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diff --git a/43063-0.txt b/43063-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..35707c1 --- /dev/null +++ b/43063-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,9586 @@ +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 43063 *** + +Note: Images of the original pages are available through + the Google Books Library Project. See + http://www.google.com/books?id=SnMmAAAAMAAJ + + + + + +A CASE IN CAMERA + + + * * * * * + + THE MACMILLAN COMPANY + NEW YORK · BOSTON · CHICAGO + DALLAS · ATLANTA · SAN FRANCISCO + + MACMILLAN & CO., LIMITED + LONDON · BOMBAY · CALCUTTA + MELBOURNE + + THE MACMILLAN CO. OF CANADA, LTD. + TORONTO + + * * * * * + + +A CASE IN CAMERA + +by + +OLIVER ONIONS + +Author of +"The Compleat Bachelor" +"In Accordance with the Evidence" +"The Debit Account" + + + + + + + +New York +The Macmillan Company +1921 + +All rights reserved + +Copyright, 1920 and 1921, +By the Macmillan Company +Set up and electrotyped. Published March, 1921 + + + + + TO + OLE LUK OIE + + + + + "Our Life is like a curious Play + Where each doth strive to hide himself. + One Mask doth to another say + 'Let us be open as the Day' + The better to conceal himself." + + + + + PART I + + WHAT HAPPENED IN LENNOX STREET + + + + + A Case in Camera + + + + + I + + +The tale I am setting out to tell has to do with the killing, on a May +morning of the year 1919, of one young man by another who claimed, and +still claims, to have been his friend. The circumstances were +singular--perhaps even unique; the consequences affected a number of +people in various interesting ways and byways; and since the manner of +telling the story has been left entirely to me, I will begin with the +breakfast-party that Philip Esdaile gave that morning at his studio in +Lennox Street, Chelsea. + + + + + II + + +Philip had at least two good reasons for being in high feather that +morning. The first of these was that barely a week ago, with a +magnificent new quill pen, he had signed the Roll, had shaken august +hands, and was now Philip Esdaile, A.R.A., probably the most gifted +among the younger generation of painters of the pictorial phenomena of +Light. + +I and his second reason for contentment happened to arrive almost +simultaneously at the wrought-iron gate that opened on to his little +front garden. We all knew that for many months past our barrister +friend, Billy Mackwith, had been tracking down and buying in again on +Philip's behalf a number of Philip's earlier pictures--prodigal +pictures, parted with for mere bread-and-butter during the years of +struggle, and now very well worth Philip's re-purchase if he could get +them into his possession again. (I may perhaps say at once that I don't +think Philip owed his Associateship to his pictures of that period. It +is far more likely that the artist thus honored was Lieutenant Esdaile, +R.N.V.R., sometime one of the Official Painters to the Admiralty.) + +A carrier's van stood drawn up opposite the gate, and I saw Mackwith's +slim, silk-hatted and morning-coated figure jump down from the seat next +to the driver. Evidently Philip had seen the arrival of the van too, for +he ran down the short flagged path to meet us. + +"You don't mean to say you've brought them all?" he cried eagerly. + +"The whole lot. Fourteen," Mackwith replied. "Glad I just caught you +before you left." + +Esdaile and his family were leaving town that morning for some months on +the Yorkshire Coast, and it was this departure that was the occasion of +the farewell breakfast. + +The three of us carried the recovered canvases through the small annexe, +where the breakfast-table was already laid, and into the large studio +beyond. There we stood admiring them as they leaned, framed and +unframed, against easels and along the walls. No doubt you remember +Esdaile's paintings of that period--the gay white and gray of his +tumultuous skies, the splash and glitter of his pools and fountains, +the crumbling wallflowered masonry of his twentieth-century +_fêtes-champêtre_. There is nothing psychical or philosophic about them. +He simply has that far rarer possession, an eye in his head to see +straight with. + +"Well, which of 'em are you going to have for yourself, just by way of +thank-you, Billy?" the painter asked. "Any you like; I owe you the best +of them and more.... And of course here comes Hubbard. Always does blow +in just as things are being given away, if it's only a pink gin. How are +you, Cecil?" + +The new-comer wore aiguillettes and the cuff-rings of a Commander, R.N. +He was a comparatively new friend of mine, but for two years off and on +had been a shipmate of Esdaile's, and I liked the look of his honest red +face and four-square and blocklike figure. We turned to the pictures +again. I think their beauties were largely thrown away on Hubbard. +Somebody ought to have told him that their buying-in meant a good +thousand pounds in Esdaile's pocket. Then he would have looked at them +in quite a different manner. + +In the middle of the inspection Joan Merrow's white frock and +buttercupped hat appeared in the doorway, and we were bidden to come in +to breakfast. Monty Rooke and Mrs. Cunningham had just arrived, which +made our party complete. + +The little recess in which we breakfasted was filled with the sunlight +reflected from the garden outside. Everything in it--the napkins and +fruit and chafing-dishes on the table, the spring flowers in the bowls, +the few chosen objects on the buff-washed walls, the showery festoon of +the chandelier overhead--had the soft irradiation of a face seen under a +parasol. Little shimmers of light, like love-making butterflies, danced +here and there whenever glasses or carafes were moved, and the +stretches of shining floor almost looked as if trout might have lurked +beneath them. + +And where the tall French windows stood wide open the light seemed to be +focused as if by a burning-glass on the two little Esdaile boys who +played beneath the mulberry that rose above the studio roof. + +I don't suppose the whole of Chelsea could have shown a merrier +breakfast-party than we made that May morning. For, in addition to our +host's new Associateship and those fourteen wandering pictures safely +back home again, we had a further occasion for light-heartedness that I +haven't mentioned yet. This was the wedding, to take place that day +week, of Mrs. Cunningham and Monty Rooke. Philip was generously lending +them his house and studio for the summer. Monty we had all known for +years, but Mrs. Cunningham I for one set eyes on for the first time that +morning. Later I got a much more definite impression of her. For the +present I noticed only her slender and beautiful black-chiffon-covered +arms, the large restless dark eyes that seemed to disengage themselves +from under the edge of her black satin turban hat, and her manicured +fingers that reminded you of honeysuckle. The Esdailes had received her +"on the ground floor," so to speak, and it obviously pleased Monty that +Philip had called her Audrey straight away. + +So we talked of the approaching wedding, and the Associateship, and the +painting-cottage in Yorkshire, and so back to the pictures again. On +this subject Commander Hubbard unhesitatingly took the lead. + +"Well, it's certainly Art for mine my second time on earth," he +good-humoredly railed, the aiguillettes swinging gently on his breast. +"Fancy going out of town this weather! Taking away all that gear behind +the bulkhead there,"--he jerked his head to where Philip's painting +paraphernalia lay ready packed in the hall--"a few yards of raw canvas +bent on battens--and bringing it back again worth twenty pounds an +inch!" + +Hubbard had a Whitehall job that summer, and loathed it. Esdaile +laughed. + +"Can't see why they didn't make me a full Academician while they were +about it," he said. + +"_And_ he's grumbling!" Hubbard retorted. "Perfectly revolting fellow. +That's too much lunching with Admirals. Listen, Mrs. Esdaile, and I'll +tell you the kind of thing we mere senior officers had to put up with. A +hoist breaks out from the flagship, and every glass in the Squadron is +glued to it. You'd think at least we were to proceed to sea immediately. +Nothing of the sort! It's the Admiral presenting his compliments to this +wretched wavy-ringed fellow your husband, and would he give him the +pleasure--would Lieutenant Esdaile, R.N.V.R., condescend--stoop--to take +luncheon with him! The Admiral, if you please! And that's what it is to +be an Official Painter!" + +Esdaile laughed again. He was trying to remove in one unbroken piece the +paring of an apple for Joan Merrow. + +"Give him a smile now and then and he'll eat out of your hand, Mollie," +he said. "Now, Joan, the last little bit--this is where a steady hand +comes in--there!" He held up in triumph the wiggle of apple paring. +"Throw it over your left shoulder and see what initial it makes on the +floor. Here's my guess on this bit of paper under my napkin--'C for +Ch' ... Ah, clumsy infant!" The strip had fallen in two pieces. "There +goes your luck. Allee done gone finish. I'll have the apple myself; +you'd better go and write the rest of those labels." + +The Esdailes had to all intents and purposes adopted Joan Merrow now +that she was alone in the world. On the day when Philip, half scared by +the risks he was taking, had informed his private pupils that their +tuition took up too much of his painting-time, he had not included Joan. +She had continued to prime his canvases and to make use of his models at +long range from odd corners of the studio; and then, during his absence +on Service, she had come to live in the house, had taught and mended for +the children, and had been companion and friend to Mollie. By an +affectionate fiction, her former fees were supposed to cover the cost of +her board, and a proper arrangement was to be come to one of these days. +She was twenty, had only lately ceased to have the stripling figure that +is all youth and no sex, and was already acquiring that mystery of +physical shape and of mind and emotion that causes men's heads to turn +behind and their lips to murmur, "Ah--in another year or so----" + +There was still the faint echo of chattering schoolrooms in the repartee +that came from her pretty lips. Pertly and with little tosses of her +head she enumerated the duties she had discharged that morning. + +"The labels are all distinctly written, with the name at the top, then a +space, and 'Santon, Yorks' quite at the bottom so you can tear it off +and use the label again for somewhere else. Both the taxis are ordered +for one-thirty, and Mr. Rooke won't have to send on letters because +they're all being re-addressed at the Post Office. The doors and windows +are all fastened, and I've shown Mrs. Cunningham where everything is +for after the wedding. And I didn't want the apple, and you've no +business to write things about me on your horrid bits of paper!" + +And we all laughed as she suddenly twitched Philip's napkin away and +tucked the horrid bit of paper safely away into her bosom. + + + + + III + + +I have told the foregoing in some detail because I want you to see the +careless and happy party into which that morning's bolt dropped a +quarter of an hour later. I want you to see the contrast between our +homely light-heartedness and the complex tangle of all that followed. I +will now tell you what the bolt was. + +Breakfast was over, and we men had gone into the studio again. Mrs. +Cunningham was helping Mollie to clear away, and Joan Merrow had joined +the children in the garden, and with them was looking up at an +aeroplane, the soft organ-like note of which had suddenly ceased. We +were having Hubbard's views on Art again. + +"But that submarine sketch of yours is the pick of all you've done to my +mind, Esdaile," he was saying. "Old Horne at the periscope, eh? You +caught him to a hair; a snapshot couldn't have been better! And we +bagged that beggar ten minutes later, Norwegian flag and all," he added +with professional satisfaction. + +Philip Esdaile gave a quick exclamation. + +"By Jove, that just reminds me! The orange curaçao, of course! The very +thing after all that fruit--corrects the acidity, as the doctors say. +We'll have some." + +The Commander gave him a sharp look. On the face of it there was no very +evident reason why the torpedoing of a German ship flying the Norwegian +flag should remind Esdaile of orange curaçao, but no doubt there was a +story behind that we others knew nothing of. If ships have to be put +down there is no sense in sending bottles of delectable liqueur to the +bottom of the sea also. + +"What!" cried Commander Hubbard, R.N. "You don't mean to say that _you_ +had the infernal neck to take your whack----" + +A mere wretched wavy-ringed fellow to loot bottle for bottle with his +betters like that! + +But Esdaile, with a wink, demanded the key of the cellar from Monty +Rooke, told him to get the liqueur glasses out, and was off. + +It was at that moment that the crash came that seemed to bring the whole +of Chelsea running out of doors. + +The shrill cry of "The aeroplane! The aeroplane!" was hardly out of the +children's mouths before it was upon us--I don't mean the aeroplane, but +the other thing. Judging from the harsh but muffled roar, the first +installment of the crash, so to speak, which was the plane itself, must +have been a quarter of a mile away; but between that and the second one +there was hardly time to take breath. Simultaneously, as it seemed, +there came a rushing of air, a loud cracking, and a nauseating thud on +the studio roof; and Joan Merrow ran in with the children, one under +either arm and her head down. The street outside was a sudden clatter +of running feet and short spasmodic cries. + +"Good God, right on our heads!" the Commander muttered, his eyes aloft. + +The next moment he was at the studio door looking for Esdaile. + +Had he found him I should not be writing this story. Not finding him, he +assumed command. + +"All right. All over now, little fellows. There won't be any more. Mrs. +Esdaile, you ladies will stay just where you are, please. Get on to the +telephone, Mackwith. You other fellows come with me." + +He thought it better that somebody should investigate before the women +began to move about too freely. + + + + + IV + + +One order at any rate was superfluous--that to telephone to the police. +Aeroplanes do not crash in Chelsea in the middle of the morning +unobserved. Already the windows on the other side of the street were +packed with faces, and every face was turned in the same direction. + +This was towards the torn fabric of a parachute that had lodged partly +on the studio roof, partly in the branches of the mulberry in the +garden. + +Hubbard ran out through the French windows and looked up. Tapes trailed +and rippled and fluttered in the merry morning breeze, and the gray silk +ballooned and rose and fell. But the sound of running feet warned +Hubbard not to pause. He strode quickly down the flagged path, shot the +catch of the wrought-iron gate in the faces of the too curious, and +then hurried into the house again. He addressed Rooke, who stood by the +group of shocked women. + +"Here, you seem to know this house pretty well. How do we get up there?" +he asked. + +"Bathroom window, I should think," Rooke replied. "This way." + +The bathroom lay at the end of a short passage on the floor above. The +three of us dashed upstairs. Rooke tried the bathroom door, but found it +locked. "Damn!" he muttered, and then I reminded him that possibly he +had the key of it in his pocket. + +It was oddly irritating to watch him try first one key and then another. +We wanted to tell him to make haste, as if he could have made any +greater haste than he was doing. Then luckily he hit on the right one. +The door opened, we sprang across the cork-covered floor, and Rooke +began to tug at the window-catch. The window was one of these +late-Victorian windows with a colored border and white incised stars, +and already the tragic huddle a dozen yards away could be seen, +violently crimson through the red squares and morbidly blue through the +blue ones. + +Then, as the sash flew up, all was sunshine again, and the wrecked +parachute and the two men enwrapped in its folds could be seen only too +clearly. + +Monty Rooke had a new silver-gray suit on that morning, but already he +had thrown one leg over the sill. + +"I'm not so heavy as you fellows," he muttered. "I'm not so sure about +this gutter--give me a hand while I try it. Then I can shin up that +spout over there." + +Hubbard took the small, nervous hand in his own beefy fist and let him +down three or four feet. "All right," said Rooke, after a moment's +trial; and, spread-eagled out on the annexe roof, he began to make his +way towards the higher roof of the studio beyond. + +"Tapes oughtn't to have fouled like that," I heard the Commander say +under his breath as we watched. "Parachuting's safe enough if you're any +height at all. This breeze, I suppose, and risking the double load. +Wonder they didn't go slap through." + +It was, indeed, merely by inches that the two men had missed the +roof-glass. Apparently the parachute, the roof-frame and the mulberry +had shared the shock among them. Not that another fifteen feet would +have made much difference to the poor devils, I couldn't help thinking. + +The street was now a densely-packed mass of faces, all watching Rooke's +progress. Even the whispering had ceased. Then cries of "Make way +there!" were suddenly heard. Fifty yards away a ladder, preceded by a +plump young man in a horsey check coat, was being passed over people's +heads. Every hand that could touch the ladder did so, as if out of some +odd pride of assistance. What anonymous mind had foreseen the need of it +none could have told. Down below Mackwith opened the gate; an Inspector, +followed by a couple of constables and the last relay that bore the +ladder, entered; and Mackwith closed the gate again. The ladder was set +up by the splintered mulberry, and the Inspector and one of the +constables joined Rooke on the roof. + +Five minutes later Rooke was down again. Hubbard and I had also +descended. We met him as he came in at the French window. + +"Well?" we both demanded at once. + +He was agitated, as indeed he had some reason for being. He had had an +unpleasant task. Before replying he advanced to the breakfast-table and +poured himself out some water into the nearest glass. The glass knocked +unsteadily as he set it down again. Then he glanced down at his clothes, +made a movement as if to brush the grime from them, but gave a jerk to +his tie instead. + +Nevertheless his news was not all bad. In one particular it was rather +astonishingly good. One of the two men, it appeared, was by no means +fatally hurt--was, indeed, quite likely to pull through. + +"Do you know who they are?" Hubbard asked. + +Again Monty seemed preoccupied with his clothes. Then we had his +tidings, jerkily and bit by bit. + +The plane itself had come down somewhere by the Embankment, and was said +to have caught fire. Parts of the parachute seemed to be singed too. +Both men were civilian flyers; at least neither was in uniform. The +other poor fellow was killed. The ambulance had been sent for, and for +the present there was little more to be done. The police were seeing to +the rest. This was the sum of what Monty told us. + +Then we heard the voice of Mackwith, who had come up behind us. + +"That's so," he confirmed. "I've just been having a word with the +Inspector about that. He doesn't think anybody here will have to attend +any inquiry or anything; the police evidence ought to be enough. So I +was thinking, Mrs. Esdaile," he turned to Mollie, whose face was still +pale and drawn and who bit the corner of her lip incessantly, "that the +best thing for you to do is to stick to your program just as if this +hadn't happened. You'll do no good staying here. You didn't see +it,"--here Joan Merrow, from the little sofa, raised her head but +dropped it again without speaking--"well, I mean that even Joan didn't +see anything that five hundred other people didn't see just as well. +Rooke may just possibly be wanted, but anyway he'll be here. And as for +Philip----" + +He broke off abruptly. Of a sudden we all stared at one another. We had +forgotten all about Philip. Where was he? + +If you remember, he had gone down into the cellar to fetch a bottle of +wine. And in performing this simple errand he had been away for close on +half an hour. + +Mollie Esdaile, all on edge again, turned swiftly to Monty Rooke. + +"Where is he? He did go down there, didn't he? You did give him the +cellar key, didn't you? And nobody heard him go out of the house?" + +Well, that was a matter that was very easily ascertained. Already +Hubbard had taken a stride towards the door that led to the cellar. + +But he did not reach the door. A footstep was heard behind it and the +turning of a key, and Esdaile entered. In one hand he carried a stone +jar of Dutch curaçao. In the other, arrestively out of place in the +spring sunshine, its flame a dingy orange and its little spiral of +greasy smoke fouling the air, he held a lighted candle in a flat tin +stick. + + + + + V + + +For a moment we all gazed stupidly at that jar and candle; but the next +moment our eyes were fastened on Philip's face. + +Now ordinarily Esdaile's face, clean-shaven since 1914, is quite a +pleasant one to look at, lightly browned, and with the savor of the sea +still lingering about it. Nor was it noticeably pale now. Indeed, you +might have said that some inner excitation made it not pale at all. But +there was no disguising the strained tenseness of it. At the same time +he was obviously attempting such a disguise. His features were set in a +would-be-easy smile, but the smile stopped at his eyes. These blinked, +though possibly at the sudden brightness after the obscurity below. And +he spoke without pause or preliminary, as if rehearsing something he had +had time to get letter-perfect but not to make entirely and naturally +his own. + +"Did you think I was never coming up?" The mechanical smile was turned +on us all in turn. "I suppose I have been rather a long time. Just +wool-gathering. I apologize to everybody. Where are the +liqueur-glasses?" + +There was a dead silence. Was it possible that he had heard nothing, +knew nothing of what had occurred? + +Monty Rooke was the first to speak. + +"Do you mean to say you didn't hear it?" he blurted out. + +Then, as Philip seemed to concentrate that artificial smile suddenly on +him alone, he seemed sorry he had drawn attention to himself. + +"And where on earth have _you_ been?" Philip demanded slowly. "What's +the matter with your clothes? Been emptying the dustbins? Here, let me +give you a clean-up, man----" + +He got rid of the jar of liqueur, not by putting it down on a table, but +by the simple if unusual expedient of letting it drop through his +fingers, where it made a heavy thump, rolled over on its side, and came +to rest. He stepped forward. + +But Rooke, for some reason or other, stepped much more quickly back. He +muttered something about his clothes not mattering--it was only a few +grains of dust, but damp--better let it dry before touching it---- + +It was at this point that I caught Cecil Hubbard's eye. + +Hubbard's is a bright blue eye, with angular lids like little +set-squares and a tiny dark dot in the middle of the blue. That eye may +not know very much about pictures, but it knows a good deal about men +and their faces. Esdaile was taking risks if he hoped to play any tricks +with that eye on him. + +Then, having caught mine for that moment, the eye was attentively fixed +on our host again. + +You see how preposterous it was already. Esdaile apparently could notice +a trifle like the dust on Rooke's clothes, but he seemed to be both +blind and deaf to everything else--the soft surging murmurs of the crowd +outside, the voice of the Inspector in the garden, the shadows of +strangers across the French windows. He just dropped heavy stone jars to +the floor, talked about wool-gathering, and had not even thought of +extinguishing the candle that was melting and guttering in his hand. + +Wool-gathering--Philip Esdaile, the least woolly-minded of men! + +Already I was certain that he was deliberately acting, and acting far +from well at that. + +It was little Alan, the elder of the two boys, who broke the spell that +seemed to have benumbed us all. He ran forward, his blue-and-white check +smock against his father's knees and his little face upturned. + +"A naeroplane, daddy!" he cried eagerly. "Some men fell out of a +naeroplane close to Jimmy and me, didn't they, Auntie Joan? In a +parachute, bigger'n this room!" The little arms were outstretched to +their widest reach. "Do come quick and look, daddy!" + +And he seized his father's hand. + +Again I caught Hubbard's eye. Esdaile was at it again, this time with a +badly-exaggerated gesture of astonishment. He might have made just such +a gesture if Alan had told him that the Grandmother in the bed was +really a Wolf--good enough for children but not for anybody else. +Hubbard at any rate thought that this had lasted long enough. + +"Do you mean to say that you didn't feel the whole house shake half an +hour ago?" he demanded. + +Esdaile turned, but with a curious reluctance that I didn't understand. + +"I did fancy I heard a noise of some sort," he admitted. "What about +it?" + +Hubbard gave it to him plain and unvarnished, for all the world as if he +had been in the Admiral's office with a sentry with a bayonet at the +door. + +"A plane crashed, and two men came down on your roof in a parachute. +One's living, the other's killed. Those are the police in your garden +now. That's all--except that you seem to live in a pretty +solidly-constructed house." + +This time Esdaile made no demonstration. He stood listening for a +moment longer, as if he thought Hubbard might add something; then, +without a word, he released himself from Alan's hand and strode, not to +the garden where the voices were, but towards the studio door. + + + + + VI + + +The studio (into which Hubbard and I immediately followed him) was a +large oblong apartment, with a portion of one of its longer sides and +almost the whole of the roof glazed. More or less light could be +admitted by means of a system of dark blue blinds and cords running to +cleats on the walls. It was to the roof-glass that my eyes turned first +of all. One corner of it was darkened, as if melted snow had slipped +down its slope, but the irregular triangle thus made was not so dark but +that the shapes of the two heads could be seen, a little darker still. +Nearer up to the ridge one thick pane was badly starred, and in the +middle of the star was a small hole. This I judged to have been made by +the broken branch that still brushed and played about it. A couple of +pictures had fallen from the walls and lay face downward among their +sprinklings of broken glass on the floor. One or two others were +disarranged. Otherwise the apartment seemed to be undamaged. + +Esdaile's behavior was now odder than ever. With those two men lying on +the roof just over his head and the police moving about the garden +outside, apparently he found nothing more urgent to do than to move +displaced rugs about and to push at the bits of broken glass with his +foot. And he did this with the candle, now a stalagmite of tallow, still +licking and flickering in his hand. + +He made no remark when Hubbard took the candle almost roughly from him, +blew it out, and set it down on the table where the artist's tubes and +brushes usually stood. + +"We'll be rid of that first of all," he said. "Unless it's a mascot. +Scaring 'em to death with that in your hand like a sleepwalker in +traveling-tweeds! Now what about it, Esdaile?" + +There was sudden attention in Philip's attitude, though he still looked +down at the floor and pushed at a rug with his toe. + +"What about what?" he asked. + +"About this last half-hour." + +"You mean where have I been? I went down into the cellar. I went to get +that liqueur." + +"That doesn't take half an hour--and it certainly didn't take this +particular half-hour." + +To this Esdaile made no reply. + +"Come," said Hubbard again after a pause. "You admitted just now that +you thought you heard something." + +The words came slowly. "Did I? Yes, I remember. But it was all muffled. +Honestly, I couldn't tell from the sound that it was--that it was all +this." + +"Was that when you were down there, or as you were going down, or when?" + +"I'd just got down, I think." + +"But didn't you wonder what was the matter? What kept you all that time? +And what's the matter with you now that you have come up?" + +"The matter?" Esdaile began once more to parry; and then suddenly his +manner changed. For the first time he looked up from the floor, and the +mask, whatever it was, almost dropped. "Look here, you fellows," he said +almost appealingly, "you might see I'm a bit worried. I've been trying +to hide it, but perhaps it wasn't much of an effort. Not so dashed easy +to hide. But if you're suggesting that I've been somewhere else besides +in the cellar I can only tell you I haven't. Couldn't for one thing; +Rooke's got every key of this house. I had to get the cellar one from +him. By the way, what's he doing now?" + +"Looking out your next train. But what I want to know is----" + +He broke off suddenly as sounds were heard over our heads. About the +snowslip on the roof other shadowy shapes could be seen. Feet shuffled +and moved, and the broken branch was dragged away. They were preparing +to get the two men down. + +And until they should have finished our conversation ceased. + +But in the meantime Esdaile did yet another trivial incongruous thing. +Moving towards one set of blind-cords he motioned to me to take another +set. With short sticking tugs we drew the blinds across a foot at a +time, and soon only narrow gold lozenges of sunlight showed among the +rafters. All below was a dark blue twilight, as if for an obsequy within +instead of for one on the roof. + +Then, when from the cessation of sound all appeared to be over, Hubbard +made a fresh appeal. He took the painters arm. + +"Now let's have this out," he said. "No good letting a thing get way on +when a few plain words will stop it. A perfectly ordinary thing's +happened. Simple parachute accident. No mystery about it whatever. The +mystery only begins when _you_ come in carrying your damned candles and +dropping jars and coming in here to tidy up instead of going outside to +see what's happened. That's where the answer begins to be a lemon, my +son. Listen to me. Whether you heard that crash or whether you didn't, +at any rate you know all about it _now_. Then why can't you be just +decently upset like the rest of us and have done with it?" + +"Decently upset?" The words seemed to strike him. "Have I been behaving +any other way?" + +"You were behaving damnably indecently when you came up out of the orlop +there--and that was _before_ you were told a word of all this, +remember." + +At last Esdaile saw the point. His behavior _had_ been extraordinary for +whole minutes before the situation had been explained to him. One would +have thought that during those minutes he had been deliberately trying +to find out how much we knew about something or other before committing +himself. When next he spoke it was almost apologetically. + +"I see," he said quietly at last. "Yes, you're perfectly right. That was +certainly the proper way to take it--just be decently upset. I see now. +I must have looked a perfect zany.... Now look here: I want to tell you +both all about it, but the trouble is that I can't just at this moment. +At present it's somebody else's affair, not mine at all. Must get that +cleared up first. I'm not perfectly sure of my ground either; you'll see +by and by. But as regards the accident--well, that's the whole point at +present. I mean anybody would say it _was_ an accident, wouldn't they? +It _looked_ like one, I mean? It would never occur to anybody who saw it +that----" + +But here he broke off abruptly as his wife appeared in the doorway. + + + + + VII + + +Perhaps at this point I had better tell you who "I" am who write this, +and also how our little circle came to choose me for the task. + +As a minor actor in these events you may set me down as a working +journalist. Among other things I am one of the sub-editors of the _Daily +Circus_. But that is not the whole of my life. I am also a novelist of +sorts. And one of my reasons for sticking to journalism when I could +manage at a pinch to do without it is that in this way I escape the doom +of having to produce two novels a year whether I have anything to write +about or not. + +But that was not their idea in asking me to put into shape the mosaic of +differently-colored pieces that constitutes this Case. I believe their +idea was that my two capacities might supplement one another--that I +might hold fast (so to speak) to the bed-rock facts with my journalistic +hand while the other was left free for the less tangible elements. I +don't know that I altogether agree with this distinction. I happen to +have some experience of how much fiction people swallow when they take +up their morning papers, and also of how much mere hurdy-gurdy-grinding +they accept as "human nature" when it comes to them in the form of a +novel. But that is their look-out. I told them that with their help I +would do my best. + +I had to have their help. Obviously I could not always be at the side of +this person or that, Rooke or Esdaile or Hubbard, throughout every +winding of a complicated chain of events. But I have known Esdaile for +twenty years, Rooke for a dozen, and most of the others long enough to +have a fairly reliable impression of them, and their accounts are quite +trustworthy. If I have any doubt about this I say so. + +I cannot deny that we took a good deal of responsibility when we +conspired to hush up the facts of this Case. We have no more right to +come between the agents of the Law and their duty than any other set of +private persons. And, though many of the beaten tracks are lost in these +changing days, and new precedents are making whichever way you turn, I +for one don't like making new precedents, especially moral ones. I like +tradition to have my homage even when I am resolved to break it. But we +are dealing with a _fait accompli_. The Case _is_ a Case. It became so +in spite of laws and customs and institutions. First one person acted as +according to the laws of his individual being he had to act, and another +did the same, and then another and so on, until the phenomenon was +complete. + +So, as my chief business in life is precisely those human accidentals +that make us all different beings destined to different acts, perhaps +they have chosen their historian more or less rightly after all. + +One caveat (as Mackwith would say) I must enter, however. This is with +regard to my own Services in the War that is now over. Most of these +services, though as a matter of fact performed in belt and khaki, might +just as well have been discharged in a dressing-gown, so unadventurous +for the most part were they. Thanks to a "joy-ride," I did just see War, +but for the rest I went where I was told to go and did what I was told +to do. It is therefore just possible that from the point of view of +those who lived in the hell I only briefly visited, one or two of my +values may be a little "out." The North Sea cannot be quite the same to +me that it was to Esdaile and Hubbard, the air means just what it meant +to Maxwell and Chummy Smith. For this I am afraid there is no help. But +there is always the chance that if I have minimized, they might have +stressed a little unduly. For while our Case has nothing to do with War, +War is always antecedent to it, as for a generation to come it will be +antecedent to everything. + +So, on this understanding, we may get on with the tale. + + + + + VIII + + +A slightly embarrassing little scene next took place in that +breakfast-room in Lennox Street, Chelsea. Rooke had put down the Time +Table, and Mollie Esdaile's face wore an expression of exasperation. + +It appeared that Philip wanted to pack his family off according to +program but wished to remain behind himself. For this he gave no +reason--or rather he gave several reasons, all of the thinnest +description. + +"But how tiresome!" broke from Mollie. "Why on earth do you want to +upset everything like this?" + +Philip muttered something about the newly-arrived pictures needing a +thorough overhauling. + +"And the children all ready, all but their hats!" Mollie exclaimed. + +"Better hurry them up.... At least seven of them are to frame too." + +"Then there's Monty and Audrey, what about them? When you offer people a +house----" + +But at this one of Mrs. Cunningham's slender hands was imploringly +raised. Her small mouth was parted in appeal. + +"Oh, please! Don't think of that! I should be miserable if I thought +that was going to make any difference!" + +"But of _course_ it makes a difference!" Mollie declared. "All your +things will be coming here, all your things for the wedding, and anyway +you won't want Philip hanging about the place. Better never have offered +the house at all!" + +"Oh--for a day or two--I shan't be in the way," said Philip uneasily. + +But it was awkward for all that. If Esdaile had offered his house to one +of his more prosperous friends he would not have hesitated to say +frankly that he was sorry, but something unforeseen had happened, and +the hospitality must be considered "off." But this was different. It was +known that these two were the reverse of well-off. Monty as a matter of +fact had already given up his rooms in Jubilee Place, and I had gathered +at breakfast that Mrs. Cunningham only intended to occupy her +bed-sitting-room in Oakley Street for a very few days longer. There was +her story, too, which I shall come to presently. Philip's decision +certainly upset a number of minor arrangements. + +"Oh, it's too ridiculous!" Mollie declared again with vexation. "If it +means that the wedding's to be put off I don't feel like going away at +all." + +But Philip only continued to mumble soothingly that it would be quite +all right, and it wasn't for long, and nobody had said anything about +putting off the wedding. The situation looked rather like a deadlock, +and Mackwith already had his silk hat in his hand and the Commander's +white-topped cap was tucked under his upper arm. Whether Philip went or +stayed was a private family matter after all. + +But as we were on the point of taking our leave yet another significant +little trifle was added to all the rest. And again Monty Rooke provided +the occasion. + +Monty, I ought to say, is one of these fellows who, whenever any odd job +is to do, especially a domestic one, instinctively seems to take it upon +himself. I dare say his living in rooms and studios hardly big enough to +turn around in has made him methodical in his habits. It was Monty, for +example, who had looked out the train in the Time Table; it was Monty +who had picked up the jar of curaçao when Esdaile had let it fall to the +floor; and it was Monty who, just as the rest of us were leaving, +wandered off towards the studio, presently returned again, sought the +kitchen, and reappeared with a sweeping-brush. + +"What are you going to do with that?" Philip asked, seeing him making +for the studio again. + +"I thought I'd just sweep up that broken glass," Monty replied. + +"Better leave it," Philip answered. + +Monty carried the brush back to the kitchen again, and presently +wandered off to the studio once more. Esdaile must have had eyes in the +back of his head, for I, who was facing the studio, had not seen Monty +preparing to draw back the roof-blinds again. + +"I wouldn't bother about that just at present," Esdaile called rather +loudly. "Just see if there's a train about tea-time, do you mind?" + +Monty, once more returning, took up the Time Table again. Philip walked +with us to the door. Then another little exclamation broke from him. +Monty had put down the Time Table and had asked him for the cellar key. + +"What on earth do you want the cellar key for?" Philip demanded. + +"To put this jar of stuff back," Monty replied. "It won't be wanted +now." + +Hereupon Philip broke out with a petulance that struck me as entirely +disproportionate, if indeed there had been any occasion for petulance at +all. + +"Oh, we can do that any time. We've got all the rest of the day to +ourselves, haven't we? Sit down and smoke a cigarette or something; +you've done about enough for one morning----" + +It was then that we left. + + + + + PART II + + WHAT HAPPENED OUTSIDE + + + + + I + + +It may have already struck you that while Esdaile, a responsible +householder directly interested in any unusual occurrence on his +premises, had not once been into his garden to see what the trouble was, +I myself, a journalist with quite a good "news story" in the wind, had +shown little more eagerness. Well, I will explain that. In the first +place, we have our own reporters, who do that kind of thing far better +than I can. Next, however interesting things outside might have been, I +had found them quite interesting enough inside. But my real reason was +this:-- + +Rooke had said that both these aviators were civilians. Well, as regards +civilian flying, we on the _Circus_ had something that for want of a +better name I will call a policy. To speak quite frankly, this policy +was a supine one enough, and merely consisted in waiting for a definite +lead. + +As you know, no such thing as a definite lead existed. Except for war +purposes, the future use of flying was at that time the blankest of +blanks. It is true we talked a good deal about it, but that was merely +our highly specialized way of saying nothing and filling space at the +same time. Nobody admitted this lack more readily than those who had +drawn up the provisional Regulations. These were merely experimental, +any accident might change them at any moment, and, in one word, all our +experience was still to be earned. + +For this reason, I was just as much interested in opinion about the +facts as I was in the facts themselves, and already I was looking +forward to an exchange of views with Hubbard and Mackwith. + +But time had flown. Both Hubbard and Mackwith had appointments for which +they were already late, the one at the Admiralty, the other in the +Temple. I therefore parted from them at Sloane Square Station, and, +being in no great hurry myself, turned back along King's Road. What I +was in search of was a representative public-house. We have all heard of +"the man in the street." You often get even closer to the heart of +things when you listen to the man in the pub. + +I think it was the sight of a plumpish young man in a horsey brown coat +that settled my choice of pub. For a moment I couldn't remember where I +had seen that or a similar coat before; then it flashed upon me. A man +in just such a coat had preceded that ladder that had been passed over +the heads of the crowd in Lennox Street, and he or somebody very like +him had managed to get inside Esdaile's gate and to secure a privileged +position within a few feet of the mulberry tree in which the parachute +had lodged. + +I followed this coat through two glittering swing-doors a little way +round the corner from the King's Road, and found myself in a +closely-packed Saloon Bar full of tobacco-smoke and noise. + + + + + II + + +I will venture to say that the man I followed was never shut out of a +tube-lift in his life, however crowded it was. He jostled through the +throng about the counter as if it had been so much water. I learned +presently that he had had no sort of interest or proprietorship whatever +in that ladder that had been passed along Lennox Street. Seeing a ladder +approaching he had merely pushed himself forward, had placed himself at +the head of it, and, with energetic elbowings and loud cries of "Make +way there!" had made it to all intents and purposes his own, squeezing +himself in at Esdaile's gate with such nice judgment that the very next +man had been shut out. He called this "managing it a treat," and I +further gathered that neat things like this usually did happen when +Harry Westbury was anywhere about. + +The aeroplane accident had at any rate given the licensed trade a fillip +that morning. When I asked for a glass of beer I was curtly told, "Only +port, sherry and liqueur-brandy--three shillings." Yet many a three +shillings was cheerfully paid. Nothing so stimulates conviviality as an +undercurrent of tragedy. Apparently half Chelsea had given up all +thought of further work before lunch, and in my Saloon Bar there were +already signs that more than a few would make a day of it. + +And so bit by bit I managed to edge myself nearer to Mr. Harry Westbury. + +I dare say you know the kind of man. If the house had a billiard-room +upstairs no doubt he had his private cue in it, as well as his private +shaving-pot at the barber's round the corner. For all his freshness and +plumpness, there was nothing of the jovial about him. Either he had no +humor, or he did not intend that humor should stand in his way through +the world. His convex blue eyes were hard and bullying, and his rosebud +of a mouth never blossomed into a smile. Probably his wife had a thin +time of it. But she would have as good a fur coat as any of her +neighbors. + +He was holding forth as I drew near on what he called this "Tom, Dick +and Harry sort of flying." + +"And here you have the proof of it," he was saying, his fingers pronged +into four empty glasses and his hard eyes looking defiantly round. "Look +at the damage to property alone! What price these air-raids? +Three--million--pounds in the City in one night! That's my information +as an estate-agent. Three--million--pounds! And now everybody's going to +start. What I want to know is, is it peace or war we're living in? +That's what I want to know!" + +He also wanted to know whether it was the same again--the three-shilling +brandy. He was "not to a shilling or two" that morning. It was only +right that as a spectator from the reserved enclosure he should "put his +hand down." + +"I wasn't thinking of property; I was thinking of those two poor lads," +a gray old man said from his seat near the automatic music-box. I +happened to know him by sight as old William Dadley, the picture-frame +maker--"Daddy" of the fledgling artists of the King's Road. + +But Westbury would have no weak sentiment of this kind. There was a +blood-and-iron ring in his voice as he set the brandy down. + +"Poor lads be blowed!" he said. "They know the risks, don't they? +They're paid for it, I suppose? What I want to know is who's going to +put his hand in his pocket if they start coming down on top of those +houses we're building in Wimbledon or where I live in Lennox Place +there? Let 'em break their necks if they want, but not on my roof! The +world isn't going to stop for a broken neck or two. I _don't_ think!" + +"Well, tell us all about it, Harry," somebody said; and Mr. Westbury, +taking the middle of a small circle, did so. + +I am not going to trouble you with all he said, but only with as much as +I saw fit to make a mental note of. At this stage of our Case he was +simply a vain and interfering busybody, who had had a rather better view +of things than anybody else. But first of all I noted the obstinacy with +which he dwelt on the fact that Monty Rooke had been first on the roof, +several minutes before the arrival of the police. There was, of course, +nothing in this, excepting always Westbury's dull insistence on it. + +Next, he described in detail the bringing-down of the two men. There was +nothing remarkable here either, except that the living one had "kept on +moving his hand all the time like this"--illustrated by an aimless +fluttering of the right hand, now a few inches this way, now a few +inches that. + +But I had an involuntary start when Mr. Westbury pompously announced +that he "had offered himself to Inspector Webster as a witness in case +he should be wanted." It was, of course, just what such a fellow would +do, if only out of vain officiousness, and I don't quite know why I +didn't like the sound of it. I had gone into that Saloon Bar to glean, +if possible, what people at large thought of flying over London, what +their temper would be if there were very much of this, and similar +things; but instead I had apparently hit on some sort of a human +bramble, who hooked himself on everywhere with a tenacity out of all +proportion to the value of any fruit he was likely to bear, and who +would scratch unpleasantly when you tried to dislodge him. There was +nothing to be uneasy about, but the whole of the events of that morning +were so far inexplicable, and to that extent intimidating. + +"Yes, me and Inspector Webster will probably be having a talk about +things this evening," Mr. Westbury continued with hearty relish. "We're +neighbors in Lennox Place, the very street behind Lennox Street--you can +see right across from my bedroom window. So I had my choice of two good +views in a manner of speaking.... Five-and-twenty to two. Not worth +while going home for lunch now. May as well be hung for a sheep as a +lamb. I wonder if they've got a snack of anything here?" + +If they had I have not the least doubt he got it. + + + + + III + + +Musingly I mounted an eastward-bound bus and sought my office. The more +I thought things over the less able I became to shake off the sense of +accumulating trifles, of gathering events. And it was as I passed +through Pimlico that yet another incident, temporarily forgotten, came +back into my mind. This was the curious way in which Esdaile had +snapped--it had been a snap--when Rooke had wanted to sweep up the +broken picture-glass, to draw the studio blinds back again, and to +return the bottle of curaçao to its place in the cellar. "You've done +enough for one morning," Esdaile had said. What had Monty done that was +"enough"? + +Now I have known Monty Rooke, as I told you, for a dozen years, and in +that time I have learned not to be surprised at anything he does +provided it is sufficiently out of the way, unprofitable to himself, and +unlike anything an ordinary person would have done. I will give you an +instance of what I mean. + +A year or two before there had arrived one night at his studio a bundle +of washing, fresh from the laundry. This bundle, on being opened, had +proved to contain a fully-developed infant girl of a fortnight old, no +doubt the pledge of some unknown laundrymaid's betrayed trust. As a joke +you will see the possibilities of this, particularly in the merry +Chelsea Arts Club; but don't imagine that Monty was a butt. What he did +was enough to dispel that idea. He had immediately wanted to adopt the +foundling, and would certainly have done so but for the strong +dissuasion of his friends; whereupon he had made a drawing instead, a +drawing quite singular for its wistfulness and emotion and depth, of the +infant just as it had arrived, with the newly-ironed shirts and socks +for its cot, deriving none knew whence, cast for none knew what part in +Life, save for Monty friendless, the close of one obscure drama but the +beginning of another. + +That was Monty, our little friend of the warm, unprofitable impulses, +the shy and easily daunted manner, but also of the quiet persistence of +purpose that kept him afloat in his seas of petty difficulties and +enabled him once in a while to produce a drawing or a painting that you +returned to again and again, a bit of philosophy that cut clean down to +the quick of things, or--an indiscretion that it would hardly have +occurred to one in a million to commit. + +What was there between him and Esdaile now? + + + + + IV + + +The moment I reached the office I rang up the _Record_, our evening +sheet. But their reporters were still out, and nobody could yet tell me +anything about the accident I didn't already know. Willett, my young +colleague on the _Circus_, did not propose to give the story exceptional +treatment. + +"If the thing caught fire in the air we'll let it alone," he said. +"Fire's too much of a bugbear. We want the joy-riding idiot and the +lunatic who stunts over towns. I'm for letting it alone, but we'll wait +and see what the others do." + +He was quite right. On its merits as Publicity it looked as if we should +hear little more of the Case. I settled down to my work. + +I had not actually expected that Hubbard would ring me up, but I was not +greatly surprised when, at about four o'clock, he did so. He wanted to +know whether I could go round to the Admiralty at once. That we must +have a talk at the earliest possible moment was a foregone conclusion. I +therefore replied that I would be on my way in ten minutes, and, hastily +swallowing the cup of tea that had been placed on my desk and telling +Willett to carry on, I took up my hat and stick, sought the lift, +threaded my way through the _Record's_ carts and bicycles and boarded a +passing motor-bus in Fleet Street. + +I had no very clear notion of the nature of the job that kept Hubbard in +town that spring, and that had caused him to envy Esdaile his luck in +being able to get away into the country. Indeed, I can tell you very +little about the organization of that mysterious Service that moves, +familiar yet isolated, in our midst. I understood that originally he had +been a torpedo man, but had later been drafted into the Inventions +branch. It is quite possible that the scope of his work had been +expressly left rather ill-defined. So many amazing extemporizations had +to be hurriedly made and applied. + +Still, these war-improvisations have to be overhauled afterwards, so +that it may be seen which disappear with the emergency, and which are to +be permanently incorporated in the strategy of the future; and I knew +that one at any rate of Hubbard's tasks was to explain to a certain +Parliamentary Committee a number of technical and basic facts that have +a way of not varying very much however the political situation may +change. + +I found him alone in his room on the third floor. The screen just within +the door was so disposed that, in the spot to which your eyes naturally +turned on entering, the officer you had come to see was not. They are +old in cunning in the Senior Service, and I had never seen Hubbard at +work before. His voice came to me from quite a different part of the +room, and I had the feeling that if I had been a stranger there would +have been a moment in which I should have been pretty thoroughly looked +up and down. + +"Come in and take a pew," he said. "Hope I haven't fetched you away from +anything important. But I couldn't stop to talk this morning. I only got +rid of my By-election Blighters half an hour ago. Well----" + +And, as I sat down in the chair at the end of his desk, he plunged +straight into the matter by asking me how long I had known Esdaile. + +Now how long you have known a man, in the sense of how well you know +him, is not always simply a matter of time. I have told you how humdrum +my own War services were. They had not included those incredible moments +of intensified action that may more truly reveal a man to you than years +of desultory familiarity. It was plainly something of this kind that +Hubbard had in his mind now. He frowned as he trifled with a +paper-weight. + +"No, it's absolutely unaccountable," he broke out suddenly, putting the +paper-weight down with a slap. "He's not that kind of man. It simply +doesn't fit in." + +"His behavior this morning, you mean?" + +"Yes. It was another man altogether. Why, before I knew Esdaile well I +remember I bet him a supper that he'd drop his palette on the +quarter-deck when the first shell came over. Well, it came, and half the +bridge was wrecked, and he never turned a hair. Just carried on with +that sketch of Hopkins at the range-finder. Absolutely undefeated +sportsman. So why should he behave as he did this morning?" + +Hereupon--though not as throwing very much light on the question after +all--I told Hubbard of my own surmise with regard to Rooke. He looked +rather quickly up. + +"What, little Queerfellow? He's--er--all right, isn't he? What about +him? Tell me about him." + +This too I told him as well as I was able. And I may say that I noted +with pleasure, as perhaps the real beginning of a valued friendship, +that there did not seem to be any question in Hubbard's mind as to what +kind of man I was myself. He was quite content to accept my summing-up +of Monty. + +"So it's between 'em, you think, whatever it is?" + +"Or else I give it up," I replied. + +"I wonder if you're right," he mused.... "But then," he added suddenly, +"what about all that time he spent in the cellar?" + +From that point our conversation took for a time a curious little turn. + +For Hubbard, while seeming to have no explanation that as a sensible man +he must not reject as fantastic, seemed nevertheless to be reluctant to +let something go. He seemed to hint and to dismiss and then to hint +again, to come to the brink of saying something and then to leave it +unsaid after all. And again I had the feeling that though he had known +Philip Esdaile for only two years as against my twenty, in some things +he might be the familiar and I the outsider. + +Then again he seemed to decide to take a risk. He spoke to the +paper-weight in his palm. + +"You don't happen to know anything about these new sound-appliances, do +you?" he asked. + +"No. Which are they?" + +"Oh, there are a lot of 'em," he answered again, half evasively. +"There's sound-ranging, of course. Then there's the hydrophone. And as a +matter of fact the best brains in the world to-day are trying to cut-out +sound--aeroplane propellers and so on.... What I mean is Esdaile's not +hearing anything. I suppose it's just possible that he didn't. All a +matter of where the sound-wave hits. You remember the broken windows in +the Strand when Fritz used to come over and drop his eggs? First a +broken one, then two or three whole ones, then broken ones again, all +along the street? Well, this might have been one of those dumb +intervals. Otherwise he _must_ have heard. And I should have thought +he'd have felt the vibration too." + +"He's admitted he thought he heard something." + +"Pooh, there was no mistaking it. If he didn't recognize it we can take +it he didn't hear it. If we believe him, of course." + +"Don't you believe him?" + +"Yes," Hubbard answered without a moment's hesitation. + +"Then----?" + +"Oh, I suppose it means I'm on the wrong track," Hubbard replied. + +Naturally any track of that nature was totally unexplored by me; but I +was far from dismissing it on that account. Here again my ignorance of +modern War came in to humble me. For what is the good of saying things +are fantastic and far-fetched--sound-ranging and the selenium cell and +what not--when for a number of years the food we have eaten and the +clothes we have worn and the roofs over our heads have depended on just +such fantasies? Not for nothing were those clusters of listening cones +at Hyde Park Corner and on Parliament Hill, not for nothing those +wireless masts over our heads at that very moment. Their operation might +be unfamiliar to me, but these things were the daily business of +Commander Hubbard, R.N. He turned as naturally to them as I myself turn +to those equally mysterious things, a man's motives and the operative +emotions of his heart. + +"For all that," said Hubbard abruptly, "I should like to have a good +look at that cellar of his." + +I was silent. I didn't know whether his wish to see the cellar included +sound-experiments on the roof also. + +"More than that," he continued slowly, "--by the way, did Mrs. Esdaile +and the children get away?" + +That I did not know. + +"Well, what about going round this evening to see?" + +"The chances are that they did if I know Philip." + +"I don't mean that. I mean what about going round to see that cellar," +Hubbard replied. + +I didn't say so, but I had a sudden wonder, quite new and born all at +once of I don't know what, whether Esdaile might want us to see his +cellar. + + + + + V + + +However, we went, and at a little after eight o'clock rang the bell we +had rung under such very different circumstances at breakfast-time that +morning. The parachute still waved in the mulberry, and a few policemen +were unobtrusively hanging about the street. Two of these did not move +very far from the gate. I supposed that in view of pending inquiries it +was important that the parachute should not be touched. + +We waited so long for an answer after ringing the bell that I had almost +concluded there was nobody at home. We were, in fact, on the point of +turning away when Esdaile himself opened the door. + +Poor devil! I learned presently that he had had callers enough that +afternoon to make him wish to disconnect his bell altogether--interested +parties of all sorts, a dozen of them at least. He had as a matter of +fact removed his telephone receiver from the hook. He said its ringing +had nearly driven him mad. + +But even all this did not explain his weariness as he stood holding the +door open in the still bright light of the perfect evening. My first +glance at him made me wonder whether something even more untoward than +that morning's sudden drama had happened. Before, his manner, baffling +as it had been, had at least had a sort of hectic brilliancy, an +artificial excitement that had buoyed him up and kept him going. Now it +was as unlike that as possible. He was spiritless and played out. He no +longer seemed to wish to keep everything and everybody at arm's-length. +Indeed, we had his reason almost before he had closed the door behind +us. + +"Of course, you've heard who it is?" he said to Hubbard in a dull voice. + +"No. Who?" + +"Chummy Smith." + +Only the fanlight over the door let in the last of the day, but it did +not need light to reveal how the name Esdaile had spoken affected +Hubbard. To me this name conveyed nothing for the moment. I heard +Hubbard's indraught of breath. + +"You don't say so! Good God! Which? The dead one?" + +"No. The other. I happened to ring up the hospital to ask how he was +going on and learned that way. That was before I took that infernal +receiver off. Come in. I'm all alone." + +"Your people got away, then?" + +"Yes," said Esdaile. And I fancied I heard him grunt, "Thank God!" + +"Who's the other chap?" Hubbard asked as we walked along the passage. + +"Fellow called Maxwell. Never heard of him. Did you?" + +"No." + +"Well, come in. It's the devil, isn't it?" + +I suppose it _is_ the devil when one of your particular friends comes +down like this on your roof; but it struck me even then that it would +have been still more devilish if he had been killed in doing so. Yet not +only had their friend Chummy not been killed, but, according to Rooke's +account earlier in the day, he was in a fair way for recovery. Hence I +didn't quite see the reason for Esdaile's utter dejection. I should have +understood it better had their friend been, not Smith, but the dead man +Maxwell. + +You see, I had totally forgotten one pretty little incident of that +morning's breakfast. Perhaps you have forgotten it too. Remember, then, +that Philip had pared an apple for Joan Merrow, had told her to see what +initial the paring made on the floor, and had shaped his own guess with +his lips--"C for Ch"--as he had hidden his bit of paper under his +napkin. + +Philip pushed up chairs for us and pottered about in search of whisky +and glasses. Then, having set out a tray, he dropped heavily into a +chair. For a time none of us spoke, and then I asked if Rooke was out. + +"Yes. He's taken Audrey Cunningham home," Philip replied with marked +brevity, and the silence fell on us again. + +If Hubbard had really come for the purpose of seeing Esdaile's cellar I +could see that all thought of this had now passed from his mind. The +first thing to do was to cheer Esdaile up. After all, Chummy was alive +and doing well. The news when Esdaile had rung up the hospital that +afternoon had been reassuring. It might be some little time before he +was out and about again, but certainly the occasion did not seem one +for gloom. I therefore kept silence while Hubbard pointed all this out. + +And as Esdaile's spirits seemed to revive a little and things began to +seem not quite so hopeless after all, I began to rummage in my memory +for recollection of this Chummy Smith of theirs. I remembered now that I +had at any rate heard his name. And I confess that I am a little +curious, not to say jealous, about some of these intensive War +friendships. It interests me to note which of them survive the quieter +and more persistent pressure on the lower levels, and which fail to do +so. Not every one of them succeeds. It is one thing to wait in a Mess +for the overdue chum, trying not to look too often at the full glass of +gin-and-bitters that by this time he ought to have come in and claimed, +and quite another to meet that chum a year or two later and, as you ask +him what he will have, to know that you are making the swift mental +note, "Ah, _that's_ him in mufti!" + +But this rubicon had been safely crossed in the case of Chummy Smith. I +began to piece together odd things I had heard. Philip, meeting him in +Coventry Street six months before, had stopped, spoken, and had +presently brought him home to a scratch supper. A fortnight later Chummy +had dropped in again unannounced. Thereafter he had continued to come at +fairly frequent intervals. He and myself had never happened to call at +the same moment, that was all. + +"Who do you say he's flying for now?" Hubbard asked presently. + +"The Aiglon Company. He's a goodish bunch of shares in it, I believe. +Knows his job, too. Ever see him zoom?" + +He described Smith's performance of this terrifying maneuver, with the +fire of the Lewis gun reserved till the last twenty yards, then the +fiery bridge-clearing rafale, and the upshooting like a rocket as he +cleared the rail by a yard. + +"Yes, he's a dashed good youngster," Hubbard agreed. "Thank the Lord +he's all right." + +But Esdaile only leaned his head wearily on one hand and sat gazing +moodily at his whisky-and-soda. + +Then it was that the probable reason for all this depression flashed +upon me. Then it was, in that moment, that I remembered that +apple-paring, Joan's adorable little schoolgirl's outbreak, and her +tucking away of that piece of paper into her breast. Philip Esdaile was +thirty-nine, young Smith twenty-four; that is a difference of fifteen +years; but a young man of twenty-four could be quite devoted to +Methuselah himself if there was a young woman anywhere about. Those +frequent calls after that meeting in Coventry Street simply meant that +Philip's leg had been pulled. Chummy Smith was no doubt very fond of +Philip, but he was even fonder of Philip's wife's help and companion. + +And Joan had seen the crash. + +No wonder Philip thanked God that she didn't know who it was she had +seen come down. + + + + + VI + + +I know now the exact point up to which I was right, and also where I +ceased to be right. Mollie Esdaile made a clean breast of the whole +guileful conspiracy of their courtship afterwards. Here it is, for your +edification and warning. + +Mollie had several times been down to visit Philip in his billet at the +Helmsea Station. There it was that she had first seen Chummy. At first +she had not been able to single out Chummy from the rest of the +uniformed mob that led such a mysterious existence down there--a world +of womenless men, who paraded at all hours of the day and night, +suddenly vanished by the half week together, turned up smiling again, +danced with one another to the grinding of gramophones, played cards and +snooker, howled round pianos and swapped yarns, Kirchners and pink gins. +To Mollie their uniforms were of two kinds only, khaki and dark blue. In +course of time she had come to pick out Chummy as wearing both--khaki, +but with the rings and shoulder-badges of the other Service. The lad +made Philip ask him to tea, and the next time, in Philip's absence, +Chummy had asked her to tea. + +And so to the sky-blue uniforms and the monochrome of mufti again, by +which time Chummy and Mollie were firm friends. + +I believe she threw the youngsters together from the moment Philip first +brought Chummy home to Lennox Street. She says she didn't, and refers me +to Joan. I wouldn't hang a dog on what Miss Joan says on such a matter. + +For who can believe in the candor of a young woman of just twenty who, +the very first time a young man is brought to the house, straightway +enters into a clandestine arrangement to meet him at tea the next day, +and presently can hold out her hand with a conventional "Good-by, Mr. +Smith," as if the last thing that entered her head was that she would +ever set eyes on him again? It takes the nerve of the modern young woman +to do that. The case of Mr. Smith, observe, is entirely different. Mr. +Smith, suddenly meeting the lovely young thing, may not be sure whether +his feet are treading a polished studio floor or whether they have +little Mercury wings on them that waft him through the empyrean; but +there is this to be said for Mr. Smith--that when he is in love he +doesn't behave as if he wasn't. He fidgets even if she goes out of the +room for a minute. He doesn't know that she herself couldn't tell him +why she has gone out of the room. He thinks she had something to go for, +and never dreams that she is just sitting on the edge of her bed, +knowing perfectly well that he will be leaving in half an hour, asking +herself what made her so suddenly get up and leave him, and yet not even +writing him a note. + +The notes came later, at about the time she put a lock on her +letter-case. They were numbered "1," "2" and "3" to indicate the +sequence in which they should be read (a billet scribbled at seven +o'clock in the evening must on no account be read before one that is +dashed off at tea-time), and they were constantly on the wing. + +Nor did these protégés of Mollie's choose tea-shops that Philip was +known to frequent, nor cinemas the kindly gloom of which might by any +chance have concealed him. Philip never noticed that his monthly +telephone accounts rose perceptibly higher. True, he did ask one evening +why the children had been put to bed while it was still broad day, but +he was not told that he might find the reason walking hand-in-hand under +the trees in Richmond Park. + +It is no good asking whether Joan and Chummy were engaged. What is a +young woman's engagement nowadays? No doubt Joan's father had in his day +ceremoniously "waited upon" her maternal grandfather-elect and had "had +the honor" and so on, but Miss Joan always reminded me of the private +with the field-marshal's baton--she seemed to have come into the world +with a will of her own, a latch-key and her marriage-lines all +potentially complete. I remember she called an engagement an +"understanding." If by that word she meant what the Psalmist meant, she +certainly made haste with all her heart to get it. + +Of course, Philip had sooner or later discovered what was going on under +his abused roof, and now knew all there was to be known about it. And it +must have occurred to him also that, with letters numbered "1," "2" and +"3" flying backwards and forwards all the time, any interruption of more +than a day or two would set Joan, away in Santon, Yorks, anxiously +wondering what was the matter. + +You are now to see how far I was right in this. + + + + + VII + + +The lights he had switched on were a couple of standard lamps only, that +worked from plugs in the wall. Both had mignonette-colored shades, and +while one shade stood a-tilt near the syphon and glasses, the other +threw a soft light on Philip's little escritoire. As he sat the light +crossed his breast only, leaving his face in a half-transparent +obscurity. A few yards away the entrance to the studio made a dead black +oblong, so completely without trace of the evening light that must still +be lingering in the world outside that I judged that the dark-blue +roof-blinds were still drawn. + +I suppose it was these roof-blinds, and Philip's apparent disinclination +to have them touched, that brought my surmises with regard to Monty +Rooke into my mind again. And somehow, back again under the roof where +the tragedy had happened, these surmises seemed to have grown a little +more threatening. Why this alteration of values should take place in me +I didn't know, but there it undeniably was, hovering (so to speak) in +the spaces above the unlighted chandelier, approaching as it were to the +very edge of the penumbra that crossed our host's breast, and +accumulated as in some dark power-house beyond the threshold of the +black studio doorway. And as this feeling grew on me lesser feelings +seemed by comparison to grow less still. My hastily-seized-on +explanation with regard to Joan seemed all at once insufficient. A shock +of some kind she would naturally receive; that was unavoidable in any +event; but what would be simpler than to write to her immediately, to +tell her what had been discovered since her departure, to promise to +send her daily bulletins, and to warn her that for the present, in the +absence of letters, these must suffice? + +I didn't know to what extent I was supposed to be privy to the +Chummy-Smith-Joan-Merrow love affair, but in the circumstances I did not +let that trouble me. I just said what I thought. "She'll have to be told +some time or other," I finished by saying. + +But for some reason or other he waved my words aside. + +"Wouldn't do at all." His voice came from within the shade of the +mignonette-colored lamp. "Must think of something better than that." + +"But she'll be expecting letters. And she won't get them. My way's much +the kindest. What's the objection?" + +"Oh, heaps of objection," he answered evasively. "I don't know half of +'em myself yet." + +On this I instantly fastened. + +"Ah! Then you haven't seen the fellow yet you spoke of?" + +I knew I had him. I could feel his mental wriggle. + +"What fellow?" + +"You said this morning it wasn't your affair, but somebody else's. The +fellow I mean is the somebody else." + +He spoke slowly. + +"Do you mean Rooke?" + +"You didn't mention any name. I mean Rooke if it was Rooke." + +This time we had to wait a long time for an answer, but at any rate it +cleared the air when it did come. + +"It was Rooke. I don't remember very clearly exactly what I did say, but +I meant Rooke," he admitted. + +"You say he's taken Mrs. Cunningham home. He's coming back, I suppose?" + +With remarkable grimness Philip replied, "You bet he is." + +"You mean you told him to?" + +"Yes, and I told him to be pretty quick unless he wanted to drive me +crazy. I said I'd give him time for dinner at the Parrakeet, though. I +was waiting for him when you came in." + +"Then--well, to put it plainly, do you want us to clear off?" + +"No--at any rate wait a bit," he answered irresolutely. "I don't suppose +he'll be long now." + +I don't know how much longer we should have continued to spar like this +had not Hubbard suddenly put a question. He had evidently been thinking +it over for some time, and he took care, with a preliminary "I say" and +a pause, that he had Esdaile's attention before putting it. + +"I say," he said quietly, "about when you came up from below this +morning. Why did you want to brush Rooke's clothes?" + +And that settled it. Esdaile began with one more "Did I?" but Hubbard +did not let him finish. + +"Yes, you did," he cut him short. "It was the very first thing you did. +And he jumped back when you tried to touch him. Why?" + +There was no further attempt at prevarication. Without even taking the +trouble to rise, Esdaile pushed back the lamp, opened the upper drawer +of the escritoire as he sat, and from the corner of it drew out and +placed on the table a 7.65 mm. Webley and Scott automatic pistol. + + + + + VIII + + +Honestly, I don't know whether I was surprised or not. On the whole I +hardly think I was. If he had produced another candlestick or jar of +liqueur I think I should have felt like getting up and walking out; but +here at last was something on the fuller scale. Thank heaven, we had +done with broken glass and sweeping-brushes and dark blue linen blinds. +We might now hope to get a little farther. + +For a pistol is a pistol at all times and all the world over. No other +weapon has quite so exclusively sinister a meaning. Among the honorable +swords and rifles of war it is a low and sneaking thing, and in +peace-time an Apache's tool, something for the common garrotter to +shoot through his pocket with. Its proper place was the Criminal Museum +at Scotland Yard, not in a decent artist's studio. + +So Philip put the revolting thing on his desk, and for a moment we sat +looking at its roughened grip, black as crape, and the glossy blackness +of the rest of it. Then without a word Hubbard took it up, glanced at +the safety-catch and slid back the breach. A cartridge lay ready in the +chamber. Then he withdrew the magazine. Six nickel steel bullets showed +through the perforations of the clip. The capacity of the W. & S. 7.65 +is eight shots. One shot had therefore been fired. + +Hubbard replaced the pistol on the desk. + +"And where did _that_ come from?" he asked with pursed lips. + +Philip shrugged his shoulders. Somehow the answer was "Rooke" as plainly +as if he had spoken the name. + +"And where did he get it?" + +"Up there." Philip's eyes made the slightest of turns up towards the +ceiling. + +"From one of those two fellows?" + +"I suppose so." + +"How do you mean, you 'suppose' so? Don't you know?" + +"I'm not perfectly sure yet. You see, just at that moment Audrey +Cunningham came in, and it isn't the kind of thing you discuss with +women there. I thought she'd gone, or I should have waited a bit." + +"Well, don't you think it's time you told us a little more now?" + +This is the narrative that followed, with that beastly object still +lying there in the silky light of the mignonette-shaded lamp. + + + + + IX + + +At first Monty had tried to get out of it by saying it was the keys. +Esdaile's is not a modern house; its keys are not of the Yale kind, of +which you can carry a dozen in one pocket; each of them is anything from +three to five inches long, and they weigh very few to the pound. In +handing over the house to Monty, Philip had given him eight or ten of +these; and so at first (Esdaile said) Rooke had wanted to say it was the +keys. + +"I don't mean the keys," Philip had replied. "I mean the pocket on the +other side that you're nursing as if it had eggs in it. Why have you +been standing sideways and behind people all this time? And why did you +jump when I wanted to give you a dust-down this morning?" + +Esdaile's face became animated as at last he warmed up to it all. He +spoke almost vehemently. + +"You see," he said, "I wasn't going to have any more damned nonsense. I +had quite enough of that--hours of it--all this that I'm telling you +took place just after tea. So I was as short as you please. Pity I spoke +quite so soon, but I really thought Audrey'd gone. And the idiot hadn't +even put the safety-catch on," he added with disgust. + +There was no need to urge him now. He was as resolved to tell his story +as before he had been reticent. The only unfortunate thing was that +until Monty should return he had so little to tell. + +"So when he saw the key story wouldn't do he fetched out this pretty +little article," he continued, rapping with his knuckle on the +writing-desk. "Just like a kid caught stealing apples he was. I asked +him where he got it, and he said on the roof. Then he told me all about +you fellows going up into the bathroom, and how he'd been the one to +crawl along the gutter because he doesn't weigh as much as either of +you." + +"But which of 'em gave it to him--Chummy or the other man?" Hubbard +asked. + +"Well, I'm not so sure that either of them really 'gave' it to him," +Esdaile replied. "He began to be a bit of a mule when I pressed him +about that. And of course I asked Monty all this before I knew it was +Chummy at all, and Monty doesn't know that yet, though I don't think he +ever met Chummy. No, as far as I can make out, the pistol was lying on +the roof, just out of Chummy's reach, and he kept pointing to it--moving +his hand like this." + +The gesture Esdaile made was the very gesture I had seen Mr. Harry +Westbury make in the Saloon Bar earlier in the day. + +"So he just picked it up and put it into his pocket?" + +"Just that. Simple, isn't it?" + +"And it's been fired?" + +"As you see." + +"Innocent young man. What did he do during the War?" + +"Camouflage," Esdaile replied. "In Kensington Gardens there. Imitation +haystacks and dummy O.P. trees and gunpit-screens and painting tanks and +so on. Making anything look like what it isn't. Just what he would do." + +"Does he know this thing's been fired?" + +"That I can't tell you. Audrey came in then." + +And that was the answer to all our further questions--Audrey had then +come in. Esdaile had as a matter of fact now told us all that had taken +place between himself and Monty Rooke. For further information we must +wait until Monty's return. + +You may imagine, however, that I had now quite a lot of food for +thought. In the first place, Rooke had taken it upon himself to conceal +a highly material fact from the police. Whether Esdaile yet shared this +responsibility was at present debatable. Audrey Cunningham's +interruption half-way through Monty's story rather obscured the moral +aspect of this last. One does not set weighty machinery going for +trifles, and for all we knew Monty, when he arrived, might have a +complete explanation. In the meantime Esdaile was probably wise to hold +his hand. + +A pistol, however, had undoubtedly been fired, and, as a further +examination of the barrel showed, probably recently. And, if you +remember, there was that small round hole in the starred roof-glass of +the studio that I had at first assumed to have been caused by the broken +mulberry branch. A pistol-bullet might have made just such a hole. + +Next I remembered how Esdaile had been occupied when Hubbard and I had +followed him into the studio shortly after his return from the cellar. +He had been so engrossed in poking about the broken glass and mats on +the studio floor that he had seemed to notice little else. Had he been +looking for the bullet that had made that hole in the roof? And why had +he had the roof-blinds drawn, and broken out on Monty when he had wanted +to put them back again? This last, I admit, set me all at sea again. The +drawing of the blinds would certainly hide the bullet-hole in the pane +from anybody _in_side the house, supposing he wished to hide it; but +what about the police who had been on the roof itself at that very +moment? The drawing of the blinds inside would hide nothing from them. +Why seek to conceal from the rest of us something that if they cared to +investigate they could hardly fail to see? + +One more thing. If that pistol had been fired on the premises, somewhere +there must be, not only a bullet, but a spent case also. I mentioned +this, and Esdaile gave a slight start of recollection. + +"Of course!" he exclaimed. "Glad you mentioned that. I found the case in +the garden. Here it is. I'd honestly forgotten all about it." + +And, as he fetched it out of his waistcoat pocket and put it down by the +side of the pistol, I as honestly believed he had. + +"But there's no sign of the bullet?" I asked. + +"I've looked high and low for it," Esdaile replied. "Low, I should say, +because naturally I don't want to go hunting about the roof in the +daylight. Too many eyes about. There's no trace of it." + +"But it wouldn't be on the roof if it made that hole in the glass. It +would be in the studio. Or possibly," I ventured, "in the cellar." + +But, as Esdaile was about to reply, a bell trilled in the kitchen, and, +with a "That's Rooke, I expect," Esdaile put the pistol and the empty +case back into the drawer, motioned us to remain where we were, and went +out. + + + + + X + + +Philip had described Rooke quite well when he had said that he had the +air of a naughty boy caught robbing an orchard. He had a hang-dog yet +defiant look as he entered, shepherded in by Philip as if we had been a +tribunal empaneled for his condemnation. But there was relief in his +face too--the relief of one who has got the worst over and hardly fears +the rest. And, as he threw his hat on the table and looked round in +search of a chair, he unconsciously emphasized his air of boyish guilt +by sitting down on a low stool that stood between the empty fireplace +and the escritoire. + +Esdaile began immediately, as if Rooke had merely been out of the room +for a few moments. + +"Well, to continue our chat, Monty," he said. "I've told these fellows +as much as you've told me. Shall we have the rest of it now?" + +From the look on Monty's face I began to think that we might have some +difficulty in getting very much more out of him, for the simple reason +that, in picking up and concealing an incriminating pistol, he evidently +didn't see that he had done anything at all out of the way. He seemed to +think that was a natural thing to have done. I gathered also that there +was something further on his mind, something that had already begun to +dawn on my own and has doubtless occurred to you also. But we will come +to that presently. + +So Monty merely repeated what we already knew, and then looked from one +to another of us as if to ask, "_Now_ were we satisfied?" + +"Oh, we want to know a good deal more than that," Esdaile continued. +"First of all, did he speak? The man who pointed to the pistol, I mean." + +"No. He'd taken too bad a toss for that," Monty replied. "He just +pointed, the way I showed you, and I thought perhaps he didn't want the +thing lying about, so I--well, I obliged him, so to speak." + +"But it's been fired." + +"I don't know anything about that. I didn't fire it, if that's what you +mean." + +"It's been fired recently. Did you notice if it was warm?" + +"No, I didn't," said Monty, ruffling up, "and it's all very well you +fellows talking, sitting down here with glasses of whisky in front of +you, but I'll bet if you'd been in my place you'd have done exactly the +same." + +Here I struck in. I asked him what made him so sure of that. He turned +his earnest brown eyes to me. + +"I mean you just would. If you'd seen him, I mean--seen his face. It was +the look in his eyes; I couldn't get it out of my mind for hours; I can +see it now. I tell you you missed a pretty rotten job by not having to +go up there, and here you go asking me if pistols were warm and who +fired them and all about it as if I'd been having a fortnight's holiday +up there." + +I saw Monty's point. I suppose I have arrived at that stage of life when +I too trust my eyes more and more as time goes on. Men may have all +sorts of reasons for saying one thing and meaning another, but he is a +remarkable man who can control his looks with the same facility. I have +seen many eyes telling the truth while the lips beneath them have told +the practiced lie. So if Monty had taken his impulse from Chummy +Smith's anguished eyes in that moment, I for one did not feel inclined +to blame him. + +"You've heard who it was, haven't you?" I said. + +"No. Who?" + +Philip told him. His eyes opened very wide. + +"Not the fellow I've heard you talk about?" + +Esdaile nodded gloomily. + +"And you mean _he_ fired the pistol?" + +There was an embarrassed silence. Nobody so far had ventured to express +his thought quite so nakedly. We had an obscure feeling of resentment, +as if Monty had been a little lacking in tact. He sat up on his stool +and pursed his lips into the shape of a whistle. + +"I--say! _That_ makes it the dickens, doesn't it? Well, I know what his +eyes looked like, I can promise you that! Poor devil! Thank goodness you +were all too busy watching Philip when he came up from down below to +notice me much. Nobody noticed me except Audrey, and she----" + +Philip sliced his words off like a guillotine. + +"You haven't told her anything about this, have you?" + +Monty stared at him. "No," he replied, "as a matter of fact I haven't; +but what if I had? I don't quite see----" + +"Then you see you jolly well don't," Philip curtly ordered him. "Four's +quite enough. You understand?" + +"Four's quite enough." Do you see what was already working in his mind, +and what a sudden jump forward our Case took when his lips uttered that +concluding word? + +For he did not say "enough" for what. The What was only just dimly +beginning to appear. Perhaps I shall save time if I put what I mean into +the form of a single question:-- + +Why had Esdaile, who knew perfectly well that that pistol ought to be in +the custody of the police, not himself immediately handed it over? + +Why indeed did he not do so now? + +That is what I am getting at. He had not only _not_ handed the pistol +over, but he had drawn blinds and grubbed about floors and had sought +high and low, though so far in vain, for a stray bullet. Nay, he might +lecture Monty on the picking up of random pistols, but what else had he +himself done when he had found that little empty brass case in the +garden and had slipped it into his waistcoat pocket? He had pretended to +hold back until Monty should have told him everything. Well, Monty had +now told him everything. + +There was a telephone in the hall. Ten seconds would suffice. + +Yet Esdaile did nothing. + +I was conscious of a curious quickening of excitement. The whole +atmosphere of our little gathering had already changed. Monty, sitting +on his stool, seemed somehow less of a culprit, Esdaile something much +more nearly in collusion with him. And above all it distinctly began to +appear--dare I say "providential"?--that Monty had picked up that +pistol. + +Why? + +Was it because Chummy Smith, instead of being a stranger who must be +left to take the consequences of his own acts, was Hubbard's and +Esdaile's friend? + + + + + XI + + +It is not for me to draw the hair-line that divides the heart's wish +from the conviction of the rightness of the act that follows it. We are +all prone to do what we want to do and to look for reasons afterwards. +That was for Esdaile and Hubbard to consider. I am merely stating the +Case. Personally you will always find me the broadest-minded and most +tolerant of men until these lofty qualities begin to react on my own +private affairs; after that I become a pattern of the narrow and the +hidebound. Whether in their place I should have done as Hubbard and +Esdaile did I have fortunately not to answer. What that was you will see +in a moment. + +For it was now clear that we were looking, without very much dismay, +into the perilous face of Conspiracy. A pistol had been fired, and +humanly speaking could only have been fired by one man. If the pistol, +therefore, ought to have been handed over to the police, _a fortiori_ +ought the man who had fired it. + +But that appeared to be precisely the sticking-point. It was here that I +saw both Hubbard and Esdaile preparing to dig in. In a word, until they +(private individuals, mark you) knew more about it, Chummy Smith was not +to be given up. + +Monty's attitude at about this stage began to be rather amusing. +Suddenly he left the stool of repentance and began to walk about. He +even swelled a little. It was he, after all, who had in a sense saved +the situation, and when the cartridge-case was produced (for Hubbard and +Esdaile had their heads together over the pistol-barrel again in search +of further minute indications) he became almost cock of the walk. +Incidentally he had one of those flashes of insight I told you he +sometimes had, or at any rate it was a flash with which I myself am not +without a certain amount of sympathy. + +"Well, there isn't half enough murder in the world if you ask _me_," he +said. "Only they're the wrong people. If you could get somebody really +trustworthy to pick out the right ones no end of good would be done." + +"Oh, shut up!" said Philip rudely; and happily the dangerous theory was +not pressed. + +But Monty had used the awkward word "murder." + +And if Monty was amusing, the state of mind of the other two was now +fascinatingly interesting. For you see their predicament. To put it +quite plainly, they were trying to screw up their courage. Esdaile in +particular was almost visibly hardening his heart. That was the +fascinating part--to see exactly how much and how little homage they +would pay to the decencies before they thought themselves free to go +ahead. + +The stages of the comedy were rapid. The first of them came when Esdaile +wondered whether he oughtn't to go to the telephone, not to communicate +with the police, but to ask for the latest news of Chummy's progress. + +"Seems funny to think of Chummy being laid out six months after the +War's all over," he said. "Remember the Jazz Band in the Mess, Cecil?" + +"Red Pepper Two-Step on the Birds, eh?" said Hubbard. + +(I am aware that this needs elucidation. The Helmsea Mess Jazz Band had +been a noteworthy improvisation, and the Birds had been Chummy Smith's +special department. They were stuffed Birds, set in cases round the +walls, and the glass fronts of the cases had formed Smith's tympani. +With drumming fingertips and softly-pounding wrists I learned that he +had got great variety out of his instruments.) + +"And the cock-fight between the razorbills?" Esdaile continued. + +I could also make a guess at the kind of rag that had been. + +"And the night old Pike's motor-bike broke down?" + +And though this reminiscence passed over my head, it was plain that they +were getting on. Very soon I might expect to be told outright that +Chummy Smith was Chummy Smith and a pal, and they would be damned if +they would see him in the cart till things were much clearer than they +were. So I simply leaned back and amused myself with mental pictures. +They were jumbled pictures, but I knew I was sharing them with the other +two. I seemed to see their East Coast Base, with planes homing in the +evening and the M.L.'s suddenly appearing out of the mists and dropping +anchor in the tideway. I seemed to see the rubber-coated and +white-mufflered figures striding up the jetty to that Mess they spoke of +and loudly demanding drinks and food and hot baths. I imagined the +mechanics filling up the tanks and the Duty Officer swearing at the snow +and slush as he stamped up and down the 'drome. And, faint and +ineffectual as my pictures were, they still had a little of the magic of +that life in which gayety and tragedy came so close and the chances of +life and death were so intertwined. + +I also guessed what a purist in the matter of picking up pistols might +find himself up against if he pushed his purism inconveniently far. + +Esdaile took the plunge even more quickly than I expected. I saw the +little effort with which he pulled himself together. + +"Well, it's no good beating about the bush," he said. "We all know how +things are. The question is what's to be done." + +I don't think he realized, as he pulled out his pipe, that that was now +hardly the question at all. Already the question was, not what was to be +done, but exactly how it was to be done. + + + + + XII + + +For, if he had realized, he could hardly have overlooked the immensely +important point he did overlook. It was left to me to draw his attention +to this point. + +For when one man kills another, it necessarily follows that one man has +been, killed _by_ another. And it further follows that, if you decide to +shield the killer because he is your friend, you are inevitably forced +into an unfriendly attitude towards the victim. What about the victim +and his rights in the matter? + +You may believe it or not, but until this moment I don't think this +aspect of the affair had occurred either to Hubbard or Esdaile. All had +been Chummy. More than this: so exclusively had Chummy occupied their +thoughts that they had forgotten the ordinary physical fact that a +bullet fired into a man's body makes a hole--the same ugly kind of hole +whether the person who makes it is your friend or not. Loyalty to +friendship in the teeth of the Law is not always the simple thing it +sounds. Among the various facts that faced us was one inescapable one, +namely, that a man called Maxwell was at that moment lying in a mortuary +awaiting a post-mortem examination. + +Esdaile was frowning and clawing his jaw. The realization was sinking in +now all right. + +"What had you thought of doing with the pistol anyway?" I asked. + +"To tell you the truth I hadn't thought," he admitted. "I should say the +bottom of the river's the best place for it. But as you say, you can't +drop that poor devil's bullet-hole into the river. Does nobody know +anything about him?" + +Nobody did. Maxwell might have been Chummy's best friend or worst enemy, +a good fellow, a rotter, any one kind of all the kinds of men there are. + +"Chummy was in Gallipoli. Anybody ever hear of a Maxwell with him +there?" + +Nobody had. + +Then Esdaile took another line. For a moment it seemed quite a hopeful +one. + +"Well, look at it this way." He tried to evade the inevitable. "It's all +very well for Monty to talk out of his hat about there not being murders +enough, but what earthly right have we to assume that this was a murder +at all? None, I say. Far more likely to have been an accident. Accidents +do happen. Chummy wasn't the kind of man to deliberately do another +fellow in. It must have been an accident." + +But at this moment I remembered Philip's own words that morning in the +studio: "Anybody would say it was an accident, wouldn't they? It looked +like an accident, I mean? It wouldn't occur to anybody who saw it that +it wasn't?" Those were rather remarkable words. They had meant, if they +had meant anything at all, that even then Philip had had his reasons +for supposing it had _not_ been an accident. Now that a thunderclap had +revealed that one of the men who had come down on the roof was Chummy, +he apparently wanted it to be an accident again. + +And by the way, how, at that particular moment, had Philip come to be in +possession of an opinion on the matter at all? This was the point I have +mentioned as being on Rooke's mind also. So far, in telling his story, +Esdaile had taken as his starting-point the moment when he had got +possession of the pistol from Monty; but what about the antecedent +mystery? How in the first place had he discovered that Monty had the +pistol? Why had he walked practically straight to Monty the moment he +had ascended from the cellar? The whole series of incidents, from first +to last, had passed while he had been still down in the cellar; how then +could he know anything whatever about them? + +Then I remembered that only a series of diversions had turned Hubbard +away from his express purpose in coming to Lennox Street that +evening--the purpose of seeing Esdaile's cellar. First had come the +shock of learning that one of the men was Chummy Smith; then Joan +Merrow's implication in the affair had sidetracked us; and then had come +the pistol and Monty. These things were all very well, but they brought +us no nearer to the solution of the first puzzle of all. Why had Esdaile +behaved as he had behaved when he had rejoined us with a jar of curaçao +in one hand and a lighted candle in the other? + +But for all this we had to wait. My speculations were suddenly cut +short. There was another ring at the door, and Esdaile rose. But before +going to see who it was this time he took the precaution of once more +putting Monty's pistol away in the escritoire drawer. + +It was well for our Case, as a Case, that he did so. We heard voices in +the passage, Esdaile's own tenor and a deeper voice. Then I heard him +say, "Well, perhaps you'd better come in." + +The next moment he stood holding the door open for a Police Inspector to +pass. + + + + + PART III + + WHAT THE WOMEN DID + + + + + I + + +For a great number of years past, innumerable reviewers have been so +kind as to class me as "one of the younger novelists," and with the +passing of time I have acquired a certain affection for the status. But +I have to confess myself unlike my brethren in this--I don't know all +about women. Indeed, twenty Philip Esdailes poking about twenty cellars +are clearer to me than some of the mental processes of such a person as +(say) Miss Joan Merrow. For instance, she once told me that she would be +terrified to go up in a machine. She told me this (as I subsequently +learned) within a very few hours of a side-slip at a few hundred feet +that had fairly "put the wind up" Chummy Smith, her companion in this +(by Philip) strictly forbidden adventure. Some chance remark of her own +revealed all this to me weeks later, and our eyes met, mine sternly +accusing, hers of limpid periwinkle blue. Then she had the effrontery to +take me aside, to put her arm inside mine, and to whisper that she knew +she could "trust" me! + +"Trust," indeed! + +So, as far as Miss Merrow is my informant for the part of our Case I am +now coming to, you are warned what to expect. + + + + + II + + +Since it was I who discovered Philip Esdaile's painting-cottage for him +I think I may claim that I know the Santon country fairly well. It is a +vast and skyey upland east of the Wolds, and its edge drops in four +hundred feet of glorious white cliff sheer to the sea. Everything there +is on the amplest and most bountiful scale, from the enormous stretches +of wheat and barley to the giant barns and huge horses and the very +poultry of its farmyards. The only tiny thing about it is its church, +and this stands in the middle of a daisied field, not by any means one +of the largest, but that can hardly be less than a hundred acres. There +is a shop-post-office, a short street mostly laithes as big as +airship hangars, an opaque horse-pond, and a single telegraph wire the +posts of which can be seen for miles diminishing away over the Wolds. +The few trees are mostly thorn, all blown one way by the wind and as +stiff and compact as wire mattresses. + +And Joan herself fitted into all this Caldecott spaciousness as if she +had been bred and born there. Half a mile away across the young corn you +saw her white sweater at the cliff's edge, and it seemed part of the +whiteness of the screaming seabirds, of the whiteness of the awful +glimpses of chalk where the turf suddenly ended in air, of the crawling +whiteness of the waves far below. And on the shore--but any young girl +is a Nausicaa on any shore. Esdaile has drawn and painted her a score of +times--young neck, fair thick yellow hair, the none-too-small white feet +with the sand disappearing from them as she waded into the anemonied +pools. Sometimes it was no more than a cryptic pencil-line, that, as +you looked at it, suddenly became her uplifted arm and flank, or the +balance of back and hips as she moved across the unsteady white stones. +Sometimes the jotting was more abbreviated still, just a dab or two of +color that placed her against fawn-colored sand or ribbon-grassed water. +But always it was Joan romping as it were her last between the little +Alan and Jimmy she mothered and those other dream-stuff children that +did not call her mother yet. + +I feel fairly certain that it was not in the very least on Philip +Esdaile's account that she had given instructions at the Chelsea +post-office for the readdressing of letters. Neither was it, as she had +falsely said, "to save Mr. Rooke the trouble." Both Philip's stupid +letters and Monty's convenience were very minor matters. The really +important thing was her own letters. Some little delay her change of +address was bound to entail; but if, after "1," "2," and "3" there must +be a short pause, "4," "5" and the rest would arrive all in one blissful +bag. And, pending her receipt of them, there was no reason why she +should cease to write letters. + +So, accompanied by the letter-case with the new lock on it, down to the +shore she took the children on the first two mornings (which is +something of a journey, by the way), and back in the afternoon she came +to high tea at half-past four. On the first day she did not even trouble +to walk on to the little post-office-shop. But on the second day she +did, returning empty-handed to boiled fowl and white sauce, tall piles +of Santon bread and Santon butter and Santon jam, pints of hot tea from +the luster pot under the haystack cosy, and the children's clamor:-- + +"I saw a jellyfish as big as a cart-wheel!" + +"'N Jimmy found seven starfishes!" + +"I found _eight_ starfishes!" + +"'N I waded out till the water came right up to here!" + +"'N I saw a polar bear----" + +"Oh, Jimmy, what a story! You've just made that up this minute!" + +This last in bell-voiced reproof from Joan. At twenty she still +corrected and disputed with them as a rather larger equal. + + + + + III + + +They had arrived at Santon at half-past eight on a Thursday night, +and after tea on the Saturday Joan walked up to the little +coastguard-station on the hill. Aeroplanes were not unknown on that wide +uplifted promontory, and it would not in the least surprise her if +presently, say in another week or so, Chummy, finding himself within a +mere fifty miles, were to drop in unannounced. He had in fact said so, +in the last letter but four. He had not been able to see her off at the +station because he had had a new machine to take up with a fellow she +didn't know. On Friday he was chasing off to the Midlands, where he +might have to stay the night, and he did not expect to be back in London +till Saturday afternoon. So he would not be within fifty miles, and even +if a plane did happen to pass over it could not possibly be his. + +As a matter of fact a plane did happen to pass over, and she pretended +that it was his. She stood watching, eyes shaded with her hand, lips +smiling and parted, and the young throat long as the flower-trumpet at +the pit of which lies the nectar. Though she had been in a plane (and +"trusted" me not to tell), I don't think that in her heart she regarded +aeroplanes as apparatus at all. They were not things of wood and steel +and oil and petrol that carried a load as a motor-car might have carried +a load. All was the particular skill and daring and unaided cleverness +of that Chummy of hers. I suppose he simply thought of her and flew.... +But her little pretense ended in a light sigh when the plane did not +circle, but with unfeeling purposefulness followed the telegraph wire +over the Wolds and was lost to her sight. The young chauffeur of the +air, whoever he was, knew nothing of the kiss that went after him. She +returned to the cottage and the letter-case and began "7." + +She knew nothing of the letter that Mollie Esdaile had already received +from Philip, fortunately during her absence with the children. Nor did +she know that Mollie, still in her absence, had run immediately to the +shop-post-office and had telegraphed "_Wire fullest particulars +immediately most anxious_." Chummy (Philip had written) had had a slight +accident, nothing serious, but enough to keep him in bed for a few days. +It would be better (his letter had continued) if this could be kept from +Joan until she, Mollie, heard further from him. If Mollie could also +glance through the newspapers before Joan got hold of them, that also +Philip recommended. For the rest, he had said nothing whatever about +when he himself might be expected at Santon, and Mollie further wondered +whether it was to create a reassuring impression that he had passed on +to tell her how he was having old Dadley round about some +picture-framing, and ended with similar trivial matters. That letter had +come on the Friday afternoon. Saturday had brought neither letter nor +reply to her telegram. She was glad that there was a Sunday delivery at +Santon, which usually awaited them on their return from Church. + +(I may say now, by the way, that Philip's caution about the newspapers +was needless. The paper that found its way to Santon about midday was a +London paper, but a Northern edition. Minor accidents in Chelsea are +seen in perspective from the North, and no account of that Chelsea +accident ever did appear.) + +Only Joan and the children went to Church on that Sunday morning. Mollie +made some excuse about helping the village girl to prepare the midday +meal. Perhaps she preferred not to read letters and have her own face +read by Joan at the same time. + +In the summer, when the door of that diminutive Church usually stands +wide open all through the service, you can see from the back pews the +postman pass on his way to Newsome's, the farthest farm. So there in +Church Joan sat, watching the bees that droned in and out of the open +door, the butterflies that hovered, the cattle that tried to crop inside +the little wire fence. The whiteness of the daisies was faintly shed up +among the old rafters, and the curate's singsong rose and fell +peacefully. The postman passed with the Newsome letters, and repassed +with his empty bag. Then the sluggish old harmonium droned forth the +last hymn, they knelt for the Benediction, and Joan and her charges were +the first to hurry forth out into the sunshine again. + +And this time there was a letter for her. + +But her brows were already contracted even before she opened it. She +stood, in the white frock and buttercupped hat, against the musk and +geraniums of the sunny window, already wondering what the quite strange +handwriting of the envelope meant, already half afraid to ascertain. + +"Is this all----?" she began. + +Then with a nervous jerk she tore open the envelope, and a cry broke +from her. The blue eyes were wide frightened rounds. + +For if the handwriting on the envelope was strange, that of the shaky +penciled scrawl inside was not quite familiar either. Yet it was +Chummy's. He had had a bit of a spill, he said, but nothing to hurt. +Rather shaken, but nothing broken. She was not to come up, as he would +be out and up again before she could get there. + +And that was all. There was no address at the head of the letter, and he +did not say who had addressed the envelope for him, nor why. + +"Oh, Mollie, he's hurt!" broke agitatedly from Joan. + +Mollie was writing a letter at the little round table where the +workbasket stood. Quietly she rose and passed her arm about the girl. + +"Yes, darling, but he's quite all right," she calmed her. + +"Have you heard from Philip, then? What is it? What does he say?" the +words came with a rush. + +Mollie had not heard from Philip that morning. That was why she was +writing her letter. But she said she had heard from him. She meant the +letter she had received on Friday afternoon. + +"And somebody's had to write the address for him!" Joan's voice became +more unsteady still. "Oh, that means he's badly hurt! I must go at +once!" + +"Nonsense, dear. Anyway, there are no trains on Sunday. May I see what +he says, or----?" + +Joan thrust the weak scribble into her hand. She read it, passed it +back, and then began to unpin Joan's hat. + +"Well, that's nothing to be alarmed about," she said. "He says just the +same as Philip. And he tells you you're not to go up. We shall hear all +about it to-morrow." + +But she did not tell Joan that it was precisely because there was so +maddeningly little in the letter she had received from Philip on Friday +that, despairing of getting anything plain out of a mere man, the letter +she was now writing was to Audrey Cunningham. + + + + + IV + + +I hope you haven't got the impression that I didn't like Mrs. +Cunningham. Indeed, if half I presently learned about her was true, it +would have been a hard heart that had not shown a very real and +compassionate consideration for her. Young as she was, she had had a +wretched story. As far as I know it it was this:-- + +The late George Cunningham, having contracted the dangerous