Pirate King: A novel of suspense featuring Mary Russell and Sherlock Holmes

purple land, where Law secures not life … I could see from the way Hale fiddled uneasily with his cigarette case that those phrases were pressing at his memory as well.

“No doubt much has changed in the past eleven decades,” I observed.

“So I have been reassured.”

“Very well: We set off on Monday for some weeks in Lisbon.”

“And Morocco.”

“Africa?”

“The town of Sale, on the coast north of Casablanca. In the seventeenth century, it was a pirate kingdom.”

“ ‘Sun-burnt his check, his forehead high and pale,’ ” I blurted out. “ ‘The sable curls in wild profusion veil.’ ”

“ ‘There was a laughing Devil in his sneer that raised emotions both of rage and fear,’ ”em› Hale agreed. Before any more of Miss Sim’s Byronic Corsair images could trail before my eyes, I pushed the glass of brandy away from me. “Mr Hale, you’re making a film about a film about pirates. Unsuccessful Victorian pirates from fifty years ago, not blood-thirsty African pirates three hundred years in the past. And from Penzance, not Sale. Why on earth don’t you just film the thing in Penzance?”

“Because at some point real pirates enter the scene, and they are based in Morocco.”

“But if you are telling a story about some people telling a story, why not just construct a fake-Africa studio? Which, since you’re after realism, is what your fictional film company would have done, in any event.” Real realism about realistic verisimilitude …

“As I said, Pirate King is about a film crew that is making a picture – which is also called Pirate King-about The Pirates of Penzance. The picture’s director – the fictional director, not Randolph Fflytte – is dissatisfied with the looks of the men in England, so he takes the production to Lisbon to hire some swarthy types, only to have their boat captured by actual pirates, who take them to Sale. The fictional director and the apprentice pirate Frederic are both played by Daniel Marks. The fictional director’s fictional fiancee is an actress. That is to say, she is an actress working on the fictional film, playing the part of Frederic’s girlfriend, Mabel, both parts being played, I’m afraid, by Bibi, who is an actual actress. Or so she claims. You don’t know Bibi? Oh, blessed innocence!

“But lest you think there’s a further stratum of reality, Daniel Marks and Bibi are not in turn romantically connected. Daniel is, shall we say, otherwise inclined. Then there’s Major-General Stanley, who is not only Mabel’s father but the fiancee’s father, and also a financial backer of the film. The fictional film, that is – the actor himself, Harold Scott; you’ve heard of him, I expect? – is unrelated to Bibi, and doesn’t have a sou. Spent it all on drink and horses.”

I made a small noise rather like a whimper.

“I know, it gives one a headache. Still, that’s Randolph’s plan. Ours not to reason why.”

Ours but to do and die? God, I hoped he wasn’t thinking of blending in “The Charge of the Light Brigade”: Cannon to the port of them, cannon to the starboard of them; some Major-General had blundered …

Where were we? “So, you load everyone on a boat for Africa?”

“Lisbon first.”

“Don’t tell me: Mr Fflytte also wants to hire swarthy actors?”

“In part – and it’s true, English actors just don’t look very piratical. Plus, Will the cameraman threatened mutiny at what an extended period of sand would do to his delicate machines, even though I don’t believe Sale is very sandy, and Bibi – the female lead – put her tiny foot down at the idea of what sand would do to her delicate complexion, so compromise was reached. We’ll cast the parts in Lisbon, then start rehearsals and work out the choreography of the fight scenes. After ten days, we’ll load the entire circus onto a boat – everything but the horses, thank heavens: I managed to convince Randolph that horses were one thing Morocco had plenty of – and sail to Sale. Or actually Rabat across the river, which I am told is friendlier to infidels.”

“And you’re filming there so as to capture the essence of a seventeenth century pirate kingdom within a nineteenth century comic opera for the edification and amusement of twentieth century house-maids, factory workers, and garage mechanics.”

He grinned. “You’ve got the idea now.”

Even in the early stages, it turned out, the script would make for a two-hour picture, and Hale admitted that it was likely to grow by at least half. Apparently, embedding an operetta into a film, then making a film of the process, requires time.

And although the The Pirates of Penzance is all about the songs and the silliness, Pirate King would be dead earnest and without the songs.

In addition, to put the cap on the enterprise, certain portions of the film were due to be tinted, in an as-yet secret (and, I suspected, as-yet unperfected) technique similar to the DeMille-Wyckoff process, which Fflytte intended to patent under his own name.

Pirate King would either set the standard for movie-making for a generation to come, or it would set a match under the Fflytte fortune, incinerating a boat-load of careers along the way. And displeasing the Chancellor of the Exchequer, the current resident of Buckingham Palace, and a number of Peers of the Realm.

Actual peers, one assumed, not fictional and piratic peers.

CHAPTER FIVE

FREDERIC [looking off]: By all that’s marvellous, a bevy of beautiful maidens!

RUTH [aside]: Lost! lost! lost!

THAT FIRST EVENING, Hale and I worked until nearly midnight. At 7:00 the next morning I turned the key to the Covent Garden office, and the telephone rang: The shipping agency was concerned that a trunk labelled with the name of Scott appeared to be leaking something that smelt of whisky. I made a note for Hale, reached to take off my hat, and the instrument rang again. I laid the hat on the desk and took up the receiver: An irritable voice demanded Hale, asked who I was, said never mind that I’d do, and issued a command that the offices were under no circumstances to be left unattended for so much as ten seconds that day since a delivery was to be made that would have disastrous consequences if someone were not there to receive it. Or so I guessed was the message, it was a bit garbled and before I could get a single word in, the man rang off. I set the earpiece into its hooks, reached for the buttons of my coat, and it rang again.

It did not stop ringing until the evening, alternating with the arrival of telegrams. (The new actress whom Geoffrey Hale had offered a part the previous afternoon agreed to his terms: I found the blank forms in a filing cabinet while the telephone balanced atop the files, its cord stretched to its full length; typed in the relevant information as I fielded three more telephone calls; handed the forms to Hale for signature as he dashed past an hour later; he handed them back to me as he went out for lunch; I folded them into an envelope, addressed the thing – in between two more telephone conversations – and thrust it into the hands of the building’s mail-boy just in time for the mid-morning post.)

When Hale returned, he carried a grease-stained parcel by way of peace offering and, more to the point, swore a blood oath not to step foot from the offices for five minutes lest the urgent parcel arrive in my absence. When I returned, much comforted by my wash-room outing, he was just ringing off the telephone and three more telegrams had arrived.

“I have to go out again, Miss Russell,” he announced, picking up his hat.

“Very well,” I said, ripping open the flimsies. “Would you bring some milk when you come? The bottle’s gone sour. Oh, wait. Do you know anything about a Mr … Can this be right? Pessoa?” Surely not Pessary?

“Who? Oh, Pessoa?” He pronounced it Pess-wah. “He’s the translator chap, in Lisbon. A friend said he was good. Why, what’s wrong?”