A Case in Camera
"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 the
proposal 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 I
say 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 had
entered those swing doors for a glass of beer and had not spoken to him
until he had borrowed my newspaper; but obviously that line led nowhere.
Moreover, from his comparative calm of manner now, I realized that while
the larger advantages lay with him, at least one small tactical
superiority was mine. He was quiet for the moment, but would probably
flare up again immediately at the mention of Mackwith's name. So I kept
Mackwith in reserve.
"Well," I said in a conciliatory tone. "I have a feeling that both of us
wished to see the other, and from what you've told me with very good
reason. 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 this
Case than meets the eye."
He grunted. "Impression's good!"
"That there's some sort of a misunderstanding that ought to be cleared
up."
"'Impression's' damned good!" he muttered again. "I like 'impression.'"
"Well, never mind the word. You reminded me a few minutes ago that we
were 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 a
blink. 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 for
a purpose. Specially. I won't say the place isn't free to anybody, but
it would be bad for trade if everybody stood behind a paper looking for
twenty minutes at a glass of beer. I don't think there's any need to be
plainer than that."
"Very well, have it that way if you like," I returned. "You tell me the
whole of Chelsea is interested in this Case. Well, as I was there when
it happened it's natural that I should be interested too."
"Hah!... Well, all I have to say to that is that nobody would have
guessed 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 put
it this way: Here's two men come tumbling on a man's roof. Bit of a bump
they make, don't they? Say a thousand people watching, eh? It isn't a
thing that happens every day exactly, you'd think? Very well. _Now
where were all of you?_ Finishing your breakfast? 'Interested,' you say.
Well, you'd expect the master of the house to be a bit interested. But
where was _he_? Where were all the rest of you, except him that went up
on 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 time
hardly worth mentioning and yet unpleasantly significant. If his
suggestion was that at the time of the accident we were all whispering
together 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 us
except Rooke, and Hubbard for one brief moment before his arrival, had
taken the trouble to step outside to see what had happened, I could only
reluctantly agree with him. You will remember that precisely the same
observation had struck Hubbard and myself at the time.
"Yes," he repeated, seeing my discomfiture, "that's the first point that
strikes me; where was Mr. Esdaile, for instance, that _he_ didn't come
out?"
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 that
Mr. 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 to
walk. "Why not?" he demanded.
"Because he was down in the cellar at the time. He'd gone down to fetch
a 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 with
all 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 more
interested 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, and
he's on the roof. He's the only person up there till the police
came--has the field to himself so to speak. Then he comes down the
ladder 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 might
say. That was the state he was in when he came down that ladder. Why?"
His manner changed suddenly to truculence. "Why? Hah! That's the
question, isn't it? Some of you'd like to make out you know nothing at
all about it, but they laugh best that laugh last, and don't you make
any 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 certainly
raises a very interesting subject, and I'm quite of your opinion that
flying ought to be better regulated; but I wonder if you'd resent a
piece of advice from an older man?"
"Much obliged, I'm sure." Those were the words. The tone in which they
were uttered bore no relation to them.
"But let me give it, for all that. You seem to be on the point of
making charges against somebody for something or other. Well, that's
never a safe thing to do, but if I were you I'd certainly think twice
before I started with a rather distinguished barrister. They're usually
able to look after themselves pretty well in such matters."
I said it quite deliberately. It was abundantly plain that unless I
kindled his wrath again he might go on laughs-best-ing and
laughs-last-ing all night. I didn't want to hear his vague and muttered
menaces. I wanted to know whether that bullet was in the hands of the
police, and if so, what action was to be taken. So I produced Mackwith
from my sleeve.
"And another thing I'll tell you plainly," I said with something nearer
real warmth. "If I were to hear any annoying whispers about myself I
shouldn't have a moment's hesitation in taking any steps I thought
proper. As I see this business, you force your way into a private garden
under 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 your
place by a coroner's court----"
But I got no further. By this time we were in a quiet and dingy street
where almost every house seemed to have an "Apartments" card over the
door, and at the fury of his outbreak I expected every door to be flung
open 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 barrister
friend, do you? Oh yes, you're all in it together! _I_ knew what you
came for to-night! I forced my way into gardens, did I? And what about
those that force themselves on roofs before the police come, touching
things they've no business to be touching, eh? _I_ pick up cock-and-bull
stories, 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 in
presently! Trying to cod me one of you was in the cellar for half an
hour! A bit too much roof and cellar for my fancy! I was a shade over
the 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, and
drink your beer a bit quicker next time! _My_ kids aren't going to be
shot at and no questions asked! The questions'll come presently. They
laugh best that laugh last----"
And, as a neighboring door was opened, and a blind across the street was
drawn up, and a window-sash creaked somewhere else, it came upon me in a
moment what had happened.
Philip Esdaile's hands had not been the first to pat Monty Rooke's
pockets that morning. Westbury, holding the ladder, had been before
him.
PART V
SOME BYWAYS OF THE CASE
I
Strictly speaking, it is not on the Santon headland that Charles
Valentine ("Chummy") Smith ought to make his first appearance in this
story; but it was there that I myself first saw him, and I want to give
you my impression of him as I received it, if at the cost of taking a
slight liberty with time. So I first set these eyes on him during a
month I spent with the Esdailes somewhat later in that year.
I may say to begin with that he would probably have passed unnoticed
among the innumerable other young men of to-day who at one time looked
just a little civilian in their new uniforms but now wear their mufti
again with a subtle but unmistakable difference. You know the young men
I mean--they still speak of distances in kilometers, can talk for hours
on end about motor-bicycles, and sprinkle their conversation with the
jargon of ragtime French they are proud to share with their own privates
and sappers and bombardiers. A year or so ago you went into a restaurant
that was brown as a beechwood with khaki; you go there to-day and the
khaki is gone--yet still hauntingly and mysteriously there, edging (as
it were) the mufti with a faint rim like a color-print a little out of
register. The ghost of khaki still clings about faces, movements,
speech, the glances of eyes. Or if it isn't khaki it is the
navy-and-gold, or Charles Valentine ("Chummy") Smith's unbelted sky-blue
with the black cap-band.
He and Joan (in this little peep ahead which I am taking) were waiting
for me on the platform of Santon Station. It was a week or so before the
Company's Inter-Station Flower Competition--that annual Show that makes
the whole line with its tiny stations as gay with flowers as a row of
Thames houseboats. Geraniums and marguerites hung in boxes from the
canopies; the sills of the porters' room were a rage of bloom; and
lobelia and red bachelor's-buttons and white pebbles from the shore were
set in patriotic emblems all the way from the booking-office to the
signal-box, which alone was bare. As the train drew up I saw them
standing together on the sunny platform, with a bower of ramblers over
their heads and a heaven of larkspur behind them.
Charles Valentine Smith was for taking my two bags to the trap that
waited at the level crossing, but peremptorily Joan pushed him away and
called a porter. The presence of the trap did not mean that Chummy could
not 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. And
I may here mention, quite incidentally, the rôle I was apparently cast
for in advance. "Auntie Joan" was supposed to take the children down to
the shore every day. Charles Valentine Smith could not yet manage the
shore climb. This necessarily meant a temporary separation. Two days
later _I_ was taking the children down to the shore. Whether Miss Joan
had 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 which