A Case in Camera

by Oliver Onions

  So here I was, a clumsy, unmannerly fellow with a guilty conscience toboot, face to face with a very Chesterfield of the best licensedestablishments and the whole body of law and order and public dutyoverwhelmingly on his side. We stood there under the unlightedpublic-house lamp, while the violet light of the May evening slowlyfaded from what Hodgson had called "Chelsea's pleasant roofs."

  He was fully aware that he possessed what the correspondents used tocall the initiative. This showed in his very few first words. I, itappeared, was to be forced to open the ball.

  "Now, sir, you wished to see me, I believe," he said pompously.

  I was on the point of reminding him that it was he who had made theproposal to come outside when he put up a peremptory hand.

  "No, no. I know what you're going to say, and that don't go down. When Isay you wanted to see me I mean you came here to-night for that purpose.Specially. Well, here I am."

  I suppose I should have been within my rights in answering that I hadentered those swing doors for a glass of beer and had not spoken to himuntil he had borrowed my newspaper; but obviously that line led nowhere.Moreover, from his comparative calm of manner now, I realized that whilethe larger advantages lay with him, at least one small tacticalsuperiority was mine. He was quiet for the moment, but would probablyflare up again immediately at the mention of Mackwith's name. So I keptMackwith in reserve.

  "Well," I said in a conciliatory tone. "I have a feeling that both of uswished to see the other, and from what you've told me with very goodreason. Isn't that so?"

  "How do you mean, what I've told you?" he said suspiciously.

  "I mean that you've given me the impression that there's more in thisCase than meets the eye."

  He grunted. "Impression's good!"

  "That there's some sort of a misunderstanding that ought to be clearedup."

  "'Impression's' damned good!" he muttered again. "I like 'impression.'"

  "Well, never mind the word. You reminded me a few minutes ago that wewere all there that morning, and so I take it that we're all interested.Can't we talk it quietly over?"

  I don't think I ever saw eyes capable of staring for so long without ablink. Old Dadley had been right when he had said, "He stares you down,he does." I awaited his pleasure.

  "No, that won't wash either," he said curtly at last. "You came here fora purpose. Specially. I won't say the place isn't free to anybody, butit would be bad for trade if everybody stood behind a paper looking fortwenty minutes at a glass of beer. I don't think there's any need to beplainer than that."

  "Very well, have it that way if you like," I returned. "You tell me thewhole of Chelsea is interested in this Case. Well, as I was there whenit happened it's natural that I should be interested too."

  "Hah!... Well, all I have to say to that is that nobody would haveguessed it at the time," he answered.

  "Indeed? Why not?"

  "Hah! Why not? It _is_ a bit of a puzzle, isn't it? But suppose we putit this way: Here's two men come tumbling on a man's roof. Bit of a bumpthey make, don't they? Say a thousand people watching, eh? It isn't athing that happens every day exactly, you'd think? Very well. _Nowwhere were all of you?_ Finishing your breakfast? 'Interested,' you say.Well, you'd expect the master of the house to be a bit interested. Butwhere was _he_? Where were all the rest of you, except him that went upon the roof? You seem to me more interested now than you did then.That's the first point that strikes me."

  It struck me, too, as being both stupid and acute, at the same timehardly worth mentioning and yet unpleasantly significant. If hissuggestion was that at the time of the accident we were all whisperingtogether in some dark nefarious plot, it was too ridiculous to answer;but if he meant that it was at least remarkable that not one of usexcept Rooke, and Hubbard for one brief moment before his arrival, hadtaken the trouble to step outside to see what had happened, I could onlyreluctantly agree with him. You will remember that precisely the sameobservation had struck Hubbard and myself at the time.

  "Yes," he repeated, seeing my discomfiture, "that's the first point thatstrikes me; where was Mr. Esdaile, for instance, that _he_ didn't comeout?"

  I answered rather slowly. "I see what you mean. As a matter of fact that_was_ very curious. I wonder if you'll believe me when I tell you thatMr. Esdaile knew nothing of that accident till it was all over?"

  He stopped for a moment in his walk. Without noticing it we had begun towalk. "Why not?" he demanded.

  "Because he was down in the cellar at the time. He'd gone down to fetcha bottle of wine."

  He resumed his walk. "But he came up again. I saw him."

  "That was some time after."

  "That's right," he confirmed, as if he had been testing my truthfulness."It was about half an hour after. Funny way to spend half an hour withall that going on, wasn't it?"

  As I was entirely of his opinion, I made no reply.

  "So," he continued, "what strikes me about it is that you're moreinterested now than you were then. Now we'll pass on to another point.All the time this is happening you're all inside except one of you, andhe's on the roof. He's the only person up there till the policecame--has the field to himself so to speak. Then he comes down theladder in a very shaky sort of state."

  "Do you wonder?" I interposed with a quickness that surprised myself."You were on that jury----"

  "In a very shaky state," he repeated. "Nervous as a cat, as you mightsay. That was the state he was in when he came down that ladder. Why?"His manner changed suddenly to truculence. "Why? Hah! That's thequestion, isn't it? Some of you'd like to make out you know nothing atall about it, but they laugh best that laugh last, and don't you makeany error about it!"

