Edgar Wallace

“ The library was illuminated, and somebody was talking. A woman! Turning the handle, he opened the door the fraction of an inch, and had a view of the interior.
Gregory Penne was standing in his favourite attitude, with his back to the fire, and before him was a tray of those refreshments without which life was apparently insupportable. Seated on the low settee, drawn up at one side of the fireplace, was Stella Mendoza. She was wearing a fur coat, for the night was chilly, and about her neck was such a sparkle of gems as Michael had never seen before on a woman. ”

“ Scotland Yard men were at the station, and it was a heavily loaded car that ran out to Chichester—too heavy for Michael, in a fever of impatience, for the weight of its human cargo checked its speed, and every second was precious. At last, after an eternity of time, the big car swung into the drive. Michael did not stop to waken the lodge-keeper, but smashed the frail gates open with the buffers of his machine, mounted the slope, crossing the gravel parade, and halted. ”

“ Have you ever met that dithering old fool, Longvale? Knebworth said you were going on to him—pompous old ass, who lives in the past and dresses like an advertisement for somebody’s whisky. Have another?”
“I haven’t finished this yet,” said Michael with a smile, and his eyes went up to the sword above the mantelpiece. “Have you had that very long? It looks modern.”
“It isn’t,” snapped the other. “Modern! It’s three hundred years old if it’s a day. I’ve only had it a year.” Again he changed the subject abruptly. “I like you, What’s-your-name. I like people or I dislike them instantly. ”

“ Michael did not raise his voice, he spoke in a calm, conversational tone; and in the same way did Longvale reply.
“Is it not better,” he said gently, “that a man should pass out of life through no act of his own, than that he should commit the unpardonable crime of self-murder? Have I not been a benefactor to men who dared not take their own lives?”
“To Lawley Foss?” suggested Michael, his grave eyes fixed on the other.
“He was a traitor, a vulgar blackmailer, a man who sought to use the knowledge which had accidentally come to him, to extract money from me.”
“Where is Gregory Penne?” ”

“ You can have your sophisticated girls: there is no mystery to ’em! They revolt me. A girl should be like a spring flower. Give me the violet and the snowdrop: you can have a bushel of cabbage roses for one petal of the shy dears of the forest.”
Michael listened with a keen sense of nausea, and yet with an unusual interest, as the man rambled on. ”

“ It was then that she became conscious that she was still gripping the earth-caked Browning, and, with a half-smile, she cleaned it as best she could, pressed down the safety-catch and, putting the weapon inside her blouse, thrust its blunt nose into the waistband of her skirt.
The mystery of Bhag’s reappearance was now a mystery no longer. He had been hiding in the cave, though it was her imagination that supplied the queer animal scent which was peculiarly his. ”

“ Boiling with rage, her lips quivering so that she could not articulate, the girl turned and flung out of the studio.
White-haired Jack Knebworth glared round at the silent company.
“This is where the miracle happens,” he said sardonically. “This is where the extra girl who’s left a sick mother and a mortgage at home leaps to fame in a night. If you don’t know that kinder thing happens on every lot in Hollywood you’re no students of fiction. Stand forth, Mary Pickford the second!”
The extras smiled, some amused, some uncomfortable, but none spoke. Adele was frozen stiff, incapable of speech. ”

“ Watson’s parlour. She wondered more than a little just what attraction she offered to this man of affairs. She had a trick of getting outside and examining herself with an impartial eye, and she knew that, by self-repression and almost self-obliteration, she had succeeded in making of Adele Leamington a very colourless, characterless young lady. That she was pretty she knew, but prettiness in itself attracts only the superficial. Men who are worth knowing require something more than beauty. And Michael was not philandering—he was not that kind. ”

“ Old Jack snorted.
“It won’t be Reggie Connolly—that I can promise you.”
“I should jolly well say not!” said that indignant young man, who had remarkably keen ears. “I’m not a marrying chap. It spoils an artist. A wife is like a millstone round his neck. He has no chance of expressing his individuality. And whilst we are on that subject, Mr. Knebworth, are you perfectly sure that I’m to blame? Doesn’t it strike you—mind you, I wouldn’t say a word against the dear girl—doesn’t it strike you that Miss Leamington isn’t quite—what shall I say?—seasoned in love—that’s the expression.” ”

