by Bruce, Leo
“When I first got that letter from Albert I thought to myself, ‘well, that’s funny.’ Not because I thought there was going to be a murder, but because anyone should have said there was. And anyway, I thought, it would make a nice holiday. I mean, since I’ve retired from regular duties, I’ve often wanted to see a bit of the world, and here was my chance …”
“So you allowed me,” I broke in furiously, “to give up all other work, and the chance of finding a detective who would be taken seriously, to come up and indulge your taste for a holiday.”
“Taken seriously?” said Beef. “What do you mean?”
“Well, you know what the Church Times said,” I argued hotly. “ ‘To take the egregious Beef seriously has already become impossible. He is a figure of fun. We cannot swallow your Beef.’ “
Beef leaned back in his chair and looked at me fixedly for a moment. “Do you suppose,” he said with a blundering attempt at sarcasm, “that I have any wish to be swallowed by the Church Times? You know very well how I feel about parsons.”
I waved this nonsense aside impatiently. “The fact remains,” I said, “that you are a laughing stock in the world of detection, and that before we started on this business I had my eye on a young lady school-teacher in Murston who, I have been told, solves every interesting crime by an algebraic process which she works out during her scripture classes. She would, I believe, have made an excellent investigator for me to chronicle, instead of wasting my time running in and out of public-houses after you. Yet you calmly inveigled me into following you to Yorkshire because you wanted a holiday.”
“Well,” explained Beef, “you had a motor-car. I never liked trains, they make me dizzy. But do let’s get back to the point, if you want to hear how I solved this extraordinary riddle.”
“Yes,” I said, “do let’s. I have no doubt that, in your own estimation, you have done a remarkable piece of work. Though all I can see is three wasted weeks, culminating in a most unfortunate accident.”
Beef paused. “If,” he said, “I was to prove conclusively to you that there had been a murder; that I knew there was going to be a murder; that I knew who was going to do it and who was going to be the victim; that I knew why he was going to do it, and how; could you give me a little of the credit which you so readily hand out to all these other brilliant gentlemen?”
I laughed. “If you do all that,” I said, “I’ll admit that you’re a master.”
Beef shook his head sadly. “No,” he said, “you won’t. Not when I tell you. It was perfectly simple, and you had all the evidence I had. It depended on quite plain and obvious things. There was nothing superhuman, nothing complicated, nothing that called for Scotland Yard, theories, fingerprints, or microscopes. I solved it because I’ve got one thing you’ll never have, Townsend; not you nor any of your clever crime-solvers—common sense, my boy. Common sense, a bit of experience, observation, and a habit of putting two and two together have got me where I am today. And they’ve solved this crime, what’s more. Yet when I come to tell you how, you’ll be turning your nose up again. All right. A prophet’s never recognized in his own country. And I don’t suppose if I was to tell you what happened to the Marie Celeste, who killed Cock Robin, the whole truth about Colonel Dreyfus, and where the flies go to in the winter-time, you’d ever realize that I’m more than what you think I am. Still, perhaps some of your readers are more intelligent than what you are, and’ll see that it needed Beef to get at the truth of this. So you may as well write it up.
“Now the first thing I realized when we came up on this circus was that we were dealing with unusual people. All the way through you’ve been laughing at me for learning circus words, and for treating the circus as something apart. Well, it is something apart. I don’t mean as the people in it are monsters, or freaks, or anything like that, but just that they’re a bit different from the sort of people you usually mix with. They couldn’t help it, living the way they do. You could make as many New Year resolutions as you liked and it wouldn’t change you much. But if you changed your way of living … that’s what makes people different. So I knew, directly I decided to come along to the circus, that the people would be something a little different from what I’d been used to. And that’s the first thing I set about finding out. I wanted to know just how much, and what it meant in a case like this. And what I found out was this. Take this language of theirs first. It’s a sort of umbrella, as you might say. Something to shelter under, that’s what it is. It wasn’t so very long ago that people used to look down on circus people, and think they were no better than gypsies or thieves. So, like other people when they’re sneered at by society, they got into a corner out of the way. Or in other words, they worked up this special language of theirs so that no one could understand what they were talking about unless they wanted them to. A sort of retreat, that’s what it is. People in towns didn’t think very much of the circus people, so what’s more natural than that the people in the circus shouldn’t think very much of the rest of us. Tit for tat, you see. They live in a world all their own, and they don’t have too much to do with anybody else if they can help it.
