Now came the critical scene. I was in the foreground, naturally, but we could see Severance Flynne, out of focus, in the background. I galloped up and down, shouting, pointing and then firing the silvermounted pistols. At a moment when I was facing the camera, looking lustfully at an off-stage Carla, Severance Flynne was shot.
He straightened from his crouch in one convulsive movement and seemed to leap several feet to one side where he fell, kicked a few times, and lay still. The action was so realistic that it detracted from my close-up.
When it was done, I turned the lights on. James grinned ruefully.
“That certainly lets you out,” he said. “I apologize.”
I held out my wrists. He removed the cuffs. I was still miffed. “I ought to knock you across the room.”
“Sure, but let’s finish that drink. So what’s the story? You know more than you’ve told.”
“In the first place, I didn’t ask Lord Hake to come early. He suggested eight o’clock. I asked the others to come at nine, which they did. I wanted to verify a few ideas of mine, and Hake could give me confirmation.”
“Such as?”
“I have no proof,” I objected. ‘I’m going to make a phone call later. If Hake comes to, he can tell me. Otherwise, I’ll have to try something else.”
James got to his feet. “Well, let me know.”
“Come out to the set in the morning,” I said. “Maybe I’ll have something then.”
“You’d better. You’ve only got two days to deliver on that sappy promise to those reporters.”
After he had gone, I began to agree with his description of my promise. I put in a call to London.
The first person I saw on the set the next morning was the beard. I nodded to him. “Still sore?”
“In spirit, no,” he said. “I carry my own cushion, however, to sit on. I want to tell you, Mr. Sanders, how I appreciate the job you’re doing on Seven Dreams.”
I blinked. Why should he care? “Thanks,” I said shortly.
Riegleman came into the big sound stage, and after him the technicians. “Blast the blasted writing profession,” Riegleman said. “I suppose we’ll do those mission shots today. If I ever catch up with that Connaught person, I’ll make him wish he’d never sharpened a pencil.”
The beard interrupted. “Mr. Riegleman–”
Riegleman gave him the icy eye. “You’re not needed today! Only the principals are in this scene. Who in the bloody hell let you in here, anyway?”
“Mr. Wallingford brought me in.”
“What the hell for?” Riegleman demanded.
“I went over to see Mr. Wallingford laH night, and I told him–”
“I see,” Riegleman said curtly. “And you talked him into giving you a bit part. Well, I’ve got no place for you. You’ll have to wait until that brainless author shows up, and I don’t care if B.G. Wexel himself says you should have a close-up. I’ll let you know when you’re wanted.”
He turned back to me, but the beard tugged his sleeve. “Mr. Riegleman, Mr. Wallingford expressly told me–”
Riegleman whirled, white with fury. “I told you–“ He paused and looked at the beard, slit-eyed. “What are you doing here, and who are you?”
“I’m Arthur Connaught,” the beard said.
There was one of those silences that simply can’t be described.
Riegleman stood perfectly still. His face looked as though it had gotten stuck. At last he said, “You’re who?”
“Arthur Connaught,” the beard repeated. He looked surprised, as though we should have known it all the time.
I grabbed the back of a chair and held on to it tight. Riegleman sank down in one and stared.
“You’re Arthur Connaught, the author,” he breathed. “Then why in the hell did you play in the mob scene, bobbling on a horse as if it were a typhoon?”
‘I’m sorry about the horse,” Connaught said apologetically. “You see, I’d never been on one before. I hope I didn’t ruin any film.”
“That reel was lost, fortunately,” Riegleman said. The color began to come back to his face. “Didn’t you know we were looking high and low for you–?”
Connaught – I still thought of him as The Beard – shook his head and looked unhappy. “My agent told me to report on location. When I got there, someone shoved me into a line. There was a sign saying ‘Beards this way.’ I don’t know much about the motion picture business, Mr. Riegleman. So I just did as I was told.”
