A Case in Camera

by Oliver Onions

  "Well?" we both demanded at once.

  He was agitated, as indeed he had some reason for being. He had had anunpleasant task. Before replying he advanced to the breakfast-table andpoured himself out some water into the nearest glass. The glass knockedunsteadily as he set it down again. Then he glanced down at his clothes,made a movement as if to brush the grime from them, but gave a jerk tohis tie instead.

  Nevertheless his news was not all bad. In one particular it was ratherastonishingly good. One of the two men, it appeared, was by no meansfatally hurt--was, indeed, quite likely to pull through.

  "Do you know who they are?" Hubbard asked.

  Again Monty seemed preoccupied with his clothes. Then we had histidings, jerkily and bit by bit.

  The plane itself had come down somewhere by the Embankment, and was saidto have caught fire. Parts of the parachute seemed to be singed too.Both men were civilian flyers; at least neither was in uniform. Theother poor fellow was killed. The ambulance had been sent for, and forthe present there was little more to be done. The police were seeing tothe rest. This was the sum of what Monty told us.

  Then we heard the voice of Mackwith, who had come up behind us.

  "That's so," he confirmed. "I've just been having a word with theInspector about that. He doesn't think anybody here will have to attendany inquiry or anything; the police evidence ought to be enough. So Iwas thinking, Mrs. Esdaile," he turned to Mollie, whose face was stillpale and drawn and who bit the corner of her lip incessantly, "that thebest thing for you to do is to stick to your program just as if thishadn't happened. You'll do no good staying here. You didn't seeit,"--here Joan Merrow, from the little sofa, raised her head butdropped it again without speaking--"well, I mean that even Joan didn'tsee anything that five hundred other people didn't see just as well.Rooke may just possibly be wanted, but anyway he'll be here. And as forPhilip----"

  He broke off abruptly. Of a sudden we all stared at one another. We hadforgotten all about Philip. Where was he?

  If you remember, he had gone down into the cellar to fetch a bottle ofwine. And in performing this simple errand he had been away for close onhalf an hour.

  Mollie Esdaile, all on edge again, turned swiftly to Monty Rooke.

  "Where is he? He did go down there, didn't he? You did give him thecellar key, didn't you? And nobody heard him go out of the house?"

  Well, that was a matter that was very easily ascertained. AlreadyHubbard had taken a stride towards the door that led to the cellar.

  But he did not reach the door. A footstep was heard behind it and theturning of a key, and Esdaile entered. In one hand he carried a stonejar of Dutch curacao. In the other, arrestively out of place in thespring sunshine, its flame a dingy orange and its little spiral ofgreasy smoke fouling the air, he held a lighted candle in a flat tinstick.

  V

  For a moment we all gazed stupidly at that jar and candle; but the nextmoment our eyes were fastened on Philip's face.

  Now ordinarily Esdaile's face, clean-shaven since 1914, is quite apleasant one to look at, lightly browned, and with the savor of the seastill lingering about it. Nor was it noticeably pale now. Indeed, youmight have said that some inner excitation made it not pale at all. Butthere was no disguising the strained tenseness of it. At the same timehe was obviously attempting such a disguise. His features were set in awould-be-easy smile, but the smile stopped at his eyes. These blinked,though possibly at the sudden brightness after the obscurity below. Andhe spoke without pause or preliminary, as if rehearsing something he hadhad time to get letter-perfect but not to make entirely and naturallyhis own.

  "Did you think I was never coming up?" The mechanical smile was turnedon us all in turn. "I suppose I have been rather a long time. Justwool-gathering. I apologize to everybody. Where are theliqueur-glasses?"

  There was a dead silence. Was it possible that he had heard nothing,knew nothing of what had occurred?

  Monty Rooke was the first to speak.

  "Do you mean to say you didn't hear it?" he blurted out.

  Then, as Philip seemed to concentrate that artificial smile suddenly onhim alone, he seemed sorry he had drawn attention to himself.

