A Case in Camera
attract attention--my attention. I half dropped the paper and saw the
convex eyes on mine.
"If that paper belongs to the house, sir, might I have a glance at it
just for one moment?" he said.
VII
I had bought that copy of the _Roundabout_ myself, but I knew that that
was in no sense the point. Without a word I handed it to Mr. Westbury.
My second glass of beer was placed before me, and as I half turned to
get a coin from my pocket I felt, positively felt, their eyes on me. I
also felt their removal as I took up my change and resumed my former
attitude. Westbury had taken the paper with a "Thank you, sir."
"Ah, it's open at the very page. Begin here, Tom," he said. "'If civil
aviation is to develop----'"
And he passed the paper to one of his companions.
I had not the least intention of leaving. I was perfectly well aware
that Westbury had not wanted that paper, but had wanted to see my face.
He was not likely to recognize it as that of the younger novelist whose
portrait appears publicly from time to time, since in order to maintain
that humorous status I have for a dozen years refrained from having my
photograph taken at all; but I knew enough of my man to be sure that
little had escaped him during that half hour or so when he had occupied
that position of privilege outside Esdaile's French window, and that he
probably remembered every face of that breakfast-party--Mackwith's and
my own among the rest. That was why I had no thought of leaving. He was
hardly the kind of man I should have had much to say to in the ordinary
course, but if he saw fit to challenge me, well and good. In fact, I
hadn't very much choice in the matter. I had only to picture to myself
what sort of glances would be exchanged among them were I suddenly to
finish my beer and walk out and my remaining became almost a necessity.
Nay, _he_ had already challenged _me_ when he had borrowed my paper. My
only doubt was whether, in view of that whispered conversation and of
the dimensions Rumor had now attained, they hadn't all challenged me.
The next moment Mr. Westbury had gone still farther. He had also chosen
the ground on which our duel, if there was to be a duel, was to take
place. The Public-house has its own punctilio. I wouldn't go the length
of saying that you can't ask a stranger for a match without offering to
buy him a drink in return, but such invitations are given on quite
slight occasions. I was not surprised, therefore, when Mr. Westbury,
catching my eye, acknowledged the loan of the paper by saying, "Will you
have a drink, sir?"
So I had in a sense either to eat his salt or refuse it. I did not
hesitate. Certainly that beer was salt enough.
"Thank you," I replied.
"And what is it, sir?"
"I'll have another glass of beer."
He ordered it. Then, "I think we've met before," he said.
The silence of the others was suddenly very noticeable. It was for all
the world as if some referee had ordered, "Seconds out of the ring."
"I'm afraid I don't quite----" I began.
"Well, I won't say it got as far as an intro," he took me up, "but
weren't you at a certain house in Lennox Street when an accident
occurred the other day?"
"I was, but I wasn't aware----"
"Oh, I wasn't inside the house. But I was able to be of some little
assistance outside," he replied. "A very curious affair, sir," he added
tentatively.
"Rather a sad one," I replied.
There was a pause. "Chelsea's very much interested in that accident," he
continued.
I answered that I didn't live in Chelsea.
Then suddenly he became almost amiable; but for all his amiability his
eyes were like the hard-boiled eggs on the counter, only a trifle
yellower.
"Well, that's two of you gentlemen I've met now," he said. "I haven't
the pleasure of knowing your name, but the other gentleman was Mr.
Mackwith."
There was a certain correctness about this opening that I had
reluctantly to acknowledge. He may or may not have known my name--the
chances were that he had already ascertained it--but I read his thought.
A few minutes ago, possibly before he had become aware of my presence,
he had spoken pretty freely of Mackwith; he was now obviously asking
himself whether I had overheard this. In all probability I had, but in
such cases the official attitude is the best. Had Mr. Westbury been an
administrator I could have imagined him penning a minute: "This does not
come within the knowledge of this Department."
"Yes," he continued after a pause, "I had the pleasure of sitting on a
coroner's jury with Mr. Mackwith the other day."
"Really?"
"Yes, and strange as it may seem, in connection with this very accident
we're speaking of."
"That's very interesting," I said genially. "I haven't seen Mr. Mackwith
since the occurrence. What happened at the inquest on the unfortunate
man?"
"The verdict was in the papers, sir. And my own views are in that paper
my friend is reading. They're twice over, as a matter of fact, once in a
letter of mine they printed and once in the editor's remarks on it."
"Ah, then you're Mr. Westbury!" I exclaimed with feigned surprise. "I
was reading both your letter and the article just now. I congratulate
you. I see you're in touch with both sides."
Mr. Westbury looked at me with mistrust. "What both sides?" he asked.
"With both the men who came down that morning," I replied. "You were at
the inquest on one of them, and you very properly call for an inquiry
into the other man's conduct."
"I do!" he said so vindictively that he might almost have been spitting
the two words into one of the sawdust-filled spittoons. "I do more than
call, Mr.----" he glared.