Riegleman and I looked at each other. Then we both looked at Arthur Connaught. While everybody had been searching for him, he’d been playing an extra, a beard, in the story he’d written. Getting a thousand dollars a week for it, too. I wondered how the business office would ever straighten that out on the budget.
“Never mind,” Riegleman said at last, and very gently. “Anything can happen in this business.”
“Authors should never wear beards,” I added consolingly. “They’re confusing. Besides, they draggle in the ink.”
Connaught’s eyes met mine for an instant. For the first time I saw a smile fleet across his face.
Then Riegleman sighed and said, “Well, we’re making a picture. Or trying to make one. We’ve got to have a scene–”
“I stayed up all night at Mr. Wallingford’s,” Connaught said, “and wrote the scene. He explained what he wanted.”
Riegleman was annoyed. “Let me have a look at it.”
“Mr. Wallingford is getting the mimeographed copies.”
We stood waiting. Connaught wandered about, happy as an ant in a cupboard. He regarded the generators, cables, lights, and cameras, with a look of childish wonder.
Wallingford came in presently with a stack of paper in one arm and Carla on the other. “Quiet!” Wallingford cried. “We got to work fast, losing all that time up north.” He dealt out copies of the script to me, to Connaught, to Carla, Riegleman, Sammy, and the new script girl. “All night I stayed up to get this finished. Maybe you can give me a little of your time today. Page 85 A it starts. Not much dialogue. I don’t like words, so maybe we can shoot it after one rehearsal. Somebody bring in that cave.”
Prop men brought in the cave. Artists put a desert backdrop behind it. Electricians yelled for lights while Curtis directed stand-ins and made measurements. Sammy darted about, flinging orders here and there. Riegleman wandered off to a dark corner. Connaught grinned delightedly at this storm before the calm.
I retired to a quiet place to run through the scene, and Lamar James came up to say hello. I nodded absently, and he joined Connaught.
The scene was easily learned. It opened in this shelter from a sudden storm. Carla and I had appropriated it for our own. We had no more than half a dozen lines each, before a hail from the storm was to herald her husband descending upon us.
‘I’m ready to go through it,” I called to Carla. She nodded her readiness, and we walked toward the cave.
“I want a drink of water, George. Shall I bring you one?”
“Please.”
She went off into the gloom behind the lights, and I sat down to wait for her and Riegleman, who was still absent. Carla was back in a moment, and Riegleman was not far behind. He was watching her with a peculiar expression which seemed to be composed of worry and bewilderment. She gave me the water, and I raised the paper cup to my lips.
A strong, bitter odor assailed my nostrils. I sniffed again and looked at Carla.
“What’s the matter?” she cried. “Don’t look at me like that! What’s the matter, George’”
Quiet fell, broken by Lamar James as he pounded over to me. He took the cup, sniffed, and spoke steadily to Carla.
“It is my duty to warn you that anything you may say may be used against you. You are under arrest for attempted murder.”
Carla fainted. One of the prop men caught her. James told them to carry her outside. He turned to Wallingford. “You have chemists here. I want to have this analyzed. I won’t take her away until I’m sur
e.”
Wallingford seemed broken. “Poor Carla,” he said. His round face had sagged. He seemed ancient. “She must have had an awful good reason. Come on, Mr. James. I show you myself the laboratory.”
I looked at Riegleman. He was staring after James and Wallingford. I went over to him. He gave me a kind of sleepwalker’s stare. “I’m – God, I’m stunned, George! I–” He dropped his arms loosely in despair. “There isn’t anything to say, I suppose.”
“I can say thanks,” I said. “If it hadn’t been for the expression on your face, I’d have tossed off that water straightaway.”
He looked at me thoughtfully. “I – see,” he said. Then he shrugged and called out, “That’s all for today. We’ll let you know when and if work on the picture is to be resumed.” He turned back to me. “It will be difficult to replace Carla. Perhaps we had better discuss the picture at dinner tonight, and make plans to go ahead with it.”
