A Case in Camera

by Oliver Onions

  "His behavior this morning, you mean?"

  "Yes. It was another man altogether. Why, before I knew Esdaile well Iremember I bet him a supper that he'd drop his palette on thequarter-deck when the first shell came over. Well, it came, and half thebridge was wrecked, and he never turned a hair. Just carried on withthat sketch of Hopkins at the range-finder. Absolutely undefeatedsportsman. So why should he behave as he did this morning?"

  Hereupon--though not as throwing very much light on the question afterall--I told Hubbard of my own surmise with regard to Rooke. He lookedrather quickly up.

  "What, little Queerfellow? He's--er--all right, isn't he? What abouthim? Tell me about him."

  This too I told him as well as I was able. And I may say that I notedwith pleasure, as perhaps the real beginning of a valued friendship,that there did not seem to be any question in Hubbard's mind as to whatkind of man I was myself. He was quite content to accept my summing-upof Monty.

  "So it's between 'em, you think, whatever it is?"

  "Or else I give it up," I replied.

  "I wonder if you're right," he mused.... "But then," he added suddenly,"what about all that time he spent in the cellar?"

  From that point our conversation took for a time a curious little turn.

  For Hubbard, while seeming to have no explanation that as a sensible manhe must not reject as fantastic, seemed nevertheless to be reluctant tolet something go. He seemed to hint and to dismiss and then to hintagain, to come to the brink of saying something and then to leave itunsaid after all. And again I had the feeling that though he had knownPhilip Esdaile for only two years as against my twenty, in some thingshe might be the familiar and I the outsider.

  Then again he seemed to decide to take a risk. He spoke to thepaper-weight in his palm.

  "You don't happen to know anything about these new sound-appliances, doyou?" he asked.

  "No. Which are they?"

  "Oh, there are a lot of 'em," he answered again, half evasively."There's sound-ranging, of course. Then there's the hydrophone. And as amatter of fact the best brains in the world to-day are trying to cut-outsound--aeroplane propellers and so on.... What I mean is Esdaile's nothearing anything. I suppose it's just possible that he didn't. All amatter of where the sound-wave hits. You remember the broken windows inthe Strand when Fritz used to come over and drop his eggs? First abroken one, then two or three whole ones, then broken ones again, allalong the street? Well, this might have been one of those dumbintervals. Otherwise he _must_ have heard. And I should have thoughthe'd have felt the vibration too."

  "He's admitted he thought he heard something."

  "Pooh, there was no mistaking it. If he didn't recognize it we can takeit he didn't hear it. If we believe him, of course."

  "Don't you believe him?"

  "Yes," Hubbard answered without a moment's hesitation.

  "Then----?"

  "Oh, I suppose it means I'm on the wrong track," Hubbard replied.

  Naturally any track of that nature was totally unexplored by me; but Iwas far from dismissing it on that account. Here again my ignorance ofmodern War came in to humble me. For what is the good of saying thingsare fantastic and far-fetched--sound-ranging and the selenium cell andwhat not--when for a number of years the food we have eaten and theclothes we have worn and the roofs over our heads have depended on justsuch fantasies? Not for nothing were those clusters of listening conesat Hyde Park Corner and on Parliament Hill, not for nothing thosewireless masts over our heads at that very moment. Their operation mightbe unfamiliar to me, but these things were the daily business ofCommander Hubbard, R.N. He turned as naturally to them as I myself turnto those equally mysterious things, a man's motives and the operativeemotions of his heart.

  "For all that," said Hubbard abruptly, "I should like to have a goodlook at that cellar of his."

  I was silent. I didn't know whether his wish to see the cellar includedsound-experiments on the roof also.

  "More than that," he continued slowly, "--by the way, did Mrs. Esdaileand 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 atonce of I don't know what, whether Esdaile might want us to see hiscellar.

  V

  However, we went, and at a little after eight o'clock rang the bell wehad rung under such very different circumstances at breakfast-time thatmorning. The parachute still waved in the mulberry, and a few policemenwere unobtrusively hanging about the street. Two of these did not movevery far from the gate. I supposed that in view of pending inquiries itwas important that the parachute should not be touched.

  We waited so long for an answer after ringing the bell that I had almostconcluded there was nobody at home. We were, in fact, on the point ofturning away when Esdaile himself opened the door.

  Poor devil! I learned presently that he had had callers enough thatafternoon to make him wish to disconnect his bell altogether--interestedparties of all sorts, a dozen of them at least. He had as a matter offact removed his telephone receiver from the hook. He said its ringinghad nearly driven him mad.

