A Case in Camera
for the most part were they. Thanks to a "joy-ride," I did just see War,
but for the rest I went where I was told to go and did what I was told
to do. It is therefore just possible that from the point of view of
those who lived in the hell I only briefly visited, one or two of my
values may be a little "out." The North Sea cannot be quite the same to
me that it was to Esdaile and Hubbard, the air means just what it meant
to Maxwell and Chummy Smith. For this I am afraid there is no help. But
there is always the chance that if I have minimized, they might have
stressed a little unduly. For while our Case has nothing to do with War,
War is always antecedent to it, as for a generation to come it will be
antecedent to everything.
So, on this understanding, we may get on with the tale.
VIII
A slightly embarrassing little scene next took place in that
breakfast-room in Lennox Street, Chelsea. Rooke had put down the Time
Table, and Mollie Esdaile's face wore an expression of exasperation.
It appeared that Philip wanted to pack his family off according to
program but wished to remain behind himself. For this he gave no
reason--or rather he gave several reasons, all of the thinnest
description.
"But how tiresome!" broke from Mollie. "Why on earth do you want to
upset everything like this?"
Philip muttered something about the newly-arrived pictures needing a
thorough overhauling.
"And the children all ready, all but their hats!" Mollie exclaimed.
"Better hurry them up.... At least seven of them are to frame too."
"Then there's Monty and Audrey, what about them? When you offer people a
house----"
But at this one of Mrs. Cunningham's slender hands was imploringly
raised. Her small mouth was parted in appeal.
"Oh, please! Don't think of that! I should be miserable if I thought
that was going to make any difference!"
"But of _course_ it makes a difference!" Mollie declared. "All your
things will be coming here, all your things for the wedding, and anyway
you won't want Philip hanging about the place. Better never have offered
the house at all!"
"Oh--for a day or two--I shan't be in the way," said Philip uneasily.
But it was awkward for all that. If Esdaile had offered his house to one
of his more prosperous friends he would not have hesitated to say
frankly that he was sorry, but something unforeseen had happened, and
the hospitality must be considered "off." But this was different. It was
known that these two were the reverse of well-off. Monty as a matter of
fact had already given up his rooms in Jubilee Place, and I had gathered
at breakfast that Mrs. Cunningham only intended to occupy her
bed-sitting-room in Oakley Street for a very few days longer. There was
her story, too, which I shall come to presently. Philip's decision
certainly upset a number of minor arrangements.
"Oh, it's too ridiculous!" Mollie declared again with vexation. "If it
means that the wedding's to be put off I don't feel like going away at
all."
But Philip only continued to mumble soothingly that it would be quite
all right, and it wasn't for long, and nobody had said anything about
putting off the wedding. The situation looked rather like a deadlock,
and Mackwith already had his silk hat in his hand and the Commander's
white-topped cap was tucked under his upper arm. Whether Philip went or
stayed was a private family matter after all.
But as we were on the point of taking our leave yet another significant
little trifle was added to all the rest. And again Monty Rooke provided
the occasion.
Monty, I ought to say, is one of these fellows who, whenever any odd job
is to do, especially a domestic one, instinctively seems to take it upon
himself. I dare say his living in rooms and studios hardly big enough to
turn around in has made him methodical in his habits. It was Monty, for
example, who had looked out the train in the Time Table; it was Monty
who had picked up the jar of curaçao when Esdaile had let it fall to the
floor; and it was Monty who, just as the rest of us were leaving,
wandered off towards the studio, presently returned again, sought the
kitchen, and reappeared with a sweeping-brush.
"What are you going to do with that?" Philip asked, seeing him making
for the studio again.
"I thought I'd just sweep up that broken glass," Monty replied.
"Better leave it," Philip answered.
Monty carried the brush back to the kitchen again, and presently
wandered off to the studio once more. Esdaile must have had eyes in the
back of his head, for I, who was facing the studio, had not seen Monty
preparing to draw back the roof-blinds again.
"I wouldn't bother about that just at present," Esdaile called rather
loudly. "Just see if there's a train about tea-time, do you mind?"
Monty, once more returning, took up the Time Table again. Philip walked
with us to the door. Then another little exclamation broke from him.
Monty had put down the Time Table and had asked him for the cellar key.
"What on earth do you want the cellar key for?" Philip demanded.
"To put this jar of stuff back," Monty replied. "It won't be wanted
now."
Hereupon Philip broke out with a petulance that struck me as entirely
disproportionate, if indeed there had been any occasion for petulance at
all.
"Oh, we can do that any time. We've got all the rest of the day to
ourselves, haven't we? Sit down and smoke a cigarette or something;
you've done about enough for one morning----"
It was then that we left.
