Miner's Daughter

by Duncan, Alice

  “What is it?” Mari gripped Martin’s arm.

  Tony, too, was alarmed when Martin’s face drained of color and he appeared stricken. “What’s wrong, Martin?” He grabbed Martin’s other arm.

  Martin shook them both off. “I’m okay. I just happened to think of the cans of film. Good God, we already have a whole reel made of the set shots.”

  “Set shots?” Mari glanced up at Tony, who shook his head. He knew more about the pictures than he had when he came out to California, but he still knew very little.

  “We always do at least a part-reel of scenery shots before we begin shooting the feature. That’s why we shot footage of the miners working yesterday. It’s good to have them in case we need them when we begin putting the picture together.”

  “I don’t think I understand, but it’s all right. I don’t guess I need to,” Mari assured him.

  “We’d better check it out,” Tony said. He didn’t know set shots from a hole in the head, but he knew darmed well his father would be unhappy if anything else happened to interfere with the picture before it was finished. With a sigh, he decided he’d really rather not work in the pictures, if this sort of thing happened very often.

  “Right,” said Martin, who instantly took off for the inn. He stopped walking, wheeled around, tossed the key to Tony, and hurried off again.

  “I’ll just lock up,” Tony muttered. “Wait for me.

  Although he didn’t anticipate obedience from Mari, he was gratified when she didn’t immediately hare off after Martin. Tiny might have had something to do with her remaining in Tony’s company, because he didn’t budge when Mari tugged at his collar. Grinning at the dog, Tony wondered if he’d got himself an ally. He hoped so.

  A few minutes later, Martin stood in the small parlor, hugging a can full of film to his chest, and said, “God, I hope it’s still all right.”

  “Don’t we all.” Tony’s mind, which he’d reluctantly dragged from concentrating solely on Mari Pottersby’s trim form and elegant features, was troubled. “Say, Martin, if someone is trying to undermine the picture, do you have any idea who it is?”

  Martin, who didn’t need help with very many things pertaining to his life and his profession, had opened the can and was now threading the celluloid film onto a projector. He and Tony had set up the projector in the small parlor, as they’d done when they’d viewed Mari’s screen test. He shook his head. “Haven’t the foggiest.”

  “Does anybody have it in for you or Mr. Lovejoy?” Mari asked. She’d taken the chance of letting Tiny enter the hotel with her. To everyone’s surprise, the dog was being obedient. At the moment, Tiny looked rather like a lumpy floor rug; he’d sprawled himself out in front of an electrical fan that was buzzing away and stirring the hot air.

  Martin looked up from feeding film through the projector to gaze at her in astonishment. “Have it in for us? Do you mean does somebody hold a grudge or something?”

  She shrugged. “I guess so.”

  Pausing for a moment with film dripping through his fingers, Martin let his gaze drift into a middle, ambiguous distance as he thought about her question. After a couple of seconds, he shook his head. “Can’t think of a single person who’d want to interfere with a Peerless production.”

  Tony added his two cents. “When I started studying the pictures prior to coming out to this coast, I found Peerless to have an almost spotless reputation among the various production companies.”

  “Almost?” Martin peered at him sharply. “What do you mean, almost? As far as I know, Phin and I have never done a single unscrupulous thing. Where does that almost come in?”

  Tony grinned. “Cancel the almost. Peerless’s reputation is spotless. Absolutely.” He liked it that Martin took so much pride in the honorable reputation of his company. So few men did. Take his father, for example.

  But Tony didn’t want to think about his old man now. “So, if it’s not a disgruntled competitor, who might it be?”

  “Oh, well . . .” Martin finished his task and stepped back from the projector. “As to disgruntlement, I don’t suppose Peerless has any control over what anybody else thinks of us. We’re doing very well, and without resorting to the underhanded tactics practiced by some of the other companies.”

  Tony was pretty sure Martin’s comment was an unvoiced dig at Edison’s operation. Made sense to him. Edison was a tough customer. Still, Tony had never heard of him sinking to these types of tactics.

