Docketful of Poesy (12 page)

She yawned widely, unlocked her room, and went
inside. The door clicked shut behind her.

I closed my own door and went back to bed, though it
was some time before I drifted back to sleep.

Chapter Nine

W
e began filming the exterior
of Rogue’s Gallery at seven o’clock on Tuesday morning. By nine
o’clock I was sure that show business was no business—for me.

The day’s shooting started with watching the
stuntwoman drive a Mini identical to the one used in the States
down the lane, and pull up under the trees in front of Craddock
House. I’m sorry to say it was no more fascinating in the English
Lake District than it had been in Tehachapi—although the scenery
was certainly nicer.

At least everything was moving swiftly. The
stuntwoman was timed and then the drive was filmed. Then it was
Tracy’s turn. She replaced the stuntwoman in the car and practiced
getting out of the Mini and walking up to the front door of Rogue’s
Gallery. She walked like a model strutting down a catwalk, and even
though I told myself it didn’t matter, it drove me nuts. No one was
going to mistake Tracy for a high school English teacher—unless she
was a teacher who supplemented her income in ways guaranteed to go
unapproved by the PTA.

“You’re sniffing,” Peter remarked, joining me at the
picture window of his living room where I gazed down at the scene
below. He handed me a cup of tea.

“I’m what?”

He gave a little disapproving sniff. “Like Jane Eyre
when Mr. Rochester was telling her things she didn’t like to
hear.”

I laughed reluctantly. He sipped from his own cup.
Having spent the previous night getting Rogue’s Gallery in shape to
open this morning, he had only risen a short time before the camera
crew arrived. He wore only Levis, despite the chilly morning. His
hair was ruffled, and he smelled tantalizingly warm and male.

“Who’s that?” Peter nodded at Miles Friedman striding
through the immaculate front garden, cowboy hat on his head,
shouting orders as he went.

“That’s the director.”

“He looks like it.”

Miles had arrived during the night—and as I watched
him talking to Tracy, I thought I had a good idea whom Roberta had
been talking to in the hallway at two o’clock in the morning.
“Apparently he’s a Hollywood legend, but not for his
filmmaking.”

He drained his teacup. “I’ve got to get dressed. I’ve
an appointment with the aide to the Right Honourable Angela
Hornsby.”

“Who?”

“Our new neighbor; you can’t have missed the talk
last night about our new lady MP. She’s taken the old Monkton
Estate.”

Actually, between jet lag and Irish coffees, it
seemed I
had
missed one or two points of interest. “My
goodness, that house sees a lot of traffic. The estate agents
should install a revolving door.”

“Apparently the Honourable Angela is planning to
furnish the old place with antiques supplied by local dealers. Very
politic of her.”

“Very. Is she still campaigning or something?”

He ignored this, giving me a quick kiss and
disappearing into his bedroom. I returned to watching the circus
below while I listened to Peter moving around, opening and closing
drawers and the armoire door.

I thought again of that odd, disjointed conversation
I had heard between Roberta and Miles.
Of course it was an
accident. What do you think it was? Murder?
It seemed to me
that the only thing they could have been talking about was Walter’s
death. Apparently Roberta feared that it might be something beyond
the accident it appeared to be—she had intimated as much to me back
in Los Angeles. Could Walter’s death have been the terrible
consequence of someone’s attempt to eliminate Peter?

From the little I’d learned about Walter he didn’t
seem the kind of person to inspire murder in the hearts of his
fellows. Mostly he just seemed to inspire irritation.

But unless someone had actually followed Peter to Los
Angeles, no one could have known he was there—certainly not in time
to arrange to kill him. I knew Peter hadn’t told anyone about his
arrival, because I’d been with him from the moment he left the
airport. And why would someone bother trying to make an attempt on
Peter’s life look like a traffic accident when they hadn’t bothered
to make the previous attack look like anything but what it was?

The police certainly hadn’t seemed to find anything
suspicious in Walter’s death—at least, nothing more suspicious than
what it was on the surface: a hit and run.

