A Case in Camera
refrain from dwelling too much on this in the office of the _Daily
Circus_. But it lies behind every word of our print for all that.
"Another thing," Hubbard continued. "I don't know much about the
Elizabethans, but I'm prepared to bet that a good many of 'em were
youngsters. While old Burleigh was nodding, some infant just out of his
cradle was getting away with it. At all events, there's no reason that I
can see why he shouldn't as well be twenty as ninety--every practical
reason why he should, in fact."
"Do you mean young Smith's like that?" I suddenly asked.
Perhaps it wasn't quite fair. When a man has the pluck to talk on these
lines it is rather a cold douche to bring it all down to one finite and
fallible human being. Even the pentecostal flame may flicker at times.
But I noticed that Hubbard did not say No. Indeed, he did not answer me
at all. His eyes were on the child with the fiddle again and the living,
climbing fingers.
"Clever hands, aren't they?" he said. "Wish I could play the fiddle."
IX
It was a little later, when we came to speak of the optophone, that I
found him to be still firmly rooted in the conviction that Esdaile's
cellar contained the solution of at least a portion of our mystery. He
was quite unshakable on this point. I will not trouble to re-state his
recapitulation of the events of the morning of the farewell breakfast.
Of subsequent events, I may say, he knew little.
"Well, I won't pretend to understand you," I said at last. "If you
seriously think that Esdaile's got some sort of an optophone in his
house----"
He waved his hand impatiently, as if to beg of me not to be an ass.
"Oh, cut that out. I'm not given to melodrama any more than you are. Of
course he hasn't; that's infantile. But what is there to prevent there
being something peculiar about the ordinary acoustics of the
place--perfectly ordinarily and naturally, but one of these freakish
effects--there are such things--an echo's the commonest example, of
course--then there _are_ these whispering effects--vagaries of
sound----" He tailed off.
"But he heard no sound," I objected, "or at any rate so little that we
decided he couldn't know what it was. He certainly didn't hear what we
heard. You've got the whole thing turned round."
"I know," he mused. "And yet he gave you the impression of a man who
knew more than all the rest of us put together. In fact, he practically
admitted he did."
"But--if you will have it it's the cellar--two people have been down
since."
He turned quickly. "Who are they?"
"Rooke and Mrs. Cunningham."
"Well, and what had they to say about it?"
I had to admit that, according to Rooke, something about the place had
brought Mrs. Cunningham to the verge of hysteria, while Rooke himself
had found the place inexplicably uncanny.
"Then as far as it goes that bears me out?"
"As far as it goes. But they found nothing out of the ordinary. Esdaile
even left the key in the door, and there was nothing to prevent them
from rummaging to their hearts' content."
"Did they rummage?"
"Rooke didn't. Said he wasn't a policeman to go scratching about other
people's houses. I thought it rather decent of him."
"Well--it's possible they didn't know what to look for."
"Do you?" I parried.
"No," he confessed,--"not unless he keeps a tame ghost down there."
"In that case the Chelsea Arts Club would be right," I laughed; and we
went on to speak of other things.
X
Then one morning I had a letter from Joan Merrow, which I give you
without the alteration of a single word. If you yourself have a modern
young Anthea who may command you anything and does not hesitate to do so
I accept your sympathy in advance. The letter ran:--
"DEAR OLD THING,
"Do be an angel and do one or two little things for me. I'd rather
ask you than anybody else because you're the _kindest_ person I
know. If you're too busy of course you'll say so straight out, but
what I want first of all is for you to get me the addresses of a
few nice small houses or convenient flats."
In course of time I had recovered my breath. This, remember, was in
1919. It was not the Crown Jewels her ladyship wanted, merely "a nice
small house"; not the sun, moon and stars, only "a convenient flat." I
think my nerves might be spared shocks of this kind at my time of life.
"Of course, I know rents have gone up," she continued, "but Chummy
thinks there ought to be plenty of quite nice little places for
about £70, but you could go up to £75 for a really nice house with
a garden, rates and taxes included, of course. There are some sweet
little houses right on the edge of the Heath at Hampstead with
trees all round them and dear little brass knockers on the doors,
but I don't know if any of those are empty, but you might ask."
I seemed to remember those sweet little houses. If I am right, your
father puts his name down for one of them on his coming of age, and,
with luck in the matter of intervening deaths, your son may end his days
there. I have never had the impiety to ask the rent of them.
"There wouldn't have to be any premium, and there _must_ be a
telephone. Speaking of telephones, I do wish you could persuade
Philip to have that one of his moved, as where it is everybody can
hear every word you say. The house needn't be Hampstead, of course,
Wimbledon or Richmond would do if you wouldn't mind having a look
round. If you went on the top of a bus you'd be out in the fresh
air and the blow would do you good. Then there would be the
question of a maid, but we shouldn't want her for a month or two
yet."