  But even all this did not explain his weariness as he stood holding thedoor open in the still bright light of the perfect evening. My firstglance at him made me wonder whether something even more untoward thanthat morning's sudden drama had happened. Before, his manner, bafflingas it had been, had at least had a sort of hectic brilliancy, anartificial excitement that had buoyed him up and kept him going. Now itwas as unlike that as possible. He was spiritless and played out. He nolonger seemed to wish to keep everything and everybody at arm's-length.Indeed, we had his reason almost before he had closed the door behindus.

  "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 didnot need light to reveal how the name Esdaile had spoken affectedHubbard. To me this name conveyed nothing for the moment. I heardHubbard'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 wasgoing on and learned that way. That was before I took that infernalreceiver 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 comesdown like this on your roof; but it struck me even then that it wouldhave been still more devilish if he had been killed in doing so. Yet notonly had their friend Chummy not been killed, but, according to Rooke'saccount earlier in the day, he was in a fair way for recovery. Hence Ididn't quite see the reason for Esdaile's utter dejection. I should haveunderstood it better had their friend been, not Smith, but the dead manMaxwell.

  You see, I had totally forgotten one pretty little incident of thatmorning's breakfast. Perhaps you have forgotten it too. Remember, then,that Philip had pared an apple for Joan Merrow, had told her to see whatinitial the paring made on the floor, and had shaped his own guess withhis lips--"C for Ch"--as he had hidden his bit of paper under hisnapkin.

  Philip pushed up chairs for us and pottered about in search of whiskyand glasses. Then, having set out a tray, he dropped heavily into achair. 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 markedbrevity, and the silence fell on us again.

>   If Hubbard had really come for the purpose of seeing Esdaile's cellar Icould see that all thought of this had now passed from his mind. Thefirst thing to do was to cheer Esdaile up. After all, Chummy was aliveand doing well. The news when Esdaile had rung up the hospital thatafternoon had been reassuring. It might be some little time before hewas out and about again, but certainly the occasion did not seem onefor gloom. I therefore kept silence while Hubbard pointed all this out.

  And as Esdaile's spirits seemed to revive a little and things began toseem not quite so hopeless after all, I began to rummage in my memoryfor recollection of this Chummy Smith of theirs. I remembered now that Ihad at any rate heard his name. And I confess that I am a littlecurious, not to say jealous, about some of these intensive Warfriendships. It interests me to note which of them survive the quieterand more persistent pressure on the lower levels, and which fail to doso. Not every one of them succeeds. It is one thing to wait in a Messfor the overdue chum, trying not to look too often at the full glass ofgin-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 askhim what he will have, to know that you are making the swift mentalnote, "Ah, _that's_ him in mufti!"

  But this rubicon had been safely crossed in the case of Chummy Smith. Ibegan to piece together odd things I had heard. Philip, meeting him inCoventry Street six months before, had stopped, spoken, and hadpresently brought him home to a scratch supper. A fortnight later Chummyhad dropped in again unannounced. Thereafter he had continued to come atfairly frequent intervals. He and myself had never happened to call atthe 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 thefire of the Lewis gun reserved till the last twenty yards, then thefiery bridge-clearing rafale, and the upshooting like a rocket as hecleared the rail by a yard.

  "Yes, he's a dashed good youngster," Hubbard agreed. "Thank the Lordhe's all right."

  But Esdaile only leaned his head wearily on one hand and sat gazingmoodily at his whisky-and-soda.

  Then it was that the probable reason for all this depression flashedupon me. Then it was, in that moment, that I remembered thatapple-paring, Joan's adorable little schoolgirl's outbreak, and hertucking away of that piece of paper into her breast. Philip Esdaile wasthirty-nine, young Smith twenty-four; that is a difference of fifteenyears; but a young man of twenty-four could be quite devoted toMethuselah himself if there was a young woman anywhere about. Thosefrequent calls after that meeting in Coventry Street simply meant thatPhilip's leg had been pulled. Chummy Smith was no doubt very fond ofPhilip, 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 hadseen come down.

  VI

  I know now the exact point up to which I was right, and also where Iceased to be right. Mollie Esdaile made a clean breast of the wholeguileful conspiracy of their courtship afterwards. Here it is, for youredification and warning.

  Mollie had several times been down to visit Philip in his billet at theHelmsea Station. There it was that she had first seen Chummy. At firstshe had not been able to single out Chummy from the rest of theuniformed mob that led such a mysterious existence down there--a worldof 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 andsnooker, howled round pianos and swapped yarns, Kirchners and pink gins.To Mollie their uniforms were of two kinds only, khaki and dark blue. Incourse 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 ladmade 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, bywhich time Chummy and Mollie were firm friends.