“But when I’d got to understand that, I didn’t think, as you did, that every little bit of jealously and nasty feeling among these people was going to lead to one killing another. But I did see that they were worth watching. Why, I’ve learned more about human nature, watching the people on this show, than I learned in five years traffic-directing in the Force. I’m getting on to fifty, you know, but I’m only just feeling my way when it comes to the human heart. For instance, those clowns.
“Now you noticed Sid Bolton in that fight we had with Bogli’s Circus; vicious he was, as if he owed someone a grudge. Well, in a way, so he did. How would you like to be sat up in a tent for silly folk to laugh at because you was fat? You’d hate them, like Sid Bolton does. But if you came out of the job and went on with your ordinary life after you might forget it, or it might only show every now and again. But Sid Bolton joined the circus, so he goes on not liking people. Like these here agitators you hear so much about, he’s got a grudge against the world. It hasn’t treated him fair, see, so he likes to spit in its face now and again. But that doesn’t mean he’d go about wanting to kill some special man or woman. That’s not what he feels. When he gets people alone he likes them, and when he gets them in a crowd, he doesn’t, and that’s all there is to it.
“With young Clem Gail, it’s much the same. Only he’s got a different reason. Now you went and listened to him when he was with that girl. Did you notice anything peculiar about that?”
“They were very romantic,” I said.
“He didn’t tell her what he really did in the circus,” said Beef with emphasis. “That’s what gave me the key to him. And why didn’t he? Because of his face, that’s why. Because the only time anybody clapped him or said he was good, was when he had that hideous make-up on, and because when he came out of the ring nobody ever recognized him. He’s a well-set-up young chap, is Clem Gail, and it galls him that he lives what you might call two lives. Now I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking about that little game they had in the ring when they all set to slapping each other. But you got that all wrong. In the first place, Clem was a bit drunk, and he was wild with everybody and showed it. And in the second place, he was wild with Cora Frances, and who wouldn’t be? Hanging round him like she hangs round everybody. But you don’t think that because he took a smack at her he wanted to do her in, do you? ’Course he didn’t. Why, if that was true, half the husbands in the world would be under arrest at this minute, and their wives would be coming round to try to get them out. You can’t go suspecting people of wanting to commit a murder just because they show a healthy dislike for somebody what well deserves it.”
“But,” I interrupted, “what about Eric’s enmity for his sister?”
Beef gave a huge guffaw and slapped his thigh. “There you go again,” he said. “Enmity for his sister! I don’t know wher
e you get all these ideas from. Couldn’t you see that he was just like a schoolboy? He was enjoying himself—pulling her leg a bit, like I pull yours sometimes. He has the time of his life, young Eric does. Larking about like a regular kid.”
“All right,” I said irritably, “don’t rub it in. But what about some of the others. Jackson and Daroga for instance? You can’t say there wasn’t something going on between them.”
“Of course there was something going on between them,” retorted Beef quickly, “but it wasn’t what you thought. You got the right idea, but you exaggerated it, like you always do.”
“Do you mean to say that Daroga wasn’t blackmailing Jackson?” I asked in surprise.
“Well, in a way he was, and in another way he wasn’t. I’ll explain it to you,” said Beef. “We’d better start off with that button what I picked up in Jackson’s wagon and what you thought must belong to Daroga. Now you saw for yourself that it wasn’t likely to have been Daroga’s because it had writing on it in Russian, and he’d left Russia when he was quite a tot. But Jackson said it was his—so why shouldn’t it be?”
“And why should Jackson own a Russian button?” I asked.
