Case with 4 Clowns

by Bruce, Leo

  Corinne was deliberately flaunting young Herbert Torrant in front of the other members of the troupe. She had led him into a pub where she most probably knew they would be collected, and at that point had insisted on holding his arm, an act which had apparently never been repeated. Who was she trying to impress? Kurt? But she took the trouble to calm any suspicions he might have, and, in any case, had never treated him as anything else but a friend, despite his obvious love for her. It was hardly the way to make him jealous. Ansell? But why should she try to make Ansell jealous in public, when whatever affair she was having with him was being conducted in private? It was a relationship of which, I believed, only Beef and I had any knowledge. But in this light there seemed to be no reason why she should attempt to keep Kurt in love with her by friendly words and gestures.

  To think of Corinne as a murderess seemed completely farfetched. She was selfish to an extreme degree no doubt, but so far as I could see, she had no motive for such an act. We had seen her almost feline exasperation with Eric when he had been teasing her, but that did not seem important enough to note as a likely reason for murder. Her fear of her father might at some point become fruitful, but even so, it was difficult to see the girl as a murderess.

  Kurt was slow, stodgy perhaps, but he was not a fool. He had a streak of solid obstinacy common to people who have had to make themselves fit to undertake a certain sort of job despite personal handicaps. Illiterate, short-tempered, Kurt had taken up lion-training much in the way, if he had lived in South Wales, he might have taken up coal-mining. Lion-training was to him a normal sort of way of earning one’s living. As in most other jobs, you were all right so long as you did not make mistakes. After that came pride in doing it well. Kurt was proud of his act, even thinking sometimes that it was too good for Jacobi’s Circus. But in most things he was honest and straightforward. He was in love with Corinne Jackson and did not try to hide it. Neither did he try to hide the jealousy he felt when Corinne picked up stray young men. But would he be quite so outright and honest if he discovered there was something between her and the animal-feeder, Peter Ansell?

  When the tiger had escaped from its cage Kurt had shown immense personal courage in dealing with the untrained beast, and it had only been his sureness which had saved what might have been a very nasty situation. But at other times he had shown an unreasonable surliness to Beef and myself, and there was no denying his jealous disposition. I felt that in some respects Kurt was dangerous. It was not easy to define precisely why, but I had a clear picture of his enthusiastic hand-rubbing when the fight with Bogli’s Circus had been pending. And Bogli’s Circus was still in the district. If Kurt were likely to commit the murder, it was Torrant and Ansell who stood in his way over Corinne.

  Since, however, he was ill, he would not be appearing in the show tomorrow. What was this strange sudden illness? Could he really have been poisoned, as he seemed to suspect? Who did he suspect of wanting to poison him? Or could it possibly be something more underhand and cunning than that? He might not be sick at all, but pretending illness for a special reason of his own.

  As the personnel of the circus ran through my mind I tried to find what it was which made all these people alike in some way. It was not that they were all circus people, but, strangely enough, that they all had some grudge or other against the circus itself. Even Jackson, the proprietor, seemed to share this with them. Were all the others the same? And if so, what was the cause of it?

  Sid Bolton was surely an exception. But the memory of the street fight we had with Bogli’s Circus made me think of Sid in a new light. I had noticed then the peculiar venom in the way he had attacked people he not only did not know, but against whom he had no personal enmity at all. I had come to the conclusion then that it must have been a sense of personal wrong done to him by the whole world, a bitterness left in him from those days when he had sat in a booth on the fair-ground to be laughed at by unthinking people for being the “fat boy.” And again in the ring this afternoon he had shown the same attitude. When the three clowns had been striking at each other in dead earnest I had no doubt that, as far as Sid Bolton was concerned, it was no personal grudge he felt against the other two, but a general feeling which somehow was only able to express itself in violence of a personal kind. But would he always choose his fists as the best weapon of striking back at a world he hated?

  For Eric Jackson and Clem Gail, again, the fight had meant something entirely different. Eric was the most brilliant clown I had seen in the ring for a long time; he had nothing to envy the others; and yet the intensity which he, like the others, had shown, proved there was something behind it. Perhaps the clue lay in his treatment of his sister. I suspected that his bantering, flippant behavior with her, showed a sympathy with her ideas. That he, too, perhaps, felt cramped and dwarfed in the circus and would not be sorry to leave it. But he had far less chance than she, so that it would have been foolish to hope for much in that direction. If that were true, then to a certain extent the other actions followed. But although he felt frustrated as the clown in his father’s circus, he might not be quite so antagonistic had he been in his own.

  Neither could that fight have arisen entirely from Clem’s drunkenness. Perhaps the clue lay in Clem himself. When we had first met Clem we had become aware of a dual personality; the extremely handsome young man who resented his anonymity in the ring. He was vain, and more than a little proud of his success with women, but those qualities did not necessarily constitute a murderer. In what way, then, could he be considered as one? Although the fight in the circus ring had shown what bitterness each of the clowns could feel, it did not necessarily show against whom it might be directed. Had Clem’s treatment of Cora Frances been a gesture of sudden disgust, of loathing for the painter, or had it been simply the heat of the moment? At the little luncheon-party Clem had been on his guard against Cora Frances. She had bored him, but had that boredom turned suddenly, with her intrusion into the ring, into nausea? Or was the whole thing the revealing of a concealed hate for the two other clowns?

