The Mystery of the Magic Circle - M. V. Carey [21]
“I understand,” said Jupe. He thanked Long and left.
“Well?” said Beefy as Jupe got into the car.
“Jefferson Long does not like Madeline Bainbridge, and he doesn’t like the idea of her films being shown on television,” Jupe reported. “Video Enterprises isn’t going to finance a series he wants to do on drug abuse because they spent so much money on the Bainbridge pictures. Long says he hasn’t seen Bainbridge for thirty years and he hasn’t kept up with any of her friends. Also, he denies that there was a coven. He may be telling the truth about everything else, but I think he was lying about the coven.
Actually, I think that there is something odd about Jefferson Long, but I can’t quite say what it is.”
Pete chuckled in the back seat. “You’ll figure it out. You always do,” he said.
“Anyway, here’s something else to work on. I called my father at the studio while you were gone. He’s got an address for us already. Elliott Farber was Bainbridge’s favourite cameraman, and he was in the magic circle at that Academy Awards dinner!
He isn’t a cameramen any longer. He runs a television repair shop on Melrose. Let’s go over there!”
Chapter 10
The Witch’s Curse
IT WAS NOT necessary for The Three Investigators to fabricate a story about a school journal in order to see Elliott Farber. The former cameraman was not protected by a receptionist, and the three boys had only to walk into his dusty little shop in order to talk with him. Once they were in the shop — a narrow hole-in-the-wall sandwiched between a barber shop and an upholsterer — Jupe said, quite simply,
“Mr. Farber, you were Madeline Bainbridge’s favourite cameramen, weren’t you?”
Elliott Farber was a thin man with a yellowish tint to his skin. He squinted at the boys through the smoke that wafted from the cigarette between his lips. “Don’t tell me,” he said. “Let me guess. You’re old movie buffs.”
“Something like that,” said Jupe.
Farber smiled and leaned back against a counter. “I worked with Bainbridge on almost every picture she ever made,” he said. “She was tremendous. Great actress!”
Farber dropped his cigarette to the floor and ground it out with his foot. “She was beautiful, too. Some of the so-called glamour queens needed every bit of make-up and ever trick of lighting to look good. They had to have every break the cameraman could give them. That’s why I quit the business. I got sick of taking the blame if some dame didn’t look enough like Cleopatra, Queen of the Nile. But with Bainbridge, there was no sweat. She was purely and simply beautiful. I couldn’t make a mistake when I was filming one of her scenes.”
“Was she difficult to work with?” asked Jupe.
“Oh, she liked to get her own way, once she got established. That’s how we all got involved in that horrible turkey about witches and Puritans.”
“The Salem Story? ” prompted Jupe.
“Right,” said Farber. “Ramon Desparto thought that one would be great.
Madeline was nuts about him, so anything he wanted, he got. Madeline saw to it. We used to worry about her — that he’d wreck her career.”
“That’s what he did, didn’t he?” asked Pete, who had been listening quietly. “I mean, after he died, she was so heartbroken she didn’t work again.”
“She blamed herself,” said Farber. “She and Desparto had quarrelled just before he had the car accident that killed him. She’d said some pretty nasty things to him.
Not that I blame her. He was playing around with another actress, Estelle DuBarry, and Madeline was jealous. If you’re organizing some fan club for Madeline, or doing an article for some kid magazine, you could just forget I told you that bit. No sense in stirring up old troubles.”
“Do you ever see Madeline Bainbridge these days, Mr. Farber? Or talk with her?”
asked Jupiter.
“Nope. Nobody sees her. Nobody’s in touch with her at all.”
Bob showed Mr. Farber the copy of the picture he had found at the library.
“Wasn’t Estelle DuBarry one of the people who were very close to Madeline Bainbridge?” he asked. “She’s in this photo that was taken at an awards dinner.”
“Oh, that?” Farber took