“Well, there might be any sort of ordinary explanation to that,” answered Beef. “But as it happens, the answer is very interesting—and also very simple. You see, Jackson happens to be a Russian himself. You noticed how he dodged my question when I asked him what he’d been doing before he started the circus business? The reason was that he was in Russia, and he didn’t want us to know.”
“But why not?” I asked. “That’s not a crime, is it?”
“No, it’s not a crime,” said Beef. “But it is a crime to stay in this country without registering yourself or taking out naturalization papers for more than a certain amount of time. And that’s what he’d done. And that’s what Daroga knew he’d done. You see, it was that little button what gave it away. You remember it had the Russian word for artist or actor on it? Well, that meant he belonged to one of these here organizations or unions or whatnot, like there’s so many of.”
“So he was blackmailing him after all?” I exclaimed.
“There you go,” said Beef, “running away with an idea again. I wouldn’t call it blackmailing him. He had a sort of a hold over him, that’s all. As a matter of fact, Jackson took a lot of care of Daroga—more than what he did of any of the other artists, anyway. Look at the way he kept an eye on his wire-walking apparatus. What you thought was suspicious and sinister. But you know the sort of man Jackson is; a bit of a Tartar to get on with, nasty way with him, bad-tempered, likes to order people around. Well, Daroga couldn’t stand that, so when he finds out that Jackson’s keeping something quiet, then he uses it to have a bit of peace from his nagging. That’s all there was to it.”
“And what about that little incident when Daroga built up on the wrong tober?” I asked.
“Exactly,” agreed Beef. “Didn’t that just go to show what it was Daroga wanted? He liked to feel free, that he had a bit of a say in the doings of the circus and wasn’t always to be ordered around like the others were. Some people are like that. They just can’t stand being told what to do.
“But you ought to have seen what a useful man Daroga was to the circus. Jackson’s got a good business head on his shoulders, and he wouldn’t do anything that might make Daroga clear off, as you might say. So he has to put up with Daroga, knowing about him being an unregistered alien, so as to keep him in the show. He’s a handy wire-walker, as you’ve seen for yourself, and what’s more, he knows how to manage those elephants. Of course, I admit that Daroga had a pretty strong hold over old Jackson. Didn’t need more than a word from him in the right quarters, and Jackson would have been bundled straight out of the country. But where you went wrong was in the way you thought that hold was being used. There wasn’t no money in it, nor nothing that might have caused a murder. Daroga was quite happy so long as he didn’t get badgered about by Jackson to do this and to do that. And so long as he knew Jackson’s secret he was safe from that. Jackson didn’t want Daroga to leave the circus, and he knew that if he treated him right he wouldn’t go and split to the police. So really they were both perfectly satisfied with things as they were, and there wasn’t no cause for one of them to try and do in the other like what you seemed to think they would.”
“It seems to me,” I observed, “that all you’re doing is to show me why no one in the circus could have even wanted to commit a murder.”
“I wouldn’t need to,” retorted the Sergeant, “if it wasn’t for the funny ideas you’ve got hold of. But there was a murder, just the same. Which we’ll come to all in good time.”
“But,” I objected, “you can’t deny that there were attempts at a murder before this. What about the affair when Helen stabbed Anita, and later when the lights failed? How do you account for those?”
“We’ll take those one at a time,” said Beef calmly. “Now what you ought to have seen was that that little dust-up between Helen and Anita was all there was to it. I mean, that was the beginning and the end of it. You know as well as I do that those two sisters were really fond of each other, and that neither of them wanted such a thing to happen again. But you wouldn’t believe that. You thought something else might happen between them. But you must have missed one very curious little thing which told me that everything had settled down, and that there wouldn’t be any more trouble. Because, you see, when Helen stabbed her sister she did just what was wanted—she made everything all right.”
“I don’t see what you’re getting at,” I said.