So…really, the strangest part of all this was that
Roberta would leap to the conclusion that Walter had been murdered.
Surely that wasn’t the normal first conclusion to draw when hearing
of someone being struck by a car? But thinking back on my fading
recollection of that overheard conversation, that did seem to be
what Roberta feared. Unless I had entirely misunderstood her, but
what else could she have been talking about? Surely a discussion
about Miles making advances to his female stars or equipment
malfunctions wouldn’t involve the mention of murder?

I finished my tea, noticing that production seemed to
have halted. Miles and Roberta were in conference again, and it
looked like another animated one.

“I’m going downstairs,” I called, and Peter called
back something vague.

Todd was the first person I met in the front
garden.

“What’s going on?”

“Bad news,” he informed me briefly, his mouth full of
some kind of pastry. “The bird playing the Honourable Jacinda ’ad
some problem with her passport. She can’t get into the
country.”

“What will they do?”

A little gust of crumbs flew my way. “Hire local
talent, I s’pose.” He didn’t seem worried about it.

We stood around a while more—a great deal of making a
movie seems to involve standing around and waiting—and then Miles
and Roberta seemed to come to some agreement. Roberta looked
around, spotted me, and approached. The tinted glasses veiled her
eyes, but I thought I recognized that expression, and braced
accordingly.

“Grace, do you think if you were to ask Peter very,
very
nicely he might consider letting us shoot inside
Rogue’s Gallery?”

“I don’t think I have that much niceness in me,” I
said.

She waved that aside. “It would save us so much time
and money because either we’ve got to scout another suitable
interior location or we’ve got to build a set, and none of them are
going to be nearly as perfect as…well, the real thing.”

“But you already knew that.” I was genuinely puzzled.
Though they were ostensibly on a shoestring budget, Kismet
Productions seemed to have unlimited funds when necessary for
things like moving the filming overseas. Roberta and Miles seemed
to be reasonably experienced in some ways, but in others…they
seemed to be making it up as they went along. It was all so
odd.

“Yes,” Roberta said. “And we can make it work if we
have to, but it would be so much nicer all around if we could
actually shoot in there.”

“Peter will never go for it,” I told her.

“Why not? We pay well.
Very
well, as you can
testify.”

“Money isn’t an issue for Peter.”

She smiled a tight little smile. “Money is an issue
for everyone. Take it from me.”

We fell silent as the filming recommenced. I could
feel her buzzing with unspoken annoyance at my uncooperativeness,
but I didn’t have to ask Peter to know that never in a million
years would he okay filming inside Rogue’s Gallery. He hadn’t been
thrilled about them filming the outside.

“Oh, for chrissake!” Miles suddenly yelled. “Cut!” He
began shouting as a red Mercedes drove down the lane and pulled up
beneath the trees on the other side of the road. “Pammy! Pammy,
you’re supposed to have these cowboys under control!” And to the
cowboys in question, “You’re not crosswalk attendants for
chrissake! You’re supposed to be
blocking
traffic! What the
hell’s going on?”

Pammy clicked off her walkie-talkie and trotted over
to deal with the latest crisis.

“We couldn’t stop him!” yelled Ted—one of the crew
who also functioned as a stuntman. “Says he’s working for the
government.”

The entire set stood in silence as an elegant young
man carrying a briefcase got out of the Mercedes and walked quickly
up the flagstone steps toward the shop, deprecatingly eyeing the
cameras, crew, and milling cast members staring back at him. Bells
jingled as he stepped inside the shop.

“Get that road blocked
off!
” Miles roared. “I
don’t care if you have to park one of the vans across it. This
would
never
happen in L.A.!”

“We’ve got it under control, Miles,” Pammy called
over her shoulder.

The crew moved to cordon off the road, and I winced,
imagining Peter’s view on
that
.

While the crew was busily cutting off all access to
the shop, the assistant director ran inside, verified that no one
would come out, and Tracy and Todd began filming a scene where
Peter and Grace argue over who knew what, and then fall into a long
passionate kiss. Originally the scene was supposed to take place
within Rogue’s Gallery, but the decision had been made to move it
to the front garden.

