CHAPTER XXII
AN ARRIVAL
Mr. Hammond was in no placid state of mind himself after the peculiarly acting individual who called himself “John, the hermit,” left his office. The very fact that the man refused to tell anything about his personal affairs—who he really was, or where he came from—induced the moving picture producer to believe there must be something wrong about him.
Mr. Hammond went to the door of the shack and watched the man tramping up the beach toward the end of the point. What a dignified stride he had! Rather, it was the stride of a poseur—like nothing so much as that of the old-time tragedian, made famous by the Henry Irving school of actors.
“An ancient ‘ham’ sure enough, just as the boys say,” muttered the manager.
The so-called hermit disappeared. The moving picture people were gathering for dinner. The sun, although still above the horizon, was dimmed by cloud-banks which were rising steadily to meet clouds over the sea.
A wan light played upon the heaving “graybacks” outside the mouth of the harbor. The wind whined among the pines which grew along the ridge of Beach Plum Point.
A storm was imminent. Just as Mr. Hammond took note of this and wished that Ruth Fielding and her party had returned, a snorting automobile rattled along the shell road and halted near the camp.
“Is this the Alectrion Film Company?” asked a shrill voice.
“This is the place, Miss,” said the driver of the small car.
The chauffeur ran his jitney from the railroad station and was known to Mr. Hammond. The latter went nearer.
Out of the car stepped a girl—a very young girl to be traveling alone. She was dressed in extreme fashion, but very cheaply. Her hair was bobbed and she wore a Russian blouse of cheap silk. Her skirt was very narrow, her cloth boots very high, and the heels of them were like those of Jananese clogs.
What with the skimpy skirt and the high heels she could scarcely walk. She was laden with two bags—one an ancient carpet-bag that must have been seventy-five years old, and the other a bright tan one of imitation leather with brass clasps. She wore a coal-scuttle hat pulled down over her eyes so that her face was quite extinguished.
Altogether her get-up was rather startling. Mr. Hammond saw Jim Hooley come out of his tent to stare at the new arrival. She certainly was a “type.”
There was a certain kind of prettiness about the girl, and aside from her incongruous garments she was not unattractive—when her face was revealed. Mr. Hammond’s interest increased. He approached the spot where the girl had been left by the jitney driver.
“You came to see somebody?” he asked kindly. “Who is it you wish to see?”
“Is this the moving picture camp, Mister?” she returned.
“Yes,” said the manager, smiling. “Are you acquainted with somebody who works here?”
“Yes. I am Arabella Montague Fitzmaurice,” said the girl, with an air that seemed to show that she expected to be recognized when she had recited her name.
Mr. Hammond refrained from open laughter. He only said:
“Why—that is nice. I am glad to meet you, my dear. Who are you looking for?”
“I want to see my pa, of course. I guess you know who he is?”
“I am not sure that I do, my dear.”
“You don’t—Say! who are you?” demanded Bella, with some sharpness.
“I am only the manager of the company. Who is your father, child?”
“Well, of all the—— Wouldn’t that give you your nevergitovers!” exclaimed Bella, in broad amazement. “Say! I guess my pa is your leading man.”
“Mr. Hasbrouck? Impossible!”
“Never heard of him,” said Bella, promptly. “Montague Fitzmaurice, I mean.”
“And I never heard of him,” declared Mr. Hammond, both puzzled and amused.
“What?” gasped the girl, almost stunned by this statement. “Maybe you know him as Mr. Pike. That is our honest-to-goodness name—Pike.”
“I am sorry that you are disappointed, my dear,” said the manager kindly. “But don’t be worried. If you expected to meet your father here, perhaps he will come later. But really, I have no such person as that on my staff at the present time.”
“I don’t know—— Why!” cried Bella, “he sent me money and said he was working here. I—I didn’t tell him I was coming. I just got sick of those Perkinses, and I took the money and went to Boston and got dressed up, and then came on here. I—I just about spent all the money he sent me to get here.”
“Well, that was perhaps unwise,” said Mr. Hammond. “But don’t worry. Come along now to Mother Paisley. She will look out for you—and you can stay with us until your father appears. There is some mistake somewhere.”
By this speech he warded off tears. Bella hastily winked them back and squared her thin shoulders.
“All right, sir,” she said, picking up the bags again. “Pa will make it all right with you. He wrote in his letter as if he had a good engagement.”
Mr. Hammond might have learned something further about this surprising girl at the time, but just as he introduced her to Mother Paisley one of the men came running from the point and hailed him:
“Mr. Hammond! There’s a boat in trouble off the point. I think she was making for this harbor. Have you got a pair of glasses?”
Mr. Hammond had a fine pair of opera glasses, and he produced them from his desk while he asked:
“What kind of boat is it, Maxwell?”
“Looks like that blue motor that Miss Fielding and her friends went off in this morning. We saw it coming along at top speed. And suddenly it stopped. They can’t seem to manage it——”
The manager hurried with Maxwell along the sands. The sky was completely overcast now, and the wind whipped the spray from the wave tops into their faces. The weather looked dubious indeed, and the manager of the film corporation was worried before even he focused his glasses upon the distant motor-boat.