Ferdy Mayne

            On Friday morning I finished working out the chords for “Barcelone” by Boris Vian and ran through the song once in French. 

            I finished posting my translation of “Privé” by Serge Gainsbourg and memorized the first verse of his “Disc Jockey”. This one will be easier because it’s less complex. 

            It was nice to do song practice again after skipping it for one morning to work on my essay and my guitar stayed in tune a little better than last time probably because it was less humid. 

            I worked on updating my journal. For lunch I had potato chips with salsa and sour cream. 

            In the afternoon I went to Freshco where I got five bags of grapes, a pint of strawberries, a whole chicken for $5, some Earl Grey tea, saltines, and a pack of toilet paper. 

            I finished reading the Wife of Bath’s Prologue in Canterbury Tales and began the Pardoner's Prologue. This Middle English stuff is so time consuming. I’m still doing last week’s readings and next week I have another assignment due. 

            I cut up the chicken I’d bought today and sprinkled the pieces with curry powder before roasting them. I had one of the legs for dinner with a potato and gravy while watching “Interpol Calling”. 

            A journalist named James Brownley is on his way to interview the financial guru Baron Untermeyer. Seated across from him on the train is a woman named Marie Webber who is the baron’s housekeeper. In a faux accident Marie knocks his glasses off and crushes them with her foot. Without his glasses Brownley is half blind. At his stop he is met by a driver who takes him to the baron. The baron’s big scoop is that he is going to retire, but he tells Brownley that he can't report on that because of the damage that it could do to the stock market. The baron reveals that he is ill and suddenly he has one of his attacks and dies. This is not the kind of information that Brownley can hold back and so he reports the death. A selling frenzy ensues on the market. Later however it is discovered that the baron is still alive and that an actor had been impersonating him well enough in voice to fool the half blind Brownely. Shortly after this Brownely turns up dead and Interpol begins to investigate. Trying to figure out who could know the baron well enough to have coached an actor on how to imitate him, Duval and Swiss Police Captain Zeist begin to look into the background of the baron's secretary Castillon. Interpol finds that he has a criminal record but the baron says that he knew that when he hired him. The baron made use of Castillon’s knowledge of criminality to help sniff out potential crooks in his business dealings. Duval suddenly realizes that he should be looking for the person that bought the shares that were sold upon sellers hearing of the baron’s death, because he knew the baron was alive. It is discovered that the shares were bought by someone within the baron’s company. When the baron hears of this by phone Castille listens in on the call. He realizes Interpol is closing in and he must get out fast. With Marie behind him Castillon goes to the baron with a gun and tries to force him to transfer 150,000 to his Mexican bank account. The baron is not afraid of Castillon and resists cooperating. When Duval and Zeist arrive Marie hides behind a door with a gun but Duval sees her in the mirror. There is a brief fight and Castille is arrested.

            Castille was played by German-Jewish actor Ferdy Mayne, who was sent to England by his parents when the Nazis took control in Germany. His parents were briefly interned at Buchenwald but his mother's British connections helped them to be released and leave the country before the war. During the war he operated as an informant for MI5. He is most famous for playing Count Von Krolock in Roman Polanski’s "The Fearless Vampire Hunters". He played Albert Grand on the TV series “Cagney and Lacey".