  Neither could one assume that Cora was “above suspicion.” Foolishness had, before now, been used in a murder case as a stalking-horse. Her apparent simple pleasure with everything the circus people did might, in reality, conceal her deeply wounded vanity. It was difficult to believe that she could actually enjoy being humiliated before the entire audience of the circus, and it would be foolish to take her own statement to this effect on its face value. Already she had angered Daroga by tampering with the elephants, and although it had only been in order to paint their toe-nails, there might be something much more serious behind it. The clowns were in the ring at the same time as the elephants, and in case of trouble would be the people most likely to be hurt. Was it possible that Cora would retaliate on Clem through the elephants?

  Four people, bound close together in this case, were the Darinne brothers, Suzanne, and Len Waterman. In the first place there had been an affair between Len and Suzanne, so much was clear from the photograph in Len’s wagon, and from what we had been told by Margot. But equally clear now was the fact that Suzanne was in love with Christophe. What would Len do about that? The lights had fused in the middle of their act under very peculiar circumstances, when Len alone had been responsible for the lights. If Len had been trying to kill Suzanne, or one of the Dariennes, then, would he not try again? And next time such an accident might prove fatal. On the other hand, did Christophe know of the previous affair between Suzanne and Len Waterman? If so, must there not be some resentment against the electrician; even against Suzanne herself? The relation between Paul and his brother complicated this even further. From the first I had felt there was something uncanny in Paul’s dependence on his brother, something which defied a clear analysis. But the emotion Paul must undoubtedly feel would be very close to jealousy. That he knew nothing about the affair between his brother and Suzanne was doubtful. He had not known a few days ago when the little incident about Suzanne learning French
had occurred. But there had been time for him to suspect much since then. Margot might have spoken to him, or even Len Waterman. There was no doubt that he feared the loss of his brother more than anything else in the world. But Suzanne herself must be considered in this light. Paul stood in her way. Without him she would be able to love Christophe openly. And there were many things which might happen on the high trapeze without arousing people’s suspicions. Could it be possible that one of those three was at this minute planning the death of another? Some little slip of the hand, a miscalculation in leaping, and it would be difficult even for a detective to say whether it had been an accident or not.

  Tug Wilson was a character I had almost forgotten to include in the possible murderers. Yet in some ways he seemed the most sinister of them all. What had he meant by the phrase: “The ghost walks tomorrow”? If he had a scene for tomorrow night’s performance, this must include Ginger, since it was to this lad that the words had been addressed. Were there more than just those two in it? Many of the other tent hands were surly, and were often treated by the proprietor as less than human beings. Could it be possible that it was against Jackson that this plot was aimed? The phrase in itself was no proof, but if looks revealed intentions, there were many among the hands who would be glad to get even with Jackson for some of his biting words. Tug himself was almost too villainous to be a villain, with his dark face and loosely hanging hands. But he was an unknown quantity. Ginger I knew and liked, and I did not feel that he could easily be suspected of a murder. But a group of men banded together will often do things which none of them singly would have wished. I felt we had neglected the tent hands in our investigations.

  But what of the old woman who was behind this case? It was Gypsy Margot who had first predicted the murder, and whose daughters had given us the first hint that there might be something in her prediction. Jackson himself seemed to think that she would be pleased to see the circus break up. That might be true, but would she go to the length of committing a murder to achieve her end? She was a strange person, and it was not fantastic to suppose that she knew much more than her peculiar talk revealed. She might, in a sense, be daring us. The sort of challenge which had been issued enough times before in detective stories, by the intending murderer to the detective. Suppose she meant to commit the crime herself and was getting a strange satisfaction out of watching Beef and me turning our attention away from her to the other members of the circus. She hated Jackson because he had taken over the circus from her brother years before, and would now be glad to see Jackson broken. She might try to kill Jackson himself, or, what would be far cleverer, murder any other member of the troupe. Her end would probably be achieved in either case, but the latter would be far more difficult to prove. A murder without a motive would be almost impossible to trace in the conditions under which the circus worked.

  And then, was there anything at all in the theory of hypnosis? Anita admitted that her mother was a hypnotist, but insisted that it could not be used to do harm. But Anita had also admitted that she was a bad subject, so that if Margot had been using her powers evilly she would scarcely have used Anita, or even told her about it. If Helen had been hypnotized when she stabbed her sister, the same method might be used again. But if even the first stabbing had been quite simply a sudden revulsion from the likeness between the twins, there was still a possibility of it occurring again. This time it might be successful. Could it have been that Gypsy Margot had foreseen the outbreak between her two daughters? I wished suddenly that Anita had not decided to appear in the ring again tomorrow. If only she could have rested for another day or two, I felt the danger-point would have passed. But now she was placing herself in danger unnecessarily, and the thought sickened me.

