Buy Ebook Movies and Meaning: An Introduction To Film 6th Edition (Ebook PDF) Cheap Price
Buy Ebook Movies and Meaning: An Introduction To Film 6th Edition (Ebook PDF) Cheap Price
Buy Ebook Movies and Meaning: An Introduction To Film 6th Edition (Ebook PDF) Cheap Price
com
https://ebooksecure.com/product/movies-and-
meaning-an-introduction-to-film-6th-edition-ebook-
pdf/
https://ebooksecure.com/product/movies-and-meaning-an-introduction-to-
film-6th-edition-ebook-pdf/
ebooksecure.com
https://ebooksecure.com/product/latin-american-history-goes-to-the-
movies-understanding-latin-americas-past-through-film/
ebooksecure.com
https://ebooksecure.com/product/film-art-an-introduction-12th-edition-
ebook-pdf/
ebooksecure.com
https://ebooksecure.com/download/foundation-engineering-geotechnical-
principles-and-practical-applications-ebook-pdf-2/
ebooksecure.com
(Original PDF) Gartsmans Shoulder Arthroscopy E-Book
https://ebooksecure.com/product/original-pdf-gartsmans-shoulder-
arthroscopy-e-book/
ebooksecure.com
https://ebooksecure.com/product/ebook-pdf-creating-a-mentoring-
program-mentoring-partnerships/
ebooksecure.com
https://ebooksecure.com/product/ebook-pdf-bioinformatics-and-data-
analysis-in-microbiology/
ebooksecure.com
https://ebooksecure.com/product/original-pdf-management-by-
christopher-p-neck/
ebooksecure.com
https://ebooksecure.com/product/ebook-pdf-biology-the-unity-and-
diversity-of-life-14th-edition/
ebooksecure.com
Intelligent Vehicular Networks and Communications.
Fundamentals, Architectures and Solutions 1st Edition
Anand Paul - eBook PDF
https://ebooksecure.com/download/intelligent-vehicular-networks-and-
communications-fundamentals-architectures-and-solutions-ebook-pdf/
ebooksecure.com
P r ef a ce
M
ovies and Meaning focuses on narrative filmmaking, and on fictional
narratives in particular, because this is the most popular and perva-
sive form of filmmaking, seen by the largest audiences, and what most
people mean when they talk about “the movies.” Throughout the text, boxes
extend the major topics of discussion into more specialized areas and supplement
film examples with brief profiles of major directors. The reader will gain a more
comprehensive understanding of cinema by exploring these boxed discussions.
Each chapter ends with a few suggested readings to direct the interested reader’s
attention to more intensive treatments of basic issues. Boldface terms throughout
the text designate items defined in the glossary.
attention that it gives to the ways that viewers understand and interpret the elements
of film structure and the attention that it gives to cinema as a global business as well
as an art. To fully understand the medium of cinema, the reader needs to know what
filmmakers do with the tools of their craft, how viewers respond to the designs those
tools create, and how the art and business of film are interrelated. Film is an art
form, but it is also a business enterprise. These two domains are not separate; they
map onto each other, and knowing one requires knowledge of the other.
These three core questions frame the essential attributes of cinema. The first
question—How do movies express meaning?—asks what filmmakers do and how
they do it. The basic tools of filmmaking include cinematography, production design,
the actors’ performance, editing, sound design, and narrative structure. Each of these
areas contributes to the organizing design of a film, and, by manipulating these tools,
filmmakers are able to express a range of meanings.
To look only at what filmmakers do to create meaning, though, is to leave
out a crucial part of the picture. One also needs to know what viewers do with
the movies they watch because, without viewers, there are no meanings in film.
The medium of cinema depends on a contract between filmmaker and viewer.
Together, they co-create the film experience.
Thus, the second core question—How do viewers understand film?—asks
what viewers do when watching movies. How do viewers interpret the audiovi-
sual designs that filmmakers have created? How do filmmakers anticipate in their
work the likely ways that viewers will react to certain kinds of stories and audio-
visual designs? What makes movies understandable to viewers in the first place?
How can filmmakers facilitate the viewer’s ability to understand and interpret the
images and sounds on screen?