habit of +going to bed every night comparatively sober and waking up in the +morning very drunk, had one day arrived at the point when something had +had to be done about it. I assume that he had tried the usual specifics +to no purpose, since he had presently found himself with only two +alternatives left. The first of these was to have done with specifics, +to go boldly forward, and to trust to the strength of his constitution +to land him high, and still dry, among the seasoned octogenarians. The +other was to marry, and to trust that the pure love of an innocent young +girl might work its traditional miracle. + +Unfortunately, instead of choosing he had tried both courses at once. An +unjailed criminal of a father had either suggested the match himself or +had failed to throw Cunningham out of the window when it had been +suggested. So at seventeen-and-a-half Audrey Herbert had become the wife +of a man-about-town of forty-two, with a roomy house in St. John's Wood, +a considerable private fortune, and a hole in every one of his pockets. + +It had not taken Mrs. Cunningham long to discover that a man who goes to +bed sober and wakes up drunk, frequently does so in other beds than his +own. But her father, to whom she ran, advised her to continue to +exercise her influence for good. He seems to have thought that as long +as Cunningham did not actually strike her the rest must be accepted as +part of marriage-as-it-is. He had passed out of the world in that belief +a couple of years after his daughter's immolation. + +Cunningham never struck her. Nor, while it lasted, did he starve her of +money. Twice, when housekeeping debts had pressed, he gave her blank +checks which the bank duly honored. The third time (one of his +mistresses appears to have been the occasion) he gave her a considerably +wider permission.... No, he had never struck her. Instead he had merely +dragged through the mud of alcoholism and unfaithfulness the hope and +belief in men he had found her with, and after five years of it had +died--not a day too soon, as she had discovered on going into his +affairs. When his debts of honor, dishonor and at law had been paid, +about a hundred pounds had remained. With this, her clothes, a few +pieces of furniture bought in from the sale and her experience of +married life, she had become her own mistress again at twenty-three. +Most of the hundred pounds had gone in fees at a School of Dramatic +Art. She was now twenty-seven and on the eve of her second marriage. + +I am telling you all this because of the part that Mrs. Cunningham +presently came to play in our Case. I think her unhappy history partly +explained certain things. I would not go so far as to say that with the +exception of Monty Rooke she disliked and distrusted all men, but I +think that the sense of sex-hostility was latent and instinctive in her. +This never took the form of gloom. Quite the other way. Lest it should +be thought for a moment that she mourned for the cur with whom she had +been kenneled, she was rather histrionically bright. She fell naturally +into beautiful attitudes and gestures, which beauty her art enhanced. I +think I mentioned the care she bestowed on her manicuring; in the whole +of her person and dress she was the same, as if to wipe out some +soilure. She was undoubtedly much in love with Monty--who at any rate +was a teetotaller. And, except as I have qualified, I think she liked +the rest of us well enough. But the history was always behind, and, in +my experience, if you like with however natural a reservation, there is +something of the same reserve in the liking you inspire. + +So in this sense I was prepared to like Mrs. Cunningham, and without any +qualification whatever was sorry she had had so ghastly a time and +hopeful that her marriage with Monty would expunge the memory of it. + + + + + V + + +And so we come to the episode of the wardrobe that Audrey Cunningham had +bought in from the St. John's Wood sale. + +This wardrobe, with a number of dress-baskets and other articles, formed +part of the furniture of the bed-sitting-room in Oakley Street that she +was now on the point of leaving, and it had been Philip Esdaile himself +who had suggested, some time ago, that there was plenty of room for +these belongings in his cellar. Nothing had since been said about it; +Philip says that the matter had entirely slipped from his memory; and +Mrs. Cunningham, having no reason to suppose that he had changed his +mind, had as a matter of fact had the wardrobe put on a light cart and +brought round to Lennox Street the day after the aeroplane accident, +that is to say on the Friday afternoon. Philip himself, coming along the +street at that moment, had found the cart at the gate and Monty and Mrs. +Cunningham considering the best way of getting the wardrobe in. + +"Ah, so you've got it round; good," he said. "I don't quite know where +you're going to put it, but we'll find somewhere. Let me give you a +hand." + +"I thought you said it was to go into the cellar?" said Mrs. Cunningham. + +"Eh?" said Philip. "Did I? I believe I did. Well, let's get it in first. +We can settle that afterwards. Has Dadley come?" + +So the wardrobe was got into the hall, where it was left for the present +among Philip's corded and labeled painting-gear. + +"Has Dadley come?" Philip asked again. + +"Yes. He's been waiting for you for ten minutes in the studio," Monty +replied. + +"Bon. I don't suppose I shall be more than ten minutes, but don't wait +for tea. I've had a cup as a matter of fact." + +"Can't say I think much of old Daddy as a framer----" Monty was +beginning; but Esdaile was already at the studio door, which he closed +carefully behind him. + +You may remember the name of old William Dadley. It was he who, when Mr. +Harry Westbury had held forth in the Saloon Bar about the danger to +property from the air, had ventured to suggest that lives too had their +value. His shop was the little one in the King's Road with the alleged +Old Master in the window, one half of it black with ancient grime, the +other pitilessly restored; and, as Monty had said, artists who were in +any hurry to see their pictures back again seldom took their framing to +old Daddy. Unless they went farther afield, they were more likely to +patronize the up-to-date establishment across the road, kept by the two +pushing young men in the Sinn Fein hats and black satin bows and little +side-whiskers and hair bobbed like girls'. + +And now for the discussion on picture-framing that took place between +Philip Esdaile and William Dadley, behind the closed studio door. + + + + + VI + + +"Was he drunk?" Esdaile asked. He was walking about, head down, +frowning. + +The old man stroked his grizzled beard. + +"Well, I won't say he hadn't had a few. I saw him have two or three +liqueur brandies. And he's a crossish sort of man when he's at home, +especially when it's wearing off a bit, but he isn't easily bowled over, +isn't Harry. Well, as I was telling you. He gets home about tea-time +that day, and the first thing he sees is one of the children playing +with something or other in his mouth. He was popping it in and out. You +know what children are, Mr. Esdaile--everything goes straight into their +mouths. So Westbury asked the child how much oftener he wants telling +about putting things into his mouth, and takes it away from him. And +what do you think it was, Mr. Esdaile? It was a bullet!" + +"A bullet?" said Esdaile with a show of astonishment. + +"A bullet. And it had been fired, because it was all out of shape. Well, +you don't find bullets everywhere, like leaves off the trees, do you?" + +"Where on earth did the child get it?" Esdaile asked. + +"Ah, that's what Harry wants to know!" The gray old head was wagged a +few times. "Shouts for his missis, and there's a bit of a scene. The +child says he found the bullet in the bedroom. How did it get there? +Harry wants to know. It seems the window was wide open to air the room a +bit. Then Harry asks what the child was doing in the bedroom, and what +time he went up, and what time he came down again, and I don't know what +else. Then he has a bit of a sleep and a cup of tea and a wash and goes +off out again. I believe he went straight to Inspector Webster with the +bullet, but he won't say either Yes or No. He's very mysterious about +it. A man told me, though, that he'll be an important witness when the +Case comes on." + +"What Case?" Esdaile asked. + +"Well, Westbury he looks at it like this, Mr. Esdaile: If that bullet +came in at his window it might have hit somebody, he says, and he's +great on the window being just opposite this house of yours. And he's +worked it out, from the time it was when his wife cleaned the bedroom +and where the children were and all that, that the bullet must have come +in at the same time that accident was." + +"But what's a flying accident got to do with a bullet?" + +"Ah, that I can't tell you; but he's very mysterious. And I know he's +written a letter to the papers about dangerous flying, because I heard +him reciting bits of it. He says he'll make a Case of it or his name +isn't Harry Westbury." + +"What paper has he written to?" + +"I can't remember the name just for the moment, but it's one of the +papers. And I heard him reciting one bit about three million pounds' +damage. I don't suppose he's written to the papers about the bullet; +that's the tit-bit, that is, and he's keeping that to himself, except +for Inspector Webster. Westbury's a difficult sort of man once he gets +started on a thing. Stares you down like. You say you don't know him by +sight? It was him brought that ladder into your garden--he was there +when Mr. Rooke went up on the roof----" + +And that (to pass on) was the gist of the discussion on the framing of +Esdaile's _fêtes-champêtre_. + + + + + VII + + +A few minutes' reflection would have shown Esdaile that there was no +immediate reason why he should have hesitated to have that wardrobe +carried down into his cellar. He himself admits this. But it is easy to +think of these things afterwards, and he was caught off his guard. He +did allow reluctance to appear. + +"Why not move this desk and let it stand here?" he said, pointing to the +writing-table with the mignonette-shaded lamp on it. "It's not a +bad-looking piece at all. Pity to hide it. What is it--Jacobean?" + +It was either genuine Jacobean or else a passable copy, but, placed +where Philip proposed to place it it would have been a little in the way +of anybody passing to the French window. Mrs. Cunningham pointed this +out. + +"Do you think so? Let's measure it," Esdaile replied. + +Measurement of the piece confirmed Mrs. Cunningham's view, and Philip +next suggested that it should go into the large studio. + +"Why not have it where you can get at it and use it?" he said. "I +thought women complained they could never get hanging-space enough. Or +what about upstairs in Mollie's room?" + +But Audrey Cunningham's frocks, which she made quite wonderfully +herself out of almost nothing at all, were few, and Mollie had left her +plenty of room for them. Besides, there were the dress-baskets. These +would hardly add to the beauty either of the annexe or the studio. For +the baskets at any rate the most convenient place was certainly the +cellar. And it was at this point that Philip, recognizing that further +objection would look rather like obstinacy, yielded. + +He confesses that he felt awkward about the whole situation. Either he +had lent his house or he had not. If the former, Monty and his fiancée +should have had the complete freedom of it; if the latter, or if for any +reason he regretted his generosity, the position was even more obscure. +To say that until the marriage he had lent it to Monty only and not to +Mrs. Cunningham was mere quibbling; he had made the offer in entire good +faith, and had not made a lawyer's matter of it, with clauses and +reservations about this, that and the other. + +Yet here he not only was, but here very much master of the house whether +he wished it or not. Audrey Cunningham would of course be very nice +about it, but he could see very plainly how it must strike her. He did +not even pretend to be working. He was merely hanging on, for a reason +unexplained and unexplainable to her. Monty knew his reason, of course; +but the reason she supposed to be the truth (for she had been told that +one of the men who had crashed was their friend and Joan Merrow's more +than friend) by no means accounted for everything. It did not account +for a quarter of his eccentricities; it did not even account for his +latest inadvertence, of proposing any place in the house except the +cellar for the bestowal of that nuisance of a wardrobe. What an ass he +had been about that! The cellar could be made _perfectly safe_ at an +instant's warning; as a matter of fact it was _perfectly safe_ at that +moment. There was no reason whatever why Audrey Cunningham should not go +down there. + +But things would get worse as time went on. Presently Audrey would be +living here, as Monty's wife, and it would be difficult for Philip to +delay his departure after that. A honeymoon is a honeymoon even when it +is spent in a borrowed studio, and newly-married couples don't commonly +take in fussy and fretful lodgers. Within a week or so he or they would +most certainly have to clear out. + +Philip could have stated what had actually happened in one short +sentence. He had offered them one house, but was now called upon to hand +over to them the possession of quite a different one. + +But this was impossible to explain without dragging in the thing of all +things that he wished to keep from Audrey, from Mollie, and above all +from Joan--that beastly episode of the pistol, with all it involved. + +And here at any rate he was quite firm. Chance what might, that must be +kept the men's affair only. As far as the women were concerned at +present the accident was a pure accident. Well, an accident it must +remain. + +But what about that Police Inspector who had appeared so suddenly in our +midst the night before, and for all Philip knew might be round again at +any moment? Audrey Cunningham had been told nothing about that. She +might have many opinions about Philip's delayed departure, but about a +series of domiciliary visits by the police she could have one only, +namely, that the loan of a studio wasn't worth it. In suppressing this +piece of information Philip was actually doing his best to keep her in +Lennox Street. To have informed her would have been much the same thing +as asking her to leave. + +And what exactly had passed when Philip's tenor voice, interrupting the +Inspector's deep one, had said, "Well, perhaps you'd better come in"? + + + + + VIII + + +Of the four of us sitting there I alone had instantly realized what must +have happened. Our Nosey Parker of a Westbury had been at work already. +I remembered the dull insistence of the man and how he had said in my +hearing that he and Inspector Webster "would be having a bit of a talk +that evening." I recalled also the stupid but dangerous cunning with +which he had repeated over and over again that Rooke had been the first +on the scene of the accident. Well, he hadn't lost very much time. The +Inspector had stood there in the doorway, and neither Esdaile, Hubbard +nor Rooke had had the least idea why. + +Now there are a good many of the commonly-accepted views on physiognomy +that I for one don't share. One of these is about rather narrowly-set +eyes. Webster, who was a very big red-and-black man, had these eyes +under a sort of bison-front of close-curling hair, but I did not +associate them with meanness and slyness at all. On the contrary, they +had rather a kindly glint, and they reminded me of the infinitesimal +slight cast that at certain moments makes some women irresistible. No, I +did not set Inspector Webster down as a bad sort. At the same time there +was no nonsense about him, and I should have thought twice before +trying any tricks with him. + +I was more thankful than I can tell you that Philip also, in spite of +the emotional gamut he had run that day, still had resilience enough to +sum the Inspector up very much as I did. There was no bland "Well, +Inspector, and to what are we indebted for the pleasure of this visit?" +nor anything of that kind. Perhaps that dangerous pistol, X-raying +itself so plainly in our minds through the top of the escritoire, had +forbidden any such attitude. I now know, as a matter of fact, the +life-line on to which he had immediately and instinctively laid hold. +Inspector Webster, whatever he had come for, was to be treated exactly +as the women were to be treated, and the accident-theory was to hold the +field. + +So this is what had happened:-- + +The Inspector, after a few conventional remarks about being sorry to +trouble us gentlemen for the second time that day and so on, had come +down like a hammer straight upon our weakest point. This was the part +that Monty Rooke had played in that morning's events. First of all he +wanted (with our permission) to put a few words to Mr. Rooke. I think he +used the word "permission" in good faith, and not as any kind of a +veiled threat. + +I saw Monty moisten his lips. He has since explained the swiftness with +which he also was able to come into line and to play up so really nobly +as he did. Philip, if you remember, had forbidden him pretty gruffly to +say one word about all this to Audrey Cunningham; it is no light matter +to dictate to another man what he shall say and what he shall not say to +his fiancée; and this it was that saved the situation. If Monty was to +be ordered to keep his mouth shut before his fiancée he was jolly well +not going to be pumped by an outsider, Police Inspector or no Police +Inspector. On such hairs do our actions hang sometimes. + +"Fire away," he had said. + +"Well, sir, to begin with, would you be so kind as to tell me in your +own words exactly what you saw on the roof this morning?" + +"Certainly," Monty had replied. + +And he had launched out. + +From the point of view of the things he omitted I can only describe his +performance as brilliant. Camouflage was certainly Monty's war-job. Not +one single word was there about bullet-holes, cartridge-cases or +pistols. Had there been a polar bear or a pterodactyl on the roof it +might have been worth mentioning, but a pistol--no. + +My only fear was lest he should be so pleased with his own performance +as to undo it again out of sheer satisfaction presently. + +"Thank you very much indeed, sir," said the Inspector. "I asked you for +your own words and you've given them. Now I wonder if I might be allowed +to ask you one or two questions?" + +"Fire away," said Monty again. + +But here the Inspector himself had seemed to be in some slight +difficulty. Apparently for some reason he wasn't very anxious to speak +of pistols either. Polar bears or pterodactyls, yes; but not pistols. I +have since thought that, as a man of some penetration, he also might +have had his private opinion about Mr. Harry Westbury, and thought it +best to act on anything Westbury said with caution. + +Nevertheless, the series of questions that had followed had all been in +the very close neighborhood of pistols, so to speak. I itemize what +struck me as being their real, if unuttered trend. + +"About this man that's dead, Mr. Rooke. You saw his face, of course?" + +(_Item: Had Maxwell been shot through the head?_) + +Yes, Monty had seen his face, but so, he ventured to remind the +Inspector, had he himself. + +"Well, say I had other things to attend to and didn't particularly +notice. You'd say he was--pretty bad?" + +(_Item: So bad that there might have been a little hole on one side of +his head and a big one on the other without your noticing it?_) + +"Rotten," said Monty with an unaffected shiver. + +"Bleeding much?" + +(_Item: Or anything else scattered about?_) + +"No." + +"Clothes singed?" + +(_Item: If not through the head, perhaps through the body?_) + +"Yes. Badly. Bits of the parachute too." + +"From where you were on the roof lots of people could see you?" + +(_Item: If you'd done anything you'd no business to do, for instance?_) + +"Any number of people I should say," Monty had replied rather faintly. +"But I don't see what you're getting at. You were up there too. What is +it all about?" + +And here Philip had seen fit to intervene, rather quickly. + +"Yes, that's what I'm wondering, Inspector. Is it a proper question to +ask? And is it proper to ask you if you'd like a glass of whisky, by the +way?" + +The narrow eyes had twinkled. "Not supposed to, sir----" + +"Right. Say when----" + +And so our healths had been drunk. + +"You see," Philip had resumed presently, "I understood from Mr. Mackwith +this morning--you knew that was Mr. Mackwith, K.C., you were talking to, +didn't you--the tall man in morning-coat and spats?" + +"Was he indeed, sir?" + +"Yes, that was Mr. Mackwith, and I understood from him that you had said +you had all the evidence you wanted?" + +The Inspector had been sitting with his cap on his knees and the glass +of whisky inside it like a flowerpot in a vase. He had ruminated. + +"Well," he had said suddenly, "the fact is that that was this morning, +gentlemen. Since then a certain piece of information's been laid in +connection with this affair. I'm not at liberty to say what this +information is, nor whether we shall act on it or not, but the Law's for +the protection of us all, gentlemen, and I take it all of us wants to do +our best to maintain it. Even if it meant the inconvenience," he added +deliberately, "of a warrant for the search of these premises." + +Here the sorely-tried Philip had given a wild laugh. + +"Search these premises! Search 'em now if you like. But in God's name +what for?" + +"Accidents aren't always what they seem, sir," Inspector Webster had +replied. + + + + + IX + + +And now (to come out of this winding of the story into the open again) +here was Audrey Cunningham with dress-baskets and a wardrobe for which +the most suitable place was certainly the cellar. + +"All right," Esdaile said suddenly. "Let's do it now. Monty and I can +manage it if you'll hold a candle for us." + +And he lighted and put into Audrey's hand the same candle he had himself +used when he had gone down into the cellar to fetch the orange curaçao. + +He was still kicking himself that he had made such a fuss. Now at last +he saw that, although only a trifle stood between revelation and perfect +concealment, this trifle was as firm as the rocks of which the mountains +are built. A short flight of steepish stone steps, with a rather awkward +right-angled bend half-way down, descended ten feet or so, and there was +no cellar door. You stepped from the bottom step, which was a little +worn and concave, and there you were, with nothing more to do but to put +the wardrobe and the dress-baskets inside and to come out again. + +The wardrobe was at the turn of the stairs. Mrs. Cunningham stood just +above it, holding the candle for the two men to see. + +"Gently--don't knock it," muttered Philip, "and mind the edge of the +steps--they're pretty old----" + +The wardrobe cleared the bend, and Audrey Cunningham followed it into +the cellar. + +It was only natural that she should look with some curiosity at the +place in which Philip Esdaile had spent that unaccounted-for half hour +on the morning of the day before. I did the same thing myself at a +later stage. But all that she saw was the most ordinary of cellars. +Hubbard himself, who seemed to have cellar-on-the-brain, would have +found nothing remarkable in it. This is all that was to be seen:-- + +A roomy, gloomy, clammy place, with old plastered walls, and neither +door nor window of any kind nor other means of entry than that they had +just used. Its air hit skin and nostrils like that of a grave. The light +of the single candle seemed lost in its obscurity. When Audrey held the +candle up above her head a couple of heavy beams could be seen, +necessary for the support of the largish area of the studio floor; when +she held it to one side it showed in a corner a couple of gas-meters +with the usual pipes, and underneath them the improvised rack in which +Esdaile kept his modest stock of wine. When she held it to the other +side its light hardly reached the farther wall, but wavered over the dim +objects that half-filled the floor-space. These were merely the +furniture for which Esdaile had no present use, and consisted of a large +couch covered with a dingy dust-sheet, a few oddments of chairs, a +number of packing-cases, and in fact the usual miscellaneous collection +of household lumber that one day seems hardly worth keeping and the next +looks just too good to throw away. Nearest to hand on the wine-rack +stood the bottle of curaçao, just where Esdaile himself had replaced it. +And that was all. + +"Well, where will you have it, Audrey?" said Philip. "What about over by +the sofa there?" + +Mrs. Cunningham was once more holding the candle over her head. Any +young woman's face by candlelight always seems singularly attractive to +me, especially if she is a dark-eyed woman, and she was a slight and +graceful thing to have endured so much. Had Joan been holding that +candle up she would have given you the impression of a statue, but Mrs. +Cunningham was just the opposite--all warm and fleeting and impermanent +charm, a creature depending on the varying accidents of color, even when +that color was only the sooty black of her home-made dress, the +candlelight on her face and the tiny reflections in her large and +lustrous eyes. + +Suddenly she gave a shiver and a nervous laugh. + +"I don't think I should like to be shut in here alone," she said. + +"Why not?" Philip asked. + +But the "why not" hardly needed saying, with that same candlestick in +her hand and, as she once more moved it, that same jar of curaçao +seeming to advance a little out of the shadows. These things brought the +shock and dread of that other morning all too plainly before her again. +It was within these chill sweating walls that Philip Esdaile had done +the "wool gathering" he had spoken of. What wool? She saw none. Then +why, up to that very moment almost, had he shuffled so? Why had he +seemed so anxious that the wardrobe should be placed anywhere rather +than in the place where they now stood? Here she was. She could not +imagine any kind of cellar, however earthy and tomblike, that so changed +its nature or properties that at one moment it must be jealously guarded +and the next thrown open for her to look as much as she pleased. She was +free to look. Monty also was wandering about in the farther corner +there, as greedy for knowledge as she. The only check on her freedom was +that she felt that Philip at the same time was covertly watching her. + +Then all at once something seemed to give way in her. She put the candle +down on one end of the sheeted sofa and turned to Philip. Her hands were +clasped at her breast, the honeysuckle fingers interworking. + +"Oh, please tell me!" she begged. "What is it makes this place so queer? +There's something--I can feel it--like eyes on me--I've a being-watched +sort of feeling, as if something was wrong----" + +Philip took up the candle. "Then let's go upstairs," he said promptly. + +But something almost like hysteria seemed to take her. Her voice rose. + +"No, I want to know! I don't feel I can come to this house unless I +know! I don't want to come here if it's going to be like this! You don't +want to tell me--I know you could if you wanted! Oh, I wish Mollie was +here!" + +"Come upstairs," Philip repeated gently. "Bring her up, Monty." + +But she went on with even less and less control. + +"Oh, I think it's cruel! You're all cruel! You never think of us! Joan's +to go on being told nothing, and Mollie's kept in the dark--oh, I know +she is--and I'm made to feel that I'm not wanted here.... I want to go +back to Oakley Street, Monty. I can't stop here. I won't. Everything's +been wrong ever since that accident. It's horrible. I'm going away. I +dare say they'll let me keep my room on; if they won't I must find +somewhere else. Please take me away." + +Upstairs, she became a little calmer, but she still wanted to be taken +away. Monty was soothing her where she sat on the little Empire sofa, +and Philip's face was distressed as he walked up and down. Then, though +there was little heart in his attempt, he tried gently to laugh her out +of it. + +"But of course you'll go back to Oakley Street," he said. "You're there +for three days yet, aren't you? It will be all right by that time. It's +just a little bit of a complication we're in. It won't be long now. Then +you'll get married and come along here, of course. Pull yourself +together, my dear. It's all right. There, you're feeling better now, +aren't you?" + +He felt a perfect brute, he says, but he didn't see what else he could +do. Even if he had had the right, he doesn't see that it would have +helped to tell her that, after tying herself up with a drunkard, she was +now going to make a second experiment with a man who had no more sense +than to go and get himself mixed up in an affair that might bring the +police round at any moment. He had no such right. Just as before he had +been unable to explain to Hubbard and myself until he had spoken to +Monty, so now he couldn't take any further step till he had seen Chummy +Smith. It might be hard on Joan and Mrs. Cunningham, not to mention his +wife, but what other course could he take? When you set about to burke +inquiry into a capital Case the fewer people you take into your +confidence the better. Besides, who knew yet that it was a capital Case? +Suppose twenty words from Chummy should somehow explain it all? Suppose +some ridiculous mistake had been made? Suppose our elaborate pretenses +to ourselves were in reality no pretenses at all, and that the thing +really was what it seemed--just an aeroplane accident with nothing more +to be said about it? + +Yes, in spite of all the evidence, he would have been glad at the moment +to have believed that. + +"Look here, Audrey," he said at last, "I feel absolutely rotten about +all this. I know I'm in the way and I oughtn't to be here at all. When I +turned over this place to you I hadn't the faintest idea of stopping on +like this. I'd go straight into rooms now if I could, but that wouldn't +do. Don't ask me why, there's a dear. For one thing I've got to see +Smith. They tell me he can be seen in a few days now. Then I'll just +stop for the wedding and clear right out afterwards. Whats the matter +with that?" + +The matter with that appeared in Audrey Cunningham's next words, which +she spoke slowly and with her eyes on the floor. + +"It isn't just you. It's Monty as well. He could tell me if he wanted, +but he doesn't want. I don't think I want to get married," she said. + + + + + X + + +The letter she wrote crossed Mollie Esdaile's Sunday morning one. It was +written on Saturday, and missed the Santon Sunday morning delivery by a +post, arriving there on Monday. + +"Please don't think me ungrateful," Mollie read, "but all sorts of +things seem to be happening, and I'm so afraid of hurting you after all +your kindness. Perhaps I'd better come to the point straight away and +explain afterwards. I don't think I can accept your offer of Lennox +Street for Monty and myself after all." + +Mollie was standing in the porch of the cottage as she read this. It was +immediately after breakfast. The postman could be seen in the middle +distance, climbing the stile on his way to Newsome's. Joan was +upstairs, getting the children ready for the shore. + +Mollie thrust the letter into her breast. If Joan knew that the postman +had been she would come flying downstairs, and in any case Mollie did +not wish to be seen reading a letter. This from Audrey Cunningham was +all there was for her. For Joan there was nothing at all. + +Quietly she slipped into the cottage, picked up a floppy print +sunbonnet, and slipped noiselessly out again. The back of the cottage +had no windows. Like a malefactor she skirted the palings of the little +front garden and gained the security of the back. But even this was not +far enough. The path up the field led to the Coast-guard Station, and, +with one furtive glance behind her, she took it. She would finish +Audrey's letter there. + +Mollie Esdaile is still a young woman, but she looked every minute of +her age that morning. She had not slept. The room adjoining hers was +Joan's, and the wall between them might just as well not have existed, +so little a barrier had it been to the restless mental ticking of the +girl on the other side of it. A soft and tortured toss, then the +creaking of the bed, then the sounds of Joan moving about her room; the +striking of a match, a long silence, and then the creaking of the bed +again--all night it had gone on. Mollie had not gone to her; what had +there been to do or say? A hundred times she had promised, as if it had +lain in her power, that there should be a letter in the morning. None +had come. She felt a coward. She simply could not face Joan. + +There was a merry morning wind, that ruffled the fleeces on the sheep's +backs and set the halliards of the Coast-guard's mast cracking and +rattling. Mollie tied the strings of the print sunbonnet under her plump +chin and walked with her head a little averted in order to see round the +print blinker. Beyond the waving grass-heads the sea appeared, a wide +silver glitter. You cannot see the shore from that hill. The sands and +the mile-long rollers lie far below that cliff's edge over which the men +are let down by ropes to gather the eggs from the awful ledges. + +Then, in the little sunken way that runs down to the Rocket-house, she +sat down and took out the letter again. + + "I don't think I can accept your offer of Lennox Street for Monty + and myself after all. Our engagement is not definitely broken off, + but I can't stand things as they are, and am back in Oakley Street + again. They say I can stay on, but I may have to pay a little more. + Monty is still at the studio." + +"I _knew_ it!" broke from Mollie with soft conviction. "I knew that if +Philip stayed that wedding would be put off! I told him so----" + +Frowning, she turned to the letter again. + + "I'm trying to think it all over quite calmly," the letter went on. + "Perhaps it isn't Monty after all. Perhaps it is just that men + worry me. I don't know really whether I'm a man's sort of woman. + Their ways seem so queer and roundabout to me. Lots of them don't + seem fair. I don't want to marry and make a mess of it a second + time, and I don't think Monty sees this as I do. Of course, I don't + want him to tell me every little thing he does and everywhere he + goes or anything of that kind, but I hate being kept in the dark + as I know I am being. It all seemed to start with that horrible + accident. Nothing's been the same since. Of course, they've told me + about Mr. Smith and poor darling Joan, but if it was only that I + could understand it. I know there's something else. I'm afraid I'd + rather a breakdown yesterday, when all three of us were in your + cellar putting that wardrobe of mine away. There's something + uncanny about that place. Monty thinks so too, but says he doesn't + know what it is any more than I do. But there is something he does + know and won't tell. And now it's all over Chelsea that something + not quite right has happened. Mrs. Cook hinted at it this morning + when she brought my milk up, and she said the milkman had told her. + I really think that if the milkman knows I might be told. The fact + is that just at present I don't feel much like men and marriage. + You'll understand this, because I've told you heaps of things I + should never dream of telling Monty----" + +Mollie's gaze wandered to the twinkling silver sea. She remembered some +of those things that would never be told to Monty. It was perhaps not +altogether fair to Monty that he should have to restore the whole of the +credit of his sex that the late George Cunningham had so let down, but +she knew how Audrey felt about it. Men _were_ trials sometimes. "Queer +and roundabout?" Mollie not seldom called them infants outright. Such +little things pleased them, such even less things caused them to dig +their hoofs into the ground and refuse to budge. Whatever Philip's +tremendous reason for remaining in Chelsea might be, Mollie brushed it +aside as a trifle compared with Audrey's marriage. For a moment she +almost forgot Joan's distress. Philip, with his curaçao and +candle-sticks, postpone Audrey's wedding? It was nonsense--not to be +thought of. Mollie wouldn't hear of it. All this mystification should be +put a stop to if she had to do it herself. Audrey, to be sure, was a +highly-strung creature; lying there among the warm grasses and with the +wind ruffling the silver sea, Mollie could afford not to take too +seriously Audrey's broken sentences about uncanny cellars and whispered +hints that ran all over Chelsea; but it seemed to her that there were +two birds to be killed with one stone. If she were to go up to town she +would be able to ascertain for herself what this Audrey-Monty trouble +was all about, and also why newspapers were to be kept from Joan and how +it was that Joan had first heard of Chummy's crash from Chummy himself. + +She looked at her wrist-watch and scrambled to her feet. She could not +go without letting Joan know she was going, and Joan would already have +started with the children for the shore. There was a train at midday. +She would have plenty of time to intercept Joan, to tell her she was +going to leave her for a couple of days, to return to the cottage, +change and pack her bag. + +And she did not think it necessary to warn Philip of her intention +either. + + + + + XI + + +"But, darling--oh, don't go on like this! Can't you see that if I go I +can clear up everything in half an hour? It's _much_ the best!" + +Joan's manner was stony and impregnable. She stared straight before +her. + +"I don't mind being left quite, quite alone," was her reply. + +"But I shall be back again on Wednesday, foolish child, and I'll wire +you everything immediately if it costs me the whole of my quarter's +pocket-money. Anything's better than this!" + +"Just as you like," came the expressionless response. + +Not finding her on the shore, Mollie had climbed the precipitous zigzag +path to the cliff-top again and had sat down to rest, fairly blown. Then +she had seen her a quarter of a mile away, sitting motionless on a +rounded sky-line over which a hawthorn hedge straggled. The children +were stolidly watching her, and she as stolidly was watching nothing. +The boughs under which she sat were a custard of white bloom, and white +was the sun-flecked sweater in the shadow of them, and white as snow the +battlemented clouds overhead. Her eyes were dry and quite consciously +enduring, and Mollie was alternately comforting and scolding her. + +"I shall catch the midday train, and I shall be back on Wednesday," she +repeated firmly. "If the mountain won't come to Mahomet or whatever it +is, very well. And _do_ try to be a little cheerful, darling. I heard +you last night. That does no good." + +"I know you haven't had a letter this morning, either," came the dull +voice. + +"I haven't from Philip, but I have from Audrey. She sends her love. Of +course, she knows about Chummy, and it's quite all right." + +"But you won't show me the letter," Joan replied, steadfast in her +misery. "I know you won't. Nobody shows me anything. I saw him fall--I +was the only one who did--but nobody tells me anything." + +"You shall hear every word the moment I get there." + +"I saw him fall," Joan repeated obstinately. "You were all indoors, but +I was in the garden. But of course I didn't know who it was----" + +"Don't, darling--just to please me," Mollie begged, distracted. + +"He fell like a stone, crash into the tree. You can't realize that. You +haven't been up. I have. I know what it's like." + +"But you've had a letter from him!" Mollie protested. "Really you talk +as if he was killed!" + +"I don't know where the letter came from, and I can't write to him, +except to the Aiglon Company, which I've done, and there's no reply, and +somebody else had to address the envelope for him. I ought to go, not +you. I saw him fall." + +To Mollie's touch on her shoulder she was quite unresponsive. Mollie +could have shaken her. It might have been the best thing to do. + +"Do run away, you boys!" she said crossly instead. "Go and pick some of +those blue flowers; Auntie Joan's a little tired. Now, Joan, I'll tell +you what I'll do if you're good, but not unless. He's in a hospital or a +nursing-home, I expect, and I shall go straight to him; and then if he's +fit to move, as I expect he is by this time, I shall bring him straight +down here. Will that do?" + +"I know he's not fit to move. I saw him fall. I saw him falling all last +night." + +"Now you're naughty and just trying to make the worst of it. That's +simply willful. It's like Alan when he wants smacking; when you're as +old as I am you'll look on the bright side and be thankful it's no +worse. Now do try. I'm going to bring him down here, and we'll keep him +for a month. A whole month--it will be lovely! Why, you've only seen +him in London and Richmond Park!" + +"I've been to Chalfont Woods with him four times." + +Mollie seized gratefully on the diversion. + +"Joan! How _could_ you! You never told me that!" she scolded. "And you +never told me you'd been flying with him either! Philip would be furious +if he knew! And now I'll tell him, and about Chalfont too, and all those +other times as well, if you don't try to be reasonable. A month in this +lovely place with him, and nobody to interfere--why, you'll be glad he +had a little bit of an accident!... Now get up and we'll all go back. +You'll have to get dinner ready, and I shall want a few sandwiches. +Alan! Jimmy! We're not going to the shore. You can play on the see-saw +instead. Run ahead, boys--and you come along, darling----" + +And Joan of the cinemas and cliffs, of the secluded tea-shops and the +noble Santon shore, rose, still as naughty and obstinate as ever, but +obediently. Already Mollie, bustling the children on ahead, was shaping +in her mind the dressing-down she intended to give Philip that very +night. + + + + + XII + + +There was no help for it, Philip has since told me. He simply had to +tell her everything. She was, in fact, in possession of the whole story +long before any of the rest of us. + +But even she had to wait yet a little longer. When, at half-past nine +that Monday night her taxi drew up at the wrought-iron gate in Lennox +Street, Philip was out and the place was in darkness. She had no key. + +"Go on to Oakley Street," she ordered the driver. + +Audrey Cunningham was at home. Mollie found her, alone, in her +first-floor bed-sitting-room, already on the point of going to bed. + +"First of all give me a cup of cocoa or something," was Mollie's +greeting. "I've been half the day in the train with only a few +sandwiches, and I shall drop if I don't have something." + +Mrs. Cunningham lighted the little gas-ring and fetched water from an +adjoining room. Then, opening a little cupboard, she mixed cocoa-paste +in a cup, got out bread and margarine and a plate of macaroons, and set +them on a little chintz-covered stool before Mollie. + +"I've an egg if you'd like one," she said. + +"No, thanks. I got your letter this morning. Have you got the one I +wrote yesterday?" + +"No; but I don't think the last post's been yet." + +"Well, it doesn't matter now. I've come to see for myself. Philip +doesn't know I'm here yet, but he will presently. Now first of all, +what's all this about you and Monty? What's happening?" + +Her tone was that of a woman who intended to stand no further nonsense +of any kind. She was dog-tired, already angry on Joan's account, and the +resigned and hopeless air of the slender creature before her completed +her resolve to get to the bottom of things. + +But nothing appeared to be happening about Audrey and Monty. Mrs. +Cunningham was still of the same mind, or no mind, that had prompted her +letter. + +"Where is he now?" Mollie demanded. + +Audrey did not know. + +"Is he with Philip?" + +She did not know that either. + +"And aren't you going to Lennox Street?" + +"I don't think I can." + +Mollie's eyes went round the room. I myself have never been in Mrs. +Cunningham's bed-sitter, but I have been in many others and can picture +its frugality--the gas-ring, the little cupboard with the bread and jar +of marmalade in it, the chintz-covered grocer's box on which Mollie's +cup of cocoa stood, probably a slightly fresher wallpaper-pattern where +the Jacobean wardrobe had stood. Lennox Street was positive luxury by +comparison, yet here was Audrey preferring this. Then there was Audrey +herself, heavy-eyed, drained of energy, probably thinking of George +Cunningham and wondering whether any experience was worth repeating. +With Joan for breakfast and Audrey for supper, poor Mollie had had about +enough of it for one day. + +"About this marriage," she said abruptly. "Of course, it's not going to +be put off. _I_ shall see to that. I shall have a talk with Monty too +when I've finished with Philip. You're simply run down and want a +tonic." + +"Oh, it isn't that," Audrey replied, sinking into an old wicker chair. +"I've thought it all over. I don't think they tell young girls enough +before they get married. They ought to tell them lots more. They ought +to tell them quite plainly, 'You'll have to be prepared for this and +that and the other. You'll have to expect to sit up half the night in +the dining-room with dinner on the table wondering where he is. You'll +have to learn that he hasn't really been run over or anything of that +kind and that it's only their way. You must expect telegrams and +telephone calls and excuses, and you mustn't be surprised if he brings +somebody else with him when he does come. They're like that. And when +they come home in a beastly state----'" + +Here Mollie peremptorily interrupted her. + +"Leave that brute in his grave," she commanded. "We're talking about +Monty, not him. And I'll see Monty. Now what's all this rigmarole about +milkmen and cellars and all the rest of it? Tell me as I undress you. +I'm going to put you to bed." + +But little that was fresh was to be learned here either. Audrey thanked +her again and again for the offer of the house, but she thought she +would rather be here with her gas-ring and cocoa and chintz-covered +sugar-box. Mrs. Cook thought she could arrange it--it would only be half +a crown more. + +"Well, I'll see Mrs. Cook too while I'm about it; may as well do the +thing thoroughly. Let me unlace your boots--why, your feet are cold, and +on a night like this! Never mind your hair; you can do it in bed. And +drink the rest of this cocoa. Really I do think I live in a helpless +sort of world--there isn't enough of me to go round--there ought to be +half a dozen of me. Now into bed with you, and you'd better stay there +till I come round in the morning. I'm not going back till Wednesday." + +She packed up the cocoa-cups and turned off the gas-ring, opened the +window and wound up the little Swiss clock. As she moved about the room +folding Audrey's clothes and setting things to rights her own letter of +Sunday morning was brought up, but she placed it on the mantelpiece by +the side of the clock, forbidding Audrey to read it till the morning. +Letters didn't matter now that she was here in her own capable, +practical person. Letters took too long. She was going to have things +done much more quickly or know the reason why. + + + + + XIII + + +Philip himself opened the door to her. She gave her cheek to be kissed +and then walked straight in. + +"Is Monty here?" were her first words. + +"No. I think he's gone out for a walk." + +"A walk, at this time of night!" + +Philip shrugged his shoulders. "What brings you here, Mollie?" he said. + +She was busy untying her veil. "What do you suppose? Everything, of +course." + +"Have you had dinner or supper?" + +"I had a cup of cocoa at Audrey Cunningham's, and don't want anything +else. Now why didn't you answer my telegram, and why didn't you write +again as you promised?" She threw the hat and veil on the table and her +gloves after them and stood before Philip. + +"How are the children?" he asked. + +"Perfectly well." + +"And Joan?" + +Her only answer to this last was a long look. Then she walked to the +little Empire sofa and sat down. He might stand if he wished. + +"Well?" she said at last. This was after a full minute, during which +time he had stood by the table idly fingering her veil. Then suddenly +his fingers pushed the veil aside, and he crossed to the sofa and sat +down by her. + +"What is it you want to know, darling?" he asked. + +"Everything--every little thing from beginning to end," she replied. + +"You've seen that I don't want to tell you?" + +"Yes, I've seen that." + +"And that I probably have my reasons?" + +"Oh--reasons!" + +"Reasons that are stronger than ever at this moment?" + +"Will they go on getting much stronger? If so I can only warn you that a +breaking-point will come." + +"Yes. I'm very near it." + +"And so am I, Philip." + +There was no mistaking her tone. It did not mean that if he continued to +shut her out like this she would do anything violent--live apart from +him, become merely his housekeeper, or anything of that kind. It meant +enormously more than that. Where confidence and trust are, there are few +divergences that do not presently right themselves, few differences that +cannot be resolved; but where these are absent nothing is right. Every +word is possible peril, every silence a hanging sword. In all my +acquaintance I know of no happier marriage than the Esdailes'. You never +go into their house and feel that the air is still charged with some +scene that your arrival has interrupted, you never leave wondering what +weapons will be picked up again the moment your back is turned. Philip +is not without his tempers nor Mollie without her own purposes, but it +stops at that. The rest is brave decencies, with I know not what +tenderer stuff behind. This it was that seemed for the moment to be in +peril. + +But suddenly she put her hand on his. She did not speak; the hand spoke +for her. The next moment his other hand had fallen on hers again, so +that both enclosed it. Then their eyes too met. + +"It would be an awful thing to risk, Phil," she said quietly. + +His eyes begged her. "Won't you let me carry it a little longer alone?" + +"I don't believe you can. And if you can," she added, "I don't see what +we got married for." + +"But it will be rotten for you too." + +"When have I shrunk from that?" she asked. + +"Never," he replied in a low voice. + +And so Mollie Esdaile too took her portion of the burden. + +"Well, where shall we begin?" he asked, with a sigh that it must be so. + +"You know best. But tell me first why you didn't write." + +"I hadn't seen young Smith. I haven't yet as a matter of fact. But----," +he drew her head to his breast, and there were some moments during which +he whispered into her ear. + +For all his care and guarding it was not possible that she should not at +least tremble. But she did not start within his arms. The tremor passed, +and her dry lips repeated-- + +"Shot him!" + +"For some reason or other. I don't think either of us can quite tell +Joan that, can we?" + +"Shot him! Chummy!" + +"There's no doubt about it. It was Monty who picked up the pistol. +Neither you nor I can very well tell Audrey that, can we?" + +"Monty found the pistol!" + +"And I picked up the cartridge-shell myself. The police were round here +at six o'clock on Friday morning looking for them." + +"The police! Here!" + +In spite of all, Philip could not restrain a little laugh. "Oh, they +didn't find anything. They don't when they've given you warning the +night before. By that time both pistol and case had been at the bottom +of silver-flowing Tamesis for six hours. I dropped 'em in myself from +the middle of Albert Bridge. Do you begin to see what you're in for, my +poor darling?" + +It was doubtful whether she yet did. She could still only repeat, +"Chummy shot him! Does that mean----?" Her horrified stare finished the +question. + +"Oh, I don't think so," he answered quickly, "at any rate not yet. +Naturally both Hubbard and I have got to stand by Chummy for the +present." + +"Then somebody saw Monty pick up the pistol?" + +"For the police to know anything about it, you mean? Well, as a matter +of fact that's the purest bad luck. There happens to be a fellow called +Westbury, confound him, and that beastly bullet seems to have fetched up +somewhere in his house; he lives just across the way there. That's all +the police have to go on now that the other things are safely in the +river mud." + +Slowly it was sinking into her mind. Her eyes closed for a moment as she +felt the first faint strain of the weight of it. This came with the +thought of Joan. + +"But--but----" she said faintly, "--that poor child----?" + +"Joan? I suppose she is wondering what's happened?" + +"Wondering what's happened.... You may as well know, Philip--it's a +mere trifle at this stage--that they're most awfully thick--far more +than you've been told. You know what boys and girls are nowadays. And +now comes this horrible silence, except for that one little note from +him----" + +"Has she had a note from him?" Philip asked quickly. "From the +hospital?" + +"There was no address on it. I suppose it was from the hospital?" she in +her turn asked in quick alarm. + +"Yes, it wasn't from a prison. When did she get this note?" + +"Yesterday morning." + +"Did she show it to you?" + +"Yes. It simply said he'd had this spill, but was all right, and she +wasn't to be alarmed." + +"He didn't mention incidentally that he'd shot a man?" + +"Of course not. I don't believe he had." + +Philip passed this last point. + +"Well, as he's written once I suppose he'll go on writing. He's heaps +better as a matter of fact. So it won't be too hard on her. Anyway, +she'll have to grin and bear it." + +"I did hold out hopes that I might be able to take him back with me," +Mollie ventured. + +"You won't be able to do that," said Philip with decision. "Quite apart +from his being fit to travel, we've only gone a certain way in all this, +you know. He'll still have matters to explain. And till he does, I'm +afraid Audrey Cunningham will have to make the best of things too, like +Joan. It wouldn't do her any good to know that Monty was liable to +arrest at any moment." + +"But is he?" said Mollie, startled. + +"Of course he is. So am I. So are you. So would she be." + +"But why?" + +In spite of his explanation, I don't think she understood. I don't think +she understands to this day. I don't think that at the bottom of her +anti-social heart any woman does. A delayed wedding or a post without a +lover's letter is a far greater thing than a capital charge in which all +who conspire are principals. + +Then, in spite of her fatigue, her skeptical common sense came to her +aid. Philip might involve himself in a web of unelucidated stuff of +which one-tenth perhaps was fact of sorts and the rest pure speculation; +but she knew Chummy. The thought of Chummy as a murderer was absurd +beyond words. Whatever the explanation might be it certainly was not +that. And, yawning as she rose, she told Philip so. + +"And that's that," she concluded. "Now do let's go to bed. Of course, if +you think Chummy's a murderer I quite see why you didn't write and why +you don't want to tell Audrey and all the rest of it, but you'll find +it's all a mistake. There's something you don't know, or else there's +been an accident of some kind. If you seriously want me to believe that +Chummy Smith.... What's the matter, darling?" + +The last words were a quick, startled cry. She did not know what it was +that lurked at the bottom of the eyes that were looking so deeply and +somberly into her own, but she feared already. His head was slowly +shaking from side to side. + +"Philip! What do you mean?" she cried in agitation. + +Still the head shook. It was impossible for her mind not to fly back to +that moment, now nearly five days ago, when he had stood blinking in +the doorway with a candle in one hand and a jar of liqueur in the other. + +"Tell me quickly what you mean, Philip!" she cried again. + +"I saw it." + +She fell back. "You----?" + +"It wasn't an accident, and there isn't anything I don't know." + +"You----?" + +The slow sideways shake changed to one single nod. The next moment his +arms were about her and he was leading her to the sofa again. He sighed. +There was no help for it now. If she would have it she must have it all. + +"It's the only thing I haven't told you. We may as well get it over," he +said. + +Nor did he whisper this time. He spoke in his usual voice, using the +plainest English he could. + +But what it was that Philip Esdaile told his wife you must guess for a +little while longer. She was the first living soul to know. And it was a +very different thing from that which she had left Santon to hear. + +For it was this overwhelmingly extraordinary yet stupendously ordinary +thing that sent her round to Audrey Cunningham the next morning, but +without comfort for her, with no plans for settling the wedding out of +hand. + +It was this same thing that took her back to Santon on the Wednesday, +without Chummy, without help for Joan. + +It was this same thing that puzzled Monty Rooke's brain as he took his +midnight walk that night down Roehampton Lane, driven from Audrey +Cunningham's company and sick of the sight of Philip and all his works. + +And it was this and nothing else that Cecil Hubbard so much wanted to +know when he knitted his honest brows over hydrophones, sound-ranging, +or whatever other mysterious apparatus it was that Philip Esdaile might +have hidden away in his cellar. + + + + + PART IV + + THE MAN IN THE PUBLIC-HOUSE + + + + + I + + +As an eager and passionate student of the Life of my day there are, +within limits, few places that I don't visit and few people I don't on +occasion talk to. I say "within limits," since I admit that there may be +grades at one end of the scale at which I draw the line, while at the +other end there may conceivably be those who draw the line at me. But +within these extremes, if not always familiarly, yet on the whole +without constraint, I sup at coffee-stalls or dine in quite good company +more or less indifferently. + +I have found that the best strategic jumping-off-points for the +satisfying of this curiosity about the preponderating average of Life +are two. One--the Public-house--I have already mentioned. There only a +glass screen may divide you from the hawker who has left his barrow for +a few minutes in somebody else's charge, or from the gibused and +silk-mufflered figure who finds a glass of sherry a convenient way of +getting small change for his taxi. The other point of vantage is the +Club, where that same taxi is paid off, but where liveried chauffeurs +may stand for hours by the waiting cars. + +I shall come to the Man in the Club by and by. For the present I wish to +return to the Man in the Public-house. + +I won't say that I always love him, but I always recognize that I have +him very seriously to deal with. I am not thinking of him now either as +a reader of my journalism or as a potential buyer of my novels, but as a +larger phenomenon. I am thinking of him--loosely I admit--very much as +some political cartoonist might think of a generalized and consolidated +figure that turns a deaf ear to the Bolshevist and his sinister +whisperings on the one side, while the other ear is no less stopped to +the honeyed blandishments of the statesman who so frequently and +extraordinarily seeks to cajole him with flatteries that are both +out-of-touch and out-of-date. + +He is Conservative, if Conservatism means that he cynically holds his +hand till he has seen what the next dodge is likely to be; and he is +Liberal in the sense of believing that if everybody looks after himself +then there will not be anybody who is not looked after. You have +overdone it, my good friends and representatives in Parliament. He no +longer believes a word you say. You offer him good and necessary things, +and he glances sideways at you, and his lips shape the words +"By-election." You try to keep him from rash and dangerous courses, and +he wants to know what _you_ are getting out of it. You ration him, but +he knows where to get sugar and butter while you make the best of +saccharine tablets and West African margarine; you de-control, and he +knows better than you do why hens cease to lay and rabbits to breed. It +is we of the cheaper Press who really have him in hand, and he cocks his +ears back at us occasionally. He did so when the _Daily Circus_ gave him +pictures of bathing girls instead of war news; he is doing so to-day +when--oh, lots of things--are pushed on and off the proscenium like +Monty Rooke's camouflage canvas trees and linoleum sentries. He sniffs +at all these things, says nothing, and calls for another glass of his +country's seven-times-accursed beer. + +Yet he follows, if not his leader, his neighbor. This he sometimes does +to the most astonishing conclusions, just as he looks up at the sky-line +because he sees somebody else doing so, or is prepared to swear that he +hears a maroon because the man next to him says "Listen!" The vaguer the +rumor the greater is the scope for his self-and-collective suggestion. +He sees Russians, he knows that dead Field-Marshals are still alive. He +can tell you from private information that such-and-such a battalion has +been cut up or such-and-such a battle-fleet sent to the bottom of the +sea. And not one of these larger things is half so large to him as the +smaller thing that looms huge because it is in his own immediate +neighborhood. We on the _Circus_ provide pictures to give him at least +the photographic semblance of body for his belief. But what when the +very flesh and blood of the drama passes along his street every day? +What when he has spoken with the chief actor himself, knows who he +married, the number of his children and their names? What when he knows +the house he lives in, who lived there before, why he left so suddenly, +and the very words he is said to have said on leaving? + +Do you see what I am coming to--those first faint whisperings of +something wrong--or if not positively wrong so much the better for +public-house debate on the point--with Philip Esdaile's house in Lennox +Street? + + + + + II + + +The first that Esdaile knew of all this was from the younger of Mollie's +two maids. Monty and Audrey had arranged to dispense with the services +of these two domestics, but Philip, still lingering on, had wanted the +younger one at least back. She had promised to come, but had not done +so, and Philip had sought her out. Thereupon she had said that she would +rather not come. + +"Why?" Philip had asked; but she had given no satisfactory reason. + +He had then turned to the second maid, but with no better result. + +After all, it didn't matter. It was very little trouble for himself and +Monty to make their own breakfasts. They could take their other meals at +the Chelsea Arts Club, and there would be no difficulty in getting a +woman one or two days a week to clean. + +Then, to his extreme astonishment, on the very day after Mollie's +departure for Santon, he left Monty to a sandwich-and-coffee luncheon in +the studio and came out of his house to find Lennox Street almost as +full of people as it had been on the morning when the parachute had +descended on the studio roof. + +"What's the matter? Anything happened?" he asked the nearest loiterer at +his gate; but he did not learn what had really happened till he reached +the Club. + +Certainly the joke, if it was a joke, appeared to be "on him." +Simultaneously two grinning fellow-members thrust into his hand that +morning's issue of the _Roundabout_. The _Roundabout_, I should say, is +the _Circus's_ (much inferior) rival. + +It contained a photograph of Esdaile's house, with the spot where the +parachute had descended marked with a cross. + +It was, of course, a thousand pities. No man likes the house he lives in +held up to the idle public gaze. Had the annoying thing been submitted +to my own paper I could have stopped it. Had it been a big thing I might +even have stopped its appearance in the _Roundabout_, for, while we cut +one another's throats in detail, we have our understandings in larger +matters. Hurriedly I scanned the rest of the paper to see whether any +letterpress went with the picture. None did. There was simply the +photograph, with a couple of quite innocent descriptive lines +underneath. + +"Seems to me rather a stumer," I said to Willett. "Is Hodgson losing his +grip a bit?" + +"Haven't noticed it," Willett replied. "Sound man Hodgson. Doesn't often +do things without a reason. I think we might go a bit slower on +actresses and mannequins. This is the crash we were talking about the +other morning, isn't it?" + +"Yes. A wash-out I should have said." + +"Perhaps he's playing the local-interest card. He's doing that just now. +I don't see why we shouldn't do more of it." + +"I think we'll wait for a better story than that anyway," I replied. +"Well, let's get to work----" + +But all that afternoon the thing worried me. It was a trifle, perhaps, +but it was a trifle on the wrong side. More, unlike some other trifles, +I already saw how dangerously capable of further development it was. I +have told you what the attitude of the Press was to this question of +civil flying. It was one of simply awaiting events. But all the time +events were fermenting, so to speak. High over our heads Olympian minds +were shaping and re-shaping policies and plans, and Argus eyes were +tirelessly watching for indications of the receptivity of the popular +mind. Had Hodgson heard something that we had not? As you sometimes see +an insignificant person's affairs, of no interest in themselves, +solemnly weighed by the Lords of Appeal because of some novel and +far-reaching point they raise, was something in the nature of a Test +Case now being sought? Had we on the _Circus_ been wrong in assuming +that the idea was simply to catch and make an example of the careless +joy-rider and the idiot who stunted over towns? Was some more important +point to be raised, and had Hodgson had wind of it? + +I was inclined to think not, and for the reason I have just given. Make +a thing big enough, and we hang fairly well together; but take the whips +off, so to speak, and we go as we please. If it had been as important as +all that we should have heard of it. Willett, who is a youngster of +parts, was in all probability right. Hodgson was merely catering for the +local interest. + +But still I was uneasy, and my uneasiness had nothing to do with the +annoyance the publication of the photograph of the house in Lennox +Street must cause Esdaile. I was thinking of far graver possible +consequences. Even the lightest measure of Publicity is not a thing +to be trifled with. Here I know what I am talking about. The merry +fellows of the Chelsea Arts Club might pull Esdaile's leg about his +haunted house, and want to know whether the White Lady dropped any +hairpins as she passed, or if the horrible shrouded figure with the +crimson-dripping hands would make a good film; but we journalists have +to take these things a good deal more seriously than that. Publicity, +sometimes of the most incredibly silly kind, is our meat and drink and +hourly breath. All day and every day our brains are on the stretch in +our endeavors to secure it. We bring our heaviest guns to bear on the +elusive thing, are sure we can't possibly miss it this time, let fly, +and lo! we have missed after all. Like a pithball on a fountain, it is +still dancing there untouched, and any penny peashooter may bring it +down when all our trained intelligence has failed. + +And what would be the effects on our Case if it came down? + +Well, you can see that for yourself. In obscurity lay our hope that the +thing might remain what on the face of it it appeared to be. Switch the +arc-lamps of the great papers on to it, with the whole power-house of +dynamic government behind them, and all was over. Not an aspect of the +Case would go unprobed to the very bottom, and the hungry newspapers +would find themselves, not with a mere aeroplane crash that could be +dismissed in a couple of lines, but with a really fine fat, first-class +Murder Case that would keep them merrily going for weeks. + +And I can assure you that we all wanted very badly indeed just such a +Case. We wanted it for more reasons than one. We wanted it, as we always +do, in the ordinary way of our business, but much more we wanted it to +take people's minds off other matters. We wanted it for the same reason +that made us resolutely print those pictures of girls bathing during the +blackest days of the War. We wanted it because the Man in the +Public-house was restless and showed a disposition to pry into affairs +in which his interference is only wanted when a General Election draws +near. Bathing girls were very well in their way; a really high-class +line in Divorce Cases would have outstripped them easily, if I may be +permitted the unintentional expression; but the man who could have given +us on the _Circus_ the first Assassination in the Air could have named +his own price for it. + + + + + III + + +The flat in which I live with the old housekeeper who looks after me is +not in Chelsea at all, but a quarter of an hour's walk away, just round +the corner from Queen's Gate. It is exceedingly comfortable (as indeed +it should be considering the rent I am made to pay for it), I have my +own furniture, and on the whole I don't ask for a much better place to +work in. For, quite apart from my paper, I do work, and I don't want to +give you the impression that the whole of my leisure time is given over +to the investigation of what happens to my Chelsea friends. + +I was, as a matter of fact, particularly busy just about that time. Day +after day I was getting up at half-past six in the morning, breakfasting +at my table as I worked, and continuing without interruption till it was +time for luncheon and the office. Since you are probably not in the +white-elephant line of business, I won't tell you which of my novels I +was at work on. I will only say that I at any rate was interested in it, +and, severe as was the strain of writing from seven o'clock in the +morning till midday, I sometimes hated to break off. Mrs. Jardine had +orders not to admit anybody whomsoever between those hours, and obeyed +them to the letter. + +You may judge then of my surprise when there walked into my study at +nine o'clock in the morning, and not over Mrs. Jardine's dead body, +Billy Mackwith. + +"Don't scold the old lady," he began without preface. "I suppose she +hadn't any barbed wire except that on her chin--it is rather like one of +the gooseberries we used to make on the old wiring-course. I had to see +you." + +"Had breakfast? Have a cup of coffee?" I asked him. + +"Nothing, thanks. Well, I think I saved friend Philip a certain amount +of trouble yesterday," he said, putting down his hat, stick and gloves. +I don't think Mackwith buys a glossy new silk topper every time he goes +out, but I do honestly believe he buys a new pair of lemon-colored +gloves. + +"Oh? How was that?" + +"At the inquest on that fellow," he replied. "And by the way, I saw the +_Roundabout_ too. I suppose it has its humorous side, but it's very +annoying too. I should go for 'em for libel. A house can be libeled, you +know. Anyway, it's a good job he's out of town." + +I was on the point of saying, "A good job he's what?" when I checked +myself. If you remember, I had last seen William Mackwith, K.C., when I +had left him at Sloane Square Station an hour or two after that +confounded aeroplane accident. He and Hubbard had gone off to keep their +respective appointments, while I myself had followed our check-coated +friend Westbury into a public-house. Whether either Esdaile or Hubbard +had seen him since I didn't know. I now gathered that Billy at any rate +hadn't seen Esdaile. + +"Yes?" I said. "What trouble have you been saving him?" + +"Well, I told you--I saved him the bother of stopping for the inquest." + +I had of course known that there must be an inquest, but I suppose I had +been busy and had forgotten it again. This began to be interesting. + +"Tell me about the inquest," I said. + +He took a cigarette from his case and offered me one. Then he continued +between puffs. + +"Well, as a matter of fact there wasn't very much trouble. One man +seemed inclined to be cantankerous, but we brought it in Misadventure +all right. We----" + +I imagine that at this point he caught sight of the expression on my +face, for he stopped suddenly. + +"Esdaile did go out of town, didn't he?" he asked. + +"I'll tell you about Esdaile in a moment. Go on about the inquest." + +He seemed puzzled, but went on. + +"Of course, that was my idea in speaking to that Inspector that morning. +It would have been a pity to upset the Esdailes' plans. So I explained +this to the Inspector and gave him my card--said I hadn't seen very +much, but as much as anybody else--result, I was made foreman of the +jury." + +Here I had a little flash of illumination as regards Inspector Webster +too. Esdaile, if you remember, had said to him, "Yes, that was Mr. +Mackwith, the King's Counsel; didn't you know?" and Webster had +answered, "Was he indeed, sir?" My respect for the Inspector's powers +of giving nothing away went up several hundreds per cent. Apparently it +was the Inspector who had seen to it that Billy had been put on the +jury. + +"Well, you were made foreman. You said one man gave trouble. Who, and +why?" + +"Oh, some fellow or other--Westcott or Westmacott I think his name +was--I forget. Insisted on viewing the body. Wanted his money's worth I +suppose. He was sorry he did though." + +This was more and more interesting. I asked what sort of a man this +Westmacott was. + +"The sort of fellow who would be down in the cellar before his wife and +children when there was an air-raid on, I should say," Billy replied. +"Awful nuisance of a man. But he got his all right. He'll probably be +taking solid food again this day week." + +"Then you did see the body?" + +"Had to, if only to keep this fellow quiet. He stuck out right to the +finish too, but we got our dozen without him. Prima facie case, of +course. Death by burning, and what wasn't that was general smash-up." + +"Was a doctor called?" + +"The divisional surgeon was there, but he quite agreed, and I saw to the +rest in my capacity as foreman. There was only one man who wasn't +satisfied, and he was busy----" Billy twinkled wickedly. + +You may imagine how I was beginning to relish all this. The Chelsea Arts +with its rags about haunted houses and White Ladies who dropped hairpins +was well enough in its way, but its humor could not compare for a moment +with the spectacle of a rising King's Counsel who practically forced +himself on to a jury-panel, got himself made foreman, and then burked +inquiry by shutting up the only juryman who had as much as a suspicion +of the dangerous truth--and all this in the whitest innocence and purest +good faith! I could have laughed aloud. Had he been a willing instrument +in the affair he could not have done his work more efficiently and +completely. + +"Is the poor fellow buried yet?" I asked in a suppressed voice. + +"Yesterday," said Billy. + +"And he can't be dug up again?" + +Mackwith gave me a sharp look. "What do you mean?" he asked quickly. + +"Dug. Past participle of the verb to dig. I mean is he buried once for +all?" + +"Short of an Exhumation Order from the Home Secretary he is. I don't +understand you." + +"And that's rather difficult to get, isn't it?" I continued. + +"I should say the North Pole was comparatively easy," Billy replied. + +At this point my laughter really became too much for me. I remember +hoping that it didn't seem too rude, but I couldn't help it. Billy let +me finish, and then asked quietly, even gravely, "Now if you're feeling +better, will you please explain?" + +I suppose my laughter had been just a little hysterical. As I have +already told you, I myself stand only on the verge of this Case; but not +so my friends, and Esdaile in particular. I remembered--and deep under +that rather remarkable laughter it moved me more than a little to do +so--the extraordinary range and sweep of emotions that had shaken +Esdaile in the course of a single day. I remembered the bright strained +tension of those first minutes after he had come up out of the cellar, +the shock of that telephone message from the hospital that had told him +what had happened to a friend. I remembered that black depression when +Hubbard and I had found him waiting alone in his house for Monty. I +remembered his ache on Joan Merrow's account, our later talk with Monty, +his nascent and grim resolve that in the teeth of all the world the +accident theory should be maintained, his dismay when he had realized +what a post-mortem examination might disclose. I ran over again his +whole day, from that merry breakfast-party to the appearance of +Inspector Webster in our midst at ten o'clock at night.... Well, one +peril was now safely past. In the absence of the Exhumation Order of +which Mackwith spoke, there remained no tittle of material evidence save +a battered bit of nickel-steel in Westbury's possession or in that of +the police. If only for Esdaile's sake, I felt as if a weight had been +lifted from me. + +And, on the top of all, Billy Mackwith's innocent complicity must have +moved me to that inane outburst. + +"Well, for one thing, Esdaile isn't out of town at all," I said, wiping +my eyes. + +"Well, I thought he was. That isn't the joke, is it?" + +"Not altogether. You see----" + +"Do you mean that stupid _Roundabout_ thing?" + +"No.... I beg your pardon, Billy. It came over me all of a sudden. Now I +think I can tell you----" + +And so another was added to our nicely-lengthening list of Principals in +the Case. + + + + + IV + + +While I spoke Billy had risen, and was pretending to examine the prints +on my walls. I continued to talk; talking was, in fact, my morning's +work that day. I finished, and there was a long silence. I thought my +barrister-friend would never have done looking at those prints. + +Then suddenly he crossed over to my table and stood leaning lightly on +his fingertips. + +"Why wasn't I told this sooner?" he asked, his eyes brightly on mine. + +For a moment I thought he meant that our neglect to inform him had +landed him into this equivocal position with regard to the coroner's +jury, and was beginning to explain that, being everybody's business, it +had also apparently been nobody's. But he cut me short. + +"Oh, I don't mean that. Leave the inquest out of it for the present. +What I mean is that I could have saved our friend a good deal of mental +pain if I'd known--and you too," he added, "from the way you laughed +just now." + +"How?" I asked. + +"In this way," he replied, sitting down on the edge of my table and +giving his striped cashmere trousers a little hitch. "Say that a shot +has been fired.... Philip, I take it, has been worrying about the +consequences to this fellow Smith, and incidentally to Miss Merrow. Now +if I'd been there to ask Rooke a few material questions I think I could +have assured him that it's a thousand to one there won't be any +consequences." + +"Why not?" + +"The state of the body," he replied promptly. "Rooke saw it, you say, or +at any rate quite enough of it; I saw it too; and, shot or no shot, it +wouldn't have taken me two minutes to get out of Rooke that there was no +earthly possibility of proving that a shot caused death." + +"You mean there were so many other good reasons?" + +"Well, I'm not a doctor, but I should say at least a dozen. No wonder +that fellow Westbury--ah, that's his name, not Westcott--had to make a +bolt for it. Unless somebody can be produced who actually saw the shot +fired there won't be the ghost of a Case, and I'm inclined to think that +even then it would reduce itself to shooting with intent to kill or +wound--which is a felony, of course, but not quite the same thing as +murder. No, I think you can take it from me that there won't be any +consequences." + +I pondered this for a moment. Then I saw the flaw in it. Every man to +his trade. Here was the advocate speaking, his whole acute mind trained +to one single end--the getting of his man off. But I myself work in a +different material and saw the Case from my own angle. + +"One moment," I interposed. "When you say consequences you mean legal +consequences? In other words he'd slip through your fingers simply +because nobody actually saw him do it?" + +"He wouldn't even be charged. That was practically a certainty before +the inquest. It's overwhelming now the other fellow's buried." + +"But legal consequences are not the only kind of consequences there are +in the world." + +"Oh, I'm not speaking of moral consequences. They're quite another +matter," quoth Billy. + +"Not as regards Esdaile's having a rotten time over this," I differed. +"Let's look at it from another point of view for a moment. Neither you +nor I know Smith. But Hubbard and Esdaile do, and there's this +friendship between them. And mark you, friendship too isn't always the +same thing it was before the War. There were lots of men we called +friends then very much as a matter of habit; I mean it didn't often +occur to you to ask what kind of a man your friend would be when it came +to the pinch. We've all made new friends, and there are some of the old +ones whose names we never want to hear again. You see what I mean? I +mean the bond must be pretty strong for two men like Esdaile and Hubbard +to take instantly to the thought of shielding Smith like ducks taking to +water. I watched them--it was really exciting--you could read both their +faces like books. Very well. Up to this point we're both talking the +same language. When we say consequences we mean legal consequences. + +"But here's where the difference comes in. I don't know what Hubbard's +views are, as I haven't seen him since that night; but I do know what +Esdaile's are. He's shielding Smith--but only till he hears what he's +got to say for himself. He doesn't want to condemn him unheard. I admit +that in the meantime he's taken certain rather risky steps, and my own +opinion is that he won't find it very easy if he wants to retrace them +again; the river'd have to be dredged for a pistol, for example, and +Lord only knows what sort of a reason he'd give for even having +interfered at all. But my point is that he's done nothing final yet. +Smith's got to satisfy him, and if he can't--well, it can't be quite the +same between them again after that, can it?" + +"You mean their friendship's broken?" + +"Well, that's not quite the way I should put it. It might break, or +possibly it might not. What I mean is that a friendship with a man who's +killed other men in battle isn't the same thing as one with a man who +murders another in peace-time. It may be as good for all I know, as I +haven't done either, but obviously it isn't the same." + +"No, I suppose not," Mackwith agreed. "And as for retracing his steps, I +agree with you that the best thing he can do is to keep his mouth shut. +I certainly intend to about that inquest. Life's too short to go moving +for Exhumation Orders." + +"Well, next there's Joan Merrow. Exactly the same thing applies to her. +Is she going to marry a soldier or an assassin? Is Esdaile going to let +her? He's her guardian for all practical purposes, and he's got that +question to answer." + +The barrister laughed. "I don't think he need worry about that. Miss +Merrow strikes me as a young woman who won't stand any nonsense from +guardians. Well," he took up his hat and stick, "I must be getting +along. I didn't expect all this when I came in, but it seems to me the +Case is over now. Barring these moral consequences of yours, it +practically ended when I gave in our verdict yesterday." + +"I hope you're right," I replied. "I thought so myself a few days ago, +though, and that evening a Police Inspector marched in." + +He stopped at the door and spoke over his shoulder. + +"Oh? You seem doubtful. Any reason?" + +"None," I replied. "Only what women call a sort of feeling about it." + +Mackwith laughed. + +"We'll see about that when it comes," he said. "So long----" + + + + + V + + +The surface indications were of course of the very slightest. So far +they consisted merely of the photograph in the _Roundabout_, my +speculations whether Hodgson had anything up his sleeve, and similar +trifles. But others were pending. The danger of the coroner's inquest +might be safely past, but at least half a dozen other rocks loomed +immediately ahead. The Aiglon Company, for example, would want to know +what had gone wrong with their machine, and the manufacturers would be +even more interested. The same with the parachute people. The Aero Club +and the Royal Aeronautical Society both have their Accidents +Investigation Committees, and it was quite likely that claims against +various Insurance Offices had already been lodged. You cannot thrust a +finger into the close web of modern life without stirring up all manner +of complexities. I suppose it was these that I had already begun to +fear. + +Perhaps most immediate of all was the question of unauthorized flying. +What had that machine been doing over London at all? Military machines +come and go under orders, but not commercial planes piloted by civilian +aeronauts. Setting such things as Murder and Manslaughter entirely on +one side, was it not probable that Smith would be called to book on +this account? From our point of view it was obviously most undesirable +that he should be brought into Court on any charge at all; but what if +we couldn't prevent it? What if, in the inhuman collision of powerful +business interests behind, the lawyers were to get to work--an Insurance +Company resist a claim, say, or the Aiglon people proceed against the +manufacturers on a point of warranty? You may think I was seeing lions +in the path, but it is never safe to reckon on meeting nothing more +formidable than a sheep. And I have nothing against lawyers as a class. +I don't think Billy Mackwith would pick my pocket of a single sixpence. +But I do believe they are like the road-mender with the stone. He hit it +with his hammer ten times without breaking it, and was then asked +whether he did not think he would have a better chance of splitting it +if he turned it splitting-edge uppermost. "How do you know I want to +split it?" he replied. I suspect even Billy of not wanting to split it +sometimes. + +"Willett!" I called as I entered my office after lunch that day. "Just +get me out the latest thing about Air Navigation, will you?" + +"Is the new one out yet?" Willett replied, walking to the big +glass-fronted cupboard where we keep the current papers of this kind; +the others are on the library shelves downstairs. "I think they were +withdrawn. I seem to remember sending to the Stationery Office and being +told there'd been a muddle of some sort." + +"There must be something in force," I said. "I want that, whatever it +is." + +"Just a moment--ah, here we are!" + +Willett was both right and wrong. A certain issue of Statutory Rules +and Orders had as a matter of fact been withdrawn, but an amended +reprint was now available. He handed the slender white booklet to me. It +was dated April 30th, 1919, and had therefore been in force for some +days at the time of the Lennox Street accident. + +I walked to my desk and settled down to the study of it. + +I don't know that I was very much the wiser for my efforts. So much +seemed to be in the air in every sense of the word. The paper was not +even an Act, but an Order, and it seemed to me that its phrases about +"contravention of these Regulations" might in practice mean almost +anything. What, for example, did "stress of weather or other unavoidable +cause" mean? What would happen in case of a kind of accident expressly +excluded from the Order--"within a circle of a radius of one mile from +the center of a licensed aerodrome"? What about the special cases +permitted "by direction of the Secretary of State on the recommendation +of a Government Department"? I don't mean that the intention of it all +wasn't plain enough. The drafters of the Regulations had done the best +they could in a new and totally unexplored field. For all practical +purposes this new science was just as old as the War, and these detailed +points of law had not arisen during the War. But they were coming up +now, a whole body of practice still to make, and any youngster who chose +could loop the loop and what little proved Law there was at one and the +same time. + +In fact, the only quite unmistakable paragraph I found was the one that +promised proper castigation "to any person obstructing or impeding the +authorities" and so forth--that is to say, Hubbard, Esdaile, myself and +the rest of our little gang of law-breakers. + +And, before I pass on, bear with me for one moment while I ask you to +observe how all History began to loom behind our Case, ready at any +moment to drive it irresistibly forward. For that four-centuries-old +Upspringing of daring and glory and adventure that we call the +Renaissance is come suddenly and magically into our midst again to-day. +There are now to seek and to chart and to possess Indies and Orients, +not of the unembraced and bridal waters, but of the already defeated and +subject Air. Our age hears the old imperious call, and across four +hundred years of time the hands of a George receive Romance from those +of an Elizabeth. It may seem a far cry from this to the Man in the +Public-house, but it crept and lapped about our Case like a +slowly-mounting flood. Idle rumors brought with the milk to Chelsea +doorsteps; a Press eager to take its lead from any momentary whiff that +ruffles the popular mind; a Government that without that Press could not +govern for a week; and the radiance of this new sunburst over all--this +is the apparatus of our Drakes and Burleighs of to-day. And, so long as +the mighty thing went forward unimpeded, what did any individual matter? + + + + + VI + + +"Foreman? You may well say foreman! But he hasn't finished with me yet! +You've seen what it says in to-day's _Roundabout_, haven't you? Very +well, young-fellow-me-lad; you watch it! They laugh best that laugh +last. It isn't over yet!" + +I was grinding my teeth behind my copy of the paper he had just +mentioned. The thick-headed fool had done it. I was not reading the +paper; I was merely using it to hide behind as I stood at the +Public-house counter with one foot on the brass rail. + +"Over? It hasn't begun yet!" Westbury continued, his convex eyes glaring +from one face to another. "It's ventilation these things +want--ventilation in the public Press--and I tell you I haven't started +yet! I went into this Case out of public spirit--'Webster,' I says to +our friend, 'if you want me you know where to find me'--I'm a busy man +with my own private affairs to look after, but right's right and I'm not +the man to hang back when forward's the word--and if they think I'm as +easy stopped as all that they're mistaken, K.C. or no K.C.! The body was +viewed--some of 'em didn't want to, but I saw to that--but I contend +there ought to have been a proper post-mortem. And you may take it from +me that if there had been this Case would have gone forward." + +"Do you mean to a Criminal Court, Harry?" a voice asked. + +"I said gone forward; I didn't say what Court. We'll see about Courts by +and by. This Mister Smith or whatever his name is will be had up for +flying to the danger of the public, and we'll see what happens then!" + +Once more I vehemently cursed him. It was half-past eight at night, with +nothing unusual doing at the office, and I had left Willett in charge so +that I might find Westbury. It was perfectly certain that after +Hodgson's leading article of that morning Westbury would not spend the +evening in the retirement of his home, but would be out for what young +Willett calls "gin-and-glory." As it happened, I had run him to earth +at my very first attempt, in the same Saloon Bar in which I had first +seen him. + +You may know Hodgson's leading-article style. If we on the _Circus_ +don't imitate it it is not that we deny that it "gets across." It is +allusive, rorty and familiar, and there is frequently common sense +behind it. If the Man in the Public-house likes his news served up in +that way you can't blame Hodgson for meeting his wishes. This is what he +had written, no doubt sending his Chelsea sales up by hundreds of +quires:-- + + "TOM, DICK AND ICARUS. + + "Our correspondent Mr. Harry Westbury is some lad. You will find + his letter at the foot of the next column to this. Why, asks Harry, + in these days when you may consider yourself lucky to have a roof + over your head at all, should your head and that roof be brought + into sudden and violent contact? Not that Harry is a jumper; he + isn't going to challenge Joe Darby; but the ceiling and your + occiput can establish connection just the same if the former comes + down on the latter. What he really means is that aeroplanes, + subject to sudden syncopes of the engines, have no business over + Chelsea's pleasant roofs at all. + + "H.W. does not claim that he personally suffered damage from the + crash we reported last Friday. But he is a respected House and + Estate Agent residing in the district and speaks feelingly. _C'est + son métier_, as our gallant and Gallic Allies say. He means, we + take it, that if civil aviation is to develop, corresponding + safeguards must be developed side by side with it. Here we are with + Harry all the way. Our Olympians may have burst a number of + brain-cells over the present Regulations, but they will have to + find a new wave-length. Tom, Dick and Harry we know, but we have + not yet been properly introduced to Tom, Dick and Icarus. No, sir, + not with building materials at their present price and the plumber + rolling up in his Rolls-Ford. The pilot who came down in Chelsea + last Thursday is said to have been employed by the Aiglon Company. + Nuff said. If the Aiglon or any other Company is out for public + support it knows what to do. In the meantime we hope Mr. Westbury + won't raise his house premiums. But that is another story. + + "THE MAN IN THE PUBLIC-HOUSE." + +That was the whole text of it. Was it fair comment on a matter of public +interest? Well, I don't say it wasn't. Was it a timely reminder that +high-spirited lads who had lately been praised for their dare-devilry +must now pull themselves together and fall into line with the new +conditions? Very likely. Was it a legitimate attempt to arouse interest +in the age's new wonder, or merely a political stick with which covertly +to beat some high official dog or other? I didn't know. + +For my mind was occupied with quite other thoughts. From round the edge +of my paper I was trying to sum up Westbury--a young man, but +unexercised; seldom drunk, as a man in decent physical condition would +have been on half that he swallowed, but already habituated and inured; +probably quite well-to-do, in that mysterious way that causes tradesmen +quietly to acquire their own houses and to drive in their own +two-seaters to places of entertainment such as that I was in; and yet in +a sense a minor man of affairs as distinct from a tradesman, a cut above +the shirt-sleeves-and-counter business, if not exactly entitled to style +his occupation a profession. He had got over the first overweening stage +of the vanity of that day's publicity; he was now a little disparaging +what he wouldn't have allowed anybody else to disparage; was treating +Hodgson quite as a familiar, in fact, which as far as I was concerned he +was perfectly at liberty to do. A dangerous beast, I thought again, and +none the less dangerous now that Billy Mackwith, as foreman of that +coroner's jury, had got his back thoroughly up. + +"Yes, Mr. Mackwith, K.C. or O.B.E., or whatever you call yourself," he +was muttering again, "they laugh best that laugh last. If he'd even said +to me, 'What's _your_ opinion, sir?' I won't say but what I should have +thought a bit more of him, but him and his silk hat and gloves ... you +wait a bit! There's a few will be surprised before this Case is over!" + +It seemed to me that he scarcely took the trouble to veil what he really +meant. Nor was I surprised at the way in which his hearers evidently +took his words. For, looking from his cunning yet stupid face to the six +or seven other faces about him, I could make a guess at their attitude +too. Remember those first faint rumors that had found their way with the +morning's milk to Audrey Cunningham's doorstep. Remember what whispered +currency they must have had before they had come to Audrey at all. +Remember that photograph in the _Roundabout_ that had filled Lennox +Street with a gaping crowd that morning, a crowd that had taken a couple +of days to diminish and die away. Esdaile told me later, too, that for a +week he had been conscious of turning heads as he had walked along the +streets.... Oh, I could have made this Case of ours a thing of pistols +and parachutes only, but I wished to go a little farther than that. Not +that I have any particular views on mass-suggestion at large. My +business is simply to observe its working. And here I was, in a Saloon +Bar, observing it in a very curious form. + +For I think that every single member of the group to which I was +listening behind my newspaper had more than an idea of what Westbury +really meant. I think they knew perfectly well that when he spoke of +flying to the public danger he meant very, very much more. I don't think +there was one of them who had not heard the story of Inspector Webster +and the bullet. Secretive as he was, he would be garrulous among his +intimates if garrulity enhanced his self-importance. I am perfectly +certain that every one of them knew all this, knew that he had been +thwarted in his legitimate demand for a post-mortem examination, and +knew in addition something else that I also was to know by and by. + +Then suddenly something happened that placed all this beyond any doubt +whatever. + +Besides their own party, I was the only person at that end of the room, +and I had been there long enough to have drunk three glasses of beer +instead of the one that still stood only half empty on the counter at my +elbow. As I listened the voices suddenly dropped. There was a minute of +whispering, during which (realizing a little late that eavesdroppers +must keep up appearances) I finished my beer and ordered a second glass. +Then Westbury's voice rose again. + +"Yes, 'corresponding safeguards or words to that effect,'" he said. "I +gave my copy of the paper away. Er----" + +The last was a sudden clearing of his throat, evidently intended to +attract attention--my attention. I half dropped the paper and saw the +convex eyes on mine. + +"If that paper belongs to the house, sir, might I have a glance at it +just for one moment?" he said. + + + + + VII + + +I had bought that copy of the _Roundabout_ myself, but I knew that that +was in no sense the point. Without a word I handed it to Mr. Westbury. +My second glass of beer was placed before me, and as I half turned to +get a coin from my pocket I felt, positively felt, their eyes on me. I +also felt their removal as I took up my change and resumed my former +attitude. Westbury had taken the paper with a "Thank you, sir." + +"Ah, it's open at the very page. Begin here, Tom," he said. "'If civil +aviation is to develop----'" + +And he passed the paper to one of his companions. + +I had not the least intention of leaving. I was perfectly well aware +that Westbury had not wanted that paper, but had wanted to see my face. +He was not likely to recognize it as that of the younger novelist whose +portrait appears publicly from time to time, since in order to maintain +that humorous status I have for a dozen years refrained from having my +photograph taken at all; but I knew enough of my man to be sure that +little had escaped him during that half hour or so when he had occupied +that position of privilege outside Esdaile's French window, and that he +probably remembered every face of that breakfast-party--Mackwith's and +my own among the rest. That was why I had no thought of leaving. He was +hardly the kind of man I should have had much to say to in the ordinary +course, but if he saw fit to challenge me, well and good. In fact, I +hadn't very much choice in the matter. I had only to picture to myself +what sort of glances would be exchanged among them were I suddenly to +finish my beer and walk out and my remaining became almost a necessity. +Nay, _he_ had already challenged _me_ when he had borrowed my paper. My +only doubt was whether, in view of that whispered conversation and of +the dimensions Rumor had now attained, they hadn't all challenged me. + +The next moment Mr. Westbury had gone still farther. He had also chosen +the ground on which our duel, if there was to be a duel, was to take +place. The Public-house has its own punctilio. I wouldn't go the length +of saying that you can't ask a stranger for a match without offering to +buy him a drink in return, but such invitations are given on quite +slight occasions. I was not surprised, therefore, when Mr. Westbury, +catching my eye, acknowledged the loan of the paper by saying, "Will you +have a drink, sir?" + +So I had in a sense either to eat his salt or refuse it. I did not +hesitate. Certainly that beer was salt enough. + +"Thank you," I replied. + +"And what is it, sir?" + +"I'll have another glass of beer." + +He ordered it. Then, "I think we've met before," he said. + +The silence of the others was suddenly very noticeable. It was for all +the world as if some referee had ordered, "Seconds out of the ring." + +"I'm afraid I don't quite----" I began. + +"Well, I won't say it got as far as an intro," he took me up, "but +weren't you at a certain house in Lennox Street when an accident +occurred the other day?" + +"I was, but I wasn't aware----" + +"Oh, I wasn't inside the house. But I was able to be of some little +assistance outside," he replied. "A very curious affair, sir," he added +tentatively. + +"Rather a sad one," I replied. + +There was a pause. "Chelsea's very much interested in that accident," he +continued. + +I answered that I didn't live in Chelsea. + +Then suddenly he became almost amiable; but for all his amiability his +eyes were like the hard-boiled eggs on the counter, only a trifle +yellower. + +"Well, that's two of you gentlemen I've met now," he said. "I haven't +the pleasure of knowing your name, but the other gentleman was Mr. +Mackwith." + +There was a certain correctness about this opening that I had +reluctantly to acknowledge. He may or may not have known my name--the +chances were that he had already ascertained it--but I read his thought. +A few minutes ago, possibly before he had become aware of my presence, +he had spoken pretty freely of Mackwith; he was now obviously asking +himself whether I had overheard this. In all probability I had, but in +such cases the official attitude is the best. Had Mr. Westbury been an +administrator I could have imagined him penning a minute: "This does not +come within the knowledge of this Department." + +"Yes," he continued after a pause, "I had the pleasure of sitting on a +coroner's jury with Mr. Mackwith the other day." + +"Really?" + +"Yes, and strange as it may seem, in connection with this very accident +we're speaking of." + +"That's very interesting," I said genially. "I haven't seen Mr. Mackwith +since the occurrence. What happened at the inquest on the unfortunate +man?" + +"The verdict was in the papers, sir. And my own views are in that paper +my friend is reading. They're twice over, as a matter of fact, once in a +letter of mine they printed and once in the editor's remarks on it." + +"Ah, then you're Mr. Westbury!" I exclaimed with feigned surprise. "I +was reading both your letter and the article just now. I congratulate +you. I see you're in touch with both sides." + +Mr. Westbury looked at me with mistrust. "What both sides?" he asked. + +"With both the men who came down that morning," I replied. "You were at +the inquest on one of them, and you very properly call for an inquiry +into the other man's conduct." + +"I do!" he said so vindictively that he might almost have been spitting +the two words into one of the sawdust-filled spittoons. "I do more than +call, Mr.----" he glared. + +"Oh? But how can you do more?" I asked politely. "There are certain +prescribed forms in such cases, and if inquiry on those lines turns out +to be satisfactory I should have said there was nothing more to be +done?" + +"Ah! If!" said Westbury, with the greatest intensity of meaning. + +There was a palm in a copper pot behind him, and above his head a +picture of a huntsman holding up a fox over the baying pack preparatory +to drinking Somebody's Whisky. My eyes wandered reflectively to these +objects for a moment; then I took a further step. It seemed to me too +late to draw back now. + +"But--well, since we are discussing this I wish you could be a little +plainer," I said. "You say all Chelsea's interested in this Case, and I +don't live in Chelsea. Why is Chelsea so interested?" + +He replied promptly enough. "Because, sir, of certain things that don't +appear on the surface of which I happen to have some knowledge." + +"May I ask what things?" + +He echoed me. + +"And may I ask you something, and that is whether you happen to be aware +that the police searched certain premises the other morning?" + +"Do you mean the morning of the accident?" + +"I do _not_ mean the morning of the accident. I'm speaking of last +Friday morning, at six o'clock, before anybody was about." + +I considered a moment. Then, "But why not?" I replied. "Is there +anything unusual about that? Surely when an accident takes place the +police are the proper people to investigate it?" + +I thought he would have jumped out of his chair with vehemence. + +"Ah!" he cried. "Now you're talking! That's more like! The proper +people? So they are; you stick to that! And now I'll ask you this: If +that's so, why keep things back from them? Why this hushing up? Answer +me that. Or bring some of your friends to answer it. That's all I have +to say!" + +And he flung himself back in his chair and continued to mutter softly. + +It was evident that his choler against Mackwith had risen again. What +had passed between the two men was no less plain. If Mackwith was right +in his estimate of this fellow, air-raid nights spent in cellars are not +the best of training for duties so unpleasant as those a coroner's +inquest sometimes involves. Billy, on the other hand, did his bit in a +Field Company and is tempered metal throughout. In any contest of wills +between two such men there was no doubt which would be the victor. It +had hardly occurred to Billy that there was a contest. Innocently and +unconsciously, he had ridden roughshod over Westbury, and, if Westbury's +mutterings meant anything, was to suffer for it. + +"But," I said presently, "I'm afraid I don't understand even yet. It +seems to me you're bringing a charge against somebody of interfering in +a very serious matter. If anybody has interfered I agree with you that +it's a public scandal and ought to be exposed. But I can't believe I've +understood you properly." + +He did not reply. + +"And not only that," I continued, "but, if you'll forgive my saying so, +you're neither bringing a charge nor leaving it alone." + +Here, for the first time, a third person put in an aside. + +"Tell him about that, Harry," a voice whispered. + +(And, feeling pretty sure that I could guess what "That" was, I thought, +"Now for that wearisome bullet story all over again!") + +"I need hardly say," I went on, "that if you have any such charge to +make there's not a single person who was there who won't gladly help +you." + +("Tell him about that, Harry," the voice whispered again.) + +Then it was that Mr. Westbury "went back on" that eager group of mutes +who had so scrupulously kept the ring for us. I saw their faces fall as, +with a little jerk of his head to me, he rose. Whatever the "That" was +they wished him to tell me, they apparently were not to be present at +the telling. Looking back on the scene, I don't think he had any +particular motive in this except more "gin-and-glory"; he would tell +them all about it, with embellishments, afterwards. He passed down the +bar and held the swing door open for me to precede him; then the door +gave a "woff woff" as he followed me out. + + + + + VIII + + +I ask you to notice several untenable points about the position I had +taken up. Twice at least I had flatly lied, once when I had told him +that I had not seen Mackwith since the morning of the accident, and once +when I had given him to understand that I knew nothing of the police +search of Esdaile's premises. I say nothing of the greater lie, that we +were all ready to help him in his efforts to get to the bottom of the +Case. I count that as more the natural momentum the Case itself had now +acquired than any personal untruthfulness on my own part. + +Next, I now saw that as an eavesdropper my technique had been painfully +clumsy. I had attracted attention to myself. I had accepted Westbury's +hospitality, but (believe me, out of pure forgetfulness) had omitted to +return it. Several times he had given me an opportunity, which I had not +taken, of telling him my name, though I had admitted my knowledge of +his. These may seem small things, but there are ways and ways of +drinking a glass of beer. Within certain limits, I had a distinct sense +of social failure. + +And if, over and above all this, I had given him and his associates +credit for too little intelligence, that I am afraid is rather a fault +of mine. It may even have something to do with my position as a younger +novelist. I constantly forget that one man is as good as another because +he is as many. + +So here I was, a clumsy, unmannerly fellow with a guilty conscience to +boot, face to face with a very Chesterfield of the best licensed +establishments and the whole body of law and order and public duty +overwhelmingly on his side. We stood there under the unlighted +public-house lamp, while the violet light of the May evening slowly +faded from what Hodgson had called "Chelsea's pleasant roofs." + +He was fully aware that he possessed what the correspondents used to +call the initiative. This showed in his very few first words. I, it +appeared, was to be forced to open the ball. + +"Now, sir, you wished to see me, I believe," he said pompously. + +I was on the point of reminding him that it was he who had made the +proposal to come outside when he put up a peremptory hand. + +"No, no. I know what you're going to say, and that don't go down. When I +say you wanted to see me I mean you came here to-night for that purpose. +Specially. Well, here I am." + +I suppose I should have been within my rights in answering that I had +entered those swing doors for a glass of beer and had not spoken to him +until he had borrowed my newspaper; but obviously that line led nowhere. +Moreover, from his comparative calm of manner now, I realized that while +the larger advantages lay with him, at least one small tactical +superiority was mine. He was quiet for the moment, but would probably +flare up again immediately at the mention of Mackwith's name. So I kept +Mackwith in reserve. + +"Well," I said in a conciliatory tone. "I have a feeling that both of us +wished to see the other, and from what you've told me with very good +reason. Isn't that so?" + +"How do you mean, what I've told you?" he said suspiciously. + +"I mean that you've given me the impression that there's more in this +Case than meets the eye." + +He grunted. "Impression's good!" + +"That there's some sort of a misunderstanding that ought to be cleared +up." + +"'Impression's' damned good!" he muttered again. "I like 'impression.'" + +"Well, never mind the word. You reminded me a few minutes ago that we +were all there that morning, and so I take it that we're all interested. +Can't we talk it quietly over?" + +I don't think I ever saw eyes capable of staring for so long without a +blink. Old Dadley had been right when he had said, "He stares you down, +he does." I awaited his pleasure. + +"No, that won't wash either," he said curtly at last. "You came here for +a purpose. Specially. I won't say the place isn't free to anybody, but +it would be bad for trade if everybody stood behind a paper looking for +twenty minutes at a glass of beer. I don't think there's any need to be +plainer than that." + +"Very well, have it that way if you like," I returned. "You tell me the +whole of Chelsea is interested in this Case. Well, as I was there when +it happened it's natural that I should be interested too." + +"Hah!... Well, all I have to say to that is that nobody would have +guessed it at the time," he answered. + +"Indeed? Why not?" + +"Hah! Why not? It _is_ a bit of a puzzle, isn't it? But suppose we put +it this way: Here's two men come tumbling on a man's roof. Bit of a bump +they make, don't they? Say a thousand people watching, eh? It isn't a +thing that happens every day exactly, you'd think? Very well. _Now +where were all of you?