A Case in Camera

by Oliver Onions

  "So his friends seem to think."

  "Then what's simpler than for you to take a column in the _Circus_ andsay so? And then take another column and damn the other side? Pack ofshirkers who bolted underground while your friend went up and kept theHun off London? The old tricks are always the best--that's why they'reold. Do it on general lines, of course; keep off _sub judice_ cases andall that. As regards his being over London, you've got to make amolehill out of that mountain, if it is a mountain. What are theRegulations exactly?"

  I told him what they were, not exactly, but in all their unavoidableinexactitude. At one of them he suddenly stopped me.

  "Ah, there you are. A Secretary of State has power to except him, hashe?"

  "Hardly after the fact, I should say."

  "Oh, don't be so dashed pedantic about it! Nothing would ever get doneat all if everybody talked like that! I'm not suggesting this as his_defense_; it's his _attack_, so that he shan't be charged at all, don'tyou see? And if you know a better 'ole go to it.... Now you get thosearticles written. Write them so that they'll start correspondence. Idon't quite see the _Daily Circus_ being put in the cart by a Chelseaauctioneer. Then take a month's holiday.... Now tell me how the novel'sgoing on."

  This last I did over our second liqueur.

  VI

  I quite realize that we can't all be Glenfields. I don't suppose itwould do to have the world so over-oxygenated--for he is the oxygen asagainst the democratic nitrogen of our modern atmosphere. He wasprobably right in calling my scrupulous objections pedantic, but Iconfess that his power would affright me did I not trust him in the mainto use it rightly. If he chose to send a note to a Secretary of Staterequesting that special permission for a civilian to be excepted fromthe Regulations should be given and slightly antedated, it was highlyunlikely that he would be refused. That at any rate need no longer be aweight on my mind. As far as the Regulations were concerned CharlesValentine Smith had now probably very little to fear.

  But was the contravention of the Regulations the real point of our Caseafter all? By keeping Smith out of Court were we not in reality makingthe larger issue quite dreadfully simple? Had Smith killed Maxwell anythe less dead that certain strings could be conveniently pulled on hisbehalf? And why had Glenfield been so certain that my painter-friend,who twice had been on the point of taking the rest of us completelyinto his confidence, had now changed his mind, was "pulling out," andintended to tell us nothing at all?

  On this point I was to receive still further mystification during thatvery week-end.

  For, returning home that night, lighter of heart than I had beenfor many days, I found a small registered packet from Esdailehimself. The packet contained a key. His request, after Joan'shouse-and-servant-hunting commissions, was quite a modest one. He wantedme to go to his house, to post on to him a certain set of sketches thelocality of which he minutely described, and then when I had a moment oftime to go on to Dadley's, in the King's Road, and to ascertain formyself how he was getting on with the framing of a couple of pictures.He was sorry to bother me, but Rooke had behaved rather like an ass, andMollie and the kids sent their love.

  His commission was no bother to me; indeed, I found the latter part ofit rather interesting. I had no desire to exchange further words withthe "Chelsea Auctioneer," as Glenfield had described Westbury, but Iconfess that I had a curiosity about him. I had probably queered hispitch if he hoped to get Smith into Court on a technical point and thento fly off at score about bullets, pistols and pocket-patting at thefoot of ladders; but I did not know what other means of making himself anuisance he might not have. Old Dadley might be able to tell me. Dadleyprobably knew Inspector Webster as well.

  But I could not now see Dadley till Monday, and as for the visit toLennox Street, Sunday afternoon would do for that. Sunday morning Iintended to spend in writing the first of those articles for the_Circus_. I went to bed, slept well, rose early, and was at my deskbetimes.