“ Jack had seen many beautiful extras in his career, and had passed through stages of enthusiasm and despair as he had seen them translated to the screen—pretty wooden figures without soul or expression, gauche of movement, hopeless. Too pretty to be clever, too conscious of their beauty to be natural. Dolls without intelligence or initiative—just “extras” who could wear clothes in a crowd, who could smile and dance mechanically, fit for extras and nothing else all the days of their lives. ”

“ It would have amazed Jack Knebworth to know that the man who had rushed hotfoot from the tower in search of a possible murderer, was at that moment calmly discussing biography; yet such was the incongruous, unbelievable fact.
“I sometimes feel that you think too much about your uncle, Mr. Longvale,” said Michael gently.
The old gentleman frowned.
“You mean——?”
“I mean that such a subject may become an obsession and a very unhealthy obsession, and such hero-worship may lead a man to do things which no sane man would do.” ”

“ He saw the tower a quarter of an hour before he came up to it: a squat, ancient building, for all the world like an inordinately high sheepfold. When he came up to them the char-à-banc had been drawn on to the grass, and the company was putting the finishing touches to its make-up. Adele he did not see at once—she was changing in a little canvas tent, whilst Jack Knebworth and the camera man wrangled over light and position. ”

“ You don’t suspect Gregory of killing Foss?”
“I suspect everybody in general and nobody in particular,” said Michael. “Did you see Bhag?”
She shivered.
“No, not that time. I’ve seen him, of course. He gives me the creeps! I’ve never seen anything so human. Sometimes, when Gregory was a little—a little drunk, he used to bring Bhag out and make him do tricks. Do you know that Bhag could do all the Malayan exercises with the sword! Sir Gregory had a specially made wooden sword for him, and the way that that awful thing used to twirl it round his head was terrifying.” ”

“ THE SWORDS AND BHAG The little party moved away, leaving Michael alone with the baronet. For a period, Gregory Penne watched the girl, his eyes glittering; then he became aware of Michael’s presence and turned a cold, insolent stare upon the other.
“What are you?” he asked, looking the detective up and down.
“I’m an extra,” said Michael.
“An extra, eh? Sort of chorus boy? Put paint and powder on your face and all that sort of thing? What a life for a man!”
“There are worse,” said Michael, holding his antagonism in check.
“Do you know that little girl—what’s her name, Leamington?” ”

“ You’ve a very big career in front of you, Michael, and marrying me is not going to help you. People will think you’re just infatuated, and when the inevitable divorce comes along——”
They both laughed together.
“If you have finished being like a maiden aunt, I want to tell you something,” said Michael. “I’ve loved you from the moment I saw you.”
“Of course you have,” she said calmly. “That’s the only possible way you can love a girl. If it takes three days to make up your mind it can’t be love. ”

“ Her head was drooped, and Michael could not see the girl’s face, but when she spoke, there was that note of viciousness in her voice which told him her state of mind.
“You want a change too, perhaps! I could tell things about you that wouldn’t look good in print, and you’d have a change too! Get that in your mind, Gregory Penne! I’m not a fool—I’ve seen things and heard things, and I can put two and two together. You think I want a change, do you—I do! I want friends who aren’t murderers——”
He sprang at her, his big hand covering her mouth. ”

“ With a shuddering gasp she half walked, half ran across the great cavern, which began to narrow again and assumed the appearance of that portion of the cave into which she had fallen. And here she saw, in another niche, a second lantern, with new candle and matches. Who had placed them there? The first lantern she had not dared to think about: it belonged to the miraculous category. But the second brought her up with a jerk. Who had placed these lanterns at intervals along the wall of the cave, as if in preparation for an expected emergency? There must be somebody who lived down here. ”

“ Adele came across to where Michael was sitting and jumped up on to the table beside him.
“Mr. Knebworth is quite right,” she said, shaking her head. “Reggie Connolly doesn’t know how to make love.”
“Who does?” demanded Michael. “Except the right man?”
“He’s supposed to be the right man,” she insisted. “And, what’s more, he’s supposed to be the best lover on the English screen.” ”

“ Her fingers trembled as she fastened her dress, and she hated herself for such a display of weakness. Perhaps Stella was not coming into the cast in her old part; perhaps some new character had been written in; perhaps it was not for “Roselle” at all that she had been re-engaged. These and other speculations rioted in her mind; and she was in the passage and the door was opened when she remembered that Jack Knebworth would want the manuscript. She ran upstairs, and, by an aberration of memory, forgot entirely where the script had been left. At last, in despair, she went down to the landlady. ”

