The voice of the commentator was back. Mr Suffri, close behind it, sounded like a guide with a megaphone. “Here have we the British officer of high family with the lady already referenced and some more of British society notably two esquires of Berkshire. Assignations are being hammered up but the secret camera lens catches the truth.”
Prile and Mr Kebble were now conferring quite animatedly. Names were being jotted down between glances at the screen.
A visual announcement within one of the heavily decorative borders that seemed a stock feature of this kind of entertainment proclaimed, according to Mr Suffri, that the ensuing events had been “captivated with private lenses within the lounging room of the Earl’s how-you-say, too hungry, not satiable—relative by marriage.”
It took the audience some time to discern anything at all in the picture of a large, shadowy chamber, of indeterminate height and breadth, whose walls—if walls it had—were draped in dark sheeting. There were no windows, no doors. It was devoid of anything in the way of conventional decoration or furnishing—or so it seemed in what little illumination there was. This, one realized after a while, derived from a single shaft of light from above that passed out of camera shot at the bottom left-hand corner of the screen.
Then movement became noticeable. Two figures—at first merely shadows against shadows—had entered from the right. They crossed slowly into centre screen.
The figures approached the fixed, transverse spotlight. It caught the forearm of one of them. Braid glinted brilliantly at the cuff.
“Ah, the naval officer of high family,” murmured Birdie to Sir Arthur. He sniffed good-naturedly, flattered.
A section of the second figure moved across the shaft of light. Folds of a silken garment, flowered in pink and blue, parting a little to disclose a knee.
The lady of aristocratic connections, clearly, back in her dressing gown.
The figures began to move back and forth in tandem. A clinch had developed. The next time the woman’s knee came into view, the gown had parted a lot more and the hand sleeved in gold braid was lending it such resolute assistance that most of one thigh and part of the other were disclosed.
Birdie nudged Sir Arthur’s arm. “Is he a captain or just first mate?” she whispered. “I never know how many rings mean what.”
Sir Arthur, who had done a little yachting in his time, replied indulgently that his reading of the decoration put the man down as commodore.
Some wrestling was now going on. By judicious and, it had to be admitted, quite artistic manoeuvring, the pair were executing a sort of mutual striptease in such a manner that a limited additional area of nudity was exposed by each with every pass into the light beam.
The incredible dubbed voices returned. This time, some attempt had been made to give an impression of urgent desire. The result, unfortunately, was more suggestive of argument between a pair of falsetto-voiced taxi drivers. Mr Suffri nevertheless was ready to do his best.
“The gentleman,” he bawled, “says he intends to pulverize the lady in the pistol and mortar of his lusting and she gives answer which please I wish to be excused. Now the gentleman makes words difficult to understand in English but readily to be significant in my country of the making love of leopards—thus, grurrh, grurrh. I hope that is carried to you gentlemen and lady.”
Birdie leaned back in her chair and craned past Sir Arthur’s back towards Grail. He was far too preoccupied to notice, and when, helplessly impelled by pure mischievousness, she growled loudly into his ear, he was so startled that he leaped sideways into collision with poor Mr Kebble.
“Oh, Christikins! I’m sorry,” said Miss Clemenceaux, with absolute sincerity. She had, even in the moment of succumbing to temptation, seen in Grail’s face something not of disgust; not, certainly, of sexual excitement; but of sheer, unalloyed fright. And she thought she knew why.
The two protagonists on the screen had succeeded by now in divesting each other of every article of clothing and were embracing in a kind of erotic ballet in and out of the spotlight. Although the camera had been gradually bringing them into much closer range revelation was solely of limbs and torsos: not once was the face of either allowed to reflect enough light to betray identifiable features.
At this point, the scene was obliterated with startling suddenness by another bordered announcement.
Mr Suffri obliged. “The gallant Sir and beloved make pause for refreshing.”
To the evident astonishment of Prile, who again turned and entered into urgent colloquy with his editor, there appeared next on the screen the representation of a number of people dining at a long table. The naval character was now respectably attired, not in uniform but in dress shirt and dinner jacket. His companion in earlier scenes was also present, but at a distance of four or five places and closely conversing with a man of about her own age.
In the centre of the group was a quarrelsome-looking man with restless, red-rimmed eyes and a small moustache. Around his shoulders was the heavy, elaborately-fashioned gold chain of office of a mayor of Flaxborough.
Commentary resumed. “Here we see feasting of aristocratic citizens who prepare for more love encounterings,” declared the faithful translator at the top of his voice. “The lord mayor of this county is taken prisoner by our private camera as he makes wagers upon the longlastingness of his sporting chaps.”
Another title abruptly blacked out the festivities at the moment of the mayor’s beginning to rise ponderously to his feet, presumably to propose a toast.
“Thus our hungry lady is strongly astounded,” Mr Suffri supplied.
Action was transferred once again to the draped chamber. The sudden changes of scene were making one characteristic of the film obvious: the footage that featured the leading participants against this background of curtain-like obscurity was more steadily registered and in better focus than the rest.
The audience was beginning to show a little restiveness. It reflected embarrassment as much as boredom, for the imminence of the first of whatever series of erotic climaxes were contained in three reels of film had been sensed by everyone except, perhaps, the dedicated Mr Suffri.
After some minutes more of the nude arabesques in and out of the spotlight, the camera moved down and along the slanting beam to reveal what lay on the floor within the oval pool of illumination at its end.
The audience saw a pile of loosely coiled rope that looked thick enough to moor a shrimping boat; beside it lay a telescope and a light fisherman’s anchor.
“The mind,” confided Birdie to Sir Arthur, “boggles.”
Leaning towards her sympathetically, he half rose from his seat. “I’m sure your colleagues don’t expect you to subject yourself to any more of this,” he whispered. “Perhaps you’d like me to, ah...”