“All right.” We looked steadily at each other for a tense moment.
I went off to look for Lamar James. The analysis was finished when I found him in the laboratory.
“It’s cyanide,” he said. “Enough to kill a horse or two.”
“I want to tell you about my telephone,” I said.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Riegleman arrived at seven o’clock instead of eight.
“I was curious to know what we were eating tonight,” he explained as I took his coat.
“Steak and kidney pie,” I said.
He gave me a look compounded of speculation and knowledge. “Rather significant, what?” he said.
“Come out to the kitchen and I’ll give you a glass of sherry. I’m about to make the pastry before I light the oven.”
He followed me, and sat down in the breakfast nook, facing me. “Significant?” I repeated. “I don’t know. Your use of the idiom didn’t penetrate for some time because I was accustomed to that usage. I should have pegged you for an Englishman long ago.” From the icebox I took the flour, shortening, and water. I chilled a silver knife and began to cut the shortening into the flour.
Riegleman sipped at his sherry. “This is good, George. Very dry. Yes, I thought you’d reached a conclusion, finally. I say, old boy, don’t you use your hands on pastry?”
“Not unless necessary. It’s lighter this way.”
“My mother,” he said, “always used her hands. She never measured anything. She took a handful of this, a pinch of that, and her pastry was wonderful.”
“Cooking by touch,” I said. “There are a few geniuses who do that. I get my best results by following the rules.” I mixed the flour and shortening with the chilled knife, and added ice water a dollop at a time.
“I hope, for your sake, that the meal is good, George.”
“It will be. I’m using a T-bone instead of round steak. And, if I were you, I shouldn’t worry about me.”
“Ah?” he murmured. “Very well. What is that contraption?” He pointed to the electric dicer.
“I made it,” I told him. “It cuts steak, or anything else, into small cubes.” I began to roll the dough on my aluminum board, sifting flour over it now and then.
“You’re an ingenious fellow, George. It’s too bad.”
“Oh, I don’t know,” I said lightly. “I like it this way.”
“That’s what I mean, old boy. It’s too bad you like it.”
“There,” I said. “We’ll have a light, thick crust. I think it will be flaky. Now for the steak. You see, I start the dicer and feed the steak to it a bit at a time. See how clean and uniform the cuts are?”
“Very nice,” he said. “What kind of kidney have you?”
“Lamb, of course. Just wait until I chop this onion and get this mess into a frying pan. Do you like a great deal of butter?”
“Use a lavish hand,” Riegleman said. “We should enjoy this meal.”
“Will you have more sherry?”
“Please. Thank you.”
I gave him the bottle, and poured myself a taste. It had a nice nutty flavor. “That *is good sherry. Shall we drink a toast to tomorrow?”
“Whatever it brings, George?”
“Whatever.”
We touched glasses, drank. I began to saute the steak, and parboil the lamb kidney. When I had this going, I began to saute the mushrooms. Riegleman watched me, his long face full of regret.
“Do you make your own salad dressing?” he asked.
“Yes. I chiseled the receipe from my favorite French restaurant. It’s difficult to get fresh thyme, though.”
“You know, George, you have a nerve.”
I shrugged. ‘I’m confident, that’s all.”
“But you have every reason not to be.”
“Not from my viewpoint.”
“You’ll admit I had rotten luck.”
‘I’ll do nothing of the sort,” I said. “It was carelessness, nothing more.”
“But I hadn’t seen the boy since he was sixteen, and beards *are confusing, you know.”
“You’re his cousin. I telephoned Percy Wellesley in London. He said you were.”
“Yes. Say, that smells good!”
“It bakes now for thirty minutes. Shall we go into the living rcom? Have more sherry.”
“Thanks.” He motioned me to precede him, waved me to my big chair. He sat, facing me, on a divan. His eyes were bright and sparkling now.
“You were too observant,” he said conversationally.
