by Bruce, Leo
Beef laid the still figure on the bed, and after a brief examination reassured us:
“She’ll be all right in a minute or two. Doesn’t seem to be nothing broken.”
“Are you sure?” asked Christophe anxiously.
Beef nodded, and bending down, began to rub the unconscious girl’s hands. “Look,” he said, after a minute or two, “she’s coming round now.”
Suzanne moved uneasily on the bed, and then drew a deep breath through her parted lips. “What happened?” she said in a dazed voice.
“That’s what we want to know,” said Beef. “You gave us a scare, you did, young lady. How are you feeling?”
Suzanne sat up. “I don’t know,” she said. “Did I fall into the net?”
“That’s where we found you,” said Beef.
Suzanne pressed her hands across her eyes. “All I can remember,” she said, “was seeing Paul’s arms for a second as I came out of a somersault. And then, suddenly, I couldn’t see anything. It was just blackness. I caught Paul by one hand, but I slipped. Then I think I must have hit the edge of the net with my shoulder.”
She touched her neck gingerly with the tips of her fingers, and I noticed for the first time a long red weal which was gradually turning blue.
“That’s where it caught you all right,” said Beef. “Knocked you out, it must have, and thrown you back into the net. Lucky it wasn’t the other way or you would have broken your neck.”
“I seemed to go blind,” said Suzanne, “I felt …”
“That’s all right,” said Beef. “It was the lights went out. And that’s what I’m going to see about now.”
The Sergeant looked at the two trapeze artists for a minute, and then turned to Paul. “What exactly did happen?” he asked him.
“I saw her coming towards me,” burst out Paul suddenly. “I saw her coming, and then, suddenly, the lights went out and I tried to catch her. But I was only able to seize one arm, and she slipped.”
I felt there was something strained and artificial in the way Paul was speaking. He seemed to be justifying himself. I looked quickly at Beef to see if he shared my suspicion.
“And then what happened?” said Beef.
Paul shrugged. “I don’t know. She should have fallen into the net—it was just underneath us—but I suppose she twisted and missed it. There was just the scream, and it was too dark to see anything.”
“I see,” said Beef. “Then the man I want to see is the electrician, isn’t it?”
“Well,” I said to Beef as we walked across towards the dynamo-lorry, “have you got your case ready?”
“Case?” said Beef. “Not going anywhere, are we?”
“Evidence,” I said with exasperation; “clues.”
“Oh,” said Beef, “that. Well, I wouldn’t say as I’d exactly got a case.”
“But Beef …” I protested.
“The matter with you,” said Beef, “is that you’re in too much of a hurry.”
“Hurry,” I said, “but you’ve had three attempted murders already. What are you waiting for?”
“As I’ve said before,” Beef pointed out patiently, “you jump to conclusions. We’ve had nothing to show that this was anything more than an accident.”
“But the tiger,” I said.
“Tiger!” Beef was scornful. “Tigers are always escaping. You want to read your Sunday papers.”
“But in this last case,” I pointed out, “we do know that Christophe was frightened of his brother finding out about the affair with Suzanne.”
Beef interrupted sarcastically. “I suppose your theory is,” he grunted, “that Paul blew the lights out and then dropped Suzanne to the ground. Ver-y interesting.”
“Nothing of the sort,” I snapped. “You forget Len Waterman. What about the photograph we found in his wagon? We know that there was an affair between him and Suzanne some years ago. And he was in charge of the lights, wasn’t he?”
“Well?” said Beef.
“Then he might have done it,” I said.
“So might Father Christmas,” said Beef.
After which example of what Beef would no doubt have called humor, we walked in silence. We found Len Waterman sitting on the running-board of the lorry coiling a length of fuse-wire.
“Nasty turn out,” he greeted us. “Always did think something like that would happen. Now perhaps they’ll take my advice about having a double circuit.”
“What difference would that make?” asked Beef.
“Well then, if one circuit failed,” said Len, “the other one would be all right. Couldn’t have all the lights going out at the same time then.”
“Is that what happened this time?” asked Beef, in his “casual” voice, which would not have deceived a child.
“What do you think did then?” demanded Len Waterman, in a belligerent tone.
“I just wondered,” said Beef. “I mean I don’t know nothing about this electricity stuff.”
“Nothing at all?” said Len.
Beef shook his head. Whereupon, rather, I felt, like the doctor in Le Medecin Malgre Lui, Len proceeded to give a technical discourse, of which not more than one in five words was comprehensible to us.
“Oh,” said Beef, when it was finished, “so that’s what happened. Now you don’t mind if I ask you a few personal questions, do you?”
“Depends how personal,” said Len.
“Well, what was this affair you had with Suzanne? I mean, wasn’t there something between you two? You know, walking out and that?”
I felt that if ever there was an example of an elephant trampling through tissue-paper, this was one. I was a little disappointed however in Len’s reaction.
“Well,” he said slowly, “there was a sort of an arrangement.”
“Marriage?” said Beef.
“Her husband was still alive.”
“Oh,” Beef nodded. “Like that, was it?”
