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diff --git a/43063.txt b/43063.txt deleted file mode 100644 index ad4cbec..0000000 --- a/43063.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,9978 +0,0 @@ -The Project Gutenberg eBook, A Case in Camera, by Oliver Onions - - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with -almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or -re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included -with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org - - - - - -Title: A Case in Camera - - -Author: Oliver Onions - - - -Release Date: June 29, 2013 [eBook #43063] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII) - - -***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A CASE IN CAMERA*** - - -E-text prepared by Caitlin Hesser, Suzanne Shell, and the Online -Distributed Proofreading Team (http://www.pgdp.net) from page images -generously made available by the Google Books Library Project -(http://books.google.com) - - - -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 -_fetes-champetre_. 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 curacao, 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 curacao, 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 curacao. 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 curacao 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 curacao 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 proteges 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 curacao -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 _fetes-champetre_. - - - - - 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 fiancee -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 fiancee; and this it was that saved the situation. If Monty was to -be ordered to keep his mouth shut before his fiancee 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 curacao. - -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 curacao, 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 curacao -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 curacao 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 metier_, 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 role 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 -cliches 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 -_eclaircissement_ 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 a 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 cooperation 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 curacao 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 L70, but you could go up to L75 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 _grossierete_. 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 L10,000, 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, _reveuse_. 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 -_tete-a-tete_, 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 _meme_." - -"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 facade 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 (_nee_ 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 curacao 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 -curacao. - -"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 curacao 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 A CASE IN CAMERA*** - - -******* This file should be named 43063.txt or 43063.zip ******* - - -This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: -http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/4/3/0/6/43063 - - - -Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions -will be renamed. - -Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no -one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation -(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without -permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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