A Case in Camera

by Oliver Onions

  I knew I had him. I could feel his mental wriggle.

  "What fellow?"

  "You said this morning it wasn't your affair, but somebody else's. Thefellow I mean is the somebody else."

  He spoke slowly.

  "Do you mean Rooke?"

  "You didn't mention any name. I mean Rooke if it was Rooke."

  This time we had to wait a long time for an answer, but at any rate itcleared the air when it did come.

  "It was Rooke. I don't remember very clearly exactly what I did say, butI meant Rooke," he admitted.

  "You say he's taken Mrs. Cunningham home. He's coming back, I suppose?"

  With remarkable grimness Philip replied, "You bet he is."

  "You mean you told him to?"

  "Yes, and I told him to be pretty quick unless he wanted to drive mecrazy. I said I'd give him time for dinner at the Parrakeet, though. Iwas waiting for him when you came in."

  "Then--well, to put it plainly, do you want us to clear off?"

  "No--at any rate wait a bit," he answered irresolutely. "I don't supposehe'll be long now."

  I don't know how much longer we should have continued to spar like thishad not Hubbard suddenly put a question. He had evidently been thinkingit over for some time, and he took care, with a preliminary "I say" anda pause, that he had Esdaile's attention before putting it.

  "I say," he said quietly, "about when you came up from below thismorning. Why did you want to brush Rooke's clothes?"

  And that settled it. Esdaile began with one more "Did I?" but Hubbarddid not let him finish.

  "Yes, you did," he cut him short. "It was the very first thing you did.And he jumped back when you tried to touch him. Why?"

  There was no further attempt at prevarication. Without even taking thetrouble to rise, Esdaile pushed back the lamp, opened the upper drawerof the escritoire as he sat, and from the corner of it drew out andplaced on the table a 7.65 mm. Webley and Scott automatic pistol.

  VIII

  Honestly, I don't know whether I was surprised or not. On the whole Ihardly think I was. If he had produced another candlestick or jar ofliqueur I think I should have felt like getting up and walking out; buthere at last was something on the fuller scale. Thank heaven, we haddone with broken glass and sweeping-brushes and dark blue linen blinds.We might now hope to get a little farther.

  For a pistol is a pistol at all times and all the world over. No otherweapon has quite so exclusively sinister a meaning. Among the honorableswords and rifles of war it is a low and sneaking thing, and inpeace-time an Apache's tool, something for the common garrotter toshoot through his pocket with. Its proper place was the Criminal Museumat Scotland Yard, not in a decent artist's studio.

  So Philip put the revolting thing on his desk, and for a moment we satlooking at its roughened grip, black as crape, and the glossy blacknessof the rest of it. Then without a word Hubbard took it up, glanced atthe safety-catch and slid back the breach. A cartridge lay ready in thechamber. Then he withdrew the magazine. Six nickel steel bullets showedthrough the perforations of the clip. The capacity of the W. & S. 7.65is eight shots. One shot had therefore been fired.

  Hubbard replaced the pistol on the desk.

  "And where did _that_ come from?" he asked with pursed lips.

  Philip shrugged his shoulders. Somehow the answer was "Rooke" as plainlyas if he had spoken the name.

  "And where did he get it?"

  "Up there." Philip's eyes made the slightest of turns up towards theceiling.

  "From one of those two fellows?"

  "I suppose so."

  "How do you mean, you 'suppose' so? Don't you know?"

  "I'm not perfectly sure yet. You see, just at that moment AudreyCunningham came in, and it isn't the kind of thing you discuss withwomen there. I thought she'd gone, or I should have waited a bit."

  "Well, don't you think it's time you told us a little more now?"

  This is the narrative that followed, with that beastly object stilllying there in the silky light of the mignonette-shaded lamp.

  IX

  At first Monty had tried to get out of it by saying it was the keys.Esdaile's is not a modern house; its keys are not of the Yale kind, ofwhich you can carry a dozen in one pocket; each of them is anything fromthree to five inches long, and they weigh very few to the pound. Inhanding over the house to Monty, Philip had given him eight or ten ofthese; and so at first (Esdaile said) Rooke had wanted to say it was thekeys.