  "And where on earth have _you_ been?" Philip demanded slowly. "What'sthe matter with your clothes? Been emptying the dustbins? Here, let megive you a clean-up, man----"

  He got rid of the jar of liqueur, not by putting it down on a table, butby the simple if unusual expedient of letting it drop through hisfingers, where it made a heavy thump, rolled over on its side, and cameto rest. He stepped forward.

  But Rooke, for some reason or other, stepped much more quickly back. Hemuttered something about his clothes not mattering--it was only a fewgrains of dust, but damp--better let it dry before touching it----

  It was at this point that I caught Cecil Hubbard's eye.

  Hubbard's is a bright blue eye, with angular lids like littleset-squares and a tiny dark dot in the middle of the blue. That eye maynot know very much about pictures, but it knows a good deal about menand their faces. Esdaile was taking risks if he hoped to play any trickswith that eye on him.

  Then, having caught mine for that moment, the eye was attentively fixedon our host again.

  You see how preposterous it was already. Esdaile apparently could noticea trifle like the dust on Rooke's clothes, but he seemed to be bothblind and deaf to everything else--the soft surging murmurs of the crowdoutside, the voice of the Inspector in the garden, the shadows ofstrangers across the French windows. He just dropped heavy stone jars tothe floor, talked about wool-gathering, and had not even thought ofextinguishing the candle that was melting and guttering in his hand.

  Wool-gathering--Philip Esdaile, the least woolly-minded of men!

  Already I was certain that he was deliberately acting, and acting farfrom well at that.

  It was little Alan, the elder of the two boys, who broke the spell thatseemed to have benumbed us all. He ran forward, his blue-and-white checksmock against his father's knees and his little face upturned.

  "A naeroplane, daddy!" he cried eagerly. "Some men fell out of anaeroplane close to Jimmy and me, didn't they, Auntie Joan? In aparachute, bigger'n this room!" The little arms were outstretched totheir widest reach. "Do come quick and look, daddy!"

  And he seized his father's hand.

  Again I caught Hubbard's eye. Esdaile was at it again, this time with abadly-exaggerated gesture of astonishment. He might have made just sucha gesture if Alan had told him that the Grandmother in the bed wasreally a Wolf--good enough for children but not for anybody else.Hubbard at any rate thought that this had lasted long enough.

  "Do you mean to say that you didn't feel the whole house shake half anhour ago?" he demanded.

  Esdaile turned, but with a curious reluctance that I didn't understand.

  "I did fancy I heard a noise of some sort," he admitted. "What aboutit?"

  Hubbard gave it to him plain and unvarnished, for all the world as if hehad been in the Admiral's office with a sentry with a bayonet at thedoor.

  "A plane crashed, and two men came down on your roof in a parachute.One's living, the other's killed. Those are the police in your gardennow. That's all--except that you seem to live in a prettysolidly-constructed house."

  This time Esdaile made no demonstration. He stood listening for amoment longer, as if he thought Hubbard might add something; then,without a word, he released himself from Alan's hand and strode, not tothe garden where the voices were, but towards the studio door.

  VI

  The studio (into which Hubbard and I immediately followed him) was alarge oblong apartment, with a portion of one of its longer sides andalmost the whole of the roof glazed. More or less light could beadmitted by means of a system of dark blue blinds and cords running tocleats on the walls. It was to the roof-glass that my eyes turned firstof all. One corner of it was darkened, as if melted snow had slippeddown its slope, but the irregular tr
iangle thus made was not so dark butthat the shapes of the two heads could be seen, a little darker still.Nearer up to the ridge one thick pane was badly starred, and in themiddle of the star was a small hole. This I judged to have been made bythe broken branch that still brushed and played about it. A couple ofpictures had fallen from the walls and lay face downward among theirsprinklings of broken glass on the floor. One or two others weredisarranged. Otherwise the apartment seemed to be undamaged.

