Strictly speaking, it is not on the Santon headland that Charles Valentine ("Chummy") Smith ought to make his first appearance in this story; but it was there that I myself first saw him, and I want to give you my impression of him as I received it, if at the cost of taking a slight liberty with time. So I first set these eyes on him during a month I spent with the Esdailes somewhat later in that year.
I may say to begin with that he would probably have passed unnoticed among the innumerable other young men of to-day who at one time looked just a little civilian in their new uniforms but now wear their mufti again with a subtle but unmistakable difference. You know the young men I mean—they still speak of distances in kilometers, can talk for hours on end about motor-bicycles, and sprinkle their conversation with the jargon of ragtime French they are proud to share with their own privates and sappers and bombardiers. A year or so ago you went into a restaurant that was brown as a beechwood with khaki; you go there to-day and the khaki is gone—yet still hauntingly and mysteriously there, edging (as it were) the mufti with a faint rim like a color-print a little out of register. The ghost of khaki still clings about faces, movements, speech, the glances of eyes. Or if it isn't khaki it is the navy-and-gold, or Charles Valentine ("Chummy") Smith's unbelted sky-blue with the black cap-band.
He and Joan (in this little peep ahead which I am taking) were waiting for me on the platform of Santon Station. It was a week or so before the Company's Inter-Station Flower Competition—that annual Show that makes the whole line with its tiny stations as gay with flowers as a row of Thames houseboats. Geraniums and marguerites hung in boxes from the canopies; the sills of the porters' room were a rage of bloom; and lobelia and red bachelor's-buttons and white pebbles from the shore were set in patriotic emblems all the way from the booking-office to the signal-box, which alone was bare. As the train drew up I saw them standing together on the sunny platform, with a bower of ramblers over their heads and a heaven of larkspur behind them.
Charles Valentine Smith was for taking my two bags to the trap that waited at the level crossing, but peremptorily Joan pushed him away and called a porter. The presence of the trap did not mean that Chummy could not walk yet, for with the help of a stick he got about quite well, though the cliff-path down to the shore was still too much for him. And I may here mention, quite incidentally, the rôle I was apparently cast for in advance. "Auntie Joan" was supposed to take the children down to the shore every day. Charles Valentine Smith could not yet manage the shore climb. This necessarily meant a temporary separation. Two days laterIwas 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 helikesthat 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.
I repeat, at a first glance he was very like the rest of the young fellows of his day; but I admit there was something about him that grew on you. After watching him for a while I decided that this ascendancy was principally in his eyes. I do not wish to overwork the popular clichés of fire and flash and smolder; Smith's eyes certainly had something of this quality; but it was combined with an expression that, until I can define it better, I will risk calling discontent. I don't mean by this the discontent that is common enough among those other flashers and smolderers, the artists and poets and suchlike. That is usually little more than peevishness and incapacity, and, as one of the breed myself, I rather liked Smith's attitude towards us. With perfect sincerity he looked on us as immensely clever fellows, particularly the late Mr. Jack London and the author ofThe 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 useof 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.
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 powerand 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 hiséclaircissementwith 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 knowsIknow. 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 atfirst hand. I dare say that grim mutterings à la Specter of Hangman Hollow would have bored me, writhings and agonies made me uncomfortable; but this new view of murder I found full of pleasing interest. And the whole of the interest lay in seeing, hearing and asking no questions. Philip was "there painting," I on a holiday. Very well. I was content.
And, in case you have any preconceived notions about the daily trifling routine of murderers' lives, I can only wish you had been at Santon with me at that time. As far as I could see, not a cloud marred the blue heaven of these young people's days. They disappeared as soon as breakfast was cleared away and returned when they returned. I don't for a moment suppose that the intervening hours were spent in the contemplation of death, judgment or the burden of undivulged crime. Chummy enjoyed his pipe, and, as he sat at high tea, idolized by the Esdaile boys because he flew, ate as heartily as ever in his pre-murder days. If his crash on the Lennox Street roof was not mentioned, that seemed to be only because everything had ended perfectly happily and there was nothing more to be said about it. In fact, here is a bit of conversation, taken almost at random, just to show you the way to be entirely happy is to shoot somebody and say nothing to your best girl about it.
Coming down to breakfast one morning I thought it my duty to administer a sharp rebuke to Miss Merrow about the throwing of a handful of hen-corn into my window in order (she said) to wake me.
"I had been up ten minutes, I had shaved, and was more than half dressed," I said sternly. "I'll tell you what you are doing; you are trying to train those hens to comeintomy room by throwing corn in. I havenow 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 theopportunity for studying the blood-stained path of their dalliance against a fresh background.