  "I don't mean the keys," Philip had replied. "I mean the pocket on theother side that you're nursing as if it had eggs in it. Why have youbeen standing sideways and behind people all this time? And why did youjump when I wanted to give you a dust-down this morning?"

  Esdaile's face became animated as at last he warmed up to it all. Hespoke almost vehemently.

  "You see," he said, "I wasn't going to have any more damned nonsense. Ihad quite enough of that--hours of it--all this that I'm telling youtook place just after tea. So I was as short as you please. Pity I spokequite so soon, but I really thought Audrey'd gone. And the idiot hadn'teven put the safety-catch on," he added with disgust.

  There was no need to urge him now. He was as resolved to tell his storyas before he had been reticent. The only unfortunate thing was thatuntil Monty should return he had so little to tell.

  "So when he saw the key story wouldn't do he fetched out this prettylittle article," he continued, rapping with his knuckle on thewriting-desk. "Just like a kid caught stealing apples he was. I askedhim where he got it, and he said on the roof. Then he told me all aboutyou fellows going up into the bathroom, and how he'd been the one tocrawl along the gutter because he doesn't weigh as much as either ofyou."

  "But which of 'em gave it to him--Chummy or the other man?" Hubbardasked.

  "Well, I'm not so sure that either of them really 'gave' it to him,"Esdaile replied. "He began to be a bit of a mule when I pressed himabout that. And of course I asked Monty all this before I knew it wasChummy at all, and Monty doesn't know that yet, though I don't think heever met Chummy. No, as far as I can make out, the pistol was lying onthe roof, just out of Chummy's reach, and he kept pointing to it--movinghis hand like this."

  The gesture Esdaile made was the very gesture I had seen Mr. HarryWestbury make in the Saloon Bar earlier in the day.

  "So he just picked it up and put it into his pocket?"

  "Just that. Simple, isn't it?"

  "And it's been fired?"

  "As you see."

  "Innocent young man. What did he do during the War?"

  "Camouflage," Esdaile replied. "In Kensington Gardens there. Imitationhaystacks and dummy O.P. trees and gunpit-screens and painting tanks andso on. Making anything look like what it isn't. Just what he would do."

  "Does he know this thing's been fired?"

  "That I can't tell you. Audrey came in then."

  And that was the answer to all our further questions--Audrey had thencome in. Esdaile had as a matter of fact now told us all that had takenplace between himself and Monty Rooke. For further information we mustwait until Monty's return.

  You may imagine, however, that I had now quite a lot of food forthought. In the first place, Rooke had taken it upon himself to conceala highly material fact from the police. Whether Esdaile yet shared thisresponsibility was at present debatable. Audrey Cunningham'sinterruption half-way through Monty's story rather obscured the moralaspect of this last. One does not set weighty machinery going fortrifles, and for all we knew Monty, when he arrived, might have acomplete explanation. In the meantime Esdaile was probably wise to holdhis hand.

  A pistol, however, had undoubtedly been fired, and, as a furtherexamination of the barrel showed, probably recently. And, if youremember, there was that small round hole in the starred roof-glass ofthe studio that I had at first assumed to have been caused by the brokenmulberry branch. A pistol-bullet might have made just such a hole.

  Next I r
emembered how Esdaile had been occupied when Hubbard and I hadfollowed him into the studio shortly after his return from the cellar.He had been so engrossed in poking about the broken glass and mats onthe studio floor that he had seemed to notice little else. Had he beenlooking for the bullet that had made that hole in the roof? And why hadhe had the roof-blinds drawn, and broken out on Monty when he had wantedto put them back again? This last, I admit, set me all at sea again. Thedrawing of the blinds would certainly hide the bullet-hole in the panefrom anybody _in_side the house, supposing he wished to hide it; butwhat about the police who had been on the roof itself at that verymoment? The drawing of the blinds inside would hide nothing from them.Why seek to conceal from the rest of us something that if they cared toinvestigate they could hardly fail to see?