Viewers respond to film, and understand it, by applying significant aspects
of their real-life visual, personal, and social experience as well as their knowl-
edge of motion picture conventions and style. The upcoming chapters emphasize
both aspects of this response: the mapping of real experience onto the screen and
the knowledge of medium-specific codes and style. This dual response is a func-
tion of the medium’s own duality, its ability to document visual reality and to
transform it. These functions receive special emphasis throughout the chapters
because they are fundamental to much of what the cinema does and how.
The third question—How does cinema operate as an art and business on a
global scale?—asks about the medium’s capacity as a business enterprise and a
vehicle of creative expression. An account that emphasized the cinema only as an
art form would be inadequate and incomplete, and it would fail to grasp some
of the m edium’s essential features, namely, the remarkable interrelation between
art and commerce that has defined cinema since its inception. Filmmakers today
work in a medium that faces grave economic problems, and these problems are
affecting the kinds of films that get made. Furthermore, commercial filmmaking
operates as part of a global communications industry, which exerts considerable
influence on film content and style. At the same time, the global context carries
with it considerable diversity, with filmmakers representing a range of countries,
cultures, and styles. Although these issues of art and commerce, of cultural diversity
and h omogenization, are complex, no comprehensive examination of the medium
should ignore them.
Supplements
Instructor’s Manual
The accompanying Instructor’s Manual, written by Stephen Prince, includes an
outline of the main emphases in each chapter, suggested teaching approaches for
the content, exercises, and sample test questions for every chapter. It is available
for download in our Instructor’s Resource Center, www.pearsonhighered.com/irc
(access code required).
Acknowledgments
For their valuable help on this and previous editions, I owe great thanks to Kevin
Davis, Linda Montgomery, Donald Larsson, Richard Terrill, Blake Wood, Paul
Helford, Joe Opiela, Karon Bowers, Terry Geeskin, Edd Sewell, Gerry Scheeler,
Carl Plantinga, Richard Dillard, Eric Poe Miller, Grant Corley, Bob Denton,
Teresa Darvalics, Marjorie Payne, Myrna Breskin, Marty Tenney, and Molly
Taylor. Also thanks to Susan Mattingly, Executive Director of the Lyric Theater,
who kindly allowed me to photograph the historic site. Philip Cho designed the
visual effects drawings and diagrams that appear in Chapter Eight.
The author gratefully acknowledges the following reviewers of the new
edition:
Nancy Andreasen, Inver Hills Community College
Daniel Linton, University of Memphis
Robert Matorin, Middlesex Community College
Helen Robbins, Lyons University
Objectives
After reading this chapter, you should be able to:
■ explain the nature of film structure and its ■ distinguish the three basic camera angles
relation to the ways movies express meaning and describe the ways they influence viewer
response
■ describe the production process and its
relation to film structure ■ differentiate telephoto, wide-angle, and zoom
lenses and explain their optical effects
■ describe the relation between film structure
and the cinema’s properties of time and space ■ explain the basic categories of camera
movement and their expressive functions
■ distinguish the three basic camera positions
and their expressive functions ■ explain how a film’s structural design is
shaped by a filmmaker’s choices about how to
■ describe how camera position can clarify the use the tools of style
meaning of an actor’s facial expression and
gestures
1
■ describe the relation between the ■ explain how the camera creates images that
camera’s view of things and human both correspond with and transform the
perception viewer’s visual experience
The shark in Jaws (1975) and the digital characters in The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the
King (2004) thrilled and amused moviegoers throughout the world. Audiences have em-
braced films as diverse as Toy Story 3 (2010), True Grit (2010), The Social Network (2010), and
The Dark Knight (2008). Each of these pictures provided its viewers with a strong cinematic
experience, crafted by filmmakers using the elements of film structure: camerawork, lighting,
sound, editing. To understand how movies express meanings and elicit emotions, one must
begin by understanding their structural design. This chapter explains the concept of film
structure, the camera’s role as an element of structure, and the relation between the camera’s
method of seeing and a viewer’s understanding of cinema.
Figure 1.1
The production process.
done digitally (known as digital grading) or using traditional lab methods. Copies of
the film are then made for exhibition, either as prints (on film) or as digital video.
Because filmmakers apply the elements of structure at different points in the
production process, these elements can be used to modify or influence one another. A
director might realize that a scene as filmed lacks emotional force and may turn to the
composer for music to supply the missing emotion or to the editor to sharpen its dra-
matic focus. A cinematographer in postproduction may alter the image captured on
film by using digital grading to adjust color, contrast, and other elements.
