Bones in London - Edgar Wallace [33]
“Oh, he’ll sell it,” said Hamilton. “I tell you, Bones is amazing. He has found a City man who is interested in the film industry, a stockbroker or something, who has promised to see every bit of film as it is produced and give him advice on the subject; and, incredible as it may sound, the first half-dozen scenes that Bones has taken have passed muster.”
“Who turns the handle of the camera?” asked the girl.
“Bones,” said Hamilton, trying not to laugh. “He practised the revolutions on a knife-cleaning machine!”
The fourth day it rained, but the fifth day Bones took his company in a hired motor into the country, and, blissfully ignoring such admonitions as “Trespassers will be shot,” he led the way over a wall to the sacred soil of an Englishman’s stately home. Bones wanted the wood, because one of his scenes was laid on the edge of a wood. It was the scene where the bad girl, despairing of convincing anybody as to her inherent goodness, was taking a final farewell of the world before “leaving a life which had held nothing but sadness and misunderstanding,” to quote the title which was to introduce this touching episode.
Bones found the right location, fitted up his camera, placed the yellow-faced girl – the cinema artiste has a somewhat bilious appearance when facing the lens – and began his instructions.
“Now, you walk on here, dear old Miss What’s-Your-Name. You come from that tree with halting footsteps – like this, dear old thing. Watch and learn.”
Bones staggered across the greensward, clasping his brow, sank on his knees, folded his arms across his chest, and looked sorrowfully at the heavens, shaking his head.
Hamilton screamed with laughter.
“Behave yourself, naughty old sceptic,” said Bones severely.
After half an hour’s preliminary rehearsal, the picture was taken, and Bones now prepared to depart; but Mr Lew Becksteine, from whose hands Bones had taken, not only the direction of the play, but the very excuse for existence, let fall a few uncomfortable words.
“Excuse me, Mr Tibbetts,” he said, in the sad, bored voice of an artiste who is forced to witness the inferior work of another, “it is in this scene that the two lawyers must be taken, walking through the wood, quite unconscious of the unhappy fate which has overtaken the heiress for whom they are searching.”
“True,” said Bones, and scratched his nose.
He looked round for likely lawyers. Hamilton stole gently away.
“Now, why the dickens didn’t you remind me, you careless old producer, to bring two lawyers with me?” asked Bones. “Dash it all, there’s nothing here that looks like a lawyer. Couldn’t it be taken somewhere else?”
Mr Becksteine had reached the stage where he was not prepared to make things easy for his employer.
“Utterly impossible,” he said; “you must have exactly the same scenery. The camera cannot lie.”
Bones surveyed his little company, but without receiving any encouragement.
“Perhaps I might find a couple of fellows on the road,” he suggested.
“It is hardly likely,” said Mr Lew Becksteine, “that you will discover in this remote country village two gentlemen arrayed in faultlessly fitting morning-coats and top hats!”
“I don’t know so much about that,” said the optimistic Bones, and took a short cut through the wood, knowing that the grounds made an abrupt turn where they skirted the main road.
He was halfway through the copse when he stopped. Now, Bones was a great believer in miracles, but they had to be very spectacular miracles. The fact that standing in the middle of the woodland path were two middle-aged gentlemen in top hats and morning-coats, seemed to Bones to be a mere slice of luck. It was, in fact, a miracle of the first class. He crept silently back, raced down the steps to where the little party stood.
“Camera!” he hissed. “Bring it along, dear old thing. Don’t make a noise! Ham, old boy, will you help? You other persons, stay where you are.”
Hamilton shouldered the camera, and on the way up the slope Bones revealed his fell intention.
“There is no need to tell these silly old jossers what we’re doing,”