A Case in Camera
"Not a word!" I ordered him. "Hen-corn has been thrown into my room.
What was thrown into your room yesterday morning?"
(She had tossed up to his casement a bud of the William Allen Richardson
that grew up the cottage end. Coming round the corner from an early
stroll up the dewy paddock I had seen her do it, as well as the little
token from her lips that went with it.)
"I don't care which room I'm given, but I will not share it with
poultry," I continued firmly. "Also I object to this unfair
discrimination about things thrown in at windows. So understand that I
am busy writing this morning."
"Well, we're going to Flaunton in the trap," said Joan defiantly.
"Children," I said, turning to them, "Mr. Smith and Miss Merrow are
going to Flaunton in the trap. The tuckshop at Flaunton is a much better
one than the Santon one, and there are smugglers there. They are armed
to the teeth, and they carry contraband into their echoing caves usually
at about midday."
"_That_," declared Joan, "I call mean! Bringing the children in!"
"It's no worse than bringing the hens in," I retorted; and our murderer
guffawed and took another egg.
I cannot say that I gained much by my protest, since, having put the
idea into their heads, I had to hire the station fly and take the
children to Flaunton myself. But it was a change from the sands, and it
gave me the opportunity for studying the blood-stained path of their
dalliance against a fresh background.
IV
But as you were. The peep-hole must be closed again. From the point of
view of the unities Charles Valentine Smith is still lying in a hospital
cot, writing daily but brief notes to Joan, forbidding her to come up,
and receiving countless boxes of tightly-packed Santon flowers. We are
in London again, during the last days of May.
One morning I had knocked off my private work rather earlier than usual
(I had, in fact, been quite unable to settle down properly to it), and,
to fill in the time before lunch, had walked up Queen's Gate, entered
the Gardens by the Memorial, and strolled slowly along in the direction
of the Row. It was a pleasant morning, and the riders were out in full
force. Idly I was admiring glossy flanks and cruppers and bits jingling
and flashing in the sun, when suddenly a horseman overtook me from
behind and called me by my name. I turned, exclaimed, and shook hands
with him.
He was a junior officer in the Australian Light Horse, and several times
I had come more or less closely into contact with him during my own
uneventful period of Military Service. His name was Dudley Hanson, he
had been in Gallipoli, was still in uniform, and was awaiting his boat
back home again and demobilization. He plays no part in this story
except on this single occasion. He was riding a rather pretty little
chestnut, and his hand patted the animal's neck as he leaned over the
railings and talked.
"By the way," he remarked, after a little chat about men we both knew,
"that was rotten luck for poor old Maxwell the other day. You saw it in
the papers, didn't you?"
"Who?" I said, perhaps with rather a jump.
"Bobby Maxwell. He used to spot for our lot in Gallip. Came over here
after. I thought you knew him."
"What was the rotten luck?" I asked.
"Why, he came down somewhere in London the other day--crashed--killed on
the spot."
"Dud," I said, "where are you lunching?"
"Whoa, lass.... Oh, any old joint, I guess."
"Then get off back to your stable and come straight along to my Club.
Come straight along. Don't stop to change or anything. I want to see you
particularly."
He seemed a little surprised at my urgency, but waved his hand and was
off. I continued my walk, but no longer slowly. I always walk quickly
when I am interested, excited or moved by any emotion.
I was now all three. Maxwell! Dud Hanson knew him, and had even fancied
that I might have known him myself!
Whatever luncheon engagement Hanson might have had that day I can assure
you that I should have urged him to break it.
My Club is in Piccadilly, and I waited for him in the entrance hall with
impatience. I gave his name to the porter as expressly as if otherwise
he might have been denied; I set my watch by the club clock, I fiddled
with the skeins of tape in the baskets. I had even a momentary scare
lest I should not have pronounced the name of my Club distinctly or
lest by any chance he should have misheard.
You see the reason for my eagerness. Maxwell was our unknown quantity,
the one big blank in our Case. One or another of us could contribute his
portion of knowledge about everybody else, but nobody knew anything of
Maxwell. His function was entirely unconsidered, his rights totally
disregarded. Rights? I know nothing of the law of the matter, nor
whether a dead man has rights; but if he has they should be all the more
enforceable because he is in no position to enforce them for himself.
What would Maxwell have had to say about his own shooting? What had
brought about that shooting? Was he the kind of man who, in Monty
Rooke's large and equable view of the crime of murder, ought to have
been shot? Or was he the other kind, whose death was a loss to the
world? These were a few of the questions I wanted Dud Hanson to help me
to answer.
He appeared, and we made our way to the dining-room at once. I gave the
order for the whole of the lunch so that we might be interrupted as
little as possible, and then I came straight to the point.
"First of all," I said, "you say you knew Maxwell. Do you know the
fellow who came down with him--C. V. Smith?"
"Smith? Smith? Yes, I think I do, if he was Bobby's pilot out there.
Smith's a pretty common name. Slightish build, but tough as they make
'em--dashing sort of chap with very lively dark eyes?"