Schoonmaker. George Lucas relied on Ben Burtt as the sound designer for all six of
the Star Wars films. The continuities established by these professional relationships are
vitally important to a director’s ability to get what he or she wants on the screen.
Filmmaker Spotlight
Stanley Kubrick
During his 46-year career, Stanley Kubrick made
only 12 feature films. Despite the relatively small
body of work that he left, however, he had an
extraordinary impact on the medium and is recog-
nized as one of its major filmmakers. A director of
legendary stature, he was renowned for spending
years planning a film and years more shooting it and
working on postproduction. Famous for doing many
takes of each shot and for the precision of his visual
designs, Kubrick honed a style that is unique and
unmistakable, and his films offer bleak but compel-
ling visions of human beings trapped and crushed
by the systems—social, military, technological—they
have created.
Kubrick’s reputation was that of an intellectual
director, keenly interested in a range of subjects and
whose films explored issues and ideas, yet he never
finished high school. At age 17 he dropped out and
began work as a photographer, working at Look
magazine for several years before completing two
The Shining (Warner Bros., 1980); A
documentary shorts for the March of Time newsreel Clockwork Orange (Warner Bros.,
company (Day of the Fight [1951] and Flying Padre 1971)
[1951]). Borrowing money from family and friends, Kubrick made some of the most imaginative
he then completed his first two features as director, and precisely designed films in cinema history.
Fear and Desire (1953) and Killer’s Kiss (1955). In a His passion for design led him to shoot 30 and
move that announced his conviction that cinema 40 takes of a shot until he had what he wanted.
was a medium of personal artistry and that he would The results were mysterious, haunting, and po-
control his own work, Kubrick produced, wrote, di- etic and included Jack Nicholson’s spectacular
madness in The Shining and visions of a violent,
rected, photographed, and edited these films.
authoritarian future in A Clockwork Orange. Frame
After another crime film, The Killing (1956), enlargements.
Kubrick made Paths of Glory (1958), a powerful
drama of World War I and the first of his films to all s ubsequent films. He next went to England to
pursue what would be his great theme, the domi- film Lolita (1962), from the controversial Vladimir
nation of people by the systems they have created Nabokov novel, and he then settled there, using
(envisioned in this film as the machinery of war and English production facilities for most of his ensuing
the pitiless chain of command). Influenced by the films. He was becoming a filmmaker whose work
moving camera of director Max Ophuls, Kubrick’s transcended national boundary.
sustained tracking shots became a signature ele- Dr. Strangelove (1963) is a modern classic, a
ment of his style. shrewd and superb satire of the Cold War and the
Kubrick’s next film, Spartacus (1960), was a policy of nuclear deterrence aptly named MAD
production on which he, uncharacteristically, did (Mutual Assured Destruction). Kubrick’s startling
not have complete authority (the picture b elonged marriage of baroque imagery and popular music
to its star–producer Kirk Douglas), and as a result, (detonating atom bombs accompanied by the sen-
Kubrick was careful to work as his own producer on timental ballad “We’ll Meet Again”) became one
of his trademarks, used famously in 2001: A Space the mind in The Shining (1980), which depicts the
Odyssey (spaceships pirouette to the Blue Danube hotel’s sinister influence on a mentally unstable care-
waltz) and A Clockwork Orange (lurid violence set to taker and his family and ends with one of the direc-
Beethoven’s “Ode to Joy”). tor’s bleakest images of futility and alienation.
With Strangelove, these two films solidified Kubrick extended his pessimistic visions of hu-
Kubrick’s reputation as a social and cinematic man failure to eighteenth-century Ireland in Barry
visionary. 2001 (1968) is a visual feast whose Lyndon (1975) and the battlefields of Vietnam in
startling effects are married to a mystical and Full Metal Jacket (1985). His untimely death fol-
mind-bending narrative that takes humankind on lowed completion of Eyes Wide Shut (1999), a
a cosmic journey from the dawn of the apes to the haunting and mysterious evocation of erotic fan-
era of space travel. Controversial for its violence, A tasy and its emotional consequences.