  One more thing. If that pistol had been fired on the premises, somewherethere must be, not only a bullet, but a spent case also. I mentionedthis, and Esdaile gave a slight start of recollection.

  "Of course!" he exclaimed. "Glad you mentioned that. I found the case inthe garden. Here it is. I'd honestly forgotten all about it."

  And, as he fetched it out of his waistcoat pocket and put it down by theside of the pistol, I as honestly believed he had.

  "But there's no sign of the bullet?" I asked.

  "I've looked high and low for it," Esdaile replied. "Low, I should say,because naturally I don't want to go hunting about the roof in thedaylight. Too many eyes about. There's no trace of it."

  "But it wouldn't be on the roof if it made that hole in the glass. Itwould be in the studio. Or possibly," I ventured, "in the cellar."

  But, as Esdaile was about to reply, a bell trilled in the kitchen, and,with a "That's Rooke, I expect," Esdaile put the pistol and the emptycase back into the drawer, motioned us to remain where we were, and wentout.

  X

  Philip had described Rooke quite well when he had said that he had theair of a naughty boy caught robbing an orchard. He had a hang-dog yetdefiant look as he entered, shepherded in by Philip as if we had been atribunal empaneled for his condemnation. But there was relief in hisface too--the relief of one who has got the worst over and hardly fearsthe rest. And, as he threw his hat on the table and looked round insearch of a chair, he unconsciously emphasized his air of boyish guiltby sitting down on a low stool that stood between the empty fireplaceand the escritoire.

  Esdaile began immediately, as if Rooke had merely been out of the roomfor a few moments.

  "Well, to continue our chat, Monty," he said. "I've told these fellowsas much as you've told me. Shall we have the rest of it now?"

  From the look on Monty's face I began to think that we might have somedifficulty in getting very much more out of him, for the simple reasonthat, in picking up and concealing an incriminating pistol, he evidentlydidn't see that he had done anything at all out of the way. He seemed tothink that was a natural thing to have done. I gathered also that therewas something further on his mind, something that had already begun todawn on my own and has doubtless occurred to you also. But we will cometo that presently.

  So Monty merely repeated what we already knew, and then looked from oneto another of us as if to ask, "_Now_ were we satisfied?"

  "Oh, we want to know a good deal more than that," Esdaile continued."First of all, did he speak? The man who pointed to the pistol, I mean."

  "No. He'd taken too bad a toss for that," Monty replied. "He justpointed, the way I showed you, and I thought perhaps he didn't want thething lying about, so I--well, I obliged him, so to speak."

  "But it's been fired."

  "I don't know anything about that. I didn't fire it, if that's what youmean."

  "It's been fired recently. Did you notice if it was warm?"

  "No, I didn't," said Monty, ruffling up, "and it's all very well youfellows talking, sitting down here with glasses of whisky in front ofyou, but I'll bet if you'd been in my place you'd have done exactly thesame."

  Here I struck in. I asked him what made him so sure of that. He turnedhis earnest brown eyes to me.

  "I mean you just would. If you'd seen him, I mean--seen his face. It wasthe look in his eyes; I couldn't get it out of my mind for hours; I cansee it now. I tell you you missed a pretty rotten job by not having togo up there, and here you go asking me if pistols were warm and whofired them and all about it as if I'd been having a fortnight's holidayup there."

  I saw Monty's point. I suppose I have arrived at that stage of life whenI too trust my eyes more and more as time goes on. Men may have allsorts of reasons for saying one thing and meaning another, but he is aremarkable man who can control his looks with the same facility. I haveseen many eyes telling the truth while the lips beneath them have toldthe practiced lie. So if Monty had taken his impulse from ChummySmith's anguished eyes in that moment, I for one did not feel inclinedto blame him.

  "You've heard who it was, haven't you?" I said.

  "No. Who?"

  Philip told him. His eyes opened very wide.