Tracy began running her dialogue—most of it things I
would never have said if my life had depended on it—finally ending,
“But you can’t just let these miscreants take what they want. You
can’t give in to them!”

“Miscreants.” As
if!
Walter Christie had
formed the most singular notion of the way I talked.

“I admire your spirit,” Todd said in character as
Peter. He cocked a brow—and for an instant he truly seemed to be
channeling Peter. “In fact, I admire many,
many
things about
you, Faith Bolton!”

He swept Tracy into a passionate embrace and they
began kissing each other in a way that frankly looked more like
space aliens devouring an enemy species.

The rest of the cast and crew observed silently until
finally Todd broke away gasping for breath. “Blimey!” he said, and
there was laughter and a smattering of applause. Miles yelled,
“Cut,” and everyone looked sheepish. Tracy was grinning widely.

It was strange to me how disjointed the filming
process was. Going by what Roberta had told me, half the scenes
were to be filmed out of order. And imagine trying to act out an
intimate moment with a giant camera just a few inches away—not to
mention all those lights and all those interested observers. It was
amazing to me than any actor could keep his focus or that any film
had even a semblance of ambiance or mood.

Tracy and Todd went through the scene again, kissing
each other with nearly as much fervor the second time around. Miles
yelled irritably to cut and print, and it was time to break while
the cameras and equipment were repositioned on the far side of the
garden. Tracy and Todd each had a costume change. Todd disappeared
inside one of the trailers being used to haul equipment.

Tracy, her next outfit draped over her arm, tapped on
the door of Rogue’s Gallery. She tried the handle and the door
swung open with a cheerful jingle of bells. “Hello?” she called.
“Anyone at home?” She slipped inside, closed the door

I looked down at the shooting script. I reminded
myself that it would be silly to be disturbed by Tracy’s
transparent behavior; Peter had had a lifetime of that. If
anything, he’d likely find her a pest.

“
Grace!” someone shouted from
behind me.

I turned—accurately, we
all
turned—in time to
see a young, very blond woman in thigh-high boots hoofing down the
road, eluding the crew members trying to keep her back.

I had to admit it was the voice I recognized, because
the woman looked like no one I knew.

“Grace!” she yelled again, sprinting away from her
pursuers. “It’s me!”

“Cordelia?” I hurried across the lawn, waving off the
crew members moving to intercept my young friend. “What are you
doing here?” A foot or two from her, I blinked, taking in the long
blond hair, Egyptian-style eyeliner, and scarlet leather boots. On
the bright side, she wasn’t wearing anything with skulls on it, and
that was an improvement from the last time I’d seen her.

“I heard you were back!” We hugged. “I’m down for the
weekend.”

“Down from where?”

“Chiswick. London. I’m attending the Arts Educational
School until I’m old enough for RADA in July.”

“RADA? The acting school? I thought you were going to
be a writer?”

“I am. A writer and an actress.” She offered a sunny
smile.

It was hard to imagine Lady Vee sanctioning a career
on the stage, but at the same time she had never had a lot of time
or energy—or patience—for her seventeen-year-old great- niece.
Which is how I’d ended up spending so much time with Cordelia
Dumas. At first it had been something along the lines of paid—well,
bribed—chaperone, but eventually I’d grown fond of the kid. She was
smart and funny—insecure and boy-crazy too, but those were things I
planned on helping her grow out of.

We chatted for a few moments and then I noticed that
Tracy had still not come out of the shop, and I suggested that
Cordelia and I go inside so we could continue catching up
upstairs.

I spotted Tracy immediately. She had changed into a
very short, pink, gauzy dress—rather pretty if you didn’t mind
wearing your slip in public. She looked up from a display of
Victorian chimney pots as Cordelia and I entered. I nodded
politely. She smiled with her mouth, but her eyes stayed cool.

At the far end of the shop I could see Peter with the
elegant young man seriously discussing a human-sized pair of
plaster, scrim, and horsehair angel wings mounted on the wall. The
wings were from an old abbey, and Peter had them astronomically
priced. It looked to me as if he finally might be about to make a
sale. I moved down another aisle with Cordelia where I could keep
unobtrusive watch on both Tracy and Peter.