  Martin went on, “I suppose it’s possible that some lunatic might try to subvert one of our productions.”

  “You don’t look as though you believe it,” Mari observed.

  She was right. Tony, too, detected a note of disbelief in Martin’s speech and attitude. He heaved a sigh. “Let’s look at the film and see if it’s been tampered with. We can go into a huddle later and talk about everything.

  “Right” Martin walked to the wall switch, pressed the button, and the room went dark.

  Deciding to take advantage of the low light, Tony sought a chair next to Mari. In doing so, he barely missed stepping on Tiny, who let him know it with a deep, rumbling growl. “Say, Tiny, I didn’t mean it.” He turned to Mari. “He wouldn’t bite a guy just for stepping on his paw, would he?”

  Mari laughed softly. The sound curled through Tony like fine brandy fumes. “I don’t think so, but you can’t blame a dog for asking people not to step on him.”

  “I suppose not.” He wanted to take her hand in his. To kiss it. To caress it.

  He didn’t, of, course. Mari knew how to do lots of things with those hands of hers, and he wouldn’t be at all surprised to find out she could slap a fellow’s face with them.

  Back at the projector, Martin turned on the switch and began cranking. Tony could feel Mari stiffen at his side, as he did the same. He hoped the film was all right, for his father’s money’s sake, but mainly for Martin’s. Tony didn’t want Martin to suffer. He was too fine a person. An attack on Peerless would be an attack on Martin Tafft, and that would be wrong. If it was an attack and not an accident.

  The director’s mysterious illness occurred to him, and he frowned into the darkness. Had that been an accident, too, or had it been caused by something sinister? Or had it perhaps been staged?

  Good God, he was turning into one of those fellows who saw conspiracies around every corner. Pretty soon he’d be blaming all these happenings on the Communists or Anarchists. He told himself to get a handle on his imagination, sat back, tried to ignore Mari, which was impossible, and stared at the wall.

  After a moment or two of grinding noises, a spray of light shot out of the projector and hit the wall. Several frames of test patterns flickered, and then the town of Mojave Wells hove into view. Tony, Mari, and Martin all sighed with relief.

  “Thank God,” Martin whispered.

  “Amen,” said Mari.

  Tony’s thanks were as heartfelt as those of the others. “Better keep that can in your room from now on,” he suggested.

  “You bet I will,” Martin agreed.

  “Is there anything else that’s vulnerable? Any other equipment?” If, of course, this wasn’t all coincidental.” Tony, who had no problem with coincidences in, say, Dickens’s novels, wasn’t much of a believer in them on an everyday basis.

  “I can keep the projector in my room, too.”

  “What about the sets and so forth?”

  Martin flicked off the projector. “I don’t know. That’s something we’ll have to talk about.”

  “Right” Tony turned to Mari. “Say, why don’t you stay for dinner, Mari, and we can go over all of this stuff right now?”

  She hesitated. “Well, I’ve got Tiny with me.”

  “Pshaw.” Tony had never said pshaw in his life. “Tiny won’t mind. He can . . .” He could what? Again inspiration sprang to his assistance. “He can stay in my room!” Brilliant. He was proud of himself.

  “Well . . . All right.”

  So they hauled Tiny upstairs
and stuck him in Tony’s room. Tony guessed he wouldn’t mind a few black dog hairs on his bedspread, should Tiny decide to take a nap. He’d rather have Mari there, but at least he’d be able to enjoy her company for a few more hours today.

  Chapter Twelve

  Halfway through dinner, Mari realized she’d come feel absolutely comfortable in the company of these two men. What a change this was. At first, she’d not only mistrusted them, she’d felt like an unwelcome, interfering insect in their presence, kind of like an ant a picnic. She’d felt as though they were merely tolerating her for the sake of her mine.

  Not any longer. Now both Tony and Martin talked her as if she mattered, and they included her in their discussions as if they cared about her opinion. The sensation of belonging was a new one to Mari, and she cherished it.