Clockwork Orange (1971) depicted a brutal vision of Kubrick never made the same kind of film twice.
future society where the state learns to control the Each picture is uniquely different and uniquely reso-
violent impulses of its citizens. Kubrick said, “The nant and must be seen more than once before it
central idea of the film has to do with the ques- begins to yield up its treasures. Kubrick dedicated
tion of free will. Do we lose our humanity if we are his life to making films, and he believed that cin-
deprived of the choice between good and evil?” ema was an art. Few filmmakers gain the authority
By making the main character a thug and a men- to pursue this conviction without compromise.
ace to society, Kubrick aimed to give the question Kubrick’s achievements in this regard place him in
resonance. very select cinematic company. By showing film-
With dazzling Steadicam shots of a labyrinthine makers what the medium can achieve, Kubrick’s
hotel, Kubrick explored the effects of space on work remains a continuing inspiration. ■
slow moving, but in fact, the pacing of any given film typically varies as filmmakers
use structure to create narrative rhythms that alternately accelerate and decelerate.
While internal structural time results from a filmmaker’s manipulations of cinema
structure, viewers experience this type of time subjectively, and their responses often
vary greatly. One viewer may love the dramatic intensity and emotional lyricism of
The Bridges of Madison County (1995) or Monster’s Ball (2001), whereas another
may find the overall pacing of these films to be too slow.
Cinema is an art of time and space. The spatial properties of cinema have sev-
eral components. One involves the arrangement of objects within the frame (the
dimensions of the projected area on screen; the term also refers to the individual
still image on a strip of film). This is the art of framing, or composition, which is
discussed in the next chapter because it is a part of the cinematographer’s job.
The spatial properties of the cinema, though, go beyond the art of framing.
Cinema simulates an illusion of three-dimensional space on a flat screen. To do
so, it corresponds in key ways with the viewer’s experience of physical space in
daily life, and filmmakers create these correspondences in the design of their films.
Cinematographers control the distribution of light on the set to accentuate the shape,
texture, and positioning of objects and people. Film editors join shots to establish
spatial constancies on screen that hold regardless of changes in the camera’s position
and angle of view. Sound designers use the audio track to convey information about
physical space. The spatial properties of cinema are multi-dimensional and can be
expressed through many elements of structure. This chapter and succeeding chapters
explain these spatial properties and how filmmakers manipulate them.
Camera Position
The most basic way of classifying camera usage is in terms of camera position. This re-
fers to the distance between the camera and the subject it is photographing. Obviously,
the camera-to-subject distance is a continuum with an infinite series of points from very
close to very far. In practice, however, the basic positions usually are classified as varia-
tions of three essential camera setups: the long shot, the medium shot, and the close-up.
Each of these positions has its own distinct e xpressive functions in the cinema.
Filmmakers typically use the long shot to stress environment or setting and
to show a character’s position in relationship to a given environment. In Titanic
(1997), the majesty of the ship’s enormous size is conveyed with a series of long
shots that contrast the huge ship with the tiny passengers that crowd its decks.
When they are used to open a film or begin a scene, long shots may be referred to
as establishing shots. Many detective films, for example, begin with a long shot of
the urban environment, often taken from a helicopter.
In contrast to the long shot, the medium shot brings viewers closer to the char-
acters while still showing some of their environment. In The Phantom of the Opera
(2004), a medium-shot framing shows the Phantom (Gerard Butler) embracing
Christine (Emmy Rossum) while revealing details of the Phantom’s candlelit lair
underneath the opera house. Sometimes medium shots are labeled according to the
number of characters who are present within the frame. Accordingly, this shot from
The Phantom of the Opera would be termed a two-shot. A three-shot and a four-shot
would designate medium shots with larger numbers of people.
By contrast with long and medium shots, the close-up stresses characters or ob-
jects over the surrounding environment, usually for expressive or dramatic purposes,
and it can be an extremely powerful means for guiding and directing a viewer’s atten-
tion to important features of a scene’s action or meaning.
Once the filmmaker chooses a camera position, the camera is typically locked
down on a tripod or other type of platform in order to produce a steady image
without jitter. Alternatively, rather than locking the camera down, the filmmaker
An American in Paris
(MGM, 1951)
Longer, full-figure framings in
the dance sequences of classic
Hollywood musicals showcase the
beauty of the dance. The longer
framing allows the viewer to see
the performer’s entire body in mo-
tion. By contrast, contemporary
filmmakers “cheat” when they
film dance, using fast editing and
close-ups to create the impression
of a dance performance without
showing the real thing. Here, Gene
Kelly dances in an elaborate pro-
duction number designed around
the styles of Impressionist painting.
