A Case in Camera

  Do you see why I laughed to see the hay our Case had made of the meritsof our respective sides?

  I was ruminating thus when a bodily collision brought me with a shockback to earth again. I had scattered somebody's armful of parcels, atissue-paper bag with a couple of eggs in it among them. Instantly I wasin a consternation of apology. Diving, I managed to rescue a small loaffrom rolling from the kerb and to save from a passing foot a packet ofcooked ham. Then, flushed and humbled, I heard a laugh.

  "Look here--I don't so much mind your upsetting my grub, but I do mindbeing cut," said a voice--Rooke's voice.

  IV

  What a change for the better! He had shaved, his boots shone, the softcollar round his neck was a clean one and his gray tie was fastidiouslytied. His face had a brightness again, he was engaged in the pleasantordinary task of buying groceries, and Dadley had just told me that hewas framing "paspertoos" for him. Was another of the clouds of the Casebreaking up?... On the spot I decided to lunch with him, and told himso.

  "All right, but the eggs are up to you," he said.

  Inside his little den in Jubilee Place the improvement was no lessmarked than in his person and demeanor. There was not a spot on hislittle red-and-white checked table-cloth, his crockery shone, his bedwas neatly made. He had faced the new situation and had ceased to mope.

  In my waistcoat pocket was a ring he had once given to AudreyCunningham. Seeing his cheerfulness, I had not the slightest intentionof reopening matters by telling him anything about that ring. If Audreydropped rings as casually as he picked up pistols, very well; it was notmy business to mar this cheery new beginning.

  "Lightly boiled, or how?" he said, my egg poised in a teaspoon over thesaucepan on the gas-ring.

  "Yes--lightly boiled--anything," I replied. "Got any mustard for thisham?"

  That too he had, and he had taken care over the preparation of his jugof coffee. He was entirely the old Monty again.

  I don't know when I have enjoyed a lunch more, not even excepting thewashing-up, which he insisted on doing the moment we had finished. "Ifthere's one thing I loathe it's coming in to a lot of unwashed things,"he explained. "Not a ha'porth of trouble once you get the habit."

  Then he showed me the work on which he was engaged. That too had energyand movement again. One small sketch I liked and bought on the spot--alittle thing, neither black-and-white nor color, or both if you like--acrayon sketch of a couple of infants in the Flower Walk in KensingtonGardens, one of them with a shining round sixpenny balloon touched witha whiff of pink, the other with the doleful rag of one that had justexploded--the slightest, sweetest little bit of treasure-trove of theeye picked up in an afternoon's stroll.

  "But not the copyright," he stipulated with a quick sideways glance atme. "I might be able to reproduce."

  "Right; not the copyright," I agreed. I didn't mention it to him, incase it shouldn't come off, but I thought I might be able to help himwith reproduction-rights. We have a good many side-shows on the_Circus_.

  Then, in the middle of turning over further sketches, he broke suddenlyinto a gesture of remembrance.

  "By the way--I knew there was something I wanted to tell you! A funnysort of thing happened the other day. You remember that police-sergeantor whatever he was, who came into Esdaile's place that night?"

  "He was an Inspector."

  "Inspector then. Well, I've seen him. Had a talk with him. Funny sort oftalk too--I've been puzzled about it ever since. I was loafing roundSloane Square. There's a flower-woman there, interesting type ofhead--this sort----" He turned over one of the sketches and on the backof it his pencil flowed into a few swift assured lines. ("That's ratherlike her, by the way," he said in parenthesis, "regular cast-irongypsy.")

  "Well," he went on, "her face struck me as rather an interestingcontrast with a lot of silly mimosa she had in her basket--I hatemimosa; so I was taking peeps at her, not sketching, you understand,when I heard somebody behind me say, 'Well, Mr. Rooke!' and I turned. Ijumped rather. It was this Inspector fellow, and he'd a funny sort ofexpression on his face, not laughing exactly--sort of quizzing--I can'tdescribe it----

  "Then he said something that I thought the most infernal neck.