_ Finishing your breakfast? 'Interested,' you say. +Well, you'd expect the master of the house to be a bit interested. But +where was _he_? Where were all the rest of you, except him that went up +on the roof? You seem to me more interested now than you did then. +That's the first point that strikes me." + +It struck me, too, as being both stupid and acute, at the same time +hardly worth mentioning and yet unpleasantly significant. If his +suggestion was that at the time of the accident we were all whispering +together in some dark nefarious plot, it was too ridiculous to answer; +but if he meant that it was at least remarkable that not one of us +except Rooke, and Hubbard for one brief moment before his arrival, had +taken the trouble to step outside to see what had happened, I could only +reluctantly agree with him. You will remember that precisely the same +observation had struck Hubbard and myself at the time. + +"Yes," he repeated, seeing my discomfiture, "that's the first point that +strikes me; where was Mr. Esdaile, for instance, that _he_ didn't come +out?" + +I answered rather slowly. "I see what you mean. As a matter of fact that +_was_ very curious. I wonder if you'll believe me when I tell you that +Mr. Esdaile knew nothing of that accident till it was all over?" + +He stopped for a moment in his walk. Without noticing it we had begun to +walk. "Why not?" he demanded. + +"Because he was down in the cellar at the time. He'd gone down to fetch +a bottle of wine." + +He resumed his walk. "But he came up again. I saw him." + +"That was some time after." + +"That's right," he confirmed, as if he had been testing my truthfulness. +"It was about half an hour after. Funny way to spend half an hour with +all that going on, wasn't it?" + +As I was entirely of his opinion, I made no reply. + +"So," he continued, "what strikes me about it is that you're more +interested now than you were then. Now we'll pass on to another point. +All the time this is happening you're all inside except one of you, and +he's on the roof. He's the only person up there till the police +came--has the field to himself so to speak. Then he comes down the +ladder in a very shaky sort of state." + +"Do you wonder?" I interposed with a quickness that surprised myself. +"You were on that jury----" + +"In a very shaky state," he repeated. "Nervous as a cat, as you might +say. That was the state he was in when he came down that ladder. Why?" +His manner changed suddenly to truculence. "Why? Hah! That's the +question, isn't it? Some of you'd like to make out you know nothing at +all about it, but they laugh best that laugh last, and don't you make +any error about it!" + +Apprehensive as I was, I forced myself also to laugh. + +"And you're doing your laughing in the newspapers? Well, do you know, +Mr. Westbury, I see very little in all this. Your letter certainly +raises a very interesting subject, and I'm quite of your opinion that +flying ought to be better regulated; but I wonder if you'd resent a +piece of advice from an older man?" + +"Much obliged, I'm sure." Those were the words. The tone in which they +were uttered bore no relation to them. + +"But let me give it, for all that. You seem to be on the point of +making charges against somebody for something or other. Well, that's +never a safe thing to do, but if I were you I'd certainly think twice +before I started with a rather distinguished barrister. They're usually +able to look after themselves pretty well in such matters." + +I said it quite deliberately. It was abundantly plain that unless I +kindled his wrath again he might go on laughs-best-ing and +laughs-last-ing all night. I didn't want to hear his vague and muttered +menaces. I wanted to know whether that bullet was in the hands of the +police, and if so, what action was to be taken. So I produced Mackwith +from my sleeve. + +"And another thing I'll tell you plainly," I said with something nearer +real warmth. "If I were to hear any annoying whispers about myself I +shouldn't have a moment's hesitation in taking any steps I thought +proper. As I see this business, you force your way into a private garden +under cover of an accident, pick up some cock-and-bull story or other, +go spreading it about, and then, when you're very properly put in your +place by a coroner's court----" + +But I got no further. By this time we were in a quiet and dingy street +where almost every house seemed to have an "Apartments" card over the +door, and at the fury of his outbreak I expected every door to be flung +open and every blind to be drawn up. + +"Hah! So _that's_ your lay, is it, Mister Man? We've got it at last, +have we? You think you can come it heavy like your blasted barrister +friend, do you? Oh yes, you're all in it together! _I_ knew what you +came for to-night! I forced my way into gardens, did I? And what about +those that force themselves on roofs before the police come, touching +things they've no business to be touching, eh? _I_ pick up cock-and-bull +stories, do I? And what does some others pick up? _I'm_ put in my place, +am I? We'll see what sort of a place some of you fine gentry's put in +presently! Trying to cod me one of you was in the cellar for half an +hour! A bit too much roof and cellar for my fancy! I was a shade over +the odds for one of you anyway! He had to come _down_ the ladder again, +hadn't he? And you hold a ladder when you see a man coming down it, +don't you? Very well, Mister Pry! You go prying somewhere else, and +drink your beer a bit quicker next time! _My_ kids aren't going to be +shot at and no questions asked! The questions'll come presently. They +laugh best that laugh last----" + +And, as a neighboring door was opened, and a blind across the street was +drawn up, and a window-sash creaked somewhere else, it came upon me in a +moment what had happened. + +Philip Esdaile's hands had not been the first to pat Monty Rooke's +pockets that morning. Westbury, holding the ladder, had been before +him. + + + + + PART V + + SOME BYWAYS OF THE CASE + + + + + I + + +Strictly speaking, it is not on the Santon headland that Charles +Valentine ("Chummy") Smith ought to make his first appearance in this +story; but it was there that I myself first saw him, and I want to give +you my impression of him as I received it, if at the cost of taking a +slight liberty with time. So I first set these eyes on him during a +month I spent with the Esdailes somewhat later in that year. + +I may say to begin with that he would probably have passed unnoticed +among the innumerable other young men of to-day who at one time looked +just a little civilian in their new uniforms but now wear their mufti +again with a subtle but unmistakable difference. You know the young men +I mean--they still speak of distances in kilometers, can talk for hours +on end about motor-bicycles, and sprinkle their conversation with the +jargon of ragtime French they are proud to share with their own privates +and sappers and bombardiers. A year or so ago you went into a restaurant +that was brown as a beechwood with khaki; you go there to-day and the +khaki is gone--yet still hauntingly and mysteriously there, edging (as +it were) the mufti with a faint rim like a color-print a little out of +register. The ghost of khaki still clings about faces, movements, +speech, the glances of eyes. Or if it isn't khaki it is the +navy-and-gold, or Charles Valentine ("Chummy") Smith's unbelted sky-blue +with the black cap-band. + +He and Joan (in this little peep ahead which I am taking) were waiting +for me on the platform of Santon Station. It was a week or so before the +Company's Inter-Station Flower Competition--that annual Show that makes +the whole line with its tiny stations as gay with flowers as a row of +Thames houseboats. Geraniums and marguerites hung in boxes from the +canopies; the sills of the porters' room were a rage of bloom; and +lobelia and red bachelor's-buttons and white pebbles from the shore were +set in patriotic emblems all the way from the booking-office to the +signal-box, which alone was bare. As the train drew up I saw them +standing together on the sunny platform, with a bower of ramblers over +their heads and a heaven of larkspur behind them. + +Charles Valentine Smith was for taking my two bags to the trap that +waited at the level crossing, but peremptorily Joan pushed him away and +called a porter. The presence of the trap did not mean that Chummy could +not walk yet, for with the help of a stick he got about quite well, +though the cliff-path down to the shore was still too much for him. And +I may here mention, quite incidentally, the rôle I was apparently cast +for in advance. "Auntie Joan" was supposed to take the children down to +the shore every day. Charles Valentine Smith could not yet manage the +shore climb. This necessarily meant a temporary separation. Two days +later _I_ was taking the children down to the shore. Whether Miss Joan +had urged my invitation for that very purpose I cannot tell you. + +So I was introduced to our young murderer, or he to me, I forget which +of us was the personage in Joan's eyes, and we sought the trap. Joan +drove, and paved the way for our better acquaintance by telling Mr. +Smith, in these words, that I was "still young at heart." And her +pleasant young assassin called me "Sir." I suppose I am entitled to be +called "Sir" by these youngsters, but I am far from standing on my +rights in this respect. He had his Joan, and I saw no reason for rubbing +it in. People who go about murdering other people need not lay quite so +much stress on the minor conventions. + +"Yes, sir, thanks--practically all right again," he said as we bowled +across that high world of flaming poppies and silky corn. "But I +say--I'm afraid you'll have rather a crow to pluck with me." + +All things considered, I thought one crow a particularly modest +estimate; but "Oh?" I said inquiringly. + +"Yes. I know it's your room, sir, and any old fleabag would do for me, +but it's all Joan and Mrs. Esdaile. In fact, I carried all my gear out +this morning, but they've toted everything back again." + +"Oh, but he _likes_ that little room at the end!" Joan cooingly +reassured him. "He gets the morning sun, and it's beautifully cool in +the afternoons----" + +"If you mean that I'm in the habit of sleeping in the afternoons I wish +to inform you that I'm not," I answered her coldly. "And if the room you +speak of is that little cupboard place just above where the hens are +fed----" + +"Yes, that's the one," she answered with a darling smile. "I call it +quite large, and I've put you one or two nice books to read, and I +arranged the flowers myself. Come up, Robin!" + +So Smith had the room that I, the introducer of these Esdaile people to +my loved Santon, had hitherto always had, and I was given the one with +the morning sun. You might suppose from Joan's words that the sun shone +directly in, filling it with gayety and brightness. Not a bit of it. +That morning sunlight she so extolled was a greenish and aquarium-like +half light thrown up from the steep bit of paddock that comprised the +whole of my view. And, lest I should oversleep, an enormous bronze cock, +mounting to the little sloping roof of the hen-house below, was able to +sound his clarion note practically on the drum of my ear. + + + + + II + + +I repeat, at a first glance he was very like the rest of the young +fellows of his day; but I admit there was something about him that grew +on you. After watching him for a while I decided that this ascendancy +was principally in his eyes. I do not wish to overwork the popular +clichés of fire and flash and smolder; Smith's eyes certainly had +something of this quality; but it was combined with an expression that, +until I can define it better, I will risk calling discontent. I don't +mean by this the discontent that is common enough among those other +flashers and smolderers, the artists and poets and suchlike. That is +usually little more than peevishness and incapacity, and, as one of the +breed myself, I rather liked Smith's attitude towards us. With perfect +sincerity he looked on us as immensely clever fellows, particularly the +late Mr. Jack London and the author of _The Crimson Specter of Hangman +Hollow_; but there he had finished with us. We were high and he could +not attain to us. Our affairs were so little his affairs that I regret +to have to say that, Malvern notwithstanding, I have heard him make use +of the expression "between you and I." That is an awful thing for a nice +girl to marry. + +But the War has taught me, among other things, the overwhelming +importance of other men's jobs and the comparative insignificance of my +own. If young Smith did not express himself in the terms to which I was +accustomed, he expressed himself none the less. Don't ask me how, except +in a general way. Here again what he calls a "dreadfully gulf" is fixed, +across which I can only gaze at the New Wonder. + +For Chummy, for all his Crimson Specters and his "between you and I," +his cocktails at Hatchetts' and his stuffed-bird tympani in the Helmsea +Mess, was part of that Wonder that to-day a George takes from an +Elizabeth's hands. Four hundred years ago I suppose he would have sold a +farm and gone to sea; this, briefly, is what he did in our own day:-- + +Denied admission to the Flying Corps on the grounds that he was not yet +seventeen, he had made his way to London, dressed himself as a mechanic +or plumber, had forced his way into a foreign Embassy under pretext of +repairing the ambassadorial pipes or cisterns or something, and had +actually succeeded in presenting himself before the Ambassador, +demanding to be taken on in the service of a foreign country. Naturally +he had been refused and referred back to his own Government. Then had +ensued what Chummy cheerfully described as a hell of a dust-up. General +Officers had stormed and had wanted to know "what the devil he meant by +it"; the correspondence, I have been told, weighs between eleven and +twelve pounds; but in the end he had received his ticket--already +endorsed for improper conduct in offering his services to a foreign if +friendly Power. You will believe that this endorsement had stood very +little in his subsequent way. The story had run like wildfire throughout +the whole of the Service. It may have hindered his promotion, but what +on earth did promotion matter? Any number of civilian-ingrain +business-men, turning their business talents to the Services, have +obtained promotion. Few of them have attained to the distinction of such +an endorsement as that which made bright young Smith's ticket. + +And--to return to what I have called that discontent of his--I for one +cannot see that a young man of daring and vision, elementally put down +into the midst of our world to-day and asked what he makes of it all, +must either write a stuffy book or paint a jazz picture or else be told +that the fire of his personality has no expression and his chosen work +no value. Very much on the contrary. I think myself that Charles +Valentine Smith was a thinker so single of purpose that it never +occurred to him that he thought at all. And why not a technique, an +artist's technique, of the wrist and eye and nerve and indomitable +heart? Is my dictation more a wonder than his zooming? Is my life so +full and his so empty? I cannot see it. + + + + + III + + +To look at, he had not in the very least the air of a man over whose +head a terrible menace hung. Indeed, I have rarely sat down at a table +with a less personally odious young murderer. He was lithe and of a +darkish brown complexion, a perfect anatomy of graven and incised muscle +when later I saw him bathe, and with hands the movements of which were +full of power and grace. Then there were his eyes. Of all his features +his mouth was that which communicated the least, except when he smiled. +With the rest of us I am afraid that our mouths generally communicate +the most. + +I knew, at the time of this our peep forward, that Philip had had his +_éclaircissement_ with him, but had no idea of what had passed between +them. Calling at Lennox Street one midday on my way to the office I had +found the house shut up and even Rooke unexpectedly gone. Therefore I +half expected that Philip would tell me the whole story on the night of +my arrival at Santon. In fact, I gave him every opportunity to do so, +remaining behind after all but he and I had gone to bed. But he talked +about anything else, and at half-past ten rose, yawned, said he thought +he would turn in, apologized again for the change of my room, and gave +me my candle. The same thing happened the next night. + +On the third night I asked him point blank. + +"Eh?" he said. "Oh, that's all right--so far, at any rate. He doesn't +know anything about it." + +"What!" I exclaimed. "Know nothing about it!... What do you mean--that +he was too stunned or dazed or something to remember?" + +"Oh, no, I don't mean that exactly," Esdaile replied. "He remembers that +part of it all right. It was the other I didn't tell him." + +"What other?" + +"Why, that anybody else knows anything about the--accident." + +"But didn't you mention the shooting to him, if there was any?" + +"Oh, he admits that, of course." + +"Then in that case he knows you know?" + +"Of course he knows _I_ know. How could I ask him if I didn't know? What +he doesn't know is that you fellows know. So I told him the best thing +he could do was to come down here and get fit again, and not say +anything to Joan." + +"And--he agreed not to say anything to Joan?" I exclaimed in +astonishment. + +"Certainly. What good would that do? Look here: he's here getting +himself well again; I'm here painting; and you're here on a holiday. If +there's any trouble ahead we can't stop it, and so it's no good worrying +about it. Don't you think I'm right?" + +"Oh ... very well," I said in bewilderment, suddenly ceasing my +questions; and I took my candle and went up to my little room over the +hen-house with somewhat mixed feelings. + +Just look at a few of the ingredients of the mixture. Here was Joan, +knowing nothing about anything except that her lover had had a tumble, +had given her a few weeks of torturing anxiety, but was now blessedly up +and about again and in her pocket all day long. Then there was this +Charles Valentine Smith, also knowing nothing (for apparently a mere +trifle like shooting a man and admitting that you shot him didn't +count), and, with the Brand of Cain on his untroubled brow, offering +Joan his blood-stained hand in the most matter-of-fact way in the world. +And here was Philip, apparently accepting the whole extraordinary +situation with complete calm. I admit that I found all this serenity +just a little perplexing. + +But look at the charm of the situation for me as a novelist! Few of us +have the opportunity of studying what I think I may call the amenities +of murder at first hand. I dare say that grim mutterings à la Specter +of Hangman Hollow would have bored me, writhings and agonies made me +uncomfortable; but this new view of murder I found full of pleasing +interest. And the whole of the interest lay in seeing, hearing and +asking no questions. Philip was "there painting," I on a holiday. Very +well. I was content. + +And, in case you have any preconceived notions about the daily trifling +routine of murderers' lives, I can only wish you had been at Santon with +me at that time. As far as I could see, not a cloud marred the blue +heaven of these young people's days. They disappeared as soon as +breakfast was cleared away and returned when they returned. I don't for +a moment suppose that the intervening hours were spent in the +contemplation of death, judgment or the burden of undivulged crime. +Chummy enjoyed his pipe, and, as he sat at high tea, idolized by the +Esdaile boys because he flew, ate as heartily as ever in his pre-murder +days. If his crash on the Lennox Street roof was not mentioned, that +seemed to be only because everything had ended perfectly happily and +there was nothing more to be said about it. In fact, here is a bit of +conversation, taken almost at random, just to show you the way to be +entirely happy is to shoot somebody and say nothing to your best girl +about it. + +Coming down to breakfast one morning I thought it my duty to administer +a sharp rebuke to Miss Merrow about the throwing of a handful of +hen-corn into my window in order (she said) to wake me. + +"I had been up ten minutes, I had shaved, and was more than half +dressed," I said sternly. "I'll tell you what you are doing; you are +trying to train those hens to come _into_ my room by throwing corn in. I +have now to inform you that I intend to write this morning, and so +shall not be able to relieve you of your duties down on the shore." + +"Oh, I say, sir----" young Smith began, but I thought fit to put a spoke +into his wheel also. + +"Not a word!" I ordered him. "Hen-corn has been thrown into my room. +What was thrown into your room yesterday morning?" + +(She had tossed up to his casement a bud of the William Allen Richardson +that grew up the cottage end. Coming round the corner from an early +stroll up the dewy paddock I had seen her do it, as well as the little +token from her lips that went with it.) + +"I don't care which room I'm given, but I will not share it with +poultry," I continued firmly. "Also I object to this unfair +discrimination about things thrown in at windows. So understand that I +am busy writing this morning." + +"Well, we're going to Flaunton in the trap," said Joan defiantly. + +"Children," I said, turning to them, "Mr. Smith and Miss Merrow are +going to Flaunton in the trap. The tuckshop at Flaunton is a much better +one than the Santon one, and there are smugglers there. They are armed +to the teeth, and they carry contraband into their echoing caves usually +at about midday." + +"_That_," declared Joan, "I call mean! Bringing the children in!" + +"It's no worse than bringing the hens in," I retorted; and our murderer +guffawed and took another egg. + +I cannot say that I gained much by my protest, since, having put the +idea into their heads, I had to hire the station fly and take the +children to Flaunton myself. But it was a change from the sands, and it +gave me the opportunity for studying the blood-stained path of their +dalliance against a fresh background. + + + + + IV + + +But as you were. The peep-hole must be closed again. From the point of +view of the unities Charles Valentine Smith is still lying in a hospital +cot, writing daily but brief notes to Joan, forbidding her to come up, +and receiving countless boxes of tightly-packed Santon flowers. We are +in London again, during the last days of May. + +One morning I had knocked off my private work rather earlier than usual +(I had, in fact, been quite unable to settle down properly to it), and, +to fill in the time before lunch, had walked up Queen's Gate, entered +the Gardens by the Memorial, and strolled slowly along in the direction +of the Row. It was a pleasant morning, and the riders were out in full +force. Idly I was admiring glossy flanks and cruppers and bits jingling +and flashing in the sun, when suddenly a horseman overtook me from +behind and called me by my name. I turned, exclaimed, and shook hands +with him. + +He was a junior officer in the Australian Light Horse, and several times +I had come more or less closely into contact with him during my own +uneventful period of Military Service. His name was Dudley Hanson, he +had been in Gallipoli, was still in uniform, and was awaiting his boat +back home again and demobilization. He plays no part in this story +except on this single occasion. He was riding a rather pretty little +chestnut, and his hand patted the animal's neck as he leaned over the +railings and talked. + +"By the way," he remarked, after a little chat about men we both knew, +"that was rotten luck for poor old Maxwell the other day. You saw it in +the papers, didn't you?" + +"Who?" I said, perhaps with rather a jump. + +"Bobby Maxwell. He used to spot for our lot in Gallip. Came over here +after. I thought you knew him." + +"What was the rotten luck?" I asked. + +"Why, he came down somewhere in London the other day--crashed--killed on +the spot." + +"Dud," I said, "where are you lunching?" + +"Whoa, lass.... Oh, any old joint, I guess." + +"Then get off back to your stable and come straight along to my Club. +Come straight along. Don't stop to change or anything. I want to see you +particularly." + +He seemed a little surprised at my urgency, but waved his hand and was +off. I continued my walk, but no longer slowly. I always walk quickly +when I am interested, excited or moved by any emotion. + +I was now all three. Maxwell! Dud Hanson knew him, and had even fancied +that I might have known him myself! + +Whatever luncheon engagement Hanson might have had that day I can assure +you that I should have urged him to break it. + +My Club is in Piccadilly, and I waited for him in the entrance hall with +impatience. I gave his name to the porter as expressly as if otherwise +he might have been denied; I set my watch by the club clock, I fiddled +with the skeins of tape in the baskets. I had even a momentary scare +lest I should not have pronounced the name of my Club distinctly or +lest by any chance he should have misheard. + +You see the reason for my eagerness. Maxwell was our unknown quantity, +the one big blank in our Case. One or another of us could contribute his +portion of knowledge about everybody else, but nobody knew anything of +Maxwell. His function was entirely unconsidered, his rights totally +disregarded. Rights? I know nothing of the law of the matter, nor +whether a dead man has rights; but if he has they should be all the more +enforceable because he is in no position to enforce them for himself. +What would Maxwell have had to say about his own shooting? What had +brought about that shooting? Was he the kind of man who, in Monty +Rooke's large and equable view of the crime of murder, ought to have +been shot? Or was he the other kind, whose death was a loss to the +world? These were a few of the questions I wanted Dud Hanson to help me +to answer. + +He appeared, and we made our way to the dining-room at once. I gave the +order for the whole of the lunch so that we might be interrupted as +little as possible, and then I came straight to the point. + +"First of all," I said, "you say you knew Maxwell. Do you know the +fellow who came down with him--C. V. Smith?" + +"Smith? Smith? Yes, I think I do, if he was Bobby's pilot out there. +Smith's a pretty common name. Slightish build, but tough as they make +'em--dashing sort of chap with very lively dark eyes?" + +At the time I could not verify this physical description. "Well, were +they friends?" I asked. + +"I guess a pilot and his observer are like the little birds in their +nests--it's dangerous to fall out," Hanson replied. "What's _to_ all +this?" + +"The position's this. They happened to crash on the roof of a friend of +mine and this fellow Smith's. Smith's still in hospital, and neither my +friend nor I knew Maxwell. So I want you to tell me about him--anything +you know about the pair of them." + +"Right you are...." + +But if it was evidence of ill-feeling between the two men I was after he +could give me none. Indeed, the probabilities were all the other way. In +other Services the bond between man and man is strict, but there is +still room for preferences and aversions. Your mess, for example, is +yours, and you are filled with a jealous pride if an outsider has +anything to say about it; but within its circle you pick and choose your +friends. The ward-room forces you into the closest physical contacts, +but you can still please yourself about the other intimacies. Even in a +submarine, where the death of one is likely to be the death of all, you +may yet like one man more than another. But two men in an aeroplane are +twins in a womb. The very pulse of one must be the pulse of both, their +senses, glances, thoughts, such a unison of coöperation as the former +world never saw. For one to harm the other is not assault, but +semi-suicide. Rarely need you even "look for the woman." Gloriana both +serve, but they hardly quarrel about lesser mistresses. + +Yet is it not possible that this extraordinary attachment, this +association somewhat in excess of that of natural and aeroplaneless man, +may by its very nature have its own reactions? The closer the tie the +bitterer the quarrel when it does come. And here an artificial element +is superadded. For, in spite of Joan, who thought that Chummy simply +thought of her and flew, man does not naturally fly. If nothing else +forced him into accord the mere mechanical risks would be enough to do +so. I remember Smith told me that at one time--whether this is still the +case I cannot say--an observer was not allowed to be trained as a pilot +also, lest, seeing his comrade doing something he himself would not have +done and conscious of the functioning of a different mind, he should +lose his head at a critical moment and instinctively seize the controls. +Had there been such a dissolution of unity on that morning of the +breakfast-party? Had hand hesitated, this factitious identity suddenly +failed? Of all men living Charles Valentine Smith was the only one who +could answer these questions with authority; but I wanted to get all I +could out of Hanson. + +"Had Maxwell his pilot's ticket?" I musingly asked him presently. + +"Couldn't say. Lots of them have flown hundreds of miles without a +ticket at all." + +"Was he an Aiglon Company man, by the way?" + +"Dunno. If he was he probably had his ticket. I can't see what use a +commercial Company would have for a bomb-sight specialist." + +"Oh, they might. You never know." + +"Well, perhaps so. I'm sorry, old son, but you know as much about poor +old Bobby as I do now." + +Summarized, this was all the information I got in exchange for my +lunch:-- + +Maxwell was four or five years older than Smith, in civil life a +surveyor, unmarried, not (so far as Hanson knew) engaged to be married, +nice fellow, reasonably abstemious, quite sound in wind and limb. + +Hanson didn't think that Maxwell had spotted for any other pilot than +Smith during the time the two of them were in Gallipoli. + +Maxwell didn't strike Hanson as being a sort of man to lose his head in +an emergency; had indeed rather a cool head and steady nerve. + +In conclusion, Maxwell had always seemed particularly attached to Chummy +Smith. + +"But what's worrying you? Going to put it in a book?" Hanson asked. + +I shook my head. I had no idea at that time that I should ever be +writing this book. + + + + + V + + +On that day when I called at Lennox Street and received no answer to my +ringing I stepped back from the door and looked up at the house again. +Little trace of the accident now remained. The broken mulberry branch +had been neatly sawn off and the smaller branches trimmed. The blinds +were drawn, the French window clamped up, and quite obviously there was +nobody there. This, as I have said, surprised me, since, even if Esdaile +had gone away without letting me know, I had certainly expected to find +Rooke. + +Then, as I walked down the path again, a thought struck me. Rooke, if I +remembered rightly, ought to be getting married just about then--ought +as a matter of fact to have been married three days before. I had had no +news of this. True, he might simply have neglected to inform me, but I +did not think this likely. Was he married? Suddenly I found myself +wondering and doubting. + +In the King's Road, to which I walked, a blue and white telephone sign +hanging outside a grocer's shop caught my eye. I walked into the shop. I +have a good many friends at the Chelsea Arts, and one or other of them +ought to be able to tell me something about Rooke. + +I got through at the second or third name I asked for. It was Curtis. He +asked me to go on to the Club, but I told him that I couldn't spare the +time, and he next wanted to know where I was speaking from. + +"Then you're hardly a stone's-throw from him," Curtis replied. "He's +back in his old rooms in Jubilee Place." + +I was on the point of asking Curtis whether Rooke was married, but +already I had a divination. If he was not, to ask why he was not would +only make talk, and, if he was at home, I could ascertain for myself at +little more trouble than walking across the road. I thanked Curtis, hung +up the receiver, and turned my steps to Jubilee Place. + +I say I had a divination already. At the very outset of this book I told +you that the Case affected a number of people in various and curious +ways and byways, and I was now beginning to think that the descent of +that parachute on Esdaile's roof had left not one single member of our +group unaffected. I must remind you again that at that time I actually +knew far less than I have already told you; but except by collation, +rearrangement and boiling down I could not have set down these facts at +all. I had, for example, seen Esdaile's shocked expression on +discovering that the stranger who had come down on his roof was none +other than his friend Chummy Smith, but up to that time I had not set +eyes on that unruffled young criminal himself. I had guessed what this +discovery must presently mean to Joan, but was unaware of that +headstrong dash of Mollie's up to London, and her lagging return to +Santon. I had heard Hubbard's fantastic speculations as to the nature of +the mysterious apparatus Esdaile kept in his cellar, but did not know +that both Rooke and Mrs. Cunningham had actually been down in the +cellar. I had enjoyed the spectacle of a rising barrister unconsciously +frustrating the aims of a coroner's jury, but had had to pump Hanson for +even the meagerest scraps of information about the subject of that +inquest. And twice or thrice I had unblushingly lied to a Chesterfield +of the Saloon Bars, but without a suspicion when I had done so that this +very person, seeing another prime actor in our Case descending a ladder, +had had the curiosity to know what made his pocket so lumpy and the +deftness of hand to ascertain. + +So I had begun to look with a good deal of apprehension at our Case. The +beastly thing was like an egg, that hatched out one creeping thing after +another. And, as I paused at the end of a long concrete-floored passage +and knocked at Rooke's door, I wondered if Rooke would give me news of +still another. + + + + + VI + + +He did. His face did so before ever he spoke. In a moment I knew that +something had happened about that wedding--certainly that it had been +put off, possibly worse. Still without speaking he showed me in. + +He was lunching, or rather making a combination meal of lunch and +breakfast in one. A single glance round the room told me a good deal +about the state of mind of its occupant. I have been hard-up myself, and +know these symptoms of negligence of body, mind and surroundings. He was +fully dressed, but he wore yesterday's collar and his boots had not been +cleaned. His bed was unmade, his furniture undusted, his floor unswept. +He seemed to have got up late, to have wondered what after all there was +to get up for, and not to care much whether he stayed up or went back to +bed. It was all extraordinary unlike his former orderliness and neatness +and precision, and I made up my mind that there were several things I +intended to say to him before I left him. + +"Well, how are you?" he asked perfunctorily. "Have some cocoa. I'll wash +another cup." + +"No, thanks. You carry on with your breakfast. I've just been round to +see Esdaile. Is he away?" + +"Went off on Tuesday," Rooke replied. + +"Where, to Yorkshire?" + +"Yes. Took that fellow with him--you know--the flying fellow." + +"But why aren't you at the studio?" + +He answered evasively. "Oh--I chucked that idea." + +"But listen to me. You were to have got married, weren't you?" + +"Oh--Audrey chucked that," he replied, pushing his cup away. + +"Chucked it altogether, do you mean?" + +"Looks like it," he grunted. "Let's talk about something else." + +But, looking round the untidy room again I wondered whether it would not +be better for him to talk about precisely that. Even an active smart was +preferable to sloth and helplessness of that kind, and there is +something very lovable about Monty at his best. + +"No, no," I said. "Much better get it off your chest. And look here, my +friend, you haven't shaved this morning. That sort of thing doesn't +help. Talk about something else? No, let's talk about this. Where is +Mrs. Cunningham?" + +"I think Buxton this week. Haven't looked at the _Era_. She's on tour if +you must know." + +"But why? Why are things--like this? Surely there's a reason?" + +"Oh, she said she just couldn't stick it," he answered with an +off-handed but tremulous little laugh. + +"Stick what?" + +"Everything." + +I knew what he meant by "everything." He meant, simply, this confounded +Case. Now, it appeared, it had power to break off an engagement and to +bring Rooke down to dirty table-cloths, unmade beds and marmalade out of +the grocer's pot. + +"Look here, Monty," I began, touching his sleeve, "we've been friends +for quite a number of years now----" + +"Oh, don't," he interrupted me petulantly. "Leave a fellow alone." + +"No, I'm not going to leave you alone like this. I want you to tell me +why you left the studio, and why Mrs. Cunningham's gone off on tour, and +a number of other things." + +Well, it took time, but bit by bit he yielded. In sullen, resentful +sentences he began to talk. + +"What do I mean by everything?" he said. "Well, I mean everything. +Nothing's gone right. Nothing at all. Everybody's fed up to the back +teeth, Esdaile too. And all that stupid business last week just about +put the tin hat on it." + +"Do you mean that photograph in the papers?" + +"Yes, and those idiotic crowds, and all their senseless talk. Who wants +a streetful of fools gaping at his windows for two or three days on end +like that? Then they started pulling his leg at the Club. So he just +waited till this chap Smith was fit to be moved and then cleared out. I +don't blame him." + +"Yes, I can understand Esdaile's being annoyed; but that's over now, and +I don't quite see why you should leave and come back here." + +"Well, Audrey wasn't going there anyway," he answered. "She'd had enough +of it. Got it into her head there was something uncanny about the place, +and so there is. Too much mystery altogether. That was Esdaile. He keeps +you on the jump the whole time." + +"What do you mean by keeping you on the jump?" + +"All sorts of ways. There's that cellar of his for one thing; he was +never in the same mind about that for half an hour together. We were +going to take a cupboard or something down there one day; it was his own +suggestion; but he twisted and wriggled and tried to cry off till I was +about at the end of my patience. You'd have thought he wouldn't have us +down there at any price. And then suddenly he turned round and said we +could go down if we liked. Idiotic I call it." + +"Did you go down?" + +"Yes. And there was nothing whatever to make all that fuss about as far +as I could see. I admit I'd wondered once or twice whether there was +anything queer, but I went into every corner and there was absolutely +nothing to see." + +"You're thinking of that other morning when he was down there all that +time?" + +"Yes. I can't make head or tail of that yet, but I can't see it's +anything to do with the cellar. And just listen to this. After making +all that fuss he came up again and didn't even bother to take the key +out of the door. It was there when I came away. One day he nearly jumps +down your throat when you ask him for the key, and the next thing he +goes and leaves it in the door! I'm sure he did it on purpose too. It +was just like saying, 'Go and live down there if you like.' Well, I +wasn't going to be messed about like that. I'm not going nosing round +other fellows' places. I'm not a policeman. So I cleared out. Would +_you_ have stopped after that?" + +Again his voice shook a little, and I could guess at the meaning behind +his words. He meant, Would I have continued in a house the offer of +which had promised so much happiness that one moment's happening had +turned to discord and misunderstanding? I cannot say that I should. + + + + + VII + + +In my anxiety to set him talking after his own fashion I had not yet +asked him anything about what had passed between Esdaile and Smith; but +I intended to do so. For, just as Monty himself had been the first +obstacle to Philip's letting us into the heart of his mystery straight +away, so Smith, you will remember, had since blocked the current of +disclosure. Philip had had to see Smith before taking the next step, +and, as I had pre-figured the matter, he would go to the hospital one +day as soon as Smith had sufficiently recovered, would ask for his +account of the affair, and would then take the rest of us into his +confidence or not, as the case might be. In other words, it depended on +Smith's explanation whether Philip and the rest of us continued our +efforts at suppression or--did the other thing. + +But now Esdaile seemed to have taken neither course. As far as I could +gather he had calmly evaded the whole situation by carrying Smith off +into the country out of our sight and hearing. I admit that, since the +assassin was taken into the bosom of Esdaile's own family, it looked as +if he had succeeded in making out some sort of a case for himself; but I +also remembered the strong bias of friendship and the practically +instantaneous resolution both he and Hubbard had taken that their Chummy +was to be stood by till the last possible moment. That is not the most +judicial frame of mind imaginable. Loftier, if chillier heights are +conceivable. Esdaile alone of us had asserted from the beginning, and +had stuck unwaveringly to it, that as a matter of plain unvarnished fact +Smith had shot Maxwell. All along his manner had proclaimed that the +accident theory, which was good enough for the women and the police, was +vamped up and a lie. Was he now going to have the face to say to us, +"Well, I've seen him, and he admits everything, but he had his +reasons--unfortunately they meant putting a bullet into a fellow, but to +hang Chummy won't bring t'other chap back to life--better let the whole +thing drop"? + +How beautifully simple! + +But at the same time how very unfortunate that an outsider, laboring +under a sense of grievance, should have patted Monty's pocket as he +came down the ladder that morning! + +Monty had risen, a little shamefacedly I thought. But for my call I +fancy he would have left his breakfast things as they were, washing up +the next cup when he wanted it. Now he began to stack them together for +a general washing-up. He went into the little lobby place that held his +taps and I heard the running of water into a basin; then he turned to +his tumbled bed and began to re-make it. He muttered something about my +not minding his carrying-on. I was far from minding it. + +"But look here," I said as he moved about, "about Smith. You say +Philip's seen him. What did he say about it?" + +"Who, Philip or Smith?" + +"Well, both of them. Didn't Philip tell you?" + +"He didn't say much. He wasn't gone much more than half an +hour--couldn't have had more than ten minutes with him--and then he came +back and said he was taking him away the next day but one." + +"Then that was while you were still at the studio?" + +"Yes. It was then I told him I'd had enough of it and was coming back +here. He told me not to be an ass, but I don't call that being an ass. I +don't mean there was a row, but I'd got my back up a bit, and I didn't +feel like asking him questions. I was sorry for him too in a way. You +see, that morning after his wife came up----" + +"What!" I exclaimed in surprise. "Has his wife been up since she left +that morning?" (This, as I have told you, was the first I had heard of +it.) + +"Yes. She turned up late one night. I was out--I'd gone for a walk +Roehampton way just to think things over--that was before Audrey'd told +me she----" He stopped, as if distrusting his voice. + +"Yes?" I gently urged him. + +"About his wife coming up. I didn't see her till next morning. I expect +she was tired out with the journey; anyway, her face was as gray as that +Michelet paper there. And Philip was done in too. That's why I didn't +want to make any bother. I couldn't help feeling sorry for him. I don't +know what's happened to us all." + +I could have told him. It was the Case that had happened. + +"Mrs. Esdaile too--she was just the same----" + +Naturally. The Case was the same. + +"I hadn't very much talk with her. Of course, I asked her how Joan +was----" + +Yes, Joan was in the Case too. + +"And she told me she'd seen Dawdy the night before. Dawdy was all a +bundle of nerves, and Mrs. Esdaile put her to bed. She told me that if +she were me she'd go round there at once and tell her--tell her----" + +But here he broke down suddenly and completely. He sank on the edge of +his bed and buried his face in his hands. He shook with sobs. + +"Oh," he broke out uncontrollably, "it's all that beast--that beast +Cunningham----" + +"Oh no," I thought; "it wasn't Cunningham; it was the Case." + +"You don't know the life that brute led her," he went on. "Drunken +blackguard--women all over the place--and Dawdy, Dawdy at home! I hope +he's in hell! Killed her heart he did. Can you blame her for not wanting +to chance it again? I hardly had the heart to beg her, I was so broken +up. She admitted she'd nothing against me. She just wanted to be right +away from all men. So I pay for that beast. Somebody always has to pay, +I expect. If only I'd seen her before he did----" + +Presently he was better. He got up and began to move about again. +"Sorry," he said shortly. "But what would you do?" + +"Well, I should shave for one thing," I said quietly. "And for another, +I don't think I'd make up my mind that everything was entirely hopeless. +You never know what'll happen. It may be all right presently." + +"I suppose you're right," he admitted. "No good chucking your hand in +like this. Sorry. But it is a bit upsetting, you know." + +Could I at that moment have added to his troubles by telling him about +Westbury, the ladder and the pistol in his pocket? + +Perhaps I could have done. Anyway, I didn't. + + + + + VIII + + +I recognized the more readily the separate and inhuman vitality this +Case of ours was beginning to assume when I carefully considered its +action upon myself. My connection with it was slight by comparison with +that of some of the others, but I was aware of its operation. The +attitudes into which it began to constrain me were not quite natural +attitudes. It exercised pressure. What pressure? + +Well, to begin with, this pressure--that I began to find it difficult to +leave it alone. Both at home and at the office of the _Daily Circus_ it +intruded between me and the work I ought to have been getting on with. +Little fleeting pictures began to interpose themselves. Sometimes I +would find myself looking fixedly at a galley-slip or a page still damp +from the proving-press and seeing, not the thing in my hand, but Joan +Merrow running in with the children from the garden again; at home my +page of manuscript would blur and there in a doorway Philip Esdaile +would stand, his eyes dancing with a stilly excitement, the curaçao and +the candle once more in his hands. And this, in my curious trade, is a +serious matter. Out of precisely these insubstantialities I have to +contrive to pay my rent and income-tax and to provide my +bread-and-butter. I will not go so far as to say that I dreamed of the +Case at night, but it began to play the dickens with my work. Unable to +settle down to it, I found the Park drawing me instead, and even in the +afternoons, which in ordinary commercial honesty were not my time at +all, I began to put in the briefest and most perfunctory appearances at +the office. I contented myself with the appearance of busyness, and +wondered how long it would be before my chief caught me out. + +In this frame of mind I happened one afternoon, by the merest chance, to +run across Cecil Hubbard. I had dropped into a Technical and Scientific +Exhibition of some sort, and I had thought I had seen Hubbard's +white-topped cap and foursquare back in the downstairs rooms, but had +lost them again. It was upstairs, a quarter of an hour later, that I +found him. + +He was watching another man, evidently an attendant or official of the +Exhibition, who wore a double telephone-receiver about his ears and was +slowly turning the handle of an instrument that at a first glance +resembled an overgrown typewriter. Hubbard was peering into the +mechanism. Then, at the invitation of the other man, he removed his cap +and clasped the receiver about his head. The official continued to turn +the handle. + +"Hallo!" I said, coming up. "May one ask what it is?" + +Hubbard turned. "Hallo, what are you doing here?" was his greeting. Then +to the attendant, "What do you say the thing's called?" + +It was the optophone, and perhaps you may have seen, or rather heard it. +It is an instrument for enabling a totally blind man to read a page of +ordinary print. I myself had never heard of the thing, and am not sure +that I give a technically correct description of it now, but, as I +understand it, the page travels along the carriage in such a way that +each letter in turn passes over a tiny ray of light that is directed +through a morsel of selenium. The letter causes an interruption; a +lower-case "l," for example, which is a straight line, making one kind +of break, but an "i," which is the "l" with the dot cut off the top, a +different one; and so with the other letters. The transmutation is of +light into sound, and the official assured us that with a very little +practice the ear learns to distinguish the minute variations in the +telephonic receiver without difficulty. + +Remembering Hubbard's former (to me lunatic) conjectures that day when I +had called on him at the Admiralty, I thought it an odd chance that I +should come upon him examining such a thing as this optophone seemed to +be; but our talk did not begin with that. Leaving the instrument, we +turned away between glass showcases of fabrics and British glass and +brilliant dyes and crystals and approached a window-bay that looked out +on a gray courtyard. + +"Well, what are you doing here?" he said again cheerfully. "It's a long +time since you looked me up." + +I told him that I went to all sorts of places in search of a little +clowning for the _Circus_, and added that it was precisely the same +distance from his place to mine as from mine to his. He laughed. + +"I should have thought this was out of your line," he replied. "Well, +what's the news?" + +It was not likely that Hubbard had forgotten incidents so remarkable as +those of that Lennox Street breakfast-party. Moreover, I could see he +was sorry he had met me at this dead hour of the afternoon; he always +talked better over lunch at Simpson's, with a Bronx or a Martini to +start off with. Failing these, there was nothing for it but a cup of tea +to wash down our chat, and as a matter of fact it was at a Slater's +place in the Strand, with a rather good little band of violin, 'cello +and piano that, a quarter of an hour later, we settled down. + +"Well, Esdaile's taken your friend Chummy away," I observed when our +teapots had been brought. + +"Oh, he has, has he?" said Hubbard. "Queer business that, wasn't it? +Have you made anything of it all yet?" + +"I can't say I have; but then I'm rather at a disadvantage in not +knowing your friend. Tell me something about him." + +"Well--what, for example?" + +"As I know nothing you can't go far wrong," I replied. + +Music is one of the Commander's passions, and, as I say, that Slater +band was not too bad. I think it was the "_Valse Triste_" that sent +him off into a reverie. The young creature who played the fiddle had +bobbed hair and was rather an attractive sort of sylph, and the +Commander's blue eyes with the dark dots in them were fixed on her +intricately-moving fingers. + +Then he came out of his musing with a sudden jerk. What I especially +like about Hubbard is that he usually knows what you want to know, and +does not cease to feel the working of your mind even through a longish +silence. + +"Extraordinary thing," were his words as he came out of that silence. +"It seems to be like the wind--blows whither it listeth. You look for it +where you'd expect it and it isn't there, and then up it pops in a place +you'd never think of looking for it." + +This sounded to me rather like some of my own Publicity conclusions; but +"What does?" I prompted him. + +"Oh, the fluence--the gism--the real stuff--the thing you know when you +see it but haven't got a name for," he replied off-handedly. "I suppose +you writer-fellows call it genius.... How old's Smith? Twenty-four I +should say, so it isn't a matter of accumulated experience. He couldn't +be more dead right if he was a hundred-and-four." + +"Right about what?" + +"Well, about his job. Aviation. What it's for, just as much as ever now +the War's over." + +"Tell me--but remember I'm a journalist." + +"All the better," he replied promptly. "The more you rub it in the +better. The War only ended a few months ago, but a good many people seem +to be trying to think there's never been one. That's right enough from +the economic point of view, of course--gets people back to work +again--but there is the other side, and I wish you would rub it in." + +"Well, what do you want rubbed in?" + +The eyes that had caught mine in Esdaile's studio rested on my face +again now. Then he pulled out a fat cigarette. + +"Civil aviation's for War, of course--the next War," he said almost +contemptuously. "You're not one of those who think it's for +express-letters, are you? Or carrying a cheap-jack Bradford agent to +make a dicker in wool? That's where so many of you newspaper fellows +make the mistake. You're all so clever at disguising the truth. You +don't take people into your confidence enough." + +Professionally this began to interest me. The public, its interests and +its confidence are supposed to be my business. + +"Go on," I said. + +"Well, you don't," Hubbard repeated. He has rather a rapid and abrupt +manner of speech that enables him better than anybody I know to carry +off the things men are usually a little shy about. "The Bradford man has +his