“Didn’t you notice that after the wound had healed up it left a scar?” asked Beef. “And what’s more, Anita did a funny thing what most women wouldn’t have done. When she got better she didn’t wear clothes that would cover the scar; in fact, she might almost have been proud of it the way she let everybody see it. Why do you think that was? A way of getting her own back on her sister? Not a bit of it. She knew that the reason for Helen going for her like she did was because they were both exactly alike, because they were twins and Helen felt she didn’t have a soul of her own. That’s what it was. And the scar, you see, made all the difference. Every time Helen saw that scar she knew that she and Anita had something a little different about them. So you see, there wasn’t any chance of any more trouble between them.”
“And what about hypnotism?” I demanded. “Anita told me that old Margot was a hypnotist.”
“Hypnotism,” said Beef scornfully. “That’s just the sort of thing you take a pleasure in. French idea, that is. What if the old girl did do a bit of mind-reading on the stage at one time or another? That didn’t mean she was likely to crawl around making people do all sorts of things they weren’t responsible for. You want to get some of these romantic ideas out of your head and get to the bottom of things some time. Why, Anita told you herself it was only a simple sort of hypnotism what couldn’t do no harm to anyone. But of course, you never believe what you’re told.”
“In other words,” I said bitterly, “I’ve been making a fool of myself all this time. But I still think that there was something suspicious in the way those lights fused right in the middle of the trapeze act.”
“That,” said Beef, “is because you never took the trouble to think about it. Now as a matter of fact, the reason why that little job couldn’t have been done on purpose was because it did come at such a peculiar time. Suppose you was outside the tent by the lighting lorry and you wanted to turn them out just when someone was flying through the air. How would you go about it? You see, it’s impossible. Suzanne was only in the air about two seconds at the most, and Len Waterman couldn’t have run around to have a look in the tent and then run back and pulled the fuse out in that time. And if it had happened at any other time, even just when she was preparing to let go a split second before, they would have stopped the act until the lights came on again. And another thing. Did you ever take the trouble to find out how often those lights fused?
Or if they had ever fused before?”
“No,” I admitted, “I didn’t.”
“Exactly,” said Beef. “But I did. And I found out that they’d gone wrong three times this season, twice in the after noon and once in the evening. The wires were so patched up and mucked about with that you couldn’t expect anything else. Didn’t you notice that none of the people in the actual circus were at all suspicious about them fusing? They weren’t. They took it all a day’s work, like they would a drop of rain or a bit of bad luck. And a third reason why you were wrong about that was that Len Waterman wasn’t the sort of man who would do a thing like that. I admit that he was jealous of young Darienne, and that he was still a bit in love with Suzanne. But that’s not the way he would have tried to get even with them. Even if he’d wanted to get even.”
“But there’s one other thing about Len and Christophe that you seem to have forgotten,” I told him, “and that is the little affair when we were having that fight with Bogli’s Circus. If you remember, they had a quarrel then.”
“And why not?” demanded Beef. “Trouble with you is that you want everything explained for you. When Christophe and Len started that little bit of a scrap that day it was because they were circus people, that’s why it was. Nothing else. Circus folk love a bundle now and again. They don’t worry about who it is they’re fighting, so long as it’s a fight. But it doesn’t mean anything—not the way you think it means.”
“And how about Bogli’s Circus itself?” I asked. “Perhaps there was nothing much in the scrap they had, but why did they turn up to the performance, and why were they so critical all the time? They couldn’t have come just to enjoy the show. Cora Frances told me that Suzanne used to be with them before she joined Jacobi’s. Was there anything in that?”
“Now look here,” said Beef, shaking his large forefinger at me. “I’ve told you before that you just don’t understand circus people. Now if you like, there’s a sort of rivalry between the two circuses, but the point is, it’s friendly. They’re people with the same sort of ideas, the same way of living, and the same job. When one circus comes over to see the show of the other, it’s friendly, see? It was a bit unusual cutting their own performance, but then the Jubilee show was a special affair, and it was a very nice action to come over and watch it. And as for being critical, they weren’t half so critical as what you are of me all the time.”