  Those two articles, and the numerous subsequent ones I wrote, need notdetain us here. Indeed, just as you will have to take the legal aspectsof our Case largely on Mackwith's word, so for the journalistic side ofit I refer you to Lord Glenfield and his group of papers. But it ispossible that you may remember something of the wave of opinion we setin motion, for it is not so very long ago. Deliberately I sought, andsuccessfully obtained, correspondence--a correspondence that embraced,directly or obliquely, practically every side of the subject, from thepersonality of famous pilots to the constitution of the new Ministry ofthe Air. We have, of course, the general balance of our papers toconsider, but within those limits I fairly let myself go. And if youtell me that I did all this to save Charles Valentine Smith from thehands of justice, I answer that I did it because ten short years havemade the air and everything connected with it as important to us as thesea. If you tell me that I did it because I was Philip Esdaile's friend,I reply that I did it because I was just beginning to see on what a hairour destiny might hang if a new and gigantic industry, suddenly hung upin mid-career, should be left unsupported, unrecognized, unencouraged.If you charge me that I did it because of Joan and her happiness, Iretort that I was by this time wholly convinced that Hay and Hubbardwere right, that the next attack on one nation by another would comewith appalling swiftness, would be directed at civilian nerves as muchas at uniformed bodies, would be the beginning of the thousand years inwhich the Devil is to be unchained, and the sooner the public realizedthe situation the better.

  So I wrote my first article, read it over, decided that it was prettymuch what was wanted, and lunched lightly at home, as is my Sundaycustom. Then, at about three o'clock, I put Esdaile's letter into mypocket and set out for Lennox Street.

  VII

  As I walked along the Cromwell Road I could not but be put in mind ofthe last occasion when I had called at Esdaile's studio--that middaywhen I had found all locked up, Rooke departed, and had run him to earthin his old quarters in Jubilee Place. I have spoken of Mrs. Cunninghamas an enigmatic sort of person, possibly as much an enigma to herself asto others, and inspiring more of compassion and kindness than of thatother feeling that is supposed to be akin to these. Now I could not helpwondering about her again. What had made her so suddenly break off withMonty? Had she had a reason, or none? I suppose there are thesesensitive plants whose own interior moods and feelings outweigh all thelogic of outward events, so that a flurry of nerves becomes a motive,and an intuition grounds for immediate action. Monty had spoken of heras having been on the verge of hysteria on that afternoon when herJacobean wardrobe had been carried down into Esdaile's cellar. It waswithin a few days of that that she had definitely announced herintention of not marrying again. I repeat, that as I left the CromwellRoad and turned down by South Kensington Station, I could not helpremembering all this and wondering. I was still wondering when I turnedinto Lennox Street.

  It was a sunny afternoon, now well on towards summer, and as I walked upthe path I noticed that Esdaile's grass already needed cutting. Iremember thinking how jolly it must be at Santon that afternoon. Inside,as I opened the door, I found the floor strewn with the usual clutter ofleaflets and circulars, coal-merchants' post-cards, announcements ofdairies and window-cleaning firms. I turned them over and found nothingof importance among them. Then I passed to the annexe and the studio.

  Before he had left, Esdaile had evidently set the place more or less inorder, but, judging from the veil of dust that lay over everything, hehad made no arrangements for having his house visited in his absence. Isuppose Mollie's two maids had found fresh jobs by this time. Theshuttering-up of the French window gave the alcove a vacant and drearysort of look, which was not improved by a slight fall of soot that hadcome down the chimney and lay spread out over the hearth. In the studiothe dark blue blinds were drawn, pictures stood with their faces turnedto the walls, and those on the easels were wholly or partially coveredwith hanging valances of newspapers.

  The
sketches I had come to fetch formed a small separate parcel which Ihad no difficulty in finding. Nevertheless, to make sure they were theright ones, I sat down in an old double armchair with a frayed tapestryseat and unfastened the string that bound the brown paper. They were therequired ones, and I replaced the paper and tied the string again. ThenI continued to sit in the chair, not consciously thinking, with thebundle of sketches on my knees.

  I dare say it was the indigo twilight in which I sat that brought backto me the last time I had seen those blinds drawn. You will rememberthat I had myself helped to draw them when the shuffling of feet on theroof had warned us that the police were about to carry the two men downinto the garden. I gave a slight shiver, but as much at the ratherdrowsy air of the place as at the recollection itself. The studio wouldcertainly be none the worse for half an hour's ventilation and sunlight.I was in no great hurry to leave. I rose from the tapestried chair,unfastened the blind-cords from the cleats, and began to pull back theblinds. The first one I drew back showed me that the broken roof-panehad been replaced by one of a different make of glass. I pulled back theremaining blinds, and then sought the long hooked pole that was used todraw down the upper portion of the wall-window.

