by Sapper
Suddenly he sat up in bed and switched on the light: a thought had struck him for the first time. All the way through, the one endeavour of everybody at the studio had been to prevent Sir Edward realising that Travers was re-doing his scenes. How, then, did it come about that now, quite openly, the whole thing was being done by the understudy, a fact which was bound sooner or later to be found out by Sir Edward? Had he really been in the yacht, and safely out of the way, it was understandable: they could take the genuine shots first, and then go through the farce again with Sir Edward when he returned. But he wasn’t in the yacht: at any moment he might turn up at Glensham House, when the fat would be in the fire.
He lit a cigarette: the more he thought of it, the stranger it seemed. It was so utterly illogical to take elaborate precautions to prevent him finding out the truth during part of the film, and then relax them entirely. Unless they knew that he wouldn’t turn up. And how could they know that, unless…
He sprang out of bed and began pacing up and down the room. They couldn’t know that unless he was a prisoner. But how could they have made him a prisoner? Prominent men cannot be abducted from a Great Western Railway express, or in the broad light of day in London. And the commissionaire had seen him leaving the Ritz Carlton. Muffled up, true; but…
He halted abruptly, his mouth open. Then he made one wild bound for the telephone, and twiddled the dial feverishly.
“Who the hell is that?” came a sleepy voice from the other end.
“Algy,” he cried, “come round here at once. I’ve had a brain-storm.”
“Damn it, old boy, it’s two o’clock,” came a plaintive voice from the other end: “the hour before dawn, when people die.”
“Put a coat over your pyjamas, Algy, and get a move on.”
A quarter of an hour later Longworth appeared.
“You’re the ruddy limit, Hugh,” he protested. “It could surely have waited till the morning.”
“Dry up, Algy, and get the grey matter working. I want you to tell me exactly what took place as far as the taking of the film was concerned that night that they decoyed me into the cellar. Begin with the scene in the study.”
“You mean where they drugged the financier? He drank the sherry, and a few moments later pitched forward unconscious. Then Montrevor and that other bloke whose name I can’t remember came out from behind the curtains, bound and gagged him, and were just going to carry him through the window when they were interrupted by the wife’s arrival. So they hid him in the big cupboard. Then the wife…”
“Doesn’t matter about her. How was Sir Edward gagged?”
“With a handkerchief round his mouth and nose.”
Drummond rubbed his hands.
“Did you see him again after that?”
“Not until later, when he was watching the lorry scene with Hardcastle.”
“He didn’t come back on the stage?”
“No. I gathered from a remark of Hardcastle’s that he was having dinner.”
“All right: carry on with the lorry scene.”
“That was two hours after. Travers, bound and gagged just as Sir Edward had been, was in the cupboard. Montrevor and the other fellow carried him out, threw him into the lorry, which then drove off.”
“Did Montrevor go in the lorry?”
“No: the driver was supposed to be in league with them.”
“Who was the driver?”
Algy Longworth stared at him.
“Funny you should ask that. As a matter of fact it struck me as a bit odd at the time. It was Penton.”
“Think carefully, Algy. Did that lorry come back after the scene was shot?”
“No, I don’t think it did. I’m sure it didn’t.”
“Why didn’t it?” Drummond’s eyes were gleaming with excitement. “We’re getting on to it, Algy. Go back a bit. What was Sir Edward doing?”
“Talking to Hardcastle and Gardini.”
“And my recollection is that he was standing in the shadow of one of the arcs.”
“Yes, he was. Then he drove off in his car to London.”
“Before or after the lorry had gone?”
“Before. I gathered he had got a chill.”
“And then?”
“That’s the lot, old boy. Travers returned and we shut up shop.”
“How long was it before Travers returned?”
“About a quarter of an hour, I should say. What’s the great idea, Hugh?”
Drummond took two or three turns up and down the room before replying, whilst the other watched him curiously.
“The great idea,” he said at length, “is that my brain during the last few days would have disgraced an aboriginal lunatic.”
Chapter 10
“A most interesting and instructive day, Mr Hardcastle. I am not a great film fan myself, I admit, though I go now and then. But this is the first occasion on which I have ever seen one in the making.”
Mr Joseph Hetterbury stretched out his legs under the dining-table and gently twisted the stem of his port-glass between a podgy finger and thumb. The big windows were open, the moor, turning slowly from purple to black, lay in front of him. He had just finished an excellent dinner, and felt at peace with the world. Glensham House was a welcome change after London.
“I thought it might amuse you,” remarked his host, pushing the decanter towards him. “It is, as you say, most interesting to see the way the different scenes are taken, and then compare them with the finished article.”
“It should be a great success. I suppose it is the first time that such an idea has been carried out?”
“You mean getting a well-known man to play himself, so to speak, in a film? I think it is. And when Sir Edward suggested it to me, the possibilities struck me at once.”
“Ah! he was the originator of the idea?”
Hardcastle nodded.
