Frequent Hearses by Edmund Crispin Read Free Book Online Page A

with a microphone suspended above it on a boom like a carrot in front of a donkey, and a man in shirt-sleeves was measuring with a tape-measure the distance between its lens and their noses. Periodically other men would climb on to the camera, peer through its view-finder, and go silently away again. Overhead, on platforms hanging by chains from the high and invisible roof, electricians pottered with numbered spotlights, while on the floor their overseer, an irascible man with a cigarette adhering precariously to his lower lip, shouted at them: “Kill ten and twenty-three, Bert,” or “You can save your number nine, Bill,” or, more simply: “What the bloody hell do you think you’re up to now?” The continuity girl clattered assiduously away at a typewriter; the director, a gentlemanly person of some thirty years, sat slumped in a canvas chair fingering a tattered script and gloomily contemplating the scene; a wind-machine, painted a minatory pillar-box red, crouched in the offing like some gigantic insect; and all about, people drifted aimlessly to and fro, muttered together in corners, or merely stood gaping. Scattered among them were a few scantily clad girls, and Johnny, having briefly interviewed one of these, returned to inform Fen and Humbleby that they were in luck, since the film was behind schedule and the chorus, dutifully present and changed, would not be required for an hour or two.
    “Hang on,” he said, “and I’ll find the Bryant girl for you.”
    They hung on obediently, and after about two minutes of this the director, tiring abruptly of preparatory measures, called for a take. At once all was agitation: lights flashed on and off, technicians ran hither and thither, the camera crew coalesced round its machine, fresh powder was dabbed on the already thickly coated faces of the two young women on the pavement, the continuity girl gave over typing and rushed with a notebook to the director’s side, and Fen, who had wandered round behind the pub’s facade and was waving at Humbleby from a window, was unceremoniously removed to a safe place. A hush fell.
    “Yes,” said the director, wearily surveying the results of all this. “Yes, O.K.”
    “Absolute quiet, please,” called someone.
    “Roll it,” said someone else, and a clapper-boy self-consciously clapped his instrument together in front of the lens.
    “Background action,” said the director, and the extras inside the pub swayed about in tipsy animation.
    “Action,” he said, and the two young women came along the pavement and halted at the pub door, where one of them, nudging the other, said: “‘Ow about a quick one, Gert?”
    “Cut,” said the director.
    The tension dissolved. “That’s fine,” the director said. “Very, very good indeed. Miss Morris, I think I’d like a fraction longer pause before you give us your line, just a fraction. All right, everybody. We’ll do another take straight away.”
    Fen, prowling restlessly, had come to the wind-machine, and was regarding it with dawning interest. He had already stretched out a hand to it when fortunately he was distracted by the return of Johnny, who was propelling in front of him, with a finger in the small of her back, a tall, dazed-looking blonde. She wore black, high-heeled shoes, black stockings with garters and a black-and-white frilly corset affair which permitted—not to say encouraged—an ample display of bosom and thigh. Her face, made up, was like a mask; her liberal expanse of bare flesh was painted a golden brown; and the total effect was peculiarly anaphrodisiac. Before this pseudo-ninetyish apparition Fen and Humbleby somewhat abruptly converged.
    “Ah, Miss Bryant,” said Humbleby cordially. “I’m glad they were able to find you. If you can spare a few minutes I should like to have a talk with you.”
    Miss Bryant put out her tongue at him. It was plain to everyone that she had extruded it in order to lick her lips and at the last moment had