A Case in Camera

by Oliver Onions

  VI

  He did. His face did so before ever he spoke. In a moment I knew thatsomething had happened about that wedding--certainly that it had beenput off, possibly worse. Still without speaking he showed me in.

  He was lunching, or rather making a combination meal of lunch andbreakfast in one. A single glance round the room told me a good dealabout the state of mind of its occupant. I have been hard-up myself, andknow these symptoms of negligence of body, mind and surroundings. He wasfully dressed, but he wore yesterday's collar and his boots had not beencleaned. His bed was unmade, his furniture undusted, his floor unswept.He seemed to have got up late, to have wondered what after all there wasto get up for, and not to care much whether he stayed up or went back tobed. It was all extraordinary unlike his former orderliness and neatnessand precision, and I made up my mind that there were several things Iintended to say to him before I left him.

  "Well, how are you?" he asked perfunctorily. "Have some cocoa. I'll washanother cup."

  "No, thanks. You carry on with your breakfast. I've just been round tosee 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 notbe better for him to talk about precisely that. Even an active smart waspreferable to sloth and helplessness of that kind, and there issomething very lovable about Monty at his best.

  "No, no," I said. "Much better get it off your chest. And look here, myfriend, you haven't shaved this morning. That sort of thing doesn'thelp. Talk about something else? No, let's talk about this. Where isMrs. Cunningham?"

  "I think Buxton this week. Haven't looked at the _Era_. She's on tour ifyou 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 anoff-handed but tremulous little laugh.

  "Stick what?"

  "Everything."

  I knew what he meant by "everything." He meant, simply, this confoundedCase. Now, it appeared, it had power to break off an engagement and tobring Rooke down to dirty table-cloths, unmade beds and marmalade out ofthe grocer's pot.

  "Look here, Monty," I began, touching his sleeve, "we've been friendsfor 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 mewhy you left the studio, and why Mrs. Cunningham's gone off on tour, anda number of other things."

  Well, it took time, but bit by bit he yielded. In sullen, resentfulsentences 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 backteeth, Esdaile too. And all that stupid business last week just aboutput the tin hat on it."

  "Do you mean that photograph in the papers?"

  "Yes, and those idiotic crowds, and all their senseless talk. Who wantsa streetful of fools gaping at his windows for two or three days on endlike that? Then they started pulling his leg at the Club. So he justwaited till this chap Smith was fit to be moved and then cleared out. Idon't blame him."

  "Yes, I can understand Esdaile's being annoyed; but that's over now, andI don't quite see why you should leave and come back here."

  "Well, Audrey wasn't going there anyway," he answered. "She'd had enoughof 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 keepsyou 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 wasnever in the same mind about that for half an hour together. We weregoing to take a cupboard or something down there one day; it was his ownsuggestion; but he twisted and wriggled and tried to cry off till I wasabout at the end of my patience. You'd have thought he wouldn't have usdown there at any price. And then suddenly he turned round and said wecould 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 faras I could see. I admit I'd wondered once or twice whether there wasanything queer, but I went into every corner and there was absolutelynothing to see."

  "You're thinking of that other morning when he was down there all thattime?"

  "Yes. I can't make head or tail of that yet, but I can't see it'sanything to do with the cellar. And just listen to this. After makingall that fuss he came up again and didn't even bother to take the keyout of the door. It was there when I came away. One day he nearly jumpsdown your throat when you ask him for the key, and the next thing hegoes and leaves it in the door! I'm sure he did it on purpose too. Itwas just like saying, 'Go and live down there if you like.' Well, Iwasn't going to be messed about like that. I'm not going nosing roundother fellows' places. I'm not a policeman. So I cleared out. Would_you_ have stopped after that?"

  Again his voice shook a little, and I could guess at the meaning behindhis words. He meant, Would I have continued in a house the offer ofwhich had promised so much happiness that one moment's happening hadturned to discord and misunderstanding? I cannot say that I should.