“Yes. He has always been keen on acting, and I could see what a valuable box-office draw he would prove. So between us we evolved a story round his central idea. You will hardly believe it, Mr Hetterbury, but it had never occurred to me until then how far-reaching might be the results if a financier of his standing was kidnapped. To you, moving as you do in the City, doubtless it would have been obvious. But to me, though I am not exactly a poor man, it came quite as a revelation.”
“That is the plot of the film, is it?”
“In brief, it is. I was talking to him one day concerning high finance – which is what we have called the film, as you know – and I asked him whether he ever took a holiday. He said to me, ‘A man in my position can never afford one. I must always be in touch with the market.’ And realising that if a man like him said so it must be true, the idea grew on me that it would make a wonderful peg on which to hang the story. Let him be kidnapped, and held prisoner on board a yacht, from which by wireless false information is sent to his brokers in London.”
“And why particularly a yacht?” asked Hetterbury.
“For two reasons. The first and less important one is that sea scenes are always popular in a film. But the second was what made it imperative. As he pointed out, big operations such as his abductors intended would be bound to cause an upheaval in the City. Now if the instructions which were supposed to emanate from him came from anywhere on land, his brokers would descend on him like a hive of bees. If they then found they couldn’t see him, they would at once smell a rat. In parentheses I may tell you, Mr Hetterbury, that every year the public grows more insistent on details in a film being correct. And when he explained that aspect of the case to me, I at once saw the force of it. We therefore had to think of some place from which his supposed instructions could come, and where he could not be reached by his brokers. And a yacht suggested itself immediately.”
“He is actually on board yo
ur yacht now, I believe?”
“That is so,” said Hardcastle, with a genial smile. “But not, I assure you, in durance vile.”
The other laughed heartily and filled his glass.
“He developed a slight chill down at the studio, and I gather there is a certain tendency to bronchial weakness. At any rate, both his secretary and I agreed that it would be much better for him to have a complete rest before completing the rather arduous part of the film which has to be taken on board.”
“Quite,” remarked Hetterbury. “A very wise precaution. But reverting to the film for a moment – because I really am very interested in it – there is one point that strikes me, Mr Hardcastle. What is there to prevent the brokers getting in touch with the yacht by marconigram, and asking for confirmation of the instructions?”
“We had to take a little licence there,” explained the other. “Admittedly it is a thing which would be difficult to arrange in real life, but I don’t think it matters in a film. We imagine that the entire yacht’s crew, captain and everyone on board, are all in the pay of the abductors, so that the financier is a virtual prisoner. Messages do reach him, but they are answered by his secretary in his name. You see, no question of signature comes in where a telegram is concerned, and, since a secret code is used, the brokers have no alternative but to treat the communications as coming from him, and act on them. And I have no doubt that when we come to shooting the scenes, Lord Derringham’s admirable Scotch skipper will play his part with gusto, even to the extent of putting Sir Edward in irons!”
“In view of the story, it certainly is a most amazing coincidence over Peruvian Eagles.”
“Peruvian Eagles! I think I hold a few. What has happened?”
“My dear sir!” Hetterbury stared at him in amazement. “You don’t mean to say that you don’t know?”
“To tell you the truth, Mr Hetterbury,” said Hardcastle, “I have been so engrossed down here with the film for the last few days that I have hardly seen a paper. I trust that nothing has gone wrong with them, for, though my holding is small, in these hard days one doesn’t want to lose the little one has.”
“It has been the talk of the City for the last ten days. Sir Edward, as you may know, is, or rather was, the largest shareholder, and up till recently he has been buying all the time. A fortnight ago the shares were standing at 7, when it suddenly came out that he was selling as fast as he could. Down came the price with a rush, until at one period they actually dropped below par. The Stock Exchange was humming with excitement, naturally, and then, to everyone’s amazement, it transpired that, far from anything being wrong with the company, its condition was even sounder than had been thought. And now the shares are back again to 6.”
“What an extraordinary thing! Do you think Sir Edward really sold, or was it just a rumour started in his absence?”
“He sold all right, towards the end naturally at a dead loss. And what his game was no one can make out.”
“Has he lost much money?”
“A packet, though he can well afford that. But what is defeating everybody is how a man of his uncanny astuteness can have made such a mistake.”
Hardcastle lit a cigar thoughtfully; then, leaning over the table towards his guest, he lowered his voice.
“Mr Hetterbury,” he said confidentially, “this is all news to me – as I told you, I have hardly glanced at the papers lately – but I wonder if I can supply a possible reason to account for it.”
“It will interest me profoundly if you can,” remarked the other.
“I have, of course, been seeing a lot of Sir Edward recently. In fact, until he went off in my yacht I met him every day for some hours at a stretch. And it struck me – I don’t want to exaggerate – that he was, shall I say, a little queer at times.”
“In what way do you mean, Mr Hardcastle?”
“It is difficult to answer your question in so many words,” said the other. “There was nothing specific on which one could lay hold and say that it was peculiar. But I think my daughter summed it up best one day when she said that he seemed to her to be on the verge of a nervous breakdown. Things take different people in different ways, and it is just conceivable that the unusual experience of acting in a film, coming at a time when perhaps he was not too fit, may have been too much for him.”