  Esdaile's behavior was now odder than ever. With those two men lying onthe roof just over his head and the police moving about the gardenoutside, apparently he found nothing more urgent to do than to movedisplaced rugs about and to push at the bits of broken glass with hisfoot. And he did this with the candle, now a stalagmite of tallow, stilllicking and flickering in his hand.

  He made no remark when Hubbard took the candle almost roughly from him,blew it out, and set it down on the table where the artist's tubes andbrushes usually stood.

  "We'll be rid of that first of all," he said. "Unless it's a mascot.Scaring 'em to death with that in your hand like a sleepwalker intraveling-tweeds! Now what about it, Esdaile?"

  There was sudden attention in Philip's attitude, though he still lookeddown at the floor and pushed at a rug with his toe.

  "What about what?" he asked.

  "About this last half-hour."

  "You mean where have I been? I went down into the cellar. I went to getthat liqueur."

  "That doesn't take half an hour--and it certainly didn't take thisparticular half-hour."

  To this Esdaile made no reply.

  "Come," said Hubbard again after a pause. "You admitted just now thatyou thought you heard something."

  The words came slowly. "Did I? Yes, I remember. But it was all muffled.Honestly, I couldn't tell from the sound that it was--that it was allthis."

  "Was that when you were down there, or as you were going down, or when?"

  "I'd just got down, I think."

  "But didn't you wonder what was the matter? What kept you all that time?And what's the matter with you now that you have come up?"

  "The matter?" Esdaile began once more to parry; and then suddenly hismanner changed. For the first time he looked up from the floor, and themask, whatever it was, almost dropped. "Look here, you fellows," he saidalmost appealingly, "you might see I'm a bit worried. I've been tryingto hide it, but perhaps it wasn't much of an effort. Not so dashed easyto hide. But if you're suggesting that I've been somewhere else besidesin the cellar I can only tell you I haven't. Couldn't for one thing;Rooke's got every key of this house. I had to get the cellar one fromhim. By the way, what's he doing now?"

  "Looking out your next train. But what I want to know is----"

  He broke off suddenly as sounds were heard over our heads. About thesnowslip on the roof other shadowy shapes could be seen. Feet shuffledand moved, and the broken branch was dragged away. They were preparingto get the two men down.

  And until they should have finished our conversation ceased.

  But in the meantime Esdaile did yet another trivial incongruous thing.Moving towards one set of blind-cords he motioned to me to take anotherset. With short sticking tugs we drew the blinds across a foot at atime, and soon only narrow gold lozenges of sunlight showed among therafters. All below was a dark blue twilight, as if for an obsequy withininstead of for one on the roof.

  Then, when from the cessation of sound all appeared to be over, Hubbardmade a fresh appeal. He took the painters arm.

  "Now let's have this out," he said. "No good letting a thing get way onwhen a few plain words will stop it. A perfectly ordinary thing'shappened. Simple parachute accident. No mystery about it whatever. Themystery only begins when _you_ come in carrying your damned candles anddropping jars and coming in here to tidy up instead of going outside tosee what's happened. That's where the answer begins to be a lemon, myson. Listen to me. Whether you heard that crash or whether you didn't,at any rate you know all about it _now_. Then why can't you be justdecently upset like the rest of us and have done with it?"

  "Decently upset?" The words seemed to strike him. "Have I been behavingany other way?"

  "You were behaving damnably indecently when you came up out of the orlopthere--and that was _before_ you were told a word of all this,remember."

  At last Esdaile saw the point. His behavior _had_ been extraordinary forwhole minutes before the situation had been explained to him. One wouldhave thought that during those minutes he had been deliberately tryingto find out how much we knew about something or other before committinghimself. When next he spoke it was almost apologetically.

  "I see," he said quietly at last. "Yes, you're perfectly right. That wascertainly the proper way to take it--just be decently upset. I see now.I must have looked a perfect zany.... Now look here: I want to tell youboth all about it, but the trouble is that I can't just at this moment.At present it's somebody else's affair, not mine at all. Must get thatcleared up first. I'm not perfectly sure of my ground either; you'll seeby and by. But as regards the accident--well, that's the whole point atpresent. I mean anybody would say it _was_ an accident, wouldn't they?It _looked_ like one, I mean? It would never occur to anybody who saw itthat----"

  But here he broke off abruptly as his wife appeared in the doorway.