  It was as I crossed to the corner where this pole stood that my footcaught on the corner of a loose rug, tripping me slightly. As I did notfall I took no notice of this for the moment, but found the pole, pulleddown the window, and let in the needed air. Only as I was replacing thepole did I notice the small round hole in the floor that the turning upof the rug had disclosed.

  Now there are times when one does not so much think as leap to aninstantaneous conclusion. Be it a right one or a wrong one, it possessesyou like a flash for the infinitesimal portion of time it endures. Inthis merest flash of time my eyes had flown aloft. A hole in the floor,and another hole in the roof!... A new roof-pane might have been put insince, but I knew accurately in which portion of the old pane thatshattered star with the small round hole in the middle of it had been.In that moment of time I saw the whole picture again--the star, thatgray snowslide made by the bodies of the two men, the little wavering,creeping shadows of the broken mulberry branch. The hole in the middleof the star had been approximately over the hole in the floor that themoving of the rug had revealed.

  "Then why," I cried excitedly to myself, "didn't he find the bullet? Howdid it come to be found in another house? If it went through the floorit ought to have been in his cellar--if he looked--if he isn'tlying----"

  And then, in another almost simultaneous flash, "Could there have been_two_ bullets? There were seven left in the pistol--the magazine carrieseight--but you can get a ninth in if you place it in the chamberitself----"

  All this, I say, crossed my mind in one hundredth part of the time ithas taken you to read it.

  And then came the drop. I was all wrong. That hole in the floor wasn't abullet-hole at all. You can get a clean round bullet-hole in glass, butnot in a floorboard. Neither does any pistol make a hole with a neatlittle rim of yellow metal glinting inside it.

  I assure you I was already on my hands and knees by the side of thathole. It was five-eighths of an inch in diameter, perfectly round, with,as I say, that lining of what I at first took to be brass. I inserted mylittle finger, but the lining was firmly fixed. It did not run throughthe thickness of the board, but occupied perhaps an eighth of an inchabout a third of the way down it. And the removal of my finger, clearingaway a little grime, revealed something else. I lay down with my eyeclose to the hole. The ring was not of brass, but of gold.

  Breathlessly I rose and looked about for an instrument. A screwdriveron the window-ledge caught my eye. Yes, a screwdriver would do. I seizedit and crouched on the floor again. I worked for perhaps a minute. Atthe end of that time the slender circle of metal was loose in the palmof my hand.

  Even without the tiny initials engraved inside it I should have knownit. Tightly as it had been wedged, not one of its three little emeraldshad been wrenched out. It was the engagement-ring I had seen on Mrs.Cunningham's finger on the morning of our breakfast.

  VIII

  Fantastic as had been the thoughts that during that fraction of time hadwhirled through my brain, the little gold circlet lying in my palmseemed to propound questions more fantastic still. How in the name ofall that was inexplicable had Mrs. Cunningham's engagement-ring come tobe there? Each momentary explanation at which I grasped seemed morelunatic than the rest. Had she simply lost it, sought for it and beenunable to find it? Had it rolled of itself into that little five-eighthshole? Absurd, since even if by a miraculous chance it had rolled exactlythere I had had to take a screwdriver to prise it out. Had she put itthere, and for what reason? Ridiculous again, since ladies on the eve oftheir weddings do not use their rings for the jeweling of holes inone-inch floorboards. Yet if she had not put it there, what idiot had,and why? And what was the hole itself?

  Again I was down on my hands and knees, examining the hole. Round--asperfectly round as if it had been drilled with a brace and bit--but notrecent. It might at one time have given passage to a gas-pipe, a wire, acord; it might have been a knot-hole. I peered down it. Nothing butblackness. I explored it again with my finger, and learned nothing new.Just an old hole, now scraped and jagged a little by the screwdriver.