  Well, there they were. All the people connected with the circus. Two or more of them would be mixed up in an attempted murder by this time tomorrow night, and it was impossible still to do more than guess which ones it would be. There must be some way, I thought to myself, of limiting the possible murderers to some two or three. Then it would make the Jubilee show much less nerve-racking. Perhaps if I ran over the salient points once again I might get some clue. But as I turned the sheets, Beef’s voice suddenly startled me.

  “Have you got it all worked out nice?” he asked. I had thought him asleep, but I suppose he had been watching all this time, smiling to himself over my attempts to get the whole case clear.

  “At least, I’ve got the evidence in order,” I said abruptly.

  “Do you know who’s going to murder who?” went on Beef relentlessly.

  “Well, not exactly,” I replied. “But I do know who might commit the murder, and who might be killed.”

  Beef chuckled. “So do I,” he said, “if you don’t put that light out and come to bed.”

  CHAPTER XXIX

  May 3rd.

  I SHALL never forget that day. The quick succession of events, the feeling of an almost unbearably hastening time, made me feel that I was being pitched forward into something of which my powers of observation were too slow to take full account. Actually there was no particular rush in the early morning. It had been decided, because of this day of the Jubilee performance, to cut out the afternoon matinee show altogether. We moved on to the next tober more than an hour after the usual time, and by the time we arrived there the Sergeant was up and dressed, a fact which by itself denoted the lateness of the hour. Beef was in a silent mood, and made no reference to the previous night. We ate without speaking, while he glanced cursorily over the newspaper. At last he wiped his mouth, and taking a long and noisy gulp from his tea-cup he turned to me.

  “Well,” he said, “nearly time I was off.”

  “Off?” I was aghast. “Surely you’re not going anywhere today?” I asked.

  “That’s right,” he said complacently.

  “But what about the murder?” I demanded. “There’s the Jubilee show tonight. You’re not going to miss that, are you?”

  “I might be back in time,” said the Sergeant. “But I can’t be sure. There might be more to do than I bargained for.”

  “But this is madness,” I said. “We’ve been collecting evidence all this time, and then on just the one day that the murder is bound to happen, you decide to go away somewhere. Surely it’s not as important as all that? It can wait a few days.”

  “Who told you there was going to be a murder today?” asked Beef.

  “Well, nobody told me,” I admitted. “But it’s obvious. And I thought you knew who was going to commit it. You’ve been behaving as if you knew.”

  “I know what somebody’s going to try on,” said Beef, “and I’m going to stop it.”

  “And how are you going to stop it?” I asked.

  “I’m going to get the one who means business before anything can come of it.”

  “So you’re going off for the day?” I asked sarcastically.

  “That’s right,” agreed Beef. “There’s a bit more evidence I need before I can lay my hands on the one I want, and I’m going to get it. Take a run round some of the old tobers and see what I can find out.”

  “What in heaven’s name can you get from the places we’ve left?” I demanded. “When the circus leaves a village it’s finished with. You might get a little pub gossip, but what do you expect to find in the way of evidence?”

  “You leave that to me,” said Beef reassuringly.

  “But do you mean just the tober we’ve left this morning, or farther back?” I asked.

  Beef shrugged. “Can’t hardly say,” he said. “Might be six, might be seven, might be as much as eight tobers back.”

  “It doesn’t make sense,” I said despairingly. “You say you’re going to stop the murderer, and yet today is the day the thing is most likely to happen, and you go away. I don’t care if you get enough evidence to hang the murderer fifteen times over—I still can’t understand why you must go off today.”

  “Now don’t you worry about that,” said Beef. “I know what I’m do
ing. Can I take the car?”

  But I could not be persuaded as easily as that. I felt that Beef was behaving with unexampled stupidity. Almost anything might happen at this Jubilee show, and yet he calmly told me not to worry, and wanted to borrow the car for the day as if he were going off on a little spree. Was this an admission of defeat? If anything went wrong this would be the end of Beef. I perceived only too clearly that the Sergeant might, after all, know no more than I about the possible murderer. Perhaps he knew even less, and my list of the previous night might be more useful in the end than his investigations. At least, it was a complete summary of all we had found out.

  But was it? Suddenly I realized, with a clarity that sickened me, that there was one name I had forgotten to add to the list of possible victims; and that name was my own. I had been taking my role as chronicler too much for granted, had imagined that I stood securely outside the whole affair. And yet the opposite was true, as I saw now. There was hardly an incident of importance at which I had not been present. I had been one of those whose lives were threatened by the escaped tiger, I had taken part in the street fight with Bogli’s Circus, Anita and I had been approaching the elephant-tent when the new hand had been thrown out, I had been present at Cora Frances’s luncheon-party and later sat beside her during that frightening exhibition in the ring.

  In fact, I was linked to the circus much more closely than Beef himself was. Why had I not seen this before? Until now I had seen the curious affair with Anita as having only a purely personal importance. But these few days had shown us that the circus was riddled by jealousy and suspicion, and quite unconsciously I had been dragged into the center of the danger. Which way should I look for my possible attacker? From Helen? From Old Margot? Or from some unexpected direction, one of the other men who envied my success with the quiet, lovely Anita?