Читать книгу The Avenger - Edgar Wallace - Страница 8

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Adele did not speak to him for a long time. Resentment that he should force his company upon her, and nervousness at the coming ordeal—a nervousness which became sheer panic as they grew nearer and nearer to their destination—made conversation impossible.

“I see your Mr. Lawley Foss is with us,” said Michael, glancing over his shoulder, and by way of making conversation.

“He always goes on location,” she said shortly. “A story has sometimes to be amended while it’s being shot.”

“Where are we going now?” he asked.

“Griff Towers first,” she replied. She found it difficult to be uncivil to anybody. “It is a big place owned by Sir Gregory Penne.”

“But I thought we were going to the Dower House?”

She looked at him with a little frown.

“Why did you ask if you knew?” she demanded, almost in a tone of asperity.

“Because I like to hear you speak,” said the young man calmly. “Sir Gregory Penne? I seem to know the name.”

She did not answer.

“He was in Borneo for many years, wasn’t he?”

“He’s hateful,” she said vehemently. “I detest him!”

She did not explain the cause of her detestation, and Michael thought it discreet not to press the question, but presently she relieved him of responsibility.

“I’ve been to his house twice. He has a very fine garden, which Mr. Knebworth has used before—of course, I only went as an extra and was very much in the background. I wish I had been more so. He has queer ideas about women, and especially actresses—not that I’m an actress,” she added hastily, “but I mean people who play for a living. Thank heaven there’s only one scene to be shot at Griff, and perhaps he will not be at home, but that’s unlikely. He’s always there when I go.”

Michael glanced at her out of the corner of his eye. His first impression of her beauty was more than confirmed. There was a certain wistfulness in her face which was very appealing; an honesty in the dark eyes that told him all he wanted to know about her attitude toward the admiration of the unknown Sir Gregory.

“It’s queer how all baronets are villains in stories,” he said, “and queerer still that most of the baronets I’ve known have been men of singular morals. I’m bothering you, being here, aren’t I?” he asked, dropping his tone of banter.

She looked round at him.

“You are a little,” she said frankly. “You see, Mr. Brixan, this is my big chance. It’s a chance that really never comes to an extra except in stories, and I’m frightened to death of what is going to happen. You make me nervous, but what makes me more panic-stricken is that the first scene is to be shot at Griff. I hate it, I hate it!” she said almost savagely. “That big, hard-looking house, with its hideous stuffed tigers and its awful looking swords——”

“Swords?” he asked quickly. “What do you mean?”

“The walls are covered with them—Eastern swords. They make me shiver to see them. But Sir Gregory takes a delight in them: he told Mr. Knebworth, the last time we were there, that the swords were as sharp now as they were when they came from the hands of their makers, and some of them were three hundred years old. He’s an extraordinary man: he can cut an apple in half on your hand and never so much as scratch you. That is one of his favourite stunts—do you know what ‘stunt’ means?”

“I seem to have heard the expression,” said Michael absently.

“There is the house,” she pointed. “Ugh! It makes me shiver.”

Griff Towers was one of those bleak looking buildings that it had been the delight of the early Victorian architects to erect. Its one grey tower, placed on the left wing, gave it a lopsided appearance, but even this distortion did not distract attention from its rectangular unloveliness. The place seemed all the more bare, since the walls were innocent of greenery, and it stood starkly in the midst of a yellow expanse of gravel.

“Looks almost like a barracks,” said Michael, “with a parade ground in front!”

They passed through the lodge gates, and the char-à-banc stopped half-way up the drive. The gardens apparently were in the rear of the building, and certainly there was nothing that would attract the most careless of directors in its uninteresting façade.

Michael got down from his seat and found Jack Knebworth already superintending the unloading of a camera and reflectors. Behind the char-à-banc came the big dynamo lorry, with three sun arcs that were to enhance the value of daylight.

“Oh, you’re here, are you?” growled Jack. “Now you’ll oblige me, Mr. Brixan, by not getting in the way? I’ve got a hard morning’s work ahead of me.”

“I want you to take me on as a—what is the word?—extra,” said Michael.

The old man frowned at him.

“Say, what’s the great idea?” he asked suspiciously.

“I have an excellent reason, and I promise you that nothing I do will in any way embarrass you. The truth is, Mr. Knebworth, I want to be around for the remainder of the day, and I need an excuse.”

