finished. “I should like to go to that.”
“It depends on what we’re able to find out about her family,” Humbleby explained. “But one way or another I’ll try to let you know when it’s to be… And now we must go, and you must get back to your work.”
She moved to the door, which Fen opened for her. The business man’s dream, he reflected: it was not difficult to predict, in general outline, what would become of her… She paused for a second and smiled diffidently at him; then, quickening her steps, went away down the passage, her shoulders trembling a little as she wept… So one person, at least, unfeignedly mourned for Gloria Scott.
Fen and Humbleby stood irresolute as they watched her go.
“You ought to set up as a psychiatrist,” said Humbleby sardonically. “ Spécialité de la maison, the sublimating of unhealthy adolescent crushes. You seem to be a great deal more serious than I remembered.”
Fen’s brown hair, ineffectually plastered down with water, stood up in disaffected spikes at the crown of his head; his lean, ruddy, clean-shaven face was thoughtful.
“As I get older,” he explained, “I get less resilient and more predictable. It depresses me sometimes.” He sighed and looked at his watch. “Five to eleven. I must find my conference. What are your plans?”
“Maurice and Nicholas Crane are my plans.”
“I shall be seeing them, you know: they’re both involved in this film. Come along with me.”
“Thanks, but I must telephone Charles first, and in any case I can’t very well disrupt your conference with my—um—inquisitions. How long will it last?”
“Heaven knows. Not very long, I imagine, since Leiper isn’t going to be there.”
“Well, will you tell Maurice and Nicholas that I want to see them as soon as it’s over?”
Fen looked dubious. “I’ll tell them,” he said. “I’ll tell them all right. But people of that sort haven’t the instinct of obedience, even where the police are concerned, and they’ll probably drift away pretending to have forgotten about it. You’d better come yourself and try to put the fear of God into them.”
“But surely they’d not be so irresponsible as to—”
“The films are a religion,” Fen interrupted. “Even Government departments—Petroleum Boards, Tax Inspectors and so forth—kowtow to them to some extent. And that fact induces in the more important film people a sense of immunity—not altogether an illusory sense, either. If you want to talk to the brothers Crane you ought to tackle them about it in person.”
To this proposition Humbleby, after some further argument, agreed, and they set off for room CC, discovering it, somewhat to their surprise, only a short distance away. Though larger, it bore a disheartening resemblance to the room they had just left. Its parquet flooring was coming apart, with the result that there were treacherous projecting edges on which people tripped. The green paint was peeling from its radiators. Someone—possibly reacting after the manner of Martin Luther to an apparition of the Devil—had apparently hurled a bottle of ink at the wall. A table at the centre was provisioned, as for a board meeting, with ash-trays, scribbling paper and inkpots, and had chairs of padded red leather and chromium tubing set about it. There were, however, two more or less humane influences present—one of them a framed photograph of the 1937 Studio Hockey Team, and the other a trolley with rubber wheels which contained cups of steaming coffee.
To this Fen addressed himself immediately on arrival—having previously, however, identified for Humbleby the brothers Crane. No official proceedings, he noted, had as yet begun. The company stood about sipping coffee and talking desultorily—a various assembly representing, as Fen knew, the personal enthusiasms, in a number of different spheres, of Giles Leiper. For the most part they were not people who in the ordinary way would have elected to
“It depends on what we’re able to find out about her family,” Humbleby explained. “But one way or another I’ll try to let you know when it’s to be… And now we must go, and you must get back to your work.”
She moved to the door, which Fen opened for her. The business man’s dream, he reflected: it was not difficult to predict, in general outline, what would become of her… She paused for a second and smiled diffidently at him; then, quickening her steps, went away down the passage, her shoulders trembling a little as she wept… So one person, at least, unfeignedly mourned for Gloria Scott.
Fen and Humbleby stood irresolute as they watched her go.
“You ought to set up as a psychiatrist,” said Humbleby sardonically. “ Spécialité de la maison, the sublimating of unhealthy adolescent crushes. You seem to be a great deal more serious than I remembered.”
Fen’s brown hair, ineffectually plastered down with water, stood up in disaffected spikes at the crown of his head; his lean, ruddy, clean-shaven face was thoughtful.
“As I get older,” he explained, “I get less resilient and more predictable. It depresses me sometimes.” He sighed and looked at his watch. “Five to eleven. I must find my conference. What are your plans?”
“Maurice and Nicholas Crane are my plans.”
“I shall be seeing them, you know: they’re both involved in this film. Come along with me.”
“Thanks, but I must telephone Charles first, and in any case I can’t very well disrupt your conference with my—um—inquisitions. How long will it last?”
“Heaven knows. Not very long, I imagine, since Leiper isn’t going to be there.”
“Well, will you tell Maurice and Nicholas that I want to see them as soon as it’s over?”
Fen looked dubious. “I’ll tell them,” he said. “I’ll tell them all right. But people of that sort haven’t the instinct of obedience, even where the police are concerned, and they’ll probably drift away pretending to have forgotten about it. You’d better come yourself and try to put the fear of God into them.”
“But surely they’d not be so irresponsible as to—”
“The films are a religion,” Fen interrupted. “Even Government departments—Petroleum Boards, Tax Inspectors and so forth—kowtow to them to some extent. And that fact induces in the more important film people a sense of immunity—not altogether an illusory sense, either. If you want to talk to the brothers Crane you ought to tackle them about it in person.”
To this proposition Humbleby, after some further argument, agreed, and they set off for room CC, discovering it, somewhat to their surprise, only a short distance away. Though larger, it bore a disheartening resemblance to the room they had just left. Its parquet flooring was coming apart, with the result that there were treacherous projecting edges on which people tripped. The green paint was peeling from its radiators. Someone—possibly reacting after the manner of Martin Luther to an apparition of the Devil—had apparently hurled a bottle of ink at the wall. A table at the centre was provisioned, as for a board meeting, with ash-trays, scribbling paper and inkpots, and had chairs of padded red leather and chromium tubing set about it. There were, however, two more or less humane influences present—one of them a framed photograph of the 1937 Studio Hockey Team, and the other a trolley with rubber wheels which contained cups of steaming coffee.
To this Fen addressed himself immediately on arrival—having previously, however, identified for Humbleby the brothers Crane. No official proceedings, he noted, had as yet begun. The company stood about sipping coffee and talking desultorily—a various assembly representing, as Fen knew, the personal enthusiasms, in a number of different spheres, of Giles Leiper. For the most part they were not people who in the ordinary way would have elected to
Similar Books
