deception there were: Hale definitely was being manipulated, Lestrade possibly, me almost certainly. Even that conveniently missing secretary had the faint odour of red herring, a ploy designed expressly to attract the attentions of the police. And if Lonnie Johns was safely tucked up for a quiet holiday in the south of France, it was more likely that the House of Lords was paying her bills than Scotland Yard.
Apart from which, Lestrade was not a good enough liar to manufacture a false concern for a missing girl.)
(Only some days later, as I leant miserably over the storm-tossed railing, desperately searching for something to bring my mind up from my stomach, did it occur to me that Mycroft’s threatened trip to Sussex had been an oddly convenient piece of timing. And once that idea had swum to the surface, a great cloud of morbid thoughts boiled up in its wake: Since the notion of Mycroft Holmes doing the bidding of any number of Lords was laughable, it suggested that the House of Lords were not the instigators of this investigation, but the puppets of Mycroft Holmes. Mycroft had moved them: They had moved Lestrade: Lestrade had moved-
Which in turn suggested that Mycroft had wanted me to do this, but knew that if he were to ask me directly, I would refuse.
Later, when I was not in quite such a vulnerable position, I decided that it was a ridiculously convoluted, Heath Robinsonian piece of machinery, a bit much even for Mycroft. My brother-in-law was sly, but he was practiced enough to know that setting a fox before Lords might take the hunt in any direction.
One thing I was certain: If plot there was, Holmes had not been in on it.
But all the doubt and suspicion came later, when it was too late. Had I put the pieces together earlier, I would not have found myself standing before Geoffrey Hale’s chaotic desk in his Covent Garden office that November afternoon, laying out the story Chief Inspector Lestrade had provided for me.)
“-so I don’t actually know anything about the picture industry, but a friend mentioned this and I’m between projects just at the moment and I thought it sounded like a lark. I’m a whiz at type-writing,” I added with a bright smile.
I was none too certain how Hale would feel about the person being thrust towards his manly breast – one Mary Russell, who, although well dressed and reasonably energetic, was far too young for the sort of placid maternal secretarial authority that his typhoon-struck offices cried out for, who moreover admitted that she knew exactly nothing about co-ordinating a film crew. But before I could finish my prepared explanation, dawn came up across his unshaven features and he rose as if to fling himself at my feet.
I hastened to stick out my hand, forestalling any greater demonstration; he clasped it hard and pumped away with hearty exclamations.
“Oh how utterly jolly, a life-saver in sensible shoes, you are so very welcome, Miss – what was it? Russell, of course, like the philosopher, although I’d guess looking at you that you’re a dashed sight more practical than him. Oh, Miss Russell, you can’t believe what a mess things have got into here – I had a perfectly adequate assistant who seems to have upped and left, just as we’re about to set sail. Both literally and figuratively.”
“Er,” I said, retrieving my squashed hand and glancing down at my shoes, which were the most fashionable (and hence impractical) I owned. “Do you want to see some letters of recommendation or something?”
“You speak English and you’re dead sober at two in the afternoon, what else could I ask for? You know your alphabet?”
“I know several alphabets. And shorthand.” Holmes, when going undercover, could disguise himself as anything from garage mechanic to priest; I was forced into the more womanly roles of secretary or maid. (Although after one stint in the kitchen of a manor house, I tried to avoid being hired as cook; still, the fire had been quickly doused.)
“And you have a passport, and no small children or aged grannies needing you at home? If you spoke with Malcolm, you’ll know that we will be away from London for some weeks? Although we’ll try our best to be home by Christmas.”
That was either a gross and self-delusional underestimate, or a blatant lie designed to soothe a nervous would-be employee. But I did not blink. “I am aware that the job entails travel, yes.”
“Perfection. Can you start with these?”
He stabbed the air with a desk spike impaled with more than four inches of paper. Avoiding the wicked point, I extracted the object from his hand. “You want me to begin immediately?”
“Absolutely. That is, could you?” he asked, recalling his manners with an effort.
“I could, although it might be good if I had some idea what you’d like me to do.”
When he flung himself out of the office six minutes later, late for a meeting with a last-minute addition to the cast on the other side of town, I had not much more of an idea. However, I soon discovered that by identifying myself as “-with Fflytte Films,” the voice in the earpiece would instantly break in with the urgent business at hand, much of which had to do with unpaid bills. At 6:40 that evening, I reached the bottom of the spike, having taken care of roughly half its problems and transferred the remainder onto a single sheet of lined paper for consultation with Hale. With that in hand, along with another page holding a list of cheques needing to be sent, I locked the door with the abandoned keys, and set off for Hale’s home.
At 7:00 that morning, Mrs Hudson’s coffee in hand, I’d neither heard of nor cared about Geoffrey Hale, Randolph Fflytte, or the business of putting a moving picture before the great British public. Twelve hours later, I felt I had been intimately involved for weeks.
Geoffrey Hale was the lifelong friend, long-time business partner, and (another inevitability in English business arrangements) second cousin of Randolph Fflytte himself. Hale was the man who enabled the director’s vision to inhabit screens around the world. Hale was the one to assemble cast and crew, negotiate with the owners of cinema houses and would-be filming sites, and in general see to the practical minutiae of taking a film from initial discussion to opening night. Hale was the one to ensure that the actors were sober enough to work, that the actresses had enough flowers and bonbons to soothe their delicate egos, the one to make certain that the country house where filming was to take place actually possessed four walls and a roof.
Hale, and now me.
CHAPTER FOUR
PIRATES: A rollicking band of pirates we.
GEOFFREY HALE LIVED in St John’s Wood. A rotund and shiny-headed person on the far side of middle age opened the door, his chins gathered above the sort of collar that labelled him a butler of the old school.
“Mary Russell, for Mr Hale,” I told him. His manner made me regret keenly that I did not have a card at hand for him to carry upon a polished salver.
He bore up under the disappointment, parked me in the room designated for the parking of intruders, and glided away, returning a precise four and a half minutes later to convey me to the presence of the master of the house, up a set of magnificent mahogany stairs that looked as if someone had recently dragged a piece of light artillery down them. I avoided the worst of the splinters, wondering if Hale’s cousin and partner was experimenting with a scene from a forthcoming war movie.
Despite what I had said to Lestrade, I had in fact heard of Fflytte Films. (“Fflyttes of Fun!”) I believe even Holmes would have known the name. Over the course of a decade of film-making, the trademark element of Fflytte Films had become Realism. In an industry with