  "'You aren't thinking of adopting a flower-woman's baby this time, areyou, Mr. Rooke?'

  "Damned impudence, wasn't it? Fancy the beggar knowing that!"

  Monty was ruffling up at the recollection. I could not resist a smile.

  "Chelsea knows that exploit of yours as well as it knows the AlbertBridge, Monty," I assured him. "Go on."

  "Well, then he said, 'You'll have to get out of that habit of adoptingthings, Mr. Rooke. You never know where it ends.'

  "'What do you mean?' I said. He _was_ smiling now, but I felt a bituneasy. We did stuff him up a bit that night, you know. He's a darkhorse, that fellow.

  "'It doesn't do, Mr. Rooke,' he said. 'Different men take differentviews of their duty, and you'll be striking one of the other sort one ofthese days!'

  "'I don't know what you mean,' I said. 'Oh yes you do,' says he. 'I'mdashed if I do,' says I. 'Then you're lucky not to be dashed a good dealworse,' says he; 'you take my advice, Mr. Rooke, and stop adoptingthings, babies or what not. You might burn your fingers. Youmight--ahem!--blow 'em off'....

  "And he nodded and marched off.

  "Now what the devil do you think's his game?"

  I know of no more exciting mental pleasure than that of finding your _apriori_ guesses taking shape and substance in the realm of actualthings. I suppose it is the triumphant cry of your deeper self tellingthe other self "I told you so!" Remember how little I knew of InspectorWebster, yet with what instinctive reserve I had hedged my impression ofhim. "A dark horse?" Yes, of quite the darkest kind. I recapitulated thedegrees of his darkness. He had come round to Lennox Street that night,probably fresh from his talk with this fellow Westbury; he had put awhole series of questions, but of implications so guarded that inwriting that portion of the story I had to itemize and underline what Isurmised to be their real purport; and he had instituted a search ofEsdaile's premises--twelve hours later! Why twelve hours later? Why noton the spot, there and then? Why give Philip this law, that as a matterof fact he had made use of to drop that pistol into the river?

  Could it be that he knew his House and Estate Agent better than wedid--knew his vanity, dullness, and the risks of basing a charge on hisunsupported word? No doubt he had questioned Westbury in terms far moreexplicit than those he had used to us. Unless Westbury had actually puthis hand inside Rooke's pocket, probably all he could swear to was thatthe pocket contained something heavy. Not until late in the sameafternoon had the bullet been found. Suppose Webster had said toWestbury, "Not so quickly, my friend; you said nothing about a pistol atthe time; it only became a pistol when the bullet was found; we can't goputting the cart before the horse like that; evidence is evidence; youcan't let half a day pass and then remember things to fit the Case;_you_ may feel sure of a thing, but could you make a jury sure?" Supposehe had said something like this? The police too are bound by theprobabilities of conviction. It is no credit to them to fail on acharge.

  And a man who can say, "Was it indeed, sir?" when informed of theidentity of a distinguished King's Counsel who has expressly announcedhimself only a few hours before is emphatically not the man to thinkthat he can make a jacket for a large gooseberry by skinning asmall-sized flint.

  V

  "Now what was his game, do you think?" Monty asked again.

  "He was giving you a piece of wholesome advice," I answered promptly.

  "But 'You stop adopting things; you might--ahem!--blow your fingersoff.' He said it like that. I haven't put in the 'ahem.' That was his.It looks to me as if he knew about that pistol."

  "It has very much that look," I agreed blandly.

  "But how? I can't understand yet how Esdaile knew, but this PoliceInspector----!"

  "'Oh, what a tangled web
we weave when first we practice to deceive,'" Imurmured. "You never can tell, Monty."

  "Oh, stop burbling. How do you suppose he did know?"

  "Let me see. You told Philip it was his keys that made your pocket bulgeso, didn't you?"

  "Oh--if you're just going to rot me----"

  "I'm not rotting you. I've a feeling that if you'd told InspectorWebster the same thing he'd have been happy and delighted to believeyou."

  "But how does he know _any_thing about what's in my pocket?" said thebewildered Monty....