  Apprehensive as I was, I forced myself also to laugh.

  "And you're doing your laughing in the newspapers? Well, do you know,Mr. Westbury, I see very little in all this. Your letter certainlyraises a very interesting subject, and I'm quite of your opinion thatflying ought to be better regulated; but I wonder if you'd resent apiece of advice from an older man?"

  "Much obliged, I'm sure." Those were the words. The tone in which theywere uttered bore no relation to them.

  "But let me give it, for all that. You seem to be on the point ofmaking charges against somebody for something or other. Well, that'snever a safe thing to do, but if I were you I'd certainly think twicebefore I started with a rather distinguished barrister. They're usuallyable to look after themselves pretty well in such matters."

  I said it quite deliberately. It was abundantly plain that unless Ikindled his wrath again he might go on laughs-best-ing andlaughs-last-ing all night. I didn't want to hear his vague and mutteredmenaces. I wanted to know whether that bullet was in the hands of thepolice, and if so, what action was to be taken. So I produced Mackwithfrom my sleeve.

  "And another thing I'll tell you plainly," I said with something nearerreal warmth. "If I were to hear any annoying whispers about myself Ishouldn't have a moment's hesitation in taking any steps I thoughtproper. As I see this business, you force your way into a private gardenunder cover of an accident, pick up some cock-and-bull story or other,go spreading it about, and then, when you're very properly put in yourplace by a coroner's court----"

  But I got no further. By this time we were in a quiet and dingy streetwhere almost every house seemed to have an "Apartments" card over thedoor, and at the fury of his outbreak I expected every door to be flungopen and every blind to be drawn up.

  "Hah! So _that's_ your lay, is it, Mister Man? We've got it at last,have we? You think you can come it heavy like your blasted barristerfriend, do you? Oh yes, you're all in it together! _I_ knew what youcame for to-night! I forced my way into gardens, did I? And what aboutthose that force themselves on roofs before the police come, touchingthings they've no business to be touching, eh? _I_ pick up cock-and-bullstories, do I? And what does some others pick up? _I'm_ put in my place,am I? We'll see what sort of a place some of you fine gentry's put inpresently! Trying to cod me one of you was in
the cellar for half anhour! A bit too much roof and cellar for my fancy! I was a shade overthe odds for one of you anyway! He had to come _down_ the ladder again,hadn't he? And you hold a ladder when you see a man coming down it,don't you? Very well, Mister Pry! You go prying somewhere else, anddrink your beer a bit quicker next time! _My_ kids aren't going to beshot at and no questions asked! The questions'll come presently. Theylaugh best that laugh last----"

  And, as a neighboring door was opened, and a blind across the street wasdrawn up, and a window-sash creaked somewhere else, it came upon me in amoment what had happened.

  Philip Esdaile's hands had not been the first to pat Monty Rooke'spockets that morning. Westbury, holding the ladder, had been beforehim.

  PART V

  SOME BYWAYS OF THE CASE

  I

  Strictly speaking, it is not on the Santon headland that CharlesValentine ("Chummy") Smith ought to make his first appearance in thisstory; but it was there that I myself first saw him, and I want to giveyou my impression of him as I received it, if at the cost of taking aslight liberty with time. So I first set these eyes on him during amonth I spent with the Esdailes somewhat later in that year.

  I may say to begin with that he would probably have passed unnoticedamong the innumerable other young men of to-day who at one time lookedjust a little civilian in their new uniforms but now wear their muftiagain with a subtle but unmistakable difference. You know the young menI mean--they still speak of distances in kilometers, can talk for hourson end about motor-bicycles, and sprinkle their conversation with thejargon of ragtime French they are proud to share with their own privatesand sappers and bombardiers. A year or so ago you went into a restaurantthat was brown as a beechwood with khaki; you go there to-day and thekhaki is gone--yet still hauntingly and mysteriously there, edging (asit were) the mufti with a faint rim like a color-print a little out ofregister. The ghost of khaki still clings about faces, movements,speech, the glances of eyes. Or if it isn't khaki it is thenavy-and-gold, or Charles Valentine ("Chummy") Smith's unbelted sky-bluewith the black cap-band.

  He and Joan (in this little peep ahead which I am taking) were waitingfor me on the platform of Santon Station. It was a week or so before theCompany's Inter-Station Flower Competition--that annual Show that makesthe whole line with its tiny stations as gay with flowers as a row ofThames houseboats. Geraniums and marguerites hung in boxes from thecanopies; the sills of the porters' room were a rage of bloom; andlobelia and red bachelor's-buttons and white pebbles from the shore wereset in patriotic emblems all the way from the booking-office to thesignal-box, which alone was bare. As the train drew up I saw themstanding together on the sunny platform, with a bower of ramblers overtheir heads and a heaven of larkspur behind them.