PART II
WHAT HAPPENED OUTSIDE
I
It may have already struck you that while Esdaile, a responsible
householder directly interested in any unusual occurrence on his
premises, had not once been into his garden to see what the trouble was,
I myself, a journalist with quite a good "news story" in the wind, had
shown little more eagerness. Well, I will explain that. In the first
place, we have our own reporters, who do that kind of thing far better
than I can. Next, however interesting things outside might have been, I
had found them quite interesting enough inside. But my real reason was
this:--
Rooke had said that both these aviators were civilians. Well, as regards
civilian flying, we on the _Circus_ had something that for want of a
better name I will call a policy. To speak quite frankly, this policy
was a supine one enough, and merely consisted in waiting for a definite
lead.
As you know, no such thing as a definite lead existed. Except for war
purposes, the future use of flying was at that time the blankest of
blanks. It is true we talked a good deal about it, but that was merely
our highly specialized way of saying nothing and filling space at the
same time. Nobody admitted this lack more readily than those who had
drawn up the provisional Regulations. These were merely experimental,
any accident might change them at any moment, and, in one word, all our
experience was still to be earned.
For this reason, I was just as much interested in opinion about the
facts as I was in the facts themselves, and already I was looking
forward to an exchange of views with Hubbard and Mackwith.
But time had flown. Both Hubbard and Mackwith had appointments for which
they were already late, the one at the Admiralty, the other in the
Temple. I therefore parted from them at Sloane Square Station, and,
being in no great hurry myself, turned back along King's Road. What I
was in search of was a representative public-house. We have all heard of
"the man in the street." You often get even closer to the heart of
things when you listen to the man in the pub.
I think it was the sight of a plumpish young man in a horsey brown coat
that settled my choice of pub. For a moment I couldn't remember where I
had seen that or a similar coat before; then it flashed upon me. A man
in just such a coat had preceded that ladder that had been passed over
the heads of the crowd in Lennox Street, and he or somebody very like
him had managed to get inside Esdaile's gate and to secure a privileged
position within a few feet of the mulberry tree in which the parachute
had lodged.
I followed this coat through two glittering swing-doors a little way
round the corner from the King's Road, and found myself in a
closely-packed Saloon Bar full of tobacco-smoke and noise.
II
I will venture to say that the man I followed was never shut out of a
tube-lift in his life, however crowded it was. He jostled through the
throng about the counter as if it had been so much water. I learned
presently that he had had no sort of interest or proprietorship whatever
in that ladder that had been passed along Lennox Street. Seeing a ladder
approaching he had merely pushed himself forward, had placed himself at
the head of it, and, with energetic elbowings and loud cries of "Make
way there!" had made it to all intents and purposes his own, squeezing
himself in at Esdaile's gate with such nice judgment that the very next
man had been shut out. He called this "managing it a treat," and I
further gathered that neat things like this usually did happen when
Harry Westbury was anywhere about.
The aeroplane accident had at any rate given the licensed trade a fillip
that morning. When I asked for a glass of beer I was curtly told, "Only
port, sherry and liqueur-brandy--three shillings." Yet many a three
shillings was cheerfully paid. Nothing so stimulates conviviality as an
undercurrent of tragedy. Apparently half Chelsea had given up all
thought of further work before lunch, and in my Saloon Bar there were
already signs that more than a few would make a day of it.
And so bit by bit I managed to edge myself nearer to Mr. Harry Westbury.
I dare say you know the kind of man. If the house had a billiard-room
upstairs no doubt he had his private cue in it, as well as his private
shaving-pot at the barber's round the corner. For all his freshness and
plumpness, there was nothing of the jovial about him. Either he had no
humor, or he did not intend that humor should stand in his way through
the world. His convex blue eyes were hard and bullying, and his rosebud
of a mouth never blossomed into a smile. Probably his wife had a thin
time of it. But she would have as good a fur coat as any of her
neighbors.
He was holding forth as I drew near on what he called this "Tom, Dick
and Harry sort of flying."
"And here you have the proof of it," he was saying, his fingers pronged
into four empty glasses and his hard eyes looking defiantly round. "Look
at the damage to property alone! What price these air-raids?
Three--million--pounds in the City in one night! That's my information
as an estate-agent. Three--million--pounds! And now everybody's going to
start. What I want to know is, is it peace or war we're living in?
That's what I want to know!"
He also wanted to know whether it was the same again--the three-shilling
brandy. He was "not to a shilling or two" that morning. It was only
right that as a spectator from the reserved enclosure he should "put his
hand down."
"I wasn't thinking of property; I was thinking of those two poor lads,"
a gray old man said from his seat near the automatic music-box. I
happened to know him by sight as old William Dadley, the picture-frame
maker--"Daddy" of the fledgling artists of the King's Road.
But Westbury would have no weak sentiment of this kind. There was a
blood-and-iron ring in his voice as he set the brandy down.
"Poor lads be blowed!" he said. "They know the risks, don't they?
They're paid for it, I suppose? What I want to know is who's going to
put his hand in his pocket if they start coming down on top of those