affairs, I know, and it may sometimes be an advantage to get a +letter there a couple of hours quicker, but that's not the point. There +are two points, as a matter of fact. One's the training of your men, and +the other's continuity of manufacture. If this country forgets either of +'em it may as well chuck its hand in. Why," he exclaimed in a phrase +that arrested me in a quite remarkable way as chiming in so exactly with +my own private observations, "look at the Elizabethans! What did _they_ +do? They wanted ships and they wanted sailors. So they developed the +North Sea fishing industry. Gave 'em all sorts of bonuses and rebates +and privileges. Not for the sake of a few dead fish. Not on your life. +It was to keep the men in training and the shipyards running and the +Spaniard out. And it's the same with civil aviation to-day." + +I won't say that I had never thought of this before. But one thinks of +all sorts of things that evaporate in the thinking, so that for +practical purposes they might just as well never have been thought. It +was his energy and certitude and single-mindedness that gave it all its +force. And although I am a journalist, that is why I think that all our +print is dead and cold until it is vivified by the heard and passionate +voice. Oh, I know the stock argument--that for one that is reached by +the human voice a thousand are influenced by the printed word. Well, so +they are, until a contradictory word is printed and both messages jam to +a standstill. But you can't jam the pentecostal flames that give the +prophets utterance. I am inclined to think that if there is one +indestructible thing in the world it is the Uttered Word. Naturally I +refrain from dwelling too much on this in the office of the _Daily +Circus_. But it lies behind every word of our print for all that. + +"Another thing," Hubbard continued. "I don't know much about the +Elizabethans, but I'm prepared to bet that a good many of 'em were +youngsters. While old Burleigh was nodding, some infant just out of his +cradle was getting away with it. At all events, there's no reason that I +can see why he shouldn't as well be twenty as ninety--every practical +reason why he should, in fact." + +"Do you mean young Smith's like that?" I suddenly asked. + +Perhaps it wasn't quite fair. When a man has the pluck to talk on these +lines it is rather a cold douche to bring it all down to one finite and +fallible human being. Even the pentecostal flame may flicker at times. +But I noticed that Hubbard did not say No. Indeed, he did not answer me +at all. His eyes were on the child with the fiddle again and the living, +climbing fingers. + +"Clever hands, aren't they?" he said. "Wish I could play the fiddle." + + + + + IX + + +It was a little later, when we came to speak of the optophone, that I +found him to be still firmly rooted in the conviction that Esdaile's +cellar contained the solution of at least a portion of our mystery. He +was quite unshakable on this point. I will not trouble to re-state his +recapitulation of the events of the morning of the farewell breakfast. +Of subsequent events, I may say, he knew little. + +"Well, I won't pretend to understand you," I said at last. "If you +seriously think that Esdaile's got some sort of an optophone in his +house----" + +He waved his hand impatiently, as if to beg of me not to be an ass. + +"Oh, cut that out. I'm not given to melodrama any more than you are. Of +course he hasn't; that's infantile. But what is there to prevent there +being something peculiar about the ordinary acoustics of the +place--perfectly ordinarily and naturally, but one of these freakish +effects--there are such things--an echo's the commonest example, of +course--then there _are_ these whispering effects--vagaries of +sound----" He tailed off. + +"But he heard no sound," I objected, "or at any rate so little that we +decided he couldn't know what it was. He certainly didn't hear what we +heard. You've got the whole thing turned round." + +"I know," he mused. "And yet he gave you the impression of a man who +knew more than all the rest of us put together. In fact, he practically +admitted he did." + +"But--if you will have it it's the cellar--two people have been down +since." + +He turned quickly. "Who are they?" + +"Rooke and Mrs. Cunningham." + +"Well, and what had they to say about it?" + +I had to admit that, according to Rooke, something about the place had +brought Mrs. Cunningham to the verge of hysteria, while Rooke himself +had found the place inexplicably uncanny. + +"Then as far as it goes that bears me out?" + +"As far as it goes. But they found nothing out of the ordinary. Esdaile +even left the key in the door, and there was nothing to prevent them +from rummaging to their hearts' content." + +"Did they rummage?" + +"Rooke didn't. Said he wasn't a policeman to go scratching about other +people's houses. I thought it rather decent of him." + +"Well--it's possible they didn't know what to look for." + +"Do you?" I parried. + +"No," he confessed,--"not unless he keeps a tame ghost down there." + +"In that case the Chelsea Arts Club would be right," I laughed; and we +went on to speak of other things. + + + + + X + + +Then one morning I had a letter from Joan Merrow, which I give you +without the alteration of a single word. If you yourself have a modern +young Anthea who may command you anything and does not hesitate to do so +I accept your sympathy in advance. The letter ran:-- + + "DEAR OLD THING, + + "Do be an angel and do one or two little things for me. I'd rather + ask you than anybody else because you're the _kindest_ person I + know. If you're too busy of course you'll say so straight out, but + what I want first of all is for you to get me the addresses of a + few nice small houses or convenient flats." + +In course of time I had recovered my breath. This, remember, was in +1919. It was not the Crown Jewels her ladyship wanted, merely "a nice +small house"; not the sun, moon and stars, only "a convenient flat." I +think my nerves might be spared shocks of this kind at my time of life. + + "Of course, I know rents have gone up," she continued, "but Chummy + thinks there ought to be plenty of quite nice little places for + about £70, but you could go up to £75 for a really nice house with + a garden, rates and taxes included, of course. There are some sweet + little houses right on the edge of the Heath at Hampstead with + trees all round them and dear little brass knockers on the doors, + but I don't know if any of those are empty, but you might ask." + +I seemed to remember those sweet little houses. If I am right, your +father puts his name down for one of them on his coming of age, and, +with luck in the matter of intervening deaths, your son may end his days +there. I have never had the impiety to ask the rent of them. + + "There wouldn't have to be any premium, and there _must_ be a + telephone. Speaking of telephones, I do wish you could persuade + Philip to have that one of his moved, as where it is everybody can + hear every word you say. The house needn't be Hampstead, of course, + Wimbledon or Richmond would do if you wouldn't mind having a look + round. If you went on the top of a bus you'd be out in the fresh + air and the blow would do you good. Then there would be the + question of a maid, but we shouldn't want her for a month or two + yet." + +At this point a little fanning with the letter refreshed me +considerably. + + "And now," the joyous thing continued, "if you happen to be + anywhere near Regent Street it would be so kind if you would call + at Morny's and get me some soap, I like Chaminade best, and some + tooth-powder, any good sort. I know how busy you are, but it is so + difficult to get things here. I tried to get some Petrole Hahn the + other day, but they'd never heard of it. I'd ask Mrs. Cunningham, + but I hear she's away, and you carry colors so well in your head. + That's why I wonder if you'd call at that little bead-shop in + Oxford Street, nearly opposite Frascati's, and see if they have any + amber beads, not the real amber, of course, iron-amber I think they + call it. Chummy wants me to have some because of my hair. Not the + huge ones, please, but from about the size of a pea to as big as a + marble." + +"Or a 7.65 mm. bullet," I murmured to myself. + + "The weather here is lovely and we're out all day long, and I do + wish you were here. But my bathing-costume is a perfect rag. I hate + the skirted ones and always wear a plain club one, either navy blue + or black; but I'm afraid it won't run to a silk one, though you + might ask the price. And now here's something that isn't for me at + all. You know Hamley's, either in Regent Street or Holborn, but + they have a better selection in Regent Street. The boys want two + pairs of water-wings, and they'd better be of different colors or + they'll get them mixed up and be always quarreling. And oh, Chummy + says it's awful neck, seeing he doesn't know you, but there are + some pipes, 'Captanide' they're called, and you get them at Loewe's + in the Haymarket. There are two sizes, and he would like the + smaller size, two of them, please. You can add them to my bill as + they're my present to him and he's giving me the beads, and he'd + better have some tobacco for the pipes. His number at Dunhills' is + 06369. A pipe is better for him than cigarettes, though I allow him + six cigarettes a day and you can only get gaspers here. Any nice + kind would do as long as they're Turkish. Thanks so much. How is + the novel getting on? We're both so looking forward to reading it. + Is it a love story? I do hope it is, as I'm sure you'd do that so + beautifully. Do be a pet about the house. I'm sending you some + flowers to-morrow. + + "JOAN." + +With a light sigh I folded the letter and put it into my pocket. At any +rate, there seemed to be two people on whom our Case did not weigh too +heavily. + + + + + PART VI + + THE MAN IN THE CLUB + + + + + I + + +I always have the lurking feeling that Democracy would be all right but +for its numbers. I am aware that this sounds paradoxical, and that in +its numbers is supposed to lie its strength, but I do not see how that +can ever be a properly directed executive strength. There are too many +cooks. Taken one at a time, how admirable are its impulses, how just in +the main its judgments! But block-vote it----! Take away its trust in +Princes and put it in Polls----! Convert its votes, not into effective +action, but into arid deserts of statistics----!... Two men can make a +holy friendship; among three there can be a useful understanding; but +ten will ever winnow the wind with talk, and a hundred are a mere +arithmetical obstruction in the way of ever getting anything done at +all. + +I am moved to these reflections (as no younger novelist ever dares to +say) by a series of occurrences that began at that time so to harass me +and to put me so completely off my private work that, like poor Monty +Rooke, I might almost as well have stopped in bed till midday. These +were the occurrences that I had already dimly foreseen when that +photograph of the house in Lennox Street had so suddenly appeared in +that morning's issue of the _Roundabout_. By an unforeseen fluke the +peril of the coroner's inquest had been safely passed, but I had felt +in my bones that others were gathering. + +Well, they gathered. I learned, no matter how, that the Scepter +Insurance Company was consulting its solicitors and its solicitors were +instructing counsel. The plane and parachute people, as I had expected, +were investigating scraps of twisted metal and pieces of scorched +fabric, and the Accidents Investigation Committees were getting to work. + +Understand that none of these happenings were official happenings. If +the Scepter wanted to resist, it had its ordinary remedy at civil law. +The Committees had no authority whatever except to draw up reports for +their own information and satisfaction. The interests of the owners and +manufacturers were likewise purely private ones. + +In fact, as far as I could see, the only charge that could lay Charles +Valentine Smith _directly_ by the heels would be one under those +half-baked Orders that so far were the best that could be done towards +solving an entirely new problem with totally unascertained powers. + +But there are wheels within wheels, and it is the little wheels that are +the devil. We still speak of things being "official" long after that +imposing word has ceased to have much significance. If only for the +arithmetical reason mentioned above, Government works ever more and more +through channels that are not official and votable on at all. Many a +private concern has a Minister, or at any rate a Minister's adviser or +an influential Member, safely tucked away in its pocket, and you may +invert this if you wish in the sense of an understanding. This is why +bright-eyed secretaries, fresh from a dinner-table or a conference that +has let them into the very heart of some secret matter, are not +supposed to be asked what knowledge they have in their extra-secretarial +capacities; and this is what the Man in the Club understands and what +his brother in the Pub does not. He thumps no tub, enunciates no "first +principles." A name, a glance, a shake of the head, and block-votes are +put back where they belong. "I'm told Glenfield doesn't wish it" is more +to him than twenty parliamentary returns; "I wonder whether So-and-So +has quite the power he thinks he has," and three months later the public +is surprised to see that a newspaper has changed its policy. + +But let me hasten to reassure you. I am not going to invite you to +follow our Case into quagmires either legal or political. I know too +little about these things myself. Recent as the judgment on Appeal was, +I have to stop and think for a moment before I can remember whether the +Scepter people won their case or lost it, and I have only the vaguest +idea what the findings of the Accidents Investigation Committees were. +For most of these things I have taken Billy Mackwith's word. But he was +briefed in one case, and has followed up the others with just the same +pertinacity he showed when he tracked down and brought triumphantly home +again those early prodigal pictures of Philip Esdaile's. + +And, as I had begun to see it, Charles Valentine Smith, whether on oath +in the Scepter case or at the invitation of one or other of the private +inquiries, was engaged on something enormously more important than the +immediate results of an aeroplane crash. He was contributing his mite to +something that would live when he and all else about him had been +forgotten--to the labor and knowledge and unparalleled discovery of his +time. + + + + + II + + +Whitaker, in its "list of London Clubs," describes my own as "Social": +that is to say, that I and my fellow-members have no common bond of +occupation or interest other than that of pleasant good-fellowship. We +are drawn from all professions, and this gives me an opportunity I value +highly, namely, that of hearing scraps of the "shop" of other men when I +am bored to death with my own. Saturday nights, when there is no +morrow's issue of my paper to "put to bed," usually find me in the +smoking-room behind my _Pall Mall_ or _Evening Standard_, with a few +other non-weekenders sitting rather widely apart also behind their +papers, none of us so engrossed in the news that we are unaware of each +other, but using the journals as protective cover. Occasionally we all +drop them to converse; more frequently two or more will engage in +conversation with the others interjecting sniping-shots across the room; +and it is all rather interesting and quite unexciting and very much +go-as-you-please. + +On a Saturday evening early in June I was sitting after this fashion, +half reading, half listening to Ronald Mowbray's remarks on some boxing +match or other. Mowbray's talk about boxing is sometimes rather good. He +was a known man of his hands long before the sport (if you can always +call it that nowadays) became quite so deadly intensive both physically +and financially. Moreover, his training as a sculptor has given him a +good deal of knowledge of the fundamental mechanics of the human +framework, and how a slight prolongation of the heel-bone can make a +Deer-foot or length of humerus a lightning hitter. + +"Just at present I don't think Nature's provided the world with a real +heavy-weight," he was saying. "Not the real John Hopley kind, I mean. It +takes more than size. You see, it doesn't matter how hard you _could_ +hit the other fellow if he gets his in first." + +"But surely Wells is quick enough for you, isn't he?" said Jack +Beresford. His newspaper was on his knee. + +"Oh, yes, Wells is fast. I'm not saying that speed's everything. But +it's nearly everything nowadays, even for a heavy. That's why half these +giants would be simply at the mercy of a comparatively light fellow like +Carpentier." + +Over against the window bay a _Globe_ was dropped an inch. Cyril +Turner's eye was seen over it. He is in the Home Office, quite high up, +and is an untrammeled sort of spirit when he leaves Whitehall for the +freer air of Piccadilly. + +"That's true of other things besides boxing," he interjected. + +Mowbray turned. "What is?" + +"What you're saying about weight and speed. Labor's discovered it too." + +"I don't quite know what you mean, but if I've said something wiser than +I intended----" said Mowbray, claiming it if he had. + +"Well, Labor has discovered it. Look at the way they strike nowadays. +The New Strike's as different as chalk and cheese from the Old. Totally +different methods--more scientific altogether. Masters and men used to +stand up foot to foot like Smithfield Butchers and slog till neither of +them could stand. Pure battering-ram principle, and the fellow who won +wasn't much better off than the one who lost. But now it's all +swiftness and surprise. No warning--just what you'd call a lightning +punch where it's going to hurt most and then dance away again. That's +why they go for the transport and postal services and all the +distributing machinery instead of stopping production. It paralyzes just +the same. Solar plexus business. And swiftness is the secret, as you +say, not brute strength any more." + +Another paper was lowered. It was Hay's _Evening News_. Hay is a retired +Major of Gunners, and I have bought very good cigars from him and very +passable port. + +"And that isn't all either," he said. "It goes far beyond strikes." + +"War?" said somebody. Everybody in the Club knows Hay and his talk. + +Hay nodded. "You'll see where speed comes in _then_--speed and the +absence of warning. The nation that can get a thousand bombing-planes +into the air first will be able to do what it likes with the others." + +"Oh, come, Major!" somebody laughed. "That's rather looking for trouble, +isn't it?" + +"No good shutting your eyes to it," Hay returned. "Turner said something +about transport just now. They're talking a lot about relieving London's +traffic congestion. Well, it wants relieving; but do you know how I'd +relieve it? I'd dig new ways ... well underground. Big ones, to hold +plenty of people. Tube Stations won't be much good the next time. And +I'd start digging them now." + +"Hay's had a hint from the League of Nations." + +"Well, I'm a League of Nations man up to a point. Up to this point--that +the next show's going to be so unutterably ghastly that a generation +that leaves anything undone to prevent it ought to be wiped off the +map--_any_thing undone, you understand, whether you personally believe +in it or whether you don't. We're only at the beginning of the New War, +and it will be far more 'lightning' than any of Turner's New Strikes." + +"Democracy'll prevent it." + +"As it's doing in Russia, eh? Just as likely to make it. Democracy's got +such damnably high-falutin ideals and so little sense of ordinary +decency. For an inhuman thing that belongs to everybody and pleases +nobody give me the Will of the People. If you read your history you'll +find that hot air's usually followed by bloodshed. And they won't stick +at much. Personally I prefer a King's war with guns to a democratic one +with black typhus germs." + +"Sunny soul, our Major, isn't he?" somebody laughed again. + +"Well," said Hay, disappearing behind his paper again, "a thousand +bombing-planes will do it the next time. I hope we aren't forgetting how +to make 'em, and use 'em. Waiter, bring me a whisky-and-soda, please." + + + + + III + + +For a time nothing was heard in the smoking-room but the rustle of the +turning papers and the clink of a coffee-cup in a saucer. +Sluggishly--for the idleness that had latterly overmastered me tired me +to my very marrow--I was comparing Hay's words with what Cecil Hubbard +had said on the same subject. "Continuity of manufacture and the +training of men"--you might call this "civil" aviation if you liked, +but according to both men it was indistinguishable from the question of +national defense. And, further, Hubbard, unless I was mistaken, had +allowed young Smith some portion of vision in the matter. "It doesn't +matter whether he's twenty-four or a hundred-and-four"--"The wind blew +whither it list"--"While the old Burleighs had been nodding some +youngster had been getting away with the job." + +Well, I myself, no longer very young, could only sigh and agree that it +seemed to be a young man's business. In other fields of action youth, +the cutting-edge, was directed by the experienced hand and the wise head +that too has been young in its day; but in this field none but youth has +or has had the experience. Its time is short, it reaps its harvest in +its Spring. We in the August of our lives may say, "Thus and thus should +be done," but a young head shakes and we are silenced. The judgment of +an infant answers us. A Samuel speaks, and our lips are closed within +our beards. We administer, advise, finance, organize, but his is the +mounting heart. + +In the midst of my meditation I became aware that I was being spoken to +by Mowbray. I told you he was a sculptor. He is no great intimate of +Esdaile's, but naturally they are not unacquainted. + +"I beg your pardon. What were you saying?" I said. + +"This Scepter action. I see it's down on the List. You're a friend of +Esdaile's. I suppose it won't affect him in any way?" + +"What's the action about?" I asked. + +"Here you are. '_The Aiglon Aviation Company v. The Scepter Assurance +Corporation._' The Scepter people are resisting the claim on the grounds +that the machine had no business to be where it was. They also allege +negligence on the pilot's part, or so at least McIlwaine tells me. He's +briefed. Is it true you were at Esdaile's when it happened?" + +"Yes." + +"Do you know the pilot?" + +"No. I believe he's away with Esdaile in the country at present." + +"Well, he can be getting ready to come back to town. It's down for +Trinity term. I should say the whole action turns on him. Worrying sort +of thing to have to go through on the top of a bad crash, but the +Scepter's got to fight it. If flying ever comes to anything the +position's got to be made clear." + +"_If_ it comes to anything?" I queried idly.... + +"Apart from Hay's point of view, I mean. I don't see myself that it's +achieved very much yet outside war. Too risky and uncertain altogether. +There isn't a flyer on the Rhine at present who'll take his leave by +aeroplane; he might lose a day. And if this Atlantic flight does come +off it'll be rather like Channel-swimming--done once and then not again +for another forty years. Just a record. I can't see there's much more in +it yet." + +Here Atkinson's voice struck in. I hadn't heard him enter. + +"Yes, but what about other places--Australia, for instance? It's +catching on there all right from what I'm told. Say you've a station +ninety miles from your front door to your back. An aeroplane'll do in an +hour or two what it would take you two or three days to do in a buggy. +Any number of these fellows are running their private planes now. And +we're making the machines." + +"And there isn't much doubt they'll be having a go at the Cape-to-Cairo +route presently," somebody else remarked. (I am giving this desultory +conversation very much as it happened, since I felt exceedingly +desultory myself and it all contributed to the impression of Chummy +Smith and the nature of his job that was slowly building itself up in my +mind.) + +"Well, that's a different thing again. I should say the value of that +would be largely scientific, at any rate at first. Like the Shackleton +and Scott expeditions." + +Mowbray laughed. "Are you one of those who think those were primarily +scientific?" he asked. + +"What else were they?" + +Whereupon we had the matter from the point of view of Ronald Mowbray, +ex-amateur champion and still the soundest of referees. + +"Pure sport and adventure, of course," he replied promptly. "Oh yes, I +know somebody put up the money for a lot of instruments, and they took +all sorts of observations and kept journals and all the rest of it. I +know all that. Quite useful too in its way. But when you get right down +to brass tacks those fellows did it because they jolly well wanted to +and for no other reason on earth. What's better? Chuck in your science +and 'contributions to the sum of human knowledge' as a make-weight if +you like, but they weren't just out for that in cold blood. No, nor +science books nor lecture-tours either. It was just an epic lark. After +all, a fellow's got to have a go at something." + +There was a general laugh. It was so very like Mowbray himself. Both in +his boxing and his sculpture he was in the habit of "having a go." And +that was the end of that rambling conversation as far as I was +concerned. One of the waiters approached and bent over my shoulder. + +"Lord Glenfield would like to speak to you at the telephone, sir," he +said. + + + + + IV + + +Besides being Ringmaster-in-Chief of the _Daily Circus_ and of a good +many other journals, Lord Glenfield is a very good friend of mine; but +he had never rung me up at my Club before. He was speaking from his +house in Portman Square, and he wanted to know whether I was leaving the +Club immediately, and if not whether he might come round. I was a little +surprised, but told him to come by all means; and he said he would be +along in twenty minutes. + +Now Glenfield is a very much feared man, and with reason; but I speak of +him as I have always found him. Before I knew him better I had the +vanity to think that he had offered me my comfortably-paid job for the +sake (such as it was) of my literary name; but I was soon undeceived. It +appeared he was so good as to like me. Certainly he has always shown me +the greatest consideration, and I am going to ask you to notice how he +added to it that night. + +His car glided up to the club door in exactly the twenty minutes he had +mentioned, and we sought a padded alcove at the head of the stairs. He +is a big and handsome man, hardly yet gray, and had I needed a leg-up in +my own Club it was certainly a distinction to be seen with him. I drew a +heavy curtain for the sake of privacy, and then asked him to have coffee +and a liqueur. + +"I will. In fact, that's why I rang you up instead of sending for you," +he said with a certain pleasant grimness. "Understand?" + +"Not quite." + +"Well, if you're to be had up on the carpet I prefer that it should be +your own carpet." + +I saw, and I hope you too see the kindliness and delicacy of his action. +Apparently I was in for a wigging, which was to be, not less, but still +more of a wigging that I, his subordinate, was permitted to act as his +host. As he said, he could have summoned me to his office or house, +dressed me down, and dismissed me again; but Glenfield knows men and how +to bind them to him by accepting things at their hands. It is so easy +for Glenfield to give. + +"Well, can you guess?" he said, nodding to me over his liqueur. + +"Perhaps I can," I answered. + +"Then what about it? Are you getting tired of the job?" + +"Not," I answered slowly, "of the job. But I'm tired--very tired." + +He diagnosed me with a swift look. + +"South of France any good to you? Or Norway? Or anywhere else? I suppose +young what's-his-name--Willett--could carry on?" + +"Oh, of course he's been running the whole show for weeks," I admitted. +Then, "Look here, Glenfield; I'd better resign." + +"Don't be an ass," he replied promptly. "If I'd meant you to resign do +you suppose I should have come here to-night? I sack men in my office, +not while I'm drinking their liqueurs. Now tell me what's wrong. You +haven't been yourself for some time." + +I frowned, hardly knowing what to reply. + +"This is most awfully good of you, but I hardly think it's a case for a +holiday," I said at last with some embarrassment. + +"Well, tell me about it. Is it working double tides, or just post-war +slump? We've all got that more or less." + +I mused and shook my head. "I wish you'd let me resign," I said again. + +He has an imperious eye, and I did not attempt to meet it. "Why?" he +demanded.... + +I did not answer. Willett had loyally covered my too frequent absence +and neglect, but I knew and Glenfield knew that I had let my paper down. +The Circus was slipping backward. Possibly there was something in +Glenfield's suggestion about post-war slump. Now, when all the world +should have been working as it had never worked before, so little work +seemed worth the doing. The _Circus_, which after all is a vastly +important instrument of democratic government, seemed to me a thing of +stunts and japes and cynical mockery of the recent stupendous years; my +own work, once so much to me that I had sacrificed to it the joy and +ease of half a life, seemed a thing that the world could do perfectly +well without. I missed my timber and gun-cotton and cordage and +corrugated iron. My real books were my stores-ledgers "A" and "B," the +Regulations for Engineer Services my only Muse. I feared--nay, I almost +hoped--that I should write no more novels. My bolt seemed shot. It is a +depressing thing to have been a younger novelist and to have wasted your +life. + +But I could not honestly take the way out that Glenfield suggested. Over +and above the burden that I shared with everybody else, I _had_ let my +private affairs come between me and the work Glenfield paid me to do. +The infernal Case had cramped itself on my shoulders and was making a +slacker and a fraud of me. I wished that Glenfield had taken any way but +this kindly one. There was only one answer to make to him. + +"Well?" he said at last. + +"Oh--let me send in my resignation," I growled. "I've let you down and +will take the consequences." + +"Consequences my eye," he replied bluntly. "The drop's nothing--a +thousand or two--we can pick that up in no time. It's you I'm worrying +about, not the paper. You've something on your mind. What is it? I've a +bit of a pull here and there, you know, and I may be able to help." + +To hear Lord Glenfield describe his appalling power as "a bit of a pull +here and there" was almost comic; nobody living knows where his power +ends. I consider it the most singular phenomenon of a democratic age +that it gives to a few men such power as no ancient emperor ever dreamed +of. Indeed, if one's conception of democracy is that it is the age's +ailment, it seems to carry within itself hope of its own cure. Few men +have been so bitterly attacked as Glenfield, but in my opinion he is the +natural corrective to our new disease of numbers, our malady of +stultifying votes. + +"Of course, I'm assuming it's a purely private affair," he went on. + +"Oh, it's public enough--or looks like being--that's part of the +trouble----" + +"Yes?" he said invitingly.... + + + + + V + + +Let me see, how many does that make--I mean when, half an hour later, I +had given him as much as I then knew of the outline of this story? How +many people were parties in greater or less degree to the highly +important public matter that we were struggling to keep from the light +of day? + +There were the five men at our breakfast-party: Esdaile, Rooke, +Mackwith, Hubbard and myself. And the three women: Mrs. Esdaile, Mrs. +Cunningham and Joan. Westbury, and an unknown number of his associates; +and Inspector Webster, also an unknown quantity. And of course there was +Charles Valentine Smith himself. I am not including Hanson and old +William Dadley the picture-frame maker. Call it certainly eleven. Lord +Glenfield made the twelfth. We were getting on. + +He took my narrative quite lightly. Indeed, parts of it seemed almost to +amuse him. He asked if he might have a second liqueur, and then sat back +in the padded alcove smiling at his glass. + +"Well," he said at last, "it would make quite a neat prize competition, +wouldn't it?" Tremendous force as he is, he can never quite shake off +his interest in prize competitions. + +I asked him in what way. + +"I mean the position of your painter-friend. As you've told the story it +strikes me that he's the key of the whole situation. And I should say +that he intended to remain so." + +"What makes you say that?" + +"Well, you say he has his talkee-talkee with the flying-fellow, doesn't +give you a single word of explanation, but simply carries him off into +the country. It looks as if he thought he'd already told you too much +and was pulling out again. _I_ don't think he intends to say anything +more. You take a short holiday, go down there, and see if I'm right." + +(How far he was right you already know. As I have told you in +anticipation, I did go down, waited for a couple of days, then tackled +Esdaile about it, and found he had taken the very line Glenfield +indicated.) + +"So it's really publicity you're all scared of?" he continued presently. +"Well, I told you I had a bit of a pull here and there. Publicity's +rather my line of country, you know." + +"Yes, but hardly against the law of the land," I objected. "You can't go +about suborning judges and telling the police their business--even you." + +"Good gracious, man!" he cried energetically, staring incredulously at +me. "Don't tell me I've been employing an editor who doesn't know any +more than _that_!" + +"Than what?" + +"Than clumsy work of _that_ sort! Suborn judges! Meddle with the police! +I've been entrusting the _Circus_ to a man who talks like _that_!... +Hurry up that waiter!" + +"But isn't that what it comes to?" + +"You haven't got to _let_ it come to that--not within a hundred miles of +it! You shock me! Tell me now what you do when you find yourself all +balled up and unable to meet a Case?" + +"That's precisely what I want to know." + +"Then I'll tell you. You attack. You manufacture a totally different +Case and then proceed to demolish it. First of all you make hay of +charges that were never made, and then you carry the fight over to the +other fellow. If somebody says this flying-fellow's been getting +gun-work in, you simply sidestep, come back, and want to know what's +wrong that he hasn't been recommended for a K.B.E. _Never_ defend, my +boy. _Always_ go for your man. What is it that Boche philosopher wrote? +'Every attack is a victory.' You've got a beauty of an opening.... You +say this fellow Smith really is the goods--thinker, live wire--genuine +national-importance sort of fellow?" he demanded. + +"So his friends seem to think." + +"Then what's simpler than for you to take a column in the _Circus_ and +say so? And then take another column and damn the other side? Pack of +shirkers who bolted underground while your friend went up and kept the +Hun off London? The old tricks are always the best--that's why they're +old. Do it on general lines, of course; keep off _sub judice_ cases and +all that. As regards his being over London, you've got to make a +molehill out of that mountain, if it is a mountain. What are the +Regulations exactly?" + +I told him what they were, not exactly, but in all their unavoidable +inexactitude. At one of them he suddenly stopped me. + +"Ah, there you are. A Secretary of State has power to except him, has +he?" + +"Hardly after the fact, I should say." + +"Oh, don't be so dashed pedantic about it! Nothing would ever get done +at all if everybody talked like that! I'm not suggesting this as his +_defense_; it's his _attack_, so that he shan't be charged at all, don't +you see? And if you know a better 'ole go to it.... Now you get those +articles written. Write them so that they'll start correspondence. I +don't quite see the _Daily Circus_ being put in the cart by a Chelsea +auctioneer. Then take a month's holiday.... Now tell me how the novel's +going on." + +This last I did over our second liqueur. + + + + + VI + + +I quite realize that we can't all be Glenfields. I don't suppose it +would do to have the world so over-oxygenated--for he is the oxygen as +against the democratic nitrogen of our modern atmosphere. He was +probably right in calling my scrupulous objections pedantic, but I +confess that his power would affright me did I not trust him in the main +to use it rightly. If he chose to send a note to a Secretary of State +requesting that special permission for a civilian to be excepted from +the Regulations should be given and slightly antedated, it was highly +unlikely that he would be refused. That at any rate need no longer be a +weight on my mind. As far as the Regulations were concerned Charles +Valentine Smith had now probably very little to fear. + +But was the contravention of the Regulations the real point of our Case +after all? By keeping Smith out of Court were we not in reality making +the larger issue quite dreadfully simple? Had Smith killed Maxwell any +the less dead that certain strings could be conveniently pulled on his +behalf? And why had Glenfield been so certain that my painter-friend, +who twice had been on the point of taking the rest of us completely +into his confidence, had now changed his mind, was "pulling out," and +intended to tell us nothing at all? + +On this point I was to receive still further mystification during that +very week-end. + +For, returning home that night, lighter of heart than I had been +for many days, I found a small registered packet from Esdaile +himself. The packet contained a key. His request, after Joan's +house-and-servant-hunting commissions, was quite a modest one. He wanted +me to go to his house, to post on to him a certain set of sketches the +locality of which he minutely described, and then when I had a moment of +time to go on to Dadley's, in the King's Road, and to ascertain for +myself how he was getting on with the framing of a couple of pictures. +He was sorry to bother me, but Rooke had behaved rather like an ass, and +Mollie and the kids sent their love. + +His commission was no bother to me; indeed, I found the latter part of +it rather interesting. I had no desire to exchange further words with +the "Chelsea Auctioneer," as Glenfield had described Westbury, but I +confess that I had a curiosity about him. I had probably queered his +pitch if he hoped to get Smith into Court on a technical point and then +to fly off at score about bullets, pistols and pocket-patting at the +foot of ladders; but I did not know what other means of making himself a +nuisance he might not have. Old Dadley might be able to tell me. Dadley +probably knew Inspector Webster as well. + +But I could not now see Dadley till Monday, and as for the visit to +Lennox Street, Sunday afternoon would do for that. Sunday morning I +intended to spend in writing the first of those articles for the +_Circus_. I went to bed, slept well, rose early, and was at my desk +betimes. + +Those two articles, and the numerous subsequent ones I wrote, need not +detain us here. Indeed, just as you will have to take the legal aspects +of our Case largely on Mackwith's word, so for the journalistic side of +it I refer you to Lord Glenfield and his group of papers. But it is +possible that you may remember something of the wave of opinion we set +in motion, for it is not so very long ago. Deliberately I sought, and +successfully obtained, correspondence--a correspondence that embraced, +directly or obliquely, practically every side of the subject, from the +personality of famous pilots to the constitution of the new Ministry of +the Air. We have, of course, the general balance of our papers to +consider, but within those limits I fairly let myself go. And if you +tell me that I did all this to save Charles Valentine Smith from the +hands of justice, I answer that I did it because ten short years have +made the air and everything connected with it as important to us as the +sea. If you tell me that I did it because I was Philip Esdaile's friend, +I reply that I did it because I was just beginning to see on what a hair +our destiny might hang if a new and gigantic industry, suddenly hung up +in mid-career, should be left unsupported, unrecognized, unencouraged. +If you charge me that I did it because of Joan and her happiness, I +retort that I was by this time wholly convinced that Hay and Hubbard +were right, that the next attack on one nation by another would come +with appalling swiftness, would be directed at civilian nerves as much +as at uniformed bodies, would be the beginning of the thousand years in +which the Devil is to be unchained, and the sooner the public realized +the situation the better. + +So I wrote my first article, read it over, decided that it was pretty +much what was wanted, and lunched lightly at home, as is my Sunday +custom. Then, at about three o'clock, I put Esdaile's letter into my +pocket and set out for Lennox Street. + + + + + VII + + +As I walked along the Cromwell Road I could not but be put in mind of +the last occasion when I had called at Esdaile's studio--that midday +when I had found all locked up, Rooke departed, and had run him to earth +in his old quarters in Jubilee Place. I have spoken of Mrs. Cunningham +as an enigmatic sort of person, possibly as much an enigma to herself as +to others, and inspiring more of compassion and kindness than of that +other feeling that is supposed to be akin to these. Now I could not help +wondering about her again. What had made her so suddenly break off with +Monty? Had she had a reason, or none? I suppose there are these +sensitive plants whose own interior moods and feelings outweigh all the +logic of outward events, so that a flurry of nerves becomes a motive, +and an intuition grounds for immediate action. Monty had spoken of her +as having been on the verge of hysteria on that afternoon when her +Jacobean wardrobe had been carried down into Esdaile's cellar. It was +within a few days of that that she had definitely announced her +intention of not marrying again. I repeat, that as I left the Cromwell +Road and turned down by South Kensington Station, I could not help +remembering all this and wondering. I was still wondering when I turned +into Lennox Street. + +It was a sunny afternoon, now well on towards summer, and as I walked up +the path I noticed that Esdaile's grass already needed cutting. I +remember thinking how jolly it must be at Santon that afternoon. Inside, +as I opened the door, I found the floor strewn with the usual clutter of +leaflets and circulars, coal-merchants' post-cards, announcements of +dairies and window-cleaning firms. I turned them over and found nothing +of importance among them. Then I passed to the annexe and the studio. + +Before he had left, Esdaile had evidently set the place more or less in +order, but, judging from the veil of dust that lay over everything, he +had made no arrangements for having his house visited in his absence. I +suppose Mollie's two maids had found fresh jobs by this time. The +shuttering-up of the French window gave the alcove a vacant and dreary +sort of look, which was not improved by a slight fall of soot that had +come down the chimney and lay spread out over the hearth. In the studio +the dark blue blinds were drawn, pictures stood with their faces turned +to the walls, and those on the easels were wholly or partially covered +with hanging valances of newspapers. + +The sketches I had come to fetch formed a small separate parcel which I +had no difficulty in finding. Nevertheless, to make sure they were the +right ones, I sat down in an old double armchair with a frayed tapestry +seat and unfastened the string that bound the brown paper. They were the +required ones, and I replaced the paper and tied the string again. Then +I continued to sit in the chair, not consciously thinking, with the +bundle of sketches on my knees. + +I dare say it was the indigo twilight in which I sat that brought back +to me the last time I had seen those blinds drawn. You will remember +that I had myself helped to draw them when the shuffling of feet on the +roof had warned us that the police were about to carry the two men down +into the garden. I gave a slight shiver, but as much at the rather +drowsy air of the place as at the recollection itself. The studio would +certainly be none the worse for half an hour's ventilation and sunlight. +I was in no great hurry to leave. I rose from the tapestried chair, +unfastened the blind-cords from the cleats, and began to pull back the +blinds. The first one I drew back showed me that the broken roof-pane +had been replaced by one of a different make of glass. I pulled back the +remaining blinds, and then sought the long hooked pole that was used to +draw down the upper portion of the wall-window. + +It was as I crossed to the corner where this pole stood that my foot +caught on the corner of a loose rug, tripping me slightly. As I did not +fall I took no notice of this for the moment, but found the pole, pulled +down the window, and let in the needed air. Only as I was replacing the +pole did I notice the small round hole in the floor that the turning up +of the rug had disclosed. + +Now there are times when one does not so much think as leap to an +instantaneous conclusion. Be it a right one or a wrong one, it possesses +you like a flash for the infinitesimal portion of time it endures. In +this merest flash of time my eyes had flown aloft. A hole in the floor, +and another hole in the roof!... A new roof-pane might have been put in +since, but I knew accurately in which portion of the old pane that +shattered star with the small round hole in the middle of it had been. +In that moment of time I saw the whole picture again--the star, that +gray snowslide made by the bodies of the two men, the little wavering, +creeping shadows of the broken mulberry branch. The hole in the middle +of the star had been approximately over the hole in the floor that the +moving of the rug had revealed. + +"Then why," I cried excitedly to myself, "didn't he find the bullet? How +did it come to be found in another house? If it went through the floor +it ought to have been in his cellar--if he looked--if he isn't +lying----" + +And then, in another almost simultaneous flash, "Could there have been +_two_ bullets? There were seven left in the pistol--the magazine carries +eight--but you can get a ninth in if you place it in the chamber +itself----" + +All this, I say, crossed my mind in one hundredth part of the time it +has taken you to read it. + +And then came the drop. I was all wrong. That hole in the floor wasn't a +bullet-hole at all. You can get a clean round bullet-hole in glass, but +not in a floorboard. Neither does any pistol make a hole with a neat +little rim of yellow metal glinting inside it. + +I assure you I was already on my hands and knees by the side of that +hole. It was five-eighths of an inch in diameter, perfectly round, with, +as I say, that lining of what I at first took to be brass. I inserted my +little finger, but the lining was firmly fixed. It did not run through +the thickness of the board, but occupied perhaps an eighth of an inch +about a third of the way down it. And the removal of my finger, clearing +away a little grime, revealed something else. I lay down with my eye +close to the hole. The ring was not of brass, but of gold. + +Breathlessly I rose and looked about for an instrument. A screwdriver +on the window-ledge caught my eye. Yes, a screwdriver would do. I seized +it and crouched on the floor again. I worked for perhaps a minute. At +the end of that time the slender circle of metal was loose in the palm +of my hand. + +Even without the tiny initials engraved inside it I should have known +it. Tightly as it had been wedged, not one of its three little emeralds +had been wrenched out. It was the engagement-ring I had seen on Mrs. +Cunningham's finger on the morning of our breakfast. + + + + + VIII + + +Fantastic as had been the thoughts that during that fraction of time had +whirled through my brain, the little gold circlet lying in my palm +seemed to propound questions more fantastic still. How in the name of +all that was inexplicable had Mrs. Cunningham's engagement-ring come to +be there? Each momentary explanation at which I grasped seemed more +lunatic than the rest. Had she simply lost it, sought for it and been +unable to find it? Had it rolled of itself into that little five-eighths +hole? Absurd, since even if by a miraculous chance it had rolled exactly +there I had had to take a screwdriver to prise it out. Had she put it +there, and for what reason? Ridiculous again, since ladies on the eve of +their weddings do not use their rings for the jeweling of holes in +one-inch floorboards. Yet if she had not put it there, what idiot had, +and why? And what was the hole itself? + +Again I was down on my hands and knees, examining the hole. Round--as +perfectly round as if it had been drilled with a brace and bit--but not +recent. It might at one time have given passage to a gas-pipe, a wire, a +cord; it might have been a knot-hole. I peered down it. Nothing but +blackness. I explored it again with my finger, and learned nothing new. +Just an old hole, now scraped and jagged a little by the screwdriver. + +Suddenly I rose, left the studio, and strode through the annexe. Rooke +might have had his scruples about prying into the nooks and corners of +another man's house, but I assure you I now had none. I was bound for +the cellar. If others could go down there so could I. Rooke had said +that Philip had left the key in the door. "Right you are, Philip," I +muttered to myself. "If Rooke won't I will. Glenfield says you're +pulling out, but so am not I. I'm for Hubbard and the optophone theory +now. I've an hour or two to spare, and your cellar's going to be +examined as it hasn't been yet. Here goes." + +But I had all the moral guilt of my intention to abuse his roof-tree +with none of the advantages. The door that led to the cellar was once +more locked and the key had gone. + +Slowly I went back to the studio and the frayed tapestry chair. I wanted +to think quietly and at length. Now I pride myself on being rather a +methodical sort of thinker when I really give my mind to a thing, and I +was resolved to get to the bottom of this if I could. That almost +insultingly grotesque discovery of the ring had put me on my mettle. One +thing seemed clear, if anything in the whole business was clear: for +whatever reason, Mrs. Cunningham had not shared Monty's delicacy about +peering and pottering. Of this there seemed to be several indications. +Again and again she had insisted that there was something uncanny about +the place; she had had an access of hysteria and had had to be brought +up from the cellar; and rather than live there she had broken off her +engagement. But she had not done this last immediately. Days, if not a +week or two--I did not know how long--had elapsed. I was now convinced +that during that interval she had made some kind of a discovery. The +ring was evidence enough of that. And she had had an advantage in her +investigations that I had not: she had had access to the cellar. Then, +her discovery made, apparently she had cleared out. + +So much for Mrs. Cunningham. Now for the apparatus, all I knew of which +was the ring in the knot-hole. + +Deliberately I began to reconstruct the events of the morning of the +accident from the moment when Esdaile had returned from his unexplained +half hour in the cellar. I put pressure on my memory so that not a +single detail should escape me. And I experienced a little thrill when, +by dint of concentrated thought, I evoked Esdaile's image again at the +moment when Hubbard and I had followed him into this very studio. He had +been standing with bowed head, poking with his foot at fragments of +broken glass and--yes--at the rug on the floor. I could see his foot +again, pushing at that very mat over which I had stumbled. The mat had +covered the hole then as it covered it now. Esdaile, to all appearances +lost in abstraction, had--I began to feel it in my bones--been intently +engaged in _covering up_ that hole. + +Then, having covered up the hole, what had he done next? Instantly I saw +another vivid picture. I saw again those gray moving shapes on the roof, +saw Esdaile suddenly stride to the blind-cords, saw the movement with +which he had bidden me do the same, and the little bright gold rhomboids +of light in the rafters as the deep blue blinds had been shut. + +And half an hour later he had sharply forbidden Rooke to touch the +blind-cords and had petulantly refused him the key of the cellar. + +I felt excitement growing on me. My whole body began to glow with it. I +felt myself getting nearer--nearer---- + +Hubbard was both right and wrong---- + +He was wrong in his insistence on what Esdaile must have _heard_---- + +But he was right about the apparatus---- + +Esdaile had not heard--he had _seen_--and there was no more mystery +about it all than there is in putting your eye to a keyhole. + + + + + IX + + +And yet, approaching the truth as I felt myself to be, I had a deep-down +feeling that at the same time I was wrong. Carefully I begun to examine +the objections to my suddenly-formed theory, and instantly I was +impressed by them. In the first place, take an inch board with a +five-eighths hole in it, peep through, and see how much, or rather how +little, of a field of vision your eye commands. Next, consider the +awkwardness of peering through that hole, not in a vertical wall or +door, but in horizontal planking some feet above your head. Then, most +important of all, weigh the extreme unlikeliness of it that Esdaile, who +had merely gone down for a bottle of wine and had no reason whatever to +dream that calamity was imminent, should have had his eye at that hole +at that particular moment of time. It was preposterous. All had happened +so quickly. He would have had to stand on something, probably to pile up +furniture; even with a pair of household steps ready in position he +would have had to mount them--nay, he would first have had to _think_ of +mounting them. I had no means of telling if he had previously known of +that hole in his floor, but say that he had: does one, on hearing an +unaccountable noise, instantly run over in one's mind every chink and +cranny of one's dwelling and select one of them as an observation-post? +He could have dashed upstairs again and seen for himself what was the +matter in half the time. + +No; in the very moment when I thought I had got it, it eluded me again. +Those perfectly ordinary considerations, of time, position and common +sense, seemed to dispose of my notion completely. Or almost completely. +There remained the hole. My conviction that the hole, in one way or +another, had something to do with it was shaken, but not destroyed. And, +as I was denied access to the cellar, I rose from the chair in order to +make a further examination of the studio. + +And again, though the roof-plane was no longer there, I seemed to see +that circular hole in the middle of its cracked star. I remembered, too, +Esdaile's assumption that it was a bullet-hole and his search "high and +low" for the bullet that had made it. But was it necessarily a +bullet-hole at all? Bullets are not the only things that make holes. +When a heavyish mass like two falling men hits something else _en plein +fouet_, can every neighboring scratch or fracture