A Case in Camera

by Oliver Onions

"What does he say?"

  "He doesn't actually say anything; he doesn't know; but he wouldn't besurprised if it turned out Philip had some sort of a portableinstallation down there. But don't take this from me. I know nothingabout these things."

  "Wetherhead knows about them," Monty mused....

  "Go on about Mrs. Cunningham."

  "Well, as I tell you, it got on her nerves. She began to say she was fedup with men and silly things like that. Didn't want to get married atall; wanted to go and live with some girl. And then one day----"

  But here he suddenly stopped, and for a reason I could easily guess.Undoubtedly at this point she had made independent investigations, whichMonty either knew or suspected and didn't want to talk about. Hishesitation over, he continued.

  "Well, so it dragged on, until one evening I met her after rehearsal,and that was the finish. Absolutely done in she was; ten hours that dayand nothing but a bun and a glass of milk. Of course, I saw she was alltuckered up, and I didn't want to take much notice of what shesaid--just gave her something to eat and tried to calm her down. But itwas no good. When I called at Oakley Street the next morning she'dgone--gone to stop with this other girl; and in a week the Company wasoff."

  In spite of Mollie's injunction I ventured to ask a question.

  "Did she return the ring you gave her?"

  "No, and that's one of the reasons why I think it might be all rightyet. But the chief reason's this. She's got it into her head that it allstarted with that crash. Superstition, but there was no arguing withher. Well, suppose I'm right in what I told you, and Smith didn't reallyshoot that chap at all--didn't shoot him in the way we thought at first,I mean. It would be just like Dawdy to say that took the bad luck alloff. She's always either up or down, poor darling. A rotten life she'shad."

  I nodded, remembering Mollie's words: "She _would_ be just the woman totake a hint of that kind." Although Monty didn't know it, Audrey _had_lost her ring, _would_ regard the loss as an omen, and the loss hadprobably taken place shortly before Monty had met her at the stage-door.

  It _did_ seem to follow, even as Monty said, that with the removal ofthe whole Case out of the regions of ordinary crime, there might be anend also of the nightmare shadows that had oppressed Audrey Cunningham'ssoul.

  IV

  This record has already taken so many turns and windings, anticipationsand doublings back upon itself, that I cannot see that one moreexcursion will either make or mar it. Many pages ago I wrote that theCase _was_ a Case, complete, self-contained, and independent of thelarger issues and forces in which it is nevertheless paradoxicallyrooted and involved. And though the Case as an entity is approaching itsclose, the outside influences continue. The _Scepter_ decision, forexample, is being appealed against, and Mackwith tells me that there isevery likelihood that it will end up in the Lords. The Press, from whichI shall shortly retire, seems to be attaining something like a realpolicy with regard to the matters of which I have spoken, and,encouraged by certain signs of Ministerial yielding, has taken stillbetter heart. Cairo to the Cape has for the present failed, and CharlesValentine Smith did not succeed in becoming a member of that gallantExpedition; but other great projects are in meditation, and this veryday the announcement is made of an impending flight round the worlditself, for which Cooks and Ansons and Drakes and Dampiers of littlemore than half my age will eagerly flock to enter. The gloomyforebodings of Hills, my fellow-clubman, that attack and defense willpresently become a matter of black typhus cultures do not at presentseem likely to be fulfilled, not altogether for the reasons publiclygiven, but for quite other ones; but the chances are that he is rightabout gas, and that one day we may have to carry fans andbox-respirators as we now carry umbrellas. What must come must come,even as it came to our fathers before us, and we, like they, can only dothe duty of our day. The rest is out of our hands, and it is impotenceand vanity even to dream too far ahead. So to our immediate business, ofwhich my own present portion is the final putting to bed of our Case.With the permission of Philip Esdaile, A.R.A., and the others, I bid youto yet another breakfast. This time it is a wedding breakfast, and adouble one. Hardly an hour ago Joan Merrow, spinster, became Mrs.Charles Valentine Smith, and Audrey Cunningham (_nee_ Herbert) Mrs.Montagu Rooke. Joan was married at Holy Trinity, Sloane Street, andwears her full bridal attire; but Audrey Rooke wears the gray costumeand the black satin hat (that sticks out on each side of her head likethe serifs of a capital "I") in which she walked from the RegistryOffice. And there is present the same party, with the addition ofChummy, with which this story opened.

  V

  Again the breakfast recess was full of charming light. About the wallsthe love-making butterflies danced when carafes were moved, and only theflowers on the table were different--for it was early in a halcyonautumn, and the mulberry outside had already begun to turn. The faces ofthe Esdailes and the Rookes were enviably brown, for Monty and Audreyhad spent three weeks at Santon and the whole party had returnedtogether; and Joan, who knows perfectly well that I adore her, had verysimply and sweetly come over to my side of the table and linked herhands for a moment round my arm. Then, after a warm little pressure, shehad returned to Chummy again, who had risen. He was staying at an hotelin Gloucester Road, must get out of his wedding garments, and would thenreturn to take Joan away.