  She feared she was also coming to cherish Tony, and that worried her. She didn’t need another complication in her life, and falling in love with a millionaire from New York would be a definite complication. For her. She was pretty sure she wasn’t important enough to Tony to count as a complication, even if they were getting along together much better since their trip to Los Angeles. He was being very nice about imparting social lessons to her, which she appreciated.

  Maybe they could at least be friends. The notion gave her a chilly sensation around her heart that she chose not to think about.

  Martin drew Ben, the cameraman, and George, the set designer, into their security discussions after dinner. They met at a table Mr. Nelson had set up in the parlor. Mari felt like an interloper in a political meeting, only they weren’t in a smoke-filled room because none of the men smoked. That was something of a miracle, and one for which she was glad.

  She was terribly impressed when Martin divulged that George was Brenda Fitzpatrick’s brother-in-law. Brenda Fitzpatrick was one of the most famous actresses in the whole world. Mari had never stood close to royalty until the Peerless folks came to town. Now she knew both a millionaire and the relative-by-marriage of one of the nation’s most beloved actresses. Brenda had retired from stage and celluloid a year or so ago, but Mari still had trouble containing her awe. She wanted to press George for details about her. She didn’t, though, because even though she didn’t know squat about society manners, she knew better than to pry into another person’s business.

  George said, “You don’t know for certain that anything’s amiss, Martin.”

  “You don’t consider the destruction of two state-of-the-art cameras as something amiss?” Ben glared at George as if he’d just denied the existence of God.

  George, an amiable lad of twenty or so, grinned. “I didn’t mean that, Ben. Of course, it’s something. It’s a disaster. What I meant was that we don’t know if a person’s behind it. Maybe it was an accident.”

  “We found fresh wood chips in the shed,” Martin said darkly. “It looked a lot like someone went to the trouble of hacking that roof beam away from its moorings.”

  “Also,” Mari said, having just remembered something else, “for the beam to crush the cameras, the cameras had to be moved, didn’t they?”

  All four men gawked at her for several seconds. She felt heat creep into her cheeks and blurted out, “Didn’t they? I mean, they weren’t just sitting there in the middle of the shed to begin with, were they?”

  “By God, you’re right.” That was Tony, who smiled at her so warmly, her blush deepened.

  “You are right,” murmured Martin. “Why didn’t I think of that?”

  “That’s right,” confirmed Ben. “We even discussed it ahead of time, trying to decide the best place to put them.” He turned to Martin. “Say, was the canvas still on top of them?”

  Martin’s eyebrows shot up. “No! It wasn’t, by God. Somebody took it off. I didn’t see it anywhere.”

  “I did.”

  Again, they all turned to look at Mari, who’d spoken.

  She continued, “I remember now that when I picked up that chip, it seemed to me that the rubble was sitting on some kind of canvas flooring. I didn’t think anything of it. Until now, when you mentioned a canvas cover. There sure was no canvas on top of the mess.”

  “Good heavens.” Martin’s lips flattened out into a straight, white line. “Good heavens.”

  “I think we ought to go out there and take one last look.” This, from Tony. “We won’t disturb anything, but I’ll rest better for knowing one way or the other whether this was an act of malicious vandalism or an accident.”

  Without another word, they shoved their chairs back from the table and arose. Mari, who knew her way around the Mojave Inn better than the others, muttered, “I’ll get a lantern.” She did so, and they trooped outside together.

  Tony had retained the key Martin had tossed to him earlier in the day, so he unlocked the door. “I’ll go in. You can stay outside. There isn’t room enough for all of us.”

  The weather, hot as blazes during the day, always cooled down at night. Mari shivered and wrapped her arms across her chest, although she believed at least some of her chilly feeling came from trepidation. She really didn’t want to know that some evil person was out to get Martin Tafft or the Peerless Studio.

  “Mari’s right,” came Tony’s voice from inside the shed. He sounded exceptionally gloomy. “The stuff’s lying on the canvas that used to cover it, and she’s also right that the cameras were moved to this position.”

  Martin uttered a soft curse and stuck his head inside the doorway in order to see better. George’s curse was more audible. Ben only sputtered and fumed. Mari’s heart sank into her mother’s old shoes and sat there, lifeless and cold.