Frame enlargement.
might work with a hand-held camera. In this case, the camera operator p hysically
holds the camera, either on his or her shoulder or on a harness strapped to his or her
body. Long shots, medium shots, and close-ups can be filmed in this fashion. Going
hand-held enables a filmmaker to cover the action of a scene in a more flexible and
spontaneous way, but the challenge is to produce a smooth and steady image. (The
Steadicam can help to achieve this—it is discussed in the section on camera move-
ment.) All the shots in Jaws (1975), when the characters are at sea, are done with a
The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (New Line, 2001)
Galadriel (Cate Blanchett) is a strong, spiritual presence as ruler of the domain of
Lothlorien, where the film’s heroes journey seeking refuge. Note how the close-up
framing concentrates attention on her face. The framing is tight, and the focal plane
of the shot does not extend beyond her face. This gives the close-up additional punch.
The halo of light and Galadriel’s glowing, luminescent appearance were created digitally
in post-production. Frame enlargement.
The last two words give you the key to friend Paul's feelings
about them. One man he could keep an eye on, and he didn't
propose to have any more present. Of course, they filed that note
and used it again later, as you'll remember.
“Probably the claimant met him at the Blowhole and suggested a
walk over the open sands as a good way of avoiding eavesdroppers.
Paul would feel safer in the open. By the time they reached the old
wreck the claimant would have got him interested, or else his
natural fears would be dissipated. At the hulk the claimant obviously
turned, as though to go back across the sands, and Paul turned with
him. Then, from behind the hull, Aird stole out and did le coup du
Père François.”
“What's that?” Wendover demanded. “You talked a lot about Père
François and Sam Lloyd's ‘Get off the Earth’ puzzle, I remember.”
“If you happen to be in Paris late at night, squire, and a rough-
looking customer asks you the time or begs for a match, you'd
better look out for his friend—le Père François, they call him—who
may be coming up behind you with a long strip of flannel in his
hand. While the first man holds you in talk, the Père François lassoes
you with his flannel rope and pulls the two ends so that it catches
your throat. Then he sinks down suddenly and turns his back to you,
slipping the rope over his shoulder as he turns. This pulls you down
back to back with him; and when he rises to his normal height
again, there you are on his back like a sack on a coal-heaver's back,
with your feet off the ground. The first man then goes through your
pockets at his leisure, and if you choke to death before he's done, so
much the worse for you. You can't struggle with any effect.
“That I suspect, was how they caught friend Paul; and Aird just
carried him on his back to the quicksand and dumped him in. From
Aird's footmarks it was clear he'd been carrying a heavy weight; the
prints were deep and the feet almost parallel after he'd done his
Père François trick. See now what I meant by ‘Get off the Earth’?
Naturally there were no signs of a struggle, since all the struggle
was off the ground. And, of course, they'd take care to wear shoes
that left no clue—common type and largest size. And they got away
either in a boat or by wading along in the water, so as to leave no
tracks. I could see no way to bring the affair home to them. The
only sure method depended on our wringing evidence out of one of
them somehow; and I didn't see how it could be managed just then.
Also, I hadn't much of a case against Cargill beyond suspicion; and I
wanted him too, if it could be managed.
“The next thing was the arrival of the Fordingbridge lawyer; and
from him I learned that we might get on the track of any
malversations by Friend Paul if I went up to London. I wanted to
know definitely where I stood in that matter, because, if I was wrong
there, then the whole latter part of my notions would collapse. So I
made up my mind to go to town.
“But I was very uneasy. Now that Paul Fordingbridge was out of
the road for good, Mrs. Fleetwood was the only person between the
claimant and the cash. If she disappeared in her turn, then Miss
Fordingbridge would have welcomed her long-lost nephew with pure
joy and gratitude for his preservation, and there would have been no
one left alive to object to his coming into Foxhills and the rest.
Therefore, I was inclined to take some steps to see that she came to
no harm while I was away.