  Charles Valentine Smith was for taking my two bags to the trap thatwaited at the level crossing, but peremptorily Joan pushed him away andcalled a porter. The presence of the trap did not mean that Chummy couldnot 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. AndI may here mention, quite incidentally, the role I was apparently castfor in advance. "Auntie Joan" was supposed to take the children down tothe shore every day. Charles Valentine Smith could not yet manage theshore climb. This necessarily meant a temporary separation. Two dayslater _I_ was taking the children down to the shore. Whether Miss Joanhad 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 whichof us was the personage in Joan's eyes, and we sought the trap. Joandrove, and paved the way for our better acquaintance by telling Mr.Smith, in these words, that I was "still young at heart." And herpleasant young assassin called me "Sir." I suppose I am entitled to becalled "Sir" by these youngsters, but I am far from standing on myrights in this respect. He had his Joan, and I saw no reason for rubbingit in. People who go about murdering other people need not lay quite somuch stress on the minor conventions.

  "Yes, sir, thanks--practically all right again," he said as we bowledacross that high world of flaming poppies and silky corn. "But Isay--I'm afraid you'll have rather a crow to pluck with me."

  All things considered, I thought one crow a particularly modestestimate; 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 outthis morning, but they've toted everything back again."

  "Oh, but he _likes_ that little room at the end!" Joan cooinglyreassured him. "He gets the morning sun, and it's beautifully cool inthe afternoons----"

  "If you mean that I'm in the habit of sleeping in the afternoons I wishto inform you that I'm not," I answered her coldly. "And if the room youspeak of is that little cupboard place just above where the hens arefed----"

  "Yes, that's the one," she answered with a darling smile. "I call itquite large, and I've put you one or two nice books to read, and Iarranged the flowers myself. Come up, Robin!"

  So Smith had the room that I, the introducer of these Esdaile people tomy loved Santon, had hitherto always had, and I was given the one withthe morning sun. You might suppose from Joan's words that the sun shonedirectly in, filling it with gayety and brightness. Not a bit of it.That morning sunlight she so extolled was a greenish and aquarium-likehalf light thrown up from the steep bit of paddock that comprised thewhole 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 tosound his clarion note practically on the drum of my ear.

  II

  I repeat, at a first glance he was very like the rest of the youngfellows of his day; but I admit there was something about him that grewon you. After watching him for a while I decided that this ascendancywas principally in his eyes. I do not wish to overwork the popularcliches of fire and flash and smolder; Smith's eyes certainly hadsomething of this quality; but it was combined with an expression that,until I can define it better, I will risk calling discontent. I don'tmean by this the discontent that is common enough among those otherflashers and smolderers, the artists and poets and suchlike. That isusually little more than peevishness and incapacity, and, as one of thebreed myself, I rather liked Smith's attitude towards us. With perfectsincerity he looked on us as immensely clever fellows, particularly thelate Mr. Jack London and the author of _The Crimson Specter of HangmanHollow_; but there he had finished with us. We were high and he couldnot attain to us. Our affairs were so little his affairs that I regretto 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 nicegirl to marry.

  But the War has taught me, among other things, the overwhelmingimportance of other men's jobs and the comparative insignificance of myown. If young Smith did not express himself in the terms to which I wasaccustomed, he expressed himself none the less. Don't ask me how, exceptin 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 HelmseaMess, was part of that Wonder that to-day a George takes from anElizabeth's hands. Four hundred years ago I suppose he would have sold afarm 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 yetseventeen, he had made his way to London, dressed himself as a mechanicor plumber, had forced his way into a foreign Embassy under pretext ofrepairing the ambassadorial pipes or cisterns or something, and hadactually succeeded in presenting himself before the Ambassador,demanding to be taken on in the service of a foreign country. Naturallyhe had been refused and referred back to his own Government. Then hadensued what Chummy cheerfully described as a hell of a dust-up. GeneralOfficers had sto
rmed and had wanted to know "what the devil he meant byit"; the correspondence, I have been told, weighs between eleven andtwelve pounds; but in the end he had received his ticket--alreadyendorsed for improper conduct in offering his services to a foreign iffriendly Power. You will believe that this endorsement had stood verylittle in his subsequent way. The story had run like wildfire throughoutthe whole of the Service. It may have hindered his promotion, but whaton earth did promotion matter? Any number of civilian-ingrainbusiness-men, turning their business talents to the Services, haveobtained promotion. Few of them have attained to the distinction of suchan endorsement as that which made bright young Smith's ticket.

  And--to return to what I have called that discontent of his--I for onecannot see that a young man of daring and vision, elementally put downinto 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 toldthat the fire of his personality has no expression and his chosen workno value. Very much on the contrary. I think myself that CharlesValentine Smith was a thinker so single of purpose that it neveroccurred to him that he thought at all. And why not a technique, anartist's technique, of the wrist and eye and nerve and indomitableheart? Is my dictation more a wonder than his zooming? Is my life sofull and his so empty? I cannot see it.

  III

  To look at, he had not in the very least the air of a man over whosehead a terrible menace hung. Indeed, I have rarely sat down at a tablewith a less personally odious young murderer. He was lithe and of adarkish brown complexion, a perfect anatomy of graven and incised musclewhen later I saw him bathe, and with hands the movements of which werefull of power and grace. Then there were his eyes. Of all his featureshis mouth was that which communicated the least, except when he smiled.With the rest of us I am afraid that our mouths generally communicatethe most.