“He came for a letter, though it wasn’t addressed to Elmer,” said the shopkeeper. “A lot of people have their letters addressed here. I make a little extra money that way.”
“Did he buy a newspaper?”
“No, sir, he did not buy a newspaper; he had one under his arm—the Morning Telegram. I remember that, because I noticed that he’d put a blue pencil mark round one of the agony advertisements on the front page, and I was wondering what it was all about. I kept a copy of that day’s Morning Telegram: I’ve got it now.”
He went into the little parlour at the back of the shop and returned with a dingy newspaper, which he laid on the counter.
“There are six there, but I don’t know which one it was.”
Michael examined the agony advertisements. There was one frantic message from a mother to her son, asking him to return and saying that “all would be forgiven.” There was a cryptogram message, which he had not time to decipher. A third, which was obviously the notice of an assignation. The fourth was a thinly veiled advertisement for a new hair-waver, and at the fifth he stopped. It ran:
“Troubled Final directions at address I gave you
Courage. Benefactor.”
“Some ‘benefactor,’ ” said Mike Brixan. “What was he like—the man who called? Was he worried?”
“Yes, sir: he looked upset—all distracted like. He seemed like a chap who’d lost his head.”
“That seems a fair description,” said Mike.
IV
The Leading Lady
In the studio of the Knebworth Picture Corporation the company had been waiting in its street clothes for the greater part of an hour.
Jack Knebworth sat in his conventional attitude, huddled up in his canvas chair, fingering his long chin and glaring from time to time at the clock above the studio manager’s office.
It was eleven when Stella Mendoza flounced in, bringing with her the fragrance of wood violets and a small, unhappy Peke.
“Do you work to summertime?” asked Knebworth slowly. “Or maybe you thought the call was for afternoon? You’ve kept fifty people waiting, Stella.”
“I can’t help their troubles,” she said with a shrug of shoulder. “You told me you were going on location, and naturally I didn’t expect there would be any hurry. I had to pack my things.”
“Naturally you didn’t think there was any hurry!”
Jack Knebworth reckoned to have three fights a year. This was the third. The first had been with Stella, and the second had been with Stella, and the third was certainly to be with Stella.
“I wanted you to be here at ten. I’ve had these boys and girls waiting since a quarter of ten.”
“What do you want to shoot?” she asked with an impatient jerk of her head.
“You mostly,” said Jack slowly. “Get into No. 9 outfit and don’t forget to leave your pearl earrings off. You’re supposed to be a half-starved chorus girl. We’re shooting at Griff Towers, and I told the gentleman who lent us the use of the house that I’d be through the day work by three. If you were Pauline Frederick or Norma Talmadge or Lillie Gish, you’d be worth waiting for, but Stella Mendoza has got to be on this lot by ten—and don’t forget it!”
Old Jack Knebworth got up from his canvas chair and began to put on his coat with ominous deliberation, the flushed and angry girl watching him, her dark eyes blazing with injured pride and hurt vanity.
Stella had once been plain Maggie Stubbs, the daughter of a Midland grocer, and old Jack had talked to her as if she were still Maggie Stubbs and not the great film star of coruscating brilliance, idol (or her press agent lied) of the screen fans of all the world.
“All right, if you want a fuss you can have it, Knebworth. I’m going to quit—now! I think I know what is due to my position. That part’s got to be rewritten to give me a chance of putting my personality over. There’s too much leading man in it, anyway. People don’t pay real money to see men. You don’t treat me fair, Knebworth: I’m temperamental, I admit it. You can’t expect a woman of my kind to be a block of wood.”
“The only thing about you that’s a block of wood is your head, Stella,” grunted the producer, and went on, oblivious to the rising fury expressed in the girl’s face. “You’ve had two years playing small parts in Hollywood, and you’ve brought nothing back to England but a line of fresh talk, and you could have gotten that out of the Sunday supplements! Temperament! That’s a word that means doctors’ certificates when a picture’s half taken, and a long rest unless your salary’s put up fifty percent. Thank God this picture isn’t a quarter taken or an eighth. Quit, you mean-spirited guttersnipe—and quit as soon as you darn please!”
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.
“Modesty don’t belong to this industry,” old Jack sneered amiably. “Who thinks she can play ‘Roselle’ in this piece—because an extra’s going to play the part, believe me! I’m going to show this pseudo-actress that there isn’t an extra on this lot that couldn’t play her head off. Somebody talked about playing a part yesterday—you!”
His forefinger pointed to Adele, and with a heart that beat tumultuously she went toward him.
“I had a camera test of you six months ago,” said Jack suspiciously. “There was something wrong with her:
