Carter Dickson (John Dickson Carr) - And So to Murder

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DEATH RIDES THE TUBE...

The speaking-tube whistled. Monica flew at it. "Who are you? What do you want?"

She bent her cheek to the mouth of the tube to listen for an answer. Something was happening inside the tube. She jumped back.

Something which looked like water, but was not water, spurted in a jet from the mouth of the tube. It splashed across the linoleum.

There was a hissing, sizzling noise as half a pint of vitriol began to eat into the surface of the floor.

The footsteps in the room above began to run.

A SIR HENRY MERRIVALE MYSTERY BY

AND SO TO MURDER

ZEBRA BOOKS KENSINGTON PUBLISHING CORP.

ZEBRA BOOKS

are published by

Kensington Publishing Corp. 475 Park Avenue South New York, NY 10016

Copyright 1940 by William Morrow & Co., Inc.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means without the prior written consent of the Publisher, excepting brief quotes used in reviews.

First Zebra Books printing: December, 1988

Printed in the United States of America

I

In spite of herself she was excited. She had resolved that she would not allow this to show. She had pictured herself as being poised, airy, and at ease, unimpressed by the studios of Albion Films. But, now that she was actually in the office of the producer, Monica found her heart thumping and her speech a trifle slurred.

It annoyed her.

Not that there was anything about Mr. Thomas Hackett, who was to produce Desire, to alarm her. On the contrary. From all she had heard and read, Monica had expected to find the film studio a kind of Bedlam, full of fat men with cigars shouting lunatic orders into telephones. Not that she had actually expected to find Mr. Hackett sticking straws in his hair. But, at the same time, she was surprised and put a little off balance by the man who faced her from the other side of the desk.

The whole placegrounds, buildings, offices struck her as being too quiet. Pineham Studios, some three-quarters of an hour by train from London,

spread over many green acres behind a tall wire fence fronting the road. The main buildings, long and low like a pavilion, of dazzling white concrete with little orange awnings at the windows, were backed by the great gray shapes of the sound stages. The very sight of them brought a lump of excitement to Monica's throat. But they seemed deserted, dozing under the blaze of the late August sunlight; a little sinister.

Of course, she was not taken to the main building. The gatekeeper made this clear when her carwhich she had hired at the stationpulled up before his lodge.

"Mr. H-Hackett!" Monica shouted from the back of the car. "Who's that?" "Mr. H-Hackett!"

"Mr. Tom Hackett?" inquired the gatekeeper craftily; though there was, in fact, only one Hackett at Pineham.

"That's r-right. My name is Monica Stanton. I have an appointment."

The gatekeeper took pity on her. "Old Building," he told the driver, who seemed to understand.

It was intolerably hot. The green lawns, the gravel drive, the cars parked in the drive, all winked with highlights under the sun. They drove along a gravel road past the main buildings, down a hill beneath thick-arched trees, and emerged (surprisingly) beside what resembled a small, picturesque red brick manor house with a cupola. Ivy climbed the face of the house. A miniature river, with ducks, flowed shallow and glittering in a little valley near the windows. It was idyllic. It was Arcadian. It made you want to go to sleep. And upstairs, in a sunny office overlooking the stream, Monica was taken to Mr. Thomas Hackett.

Mr. Hackett was quiet, curt, and masterfullike the hero in Desire.

"We're happy to have you here, Miss Stanton," he said. "Happy. Please sit down."

He nodded toward a chair. With a curt, masterful gesture he yanked a box of cigars out of his desk, and thrust it at her. Then, becoming sensible of the impropriety, he returned the box to the desk and slammed the drawer with the same businesslike air.

"But y ou'll have a cigarette? Good I never touch tobacco myself," he explained, with an air of vi rtuous austerity. "Miss Owlsey! Cigarettes, please."

He plumped down in his chair and eyed her keenly. Mr. Hackett (a personality) worked for a mysterious personage named Marshlake, the head of Albion Films, who put up the money but whom nobody ever saw except dodging round corners. Mr. Hackett bristled with practicality. His age was an alert thirty-five. He was short, stocky, and dark of complexion, with a broad face, a toothbrush mustache, and a radiant dental smile which nevertheless had an austere no-nonsense touch about it.

"Of course," said Monica, determined to be fair,. "I'm terribly happy to be hereto have this opportunity-"

Mr. Hackett's tolerant smile acknowledged the justice of this.

"-and yet I don't want to be here under false pretenses. My agent told you, didn't he, that I've never had any experience writing film scripts?"

Mr. Hackett seemed startled. His eyes narrowed.

"No experience?" he demanded. "You're sure of that?" Mr. Hackett appeared unwilling to fall into any such trap as believing this.

"Of course I'm sure!"

"Ah, I didn't know that," murmured the producer in a soft, sinister voice; and Monica's heart sank.

Mr. Hackett considered. Then he jumped up, and strode with curt steps up and down the office. He seemed sunk in brooding thoughts.

'That's bad. That's very bad. That's not so good.I'm just thinking aloud, you understand," he explained, suddenly looking at her and then relapsing into the same trance. "On the other hand, we don t ask you to produce a shooting script. Howard Fisk, who will direct Desire, never uses a shooting script. I'm telling you. Never!"

(Monica conquered an impulse to say that it was very clever of him. But, having no idea of what a shooting script might be, she remained discreetly silent.)

"Can you write dialogue?" demanded Mr. Hackett, stopping abruptly. "Oh, yes! I wrote a play once." "This is different," said Mr. Hackett. "How?"

"Very different," said Mr. Hackett, shaking hir head mysteriously. "But the point isnow listen to thisyou can write dialogue. Good, bright, snappy dialogue?"

"I don't know. I'll try."

"Then you're hired," said Mr. Hackett handsomely. "Not too much dialogue, mind," he warned. "Keep it visual. Keep it to the minimum. In fact"-he thrust out his hands, defining the situation"practically no dialogue at all. But you'll learnI'm just thinking aloud, you understand. Miss Stanton, I make my decisions and I stick to 'em. You're hired."

Since Monica had already been hired, after a bitter battle on the part of her literary agent, this decision may sound superfluous. But it was not. In the film business, all things are with Allah.

For her part, Monica was so happy that she almost stuttered. It was a delirious kind of happiness, which sang in her veins and made her feel slightly drunk. She wanted to get up and say to a mirror: I, Monica Stanton,' of St. Jude's Vicarage, East Roystead, Herts., am actually sitting in the offices of Albion Films, talking to the producer who made Dark Sunshine and My Lady's Divorce. I, Monica Stanton, who have so often sat in the picture-palace and seen other people's names glorified, am now to see my own name among the credit titles and my own characters come to life on the screen. I, Monica Stanton, am to be part of this vast, dazzling world And here it was.

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Now Mr. Thomas Hackett, for reasons that will be indicated, was the most worried man on the Pineham lot. But, even so, he was astounded to meet Monica Stanton in the flesh. For he had gone so far as to read Desire; and he wondered, privately, how most of it had got past the censor.

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