“I don’t know what you’re driving at,” said Len angrily. “She wasn’t in love with her husband. It was sort of understood that she’d marry me when she could get a divorce or something.”
“But,” I interrupted, “I understood her husband was dead before she joined the show.”
Beef’s large and heavy toe seemed to be attempting to break my shin.
“Who told you that?” asked Len suspiciously.
“I think it was Jackson,” I replied.
“Oh, him,” said Len. “Well, anyway, as far as I knew he was still alive.”
“But it didn’t come off?” queried Beef. “What happened?”
“Oh, you know,” said Len. “We had a bit of a quarrel, and then those Dariennes joined the circus.”
“What had they got to do with it?” asked Beef sharply.
“Nothing, nothing,” said Len quickly. “Sort of drifted apart, we did then.”
“I see,” said Beef in an understanding voice. “Happens like that sometimes, doesn’t it. I remember my first girl. It was all a question of cork-tipped cigarettes … Still you don’t want to hear about that. I suppose you’ve got to get these lights down. We’d better be going. I’m sorry about all these questions.” And grasping me firmly by the arm he led me away.
“But Beef,” I protested as soon as we had left the electrician, “you were just getting on to something important then.”
“You mean he knows about Christophe and Suzanne?” said Beef.
I nodded.
“Well, if we’d have asked any more questions he’d have got suspicious. You have to be tactful with chaps like that.”
“Oh,” I said caustically, “is that what you were doing?”
CHAPTER XXV
May 1st.
IT WAS drizzling with rain when we moved on to South Cave. Rain, I had noticed, often acts as a sort of poultice on the circus people; that is, it brings out their petty irritations and animosities. This is not difficult to understand, since there can be no more dismal job than building up the big top when it is a mass of
sodden canvas in a field where the long grass quickly soaks your shoes and feet.
And besides this, I thought to myself, the accident of last night had made a sudden difference to the whole personnel of the circus. It had been noticeable to some extent in the manner in which they had treated Beef. Up till now everybody had been inclined to take the Sergeant’s presence as something of a joke, but last night, when he took control of the situation, they had given way to him immediately. Could it mean that many of them were taking the murder idea seriously?
An important by-product of Suzanne’s fall was the revealing of some “understanding” between her and Christophe. Paul would hardly take his brother’s hysterics as an instance of ordinary friendship. I felt that anything might come of that situation. Paul knew that his brother was in love with Suzanne, and Len Waterman appeared to already have some inkling of this. Would either of them take any action about it?
At any rate, as I wandered casually around the ground on this particular morning, I had the feeling that something was very definitely drawing to a head. It was not something I could lay my hand on like a concrete clue or piece of evidence; it was something in the way the men spoke to each other, in the way they seemed to avoid me. Anita was the only person who was not affected.
“I’m going into the ring again on Saturday,” was her cheerful greeting to me when I strolled past her wagon.
“The day after tomorow?” I asked. “Are you sure you’re well enough?”
“I couldn’t miss the Jubilee show,” she said with a laugh.
I had almost forgotten this Jubilee show, but I felt a sudden return of anxiety now, when Anita mentioned it. It would be a great day for the circus people; more their own show than the audience’s. It was something they had all looked forward to throughout the whole year. It seemed to have a special significance to them, like a bank-holiday, or May Day to the Labor Movement. Two more days! I had a premonition that those two days would show us the end of this strange case—if there was to be an end to it at all.
Beef was cooking the breakfast when I returned to our wagon, and I told him my feelings.
“Nice bit of liver, this is,” he said, poking at the frying-pan with his fork. “Wish I’d bought a bit more now.”
This, I knew, was Beef’s way of telling me that he thought I was talking nonsense, so we began breakfast in silence. Outside the rain had stopped and a thin watery sun was showing through. The big top steamed gently, and from the farm at the bottom of the tober came the clear sound of milk-pails clinking and a girl’s voice calling monotonously. Beef demolished his breakfast in silence; or perhaps I should be more accurate in saying that he did not speak while he was eating.
“That’s starting early in the morning,” he commented suddenly, pointing his loaded fork out of the window.
At the rear of the big top, out of sight of the rest of the wagons, I saw two figures in a prolonged embrace.
“Who are they?” I asked.
“Better wait till they sort themselves out,” said Beef dryly.
As he spoke the two people looked up suddenly in the direction of our wagon, almost as if they had realized they were being observed. And I was able to recognize Corinne Jackson and Peter Ansell, the animal-feeder.
“Platonic, he called it, didn’t he?” Beef said sarcastically. “Funny way of showing it, I must say.”
For a moment the two stood looking at each other, and then they separated quickly, and Corinne disappeared round the far side of the tent, while Peter Ansell came around towards us, walking casually, with his hands in his pockets.
“Nice organization,” commented Beef, and returned to his plate.
“You know,” the Sergeant said a few moments later, as he wiped a piece of bread carefully round his plate, “I think I ought to go back on our tracks a bit, one of these days.”
“What do you mean, back on our tracks?”
