“Now, you two, go and get cups and plates for the two gentlemen,” said the woman with the revolvers to the two corpses in dress-clothes.
“Listen, please,” Miss Samsonoff gravely addressed Mr. Maturin, “my name isn’t Samsonoff at all but Kettlewell, and that’s my mother and these are my four brothers——”
“How do you do?” said Mr. Maturin, absently drinking the policeman’s coffee, but Mr. Trevor is glad that no one heard what he said.
“You see,” said Miss Kettlewell, and she was shy and beautiful, “we are The Kettlewell Film Company, just us; but of course we haven’t got a lot of money——”
“A ‘lot’ is good!” said the policeman.
“My brother there,” and Miss Kettlewell pointed to the wretched man with the Homburg hat of green plush, “was the director of an American company in Los Angeles, but he got the sack lately and so we thought we would make some films on our own. You see, we are such a large family! And the recent murders gave us a really brilliant idea for a film called ‘The Ghoul of Golders Green,’ which, thanks to you two gentlemen, we have completed to-night. Oh, I do hope it will be a success, especially as you have been kind enough to help us in our predicament, for we hadn’t any money to engage actors—and we did so need two gentlemen, just like you, who really looked the part, didn’t we, mother?”
“But, my dear child,” cried Beau Maturin, “I’m afraid your film can’t have come out very well. Trevor and I will look perfectly ghastly, as we neither of us had any make-up on.”
“But it’s that kind of film!” smiled Miss Kettlewell. “You see, you and your friend are supposed to be corpses who by some powerful psychic agency are digging your own graves—— Heavens, what’s that!”
There, at the open door, stood an apparition with a dreadful face. He appeared, says Mr. Trevor, to have some difficulty in choosing among the words that his state of mind was suggesting to him.
“And me?” gasped the taxi-driver hoarsely. “Wot abaht me? ‘Angingabahtallnight! ‘Oo’s going to pay me, that’s wot I want to know? There’s four quid and more on that clock——”