“What a lot of stories your camera could tell! Were you there when the equipment went overboard?”
“I went overboard after it,” he replied.
“Good … heavens. The wave took you, too?”
“Nah, I jumped. Thought I might be able to save it, but it went down too fast. Left me with nothing but a tape-measure. Granted, my favourite tape-measure.”
Again, I couldn’t tell if this was laconic humour or mere fact. His expression gave no hint. He reminded me of a friend of my father’s, an older man who’d spent years around cowboy camp-fires in the West, mastering the art of the tall tale in a way my childhood self could only dimly appreciate, or even recognise.
“Well, that’s good, then,” I prattled cheerfully. “Have a biscuit? What about that short Mr Fflytte made during the War, filmed from an observation balloon? Was that you?”
“It was. Two years later we filmed in the trenches. Under fire. That one was never released.”
“Oh, for a peaceful life,” I commented. “But even after the War it doesn’t sound peaceable – wasn’t there one film where a polar bear went berserk?”
“Started as Anna Karenina. Shifted to The North. That got scrapped, too. I couldn’t look at the rug they made out of him for years. After that, I told Mr Fflytte I did not care to work with dangerous animals.”
“So when they made Moonstone, someone else worked the camera?”
“For the cobras, you mean? No, Moonstone was before the polar bear. But when I saw the script for Hannibal, in ’twenty-two, I said no thanks.”
“And yet here you are, working with thirteen girls.” He shot me a glance, decided I was joking, thought about that for a moment, and then sat back in his chair with a chuckle.
“You’re right. I must be mad.”
The point of my questions had not been the perils of making a Fflytte film, but to find out if the man had held a camera for Fflytte during the War years. The Aeronaut was made in 1915, and I knew that his proposed film The Front took place two and a half years later.
“It sounds as if you’ve handled Mr Fflytte’s cameras pretty much his entire career.”
“There’ve been two or three he had other operators for – I broke my hand just before Krakatoa. And there was a year when my wife was dying. Other than those, yes, it’s all Will Currie.”
I expressed condolences about his wife, and asked a question about the cameras, and film, and what problems he might anticipate, shooting on board the Harlequin. My curiosity about the technical side of his profession disarmed him, loosing his tongue a shade. I went on in that vein, sliding in the occasional investigatory question about the crew and cast, but taking care to keep the emphasis light, even when I asked about my predecessor, Lonnie Johns.
“What about her?” he asked.
“What was she like?”
“She’s what Daniel Marks might call a ‘good kid.’ Nice. Hard working. Not terribly quick in the wits. Why do you ask?”
“I just wondered why she’d left. Wondered maybe if she didn’t get along with someone.”
“Like who?”
“I don’t know. Mrs Hatley, perhaps?”
Will snorted. I raised my eyebrows. When he did not explain his wordless comment, I probed a little. “Well, Mrs Hatley seems a bit on the formidable side. And she doesn’t appear always to get along with Mr Hale and Mr Fflytte.”
But that took things just a bit too far. He smiled, and said, “Yes, they’ve known each other a fair time now,” and reached for the watch on his chain.
I slipped in a last question. “I’m a little surprised Mr Fflytte hasn’t made a War movie, other than the balloon one. I mean The Great War – I know about the Boer film.”
He popped open his watch, giving an expression of mild alarm that suggested he’d forgotten he was looking for someone when I waylaid him. “Hale won’t have it,” he said, getting to his feet. “Made it clear when he was de-mobbed that any movie about the Front would be made without him. And Fflytte won’t work without Hale, so that’s it. Thanks for the tea, Miss Russell. And for the warning about the boat.”
He hurried out. I gathered my damp coat and, more slowly, my thoughts; and finally my instruments of writing.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
PIRATES [springing up]: Yes, we’re the pirates, so despair!
Sunday afternoon
Avenida-Palace
Dear Holmes,
I have just come from an informative conversation with William Currie, Fflytte’s long-time cameraman, a Welshman in his fifties who worked on the Fflytte estate as a young man, keeping its various engines running. A man who walks with a slight hitch to his step, who has carried a camera for Fflytte since 1902, including during the War years (which suggests that his limp predated 1914, and would explain why he was free to carry a camera instead of a rifle). In the course of our tête-à-tête, he filled in some missing pieces of information that I thought of interest.
I shall not trouble you with the minutiae of gossip, merely convey to you the following points:
Our “Ruth,” the woman known as Mrs Myrna Hatley, is also the mother and hence chaperone of the film’s daughter “June.” Mrs Hatley was herself in several Fflytte films, from 1907 to 1909, then did not act again until 1919. I mention her because there is a certain degree of delicacy when the others refer to her matrimonial state, and Will openly snorted: One suspects the lady did not submit to legal bonds. Her daughter (unlike two of the other “sisters”) has naturally blonde hair and bright blue eyes, and looks to be 14 or 15.
The first commercial film of Fflytte enterprises to star “Mrs Hatley” was Gay Paris, in 1909. Mrs Hatley would have been in her late twenties. Fflytte was 24, Hale 22 or -3.
Randolph Fflytte has dark hair and eyes and as I may have mentioned, is remarkably short. His right-hand man and second cousin, Geoffrey Hale, is tall, with tow hair and cornflower eyes.
On the ship here, while otherwise occupied, I overheard a small piece of tight-voiced conversation between Mr Hale and Mrs Hatley on the deck above me – rather, I heard her voice, while she was in conversation with him. The gist of her monologue was that although she appreciated the opportunity for employment, she could not but feel some resentment at being given the rôle of a middle-aged and unattractive harpy who is not only responsible for young Frederic’s mistaken apprenticeship to a band of brigands but on his reaching the age of twenty-one, attempts to trick the boy into marrying her. I did not hear Hale’s response, but the slap she dealt him as a consequence nearly sent him over the side. I thought at the time that he was making advances upon her, although why her, of all the women to hand.…
Regarding the other members of this travelling circus, our director has fallen in love with a sailboat, which I am led to understand will delay everything, drive his crew to distraction, and cost a small fortune. If no one else murders the man, his cousin may, since Hale is responsible for keeping the company financially sound.
(Have I told you about Geoffrey Hale, Holmes? Hale is a veteran of the Front, retaining the reactions, which saved his life [why does my hand feel driven to add, “once so far”?] following a misunderstanding during rehearsals. Hale is somewhat aloof from the others, although manifestly fond of Fflytte [their mothers are cousins (Hale’s father descends from the Hale of the Hale Commission [Wasn’t that Hale also involved in witchcraft trials? (I ask because I’ve been making notes for a monograph linking the repression of witches with that of modern suffragists.)])] – Where was I going with this? Oh yes: Hale’s lack of personal involvement with the others may be a combination of shyness and discomfort with his authority over them. It is not unknown, with officers who served on the Front, that they are unwilling to assert authority over any person, ever again.)