A Case in Camera
and Orders had as a matter of fact been withdrawn, but an amended
reprint was now available. He handed the slender white booklet to me. It
was dated April 30th, 1919, and had therefore been in force for some
days at the time of the Lennox Street accident.
I walked to my desk and settled down to the study of it.
I don't know that I was very much the wiser for my efforts. So much
seemed to be in the air in every sense of the word. The paper was not
even an Act, but an Order, and it seemed to me that its phrases about
"contravention of these Regulations" might in practice mean almost
anything. What, for example, did "stress of weather or other unavoidable
cause" mean? What would happen in case of a kind of accident expressly
excluded from the Order--"within a circle of a radius of one mile from
the center of a licensed aerodrome"? What about the special cases
permitted "by direction of the Secretary of State on the recommendation
of a Government Department"? I don't mean that the intention of it all
wasn't plain enough. The drafters of the Regulations had done the best
they could in a new and totally unexplored field. For all practical
purposes this new science was just as old as the War, and these detailed
points of law had not arisen during the War. But they were coming up
now, a whole body of practice still to make, and any youngster who chose
could loop the loop and what little proved Law there was at one and the
same time.
In fact, the only quite unmistakable paragraph I found was the one that
promised proper castigation "to any person obstructing or impeding the
authorities" and so forth--that is to say, Hubbard, Esdaile, myself and
the rest of our little gang of law-breakers.
And, before I pass on, bear with me for one moment while I ask you to
observe how all History began to loom behind our Case, ready at any
moment to drive it irresistibly forward. For that four-centuries-old
Upspringing of daring and glory and adventure that we call the
Renaissance is come suddenly and magically into our midst again to-day.
There are now to seek and to chart and to possess Indies and Orients,
not of the unembraced and bridal waters, but of the already defeated and
subject Air. Our age hears the old imperious call, and across four
hundred years of time the hands of a George receive Romance from those
of an Elizabeth. It may seem a far cry from this to the Man in the
Public-house, but it crept and lapped about our Case like a
slowly-mounting flood. Idle rumors brought with the milk to Chelsea
doorsteps; a Press eager to take its lead from any momentary whiff that
ruffles the popular mind; a Government that without that Press could not
govern for a week; and the radiance of this new sunburst over all--this
is the apparatus of our Drakes and Burleighs of to-day. And, so long as
the mighty thing went forward unimpeded, what did any individual matter?
VI
"Foreman? You may well say foreman! But he hasn't finished with me yet!
You've seen what it says in to-day's _Roundabout_, haven't you? Very
well, young-fellow-me-lad; you watch it! They laugh best that laugh
last. It isn't over yet!"
I was grinding my teeth behind my copy of the paper he had just
mentioned. The thick-headed fool had done it. I was not reading the
paper; I was merely using it to hide behind as I stood at the
Public-house counter with one foot on the brass rail.
"Over? It hasn't begun yet!" Westbury continued, his convex eyes glaring
from one face to another. "It's ventilation these things
want--ventilation in the public Press--and I tell you I haven't started
yet! I went into this Case out of public spirit--'Webster,' I says to
our friend, 'if you want me you know where to find me'--I'm a busy man
with my own private affairs to look after, but right's right and I'm not
the man to hang back when forward's the word--and if they think I'm as
easy stopped as all that they're mistaken, K.C. or no K.C.! The body was
viewed--some of 'em didn't want to, but I saw to that--but I contend
there ought to have been a proper post-mortem. And you may take it from
me that if there had been this Case would have gone forward."
"Do you mean to a Criminal Court, Harry?" a voice asked.
"I said gone forward; I didn't say what Court. We'll see about Courts by
and by. This Mister Smith or whatever his name is will be had up for
flying to the danger of the public, and we'll see what happens then!"
Once more I vehemently cursed him. It was half-past eight at night, with
nothing unusual doing at the office, and I had left Willett in charge so
that I might find Westbury. It was perfectly certain that after
Hodgson's leading article of that morning Westbury would not spend the
evening in the retirement of his home, but would be out for what young
Willett calls "gin-and-glory." As it happened, I had run him to earth
at my very first attempt, in the same Saloon Bar in which I had first
seen him.
You may know Hodgson's leading-article style. If we on the _Circus_
don't imitate it it is not that we deny that it "gets across." It is
allusive, rorty and familiar, and there is frequently common sense
behind it. If the Man in the Public-house likes his news served up in
that way you can't blame Hodgson for meeting his wishes. This is what he
had written, no doubt sending his Chelsea sales up by hundreds of
quires:--
"TOM, DICK AND ICARUS.
"Our correspondent Mr. Harry Westbury is some lad. You will find
his letter at the foot of the next column to this. Why, asks Harry,
in these days when you may consider yourself lucky to have a roof
over your head at all, should your head and that roof be brought
into sudden and violent contact? Not that Harry is a jumper; he
isn't going to challenge Joe Darby; but the ceiling and your
occiput can establish connection just the same if the former comes
down on the latter. What he really means is that aeroplanes,
subject to sudden syncopes of the engines, have no business over
Chelsea's pleasant roofs at all.
