Laurie King: Pirate King: A novel of suspense featuring Mary Russell and Sherlock Holmes

“I don’t know that I’ve seen that one.”

“You won’t, either. There were only three prints made, and nine years ago, he threw them on the fire. Nearly burned the house down – cellulose nitrate is remarkably flammable. He was unhappy with Mafeking even as he was editing it, since a battle across Berkshire countryside looks nothing like a battle across open veldt. Every time he looked at it, he regretted that he hadn’t just piled his workers on a boat and taken them to South Africa.

“Two years after Mafeking , he took some friends to Paris to make a film, as a joke more than anything. This time, once he’d done the editing, he sold it. And decided that was what he wanted to do with his life. Before we knew it, we were making films commercially – most of them so dreadful they’ve blessedly disappeared from the scene, although Hester’s Grandmum wasn’t too bad, and She Begs to Differ had its moments.

“Then came the War, and while the Americans happily went on building studios and hiring actors, Randolph was reduced to filming the local evacuees and German prisoners on pig farms. But in 1915, he talked his way into France, where he shot The Aeronaut , about a spotter balloon. Two and a half years later, in winter of 1917, he managed to return, and was thrilled to come under live fire. Or within a mile or so of live fire, at any rate.

“It was a revelation. Randolph came home and burned those copies of Mafeking as a sort of vow, that utter realism would be the guiding light of Fflytte Films. And so it’s been to this day: We make the audience feel ‘the wind in your face and the lash on your back.’ ”

“I do remember that – the Roman galley film!”

“The first time Fflytte Films hit the headlines.”

“But wasn’t the case dismissed?”

“Not dismissed: settled out of court. Randolph paid the actor off, although, truth to tell, the chap hadn’t actually been beaten. It was camera tricks. Occasionally, we are reduced to mere verisimilitude.”

“I’m glad to hear you don’t sacrifice your actors for the battle scenes. Or bury them under volcano ash. But why on earth pay the man off?”

“One cannot buy that kind of publicity, Miss Russell. Fflytte Films pummelling its actors bloody for the sake of realism? Priceless word-of-mouth. Almost as good as burning down the village in Krakatoa -although the ash there was flour, and the volcano was only waist high.”

“Good to know. And now you’re doing The Pirates of Penzance -or at any rate, a picture about a picture about it.”

“The plot is, a film crew is making a picture about the pirates who come to Penzance in the Gilbert and Sullivan operetta. And as they film, the crew gets involved with real-life Barbary pirates.”

“Er, you do know that there aren’t any more Barbary pirates?” An American film-maker might not have picked up on this little fact, but a man with Hale’s accent would surely have had a modicum of history thrust down his throat.

“Of course. On the other hand, there will always be pirates of one stripe or another in the world.”

“And this film-within-a-film is about real pirates wrapped around fictional pirates?”

“You’re catching on.”

“It’s a farce, then?”

“No, actually, it’s more along the lines of an adventure. Do you remember the story in The Pirates of Penzance ?”

“Dimly.” I had probably fallen asleep halfway through the first act: Music has that effect on me. A source of continual outrage from my musical husband.

“The young pirate Frederic, on the eve of his twenty-first birthday, announces to his fellows that he has never been able to stomach piracy, and that even though this particular band to which he has been apprenticed is soft-hearted, he intends to leave them and devote himself to fighting piracy. He falls in love with the daughter of a Major-General, but through a piece of trickery, the pirates take him back into their ranks, capturing the girl and her sisters to take as their wives. There follows a great deal of Gilbertian shenanigans before the pirates are revealed to be not only Englishmen, and loyal to the Queen, but of noble birth as well, which makes them appropriate husbands for the Major-General’s many daughters. Happy endings all around.”

To such had the wit of Chaucer and Shakespeare descended.

“How many daughters?” I asked.

“Productions of the opera have varied in the numbers of both daughters and pirates – there are four named sisters and simply a ‘chorus’ of pirates. In addition to Mabel and Frederic, Randolph has decided on twelve of each.”

“ Thirteen daughters? Wouldn’t that make some of them a bit young to marry?” Or old.

“We’re classifying them as four sets of triplets. And Mabel, of course.”

“Mustn’t forget Mabel. And a dozen constables as well?”

“For symmetry, one might imagine, but no, only six of those. Plus the sergeant.”

“Twelve and twelve and two and seven – thirty-three actors?”

“We won’t have pirates at first, but you have also to add Ruth, Frederic’s piratical nursemaid, and Major-General Stanley, Mabel’s father.”

“And you want me to help keep that lot happy, healthy, and in some kind of order?”

“Plus the crew – cameraman and assistant, make-up woman, seamstress, three or four others. No servants; Randolph banned the actors from bringing their servants along after Anna Karenina -two illegitimate pregnancies, one divorce, and a bullet wound between them. Because of the cold,” he explained.

“Of course.”

“So no personal maids or valets. However,” Hale added, his voice innocent but his eyes taking on a wicked gleam in their depths, “the four youngest sisters – youngest in fact, not youngest on film – will bring their mothers.”

“Oh, Lord,” I said. I had encountered the mothers of young prima donnas before.

He laughed aloud. “You begin to see why I greeted you with such enthusiasm this afternoon.”

“You all but wept in joy. Well, if that’s the case, I’d best-” I started, but he cut me off.

“There’s something else.”

What on earth could surpass what he had already described? “Yes?”

He reached for the decanter, replenishing our glasses. The level in the glass rose; I braced myself. “You seem a sensible kind of person, Miss Russell. The kind of person who pays attention to details.”

“I try.”

“And the kind of person who dislikes … wrongdoing.”

The very model of an unwilling apprentice pirate, one might say. “Yes,” I ventured.

“And quite, well, sensible.”

Like my shoes? I wondered.

“Plucky, even.”

Plucky?

“Because I was thinking, perhaps you would be willing to … extend your assignment. Just a little.”

Please, please don’t ask me to dress up as one of the daughters . “Er,” I said.

“So that in the course of your job, if you come across something – how to say this? Something out of the ordinary – you will bring it to my attention.”

I kept my face still, although my heart gave a little thump. Was the man aware of the same activities that had attracted Lestrade’s attention? Or had one of his blue-blooded chums dropped a hint about the investigation, and he wished me to share any findings with him? Or – further concern – could he be laying a false trail for me by claiming concern for illicit behaviour?

Pirates within pirates, crime within crime …

“Perhaps you’d best explain what you mean by ‘out of the ordinary.’ ”

He picked up his glass, to swirl the contents into an amber whirlpool.