Angel and the Actress by Roger Silverwood Read Free Book Online

unknown to us. Being successful in thepotted-meat business wasn’t any recommendation for producing what I thought was going to be a major film. Also, I had no idea who the director was going to be. It’s important to have someone in that job that you’ve confidence in. So I didn’t sign and I returned the contract unsigned.’
    ‘Then what happened?’
    ‘All hell broke loose. One of those glossy magazines came along and Joan gave them the story that she’d no faith in the new blockbuster film that was being talked about. She told them that she didn’t know anything about the “potted-meat man”. He was in a business he didn’t know about. She said the screenplay was amateurish and boys’-own. She rubbished it so much that I was embarrassed. Then I heard Charles Fachinno had been to see her but she had been very rude to him. On the strength of getting a verbal agreement from her that she would take the female lead, Fachinno had put his potted-meat business as security and got the bank to shell out a quarter of a million to the author and a commitment to shell out further sums. But now Fachinno couldn’t make the film because Joan had so compellingly disparaged the project. I wasn’t pleased because my name had been associated with what was now becoming regarded as a flop. Coincidentally, or maybe because of it, I was out of work and had not a single job in my diary. I was becoming quite desperate … almost at the stage of getting out of the business, when I saw an ad in The Stage for auditions for the part of a butler in a new play called Find The Lady starring, surprisingly, Joan Minter. I was amazed and resentful that she had come out of the mess so well, the mess that she had helped to create. I really had to eat humble pie to getthat job as butler. And have been butlers, doctors, hotel clerks and judges ever since. I never did get a lead offered after that.’
    ‘But you’ve never been out of work, have you?’
    ‘That’s true.’
    ‘Now about yesterday. Can you tell me where you were standing just before Miss Minter was shot?’
    ‘I was in front of the man with the gun. I was standing between Felix Lubrecki and Erick Cartlett.’
    ‘Were you far from the door?’
    ‘About six or eight feet.’
    ‘I take it you knew everybody in the room?’
    ‘Yes. Everybody except Joan’s staff: her secretary, the butler and the caterers.’
    ‘Yes, of course. Could you say who wasn’t there after Miss Minter had been shot and the lights were turned back on?’
    ‘No. I never thought to look. It was all too dreadful …’

FOUR
    I T WAS 4 p.m. Angel was still interviewing the guests and staff of the Mansion House, and eliciting unexpected information about the personal and working life of Joan Minter. He was at the table in the little sitting room, rubbing his chin. But he wasn’t any clearer as to the identity of her murderer.
    There was a knock on the door. It was Ahmed. ‘I’ve got Mrs Bell, sir,’ he said.
    ‘Come in, Mrs Bell,’ Angel said.
    The young woman with the shining, wet eyes said, ‘It’s Miss Bell, Inspector, actually. But please call me Jane.’
    ‘Right … er … Jane. Please sit down.’
    ‘Thank you,’ she said, wiping her cheek with a tissue.
    Angel waited. He contented himself looking at her and smiling to try to put her at ease.
    She looked up at him and said, ‘Excuse me, may I ask if you are the Inspector Angel, the one in the papers that they say is like the Canadian Mounties because he always gets his man?’
    Ahmed smiled as he watched Angel’s reaction.
    The inspector was always embarrassed at this question and wanted to get it quickly out of the way. ‘Well, yes. I suppose I am.’
    ‘I’ve seen you on the television, I’m sure. They say that you’ve always solved the murder cases you’ve been given. I read it in a paper or a magazine somewhere.’
    ‘Yes, well … I do what I have to do.’
    Her eyes filled up again. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘I just