  Should I tell him? Why not? I had studiously avoided anything that mighthave reminded him of Mrs. Cunningham. Pluckily as he had taken himselfin hand, I did not think that that wound was healed. But the episode ofthe pistol was another matter. I felt singularly and perhaps not quitejustifiably light-hearted about that. The mists of the Case wereperceptibly thinning. What he had just told me about Inspector Websterlet still a little more sun through them. To all appearances theInspector had dismissed Monty with a quite characteristic admonition.And that being so, it was perhaps his due that I should not leave Montyaltogether unarmed in the event of any contingency with Westbury.

  And so I told him how his pocket had been fingered as he had descendedthat ladder.

  He was furious. "Damned pickpocket!" he broke out. "I should havethought these sharks made enough out of their filthy premiums nowadayswithout putting their hands right _into_ your pockets!"

  "I didn't say he did that exactly."

  "It's the same thing. And anyway, how did he know? What made himthink----?"

  "Perhaps he saw you pick it up. Could he have done that from downbelow?"

  "Might. I shouldn't have thought so though. Of course, I was flurried."

  "But you wouldn't have thought it in Esdaile's case either," I remindedhim.

  "No, that beats me," he admitted.

  "And I wouldn't be _too_ virtuous about it, Monty. In any case you'd nobusiness with the thing, you know."

  "Oh, stuff!" he scoffed. "It's you that's being virtuous."

  And, with that ring in my waistcoat pocket that I had picked up with nomore justification than he had the pistol, he might have added that Iwas hypocritical too.

  VI

  To tell the truth, that ring was beginning to worry me a little. I don'tmean my possession of it, since I had no intention of pawning it, andwas prepared to hand it over to its rightful owner as soon as I feltthat that course would not do more harm than good. My concern was aboutthe severed relation of which it had been a symbol. I wondered whether Iwas not perhaps a little excessively delicate on Monty's behalf. If myeyes, wandering round his tidy room, had encountered a copy of the _Era_or been given any other excuse for introducing Audrey Cunningham's name,I think that after all I should have risked it. But "When in doubt cutit out" is a safe motto, and I remained silent.

  I had had, however, an idea. Mrs. Cunningham might be "fed" with men,but it was not likely that she had broken off her engagement withoutsaying something to Mollie Esdaile about it. What was the harm inwriting to Mollie, not necessarily mentioning the ring, but asking forher version of whatever had happened?

  The more I thought of it the more I liked the idea. Match-making israther out of my line, but I am not entirely indifferent to thehappiness of my friends, and I had not forgotten poor Monty's anguishedcry of "Dawdy! Dawdy!" the last time I had visited him in Jubilee Place.I do not call it match-making merely to inquire whether a possibleobstacle may not be removed. If it was the Case's doing, the Case'ssolution ought to get matters right again. A little prematurely,perhaps, I was growing to the belief that the question was not whetherthe Case would settle itself, but how.

  Before I left him, which I did very shortly afterwards, I had determinedto write to Mollie. I did so indeed that very night. I did not mentionthe ring. I simply gave her a faithful picture of the two Montys, thefirst one so distressing, and the second so enheartening, and asked herwhat about the other side of the affair.

  It was nearly a week before I received her reply, which, when it didcome, contained that invitation to spend a month at Santon that I havealready anticipated in this story. It was a curious letter in some ways.Parts of it, even certain parts that touched Audrey Cunningham directly,were as free and frank as I have always found Mollie to be; but otherparts were noticeably the other way. For example, she wrote:--

  "The engagement is certainly 'off' as far as I can make out, and whether there's any chance of their coming together again I really can't say. She gave me to understand not, but it's three weeks since she wrote, and Philip hasn't heard from Monty at all."

  That seemed frank enough, but, on the very same page, was this:--

  "I don't think it's absolutely impossible they'll make it up. Perhaps I oughtn't to say this, and I'd rather not give you my reason, but I don't think it's altogether out of the question. But the circumstances are so peculiar. Everything's really most awfully mixed, and I don't want to raise even my own hopes. I can't see why you didn't ask Monty," etc., etc.