At this point a little fanning with the letter refreshed me
considerably.
"And now," the joyous thing continued, "if you happen to be
anywhere near Regent Street it would be so kind if you would call
at Morny's and get me some soap, I like Chaminade best, and some
tooth-powder, any good sort. I know how busy you are, but it is so
difficult to get things here. I tried to get some Petrole Hahn the
other day, but they'd never heard of it. I'd ask Mrs. Cunningham,
but I hear she's away, and you carry colors so well in your head.
That's why I wonder if you'd call at that little bead-shop in
Oxford Street, nearly opposite Frascati's, and see if they have any
amber beads, not the real amber, of course, iron-amber I think they
call it. Chummy wants me to have some because of my hair. Not the
huge ones, please, but from about the size of a pea to as big as a
marble."
"Or a 7.65 mm. bullet," I murmured to myself.
"The weather here is lovely and we're out all day long, and I do
wish you were here. But my bathing-costume is a perfect rag. I hate
the skirted ones and always wear a plain club one, either navy blue
or black; but I'm afraid it won't run to a silk one, though you
might ask the price. And now here's something that isn't for me at
all. You know Hamley's, either in Regent Street or Holborn, but
they have a better selection in Regent Street. The boys want two
pairs of water-wings, and they'd better be of different colors or
they'll get them mixed up and be always quarreling. And oh, Chummy
says it's awful neck, seeing he doesn't know you, but there are
some pipes, 'Captanide' they're called, and you get them at Loewe's
in the Haymarket. There are two sizes, and he would like the
smaller size, two of them, please. You can add them to my bill as
they're my present to him and he's giving me the beads, and he'd
better have some tobacco for the pipes. His number at Dunhills' is
06369. A pipe is better for him than cigarettes, though I allow him
six cigarettes a day and you can only get gaspers here. Any nice
kind would do as long as they're Turkish. Thanks so much. How is
the novel getting on? We're both so looking forward to reading it.
Is it a love story? I do hope it is, as I'm sure you'd do that so
beautifully. Do be a pet about the house. I'm sending you some
flowers to-morrow.
"JOAN."
With a light sigh I folded the letter and put it into my pocket. At any
rate, there seemed to be two people on whom our Case did not weigh too
heavily.
PART VI
THE MAN IN THE CLUB
I
I always have the lurking feeling that Democracy would be all right but
for its numbers. I am aware that this sounds paradoxical, and that in
its numbers is supposed to lie its strength, but I do not see how that
can ever be a properly directed executive strength. There are too many
cooks. Taken one at a time, how admirable are its impulses, how just in
the main its judgments! But block-vote it----! Take away its trust in
Princes and put it in Polls----! Convert its votes, not into effective
action, but into arid deserts of statistics----!... Two men can make a
holy friendship; among three there can be a useful understanding; but
ten will ever winnow the wind with talk, and a hundred are a mere
arithmetical obstruction in the way of ever getting anything done at
all.
I am moved to these reflections (as no younger novelist ever dares to
say) by a series of occurrences that began at that time so to harass me
and to put me so completely off my private work that, like poor Monty
Rooke, I might almost as well have stopped in bed till midday. These
were the occurrences that I had already dimly foreseen when that
photograph of the house in Lennox Street had so suddenly appeared in
that morning's issue of the _Roundabout_. By an unforeseen fluke the
peril of the coroner's inquest had been safely passed, but I had felt
in my bones that others were gathering.
Well, they gathered. I learned, no matter how, that the Scepter
Insurance Company was consulting its solicitors and its solicitors were
instructing counsel. The plane and parachute people, as I had expected,
were investigating scraps of twisted metal and pieces of scorched
fabric, and the Accidents Investigation Committees were getting to work.
Understand that none of these happenings were official happenings. If
the Scepter wanted to resist, it had its ordinary remedy at civil law.
The Committees had no authority whatever except to draw up reports for
their own information and satisfaction. The interests of the owners and
manufacturers were likewise purely private ones.
In fact, as far as I could see, the only charge that could lay Charles
Valentine Smith _directly_ by the heels would be one under those
half-baked Orders that so far were the best that could be done towards
solving an entirely new problem with totally unascertained powers.
But there are wheels within wheels, and it is the little wheels that are
the devil. We still speak of things being "official" long after that
imposing word has ceased to have much significance. If only for the
arithmetical reason mentioned above, Government works ever more and more
through channels that are not official and votable on at all. Many a
private concern has a Minister, or at any rate a Minister's adviser or
an influential Member, safely tucked away in its pocket, and you may
invert this if you wish in the sense of an understanding. This is why
bright-eyed secretaries, fresh from a dinner-table or a conference that
has let them into the very heart of some secret matter, are not
supposed to be asked what knowledge they have in their extra-secretarial