  I believe she threw the youngsters together from the moment Philip firstbrought Chummy home to Lennox Street. She says she didn't, and refers meto 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, straightwayenters 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 wouldever set eyes on him again? It takes the nerve of the modern young womanto do that. The case of Mr. Smith, observe, is entirely different. Mr.Smith, suddenly meeting the lovely young thing, may not be sure whetherhis feet are treading a polished studio floor or whether they havelittle Mercury wings on them that waft him through the empyrean; butthere is this to be said for Mr. Smith--that when he is in love hedoesn't behave as if he wasn't. He fidgets even if she goes out of theroom for a minute. He doesn't know that she herself couldn't tell himwhy 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, askingherself what made her so suddenly get up and leave him, and yet not evenwriting him a note.

  The notes came later, at about the time she put a lock on herletter-case. They were numbered "1," "2" and "3" to indicate thesequence in which they should be read (a billet scribbled at seveno'clock in the evening must on no account be read before one that isdashed off at tea-time), and they were constantly on the wing.

  Nor did these proteges of Mollie's choose tea-shops that Philip wasknown to frequent, nor cinemas the kindly gloom of which might by anychance have concealed him. Philip never noticed that his monthlytelephone accounts rose perceptibly higher. True, he did ask one eveningwhy the children had been put to bed while it was still broad day, buthe was not told that he might find the reason walking hand-in-hand underthe trees in Richmond Park.

  It is no good asking whether Joan and Chummy were engaged. What is ayoung woman's engagement nowadays? No doubt Joan's father had in his dayceremoniously "waited upon" her maternal grandfather-elect and had "hadthe honor" and so on, but Miss Joan always reminded me of the privatewith the field-marshal's baton--she seemed to have come into the worldwith a will of her own, a latch-key and her marriage-lines allpotentially complete. I remember she called an engagement an"understanding." If by that word she meant what the Psalmist meant, shecertainly made haste with all her heart to get it.

  Of course, Philip had sooner or later discovered what was going on underhis abused roof, and now knew all there was to be known about it. And itmust have occurred to him also that, with letters numbered "1," "2" and"3" flying backwards and forwards all the time, any interruption of morethan a day or two would set Joan, away in Santon, Yorks, anxiouslywondering what was the matter.

  You are now to see how far I was right in this.

  VII

  The lights he had switched on were a couple of standard lamps only, thatworked from plugs in the wall. Both had mignonette-colored shades, andwhile one shade stood a-tilt near the syphon and glasses, the otherthrew a soft light on Philip's little escritoire. As he sat the lightcrossed his breast only, leaving his face in a half-transparentobscurity. A few yards away the entrance to the studio made a dead blackoblong, so completely without trace of the evening light that must stillbe lingering in the world outside that I judged that the dark-blueroof-blinds were still drawn.

  I suppose it was these roof-blinds, and Philip's apparent disinclinationto have them touched, that brought my surmises with regard to MontyRooke into my mind again. And somehow, back again under the roof wherethe tragedy had happened, these surmises seemed to have grown a littlemore threatening. Why
this alteration of values should take place in meI didn't know, but there it undeniably was, hovering (so to speak) inthe spaces above the unlighted chandelier, approaching as it were to thevery edge of the penumbra that crossed our host's breast, andaccumulated as in some dark power-house beyond the threshold of theblack studio doorway. And as this feeling grew on me lesser feelingsseemed by comparison to grow less still. My hastily-seized-onexplanation with regard to Joan seemed all at once insufficient. A shockof some kind she would naturally receive; that was unavoidable in anyevent; but what would be simpler than to write to her immediately, totell her what had been discovered since her departure, to promise tosend her daily bulletins, and to warn her that for the present, in theabsence of letters, these must suffice?

  I didn't know to what extent I was supposed to be privy to theChummy-Smith-Joan-Merrow love affair, but in the circumstances I did notlet that trouble me. I just said what I thought. "She'll have to be toldsome time or other," I finished by saying.

  But for some reason or other he waved my words aside.

  "Wouldn't do at all." His voice came from within the shade of themignonette-colored lamp. "Must think of something better than that."

  "But she'll be expecting letters. And she won't get them. My way's muchthe kindest. What's the objection?"

  "Oh, heaps of objection," he answered evasively. "I don't know half of'em myself yet."

  On this I instantly fastened.

  "Ah! Then you haven't seen the fellow yet you spoke of?"