"Oh? But how can you do more?" I asked politely. "There are certain
prescribed forms in such cases, and if inquiry on those lines turns out
to be satisfactory I should have said there was nothing more to be
done?"
"Ah! If!" said Westbury, with the greatest intensity of meaning.
There was a palm in a copper pot behind him, and above his head a
picture of a huntsman holding up a fox over the baying pack preparatory
to drinking Somebody's Whisky. My eyes wandered reflectively to these
objects for a moment; then I took a further step. It seemed to me too
late to draw back now.
"But--well, since we are discussing this I wish you could be a little
plainer," I said. "You say all Chelsea's interested in this Case, and I
don't live in Chelsea. Why is Chelsea so interested?"
He replied promptly enough. "Because, sir, of certain things that don't
appear on the surface of which I happen to have some knowledge."
"May I ask what things?"
He echoed me.
"And may I ask you something, and that is whether you happen to be aware
that the police searched certain premises the other morning?"
"Do you mean the morning of the accident?"
"I do _not_ mean the morning of the accident. I'm speaking of last
Friday morning, at six o'clock, before anybody was about."
I considered a moment. Then, "But why not?" I replied. "Is there
anything unusual about that? Surely when an accident takes place the
police are the proper people to investigate it?"
I thought he would have jumped out of his chair with vehemence.
"Ah!" he cried. "Now you're talking! That's more like! The proper
people? So they are; you stick to that! And now I'll ask you this: If
that's so, why keep things back from them? Why this hushing up? Answer
me that. Or bring some of your friends to answer it. That's all I have
to say!"
And he flung himself back in his chair and continued to mutter softly.
It was evident that his choler against Mackwith had risen again. What
had passed between the two men was no less plain. If Mackwith was right
in his estimate of this fellow, air-raid nights spent in cellars are not
the best of training for duties so unpleasant as those a coroner's
inquest sometimes involves. Billy, on the other hand, did his bit in a
Field Company and is tempered metal throughout. In any contest of wills
between two such men there was no doubt which would be the victor. It
had hardly occurred to Billy that there was a contest. Innocently and
unconsciously, he had ridden roughshod over Westbury, and, if Westbury's
mutterings meant anything, was to suffer for it.
"But," I said presently, "I'm afraid I don't understand even yet. It
seems to me you're bringing a charge against somebody of interfering in
a very serious matter. If anybody has interfered I agree with you that
it's a public scandal and ought to be exposed. But I can't believe I've
understood you properly."
He did not reply.
"And not only that," I continued, "but, if you'll forgive my saying so,
you're neither bringing a charge nor leaving it alone."
Here, for the first time, a third person put in an aside.
"Tell him about that, Harry," a voice whispered.
(And, feeling pretty sure that I could guess what "That" was, I thought,
"Now for that wearisome bullet story all over again!")
"I need hardly say," I went on, "that if you have any such charge to
make there's not a single person who was there who won't gladly help
you."
("Tell him about that, Harry," the voice whispered again.)
Then it was that Mr. Westbury "went back on" that eager group of mutes
who had so scrupulously kept the ring for us. I saw their faces fall as,
with a little jerk of his head to me, he rose. Whatever the "That" was
they wished him to tell me, they apparently were not to be present at
the telling. Looking back on the scene, I don't think he had any
particular motive in this except more "gin-and-glory"; he would tell
them all about it, with embellishments, afterwards. He passed down the
bar and held the swing door open for me to precede him; then the door
gave a "woff woff" as he followed me out.
VIII
I ask you to notice several untenable points about the position I had
taken up. Twice at least I had flatly lied, once when I had told him
that I had not seen Mackwith since the morning of the accident, and once
when I had given him to understand that I knew nothing of the police
search of Esdaile's premises. I say nothing of the greater lie, that we
were all ready to help him in his efforts to get to the bottom of the
Case. I count that as more the natural momentum the Case itself had now
acquired than any personal untruthfulness on my own part.
Next, I now saw that as an eavesdropper my technique had been painfully
clumsy. I had attracted attention to myself. I had accepted Westbury's
hospitality, but (believe me, out of pure forgetfulness) had omitted to
return it. Several times he had given me an opportunity, which I had not
taken, of telling him my name, though I had admitted my knowledge of
his. These may seem small things, but there are ways and ways of
drinking a glass of beer. Within certain limits, I had a distinct sense
of social failure.
And if, over and above all this, I had given him and his associates
credit for too little intelligence, that I am afraid is rather a fault
of mine. It may even have something to do with my position as a younger
novelist. I constantly forget that one man is as good as another because
he is as many.
So here I was, a clumsy, unmannerly fellow with a guilty conscience to
boot, face to face with a very Chesterfield of the best licensed
establishments and the whole body of law and order and public duty
overwhelmingly on his side. We stood there under the unlighted
public-house lamp, while the violet light of the May evening slowly
faded from what Hodgson had called "Chelsea's pleasant roofs."
He was fully aware that he possessed what the correspondents used to
call the initiative. This showed in his very few first words. I, it
appeared, was to be forced to open the ball.