  VII

  In my anxiety to set him talking after his own fashion I had not yetasked him anything about what had passed between Esdaile and Smith; butI intended to do so. For, just as Monty himself had been the firstobstacle to Philip's letting us into the heart of his mystery straightaway, so Smith, you will remember, had since blocked the current ofdisclosure. Philip had had to see Smith before taking the next step,and, as I had pre-figured the matter, he would go to the hospital oneday as soon as Smith had sufficiently recovered, would ask for hisaccount of the affair, and would then take the rest of us into hisconfidence or not, as the case might be. In other words, it depended onSmith's explanation whether Philip and the rest of us continued ourefforts at suppression or--did the other thing.

  But now Esdaile seemed to have taken neither course. As far as I couldgather he had calmly evaded the whole situation by carrying Smith offinto the country out of our sight and hearing. I admit that, since theassassin was taken into the bosom of Esdaile's own family, it looked asif he had succeeded in making out some sort of a case for himself; but Ialso remembered the strong bias of friendship and the practicallyinstantaneous resolution both he and Hubbard had taken that their Chummywas to be stood by till the last possible moment. That is not the mostjudicial frame of mind imaginable. Loftier, if chillier heights areconceivable. Esdaile alone of us had asserted from the beginning, andhad stuck unwaveringly to it, that as a matter of plain unvarnished factSmith had shot Maxwell. All along his manner had proclaimed that theaccident theory, which was good enough for the women and the police, wasvamped 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 hisreasons--unfortunately they meant putting a bullet into a fellow, but tohang Chummy won't bring t'other chap back to life--better let the wholething drop"?

  How beautifully simple!

  But at the same time how very unfortunate that an outsider, laboringunder a sense of grievance, should have patted Monty's pocket as hecame down the ladder that morning!

  Monty had risen, a little shamefacedly I thought. But for my call Ifancy he would have left his breakfast things as they were, washing upthe next cup when he wanted it. Now he began to stack them togethe
r fora general washing-up. He went into the little lobby place that held histaps and I heard the running of water into a basin; then he turned tohis tumbled bed and began to re-make it. He muttered something about mynot minding his carrying-on. I was far from minding it.

  "But look here," I said as he moved about, "about Smith. You sayPhilip'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 anhour--couldn't have had more than ten minutes with him--and then he cameback 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 backhere. He told me not to be an ass, but I don't call that being an ass. Idon't mean there was a row, but I'd got my back up a bit, and I didn'tfeel like asking him questions. I was sorry for him too in a way. Yousee, that morning after his wife came up----"

  "What!" I exclaimed in surprise. "Has his wife been up since she leftthat morning?" (This, as I have told you, was the first I had heard ofit.)

  "Yes. She turned up late one night. I was out--I'd gone for a walkRoehampton way just to think things over--that was before Audrey'd toldme 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 expectshe was tired out with the journey; anyway, her face was as gray as thatMichelet paper there. And Philip was done in too. That's why I didn'twant to make any bother. I couldn't help feeling sorry for him. I don'tknow 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 Joanwas----"

  Yes, Joan was in the Case too.

  "And she told me she'd seen Dawdy the night before. Dawdy was all abundle of nerves, and Mrs. Esdaile put her to bed. She told me that ifshe 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 ofhis bed and buried his face in his hands. He shook with sobs.

  "Oh," he broke out uncontrollably, "it's all that beast--that beastCunningham----"

  "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. "Drunkenblackguard--women all over the place--and Dawdy, Dawdy at home! I hopehe's in hell! Killed her heart he did. Can you blame her for not wantingto chance it again? I hardly had the heart to beg her, I was so brokenup. She admitted she'd nothing against me. She just wanted to be rightaway 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 inlike this. Sorry. But it is a bit upsetting, you know."

  Could I at that moment have added to his troubles by telling him aboutWestbury, the ladder and the pistol in his pocket?

  Perhaps I could have done. Anyway, I didn't.

  VIII

  I recognized the more readily the separate and inhuman vitality thisCase of ours was beginning to assume when I carefully considered itsaction upon myself. My connection with it was slight by comparison withthat of some of the others, but I was aware of its operation. Theattitudes into which it began to constrain me were not quite naturalattitudes. It exercised pressure. What pressure?