  "Not the fellow I've heard you talk about?"

  Esdaile nodded gloomily.

  "And you mean _he_ fired the pistol?"

  There was an embarrassed silence. Nobody so far had ventured to expresshis thought quite so nakedly. We had an obscure feeling of resentment,as if Monty had been a little lacking in tact. He sat up on his stooland pursed his lips into the shape of a whistle.

  "I--say! _That_ makes it the dickens, doesn't it? Well, I know what hiseyes looked like, I can promise you that! Poor devil! Thank goodness youwere all too busy watching Philip when he came up from down below tonotice me much. Nobody noticed me except Audrey, and she----"

  Philip sliced his words off like a guillotine.

  "You haven't told her anything about this, have you?"

  Monty stared at him. "No," he replied, "as a matter of fact I haven't;but what if I had? I don't quite see----"

  "Then you see you jolly well don't," Philip curtly ordered him. "Four'squite enough. You understand?"

  "Four's quite enough." Do you see what was already working in his mind,and what a sudden jump forward our Case took when his lips uttered thatconcluding word?

  For he did not say "enough" for what. The What was only just dimlybeginning to appear. Perhaps I shall save time if I put what I mean intothe form of a single question:--

  Why had Esdaile, who knew perfectly well that that pistol ought to be inthe custody of the police, not himself immediately handed it over?

  Why indeed did he not do so now?

  That is what I am getting at. He had not only _not_ handed the pistolover, but he had drawn blinds and grubbed about floors and had soughthigh and low, though so far in vain, for a stray bullet. Nay, he mightlecture Monty on the picking up of random pistols, but what else had hehimself done when he had found that little empty brass case in thegarden and had slipped it into his waistcoat pocket? He had pretended tohold back until Monty should have told him everything. Well, Monty hadnow told him everything.

  There was a telephone in the hall. Ten seconds would suffice.

  Yet Esdaile did nothing.

  I was conscious of a curious quickening of excitement. The wholeatmosphere of our little gathering had already changed. Monty, sittingon his stool, seemed somehow less of a culprit, Esdaile something muchmore nearly in collusion with him. And above all it distinctly began toappear--dare I say "providential"?--that Monty had picked up thatpistol.

  Why?

  Was it because Chummy Smith, instead of being a stranger who must beleft to take the consequences of his own acts, was Hubbard's andEsdaile's friend?

  XI

  It is not for me to draw the hair-line that divides the heart's wishfrom the conviction of the rightness of the act that follows it. We areall prone to do what we want to do and to look for reasons afterwards.That was for Esdaile and Hubbard to consider. I am merely stating theCase. Personally you will always find me the broadest-minded and mosttolerant of men
until these lofty qualities begin to react on my ownprivate affairs; after that I become a pattern of the narrow and thehidebound. Whether in their place I should have done as Hubbard andEsdaile did I have fortunately not to answer. What that was you will seein a moment.

  For it was now clear that we were looking, without very much dismay,into the perilous face of Conspiracy. A pistol had been fired, andhumanly speaking could only have been fired by one man. If the pistol,therefore, ought to have been handed over to the police, _a fortiori_ought the man who had fired it.

  But that appeared to be precisely the sticking-point. It was here that Isaw both Hubbard and Esdaile preparing to dig in. In a word, until they(private individuals, mark you) knew more about it, Chummy Smith was notto be given up.

  Monty's attitude at about this stage began to be rather amusing.Suddenly he left the stool of repentance and began to walk about. Heeven swelled a little. It was he, after all, who had in a sense savedthe situation, and when the cartridge-case was produced (for Hubbard andEsdaile had their heads together over the pistol-barrel again in searchof further minute indications) he became almost cock of the walk.Incidentally he had one of those flashes of insight I told you hesometimes had, or at any rate it was a flash with which I myself am notwithout a certain amount of sympathy.

  "Well, there isn't half enough murder in the world if you ask _me_," hesaid. "Only they're the wrong people. If you could get somebody reallytrustworthy to pick out the right ones no end of good would be done."