A Case in Camera

by Oliver Onions

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  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 YorkThe Macmillan Company1921

  All rights reserved

  Copyright, 1920 and 1921,By the Macmillan CompanySet 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 Maymorning of the year 1919, of one young man by another who claimed, andstill claims, to have been his friend. The circumstances weresingular--perhaps even unique; the consequences affected a number ofpeople in various interesting ways and byways; and since the manner oftelling the story has been left entirely to me, I will begin with thebreakfast-party that Philip Esdaile gave that morning at his studio inLennox Street, Chelsea.

  II

  Philip had at least two good reasons for being in high feather thatmorning. The first of these was that barely a week ago, with amagnificent new quill pen, he had signed the Roll, had shaken augusthands, and was now Philip Esdaile, A.R.A., probably the most giftedamong the younger generation of painters of the pictorial phenomena ofLight.

  I and his second reason for contentment happened to arrive almostsimultaneously at the wrought-iron gate that opened on to his littlefront garden. We all knew that for many months past our barristerfriend, Billy Mackwith, had been tracking down and buying in again onPhilip's behalf a number of Philip's earlier pictures--prodigalpictures, parted with for mere bread-and-butter during the years ofstruggle, and now very well worth Philip's re-purchase if he could getthem into his possession again. (I may perhaps say at once that I don'tthink Philip owed his Associateship to his pictures of that period. Itis 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'sslim, silk-hatted and morning-coated figure jump down from the seat nextto the driver. Evidently Philip had seen the arrival of the van too, forhe 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 youbefore you left."

  Esdaile and his family were leaving town that morning for some months onthe Yorkshire Coast, and it was this departure that was the occasion ofthe 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 studiobeyond. There we stood admiring them as they leaned, framed andunframed, against easels and along the walls. No doubt you rememberEsdaile's paintings of that period--the gay white and gray of histumultuous 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 seestraight with.

  "Well, which of 'em are you going to have for yourself, just by way ofthank-you, Billy?" the painter asked. "Any you like; I owe you the bestof them and more.... And of course here comes Hubbard. Always does blowin just as things are being given away, if it's only a pink gin. How areyou, 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 onhad been a shipmate of Esdaile's, and I liked the look of his honest redface and four-square and blocklike figure. We turned to the picturesagain. I think their beauties were largely thrown away on Hubbard.Somebody ought to have told him that their buying-in meant a goodthousand pounds in Esdaile's pocket. Then he would have looked at themin quite a different manner.

  In the middle of the inspection Joan Merrow's white frock andbuttercupped hat appeared in the doorway, and we were bidden to come into breakfast. Monty Rooke and Mrs. Cunningham had just arrived, whichmade our party complete.

  The little recess in which we breakfasted was filled with the sunlightreflected from the garden outside. Everything in it--the napkins andfruit and chafing-dishes on the table, the spring flowers in the bowls,the few chosen objects on the buff-washed walls, the showery festoon ofthe chandelier overhead--had the soft irradiation of a face seen under aparasol. Little shimmers of light, like love-making butterflies, dancedhere and there whenever glasses or carafes were moved, and thestretches of shining floor almost looked as if trout might have lurkedbeneath them.

  And where the tall French windows stood wide open the light seemed to befocused as if by a burning-glass on the two little Esdaile boys whoplayed beneath the mulberry that rose above the studio roof.

  I don't suppose the whole of Chelsea could have shown a merrierbreakfast-party than we made that May morning. For, in addition to ourhost's new Associateship and those fourteen wandering pictures safelyback home again, we had a further occasion for light-heartedness that Ihaven't mentioned yet. This was the wedding, to take place that dayweek, of Mrs. Cunningham and Monty Rooke. Philip was generously lendingthem his house and studio for the summer. Monty we had all known foryears, but Mrs. Cunningham I for one set eyes on for the first time thatmorning. Later I got a much more definite impression of her. For thepresent I noticed only her slender and beautiful black-chiffon-coveredarms, the large restless dark eyes that seemed to disengage themselvesfrom under the edge of her black satin turban hat, and her manicuredfingers that reminded you of honeysuckle. The Esdailes had received her"on the ground floor," so to speak, and it obviously pleased Monty thatPhilip had called her Audrey straight away.

  So we talked of the approaching wedding, and the Associateship, and thepainting-cottage in Yorkshire, and so back to the pictures again. Onthis subject Commander Hubbard unhesitatingly took the lead.

  "Well, it's certainly Art for mine my second time on earth," hegood-humoredly railed, the aiguillettes swinging gently on his breast."Fancy going out of town this weather! Taking away all that gear behindthe bulkhead there,"--he jerked his head to where Philip's paintingparaphernalia lay ready packed in the hall--"a few yards of raw canvasbent on battens--and bringing it back again worth twenty pounds aninch!"

  Hubbard had a Whitehall job that summer, and loathed it. Esdailelaughed.

  "Can't see why they didn't make me a full Academician while they wereabout it," he said.

  "_And_ he's grumbling!" Hubbard retorted. "Perfectly revolting fellow.That's too
much lunching with Admirals. Listen, Mrs. Esdaile, and I'lltell you the kind of thing we mere senior officers had to put up with. Ahoist breaks out from the flagship, and every glass in the Squadron isglued 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 thiswretched wavy-ringed fellow your husband, and would he give him thepleasure--would Lieutenant Esdaile, R.N.V.R., condescend--stoop--to takeluncheon with him! The Admiral, if you please! And that's what it is tobe an Official Painter!"