  Suddenly I rose, left the studio, and strode through the annexe. Rookemight have had his scruples about prying into the nooks and corners ofanother man's house, but I assure you I now had none. I was bound forthe cellar. If others could go down there so could I. Rooke had saidthat Philip had left the key in the door. "Right you are, Philip," Imuttered to myself. "If Rooke won't I will. Glenfield says you'repulling out, but so am not I. I'm for Hubbard and the optophone theorynow. I've an hour or two to spare, and your cellar's going to beexamined as it hasn't been yet. Here goes."

  But I had all the moral guilt of my intention to abuse his roof-treewith none of the advantages. The door that led to the cellar was oncemore locked and the key had gone.

  Slowly I went back to the studio and the frayed tapestry chair. I wantedto think quietly and at length. Now I pride myself on being rather amethodical sort of thinker when I really give my mind to a thing, and Iwas resolved to get to the bottom of this if I could. That almostinsultingly grotesque discovery of the ring had put me on my mettle. Onething seemed clear, if anything in the whole business was clear: forwhatever reason, Mrs. Cunningham had not shared Monty's delicacy aboutpeering and pottering. Of this there seemed to be several indications.Again and again she had insisted that there was something uncanny aboutthe place; she had had an access of hysteria and had had to be broughtup from the cellar; and rather than live there she had broken off herengagement. But she had not done this last immediately. Days, if not aweek or two--I did not know how long--had elapsed. I was now convincedthat during that interval she had made some kind of a discovery. Thering was evidence enough of that. And she had had an advantage in herinvestigations that I had not: she had had access to the cellar. Then,her discovery made, apparently she had cleared out.

  So much for Mrs. Cunningham. Now for the apparatus, all I knew of whichwas the ring in the knot-hole.

  Deliberately I began to reconstruct the events of the morning of theaccident from the moment when Esdaile had returned from his unexplainedhalf hour in the cellar. I put pressure on my memory so that not asingle detail should escape me. And I experienced a little thrill when,by dint of concentrated thought, I evoked Esdaile's image again at themoment when Hubbard and I had followed him into this very studio. He hadbeen standing with bowed head, poking with his foot at fragments ofbroken glass and--yes--at the rug on the floor. I could see his footagain, pushing at that very mat over which I had stumbled. The mat hadcovered the hole then as it covered it now. Esdaile, to all appearanceslost in abstraction, had--I began to feel it in my bones--been intentlyengaged in _covering up_ that hole.

  Then, having covered up the hole, what had he done next? Instantly I sawanother vi
vid picture. I saw again those gray moving shapes on the roof,saw Esdaile suddenly stride to the blind-cords, saw the movement withwhich he had bidden me do the same, and the little bright gold rhomboidsof light in the rafters as the deep blue blinds had been shut.

  And half an hour later he had sharply forbidden Rooke to touch theblind-cords and had petulantly refused him the key of the cellar.

  I felt excitement growing on me. My whole body began to glow with it. Ifelt myself getting nearer--nearer----

  Hubbard was both right and wrong----

  He was wrong in his insistence on what Esdaile must have _heard_----

  But he was right about the apparatus----

  Esdaile had not heard--he had _seen_--and there was no more mysteryabout it all than there is in putting your eye to a keyhole.

  IX

  And yet, approaching the truth as I felt myself to be, I had a deep-downfeeling that at the same time I was wrong. Carefully I begun to examinethe objections to my suddenly-formed theory, and instantly I wasimpressed by them. In the first place, take an inch board with afive-eighths hole in it, peep through, and see how much, or rather howlittle, of a field of vision your eye commands. Next, consider theawkwardness of peering through that hole, not in a vertical wall ordoor, but in horizontal planking some feet above your head. Then, mostimportant of all, weigh the extreme unlikeliness of it that Esdaile, whohad merely gone down for a bottle of wine and had no reason whatever todream that calamity was imminent, should have had his eye at that holeat that particular moment of time. It was preposterous. All had happenedso quickly. He would have had to stand on something, probably to pile upfurniture; even with a pair of household steps ready in position hewould have had to mount them--nay, he would first have had to _think_ ofmounting them. I had no means of telling if he had previously known ofthat hole in his floor, but say that he had: does one, on hearing anunaccountable noise, instantly run over in one's mind every chink andcranny of one's dwelling and select one of them as an observation-post?He could have dashed upstairs again and seen for himself what was thematter in half the time.