“I wasn’t observant enough,” I corrected him. “It should have been obvious that you had Peggy’s notebook, and had studied it, when you made me change my tie.”
“I made a bad mistake there,” he admitted. One corner of his mouth curled into what, under other circumstances, might have been a smile. “A reel of film was missing, but I had a feeling it would be found. If you’d worn the wrong tie, an expensive scene would have had to be retaken. Having studied the notebook the night before, I suddenly forgot my real role and for a moment or so I was just a director who had to watch the budget.”
“I never knew you to have an eye for details before,” I said. “Peggy always tended to them. That was my bad mistake, not getting the full implication of that tie business at once.”
He said, “Really, George, you did well, considering that you had nothing to work with but falsities.”
“The truth was there before my eyes.”
“And you saw it eventually, old man. You knew the first shot came from behind the camera. You finally decided that nobody else could have fired it.”
“No, it wasn’t that simple. I considered everybody, even the girl in wardrobe.”
“Surely it had to be me!”
“I see that now,” I said. “But I didn’t for some time. What threw me off was your indifference to Flynne’s death.”
“Why should I have cared?” he asked reasonably. “I shot the wrong person. I had no motive. Therefore, I shouldn’t be suspected, provided I forgot all about it.”
“But Peggy figured it out.”
“She was my greatest danger,” he admitted. “Her notebook was too damned omniscient.”
“I put it together this way,” I said. “She questioned a piece of business at the moment Flynne was shot, and started to ask you. You were gone, and she made a note of it. The next day, she remembered you were gone and suddenly wondered.”
“It was something like that, George. Flynne’s death-throes were too dramatic. An extra was stealing the scene. She thought it should be retaken. Of course,” he said, “I was too hasty. Peggy didn’t really know anything, and she’d have dismissed the thought. But I was nervous. When I saw her put her hand to her mouth–” He paused. “Still, perhaps it was best. I couldn’t chance her raising the point of my temporary absence.”
“You were behind the sound truck.”
.”Yes.”
“What did you do with the guns?”
“I have one of them with me, of course.”
“The bullet wi
ll be identified. You’ll be caught.”
He nodded. “Yes. This is a matter of personal revenge, now. Young Hake recovered about an hour ago. He’ll tell that deputy all the facts. You are responsible for my blunder in killing Peggy, and I’m going to even my score with you.”
“How am I responsible?”
“Your reputation, old boy. You are The Falcon and The Saint. After I discovered that Flynne was the wrong man, I thought: Sanders will smell out the lack of motive, find that I thought the man was Herman Smith, and identify Smith. I shouldn’t have killed Peggy, otherwise.”
“It was your artistic integrity, rather than that logical sequence of deduction, that made me certain,” I said. “Yesterday, you accused Connaught of bobbing on his horse as though the beast was a typhoon. Peggy must have noted that in her book. You wouldn’t have paid any attention to him otherwise. You never noticed such details. You always left them to someone else.”
“By that time I was certain that you were on to me, George. That, of course, is why I put the cyanide in the water I drew for Carla to give you. Too bad you didn’t take it.”
“I belong to the opposite school of thought,” I said. ‘I’m glad I didn’t. By the way, I owe you a lump on the head. You shouldn’t have hit me.”
“Sheer panic,” he said. “I regretted it instantly.”
“Thanks. There’s one thing I don’t understand, Riegleman. Why did you use a thirty-eight? All the guns were forty-fives.”
“Not yours, George. You carried thirty-eights. I figured that the gun would be found on you, and the whole affair passed off as an accident.”
“Why did you plant the gun in Carla’s wagon, then?”
“That was no plant. I simply put it there to remove later. When you brought up the question of murder, I had to leave it and hope for the best.”
“And you killed the wrong man.”
“Amusing, isn’t it?”
“Not to him.”
“I daresay,” Riegleman said thoughtfully, “that he is better off. There are too many extras.”
“That dish is cooked by now,” I said. “Shall we have dinner?”
Crime on My Hands Page 20