“Well, the chief trouble with this traveling circus as the scene of a crime, is that any sort of evidence or clues and such, are left behind every day when we move on. I mean, in an ordinary case you find things that have been lost in the garden or thrown down a well; or maybe there’s something a tramp saw, or the butcher’s boy. But in this case you don’t get any of that because we move around so quickly.”
“And you think,” I asked eagerly, “that if you went back to some of the old tobers, you might be able to find someone who knew something which would help solve the whole case? The only trouble so far,” I added ruefully, “is that there’s no case as yet to solve.”
“Nor I wouldn’t say,” said Beef carefully, “that anything would come of it if I did have a look around. But you never know what you might come across.”
I felt very strongly—and in fact I had been feeling this for some time now—that this present affair showed the Sergeant in his worst light. It seemed to reveal the complete lack of any scientific method in all he did. Perhaps in his previous cases that had not mattered so much, but here, where the whole affair was of the most tenuous sort, it seemed to me that he was only playing with the case. However, I knew from experience, that nothing is ever obtained by arguing with Beef, so, as usual, I waited for him to make the next move.
“All right,” he said at last, “let’s go and have a mooch round for a bit.”
The sun was shining warmly now, and all the early rain had dried off the grass. We had built up in a very small tober, so small that the ropes from the big top were in some cases pegged down under the hedge on either side, leaving no room for the wagons to pass by until the tent was pulled down again. It was very quiet too. There were no visitors today, since it was not a large village, and the tober was on the very edge, some way from the center of population. This silence seemed to me to emphasize the peculiar difference in the circus, the slight strained atmosphere.
Pete Daroga was sitting in his customary position on the steps of his wagon bending intently over a small yellow book.
“Dobroye ootro,” he greeted us, with a wide grin.
“I don’t know what you mean,” said Beef cheerfully. “But the same to you, anyway.”
“It’s Russian for ‘Good morning’,” said Daroga, and held out the book to us. It was one of those little Self-Tutor volumes.
“If I take that contract,” he added, “I shall want to be able to speak the language a bit, shan’t I?”
“But I thought,” said Beef, bewildered, “that you were a Russian, anyway.”
“So I am. But I left the country before I could walk, let alone talk. My parents were Jews and they thought things would be more comfortable in America than in Russia in those days. But that was a long time ago. I was too young to remember anything. My mother used to tell me that the Tsar had half a dozen Jewish babies for his breakfast every morning.”
“So you’ve never been able to speak Russian?” asked Beef. “And you’ve never been there since you were a baby?”
“That’s right,” said Daroga. “Seems funny, doesn’t it, learning your own language in middle age.” He smiled again, rather boyishly, and opened his book again, moving his lips silently as he followed the words.
“Dosvedanya,” he called after us as we began to walk away, and I guessed that it meant good-by.
“Well, that’s funny,” said Beef slowly. “What about that theory of yours about the button? It can’t have been nothing to do with him, can it? That means someone else in the troupe has been to Russia.”
“Not necessarily,” I said. “After all, it may be something—like a souvenir—which Jackson has had given to him. Or he might have relations in Russia. Or for that matter, Daroga might still be the owner. It might be something his mother gave him.”
“This is getting too complicated for me,” said Beef. “I don’t suppose it matters much, anyway. Let’s go and have a drink.”
CHAPTER XXVI
May 1st (continued).
ALTHOUGH I had been constantly aware of Cora Frances being with the circus—her voice was i
nescapable—yet I had seen very little of her during the past day or so. I was rather surprised, therefore, when she sought me out quite late in the morning to ask me if Beef and I would have lunch with her.
“Just a little luncheon-party,” she told me. “One feels the need, don’t you think, of civilization now and again. Of course, the poor dears here have not time for such luxuries, they must eat where and when they can.”
The place arranged for this little party appeared to be the largest hotel in the district, and I felt flattered that Cora Frances should take such trouble on our account.
“Oh, and do bring the Sergeant, won’t you?” she went on. “He’s so quaint. I can’t imagine how you manage to spend so much of your time with him, but in small doses you know …” and she laughed girlishly.
“I find the Sergeant’s company very pleasant indeed,” I said coldly.
“But how loyal,” she said, staring straight into my face. “How I admire you for that. But really, you must admit that he can be a little trying, mustn’t you? I mean, my dear, there’s something so barbaric about him.” Then, seeing my expression, she hurried on: “Of course, I find it perfectly charming. Such a change from the society I’m used to. Like a breath of fresh air.”
“We should be very pleased to come,” I said quickly, hoping to stem the flood.
“Good,” she cooed. “Now I must go and tell Clem. I think this is going to be rather difficult, because I don’t want the others to think of it as favoritism. One has to be so diplomatic over these things, you know, otherwise one causes so much trouble.”
“In that case,” I suggested, “it would surely be best to invite the others too.”
“Oh, no. That would never do,” said Cora, raising her eyebrows in an exaggeration of shocked surprise. “There are such depths in Clem which you’d never dream of if you’d only seen him in company. He’s a most unusual man. And such a darling. Do you know,” she leaned forward and laid the tinted tips of her fingers lightly on my sleeve, “do you know I think he’s the most handsome man I’ve ever seen?”