“The obvious thing to do would have been to warn her. But that
would have meant giving my case away to the Fleetwoods; and I
don't feel inclined to chuck confidences around if it can be avoided,
as I've pointed out before. Further, the police were not altogether in
good odour with the Fleetwoods; and I wasn't sure if I'd make much
impression on them by a mere warning, with nothing to back it. So I
hit on the notion of putting a man on to watch Mrs. Fleetwood; and,
as a further precaution, I fixed up that code-wire so that if I wanted
it I could have her arrested at a moment's notice, and then she'd be
safe in police hands and out of reach of the gang.
“I went up to London and found, as I'd expected, that friend Paul
had been playing ducks and drakes with all the securities he could
handle without exciting too much suspicion. He seems to have been
speculating right and left, most unsuccessfully. So I'd been right
about his motives, anyhow.
“But I couldn't get out of my mind the risk I was letting that girl
run; and at last—I suppose Miss Fordingbridge would say it was
telepathy or something—I got the wind up completely, and wired to
have her arrested. After that I felt safer.
“As you know, they'd been too quick for me. They fished out the
note that Paul Fordingbridge wrote to the claimant and they sent it
to her as if it came from Paul himself, after altering the hour on it.
She thought her uncle was in trouble; went to help him; dodged the
constable; and fell straight into the trap they'd set for her. You know
all the rest. And probably by now you understand why I was quite
content to let Mr. Aird have his full dose in the funnel of the
souffleur. There's nothing like a confession for convincing a jury, and
I meant him to hang if it could be managed. I didn't want to run any
risk of his getting off merely because it was all circumstantial
evidence.”
“Thanks,” said Wendover, seeing that the chief constable had
finished his outline. “To quote from that favourite detective story of
yours:
There's just one point I'd like to hear you on. What about
Staveley's resuscitation after his being killed in the war? Did you get
to the bottom of that by any chance?”
Sir Clinton hesitated a little before answering.
“I don't much care about pure guesswork, squire; but, if you'll
take it as that, then I don't mind saying what I think. Suppose that
is what happened. Staveley and Derek Fordingbridge went into
action together; and Staveley was under a cloud at the time. He'd
probably had enough of the war, and was looking for a way out.
Derek Fordingbridge gets killed in that battle, and is probably badly
damaged in the process—made unrecognisable we may suppose.
Staveley sees him killed, and grasps at the chance offered. He takes
Derek's identity disc off the body and leaves his own instead.
Probably he takes the contents of the pockets too, and puts his own
papers into the dead man's pockets. They were friends; and, if
anyone saw him at work, he'd have his excuse ready. No one would
think he was robbing the dead. Then he goes on—and simply hands
himself over to the enemy. He's a prisoner of war—under Derek's
name.
“He manages to escape, and the escape is put down to Derek's
credit. But, of course, Derek never turns up again; and naturally
people suppose that he must have died of exposure in his last
attempt, or been shot at the frontier, or something of that sort.
Meanwhile Staveley, once out of Germany, drops his borrowed
identity, probably changes his name, and disappears. I suspect he
was in very hot water with the military authorities, and was only too
glad of the chance to vanish for good.
“After the war, he evidently got in amongst a queer gang, and
lived as best he could. Billingford's evidence points to that. And
somewhere among this shoal of queer fish he swam up against our
friend Cargill. My reading of the thing is that somehow Staveley gave
away—perhaps in his cups—something of what I've given you as my
guess; and Cargill, remembering his disfigured brother, saw a grand
scheme to be worked by putting forward his brother as claimant to
the Foxhills property.
“It wasn't half so wild a plan as the Tichborne business, and you
know how that panned out at the start. So the three of them set to
work to see the thing through. Staveley, I suspect, got hold of Aird,
who had invaluable information about all the affairs at Foxhills in the
old days. Then they went to work systematically with their card-
index and noted down everything that Aird and Staveley could
remember which would bear on the case.
“That accounts for the delay in the claimant turning up. It
probably was quite recently that Staveley fell in with Cargill. And
evidently the delay points to the fact that Staveley wasn't the
originator of the notion, else he'd have got to work much earlier. It
was only when he fell in with Cargill, who had a brother suitable to
play the part of the claimant, that anything could be done. Then
they must have spent some time in unearthing Aird.