  All at once, the still night air was ripped to shreds by the thunderous roar of Tiny’s barking. All five people at the shed jumped several inches off the ground.

  Tony said, “For the love of Pete, what’s that?”

  “It’s Tiny.” Mari, who knew her dog too well to believe he was carrying on like that for fun, took off at a dash for the hotel. She presumed the others followed her, but didn’t turn to see.

  “Hold on!”

  She was surprised to find Tony Ewing beside her. He must run fast. “It’s Tiny,” she gasped, fright plain in her voice. “Something’s wrong.”

  “Dammit, I know there’s something wrong, but you’re not going up there to check on it all by yourself.”

  They’d reached the back door of the hotel and she yanked it open before Tony could stop her. This was no darned time for him to play the gentleman. Something was wrong with her dog: Mari thought she’d die if anything happened to Tiny.

  “It’s Tiny,” she cried, as if that explained everything. And it did, to her. She was too frightened to think about anyone else at the moment.

  “I know it’s Tiny, dammit.”

  To Mari’s dismay, Tony raced past her and took the stairs three at a time. Mari’s legs were kind of long, but they weren’t as long as that. It took her more time to get up the stairs. When she reached the top and saw the door of a room halfway down the corridor gaping open and Tiny standing sentry, barking his head off and holding down something with his huge paws, her heart careened crazily.

  Tony got to the dog before she did. As she ran, she was vaguely aware of doors opening on both sides of the corridor and people peeking out to see what all the commotion was.

  She heard someone mutter something about hotels allowing pets indoors to interfere with other people’s sleep, but she paid no attention. From talking with Judy Nelson, she knew all of the guests presently occupying rooms at the Mojave Inn were employees of Peerless.

  And they’d better not complain about Tiny, or they’d have to deal with her. Since she owned the precious mine they were all so eager to use, they’d just better watch their step.

  By the time she reached Tony and Tiny, Tiny was in the middle of one of his ecstatic greetings, and Tony was trying to fend him off. Mari said, “Tony! I mean, Tiny! Here, boy. Stop that.” To Tony, she said, “Can you tell what happened?”

&n
bsp; Of the two male creatures cluttering up the doorway, Tony paid attention to her. He’d managed to pry whatever it was Tiny had been guarding out from under the dog’s heavy feet and held it out for Mari’s inspection. “It looks like a coat or jacket of some type. Get away from me, dog!”

  Ignoring Tony’s rudeness to her precious pet, Mari took the cloth from his fingers and inspected it. “Is it yours?” It sure didn’t look like anything Tony would wear unless he was playing the role of pauper for a Peerless production. Of course, that might have something to do with the fact that Tiny had evidently tugged the garment from the body of whoever had been wearing it. There were clearly discernible doggie tooth marks on and around its hem.

  “God, no. I’ve never seen it before.” He finally managed to persuade Tiny to sit still and merely wag his tail.

  “I wonder—” Mari broke off abruptly as something awful occurred to her. “Good Lord, you don’t think Tiny hurt the person who’d been wearing it, do you?”

  Tony glanced from her to Tiny, and turned to look into his room. “You know him better than I do.”

  “Do-do you see a body on the floor?”

  “No.”

  That was a relief. Mari asked, “Is anything missing?”

  “I don’t know. The window’s open. I know I left it shut to keep the bugs out.”

  Mari opened her windows at night in spite of the bugs to get a cross draft and drive out the heat of the day. She noticed the, electrical fan in the room and guessed some people didn’t have to do things like open windows in spite of bugs. It was amazing what money could buy. Comfort, for example. She told herself to snap out of it; there were more important things to think about right now.

  “Do you think someone might have climbed in through the window?” she asked, moving farther into the room. She left the door open, because it was shocking for a single female to enter the room of a single male.

  “I’m not sure.” Tony strode to the window and was inspecting the sill and the wooden siding of the hotel outside his window. The room was on the second floor. If a person had ventured to climb through the window, he’d have had to climb the wall first, unless he’d brought a ladder with him.