be assigned its +proper cause? There was no getting away from the fact that the bullet +had been found elsewhere. Might not some object have fallen from a +pocket? Or some portion of the plane itself have dropped off? With the +pane replaced it seemed useless to speculate. + +Nor did my further explorations add much to my knowledge. They consisted +of estimating distances and relative positions of things, in an endeavor +to arrive at the physical significance of that hole in the floor. It was +no longer in the studio at all that I was interested; all my thoughts +were in that locked chamber below. I felt as annoyed as Monty himself +had been at all this juggling with the key. But I hardly felt myself at +liberty to break my friend's doors. + +Nor--this too presently occurred to me--was I quite sure what I ought to +do with that ring. Merely to put it back where I had found it seemed +rather crass, and whether it should be returned to Rooke or to Mrs. +Cunningham herself was a niceish sort of point. I ended by putting it +into my waistcoat pocket. + + + + + PART VII + + THE KING'S ROAD + + + + + I + + +When Philip Esdaile had put into old William Dadley's hands the framing +of two of his pictures I think he had done so largely on compassionate +grounds. As you have seen, his real reason for having the old man round +to Lennox Street that afternoon a few weeks ago had had remarkably +little to do with pictures, but quite a lot to do with a bullet that a +child had been found popping in and out of his mouth. But having made +framing his pretext, I suppose he felt bound to give Dadley a job. I +became sure of this when, calling at the dusty little shop at eleven +o'clock on the following Monday morning, I saw the pictures themselves. +I knew enough about Esdaile's work to see in a moment that there was no +urgency whatever, and that probably he had not wanted the pictures +framed at all. Certainly he could be in no hurry for them. The autumn, +or for that matter the following autumn, would be quite time enough. + +This being so, I wondered for a moment that he had troubled me about +them, but I did not wonder for very long. A former suspicion was renewed +in my mind. It seemed to me to confirm Glenfield's prophecy, that +Esdaile, having made as it were impulsive and unconsidered advances to +the rest of us, was about to draw in his horns again. Yet at the same +time he had the appearance of wishing to be on both sides at once--of +keeping his own counsel, but also of endeavoring to "pump" those from +whom he was now withdrawing his half-extended confidence. In a word, +without expressly asking me to spy out the land for him, he wished me +to do so, and trusted to my interest, garrulity or whatnot to report to +him anything I might discover. + +Well, had I happened to call on old Dadley before that Sunday afternoon +I had spent so remarkably in his studio I dare say I should have done as +he wished. But that hole in the floor put a very different complexion on +matters. He knew about that hole, but he had no suspicion that I now +shared his knowledge. Therefore if he proposed to act independently I +did not see why I should not do the same. He would make use of me, would +he? Very well. It rather amuses us to be made use of when we guess the +intention, to allow our legs to be pulled with the knowledge that at our +pleasure the position can be reversed. I am very fond of Philip and he +of me, but there is no mush about our friendship. We take it keenly and +with relish, even to our long rivalry at the billiard-table. Undoubtedly +he knew something I didn't know, but on the other hand I thought it +likely that I too had now a minor advantage. He could hardly have known +of the presence of that ring in that hole. He had been round his house +covering up pictures, drawing blinds and removing the key from the +cellar door, and would certainly not have left that ring where it was +had he known it had been there. It had been put there since he had last +seen the hole. The event, as you will see, showed that I was right in +this, and that in one of his main objects he had broken down badly. _A +bon chat bon rat._ I laughed softly. + +"Done with you, Philip," I murmured. "I'll send you the packet of +sketches, and you shall know how your precious picture-framing's going +on. But that's all you are going to get for the present." + +And so I sought the little shop with the bisected Old Master in the +window, one half cleaned up like day and the other dingy as night. + +Dadley was not doing anything in particular except sitting among his +molding-patterns eating an apple. The door of his workshop beyond stood +open, and when I told him my errand he led me into these back premises, +leaving the greater part of the apple on the shelf beneath his counter +but bringing small portions of it in his gray beard. The pictures were +going on very nicely, he said, but he was waiting for glass; I wouldn't +believe how difficult it was to get glass; like asking for the moon, it +was, trying to buy glass. It was as he talked about the price and +scarcity of glass that I drew my own conclusions about those two +pictures. Obviously a job given out of kindness. As obviously it +followed that I myself was being used to serve a turn. + +"A fine painter, Mr. Esdaile, it's a pleasure to work for him," the old +man ran on; and I did not reply that in my experience few pleasures in +the world lasted quite so long. I was thinking of other things, the +nature of which you may guess at. + +For I wanted to know, by no means for the purpose of passing the +information on to Philip, how Mr. Harry Westbury had fared since I had +last seen him, and whether his friendship with Inspector Webster +prospered. I also wanted to know the latest news of Monty Rooke. I +decided that it was better to begin with Rooke, so did not hesitate to +ask Dadley whether he had seen him. + +"Oh, yes, he was in here last Thursday--no, Wednesday," the old man +replied. "Paspertoos. Six of them, or else eight; no, six; I think the +other two are Mr. Hammond's. I can't show you them because they're all +glued up in the press. And I can get the glass for small things like +that. It's the large plate that breaks my heart." + +"Then Mr. Rooke is working again?" I said. "The last time I saw him he +told me that his removal had rather interrupted his work." + +The lids dropped over the kind old eyes. "Yes, sir, and I understand Mr. +Rooke's had trouble as well." + +This, if he meant Mrs. Cunningham, I did not propose to discuss, and he +went on. + +"Well, you get over these things when you're young, but it seems hard at +the time. And troubles seem always to come together in a lump. I +sympathize with Mr. Rooke, which some doesn't. He's always been a very +pleasant gentleman to me." + +"Oh? Who doesn't sympathize with Mr. Rooke?" I asked. + +He hesitated for a moment. "Oh--there's a few here and there--but it +will blow over--it will blow over. I think it's blowing over now as a +matter of fact." + +It was at this point that I suddenly decided on a measure of candor. He +was a likeable old soul, long past even such innocent relish of contest +as that I entertained towards Philip, a lover of peace and the least +mischievous of gentle gossips. + +"Do you mean the affair of that parachute that morning?" I asked him. "I +was there, you know." + +His ivy-veined old hand smoothed the edge of his mitering-machine. + +"Yes. I know you were," he said. "Yes, I know you were. But I think +it'll blow over now that Mr. Westbury's taken this turn he has." + +"Mr. Westbury? Yes, I remember. What turn has he taken?" + +"Well, sir, as a matter of fact, that's what some of us is waiting to +hear," he replied. + + + + + II + + +From the point of view of my profession the story he told me was not +without interest. I give it for what it may be worth, not as an instance +of mental abnormality, but merely as it bore on our Case. + +I have said that Westbury was about thirty-five, which means that he was +still under thirty when the war broke out. It is no man's business, +certainly not mine, to enter into the question whether he should or +could have joined up, nor whether he would have been of much use if he +had. His interest to me lies in the fact that he did not. For all I know +he may have been of far greater use to his country in his brown check +than in a khaki jacket, for his experience of his complicated profession +was considerable, and I understand that he became a person of some +little temporary importance when the commandeering of hotels and other +properties got fairly into swing. Therefore he did not attest under the +Derby Scheme, and his subsequent applications for exemption were +allowed. + +I repeat, I wish to be perfectly fair to him. During a few London +air-raids he probably saw as much of the actuality of war as many +thousands of uniformed men who spent their year or two years "in +France." We see these things a little more clearly now. "In France" may +mean much or it may mean very little. Of our millions, I have been +informed that only about eight per cent. went "over the top," and that +this eight per cent. consisted largely of the same men over and over +again. Later the gunners' casualties approached those of the infantry, +and I believe there was a time when the losses of the Flying Corps were +twenty per cent. per week. Granted that there was no arm that did not +suffer its proportion of loss; but--we know now by whom the brunt of the +fighting was borne. Mr. Harry Westbury may claim, if he wishes, that he +did as much of it as many and many another whose allowances were +credited to them at Cox's. + +But there was a strain of resentment in his nature, by no means uncommon +among his kind save that he experienced it in an uncommon degree. I +myself had heard him say of our flyers, "They're paid for it, aren't +they--they know the risks, don't they?" but it went much further than +that. According to Dadley, he showed suspicion and mistrust towards any +who had given an eye, a limb or life itself. He seemed to think that in +some obscure way these people had wronged him. And, Dadley went on, in +some cases this mistrust became positive dislike and hate. + +"If the war was to begin all over again I fancy Harry'd be in it next +time," he said. "Speaking for myself, I should say it worried him. Got +it on his mind like. Maybe it's that that's stopped him going about very +much except to a few places. Sometimes you'd think he'd quarreled with +the whole world." + +"From the little I've seen of him I can't say I found him a +prepossessing young man," I observed. + +"Well, myself, I can't help feeling a bit sorry for him," the old man +continued, with a shake of his head. "Many a man without a leg's +happier than what Harry is. He isn't even the man he was two or three +weeks ago. He thinks everybody's got their knife into him. Nor that +inquest he was on didn't do him much good neither. He's moped and +muttered about it ever since. Talks to himself, he does, up and down the +streets and play-acts dreadful things he's going to do, as you might +say. Says he won't stand this and that and the other. Any little thing +sets him off. Then there was that about that bullet. I expect Mr. +Esdaile told you about that?" + +"Yes." + +"Well, he goes clean off his head about that sometimes. Has the kids +downstairs--fetches 'em out of bed--and makes 'em tell him it all over +and over again. Says somebody tried to murder 'em. Oh, and a whole lot +more nonsense. What he ought to do is to get away into the country for a +bit, but when the doctor tells him that, he glares and says it's all a +conspiracy to get him out of the way so things can be hushed up." + +"What things?" + +"Oh, I can't tell you half the rubbish. I keep out of his way now--go +somewhere else. I like to have my glass of whisky in peace, not with all +this muttering and fist-shaking going on. Yes, he ought to get away for +a bit." + +"You say a doctor's attending him?" + +"Well, he is and he isn't, in a manner of speaking. The doctor goes +round--Doctor Dobbie of Carlyle Square he is--but Harry won't do what he +tells him, so he might just as well be without one. He'll neither go to +bed nor get about his business, as you might say. He's got a couch +pulled up to the bedroom window, and he sits there by the hour together +staring out. That's the bedroom where the bullet came in. And he writes +scores of letters, but I don't think his missis posts all of them. +They're to all sorts of people. He gets 'em out of directories." + +"What are the letters about?" + +"All about miscarriage of justice, and one law for the rich and another +for the poor, and lots of them's to the newspapers. Oh, he's going +downhill is Harry, I'm afraid. Downhill he's going. He was never any +particular friend of mine, but it isn't a pleasant thing to see a man +you've chatted with over your glass of whisky going downhill. Not much +more than a boy by the side of me neither. I can give him getting on for +forty years." + +I mused for a moment; then: "You said something about his not being +sympathetic to Mr. Rooke. What do you mean by that exactly?" + +But at that moment the most astonishingly unexpected thing happened. A +customer came into his shop. And so, as Dadley grabbed incredulously for +his spectacle case, my question went unanswered. + + + + + III + + +One thing at any rate now seemed fairly certain, namely, that if what +Dadley told me was true it was not likely that a man of Inspector +Webster's penetration would pay much attention to the mutterings of an +incipient megalomaniac. For, if I could guess at the signs at all, it +was megalomania. I have not made a systematic analysis of those +infinitely intricate mental states that we speak of conglomerately as +"war nerves." I am not prepared to say that one man may bitterly grudge +another something from the taking of which he himself has drawn back his +hand, nor yet (to turn the case the other way round) that there is not +on occasion just as heady and overweening an egotism on the part of the +envied man. It is useless to generalize on these matters. It is also not +quite decent. The least we can do is to mind our own business, the most +to consider the given instance on its merits. It is simply as yet +another curious by-product of our Case that I am speaking of Westbury. + +Quite the most curious thing about it was that he was the only one of us +all who had, in the sense of public duty, been wholly and entirely in +the right throughout. But a little reflection showed me that it was +precisely therein that the germ of his malady lay. It was _because_ of +this consistent technical rightness that he was now in process of +arrogating to himself all the rightness in the world. No doubt he had +been technically right when he had decided that his special knowledge of +estates was of more solid use to his country than his skill at arms +would have been. He had been technically right if, in the very uncommon +circumstances, having reason to believe that a pistol had been moved +that should only have been moved by the police, he had taken steps to +ascertain that it really was a pistol Rooke had carried in his pocket. +He had been right when, finding a bullet in his own house, he had +instantly reported the matter to Inspector Webster. He had been right in +demanding a post-mortem; right when Mackwith had all-unconsciously +thwarted this; and oh, how right when, in that Chelsea back street, he +had broken furiously out on me as an accomplice in the suppression of +things that should have been brought to the light of day! Yes, it was +all this rightness that was precisely the trouble. It is not good for +any of us to be right so often as that. Personally, if I am right twice +running there is no living with me. The real cure for Westbury would +have been for him to find himself a few times in the wrong. + +So, as I left Dadley's shop, I pictured him sitting there at his bedroom +window, his furious eyes fixed on Esdaile's roof, his furious heart +brooding on his rightness, and bearing the whole of the burden of our +collective offense. What a contrast between this just man and our +malefactor away in the country, Charles Valentine Smith +himself--courting, care-free, and in a danger that appeared to be +lessening with every hour that passed! Truly the Princes of this World +seem to have the Kingdom and the Power and the Glory, and the Westburys +to be persecuted like the prophets before them! I could understand old +William Dadley feeling sorry for him. At the same time, I had not one +single atom of sorrow for him myself. + +For we are not ruled by these municipal virtues. We say we are; it is as +much as our lives are worth to say anything else; but we know better. +Wonderful Case, to bring all this out, to present so dramatically that +single Question--the first man had to answer it and the last man will +have to answer it--without which there is no society nor state nor +government at all! Westbury had the whole weight of intellectual +approval--and nothing whatever else! Unreservedly our whole nefarious +conspiracy was to be condemned--yet something bade us stand +unflinchingly by our friends!... I was wiser than I knew when I wrote +that we all do precisely what we want to do and look for reasons +afterwards. And if it be said that Society cannot be run on these +lines, the answer is that it is our business to see that it is run. We +_have_ to serve God and Mammon though the God be the God of Injustice +and the Mammon the Mammon of Righteousness. We _must_ face both ways, +square law with force. There is _no_ escape from worshiping tradition +even when we break it, from giving revolt our acknowledgment even as we +trample it down. The world has got to go on and we to take sides. + +Do you see why I laughed to see the hay our Case had made of the merits +of our respective sides? + +I was ruminating thus when a bodily collision brought me with a shock +back to earth again. I had scattered somebody's armful of parcels, a +tissue-paper bag with a couple of eggs in it among them. Instantly I was +in a consternation of apology. Diving, I managed to rescue a small loaf +from rolling from the kerb and to save from a passing foot a packet of +cooked ham. Then, flushed and humbled, I heard a laugh. + +"Look here--I don't so much mind your upsetting my grub, but I do mind +being cut," said a voice--Rooke's voice. + + + + + IV + + +What a change for the better! He had shaved, his boots shone, the soft +collar round his neck was a clean one and his gray tie was fastidiously +tied. His face had a brightness again, he was engaged in the pleasant +ordinary task of buying groceries, and Dadley had just told me that he +was framing "paspertoos" for him. Was another of the clouds of the Case +breaking up?... On the spot I decided to lunch with him, and told him +so. + +"All right, but the eggs are up to you," he said. + +Inside his little den in Jubilee Place the improvement was no less +marked than in his person and demeanor. There was not a spot on his +little red-and-white checked table-cloth, his crockery shone, his bed +was neatly made. He had faced the new situation and had ceased to mope. + +In my waistcoat pocket was a ring he had once given to Audrey +Cunningham. Seeing his cheerfulness, I had not the slightest intention +of reopening matters by telling him anything about that ring. If Audrey +dropped rings as casually as he picked up pistols, very well; it was not +my business to mar this cheery new beginning. + +"Lightly boiled, or how?" he said, my egg poised in a teaspoon over the +saucepan on the gas-ring. + +"Yes--lightly boiled--anything," I replied. "Got any mustard for this +ham?" + +That too he had, and he had taken care over the preparation of his jug +of coffee. He was entirely the old Monty again. + +I don't know when I have enjoyed a lunch more, not even excepting the +washing-up, which he insisted on doing the moment we had finished. "If +there's one thing I loathe it's coming in to a lot of unwashed things," +he explained. "Not a ha'porth of trouble once you get the habit." + +Then he showed me the work on which he was engaged. That too had energy +and movement again. One small sketch I liked and bought on the spot--a +little thing, neither black-and-white nor color, or both if you like--a +crayon sketch of a couple of infants in the Flower Walk in Kensington +Gardens, one of them with a shining round sixpenny balloon touched with +a whiff of pink, the other with the doleful rag of one that had just +exploded--the slightest, sweetest little bit of treasure-trove of the +eye picked up in an afternoon's stroll. + +"But not the copyright," he stipulated with a quick sideways glance at +me. "I might be able to reproduce." + +"Right; not the copyright," I agreed. I didn't mention it to him, in +case it shouldn't come off, but I thought I might be able to help him +with reproduction-rights. We have a good many side-shows on the +_Circus_. + +Then, in the middle of turning over further sketches, he broke suddenly +into a gesture of remembrance. + +"By the way--I knew there was something I wanted to tell you! A funny +sort of thing happened the other day. You remember that police-sergeant +or whatever he was, who came into Esdaile's place that night?" + +"He was an Inspector." + +"Inspector then. Well, I've seen him. Had a talk with him. Funny sort of +talk too--I've been puzzled about it ever since. I was loafing round +Sloane Square. There's a flower-woman there, interesting type of +head--this sort----" He turned over one of the sketches and on the back +of it his pencil flowed into a few swift assured lines. ("That's rather +like her, by the way," he said in parenthesis, "regular cast-iron +gypsy.") + +"Well," he went on, "her face struck me as rather an interesting +contrast with a lot of silly mimosa she had in her basket--I hate +mimosa; so I was taking peeps at her, not sketching, you understand, +when I heard somebody behind me say, 'Well, Mr. Rooke!' and I turned. I +jumped rather. It was this Inspector fellow, and he'd a funny sort of +expression on his face, not laughing exactly--sort of quizzing--I can't +describe it---- + +"Then he said something that I thought the most infernal neck. + +"'You aren't thinking of adopting a flower-woman's baby this time, are +you, Mr. Rooke?' + +"Damned impudence, wasn't it? Fancy the beggar knowing that!" + +Monty was ruffling up at the recollection. I could not resist a smile. + +"Chelsea knows that exploit of yours as well as it knows the Albert +Bridge, Monty," I assured him. "Go on." + +"Well, then he said, 'You'll have to get out of that habit of adopting +things, Mr. Rooke. You never know where it ends.' + +"'What do you mean?' I said. He _was_ smiling now, but I felt a bit +uneasy. We did stuff him up a bit that night, you know. He's a dark +horse, that fellow. + +"'It doesn't do, Mr. Rooke,' he said. 'Different men take different +views of their duty, and you'll be striking one of the other sort one of +these days!' + +"'I don't know what you mean,' I said. 'Oh yes you do,' says he. 'I'm +dashed if I do,' says I. 'Then you're lucky not to be dashed a good deal +worse,' says he; 'you take my advice, Mr. Rooke, and stop adopting +things, babies or what not. You might burn your fingers. You +might--ahem!--blow 'em off'.... + +"And he nodded and marched off. + +"Now what the devil do you think's his game?" + +I know of no more exciting mental pleasure than that of finding your _a +priori_ guesses taking shape and substance in the realm of actual +things. I suppose it is the triumphant cry of your deeper self telling +the other self "I told you so!" Remember how little I knew of Inspector +Webster, yet with what instinctive reserve I had hedged my impression of +him. "A dark horse?" Yes, of quite the darkest kind. I recapitulated the +degrees of his darkness. He had come round to Lennox Street that night, +probably fresh from his talk with this fellow Westbury; he had put a +whole series of questions, but of implications so guarded that in +writing that portion of the story I had to itemize and underline what I +surmised to be their real purport; and he had instituted a search of +Esdaile's premises--twelve hours later! Why twelve hours later? Why not +on the spot, there and then? Why give Philip this law, that as a matter +of fact he had made use of to drop that pistol into the river? + +Could it be that he knew his House and Estate Agent better than we +did--knew his vanity, dullness, and the risks of basing a charge on his +unsupported word? No doubt he had questioned Westbury in terms far more +explicit than those he had used to us. Unless Westbury had actually put +his hand inside Rooke's pocket, probably all he could swear to was that +the pocket contained something heavy. Not until late in the same +afternoon had the bullet been found. Suppose Webster had said to +Westbury, "Not so quickly, my friend; you said nothing about a pistol at +the time; it only became a pistol when the bullet was found; we can't go +putting the cart before the horse like that; evidence is evidence; you +can't let half a day pass and then remember things to fit the Case; +_you_ may feel sure of a thing, but could you make a jury sure?" Suppose +he had said something like this? The police too are bound by the +probabilities of conviction. It is no credit to them to fail on a +charge. + +And a man who can say, "Was it indeed, sir?" when informed of the +identity of a distinguished King's Counsel who has expressly announced +himself only a few hours before is emphatically not the man to think +that he can make a jacket for a large gooseberry by skinning a +small-sized flint. + + + + + V + + +"Now what was his game, do you think?" Monty asked again. + +"He was giving you a piece of wholesome advice," I answered promptly. + +"But 'You stop adopting things; you might--ahem!--blow your fingers +off.' He said it like that. I haven't put in the 'ahem.' That was his. +It looks to me as if he knew about that pistol." + +"It has very much that look," I agreed blandly. + +"But how? I can't understand yet how Esdaile knew, but this Police +Inspector----!" + +"'Oh, what a tangled web we weave when first we practice to deceive,'" I +murmured. "You never can tell, Monty." + +"Oh, stop burbling. How do you suppose he did know?" + +"Let me see. You told Philip it was his keys that made your pocket bulge +so, didn't you?" + +"Oh--if you're just going to rot me----" + +"I'm not rotting you. I've a feeling that if you'd told Inspector +Webster the same thing he'd have been happy and delighted to believe +you." + +"But how does he know _any_thing about what's in my pocket?" said the +bewildered Monty.... + +Should I tell him? Why not? I had studiously avoided anything that might +have reminded him of Mrs. Cunningham. Pluckily as he had taken himself +in hand, I did not think that that wound was healed. But the episode of +the pistol was another matter. I felt singularly and perhaps not quite +justifiably light-hearted about that. The mists of the Case were +perceptibly thinning. What he had just told me about Inspector Webster +let still a little more sun through them. To all appearances the +Inspector had dismissed Monty with a quite characteristic admonition. +And that being so, it was perhaps his due that I should not leave Monty +altogether unarmed in the event of any contingency with Westbury. + +And so I told him how his pocket had been fingered as he had descended +that ladder. + +He was furious. "Damned pickpocket!" he broke out. "I should have +thought these sharks made enough out of their filthy premiums nowadays +without putting their hands right _into_ your pockets!" + +"I didn't say he did that exactly." + +"It's the same thing. And anyway, how did he know? What made him +think----?" + +"Perhaps he saw you pick it up. Could he have done that from down +below?" + +"Might. I shouldn't have thought so though. Of course, I was flurried." + +"But you wouldn't have thought it in Esdaile's case either," I reminded +him. + +"No, that beats me," he admitted. + +"And I wouldn't be _too_ virtuous about it, Monty. In any case you'd no +business with the thing, you know." + +"Oh, stuff!" he scoffed. "It's you that's being virtuous." + +And, with that ring in my waistcoat pocket that I had picked up with no +more justification than he had the pistol, he might have added that I +was hypocritical too. + + + + + VI + + +To tell the truth, that ring was beginning to worry me a little. I don't +mean my possession of it, since I had no intention of pawning it, and +was prepared to hand it over to its rightful owner as soon as I felt +that that course would not do more harm than good. My concern was about +the severed relation of which it had been a symbol. I wondered whether I +was not perhaps a little excessively delicate on Monty's behalf. If my +eyes, wandering round his tidy room, had encountered a copy of the _Era_ +or been given any other excuse for introducing Audrey Cunningham's name, +I think that after all I should have risked it. But "When in doubt cut +it out" is a safe motto, and I remained silent. + +I had had, however, an idea. Mrs. Cunningham might be "fed" with men, +but it was not likely that she had broken off her engagement without +saying something to Mollie Esdaile about it. What was the harm in +writing to Mollie, not necessarily mentioning the ring, but asking for +her version of whatever had happened? + +The more I thought of it the more I liked the idea. Match-making is +rather out of my line, but I am not entirely indifferent to the +happiness of my friends, and I had not forgotten poor Monty's anguished +cry of "Dawdy! Dawdy!" the last time I had visited him in Jubilee Place. +I do not call it match-making merely to inquire whether a possible +obstacle may not be removed. If it was the Case's doing, the Case's +solution ought to get matters right again. A little prematurely, +perhaps, I was growing to the belief that the question was not whether +the Case would settle itself, but how. + +Before I left him, which I did very shortly afterwards, I had determined +to write to Mollie. I did so indeed that very night. I did not mention +the ring. I simply gave her a faithful picture of the two Montys, the +first one so distressing, and the second so enheartening, and asked her +what about the other side of the affair. + +It was nearly a week before I received her reply, which, when it did +come, contained that invitation to spend a month at Santon that I have +already anticipated in this story. It was a curious letter in some ways. +Parts of it, even certain parts that touched Audrey Cunningham directly, +were as free and frank as I have always found Mollie to be; but other +parts were noticeably the other way. For example, she wrote:-- + + "The engagement is certainly 'off' as far as I can make out, and + whether there's any chance of their coming together again I really + can't say. She gave me to understand not, but it's three weeks + since she wrote, and Philip hasn't heard from Monty at all." + +That seemed frank enough, but, on the very same page, was this:-- + + "I don't think it's absolutely impossible they'll make it up. + Perhaps I oughtn't to say this, and I'd rather not give you my + reason, but I don't think it's altogether out of the question. But + the circumstances are so peculiar. Everything's really most awfully + mixed, and I don't want to raise even my own hopes. I can't see why + you didn't ask Monty," etc., etc. + +"I'd rather not give you my reason"--"the circumstances are +peculiar"--"things are most awfully mixed"--those were the dubious +parts. I was certain that she, as well as Philip, was holding something +back. The letter, in fact, seemed to confirm the opinion I had formed on +finding that ring so fantastically embedded in the studio floor, namely, +that before shaking the dust of Lennox Street from her feet Audrey +Cunningham had made some sort of a discovery, which she had since shared +with Mollie and Mollie now declined to share with me. In this, as you +will see, I was partly right and partly wrong. + +In the meantime, suppression for suppression. I had not been candid +either. I had said nothing about finding the ring. Perhaps after all my +letter had got the answer it deserved. + +But the invitation to visit the Esdailes at Santon tempted me extremely. +Quite apart from the Case, I hungered and thirsted for the air of my own +country. And there was the Case itself. Now that, with Glenfield's +countenance, Westbury's deterioration and the merely admonitory attitude +of Police Inspector Webster, it was becoming almost a jocund affair, its +center of gravity had shifted away from London to the country. It was in +the country that our young slayer was demonstrating murder to be the way +of happiness. It was in the country that Philip Esdaile was apparently +machinating to get the half-escaped strings back into his own +controlling fingers again. And it was from the country that Mollie was +now writing her interesting blend of candor and reserve. + +And what was there left of much interest in London? It seemed to me very +little. In Lincoln's Inn Fields and the Temple the lawyers were no doubt +busily getting up their briefs for _Scepter Assurance Corporation v. +Aiglon Aviation Company_, but I could depend on Mackwith to keep me +posted on all that. In the columns of the _Circus_ I had awakened quite +a lively, if somewhat rambling, correspondence, in which the name of +Charles Valentine Smith had not definitely appeared, but for the +appearance of which, if the Case demanded it, I could arrange at a +moment's notice. All the life and interest seemed to have passed out of +these things. That is the worst of this intangible operation of +Publicity--it possesses you in spurts, with gaps of complete +listlessness. It is super-heated, and at a change of atmosphere +condenses into a few chill drops. Then, when you have brought it up to +the proper state of rarefaction again, you find that the popular +interest has shifted leagues away. Already my correspondence showed +signs of becoming as much beside the mark as had that nine-days'-wonder +that one morning had filled Lennox Street with a gaping crowd and had +set mysterious rumors circulating with the morning milk-carts. +Publicity, like lightning, never strikes in the same place twice. Nobody +now cared a rap whether an aeroplane had crashed in Chelsea on a May +morning months ago, nor how, nor why. Nobody was going to drag the bed +of the Thames for the identification-number of a useless Webley and +Scott pistol. A spent bullet, flying in at an open window, had _not_ +killed an Estate Agent's child, and Inspector Webster had far too much +work on his hands to dream of applying to the Home Secretary through the +proper channels for an Exhumation Order. Cases left long enough +unanswered answer themselves. The scene changes, the circumstances +alter, the world moves on. + +I too felt like moving on. Glenfield had offered me a holiday, and I had +my book to finish. As well finish it at Santon as anywhere else. +Santon--its cornfields and skies, the cliffs for ever a-racket with the +seabirds' clamor, the dappled fawn of its sands! I was there in my heart +already. + +I wrote to Mollie that very night. + + + + + PART VIII + + AT SANTON + + + + + I + + +"For goodness' sake, Joan, stop chattering just for a few minutes!" +Philip broke out testily. "If you don't want to sit, say so and have +done with it. This is enough to drive anybody mad!" + +I had been wondering how much longer his patience would hold out. When +an artist is in difficulties with his canvas, motor-bicycle talk for an +hour on end can be extremely wearing. + +Joan looked up with aggravating sweetness. "What, Philip?" she inquired. + +"I say if you don't want to sit, off you go on the confounded machine +and I'll start something else." + +"But, Philip darling, you know the sparking-plug's broken, and it will +be three or four days before we can get another. Do you think Wellands +will stock that make, Chummy?" + +Charles Valentine Smith knocked out the new Captanide pipe and proceeded +to refill it with the Dunhill Mixture. + +"Well, if they don't I think I know a fellow who has a spare. That's the +worst of the Beaver," he went on. "Now with an Indian or a Douglas ..." + +And off they went again, she as well as he, both talking at once: +big-ends, plugs, magnetos: Beaver, Indian, Douglas.... In my younger +youth I used to ride a tall ungeared ordinary; except for one hellish +five minutes in which I had clung, ardently praying, to Smith's +back-carrier, I know nothing about these modern machines; and how Joan +managed to keep her sideways seat on that grid of torture over his back +wheel passed my comprehension. But ever since the arrival of the hideous +thing she had hardly been off it, hair all over the place, ankles +stiffly out, skirts rippling like a ribbon on a ventilating-fan, and +cauliflowers of dust trailing for a hundred yards behind them. I could +only conclude that modern love, besides being blind, is deficient in the +tactile nerve-centers as well. + +It was ten o'clock in the morning, and Philip had set up his easel on a +sheep-nibbled slope of the cliff-tops. Joan, in her old tweed skirt and +new canary-colored silk jumper, was stretched luxuriously on the thymy +bents. The amber beads about her neck matched the potentilla on which +she lay, and I give you your choice which was the bluest--the aimlessly +fluttering butterflies, the nodding harebells, or her demure and +reprehensible eyes. Philip had deliberately excluded the blue of the sky +from his canvas. The picture was simply of Joan herself, the crewel-work +of flowers on which she lay, and behind her, red as the habitation of +dragons, the midsummer sorrel that massed itself up the slope. + +The talk continued, a fitter's romance: clutches, brakes, front-drives: +Minervas, Excelsiors, de Dions.... + +In my day we played croquet and read "Maud." ... + +And then Philip exploded again. + +"Oh, _do_ dry up! How do you expect me to paint? Pull that book a bit +closer, Joan, so it throws the light up on your face, and hold your chin +a bit higher----" + +As if she spoke to herself I heard Joan's murmur: "Why did the razorbill +razorbill?" + +As softly Charles Valentine Smith murmured back: "So the sea-urchin +could sea-urchin"; and this last flippancy was too much for Philip. He +put his palette down on the turf and turned to Smith and myself. + +"Look here," he said politely, "will you two fellows oblige me by +pushing off? Right away somewhere else, please, and now." + +"Oh," Joan wailed, "and I shan't have anybody to talk to!" + +"You can read your book." + +"But it's such a stupid one--all about an old artist, over thirty, who +fell in love with his model and bought her alpaca blouses and thread +stockings----" + +"You shall have a motor catalogue to-morrow. Now sheer off, you +fellows." + +Obediently I got on to my feet and turned to Smith. + +"Come along. We'll give him till midday. Here's your stick." + +And I helped him to his feet and bore him off. + + + + + II + + +Ordinarily I do not find it easy to talk to very young men. I have been +as young as they, but they have not been as old as I, and I know this +but they do not. Young women--that is another matter, and I will make a +very candid confession. I now envy these youngsters their youth. I +envied Smith his youth. Despite his limp, I was conscious of his +tallness and lissomness as he hobbled by my side. And I will add that it +is not an unmixed joy to be asked to do a young goddess's shopping for +her because you are "quite the kindest person she knows." + +It would hardly be true to say that my acquaintance with young Smith had +made no progress at all. I had made quite a number of interesting +observations on his idyll of petrol, love and crime. But he for his part +was still at the stage of apology for his "neck" in asking Joan to ask +me to buy his pipes and tobacco for him, and by way of leveling up the +obligation had actually sent for a copy of that dandy book that I as a +novelist must on no account miss, _The Crimson Specter of Hangman +Hollow_. But I was still "Sir" to him and he hardly "Chummy" to me, and +our small-talk was quite small. It was certainly small enough as we left +the thymy hollow and slowly made for the cliff-tops. + +"Tell me if I walk too quickly for you," I said. His hurt was to his +right ankle, and his stick left a trail of little round holes in the +turf. + +"Oh, that's all right, thanks, sir," he said cheerfully, pegging away; +and he added with a chuckle, "I say, between you and I, old Philip was +rather in a paddy, wasn't he?" + +"Between you and me he was," I said. I corrected him quite deliberately. +Now that the failure of the sparking-plug had put this opportunity into +my hands I was determined at all costs to know more of him. Hence +my--well _grossièreté_. But he noticed nothing. Instead he broke out +with a feigned enthusiasm. + +"I say, these pipes are turning out jolly well! Lovely bit of straight +grain this one! You do know how to choose a pipe, sir! Are they French +or Italian briar?" + +"French." + +"Jolly nice bit of root!" + +"I'm very glad." + +"Cool as a nut. Joan's quite right about my smoking too many cigarettes. +They're all right for the street--I hate to see a fellow smoking a pipe +in the street--and gaspers smell a bit sickly to other people sometimes, +don't you think?" + +I agreed with this too. + +"I suppose the _Specter_ hasn't turned up yet?" was his next effort, as +he sat down to rest for a minute. + +"Not yet." + +"I do hope it isn't out of print. How soon does a book go out of print, +sir--on an average?" + +Weakly I thought of "Why does the razorbill razorbill?" and, I am +afraid, found nothing to reply.... + +Then, as he continued to babble laboriously across the gulf that +separated us, I remembered again certain tubular parcels that arrived +for him by post, which, when stripped of their wrappings, turned out to +contain the _Transactions_ and _Proceedings_ of this Society or that. +Seeing these left lying about I had peeped into them, and had been +brought up standing against such intimidating fences as the following:-- + +"_Aerofoil Sections in relation to Speed Range._" + +"_Influence of Wave-friction on Aerodynamic Resistances._" + +"_Notes on Lateral Stability._" + +My simple literary mind faints in regions such as these. His presumably +did not. This apparently was his ordinary reading, the _Specter_ his +relaxation. + +"--amber beads," the words came across the void that separated soul from +soul. "Just the shade I meant--neither too yellow nor too brown--I'm +afraid it took up an awful lot of your time----" + +It was here that I took my plunge. + +"What," I said, looking steadily at him, "is the Influence of +Wind-friction on Aerodynamic Resistance?" + +His jaw dropped, as well it might. I knew that for a moment he was +wondering whether I had taken leave of my senses. + +"Eh?" he said. + +I repeated the question. Of course, I no more wanted information about +Aerodynamic Resistance than I did about briar pipes and amber beads. It +was information about Charles Valentine Smith that I wanted and intended +to have. + +I date my possession of him from the moment that that look of +consternation came into his face. It broke upon me that I had put him +into some position that he felt he must immediately explain. Indeed he +half rose, as if, having obtained my acquaintance under false pretenses, +he must set himself right or leave me. + +"Oh, I say, sir!" he broke anxiously out. "Do you mean those Journals +and things?" + +"That's what I had in my mind. Especially the blue-covered ones." + +"Oh lord! You don't suppose I can make head or tail of _those_!" + +"Not make head or tail of them? But I've seen you reading them." + +He seemed positively sick to extricate himself from my too flattering +opinion of him. + +"_Me_ understand all _that_! I could kick myself if you think that! Why, +that's all designers' stuff--they've got brains, those chaps--shiploads +of them--why, I should never have heard of the things but for----" He +checked himself. + +"But----" I began, puzzled. + +He was blushing--blushing like a young girl. + +"I know," he said. "I feel a most awfully ass. The fact is, sir, I just +moon over those things, lose myself in 'em, sort of. I don't know the +first thing about 'em. Of course, there are bits here and there--engines +and practical flying and all that--I know a bit about that--what I mean +to say is, a fellow doesn't want to miss anything--it's hard to +explain----" + +On the contrary: it was not at all hard to explain. Simply, I had caught +him day-dreaming. That vivid color still in his cheeks told me that I +had stumbled on a privacy. A young girl approaching womanhood knows +these soft _oubliances_, these shy yet hardy excursions of the spirit +that lead nowhither and die of their own over-sweetness. It is love of +which she dreams; and this was his equivalent. He just "mooned." It was +not understanding--he "didn't want to miss anything." His was not a +technician's, but a poet's nature. And caught unawares he blushed. + +"Of course my real job would be one of these Expeditions," he mumbled. + +I pursued him relentlessly. "Which Expeditions?" + +"Well, between you and I, they've started work on several of them. In +Africa and India and places. You see I'm awfully keen on Air-geography. +If this dashed ankle of mine ever gives me a chance again, that is. +Bobby always said that was my line of country. He was the chap for the +technical end. Thought in surds, Bobby did. He put me on to all those +Journals and things, and--after--well, I sort-of keep it up. _He_ was +your man for that." + +"By Bobby do you mean your friend Maxwell?" + +"Yes. Bobby," he replied, his eyes far out over the sea. + + + + + III + + +He spoke the name with the most perfect readiness and simplicity; there +was neither tremor in his voice nor the faintest sign of pain in his +dark and steady eyes. He was not even self-conscious under my (I admit) +prolonged and deliberate gaze. By what mystery of self-absolution he had +expunged the sinister fact for which Esdaile vouched I could not tell. +He repeated Bobby's name. + +"Yes, Bobby was your man for all that. Fearfully hot stuff. When Bobby +opened his mouth I used to dry up." + +Then, still without removing my eyes from him, "I never knew Bobby," I +said. "But I know a man who did." + +He turned to me swiftly. "Who was that?" he demanded. + +"A man called Hanson. An Australian. He says he knew him in Gallipoli." + +His brows were knitted. "Hanson? Hanson? What was his other name?" + +"Dudley." + +"Hanson? Hanson? Did he say he knew me?" + +"He wasn't sure. He thinks he ran across you. He knew you by sight, +anyway, for he described you to me." + +"Hanson? No, I give it up. Don't remember him at all. You met such +crowds of chaps, you see--sometimes it's just like a dream----" + +I appreciated that; but there still remained one thing that was no +dream. This was Philip's explicit declaration, "Oh, he remembers all +right--it was the other I didn't tell him--that anybody else knew." +Philip might now be resolved to let the whole affair sink into oblivion, +but Philip after all had not shot anybody. On that morning when I had +had my talk with Mackwith I had been rather pleased with my acumen in +pointing out that whether our Case had legal consequences or not its +moral consequences were inescapable. Yet here, if I could believe my own +eyes, was a man who was escaping them in their entirety. He continued to +order Journals that Bobby had "put him on to," and could speak of his +victim apparently out of some transcendental state of mind where sorrow +was an anomaly and regret beside the mark. It all appeared to be +admirable, but I found it quite incomprehensible. + +"But," I came out of my reverie presently, "you haven't yet told me what +'it' was that Bobby knew all about." + +"Do you mean those books?" he asked. + +"No, I don't mean the books at all. I know a good deal about books. You +can get so soaked in them that you make a whole artificial world out of +them, quite self-contained, logical with itself at every single point, +and absolutely out of touch with anything that really matters. Do you +see what I mean?" + +I wasn't sure that he did, and here was I, who do not talk easily to +young men, quite anxious that he should. + +"Well, let's put it another way. You say Bobby knew all about these +equations and diagrams and things. Did he know what it was all +_for_--_really_ for--not just wind-resistance or whatever you call it, +but something more--why there should be aeroplanes _at all_, for +example?" + +I had said it badly, but I saw his brow clear. There was a kindling in +the eyes he turned to me. + +"It's funny you should say that," he said in a rather low voice, +"because that's just what Bobby himself used to say. He used to say that +anybody who'd passed his matric. could do what he did, and he always +would have it that _I_ was the whole show. I didn't agree with him, of +course, but--is that what you mean?" + +"It is so far," I said. "What else did he say?" + +"Well, he always said it was a jolly good thing I wasn't technical. And +I did see what he meant by that. I mean to say things _are_ simple +really, the big things I mean. You take the sea----" again his eyes +wandered far out over it. "People talk an awful lot of bunk about the +sea. They think bases are just harbors and ports and coaling-stations +and so on. That a base is something fixed. Why, that's exactly what it +isn't. You've got to get your coal and oil and stores, of course, but +that's only like going into a shop and coming out again as quick as you +can. It's only then that the job really begins. I'm afraid I'm talking +an awful lot, sir, but I got it down to this: that a ship's only a ship +when she's moving. She's no better than a stupid old breakwater when she +isn't. I mean to say her real base is her course. Just an imaginary line +to make a dash from and turn up where the trouble is. Focal points I +believe they call 'em. At least that's the way I worked it out for +myself." + +"And do you mean the air's the same, or going to be?" + +The look that I have ventured to call discontent came into his eyes. + +"Well, nothing's quite the same as anything else, of course. But I do +think this. There's Germany. Over there----," he nodded out to sea. +"North Sea or German Ocean we used to call that, and that was there she +said her future was. Well, it isn't, of course. She hasn't got any coast +to speak of, and isn't going to have any. But----" + +And this time his eyes went aloft to the immeasurable fields of the air. + +"She's got just as much of _that_ as anybody else. Taking a perfectly +sound line about it too. And what's the good of our saying she shan't +build aircraft as long as the damn dog doesn't know? Of course she'll +build aircraft. That's where her future is now, and she can afford to +hand over ships. But every Zepp or plane you get out of her you'll have +to get with a pair of pincers. Then ... swift? Swift won't be the +word.... Oh, don't I wish I could get on one of these Expeditions!" + +I made no comment on this, since I know nothing about the air. These +were merely the words of Charles Valentine Smith, who did. + + + + + IV + + +He knew very little about himself--hardly seemed aware that there was +anything of importance to know. It was all Maxwell--"Bobby was the whole +show." And I had a very keen sense of the honor the dead man had done +himself in denying this. "Frightfully hot stuff on maths," said Smith; +and the world is full of men who are "frightfully hot stuff on maths," +in that sense; but it is rarely that you find one of these not too +absorbed in the technique and detail of his own activities to be aware +of a vision beyond. I know this in my own business. I see men working +with an appalling intensity, a new and wild and squandering energy that +has long ago passed from me; but for their Muse I look in vain. An altar +is set up, not to any god known or unknown, but to itself. I speak +diffidently, but I seldom see that any flame from Elsewhere descends +upon it. This is hard to say, since I too rub my two sticks together +with my fellows, hoping they may kindle. I should not say it except that +I was now trying to arrive at some comprehension of Maxwell, the +competent and efficient man, exposed to all manner of temptations to +narrowness and complacency and inertia, but who could yet see in this +unsuspecting youngster something he himself did not and could never +possess. + +And add to this that quasi-religious bond of the air that makes of two +men twins in one womb.... + +I repeat, Maxwell did himself a quite radiant honor. + +"What sort of a fellow was Maxwell to look at?" I asked by and by. + +The answer was almost startlingly ready. This lad who had bolted from +Malvern, forced his way into an Embassy and demanded to be taken in the +service of a foreign Power, unbuckled the watch from his wrist. + +"Here he is," he said. + +I found myself looking at a young but curiously worn face, with a great +width of brow, eyes that seemed to hold I knew not what nameless +expression of disillusion and fatality, and a firm and sweet mouth. That +face had certainly lost nothing spiritually by its ungrudged and +generous homage. Yet he too had probably jazzed and pink-ginned and +drummed ragtime on cases of stuffed birds. Strange days! Wisdom and +experience under young brilliantined hair, and the bald and reverend +dome accepting the result on hearsay! Slang, and an undreamed-of valor; +Magalhaens' vision, and a lark at a Grafton Ball! By being "frightfully +keen on Air-geography" Smith merely meant what Columbus and Cabot and +the Navigator had meant; by wanting to "get on one of these Expeditions" +he was willing to dare for discovery's sake some monstrous Baffin's Bay +of the air. "Not to miss anything," he fumed and fretted over Maxwell's +equations and made them part of the Dream and the Desire. He was +brooding over it now as we lay there together, I with his watch in my +hand.... And all this, I ought to say, was at the time when the last of +the Santon hay was barely stacked, and John Alcock and Whitten Brown had +just flown the Atlantic in sixteen hours. It was when the headland was +pale cloth-of-gold with the ripening corn, and the R. 34 had crossed to +America and returned. It was when the ditches were yellow with hawkweed +and the copses pink with campion, and no man living could have told you +what the intentions of the Air Ministry were. Smith was lying there +brooding, not on the carriage of a few pounds' weight of letters nor on +prizes of £10,000, but on the problems of man's unchanged and warring +heart. He dreamed of Imperial Defense. He was "keen" on making India and +Egypt secure. He was "dead nuts" on the safety of Africa, "all out" for +Australia's protection, and "tails up" if any other nation jolly well +interfered. + +And this was his next remark:-- + +"I say, sir, I think Joan got that Dunhill number wrong after all--I'll +swear there's latakia on this--don't tell Joan though--this is _entrez +nous_." + +_Entrez nous!