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 pronouncedthe 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 littlebirds in their nests—it's dangerous to fall out," Hanson replied. "What'stoall this?"
"The position's this. They happened to crash on the roof of a friend of mine and this fellow Smith's. Smith's still in hospital, and neither my friend nor I knew Maxwell. So I want you to tell me about him—anything you know about the pair of them."
"Right you are...."
But if it was evidence of ill-feeling between the two men I was after he could give me none. Indeed, the probabilities were all the other way. In other Services the bond between man and man is strict, but there is still room for preferences and aversions. Your mess, for example, is yours, and you are filled with a jealous pride if an outsider has anything to say about it; but within its circle you pick and choose your friends. The ward-room forces you into the closest physical contacts, but you can still please yourself about the other intimacies. Even in a submarine, where the death of one is likely to be the death of all, you may yet like one man more than another. But two men in an aeroplane are twins in a womb. The very pulse of one must be the pulse of both, their senses, glances, thoughts, such a unison of coöperation as the former world never saw. For one to harm the other is not assault, but semi-suicide. Rarely need you even "look for the woman." Gloriana both serve, but they hardly quarrel about lesser mistresses.
Yet is it not possible that this extraordinary attachment, this association somewhat in excess of that of natural and aeroplaneless man, may by its very nature have its own reactions? The closer the tie the bitterer the quarrel when it does come. And here an artificial element is superadded. For, in spite of Joan, whothought 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 forany 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.
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 andwhite 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 mustpresently 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.
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 combinationmeal 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 preferableto 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 theEra. 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, Esdailetoo. 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. Wouldyouhave 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.
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 thehospital 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, shouldhave 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 thinkthings 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 admittedshe'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.
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 theDaily Circusit intruded between me and the work I ought to have been getting on with.Little fleeting pictures began to interpose themselves. Sometimes I would find myself looking fixedly at a galley-slip or a page still damp from the proving-press and seeing, not the thing in my hand, but Joan Merrow running in with the children from the garden again; at home my page of manuscript would blur and there in a doorway Philip Esdaile would stand, his eyes dancing with a stilly excitement, the curaçao and the candle once more in his hands. And this, in my curious trade, is a serious matter. Out of precisely these insubstantialities I have to contrive to pay my rent and income-tax and to provide my bread-and-butter. I will not go so far as to say that I dreamed of the Case at night, but it began to play the dickens with my work. Unable to settle down to it, I found the Park drawing me instead, and even in the afternoons, which in ordinary commercial honesty were not my time at all, I began to put in the briefest and most perfunctory appearances at the office. I contented myself with the appearance of busyness, and wondered how long it would be before my chief caught me out.
In this frame of mind I happened one afternoon, by the merest chance, to run across Cecil Hubbard. I had dropped into a Technical and Scientific Exhibition of some sort, and I had thought I had seen Hubbard's white-topped cap and foursquare back in the downstairs rooms, but had lost them again. It was upstairs, a quarter of an hour later, that I found him.
He was watching another man, evidently an attendant or official of the Exhibition, who wore a double telephone-receiver about his ears and was slowly turning the handle of an instrument that at a first glance resembled an overgrown typewriter. Hubbard was peering into the mechanism. Then, at the invitationof 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 theCircus, 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 theCommander'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 didtheydo? 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 runningand 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 theDaily 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."
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 therearethese 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.
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 thekindestperson 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."
"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 thekindestperson I know. If you're too busy of course you'll say so straight out, but what I want first of all is for you to get me the addresses of a few nice small houses or convenient flats."
In course of time I had recovered my breath. This, remember, was in 1919. It was not the Crown Jewels her ladyship wanted, merely "a nice small house"; not the sun, moon and stars, only "a convenient flat." I think my nerves might be spared shocks of this kind at my time of life.
"Of course, I know rents have gone up," she continued, "but Chummy thinks there ought to be plenty of quite nice little places for about £70, but you could go up to £75 for a really nice house with a garden, rates and taxes included, of course. There are some sweet little houses right on the edge of the Heath at Hampstead with trees all round them and dear little brass knockers on the doors, but I don't know if any of those are empty, but you might ask."
"Of course, I know rents have gone up," she continued, "but Chummy thinks there ought to be plenty of quite nice little places for about £70, but you could go up to £75 for a really nice house with a garden, rates and taxes included, of course. There are some sweet little houses right on the edge of the Heath at Hampstead with trees all round them and dear little brass knockers on the doors, but I don't know if any of those are empty, but you might ask."
I seemed to remember those sweet little houses. If I am right, your father puts his name down for one ofthem 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 theremustbe 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."
"There wouldn't have to be any premium, and theremustbe 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."
"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."
"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.