he can’t really afford him, but I tell you what, have mine.’

  He checked his watch. ‘Fred, my personal driver, will be back here at five o’clock. I’ll get him to wait up front for you. Tell him to take you to the moon and back, as far as I’m concerned. He’s all yours.’