“ Stella’s face clouded.
“Of course, he took my car,” she said, speaking to herself, “and he has caught the chauffeur, as he said he would. Oh, my God!”
“What will he do?” asked Adele in a whisper.
Stella’s fine eyes turned on the girl.
“What do you think he will do?” she asked significantly. “He’s a beast—the kind of beast you seldom meet except in books—and locked rooms. He’ll have no more mercy on you than Bhag would have on you.”
“If Michael knows, he will kill him.”
“Michael? Oh, Brixan, you mean?” said Stella with newly awakened interest. “Is he fond of you? ”

“ Again he sent forth the melancholy sound, but, if Bhag heard him, for the first time in his life he did not obey.
Gregory Penne stood in a sweat of fear, but, so standing, recovered some of his balance. There was time to change. He went up to his ornate bedroom, flung off his pyjamas, and in a short space of time was down again in the dark grounds, seeking for the ape.
Dressed, he felt more of a man. A long glass of whisky restored some of his confidence. He rang for the servant who was in charge of his car. ”

“ 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. ”

“ THE DEATH The shriek of a man half crazy with fear is not nice to hear. Michael’s nerves were tough, but he had need to drive the nails into the palms of his manacled hands to keep his self-control.
“I warn you,” he found voice to say, as the shrieking died to an unintelligible babble of sound, “Longvale, if you do this, you are everlastingly damned!”
The old man turned his quiet smile upon his second prisoner, but did not make any answer. ”

“ But “extra” was a new one on Michael, and he waited for the day to bring its inevitable companion.
To say that he was uninterested in crime, that burglars were less thrilling than golf scores, and the record of murders hardly worth the reading, might convey a wrong impression to those who knew him as the cleverest agent in the Foreign Office Intelligence Department.
His official life was spent in meeting queer continentals in obscure restaurants and, in divers rôles, to learn of the undercurrents that were drifting the barques of diplomacy to unsuspected ports. ”

“ The East is full of wonder, full of unbelievable things.” He screwed his head round and fixed Michael with a glittering eye. “Full of good servants,” he said slowly. “Would you like to meet the perfect servant?”
There was something peculiar in his tone, and Michael nodded.
“Would you like to see the slave who never asks questions and never disobeys, who has no love but love of me”—he thumped himself on the chest—“no hate but for the people I hate—my trusty—Bhag?”
He rose, and, crossing to his table, turned a little switch that Michael had noticed attached to the side of the desk. ”

“ When he returned to the garden, he went in search of the girl. She had finished her scene and was watching the stealthy movements of two screen burglars, who were creeping along the wall in the subdued light of the arcs.
“Excuse me, Miss Leamington, I’m going to ask you an impertinent question. Have you brought a complete change of clothes with you?”
“Why ever do you ask that?” she demanded, her eyes wide open. “Of course I did! I always bring a complete change in case the weather breaks.” ”

“ It seemed a million years ago to Michael as he sat, perched on a table, watching Jack Knebworth, in the last stages of despair, directing a ruffled Reggie Connolly in the business of love-making. Near by stood Adele Leamington, a star by virtue of the success that had attended a certain trade show.
Out of range of the camera, a cigarette between her fingers, Stella Mendoza, gorgeously attired, watched her some time friend and prospective leading man with good-natured contempt.
“There’s nobody can tell me, Mr. Knebworth,” said Reggie testily, “how to hold a girl! ”

“ Stella Mendoza was an ambitious woman, and when ambition is directed toward wealth and fame it is not attended by scruple. Her private life and her standard of values were no better and no worse than thousands of other women, and no more belonged to her profession than did her passion for good food and luxurious environment. The sins of any particular class or profession are not peculiar to their status or calling, but to their self-education in the matter of the permissible. ”

“ When they reached the lovely gardens at the back of the house, the first scene had been shot, and there was a smile on Jack Knebworth’s face which suggested that Adele’s misgivings had not been justified. And so it proved.
“That girl’s a peach,” Jack unbent to say. “A natural born actress, built for this scene—it’s almost too good to be true. What do you want?”
It was Mr. Reggie Connolly, and he had the obsession which is perpetual in every leading man. ”