“Well, at last they're ready. They come down to Lynden Sands
with their card-index handy. Now, the claimant doesn't want to
appear in public more than he can help, for every stranger is a
possible danger to him. He might fail to recognise some old friend,
and the fat might be in the fire. Nor does Staveley want to show
himself; for his presence might suggest the source of the claimant's
information. Aird's in the same position. And when they learn that
the Fordingbridges are at the hotel, Cargill is detached there to keep
an eye on them. Thus they need a go-between; and Billingford is
brought down to serve that purpose. Also, as soon as the claimant
makes his first move there will be sure to be a lot of gossip in the
village, anecdotes of the claimant's history floating round, and so
forth; and Billingford will be able to pick them up and report them to
the rest of the gang. They'd have been safer to leave Staveley and
Aird in London; but I suppose they were afraid something might be
sprung on them and they wanted their references handy.
“Peter Hay, I suspect, they fastened on as being the most
dangerous witness. Probably Aird made an appointment for the
claimant, and they called at the poor old chap's cottage at night. He
evidently refused to have anything to do with them; and he was too
dangerous to leave alive; so they killed him. Then they went after
the diary—probably Aird knew about that, or else Peter may have let
the information out somehow—and they took Hay's keys to get into
Foxhills. The silver plant was an obvious muddle. They hadn't Cargill
at the back of them at the time, and they made that mistake on the
spur of the moment.
“By that time they'd got in touch with Miss Fordingbridge. Aird
would know all about her spiritualistic leanings, and they played on
that string. But soon they learned they were up against Paul
Fordingbridge; and they began to see that it would be easiest to put
him out of their road.
“Meanwhile Staveley took it into his head to work on his own by
trying to blackmail the Fleetwoods. And you know what came of
that. The rest of the gang thought they could kill two birds with one
stone—at least, the gang minus Billingford, for really I don't think
Billingford was much more than a tool.
“Now, inspector, how far does that square with all the
confidences you extracted last night from that precious pair of
scoundrels? Do I get a box of chocolates or only a clay pipe in this
competition?”
The inspector made no attempt to suppress the admiration in his
tone.
“It's wonderfully accurate, sir. You're right on every point of
importance—even down to what happened in the war.”
“That's a relief,” the chief constable admitted with a laugh. “I was
rather afraid that I'd
And now I think I'll go back to the hotel and try to make my
peace with the Fleetwoods. I like them, and I'd hate to leave a false
impression of my character on their minds. Care to come along,
squire?”
THE END
Transcriber’s Note
This transcription follows the text of the Grosset & Dunlap edition
published in 1928. The following alterations have been made to
correct what are believed to be unambiguous printer's errors.
Updated editions will replace the previous one—the old editions will
be renamed.
1.D. The copyright laws of the place where you are located also
govern what you can do with this work. Copyright laws in most
countries are in a constant state of change. If you are outside the
United States, check the laws of your country in addition to the
terms of this agreement before downloading, copying, displaying,
performing, distributing or creating derivative works based on this
work or any other Project Gutenberg™ work. The Foundation makes
no representations concerning the copyright status of any work in
any country other than the United States.
1.E.6. You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary,
compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form,
including any word processing or hypertext form. However, if you
provide access to or distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg™ work
in a format other than “Plain Vanilla ASCII” or other format used in
the official version posted on the official Project Gutenberg™ website
(www.gutenberg.org), you must, at no additional cost, fee or
expense to the user, provide a copy, a means of exporting a copy, or
a means of obtaining a copy upon request, of the work in its original
“Plain Vanilla ASCII” or other form. Any alternate format must
include the full Project Gutenberg™ License as specified in
paragraph 1.E.1.
• You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive
from the use of Project Gutenberg™ works calculated using the
method you already use to calculate your applicable taxes. The
fee is owed to the owner of the Project Gutenberg™ trademark,
but he has agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to
the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation. Royalty
payments must be paid within 60 days following each date on
which you prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your
periodic tax returns. Royalty payments should be clearly marked
as such and sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive
Foundation at the address specified in Section 4, “Information
about donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive
Foundation.”
• You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free
distribution of Project Gutenberg™ works.
1.F.
1.F.4. Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth
in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you ‘AS-IS’, WITH NO
OTHER WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED,
INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO WARRANTIES OF
MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE.
Please check the Project Gutenberg web pages for current donation
methods and addresses. Donations are accepted in a number of
other ways including checks, online payments and credit card
donations. To donate, please visit: www.gutenberg.org/donate.
Most people start at our website which has the main PG search
facility: www.gutenberg.org.