  VII

  Perhaps at this point I had better tell you who "I" am who write this,and also how our little circle came to choose me for the task.

  As a minor actor in these events you may set me down as a workingjournalist. Among other things I am one of the sub-editors of the _DailyCircus_. But that is not the whole of my life. I am also a novelist ofsorts. And one of my reasons for sticking to journalism when I couldmanage at a pinch to do without it is that in this way I escape the doomof having to produce two novels a year whether I have anything to writeabout or not.

  But that was not their idea in asking me to put into shape the mosaic ofdifferently-colored pieces that constitutes this Case. I believe theiridea was that my two capacities might supplement one another--that Imight hold fast (so to speak) to the bed-rock facts with my journalistichand while the other was left free for the less tangible elements. Idon't know that I altogether agree with this distinction. I happen tohave some experience of how much fiction people swallow when they takeup their morning papers, and also of how much mere hurdy-gurdy-grindingthey accept as "human nature" when it comes to them in the form of anovel. But that is their look-out. I told them that with their help Iwould do my best.

  I had to have their help. Obviously I could not always be at the side ofthis person or that, Rooke or Esdaile or Hubbard, throughout everywinding of a complicated chain of events. But I have known Esdaile fortwenty years, Rooke for a dozen, and most of the others long enough tohave a fairly reliable impression of them, and their accounts are quitetrustworthy. If I have any doubt about this I say so.

  I cannot deny that we took a good deal of responsibility when weconspired to hush up the facts of this Case. We have no more right tocome between the agents of the Law and their duty than any other set ofprivate persons. And, though many of the beaten tracks are lost in thesechanging days, and new precedents are making whichever way you turn, Ifor one don't like making new precedents, especially moral ones. I liketradition to have my homage even when I am resolved to break it. But weare dealing with a _fait accompli_. The Case _is_ a Case. It became soin spite of laws and customs and institutions. First one person acted asaccording to the laws of his individual being he had to act, and anotherdid the same, and then another and so on, until the phenomenon wascomplete.

  So, as my chief business in life is precisely those human accidentalsthat make us all different beings destined to different acts, perhapsthey have chosen their historian more or less rightly after all.

  One caveat (as Mackwith would say) I must enter, however. This is withregard to my own Services in the War that is now over. Most of theseservices, though as a matter of fact performed in bel
t and khaki, mightjust as well have been discharged in a dressing-gown, so unadventurousfor the most part were they. Thanks to a "joy-ride," I did just see War,but for the rest I went where I was told to go and did what I was toldto do. It is therefore just possible that from the point of view ofthose who lived in the hell I only briefly visited, one or two of myvalues may be a little "out." The North Sea cannot be quite the same tome that it was to Esdaile and Hubbard, the air meanS just what it meantto Maxwell and Chummy Smith. For this I am afraid there is no help. Butthere is always the chance that if I have minimized, they might havestressed a little unduly. For while our Case has nothing to do with War,War is always antecedent to it, as for a generation to come it will beantecedent to everything.

  So, on this understanding, we may get on with the tale.

  VIII

  A slightly embarrassing little scene next took place in thatbreakfast-room in Lennox Street, Chelsea. Rooke had put down the TimeTable, and Mollie Esdaile's face wore an expression of exasperation.

  It appeared that Philip wanted to pack his family off according toprogram but wished to remain behind himself. For this he gave noreason--or rather he gave several reasons, all of the thinnestdescription.

  "But how tiresome!" broke from Mollie. "Why on earth do you want toupset everything like this?"

  Philip muttered something about the newly-arrived pictures needing athorough overhauling.

  "And the children all ready, all but their hats!" Mollie exclaimed.