A Case in Camera
Naturally any track of that nature was totally unexplored by me; but I
was far from dismissing it on that account. Here again my ignorance of
modern War came in to humble me. For what is the good of saying things
are fantastic and far-fetched--sound-ranging and the selenium cell and
what not--when for a number of years the food we have eaten and the
clothes we have worn and the roofs over our heads have depended on just
such fantasies? Not for nothing were those clusters of listening cones
at Hyde Park Corner and on Parliament Hill, not for nothing those
wireless masts over our heads at that very moment. Their operation might
be unfamiliar to me, but these things were the daily business of
Commander Hubbard, R.N. He turned as naturally to them as I myself turn
to those equally mysterious things, a man's motives and the operative
emotions of his heart.
"For all that," said Hubbard abruptly, "I should like to have a good
look at that cellar of his."
I was silent. I didn't know whether his wish to see the cellar included
sound-experiments on the roof also.
"More than that," he continued slowly, "--by the way, did Mrs. Esdaile
and the children get away?"
That I did not know.
"Well, what about going round this evening to see?"
"The chances are that they did if I know Philip."
"I don't mean that. I mean what about going round to see that cellar,"
Hubbard replied.
I didn't say so, but I had a sudden wonder, quite new and born all at
once of I don't know what, whether Esdaile might want us to see his
cellar.
V
However, we went, and at a little after eight o'clock rang the bell we
had rung under such very different circumstances at breakfast-time that
morning. The parachute still waved in the mulberry, and a few policemen
were unobtrusively hanging about the street. Two of these did not move
very far from the gate. I supposed that in view of pending inquiries it
was important that the parachute should not be touched.
We waited so long for an answer after ringing the bell that I had almost
concluded there was nobody at home. We were, in fact, on the point of
turning away when Esdaile himself opened the door.
Poor devil! I learned presently that he had had callers enough that
afternoon to make him wish to disconnect his bell altogether--interested
parties of all sorts, a dozen of them at least. He had as a matter of
fact removed his telephone receiver from the hook. He said its ringing
had nearly driven him mad.
But even all this did not explain his weariness as he stood holding the
door open in the still bright light of the perfect evening. My first
glance at him made me wonder whether something even more untoward than
that morning's sudden drama had happened. Before, his manner, baffling
as it had been, had at least had a sort of hectic brilliancy, an
artificial excitement that had buoyed him up and kept him going. Now it
was as unlike that as possible. He was spiritless and played out. He no
longer seemed to wish to keep everything and everybody at arm's-length.
Indeed, we had his reason almost before he had closed the door behind
us.
"Of course, you've heard who it is?" he said to Hubbard in a dull voice.
"No. Who?"
"Chummy Smith."
Only the fanlight over the door let in the last of the day, but it did
not need light to reveal how the name Esdaile had spoken affected
Hubbard. To me this name conveyed nothing for the moment. I heard
Hubbard's indraught of breath.
"You don't say so! Good God! Which? The dead one?"
"No. The other. I happened to ring up the hospital to ask how he was
going on and learned that way. That was before I took that infernal
receiver off. Come in. I'm all alone."
"Your people got away, then?"
"Yes," said Esdaile. And I fancied I heard him grunt, "Thank God!"
"Who's the other chap?" Hubbard asked as we walked along the passage.
"Fellow called Maxwell. Never heard of him. Did you?"
"No."
"Well, come in. It's the devil, isn't it?"
I suppose it _is_ the devil when one of your particular friends comes
down like this on your roof; but it struck me even then that it would
have been still more devilish if he had been killed in doing so. Yet not
only had their friend Chummy not been killed, but, according to Rooke's
account earlier in the day, he was in a fair way for recovery. Hence I
didn't quite see the reason for Esdaile's utter dejection. I should have
understood it better had their friend been, not Smith, but the dead man
Maxwell.
You see, I had totally forgotten one pretty little incident of that
morning's breakfast. Perhaps you have forgotten it too. Remember, then,
that Philip had pared an apple for Joan Merrow, had told her to see what
initial the paring made on the floor, and had shaped his own guess with
his lips--"C for Ch"--as he had hidden his bit of paper under his
napkin.
Philip pushed up chairs for us and pottered about in search of whisky
and glasses. Then, having set out a tray, he dropped heavily into a
chair. For a time none of us spoke, and then I asked if Rooke was out.
"Yes. He's taken Audrey Cunningham home," Philip replied with marked
brevity, and the silence fell on us again.
If Hubbard had really come for the purpose of seeing Esdaile's cellar I
could see that all thought of this had now passed from his mind. The
first thing to do was to cheer Esdaile up. After all, Chummy was alive
and doing well. The news when Esdaile had rung up the hospital that
afternoon had been reassuring. It might be some little time before he
was out and about again, but certainly the occasion did not seem one
for gloom. I therefore kept silence while Hubbard pointed all this out.