  "I'd rather not give you my reason"--"the circumstances arepeculiar"--"things are most awfully mixed"--those were the dubiousparts. I was certain that she, as well as Philip, was holding somethingback. The letter, in fact, seemed to confirm the opinion I had formed onfinding that ring so fantastically embedded in the studio floor, namely,that before shaking the dust of Lennox Street from her feet AudreyCunningham had made some sort of a discovery, which she had since sharedwith Mollie and Mollie now declined to share with me. In this, as youwill see, I was partly right and partly wrong.

  In the meantime, suppression for suppression. I had not been candideither. I had said nothing about finding the ring. Perhaps after all myletter had got the answer it deserved.

  But the invitation to visit the Esdailes at Santon tempted me extremely.Quite apart from the Case, I hungered and thirsted for the air of my owncountry. And there was the Case itself. Now that, with Glenfield'scountenance, Westbury's deterioration and the merely admonitory attitudeof Police Inspector Webster, it was becoming almost a jocund affair, itscenter of gravity had shifted away from London to the country. It was inthe country that our young slayer was demonstrating murder to be the wayof happiness. It was in the country that Philip Esdaile was apparentlymachinating to get the half-escaped strings back into his owncontrolling fingers again. And it was from the country that Mollie wasnow writing her interesting blend of candor and reserve.

  And what was there left of much interest in London? It seemed to me verylittle. In Lincoln's Inn Fields and the Temple the lawyers were no doubtbusily getting up their briefs for _Scepter Assurance Corporation v.Aiglon Aviation Company_, but I could depend on Mackwith to keep meposted on all that. In the columns of the _Circus_ I had awakened quitea lively, if somewhat rambling, correspondence, in which the name ofCharles Valentine Smith had not definitely appeared, but for theappearance of which, if the Case demanded it, I could arrange at amoment's notice. All the life and interest seemed to have passed out ofthese things. That is the worst of this intangible operation ofPublicity--it possesses you in spurts, with gaps of completelistlessness. It is super-heated, and at a change of atmospherecondenses into a few chill drops. Then, when you have brought it up tothe proper state of rarefaction again, you find that the popularinterest has shifted leagues away. Already my correspondence showedsigns of becoming as much beside the mark as had that nine-days'-wonderthat one morning had filled Lennox Street with a gaping crowd and hadset mysterious rumors circulating with the morning milk-carts.Publicity, like lightning, never strikes in the same place twice. Nobodynow cared a rap whether an aeroplane had crashed in Chelsea on a Maymorning months ago, nor how, nor why. Nobody was going to drag the bedof the Thames for the identification-number of a useless Webley andScott pistol. A spent bullet, flying in at an open window, had _not_killed an Estate Agent's child, and Inspector Webster had far too muchwork on his hands to dream of applying to the Home Se
cretary through theproper channels for an Exhumation Order. Cases left long enoughunanswered answer themselves. The scene changes, the circumstancesalter, the world moves on.

  I too felt like moving on. Glenfield had offered me a holiday, and I hadmy book to finish. As well finish it at Santon as anywhere else.Santon--its cornfields and skies, the cliffs for ever a-racket with theseabirds' clamor, the dappled fawn of its sands! I was there in my heartalready.

  I wrote to Mollie that very night.

  PART VIII

  AT SANTON

  I

  "For goodness' sake, Joan, stop chattering just for a few minutes!"Philip broke out testily. "If you don't want to sit, say so and havedone with it. This is enough to drive anybody mad!"

  I had been wondering how much longer his patience would hold out. Whenan artist is in difficulties with his canvas, motor-bicycle talk for anhour on end can be extremely wearing.

  Joan looked up with aggravating sweetness. "What, Philip?" she inquired.

  "I say if you don't want to sit, off you go on the confounded machineand I'll start something else."

  "But, Philip darling, you know the sparking-plug's broken, and it willbe three or four days before we can get another. Do you think Wellandswill stock that make, Chummy?"