At the time I could not verify this physical description. "Well, were
they friends?" I asked.
"I guess a pilot and his observer are like the little birds in their
nests--it's dangerous to fall out," Hanson replied. "What's _to_ all
this?"
"The position's this. They happened to crash on the roof of a friend of
mine and this fellow Smith's. Smith's still in hospital, and neither my
friend nor I knew Maxwell. So I want you to tell me about him--anything
you know about the pair of them."
"Right you are...."
But if it was evidence of ill-feeling between the two men I was after he
could give me none. Indeed, the probabilities were all the other way. In
other Services the bond between man and man is strict, but there is
still room for preferences and aversions. Your mess, for example, is
yours, and you are filled with a jealous pride if an outsider has
anything to say about it; but within its circle you pick and choose your
friends. The ward-room forces you into the closest physical contacts,
but you can still please yourself about the other intimacies. Even in a
submarine, where the death of one is likely to be the death of all, you
may yet like one man more than another. But two men in an aeroplane are
twins in a womb. The very pulse of one must be the pulse of both, their
senses, glances, thoughts, such a unison of coöperation as the former
world never saw. For one to harm the other is not assault, but
semi-suicide. Rarely need you even "look for the woman." Gloriana both
serve, but they hardly quarrel about lesser mistresses.
Yet is it not possible that this extraordinary attachment, this
association somewhat in excess of that of natural and aeroplaneless man,
may by its very nature have its own reactions? The closer the tie the
bitterer the quarrel when it does come. And here an artificial element
is superadded. For, in spite of Joan, who thought that Chummy simply
thought of her and flew, man does not naturally fly. If nothing else
forced him into accord the mere mechanical risks would be enough to do
so. I remember Smith told me that at one time--whether this is still the
case I cannot say--an observer was not allowed to be trained as a pilot
also, lest, seeing his comrade doing something he himself would not have
done and conscious of the functioning of a different mind, he should
lose his head at a critical moment and instinctively seize the controls.
Had there been such a dissolution of unity on that morning of the
breakfast-party? Had hand hesitated, this factitious identity suddenly
failed? Of all men living Charles Valentine Smith was the only one who
could answer these questions with authority; but I wanted to get all I
could out of Hanson.
"Had Maxwell his pilot's ticket?" I musingly asked him presently.
"Couldn't say. Lots of them have flown hundreds of miles without a
ticket at all."
"Was he an Aiglon Company man, by the way?"
"Dunno. If he was he probably had his ticket. I can't see what use a
commercial Company would have for a bomb-sight specialist."
"Oh, they might. You never know."
"Well, perhaps so. I'm sorry, old son, but you know as much about poor
old Bobby as I do now."
Summarized, this was all the information I got in exchange for my
lunch:--
Maxwell was four or five years older than Smith, in civil life a
surveyor, unmarried, not (so far as Hanson knew) engaged to be married,
nice fellow, reasonably abstemious, quite sound in wind and limb.
Hanson didn't think that Maxwell had spotted for any other pilot than
Smith during the time the two of them were in Gallipoli.
Maxwell didn't strike Hanson as being a sort of man to lose his head in
an emergency; had indeed rather a cool head and steady nerve.
In conclusion, Maxwell had always seemed particularly attached to Chummy
Smith.
"But what's worrying you? Going to put it in a book?" Hanson asked.
I shook my head. I had no idea at that time that I should ever be
writing this book.
V
On that day when I called at Lennox Street and received no answer to my
ringing I stepped back from the door and looked up at the house again.
Little trace of the accident now remained. The broken mulberry branch
had been neatly sawn off and the smaller branches trimmed. The blinds
were drawn, the French window clamped up, and quite obviously there was
nobody there. This, as I have said, surprised me, since, even if Esdaile
had gone away without letting me know, I had certainly expected to find
Rooke.
Then, as I walked down the path again, a thought struck me. Rooke, if I
remembered rightly, ought to be getting married just about then--ought
as a matter of fact to have been married three days before. I had had no
news of this. True, he might simply have neglected to inform me, but I
did not think this likely. Was he married? Suddenly I found myself
wondering and doubting.
In the King's Road, to which I walked, a blue and white telephone sign
hanging outside a grocer's shop caught my eye. I walked into the shop. I
have a good many friends at the Chelsea Arts, and one or other of them
ought to be able to tell me something about Rooke.
I got through at the second or third name I asked for. It was Curtis. He
asked me to go on to the Club, but I told him that I couldn't spare the
time, and he next wanted to know where I was speaking from.
"Then you're hardly a stone's-throw from him," Curtis replied. "He's
back in his old rooms in Jubilee Place."
I was on the point of asking Curtis whether Rooke was married, but
already I had a divination. If he was not, to ask why he was not would
only make talk, and, if he was at home, I could ascertain for myself at
little more trouble than walking across the road. I thanked Curtis, hung
up the receiver, and turned my steps to Jubilee Place.
I say I had a divination already. At the very outset of this book I told
you that the Case affected a number of people in various and curious