And as Esdaile's spirits seemed to revive a little and things began to
seem not quite so hopeless after all, I began to rummage in my memory
for recollection of this Chummy Smith of theirs. I remembered now that I
had at any rate heard his name. And I confess that I am a little
curious, not to say jealous, about some of these intensive War
friendships. It interests me to note which of them survive the quieter
and more persistent pressure on the lower levels, and which fail to do
so. Not every one of them succeeds. It is one thing to wait in a Mess
for the overdue chum, trying not to look too often at the full glass of
gin-and-bitters that by this time he ought to have come in and claimed,
and quite another to meet that chum a year or two later and, as you ask
him what he will have, to know that you are making the swift mental
note, "Ah, _that's_ him in mufti!"
But this rubicon had been safely crossed in the case of Chummy Smith. I
began to piece together odd things I had heard. Philip, meeting him in
Coventry Street six months before, had stopped, spoken, and had
presently brought him home to a scratch supper. A fortnight later Chummy
had dropped in again unannounced. Thereafter he had continued to come at
fairly frequent intervals. He and myself had never happened to call at
the same moment, that was all.
"Who do you say he's flying for now?" Hubbard asked presently.
"The Aiglon Company. He's a goodish bunch of shares in it, I believe.
Knows his job, too. Ever see him zoom?"
He described Smith's performance of this terrifying maneuver, with the
fire of the Lewis gun reserved till the last twenty yards, then the
fiery bridge-clearing rafale, and the upshooting like a rocket as he
cleared the rail by a yard.
"Yes, he's a dashed good youngster," Hubbard agreed. "Thank the Lord
he's all right."
But Esdaile only leaned his head wearily on one hand and sat gazing
moodily at his whisky-and-soda.
Then it was that the probable reason for all this depression flashed
upon me. Then it was, in that moment, that I remembered that
apple-paring, Joan's adorable little schoolgirl's outbreak, and her
tucking away of that piece of paper into her breast. Philip Esdaile was
thirty-nine, young Smith twenty-four; that is a difference of fifteen
years; but a young man of twenty-four could be quite devoted to
Methuselah himself if there was a young woman anywhere about. Those
frequent calls after that meeting in Coventry Street simply meant that
Philip's leg had been pulled. Chummy Smith was no doubt very fond of
Philip, but he was even fonder of Philip's wife's help and companion.
And Joan had seen the crash.
No wonder Philip thanked God that she didn't know who it was she had
seen come down.
VI
I know now the exact point up to which I was right, and also where I
ceased to be right. Mollie Esdaile made a clean breast of the whole
guileful conspiracy of their courtship afterwards. Here it is, for your
edification and warning.
Mollie had several times been down to visit Philip in his billet at the
Helmsea Station. There it was that she had first seen Chummy. At first
she had not been able to single out Chummy from the rest of the
uniformed mob that led such a mysterious existence down there--a world
of womenless men, who paraded at all hours of the day and night,
suddenly vanished by the half week together, turned up smiling again,
danced with one another to the grinding of gramophones, played cards and
snooker, howled round pianos and swapped yarns, Kirchners and pink gins.
To Mollie their uniforms were of two kinds only, khaki and dark blue. In
course of time she had come to pick out Chummy as wearing both--khaki,
but with the rings and shoulder-badges of the other Service. The lad
made Philip ask him to tea, and the next time, in Philip's absence,
Chummy had asked her to tea.
And so to the sky-blue uniforms and the monochrome of mufti again, by
which time Chummy and Mollie were firm friends.
I believe she threw the youngsters together from the moment Philip first
brought Chummy home to Lennox Street. She says she didn't, and refers me
to Joan. I wouldn't hang a dog on what Miss Joan says on such a matter.
For who can believe in the candor of a young woman of just twenty who,
the very first time a young man is brought to the house, straightway
enters into a clandestine arrangement to meet him at tea the next day,
and presently can hold out her hand with a conventional "Good-by, Mr.
Smith," as if the last thing that entered her head was that she would
ever set eyes on him again? It takes the nerve of the modern young woman
to do that. The case of Mr. Smith, observe, is entirely different. Mr.
Smith, suddenly meeting the lovely young thing, may not be sure whether
his feet are treading a polished studio floor or whether they have
little Mercury wings on them that waft him through the empyrean; but
there is this to be said for Mr. Smith--that when he is in love he
doesn't behave as if he wasn't. He fidgets even if she goes out of the
room for a minute. He doesn't know that she herself couldn't tell him
why she has gone out of the room. He thinks she had something to go for,
and never dreams that she is just sitting on the edge of her bed,
knowing perfectly well that he will be leaving in half an hour, asking
herself what made her so suddenly get up and leave him, and yet not even
writing him a note.
The notes came later, at about the time she put a lock on her
letter-case. They were numbered "1," "2" and "3" to indicate the
sequence in which they should be read (a billet scribbled at seven
o'clock in the evening must on no account be read before one that is
dashed off at tea-time), and they were constantly on the wing.
Nor did these protégés of Mollie's choose tea-shops that Philip was
known to frequent, nor cinemas the kindly gloom of which might by any
chance have concealed him. Philip never noticed that his monthly
telephone accounts rose perceptibly higher. True, he did ask one evening