  Well, to begin with, this pressure--that I began to find it difficult toleave it alone. Both at home and at the office of the _Daily Circus_ itintruded between me and the work I ought to have been getting on with.Little fleeting pictures began to interpose themselves. Sometimes Iwould find myself looking fixedly at a galley-slip or a page still dampfrom the proving-press and seeing, not the thing in my hand, but JoanMerrow running in with the children from the garden again; at home mypage of manuscript would blur and there in a doorway Philip Esdailewould stand, his eyes dancing with a stilly excitement, the curacao andthe candle once more in his hands. And this, in my curious trade, is aserious matter. Out of precisely these insubstantialities I have tocontrive to pay my rent and income-tax and to provide mybread-and-butter. I will not go so far as to say that I dreamed of theCase at night, but it began to play the dickens with my work. Unable tosettle down to it, I found the Park drawing me instead, and even in theafternoons, which in ordinary commercial honesty were not my time atall, I began to put in the briefest and most perfunctory appearances atthe office. I contented myself with the appearance of busyness, andwondered how long it would be before my chief caught me out.

  In this frame of mind I happened one afternoon, by the merest chance, torun across Cecil Hubbard. I had dropped into a Technical and ScientificExhibition of some sort, and I had thought I had seen Hubbard'swhite-topped cap and foursquare back in the downstairs rooms, but hadlost them again. It was upstairs, a quarter of an hour later, that Ifound him.

  He was watching another man, evidently an attendant or official of theExhibition, who wore a double telephone-receiver about his ears and wasslowly turning the handle of an instrument that at a first glanceresembled an overgrown typewriter. Hubbard was peering into themechanism. Then, at the invitation of the other man, he removed his capand clasped the receiver about his head. The official continued to turnthe handle.

  "Hallo!" I said, coming up. "May one ask what it is?"

  Hubbard turned. "Hallo, what are you doing here?" was his greeting. Thento 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 ofordinary print. I myself had never heard of the thing, and am not surethat I give a technically correct description of it now, but, as Iunderstand it, the page travels along the carriage in such a way thateach letter in turn passes over a tiny ray of light that is directedthrough a morsel of selenium. The letter causes an interruption; alower-case "l," for example, which is a straight line, making one kindof break, but an "i," which is the "l" with the dot cut off the top, adifferent one; and so with the other letters. The transmutation is oflight into sound, and the official assured us that with a very littlepractice the ear learns to distinguish the minute variations in thetelephonic receiver without difficulty.

  Remembering Hubbard's former (to me lunatic) conjectures that day when Ihad called on him at the Admiralty, I thought it an odd chance that Ishould come upon him examining such a thing as this optophone seemed tobe; but our talk did not begin with that. Leaving the instrument, weturned away between glass showcases of fabrics and British glass andbrilliant dyes and crystals and approached a window-bay that looked outon a gray courtyard.

  "Well, what are you doing here?" he said again cheerfully. "It's a longtime since you looked me up."

  I told him that I went to all sorts of places in search of a littleclowning for the _Circus_, and added that it was precisely the samedistance 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 asthose of that Lennox Street breakfast-party. Moreover, I could see hewas sorry he had met me at this dead hour of the afternoon; he alwaystalked better over lunch at Simpson's, with a Bronx or a Martini tostart off with. Failing these, there was nothing for it but a cup of teato wash down our chat, and as a matter of fact
it was at a Slater'splace in the Strand, with a rather good little band of violin, 'celloand piano that, a quarter of an hour later, we settled down.

  "Well, Esdaile's taken your friend Chummy away," I observed when ourteapots 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 notknowing 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 Slaterband was not too bad. I think it was the "_Valse Triste_" that senthim off into a reverie. The young creature who played the fiddle hadbobbed hair and was rather an attractive sort of sylph, and theCommander's blue eyes with the dark dots in them were fixed on herintricately-moving fingers.

  Then he came out of his musing with a sudden jerk. What I especiallylike about Hubbard is that he usually knows what you want to know, anddoes not cease to feel the working of your mind even through a longishsilence.

  "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 itwhere you'd expect it and it isn't there, and then up it pops in a placeyou'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.