“To the extent of selling Perus for no rhyme or reason!” cried Hetterbury. “In any event, surely his secretary would have prevented him.”
Hardcastle pursed his lips.
“From what I saw of the relations between those two,” he remarked dryly, “it would have been useless for the secretary to say anything if Sir Edward had announced his intention of walking down Piccadilly in his birthday suit. Mind you, Mr Hetterbury, it is only an idea of mine, put forward to try to account for what seems an amazing action on Sir Edward’s part. Or again, there may be some deep underlying motive which only he knows.”
“Of the two suggestions the first is the more likely,” said the other. “In fact, it does supply a possible explanation for what has occurred, and one that I shall mention when I get back to London.”
Hardcastle held up a warning hand.
“I beg of you to be discreet in what you say,” he cried. “I would not like it to come to Sir Edward’s ears that I had been spreading statements of that sort about him.”
“My dear sir,” protested the other, “you may rely on my discretion. Your name will not come into it at all. But everyone is asking the same question, and it is certainly a feasible answer. By the way, how much longer is he remaining at sea?”
“I couldn’t tell you. Not very much longer, presumably, because the yacht will have to refuel. My honey! what is the matter?”
He swung round in his chair as the door burst open and the Comtessa came running in. She was in a state of great agitation, though she endeavoured to control herself on seeing Hetterbury, who had risen to his feet.
“The ghost, Tom,” she cried, forgetting her role completely. “I’ve just seen the ghost.”
“Come, come,” laughed Hardcastle, though he gave her a warning frown. “We’ve all seen it, my love, and she’s quite harmless. Come and drink a glass of port with your old Dad, and forget about it.”
“I seem to remember reading something about a ghost in that dreadful murder case you had here,” said Hetterbury.
“There was a little about it in the papers,” answered Hardcastle. “Three young fools came over here ghost-hunting the very night it took place, though, to do them justice, we all saw it afterwards.”
“What form did it take?”
“An elderly woman of the caretaker class. We saw her as clearly as I see you now, standing at the top of the stairs; then she vanished through the door of my daughter’s bedroom.”
“How terrible for you, Comtessa! What did you do?”
“I’m sorry to say I was stupid enough to faint,” she answered. “She was so close to me, and then she put out her hand and touched me. It was awful.”
“And you have just seen her again in your bedroom?”
“It was in the passage this time,” she said. “It’s stupid of me, I know, but I dread anything of that sort.”
“Very natural,” remarked Hetterbury sympathetically. “Well, Mr Hardcastle, I am sure the Comtessa would like to be quiet, so I will take my departure. Perhaps you could ring for my car.”
“Certainly,” said his host, with an alacrity that apparently his guest failed to notice. “I think it would be as well for my girl to rest.”
Hetterbury bowed over the Comtessa’s hand.
“I trust your visitor will not trouble you again tonight,” he murmured, giving it a gentle squeeze. “Being a lady, it should confine its attention to our sex. And I must thank you for a most enjoyable afternoon.”
He followed Hardcastle in
to the hall, and a few moments later his car drove off.
“For the love of Mike, what stung you, kid?” cried Hardcastle, coming back into the room. “What’s all this bologney about a ghost? The only one we’ve ever had in the house was yourself, and darned well you did it.”
“I haven’t told you about it, Tom,” she said: “in fact, until tonight I’d forgotten about it. You remember that I went up in the train with that man Drummond and his two friends. Well, it was the one called Jerningham who owns Merridale Hall who told me on the way up to London. This house is haunted.”
“Bologney,” repeated Hardcastle incredulously. “We worked a ramp then, but there’s nothing to it.”
“You listen to me, Tom Hardcastle,” she said angrily, “and quit talking out of your turn. Haven’t I told you I’d forgotten all about it till tonight? I’d gone down to see that he had got something to eat – incidentally he’s getting weaker and weaker, and unless we watch it he’ll die on us before we’re ready. Anyway, he was moaning and groaning as usual, when suddenly I noticed a most peculiar smell, just the same as you get sometimes from that foul bog outside. I looked around, trying to locate it, when just beyond the range of the candle I saw something move. It didn’t walk: it didn’t seem to do anything except just give a sort of heave. Then it vanished without a sound.”
“But what was it?” cried the man.
“A great black, shapeless sort of mass,” she said, with a violent shudder. “And it stank.”
“There, there, my dear,” he said soothingly. “It was a trick of the light.”
“I tell you it wasn’t,” she stormed. “It’s an elemental – that’s what that man Jerningham said. It’s called the Horror of Glensham House, and people who see it either go mad or die.”
“Well, honey, you haven’t done either,” he said quietly, though his eyes were fixed on her searchingly. She was in an acute state of nerves; obviously the shock had been very great. Now that Hetterbury had gone and there was no longer any necessity for her to control herself, her quivering lips and shaking fingers told their own tale.