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“Twenty-seven?” interrupted Gardener.
“Oh aye, it’s going back a bit.”
“It was a silent film, then?” asked Reilly.
“Aye,” replied Fettle. “I mean, it was one of them films that broke records. Eerie sets, and Chaney’s vampire make-up was incredible.”
“Who’s?” asked Gardener.
“Lon Chaney.”
“Vampire make-up?”
“Aye.” Fettle flicked over a couple of pages and Gardener grew intensely cold. He pulled out the picture he had of the vampire suspect in Leeds on the night Janine was killed. They were alike to the last detail.
“Who is Lon Chaney?” asked Gardener.
“You’re kidding me,” replied Fettle. “Only the greatest actor that ever lived.”
“Well, I’ve never heard of him.”
“You won’t have, will you? He was well before your time.”
“Can you recall any of his other films?”
“The two most well-known were Phantom of the Opera and The Hunchback of Notre Dame.”
“Did he star in something called A Blind Bargain?”
“I think he did,” replied Fettle.
Gardener realised he was still standing. He sat down, grabbed his mug and took a mouthful of tea. “So, what do you know about Lon Chaney?”
“He was a genius. In the early 1920s, there was a well-known saying around Hollywood, ‘Don’t step on that spider, it might be Lon Chaney’. His make-up was that good, he was known as ‘The Man of a Thousand Faces’. Both his parents were deaf, so the only way he could talk to ’em was through mime, which is where he picked up his ability to act. He was brilliant, man. His make–up, well, you’ve never seen nowt like it. He did it all himself.”
Fettle pointed to the page. “That film was just the business and he did all his own make-up. In fact, I remember reading somewhere that the film was so chilling, it inspired a murder. Some bloke in London claimed that after seeing it, he had visions of Chaney’s vampire character. It terrified him so much, that he went into an epileptic fit and killed an Irish housemaid.”
“I thought you said he played Inspector Burke.”
“He did,” replied Fettle. “He also played the vampire. Two parts. Just look at the make-up involved.”
Gardener turned to Reilly. “Well, even if we don’t know who’s doing it, we know who he’s emulating.”
“I wouldn’t say that entirely,” replied Reilly. “Remembering where we’ve just been.”
“What do you remember about A Blind Bargain?” he asked Fettle.
“Not much, I never saw that one, either.”
Fettle left the table and lunged over to the cupboard in the corner. He tossed a few books around, creating a fair amount of dust, before returning with another dog-eared copy of Film Review.
“Here we are. Another lost film, second only to London After Midnight. In fact, he played two parts again, the Mad Scientist and the Ape Man.”
“What was the film about?” asked Gardener.
“Summat about a doctor who’s experimenting on people. Apparently, the half-man half-ape is the result of one of his earlier experiments.”
“I take it all his films were silent films.”