Jack Knebworth bit his lip, scratched his long chin, scowled, and then:

“All right,” he said gruffly. “Maybe you’ll come in handy, though I’ll have quite enough bother directing one amateur, and if you get into the pictures on this trip you’re going to be lucky!”

There was a man of the party, a tall young man whose hair was brushed back from his forehead, and was so tidy and well arranged that it seemed as if it had originally been stuck by glue and varnished over. A tall, somewhat good-looking boy, who had sat on Adele’s left throughout the journey and had not spoken once, he raised his eyebrows at the appearance of Michael, and, strolling across to the harassed Knebworth, his hands in his pockets, he asked with a hurt air:

“I say, Mr. Knebworth, who is this johnny?”

“Which johnny?” growled old Jack. “You mean Brixan? He’s an extra.”

“Oh, an extra, is he?” said the young man. “I say, it’s pretty desperately awful when extras hobnob with principals! And this Leamington girl—she’s simply going to mess up the pictures, she is, by Jove!”

“Is she, by Jove?” snarled Knebworth. “Now see here, Mr. Connolly, I ain’t so much in love with your work that I’m willing to admit in advance that even an extra is going to mess up this picture.”

“I’ve never played opposite to an extra in my life, dash it all!”

“Then you must have felt lonely,” grunted Jack, busy with his unpacking.

“Now, Mendoza is an artiste——” began the youthful leading man, and Jack Knebworth straightened his back.

“Get over there till you’re wanted, you!” he roared. “When I need advice from pretty boys, I’ll come to you—see? For the moment you’re de trop, which is a French expression meaning that you’re standing on ground there’s a better use for.”

The disgruntled Reggie Connolly strolled away with a shrug of his thin shoulders, which indicated not only his conviction that the picture would fail, but that the responsibility was everywhere but under his hat.

From the big doorway of Griff Towers, Sir Gregory Penne was watching the assembly of the company. He was a thick-set man, and the sun of Borneo and an unrestricted appetite had dyed his skin a colour which was between purple and brown. His face was covered with innumerable ridges, his eyes looked forth upon the world through two narrow slits. The rounded feminine chin seemed to be the only part of his face that sunshine and stronger stimulants had left in its natural condition.

Michael watched him as he strolled down the slope to where they were standing, guessing his identity. He wore a golf suit of a loud check in which red predominated, and a big cap of the same material was pulled down over his eyes. Taking the stub of a cigar from his teeth, with a quick and characteristic gesture he wiped his scanty moustache on his knuckles.

“Good morning, Knebworth,” he called.

His voice was harsh and cruel; a voice that had never been mellowed by laughter or made soft by the tendernesses of humanity.

“Good morning, Sir Gregory.”

Old Knebworth disentangled himself from his company.

“Sorry I’m late.”

“Don’t apologize,” said the other. “Only I thought you were going to shoot earlier. Brought my little girl, eh?”

“Your little girl?” Jack looked at him, frankly nonplussed. “You mean Mendoza? No, she’s not coming.”

“I don’t mean Mendoza, if that’s the dark girl. Never mind: I was only joking.”

Who the blazes was his little girl, thought Jack, who was ignorant of two unhappy experiences which an unconsidered extra girl had had on previous visits. The mystery, however, was soon cleared up, for the baronet walked slowly to where Adele Leamington was making a pretence of studying her script.

“Good morning, little lady,” he said, lifting his cap an eighth of an inch from his head.

“Good morning, Sir Gregory,” she said coldly.

“You didn’t keep your promise.” He shook his head waggishly. “Oh, woman, woman!”

“I don’t remember having made a promise,” said the girl quietly. “You asked me to come to dinner with you, and I told you that that was impossible.”

“I promised to send my car for you. Don’t say it was too far away. Never mind, never mind.” And, to Michael’s wrath, he squeezed the girl’s arm in a manner which was intended to be paternal, but which filled the girl with indignant loathing.

She wrenched her arm free, and, turning her back upon her tormentor, almost flew to Jack Knebworth with an incoherent demand for information on the reading of a line which was perfectly simple.

Old Jack was no fool. He watched the play from under his eyelids, recognizing all the symptoms.

“This is the last time we shall shoot at Griff Towers,” he told himself.

For Jack Knebworth was something of a stickler on behaviour, and had views on women which were diametrically opposite to those held by Sir Gregory Penne.