"H.W. does not claim that he personally suffered damage from the
crash we reported last Friday. But he is a respected House and
Estate Agent residing in the district and speaks feelingly. _C'est
son métier_, as our gallant and Gallic Allies say. He means, we
take it, that if civil aviation is to develop, corresponding
safeguards must be developed side by side with it. Here we are with
Harry all the way. Our Olympians may have burst a number of
brain-cells over the present Regulations, but they will have to
find a new wave-length. Tom, Dick and Harry we know, but we have
not yet been properly introduced to Tom, Dick and Icarus. No, sir,
not with building materials at their present price and the plumber
rolling up in his Rolls-Ford. The pilot who came down in Chelsea
last Thursday is said to have been employed by the Aiglon Company.
Nuff said. If the Aiglon or any other Company is out for public
support it knows what to do. In the meantime we hope Mr. Westbury
won't raise his house premiums. But that is another story.
"THE MAN IN THE PUBLIC-HOUSE."
That was the whole text of it. Was it fair comment on a matter of public
interest? Well, I don't say it wasn't. Was it a timely reminder that
high-spirited lads who had lately been praised for their dare-devilry
must now pull themselves together and fall into line with the new
conditions? Very likely. Was it a legitimate attempt to arouse interest
in the age's new wonder, or merely a political stick with which covertly
to beat some high official dog or other? I didn't know.
For my mind was occupied with quite other thoughts. From round the edge
of my paper I was trying to sum up Westbury--a young man, but
unexercised; seldom drunk, as a man in decent physical condition would
have been on half that he swallowed, but already habituated and inured;
probably quite well-to-do, in that mysterious way that causes tradesmen
quietly to acquire their own houses and to drive in their own
two-seaters to places of entertainment such as that I was in; and yet in
a sense a minor man of affairs as distinct from a tradesman, a cut above
the shirt-sleeves-and-counter business, if not exactly entitled to style
his occupation a profession. He had got over the first overweening stage
of the vanity of that day's publicity; he was now a little disparaging
what he wouldn't have allowed anybody else to disparage; was treating
Hodgson quite as a familiar, in fact, which as far as I was concerned he
was perfectly at liberty to do. A dangerous beast, I thought again, and
none the less dangerous now that Billy Mackwith, as foreman of that
coroner's jury, had got his back thoroughly up.
"Yes, Mr. Mackwith, K.C. or O.B.E., or whatever you call yourself," he
was muttering again, "they laugh best that laugh last. If he'd even said
to me, 'What's _your_ opinion, sir?' I won't say but what I should have
thought a bit more of him, but him and his silk hat and gloves ... you
wait a bit! There's a few will be surprised before this Case is over!"
It seemed to me that he scarcely took the trouble to veil what he really
meant. Nor was I surprised at the way in which his hearers evidently
took his words. For, looking from his cunning yet stupid face to the six
or seven other faces about him, I could make a guess at their attitude
too. Remember those first faint rumors that had found their way with the
morning's milk to Audrey Cunningham's doorstep. Remember what whispered
currency they must have had before they had come to Audrey at all.
Remember that photograph in the _Roundabout_ that had filled Lennox
Street with a gaping crowd that morning, a crowd that had taken a couple
of days to diminish and die away. Esdaile told me later, too, that for a
week he had been conscious of turning heads as he had walked along the
streets.... Oh, I could have made this Case of ours a thing of pistols
and parachutes only, but I wished to go a little farther than that. Not
that I have any particular views on mass-suggestion at large. My
business is simply to observe its working. And here I was, in a Saloon
Bar, observing it in a very curious form.
For I think that every single member of the group to which I was
listening behind my newspaper had more than an idea of what Westbury
really meant. I think they knew perfectly well that when he spoke of
flying to the public danger he meant very, very much more. I don't think
there was one of them who had not heard the story of Inspector Webster
and the bullet. Secretive as he was, he would be garrulous among his
intimates if garrulity enhanced his self-importance. I am perfectly
certain that every one of them knew all this, knew that he had been
thwarted in his legitimate demand for a post-mortem examination, and
knew in addition something else that I also was to know by and by.
Then suddenly something happened that placed all this beyond any doubt
whatever.
Besides their own party, I was the only person at that end of the room,
and I had been there long enough to have drunk three glasses of beer
instead of the one that still stood only half empty on the counter at my
elbow. As I listened the voices suddenly dropped. There was a minute of
whispering, during which (realizing a little late that eavesdroppers
must keep up appearances) I finished my beer and ordered a second glass.
Then Westbury's voice rose again.
"Yes, 'corresponding safeguards or words to that effect,'" he said. "I
gave my copy of the paper away. Er----"
The last was a sudden clearing of his throat, evidently intended to