“There are many things I admire about you, Stella, and not the least of them is your nerve. But it is no good coming to me with any of that let-bygones-be-bygones stuff. You’re not appearing in this picture, and maybe you’ll never appear in another picture of mine.”
“Is that so?” she drawled, sitting down uninvited, and taking from her bag a little gold cigarette case.
“You’ve come in to tell me that you’ve got influence with a number of people who are financially interested in this corporation,” said Jack, to her dismay. She wondered if there were telephone communication between the dressing-room and the office, then remembered there wasn’t.
“I’ve handled a good many women in my time,” he went on, “and I’ve never had to fire one but she didn’t produce the President, Vice-President or Treasurer and hold them over my head with their feet ready to kick out my brains! And, Stella, none of those holdups have ever got past. People who are financially interested in a company may love you to death, but they’ve got to have the money to love you with; and if I don’t make pictures that sell, somebody is short of a perfectly good diamond necklace.”
“We’ll see if Sir Gregory thinks the same way,” she said defiantly, and Jack Knebworth whistled.
“Gregory Penne, eh? I didn’t know you had friends in that quarter. Yes, he is a stockholder in the company, but he doesn’t hold enough to make any difference. I guess he told you that he did. And if he held ninety-nine percent of it, Stella, it wouldn’t make any difference to old Jack Knebworth, because old Jack Knebworth’s got a contract which gives him carte blanche, and the only getting out clause is the one that gets me out! You couldn’t touch me, Stella, no, ma’am!”
“I suppose you’re going to blacklist me?” she said sulkily.
This was the one punishment she most feared—that Jack Knebworth should circulate the story of her unforgivable sin of letting down a picture when it was half-shot.
“I thought about that,” he nodded, “but I guess I’m not vindictive. I’ll let you go and say the part didn’t suit you, and that you resigned, which is as near the truth as any story I’ll have to crack. Go with God, Stella. I guess you won’t, because you’re not that way, but—behave!”
He waved her out of the office and she went, somewhat chastened. Outside the studio she met Lawley Foss, and told him the result of the interview.
“If it’s like that you can do nothing,” he said. “I’d speak for you, Stella, but I’ve got to speak for myself,” he added bitterly. “The idea of a man of my genius truckling hat in hand to this damned old Yankee is very humiliating.”
“You ought to have your own company, Lawley,” she said, as she had said a dozen times before. “You write the stuff and I’ll be the leading woman and put it over for you. Why, you could direct Kneb’s head off. I know, Lawley! I’ve been to the only place on God Almighty’s earth where art is appreciated, and I tell you that a four-flusher like Jack Knebworth wouldn’t last a light-mile at Hollywood!”
“Light-mile” was a term she had acquired from a scientific admirer. It had the double advantage of sounding grand and creating a demand for an explanation. To her annoyance, Foss was sufficiently acquainted with elementary physics to know that she meant the period of time that a ray of light would take to traverse a mile.
“Is he in his office now?”
She nodded, and without any further word Lawley Foss, in some trepidation, knocked at his chief’s door.
“The truth is, Mr. Knebworth, I want to ask a favour of you.”
“Is it money?” demanded Jack, looking up from under his bushy brows.
“Well, it was money, as a matter of fact. There have been one or two little bills I’ve overlooked, and the bailiffs have been after me. I’ve got to raise fifty pounds by two o’clock this afternoon.”
Jack pulled open a drawer, took out a book and wrote a cheque, not for fifty pounds, but for eighty.
“That’s a month’s salary in advance,” he said. “You’ve drawn your pay up to today, and by the terms of your contract you’re entitled to one month’s notice or pay therefore. You’ve got it.”
Foss went an ugly red.
“Does that mean I’m fired?” he asked loudly.
Jack nodded.
“You’re fired, not because you want money, not because you’re one of the most difficult men on the lot to deal with, but for what you did last night, Foss.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean I am taking Mr. Brixan’s view, that you fastened a white label to the window of Miss Leamington’s room in order to guide an agent of Sir Gregory Penne. That agent came and nearly kidnapped my leading lady.”
The man’s lip curled in a sneer.
“You’ve got melodrama in your blood, Knebworth,” he said. “Kidnap your leading lady! Those sort of things may happen in the United States, but they don’t happen in England.”
“Close the door as you go out,” said Jack, preparing for his work.
“Let me say this—” began Foss.
“I’ll let you say nothing,” snarled Knebworth. “I won’t even let you say ‘goodbye.’ Get!”
And, when the door slammed behind his visitor, the old director pushed a bell on his table, and, to his assistant who came:
“Get Miss Leamington down here,” he said. “I’d like contact with something that’s wholesome.”
XV
Two from the Yard
Chichester is not famous for its restaurants, but the dining-room of a little hotel, where three people foregathered that afternoon, had the advantage of privacy.
When Mike Brixan got back to