_ Between you and I! O modest flower tossed to the +welcoming hands of the Entente! + +I handed him his watch back. + +Strange, strange days! + + + + + V + + +Why did I not say straight out to him, "Look here, my young friend, this +is all extremely interesting, but what I don't understand is why you +shoot a man and then carry his picture on your wrist. In plain English, +now, why did you shoot him--always supposing you did?" + +Well, I was trying to put myself in his place--trying to picture a +friendship such as he had had with this wistful, self-effacing young +fatalist whose picture I had just handed back to him. I have told you +how the more poignant of these experiences between man and man have been +denied me; a flying-friendship I could never by any possibility have +had; but I could reach out to it in my fancy. I could imagine with what +fierce jealousy I should have guarded a treasure so rich. Not a word, +not a breath from outside would I have suffered with regard to it. It +was not a question of mere impertinence. It was rather one of the +violation of a sacred place. + +And it seemed to me that I now owed him no less than I would have +claimed for myself. It made no difference that he was twenty-four and I +within hand's-reach of fifty. Less than an hour had swept these +conventions aside, and thenceforward he was entitled to the full honors +of friendship and respect. He might tell me what he chose. Ply him with +questions, however, I could not. + +Nay, it even seemed to me now that I should have to drop my point before +Philip also. However much I had been put on my mettle by those +discoveries I had made on that Sunday afternoon in his studio, to drag +them up again now would merely be to attack Chummy at one remove. If I +could not have it from himself I could hardly have it at all, and the +Case, which had unfolded as a conjuror's pilule unfolds into a flagrant +and morbid-hued passion-flower, looked like shutting itself up again and +being as if it had never been. + +Yet the discoveries of that Sunday had been much on my mind. Especially +that gold ring that had once belonged to Audrey Cunningham had been on +my mind. That the circumstances in which I had found it were directly +connected with the rupture between her and Monty I could hardly doubt, +and several times, as a mere man, I had been on the point of confessing +my share in the incident to Mollie Esdaile. + +If Mollie has a little dropped out of the picture, let me now bring her +in again as she brought herself in as Chummy Smith and I lay on the turf +that morning. + +I forget for what delinquency Alan and Jimmy had spent some hours in +disgrace; I think they had been cutting one another's hair. But +apparently all was now expiated. With joyous cries they dashed over a +low brow, Mollie's head and shoulders rising behind them, and flung +themselves upon us with the jubilant announcement that they were good +again and that the hens had laid eleven eggs. + +"One's a duck's----" + +"Two's duck's----" + +"I'll bet you----" + +"I'll bet you my purple pencil----" + +"I'll bet you my Bible an' all my shells----" + +"Where's daddy?" + +"Hasn't he finished painting Auntie Joan yet?" + +Mollie was laughing and telling Chummy not to get up. She "goes to +pieces" a little in the country in the matter of dress, and wore her +mallow-flower of an old sunbonnet and her gray sandshoes. As Smith +reached for his stick and got up on to his feet she caught my eye and +laughed again. She had suffered from big-ends and magnetos too. + +"Did Philip bundle you both out?" she asked. + +"He bundled this man out. I was behaving myself." + +"Well," quoth Smith, "we only gave him till twelve o'clock, and it's +five to now. You coming, kids?" + +They were not merely coming; they were already twenty yards on the way, +with Chummy pegging after them. Had Mollie and I followed, Philip would +merely have commandeered us for the carrying home of his +painting-tackle. Instead we turned along the cliff-tops in the opposite +direction, towards the zigzag path that dropped steeply to the beach. + +Since that impetuous dash of hers to London she had shown herself from +time to time--I will not say brooding (that is too strong a word), but +frequently withdrawn, pensive, _rêveuse_. She was as brisk and practical +as ever about the house or in the arranging of picnics and excursions, +but somehow the routine of her daily life struck me as a series of +detached and separate efforts, that for some reason or other never +acquired momentum. I admit, however, that it would be easy to make too +much of this change in her, if change there was. + +"Shall we go down?" she said as we paused at the top of the path. "I +haven't seen the sands for two days. 'Man works till set of sun----'" + +"Come along," I said, giving her a hand; and we began the descent. + +The Santon sands were a rather wonderful sight that morning. The tide +was at its farthest out, and some mysterious wave-action had rolled out +the wide spaces, not to an even flatness, but into regular parallel +striations of wet and dry, the wet so mirror-like and shining that the +sky was perfectly reduplicated in it and the flight of the seabirds far +under our feet could be distinctly seen, the dry portions the +intervening footings from one to the next of which we stepped. Our feet +left no prints on the firm surface, so that looking behind the illusion +was still the same--the dry stripes, the sudden brilliant chasms in +between, everywhere the interrupted inversions of blue and white and +dazzling sun. + +"Well, I've been having my first real talk with your Chummy," I remarked +as the alternations slowly flowed under our feet. + +"Oh? What about?" she asked. + +"About his aims and so on--what he wants to do. Apparently he wants to +get on some sort of an Expedition. But is it likely he'll ever fly +again?" + +"I don't know," she said; and walked a little way before adding, "I +shouldn't think he'd want to." + +"He does." + +She looked straight before her, as if to rest her eyes from the passing +immensities underfoot. There was indeed a fantastic sort of consonance +between flight and the phenomenon of the shore that midday. I do not +know, however, whether this vague association prompted the huge +implication of her very next words--an implication which I now had from +her for the first time. + +"You know what I mean," she said quietly. + +I tried to steal a glance at her face, but saw only the folds of the +sunbonnet. + +"And that it isn't the kind of thing anybody wants to talk about," she +added, leaving me to take the hint. + +"No," I agreed mechanically; but for all that I needed a few moments in +which to think. + +Obviously I was not there to get out of Philip's wife something that +Philip himself refused me; but the immensity of her quiet assumption had +pulled me up short. I was assumed to know the whole--the whole--of "what +she meant." It was left to my good sense to see that it was not a thing +to talk about. There was to be no argument; she merely expected an equal +simplicity in return, and with a woman like Mollie to expect such a +thing is to get it. I watched a cloud of sheldrake that wheeled and +broke over their own images a few yards away to our left, and then I +turned to her. + +"My dear, I'm not sure that I do understand altogether, but we certainly +won't talk about it. I should, however, like to mention one little thing +that I don't think even Philip knows." + +She turned quickly. "What is that?" + +"Nor Smith." + +"What is it?" + +"Nor, I should say, you yourself." + +"If only you'll tell me what it is----!" + +I looked into her eyes. "Where is Mrs. Cunningham now?" I asked. + + + + + VI + + +Her start could hardly have been more sudden had I asked her where Alan +was a few moments after he had been seen playing at the cliff's edge. + +"Audrey Cunningham? She was at Harrogate last, I think--or +Scarboro--why?" + +"Why was her engagement broken off?" + +She made an abrupt, impatient gesture. Evidently I had plunged her back +into an older mood. + +"Oh, I don't know! I'm tired to death of--of everything! Why do you want +to remind me of it? I was just beginning to forget a little. Oh, why +didn't we leave London a week earlier! We nearly did--Philip was only +waiting for Billy to get those pictures back--we should have escaped +everything then!" + +I soothed her. "Yes; but about the engagement. I could make very little +of your letter. You said things were tangled and difficult and so on. +What did you mean, Mollie?" + +She was silent. + +"Do you mean that you won't discuss Mrs. Cunningham with me?" + +Still she did not speak. + +"Because you have discussed her. I had your letter. You said you'd heard +from her. That was since you last saw her. What happened in between?" + +She found her voice. "Nothing that I know, except that it seems to have +been definitely off." + +"By that do you mean that she returned Monty's ring?" + +"She didn't say what she did with the ring." + +"Well, she neither returned it nor kept it. I have it. I don't want it. +Will you take it?" + +I fetched it from my pocket and held it out to her. + +Her hand found my sleeve, almost as if that brilliance underfoot +unsteadied her head. Her eyes had closed and there was a little hard +crumple between her brows. I put my other hand on her shoulder. + +"Let's get up the beach--this is too dazzling--it's making you dizzy," I +said. + +Faintly she murmured, "Yes--it does get in your eye----" + + + + + VII + + +On the hot loose sand above the highest seaweed I made her sit down. +Presently she had recovered a little. Her manner was now undoubtedly +that of a person on whose back a half-withdrawn burden is reimposed. But +she shouldered it. + +"Where did you get it?" she asked, her eyes on the ring in my palm. + +"Do you remember Philip asking me to pack up some sketches for him and +sending me his key?" + +"He did say something about it. Monty had left." + +"I found the ring on the Sunday afternoon I went for the sketches. It +was in a hole in the studio floor." + +"In a hole.... Ah-h-h-h!" + +I looked sharply at her, but continued. + +"Stuck quite firmly in: in fact, I had to prise it out with a +screwdriver. I didn't know which of them it belonged to--I don't know +now--so I slipped it into my pocket. Perhaps you'd better take it." + +But she made no movement to do so. She was picking up handfuls of sand +and allowing it to slip through her fingers again. She made quite a +number of little heaps, which her eyes attentively watched, but her mind +was elsewhere--perhaps on that last letter of Audrey Cunningham's, when +apparently the engagement had been neither off nor on. She made no sign +when I placed the ring in her lap. I had to speak. + +"Queer, wasn't it?" + +Her murmur was so low that I scarcely heard it. "Of course a thing like +that _would_ make it definitely off." + +"A thing like what?" + +"Losing it like that--after all the other." + +"Come, she can hardly have 'lost' it, since I had to get a screwdriver +to prise it out!" + +"I don't mean 'lost' in that way--be quiet and let me think." + +The fingers began to make a fifth sandhill. + +I hope I have made it clear that I was confining myself quite strictly +to Monty Rooke's affair. If it was simply a misunderstanding I did not +think I was going beyond my business in discussing with Mollie whether +that misunderstanding might not be removed. But it now seemed to me that +I was once more on the verge of far more than this. That deep long-drawn +"Ah-h-h-h!" that "A thing like that _would_ make it definitely off" were +enough to convince me of this. Evidently my words had meant more to her +than to myself who had uttered them. Therefore if Mollie claimed time to +think, so did I. + +And first of all I recalled my firm persuasion of that Sunday afternoon +that Audrey Cunningham had made some sort of a discovery. It might have +been an accidental one, or she might merely not have rested until she +had made it, but a discovery she had made, and it had to do with the +hole in the studio floor. I remembered too my own pacings, +eye-measurements, judgment of angles, and my slight chagrin that Philip +had frustrated my further investigations by his removal of the key from +the cellar door. And it seemed to me that again everything seemed to +come round to that cellar of Esdaile's--the cellar on which Hubbard had +instantly fastened as holding the answer to the riddle, the cellar in +which Philip had spent that unaccountable half-hour and over which he +had since so jealously watched, yet the self-same cellar into which both +Rooke and Mrs. Cunningham had since descended and found ... nothing. + +Yet instantly all my former objections rose again as vividly as +ever--the extreme physical improbability that Philip could have seen +anything through that peep-hole, the utter unlikelihood that he should +have had his eye at it at that particular moment of time, the virtual +impossibility that he should have thought of the hole at all on hearing +the crash. + +And yet in this hole had been tightly jammed the ring now lying in +Mollie's lap. + +Suddenly Mollie surprised me by looking up and almost brightly smiling. +She smoothed out the sandhills and picked up the ring from her lap. + +"Well," she said in a tone of relief, "that makes an immense difference. +I'm awfully glad you told me. Shall we be getting back?" + +But this, it struck me, was rather rushing matters. I thought I had a +right to know just a little more than that. Therefore I did not rise. + +"One moment," I said. "I should like to know why you said that 'a thing +like that would make it definitely off.'" + +She smiled again, with a sort of affectionate raillery. + +"Oh ... and you're supposed to understand women!" + +This I warmly disclaimed. "In any case I only know Mrs. Cunningham very +slightly," I protested. + +"And you formed no impression of her?" + +"I didn't say that." + +"Not even that she would be just the woman to take a--hint--of that +kind?" + +She was gently but quite plainly laughing at me; but, glad as I was to +see the cloud disappear from her brow, she was not going to have +everything her own way. + +"Then she did make a discovery, and received a hint, as you call it, in +doing so?" + +"Did she?" she parried. + +"_Did_ she?" + +At that she laughed outright. She patted my sleeve almost as if I had +been a child. + +"You men _can't_ know how funny you are sometimes!" she mocked me. + + + + + VIII + + +It struck me even then that the moment Mrs. Cunningham's name +was introduced there was introduced also something of that +sex-antagonism--perhaps I had better modify that and say +sex-difference--for which her personal story had given her such bitter +reason. Here now was Mollie, suddenly and in the middle of our +_tête-à-tête_, abolishing me as an individual and saddling me with the +collective qualities of men in general. And I must remind you once more +that as a matter of mere historical sequence I was still unaware of what +had passed between her and Philip on that night when she had put Audrey +Cunningham to bed, and Monty had spent half the night in wandering +through the dark Roehampton lanes. + +"Well, let's take it that we're funny," I said rather shortly. "I don't +quite see the joke myself, but that's neither here nor there. The point +is that if I can do Monty a good turn I want to. Whether patching it up +between him and Mrs. Cunningham is a good turn is for you to decide. I +only met her once in my life, and hardly exchanged a dozen words with +her." + +"You shall presently if I can lay my hands on her." + +"What do you mean? That you're going to have her down here?" + +"Of course I'm going to have her down here if she can come," said Mollie +in her most matter-of-fact tones. "How slowly you think! She must come +immediately. I shall see about it this afternoon _même_." + +"And Rooke too?" + +"We'll see about that." + +"And Hubbard? And Mackwith?" + +"No. What have they got to do with it?" + +"Merely to make the party complete. We should be just where we started +then." + +"Oh, I think we can dispense with that side of it," she answered +lightly. "Let me see: was it Harrogate? It was Buxton, and then Matlock, +and then either Harrogate or Scarboro...." + +I wonder whether the surmise has dawned on you that was now beginning to +dawn on me? I admit that I had none but the very slightest grounds for +it, and that even these were more exclusions than affirmations; but in +the absence of anything more positive they had to serve. Think for a +moment how we men, solemnly, ponderously and sure that we were doing the +decent thing, had decided that at all costs certain facts of our Case +should be kept from the womenfolk. To that end we had evaded, +temporized, shuffled. And now suppose--just suppose--that all our care +and concealment had been wasted, and that two of the women at any rate +knew as much as Philip Esdaile knew and far, far more than any of the +rest of us? Mind you, I was only guessing; but I began rather to fancy +my guess. If there was little for it, I could see nothing against it. +Certain things, moreover, were distinctly in its favor. Why this +remarkable brightening in Mollie's manner, this change from her dizzy +little stagger over those strips of inverted sky when I had first +produced that ring to her air of lightsome raillery now? Why this quick +instinctive taking of sex-sides, this sudden practical decision to seek +out Audrey Cunningham this very day and to have her down to Santon? It +was not the ring at all; it was--could only be--the place in which the +ring had been found. Always, always we came back to that hole in the +studio floor at which Philip's eye could not possibly have been at the +moment of the crash that May morning. Somewhere between the hole and the +cellar the elusive explanation lay. I had been thwarted, Mackwith knew +nothing about it, and Hubbard could only grunt and mumble about +periscopes and sound-ranging and selenium cells; but Mollie, I was +persuaded, knew. + +And what I had just told her, which she had not hitherto known, was that +Audrey Cunningham shared the knowledge with her. + + + + + PART IX + + WHAT PHILIP KNEW + + + + + I + + +The other day, accompanied by an engineer acquaintance, I was pottering +about certain new excavations in the heart of London, and came upon a +number of heaps of crushed and broken-up concrete, evidently the remains +of old foundations. Yet those foundations could not have been very old, +since I myself could remember the buildings of which they had been the +support, and these had been old-fashioned rather than old. One of them +had been a theater, another an hotel; and I stood there with my friend, +looking over the waste of rubbish and barrows and wheeling-planks and +thrown-up London clay, trying to evoke in my mind the exact plan of +those vanished streets of thirty-odd years ago. + +I found it difficult. Had these streets been older streets there would +have been remembered records to help me. Prints would have jogged my +memory, maps and plans have come to my aid. The seventeenth or +eighteenth centuries would somehow have come nearer home than that +unnoteworthy period of hardly more than a generation ago. Particularly +when I tried to picture the huge new palaces of ferro-concrete that will +presently arise, that intermediate epoch seemed ephemeral and without +significance. + +And so, even already, I find this record of our Case to be. There is a +strange blank, full (I know) of all manner of busyness and bustle and +restless effort, but without either the security of history nor yet the +full brightness of new discovery. The _Scepter_ action seems somehow +more remote than the Armada, the findings of this high-sounding +Committee or that farther away than Trafalgar. All is still too near to +be seen, and by the time the dust has settled another pen than mine will +have to take up the tale. + +Indeed, I have more than once felt inclined to hand over the pen now, +for, when all is still to prove, a younger faith and vision than those +of my day are needed. For example, Cecil Hubbard tells me that the man +who nowadays does not know at least the elements of all this lore of +wave-lengths and directional wireless has no business to say that he +belongs to his age at all, and sadly I believe him. Yet Philip Esdaile +contrives to keep abreast, not by joining in the banging and burnt-cork +of so much contemporary painting, but by virtue of something else, often +temporarily hidden, that will still be quietly there when the whistles +have ceased to scream and the tom-toms to thud. He too maintains the +continuity, sharing with his forerunners that quality, whatever it is, +which makes the old centuries modern and the novelty of yesterday +afternoon musty and stale before the sun next rises. + +Therefore, it should be understood that the rest is more theirs and less +mine than ever. In the _Scepter_ action Charles Valentine Smith, +speaking (thanks largely to my friend Glenfield) from the witness-box +and not from the dock, with wreaths and garlands and the glamour of his +Embassy adventure almost visibly about him, made this abundantly clear. +Easily, familiarly, and with pronouns all over the shop, he dealt with +matters so far above my head that I will make no attempt to report him. +If you are interested, there are _The Times_ Law Reports in which you +can read it all. And similarly with the whole crop of associated actions +and inquiries and investigations. My own interest in them is no more +than that something has been born in my time whose infant strugglings +and gaspings I witnessed, and about which I shall doubtless become +garrulous all too soon. + + + + + II + + +So that conjuror's passion-flower to which I have likened this case all +but folded itself up into its original pilule again. That it did not do +so was due to a series of small happenings which I will now relate. + +The first of these was my leaving Santon before Mrs. Cunningham arrived +there. Mollie, despite her energy, did not discover her friend's +whereabouts so easily as she had anticipated. It took her, to be +precise, a fortnight, at the end of which time I had to leave. But so +narrowly did I miss Mrs. Cunningham that I believe her train passed mine +on the way. + +But I did not leave Mollie without that sort of smiling salute that +accompanies a fencer's "en garde." If (I told her flatly) she held +herself free to accept information from me and to give nothing but +pitying looks of sex-superiority in return, I for my part should also +consider myself at liberty to do as I pleased should further information +come to light. What I had in my mind was that if she and Audrey +Cunningham were going to put their heads together in the country Rooke +and I might do the same thing in town. I may say that I was quite +conscious of the feebleness of my retort, and did not for a moment +expect that Rooke would have anything fresh to tell me. + +"Very well," Mollie laughed gayly from the platform. "But you can tell +Monty from me that I'll look after this end of it. Don't tell him +anything about the ring though, or you may spoil it So long, my +dear--see you in September----" + +And the waving hands of the Santon party slid past my carriage window. + +I gave Monty her message, though strictly without prejudice to myself as +its bearer. He was not caught up into any sudden transport of joy. +Instead some cheerful confidence of his own seemed to envelop him. + +"I fancy that will be all right now," he said. + +"Do you? Well, I'm very glad. It's a great improvement on the last +time." + +"Oh, I've had rather a bit of luck since then," he replied. + +His "bit of luck" seemed to me slender enough grounds for his confidence +that all would yet be well. It appeared that he had been sent by a +weekly paper down to Hounslow to make certain sketches (he was in full +harness again), and there he had got into conversation with a ground +official, an ex-R.A.F. man. He had rather "palled up" with this man, and +had seen him several times since. Indeed, Monty was a little inclined to +impart recently acquired information with regard to the organization of +"dromes" and similar matters, and had quite a number of yarns that were +"absolute facts" to tell. His conversation also had become noticeably +slangier. + +"You see," he remarked casually, "I think I'm on the track of why that +pal of Philip's shot the other chap." + +I found myself staring blankly at him; but, as often happens in moments +of shock, I did not at first feel the full force of what he said. I +interrupted him. + +"I say--I hope you haven't been talking too much about that?" (I knew +his weaknesses, and a perfectly open candor was one of the gravest of +them.) + +But "Lord, no!" he instantly reassured me. "Talking about it? Do you +think I'm a----" the initials he used were those of the words "blind +fiddler." + +"I'm glad of that," I murmured. + +And then it was that the full weight of what he had said began to sink +into my mind. + +"Then why did he shoot him?" I asked presently, when I was a little more +master of myself. This conversation, I ought to have said, took place on +the top of a bus going eastward down Piccadilly. I was on my way to the +office, and I had found Monty with a finished drawing which he also was +taking to Fleet Street. He looked away over the Green Park. + +"Well, I'm not perfectly sure I'm right, of course," he replied, turning +to me again. "In fact, I might be miles out--right off the map. But I +_did_ see him on the roof that morning, you know, and I've been trying +to piece it all together again, and I must say it fits in pretty well." + +"What fits in, and with what?" + +He dropped his voice. "Well, you see, this fellow Smith waved his hand +the way I told you--like this----" On the bus top he made that same +aimless and wavering movement of his hand that I had seen him make in +Esdaile's studio, that I had seen Mr. Harry Westbury make in the Chelsea +public-house. "I think now he wanted the pistol back again, but of +course I didn't give it him." + +"What did he want it for?" + +"Might have wanted to shoot himself," Monty replied. + +I pondered deeply, my eyes on the passing façade of the Ritz. Certainly +Monty, as the first on the scene that morning that now seemed such ages +ago, had the right to collate his original observations with anything he +might subsequently have learned, and the resulting conclusion would +probably be a strong one. But that Chummy had possibly wished to shoot +himself was no explanation of why he had shot Maxwell. Indeed, another +explanation was far more probable. Having realized that he had in fact +shot him he might merely have wished to take the shortest way out +himself, and I drew Monty's attention to this. + +"I'm coming to that," Monty answered. "You see this fellow Wetherhead is +a jolly interesting chap. You remember the July push on the Somme? Well, +he was in that--Bristol Fighter--and then he went up the line to Wipers. +He told me that one time when they were in Pop--Poperinghe that is, you +know, and we'd a lot of heavy guns there----" (but I think I may safely +omit the rather lengthy second-hand recital of Wetherhead's movements +and experiences). "Extraordinary yarns he has to tell. Did you know that +a first-class pilot can drive another one down with the wash of his +propeller? He can, Wetherhead says. He gets above him, and maneuvers for +position, and then--I forget exactly how Wetherhead put it, but he +showed me with a couple of models they have there----" + +"Yes, yes, but you were going to say----" + +"So I was; I know I'm rambling a bit, but it's awfully interesting, and +you must meet Wetherhead. Well, when he was with the infantry (Northwold +Fusiliers) he says quite a number of their fellows used to carry little +doses of poison about with them, just in case. He'd heard awful yarns of +the way some of these Boches used to treat their prisoners. So they had +this poison to be ready for anything, like Whitaker Wright with his +cigar." + +"Monty, if you don't come to the point----" + +"Why, I'm there now; don't have a vertical gust, old thing. Well, just +in the same way Wetherhead says some of these pilots and their observers +had an arrangement that if one of them got it in the neck the other one +was to finish the job for him. And the other way round, of course. He +and his observer--he's going to introduce me to him--they had it all +fixed up, but luckily it never came to that. So it's not impossible that +these two fellows were like that. What do you think? It fits in with my +end all right, and you've been down there and seen Smith. What about +you? I'm inclined to have a bit on it myself." + +_A bit on it!_ ... A bit! Instantly I would have had all I possessed on +it. Our bus was standing at the Circus end of Lower Regent Street when +Monty at last came out with it, but it had reached Waterloo Place before +I next became conscious of my physical surroundings. A bit on it!... +Look at Monty as I have tried to describe him to you. An unworldly and +lovable and gentle sort of donkey he was in some ways; now that he had +finished with his dummy trees and linoleum infantry he was apparently +beginning to learn a little about other aspects of the war; and +Wetherhead (whoever he was--already Monty had so crammed him down my +throat that I was resolved to put the width of England between us rather +than meet him) suddenly stood for the whole of the Air Force to him. But +behind all his sweet credulity Monty was no fool. He was aware of his +ground. He _had_ been the first on the roof that morning. He _was_ in +the last event capable of putting two and two together and of scoring a +bull. Do you know these flashes of the absolute and unalterable +rightness of a thing? One of them blinded Saul of Tarsus on the road to +Damascus; something of the same kind blinded me for the whole length of +Lower Regent Street. I had no longer one single shadow of doubt. Nay, I +had a certitude that even Monty didn't share. _He_ "wasn't perfectly +sure." But _I_----! + +For what else could it have been? What else in the whole realm of man's +created spirit? For what other reason could Esdaile, up to then wavering +and swayed by doubts, have visited the hospital where Smith lay, have +been back in his own home again within half an hour, and then have +straightway borne his exonerated friend off into the midst of his +family? Why, from that moment, had he immediately set about to get his +own half-confidences to the rest of us back into his possession again? +Why, at Santon, had my own questions been met with a silencing stare? Of +all the things conceivable to have been told, could Smith have told him +anything but this? + +And Smith's own demeanor on that uplifted Yorkshire headland? Was +not that too explained? I thought it was, and could only +marvel--marvel--that not as much as the smell of the fire had passed +upon him. That white and welding heat of war had not merely made his +pact with Maxwell a thing to be honored in the last emergency without a +further moment's thought, but it admitted no sigh nor compunction nor +regret afterwards. Compunction? Sigh? Regret? For what? It had had to be +done, and it had been done. As gladly would he have accompanied his +friend's spirit on that last flight of all, but, that denied him, +unsorrowing he remained behind, ground-officer henceforward to an angel. +What more than this is death to those who for four years have been +crucified all the day long? What else is life, their own life or that +other-own their friend's, when it is held at this instant readiness? The +coil about it all is not for them, but for us, who peer about for +bullets and cartridge-cases and holes in the floor. Chummy's every +breath would not have been his absolution had he _not_ laughed with +Esdaile's children and, with Joan perched on the carrier behind him, +cheerfully fouled the Santon roads with the stench of his exhaust. He +had _no_ burden to assume. He had, on the contrary, an urgent task to +carry on. And in the carrying-on of it he knitted his uncomprehending +brows over Maxwell's _Transactions_ and _Proceedings_ and carried a dead +man's portrait on his wrist. + + + + + III + + +Instead of going straight to the office that morning I waited in some +ante-room or other while Monty took in his drawing. Somebody else +waiting there, who may or may not have known me, observed that it was a +fine morning, but I am not sure that I replied. I was in no mood for +exchanging casual remarks about the weather. + +For while I still marveled--and I need hardly say rejoiced--admiration +and joy must wait for the present. It might be some little time before I +saw Monty again (he had told me he was making business calls during a +great part of the day and working until late into the night), and +another point had struck me. This was his new confidence that it would +presently be "all right" between himself and Audrey Cunningham. I had +had a glimpse, if not yet the full revelation, of where Smith stood; but +I did not yet clearly see how this affected Mrs. Cunningham. Yet in +Monty's mind a connection obviously existed. He came out of the editor's +den again, folding up the brown paper that had enwrapped his drawing and +putting it carefully into his pocket. + +"Brown paper's scarce," he said. "I've used this piece four times +already. And I undo all the knots in my string too. Well, which way are +you going?" + +We left the office and, barely a hundred yards away, turned into the +Temple. Presently he resumed our previous conversation by asking me what +I thought of his guess; and I told him. I told him also my difficulty +about what his own engagement had to do with this. + +"Do with it?" he repeated as we began to pace backward and forward along +King's Bench Walk. "It's a good deal to do with it--if that about +Smith's right, of course. You see, you hardly know Dawdy. She thinks you +don't like her very much----" + +"Then I hope you'll take the first opportunity----" I began hurriedly, +but he waved his hand. + +"Oh, don't you worry about it. I don't suppose she means it. And whether +she does or not it seems to me this is exactly where I come in." + +"Then you see more than I do," I remarked. + +"Don't you? I mean her taking sudden fancies of that kind. I'm not +superstitious myself--silly I call it--but she's a mass of it. +Theatrical people are, I've heard, and anyway she is. I think that beast +Cunningham started her off. When she used to sit up at night waiting for +him to come home she used to do all sorts of stupid things--sit there +counting slowly, and if he didn't come before she counted a hundred he +wouldn't come at all--counting the taxis that passed too--watching the +clock--beastly. Filthy time she had. I hope I'm somewhere near that +brute at the Resurrection." + +Presently he swallowed his anger and continued. + +"Well, about when Philip offered us that studio, that accident happened, +and everything was at sixes and sevens. Philip began it, stopping all +that time in the cellar and behaving like a lunatic when he did come up. +What his game was--well, you can search me. So first Philip starts +playing the goat, and then there was all that fuss about Mrs. Esdaile +going away, and Philip staying on day after day, always saying he was +going and everything was perfectly all right but never budging an inch, +mind you. Well, it began to get on Dawdy's nerves. And I began to catch +it too. She said _I'd_ something up my sleeve as well, and of course I +had, about that pistol. And then there was that time when we took her +wardrobe down into the cellar." + +"Yes, tell me about that." + +"Absolutely nothing to tell. That's all Dawdy's fancy too. If there'd +been anything funny he wouldn't have left the key in the door, would +he?" + +"He took it out afterwards." + +"It was there for some days anyway. In fact, I took another box of +Dawdy's down, but I came straight up again. You're all wrong about that +cellar." + +"Hubbard doesn't think so." + +"What does he say?" + +"He doesn't actually say anything; he doesn't know; but he wouldn't be +surprised if it turned out Philip had some sort of a portable +installation down there. But don't take this from me. I know nothing +about these things." + +"Wetherhead knows about them," Monty mused.... + +"Go on about Mrs. Cunningham." + +"Well, as I tell you, it got on her nerves. She began to say she was fed +up with men and silly things like that. Didn't want to get married at +all; wanted to go and live with some girl. And then one day----" + +But here he suddenly stopped, and for a reason I could easily guess. +Undoubtedly at this point she had made independent investigations, which +Monty either knew or suspected and didn't want to talk about. His +hesitation over, he continued. + +"Well, so it dragged on, until one evening I met her after rehearsal, +and that was the finish. Absolutely done in she was; ten hours that day +and nothing but a bun and a glass of milk. Of course, I saw she was all +tuckered up, and I didn't want to take much notice of what she +said--just gave her something to eat and tried to calm her down. But it +was no good. When I called at Oakley Street the next morning she'd +gone--gone to stop with this other girl; and in a week the Company was +off." + +In spite of Mollie's injunction I ventured to ask a question. + +"Did she return the ring you gave her?" + +"No, and that's one of the reasons why I think it might be all right +yet. But the chief reason's this. She's got it into her head that it all +started with that crash. Superstition, but there was no arguing with +her. Well, suppose I'm right in what I told you, and Smith didn't really +shoot that chap at all--didn't shoot him in the way we thought at first, +I mean. It would be just like Dawdy to say that took the bad luck all +off. She's always either up or down, poor darling. A rotten life she's +had." + +I nodded, remembering Mollie's words: "She _would_ be just the woman to +take a hint of that kind." Although Monty didn't know it, Audrey _had_ +lost her ring, _would_ regard the loss as an omen, and the loss had +probably taken place shortly before Monty had met her at the stage-door. + +It _did_ seem to follow, even as Monty said, that with the removal of +the whole Case out of the regions of ordinary crime, there might be an +end also of the nightmare shadows that had oppressed Audrey Cunningham's +soul. + + + + + IV + + +This record has already taken so many turns and windings, anticipations +and doublings back upon itself, that I cannot see that one more +excursion will either make or mar it. Many pages ago I wrote that the +Case _was_ a Case, complete, self-contained, and independent of the +larger issues and forces in which it is nevertheless paradoxically +rooted and involved. And though the Case as an entity is approaching its +close, the outside influences continue. The _Scepter_ decision, for +example, is being appealed against, and Mackwith tells me that there is +every likelihood that it will end up in the Lords. The Press, from which +I shall shortly retire, seems to be attaining something like a real +policy with regard to the matters of which I have spoken, and, +encouraged by certain signs of Ministerial yielding, has taken still +better heart. Cairo to the Cape has for the present failed, and Charles +Valentine Smith did not succeed in becoming a member of that gallant +Expedition; but other great projects are in meditation, and this very +day the announcement is made of an impending flight round the world +itself, for which Cooks and Ansons and Drakes and Dampiers of little +more than half my age will eagerly flock to enter. The gloomy +forebodings of Hills, my fellow-clubman, that attack and defense will +presently become a matter of black typhus cultures do not at present +seem likely to be fulfilled, not altogether for the reasons publicly +given, but for quite other ones; but the chances are that he is right +about gas, and that one day we may have to carry fans and +box-respirators as we now carry umbrellas. What must come must come, +even as it came to our fathers before us, and we, like they, can only do +the duty of our day. The rest is out of our hands, and it is impotence +and vanity even to dream too far ahead. So to our immediate business, of +which my own present portion is the final putting to bed of our Case. +With the permission of Philip Esdaile, A.R.A., and the others, I bid you +to yet another breakfast. This time it is a wedding breakfast, and a +double one. Hardly an hour ago Joan Merrow, spinster, became Mrs. +Charles Valentine Smith, and Audrey Cunningham (_née_ Herbert) Mrs. +Montagu Rooke. Joan was married at Holy Trinity, Sloane Street, and +wears her full bridal attire; but Audrey Rooke wears the gray costume +and the black satin hat (that sticks out on each side of her head like +the serifs of a capital "I") in which she walked from the Registry +Office. And there is present the same party, with the addition of +Chummy, with which this story opened. + + + + + V + + +Again the breakfast recess was full of charming light. About the walls +the love-making butterflies danced when carafes were moved, and only the +flowers on the table were different--for it was early in a halcyon +autumn, and the mulberry outside had already begun to turn. The faces of +the Esdailes and the Rookes were enviably brown, for Monty and Audrey +had spent three weeks at Santon and the whole party had returned +together; and Joan, who knows perfectly well that I adore her, had very +simply and sweetly come over to my side of the table and linked her +hands for a moment round my arm. Then, after a warm little pressure, she +had returned to Chummy again, who had risen. He was staying at an hotel +in Gloucester Road, must get out of his wedding garments, and would then +return to take Joan away. + +"Don't change your mind and not come back," Joan called after him; and +he waved his hand from the door and was off. + +"What about Joan? Isn't it time she was changing too?" Philip hinted. + +Mollie gave him a sidelong look. It was understood that Philip was +willing at last to explain himself, and that look was Mollie's comment +on the situation. Mingled with its fondness were faint pity, irony, +wonder at us. It said, as plainly as need be, "That tiresome business +all over again! What a sex!" + +But all she openly said was, "Come along then, Joan--you too, +Audrey--never let it be said we aren't properly submissive----" + +And they too departed. + +Instantly Cecil Hubbard swung round his chair to face Philip. Philip +gave a backward glance through the French windows. He seemed to derive +some reassurance from the sunlight that made vivid the garden outside. + +"Well...?" + +"Well...." + +The words came simultaneously from the two men. As for the rest of us, +we were content for the present to let Cecil Hubbard make the running. + + + + + VI + + +"Well, you know what the first question is," said Hubbard. + +"Let's have it," Philip replied. "Better not take anything for granted." + +"Very well. About that other morning. What were you doing down below all +that time?" + +"Moving furniture," Philip replied. + +"Moving ... what for?" + +"I'll show you that presently." + +"Good.... Next, when you did come up again, what made you march straight +up to Rooke in the way you did?" + +"Because he had that pistol in his pocket." + +"How did you know he had a pistol in his pocket?" + +"Because I saw him put it there." + +"Because--you say you saw----?" + +"I saw everything--practically everything that happened." + +The blue eyes stared. "How ... but you say you're going to show us. +What's the next? Ah yes--After you'd fooled about with that candle and +liqueur-jar you went into the studio and we followed you. You hadn't +even put the candle out; I had to take it from you if you remember. +Well, the next thing you did was to tell us you were going to tell us +all about it. But you never did." + +"Steady on, Cecil--that wasn't the next thing I did." + +"What was, then?" + +"I drew the studio blinds." + +Hubbard nodded. "So you did. The police were getting those chaps down. I +remember." + +"That wasn't my reason." + +"Then what was?" + +"Well, I'll show you that too presently. But let me make something else +clear first. I was all excited and upset, and really didn't know half I +was doing. I'd just seen that crash, remember, and one man shoot +another, and then another fellow altogether slide his hand out and pouch +the pistol. It was rather much to spring on a fellow without any warning +at all. I'd simply gone down to get something to drink, you know, not +to----" He failed to find words for it, and motioned to Hubbard to +continue. + +"Next," Hubbard went on, "you packed your wife and children off but +refused to go away yourself." + +"Naturally. When you get a downright facer like that you want to see it +through." + +"And when Rooke here wanted to sweep up the studio you told him not to." + +"I did. And not to go into the cellar either." + +"But he went into the cellar later?" + +"Later--yes. The blinds were drawn then." + +"Then are people only to go into the cellar when the blinds are drawn?" + +"Oh no, not necessarily. A rug--or a bit of paper or a halfpenny--would +do just as well." + +Here Hubbard seemed suddenly to give it up. He leaned back in his chair. +"Here, somebody else carry on for a bit," he puffed, almost as if he had +been running; and instantly I took up the catechism. + +"Of course, you mean the hole in the studio floor?" I challenged. + +"That's it," said Philip, smiling. "So you discovered that, did you?" + +"It had been discovered long before I discovered it," I said. + +This time it was Philip's turn to stare. "By whom?" he asked quickly. + +"Rooke's here. Ask him to ask his wife." + +"Dawdy!" Monty ejaculated, wide-eyed. + +"I imagine so. At any rate you might ask her." + +"Good--Lord!" said Monty, puffing as the Commander had puffed. + +"And," I continued to Philip, "I don't think the blinds were drawn then. +The key was in the cellar door too." + +"The devil!" Philip breathed softly. "I didn't bargain for that! It did +occur to me, of course, but I chanced it--never dreamed--I had to do +something, and it seemed safest to be perfectly open...." And then +suddenly he gave an awkward little laugh and met my eyes. "Well, +evidently you know all about it?" + +"Indeed I do not." + +"What, you're as warm as all that and can't guess the rest!" + +I frowned, a little annoyed. It is a little annoying to be told that +something is under your nose that you don't see. + +"As for that bullet-hole in the roof----" I hazarded. + +"Bullet-hole in the roof? There never was a bullet-hole in the roof. The +branch did that. Westbury had the bullet all right. By the way, I saw +him last Sunday morning. Going great guns. He'll end up as our first +Bolshevist Premier. Quite the biggest crowd in the Park." + +Here Monty chuckled. It was he who had first discovered the final effect +of the Case on the House and Estate Agent. He had come upon him one +Sunday morning in the space just within the Marble Arch, standing on a +box and holding forth passionately on social inequalities and equal +opportunities for all. I am afraid he had never got over the unconscious +trouncing Billy Mackwith had administered on that coroner's jury, and +the collapse of his righteous cause, ending in Inspector Webster's +refusal to have him hanging about the Police Station any longer, had +completely upset his mental balance. He declaims from his box until the +opening-time of the public-houses, and then adjourns, box and all, to +the establishment near the Marble Arch Tube Station. Here he is as well +known as he formerly was in the King's Road; but whether he has his +private billiard cue there I do not know. + +"Well, I give it up, Philip," I yielded at last. "I claim my single +point, though--that it was news to you that Mrs. Rooke knew." + +Philip rose. + +"Then come along," he said. "We must get it over before Chummy comes +back. Light the candle, somebody." + +He led the way to the cellar door. + + + + + VII + + +"Why, you've changed it all!" was Monty Rooke's first exclamation as +Philip stood there with the candle held at arm's-length. + +As for myself, I was looking round the dark, clammy place with a +positive passion of curiosity. That it had been rearranged I knew at +once from Monty's former description of it. The dust-sheeted furniture +and packing-cases had been pushed back against the walls, leaving the +middle of the floor clear, and once more the candlelight barely +penetrated into the gloomy recesses. It showed Philip's face, too, +serious, but not to the complete exclusion of a certain quiet +satisfaction and triumph. And in Hubbard's sailor eyes I fancied I +already saw the dawning of comprehension. + +"No I haven't--that is, I've only changed it back again as it was," +Philip replied. "I told you I'd been moving furniture that morning.... +Well, do you want to lose a bet, Cecil?" + +Hubbard spoke oddly quietly. "No. I'll win one," he said. + +"Ah! Then you're barred.... Take this, somebody, and you fellows wait +here. I shall be back in a minute." + +He thrust into my hand the candle, which he instantly blew out, leaving +us in sudden and pitchy darkness. + +I confess to a light creeping of the skin of my face. This may have been +due to the chill, clammy air, to my stimulated imagination, or to both. +Nobody spoke, and so still were the others that I had no difficulty in +doing what in fact I was already doing--putting myself months back, +alone down there, as Esdaile had been alone when he had descended for +the jar of orange curaçao that morning. I seemed to myself to be +standing there waiting for a sound of splintering glass, the muffled +thud of two falling bodies, the faint murmur of half Chelsea running out +of doors. I was conscious that the candle shook in my hand, and suddenly +I wanted to relight it. I am not sure that my fingers did not go to my +pocket for a match. + +But it was another light that irradiated us as we stood waiting there--a +soft bright cone that all at once spread down from the ceiling above. Up +went my startled eyes as if at some trick of thaumaturgy, some +imposition on my credulity. Down as if through a funnel streamed that +circular shower of pale brightness, outfanning from its small +orifice--the hole in the floor. + +The hole in the floor! It was that to which my thoughts, following that +instinctive movement of my eyes, turned like a flash. The hole in the +floor! With my body still in the cellar, I seemed in some transcendental +way to be upstairs at the same time, stooping over that hole as Audrey +Cunningham had stooped before me. We seemed to be stooping inherently +together, yet at the same time independently, so that, I was able to +watch her. I saw her in my imagination pallid and hysterical, putting +forth one honeysuckle finger half-way to the hole, and then, seized by a +wild and baseless urge to put some torturing fancy to the test, changing +her mind and putting forth another finger--the finger that bore her +engagement-ring. + +"_If he does not come before I count a hundred he will not come at +all...._" + +"_If I thrust in that finger and anything happens I shall know what to +do...._" + +And then her cry as the ring jammed and the finger was withdrawn without +it. + +But understand that all this did not take a moment, and that I was still +down in the cellar, looking up at that hypnotizing cone of white light. + +The glimpse suddenly vanished, and I heard Esdaile's voice. I had not +heard him come down. + +"Stand back a bit," he said, his hand on my sleeve. + +Then it was that my eyes fell on the floor. + + + + + VIII + + +On the floor? Rather on the roof itself, for, spread out over the floor, +was a perfect image of that glazed studio roof high above us. The +divisions between the panes were marvelously penciled there, and about +one of them, though not the one I had expected, the browning branches of +the mulberry crept and played. Something darted across and was gone--a +bird. + +And it was too late to bet now, for the book was closed. By merely +seeing that the roof-blinds were open, and then pushing away a rug with +his foot, Philip had confounded us all. Again I hardly heard his words: +"House simply a big pinhole camera, you see...." Once more I was seeing +what he had seen that morning so many months ago. + +His mild astonishment at witnessing that phenomenon for the first time +(for it was the first time)-- + +His interested realization of the cause of it as he had stood there with +the bottle of liqueur in his hand---- + +And then the half-heard shock and the light tremor of the house and the +whole astonishing scene instantly enacted before his eyes! + +But I had little time to marvel anew. He was speaking. + +"... so down they came, not at this end, but over there, in reverse, you +know. And of course I'd no idea then it was Chummy; didn't learn that +till the afternoon; I simply saw him point that pistol at the other man, +who crumpled up. That was a shock, you understand, but you could have +knocked me down with a feather when I saw another shape crawl across and +pick the pistol up!... Eh? Oh, with the light above they were +silhouettes more or less; we'll send somebody up and try if you like; +but I knew it was Monty the moment I came upstairs and saw him." + +"And then---?" + +"I'm afraid I can't give you any very clear account of it. Time didn't +seem to exist, if you know what I mean. But I know that all of a sudden +I was moving furniture about, to break up that beastly picture, a bit on +a box top and another bit on a sofa-end and so on. It didn't seem quite +decent, somehow, all spread out dead flat like that. But I don't wonder +you fellows were puzzled." + +"But," said Mackwith presently, as we still stood looking at that +moonlike radiance spread across the floor, "why couldn't you tell us all +this sooner?" + +"What for?" Philip retorted. "It didn't take me long to realize that I'd +told you a dashed sight too much as it was! I had to have it out with +Monty and Chummy, of course; but the less said after that the better. +Suppose it _had_ been a common Murder Case. I saw it, and could have +hanged a man straight away with a word. You didn't, so why fill you up +with a lot of hearsay? Don't you think I was right?" + +"Hush! Listen!" + +It was the tinkling of the street door bell. Chummy Smith was back +already. + + + + + IX + + +He had a taxi waiting, and the driver was getting the boxes on as we +reached the annexe again. Philip carried in his hand the jar of orange +curaçao. + +"Get the liqueur-glasses out, Monty," he said, and the words sounded +remotely familiar. + +"Where are my darling babies?" Joan cried, darting out into the garden +where the Esdaile boys played beneath the mulberry. Philip and Mollie +had decided that the best and cheapest thing to do with them was to pack +them off to a preparatory school, and for a month past Joan had been +impressing on them the dignity of this promotion. + +As Philip busied himself with the jar of curaçao I found myself by +Audrey Rooke's side. It was a little on my mind that she had the +impression I didn't like her. Very charming and graceful indeed she +looked in her filmy black tulle, and the hat with the little jutting-out +serifs admirably suited her. The ring that I had prised out of the hole +in the floor with a screwdriver was on her finger again, above her +wedding-ring. + +"May I say how sincerely glad I am this has all ended so happily?" I +said in a low voice. + +She lifted the large dark eyes to mine, and I fancied I saw a grateful +look in them. + +"Thank you," she said; and added, "Mollie told me what your share in it +was." + +"The merest fluke," I said. + +"But you were quick to understand," she replied; and we let it go at +that. + +"Got those glasses, Monty?" Philip called. "Fetch Joan in, Mollie--there +isn't much time----" + +We pressed about the tray of glasses filled with the pale liquid gold. + +"Well--extraordinary good luck, everybody----" + +"Here's how----" + +"Cheerioh----" + +"God bless," said Chummy, with a little jerk of his glass aloft. "No, +Alan, liqueurs are not for little boys--not till after their first +term----" + +"The best of luck, Mrs. Rooke----" + +The glasses were set down again, and we bustled into the little hall. + +"Gear all aboard?" + +"Right--so long, Mollie, and ever so many thanks----" + +"Good-by, darling----" + +"Good-by, Commander----" + +"With your permission, Chummy----" + +"Here, I say, let them get off--they'll miss their train----" + +We flocked down the path after them, and Philip closed the taxi door. + +"Paddington," he said. + +Waving hands, handkerchiefs, blown kisses; and the taxi glided away. As +it did so it showed a tall figure in police uniform who had been +standing behind it. + +"Good morning, Inspector," said Philip. + +Inspector Webster gravely saluted. + + + PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 43063 *** |