  Esdaile laughed again. He was trying to remove in one unbroken piece theparing 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 handcomes 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 thefloor. Here's my guess on this bit of paper under my napkin--'C forCh' ... Ah, clumsy infant!" The strip had fallen in two pieces. "Theregoes 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 nowthat she was alone in the world. On the day when Philip, half scared bythe risks he was taking, had informed his private pupils that theirtuition 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 atlong range from odd corners of the studio; and then, during his absenceon Service, she had come to live in the house, had taught and mended forthe children, and had been companion and friend to Mollie. By anaffectionate fiction, her former fees were supposed to cover the cost ofher 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 thatis all youth and no sex, and was already acquiring that mystery ofphysical shape and of mind and emotion that causes men's heads to turnbehind and their lips to murmur, "Ah--in another year or so----"

  There was still the faint echo of chattering schoolrooms in the reparteethat came from her pretty lips. Pertly and with little tosses of herhead she enumerated the duties she had discharged that morning.

  "The labels are all distinctly written, with the name at the top, then aspace, and 'Santon, Yorks' quite at the bottom so you can tear it offand use the label again for somewhere else. Both the taxis are orderedfor one-thirty, and Mr. Rooke won't have to send on letters becausethey're all being re-addressed at the Post Office. The doors and windowsare all fastened, and I've shown Mrs. Cunningham where everything isfor after the wedding. And I didn't want the apple, and you've nobusiness to write things about me on your horrid bits of paper!"

  And we all laughed as she suddenly twitched Philip's napkin away andtucked 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 thecareless and happy party into which that morning's bolt dropped aquarter of an hour later. I want you to see the contrast between ourhomely light-heartedness and the complex tangle of all that followed. Iwill 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 joinedthe children in the garden, and with them was looking up at anaeroplane, the soft organ-like note of which had suddenly ceased. Wewere having Hubbard's views on Art again.

  "But that submarine sketch of yours is the pick of all you've done to mymind, Esdaile," he was saying. "Old Horne at the periscope, eh? Youcaught him to a hair; a snapshot couldn't have been better! And webagged that beggar ten minutes later, Norwegian flag and all," he addedwith professional satisfaction.

  Philip Esdaile gave a quick exclamation.

  "By Jove, that just reminds me! The orange curacao, of course! The verything 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 veryevident reason why the torpedoing of a German ship flying the Norwegianflag should remind Esdaile of orange curacao, but no doubt there was astory behind that we others knew nothing of. If ships have to be putdown there is no sense in sending bottles of delectable liqueur to thebottom 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 hisbetters like that!

  But Esdaile, with a wink, demanded the key of the cellar from MontyRooke, 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 wholeof Chelsea running out of doors.

  The shrill cry of "The aeroplane! The aeroplane!" was hardly out of thechildren's mouths before it was upon us--I don't mean the aeroplane, butthe other thing. Judging from the harsh but muffled roar, the firstinstallment of the crash, so to speak, which was the plane itself, musthave been a quarter of a mile away; but between that and the second onethere was hardly time to take breath. Simultaneously, as it seemed,there came a rushing of air, a loud cracking, and a nauseating thud onthe studio roof; and Joan Merrow ran in with the children, one undereither arm and her head down. The street outside was a sudden clatterof 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, heassumed 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 thetelephone, Mackwith. You other fellows come with me."

  He thought it better that somebody should investigate before the womenbegan 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 morningunobserved. Already the windows on the other side of the street werepacked with faces, and every face was turned in the same direction.

  This was towards the torn fabric of a parachute that had lodged partlyon the studio roof, partly in the branches of the mulberry in thegarden.

  Hubbard ran out through the French windows and looked up. Tapes trailedand rippled and fluttered in the merry morning breeze, and the gray silkballooned and rose and fell. But the sound of running feet warnedHubbard not to pause. He strode quickly down the flagged path, shot thecatch of the wrought-iron gate in the faces of the too curious, andthen hurried into the house again. He addressed Rooke, who stood by thegroup 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. Thethree of us dashed upstairs. Rooke tried the bathroom door, but found itlocked. "Damn!" he muttered, and then I reminded him that possibly hehad 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 anygreater haste than he was doing. Then luckily he hit on the right one.The door opened, we sprang across the cork-covered floor, and Rookebegan to tug at the window-catch. The window was one of theselate-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 theblue ones.

  Then, as the sash flew up, all was sunshine again, and the wreckedparachute and the two men enwrapped in its folds could be seen only tooclearly.

  Monty Rooke had a new silver-gray suit on that morning, but already hehad thrown one leg over the sill.

  "I'm not so heavy as you fellows,
" he muttered. "I'm not so sure aboutthis gutter--give me a hand while I try it. Then I can shin up thatspout over there."

  Hubbard took the small, nervous hand in his own beefy fist and let himdown three or four feet. "All right," said Rooke, after a moment'strial; and, spread-eagled out on the annexe roof, he began to make hisway towards the higher roof of the studio beyond.

  "Tapes oughtn't to have fouled like that," I heard the Commander sayunder his breath as we watched. "Parachuting's safe enough if you're anyheight 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 theroof-glass. Apparently the parachute, the roof-frame and the mulberryhad shared the shock among them. Not that another fifteen feet wouldhave 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'sprogress. Even the whispering had ceased. Then cries of "Make waythere!" were suddenly heard. Fifty yards away a ladder, preceded by aplump young man in a horsey check coat, was being passed over people'sheads. Every hand that could touch the ladder did so, as if out of someodd pride of assistance. What anonymous mind had foreseen the need of itnone could have told. Down below Mackwith opened the gate; an Inspector,followed by a couple of constables and the last relay that bore theladder, entered; and Mackwith closed the gate again. The ladder was setup by the splintered mulberry, and the Inspector and one of theconstables joined Rooke on the roof.

  Five minutes later Rooke was down again. Hubbard and I had alsodescended. We met him as he came in at the French window.