  "Don't change your mind and not come back," Joan called after him; andhe waved his hand from the door and was off.

  "What about Joan? Isn't it time she was changing too?" Philip hinted.

  Mollie gave him a sidelong look. It was understood that Philip waswilling at last to explain himself, and that look was Mollie's commenton the situation. Mingled with its fondness were faint pity, irony,wonder at us. It said, as plainly as need be, "That tiresome businessall over again! What a sex!"

  But all she openly said was, "Come along then, Joan--you too,Audrey--never let it be said we aren't properly submissive----"

  And they too departed.

  Instantly Cecil Hubbard swung round his chair to face Philip. Philipgave a backward glance through the French windows. He seemed to derivesome reassurance from the sunlight that made vivid the garden outside.

  "Well...?"

  "Well...."

  The words came simultaneously from the two men. As for the rest of us,we were content for the present to let Cecil Hubbard make the running.

  VI

  "Well, you know what the first question is," said Hubbard.

  "Let's have it," Philip replied. "Better not take anything for granted."

  "Very well. About that other morning. What were you doing down below allthat time?"

  "Moving furniture," Philip replied.

  "Moving ... what for?"

  "I'll show you that presently."

  "Good.... Next, when you did come up again, what made you march straightup to Rooke in the way you did?"

  "Because he had that pistol in his pocket."

  "How did you know he had a pistol in his pocket?"

  "Because I saw him put it there."

  "Because--you say you saw----?"

  "I saw everything--practically everything that happened."

  The blue eyes stared. "How ... but you say you're going to show us.What's the next? Ah yes--After you'd fooled about with that candle andliqueur-jar you went into the studio and we followed you. You hadn'teven put the candle out; I had to take it from you if you remember.Well, the next thing you did was to tell us you were going to tell usall about it. But you never did."

  "Steady on, Cecil--that wasn't the next thing I did."

  "What was, then?"

  "I drew the studio blinds."

  Hubbard nodded. "So you did. The police were getting those chaps down. Iremember."

  "That wasn't my reason."

  "Then what was?"

  "Well, I'll show you that too presently. But let me make something elseclear first. I was all excited and upset, and
really didn't know half Iwas doing. I'd just seen that crash, remember, and one man shootanother, and then another fellow altogether slide his hand out and pouchthe pistol. It was rather much to spring on a fellow without any warningat all. I'd simply gone down to get something to drink, you know, notto----" He failed to find words for it, and motioned to Hubbard tocontinue.

  "Next," Hubbard went on, "you packed your wife and children off butrefused to go away yourself."

  "Naturally. When you get a downright facer like that you want to see itthrough."

  "And when Rooke here wanted to sweep up the studio you told him not to."

  "I did. And not to go into the cellar either."

  "But he went into the cellar later?"

  "Later--yes. The blinds were drawn then."

  "Then are people only to go into the cellar when the blinds are drawn?"

  "Oh no, not necessarily. A rug--or a bit of paper or a halfpenny--woulddo just as well."

  Here Hubbard seemed suddenly to give it up. He leaned back in his chair."Here, somebody else carry on for a bit," he puffed, almost as if he hadbeen running; and instantly I took up the catechism.

  "Of course, you mean the hole in the studio floor?" I challenged.

  "That's it," said Philip, smiling. "So you discovered that, did you?"

  "It had been discovered long before I discovered it," I said.

  This time it was Philip's turn to stare. "By whom?" he asked quickly.

  "Rooke's here. Ask him to ask his wife."

  "Dawdy!" Monty ejaculated, wide-eyed.

  "I imagine so. At any rate you might ask her."

  "Good--Lord!" said Monty, puffing as the Commander had puffed.

  "And," I continued to Philip, "I don't think the blinds were drawn then.The key was in the cellar door too."

  "The devil!" Philip breathed softly. "I didn't bargain for that! It didoccur to me, of course, but I chanced it--never dreamed--I had to dosomething, and it seemed safest to be perfectly open...." And thensuddenly he gave an awkward little laugh and met my eyes. "Well,evidently you know all about it?"

  "Indeed I do not."

  "What, you're as warm as all that and can't guess the rest!"

  I frowned, a little annoyed. It is a little annoying to be told thatsomething is under your nose that you don't see.

  "As for that bullet-hole in the roof----" I hazarded.

  "Bullet-hole in the roof? There never was a bullet-hole in the roof. Thebranch did that. Westbury had the bullet all right. By the way, I sawhim last Sunday morning. Going great guns. He'll end up as our firstBolshevist Premier. Quite the biggest crowd in the Park."

  Here Monty chuckled. It was he who had first discovered the final effectof the Case on the House and Estate Agent. He had come upon him oneSunday morning in the space just within the Marble Arch, standing on abox and holding forth passionately on social inequalities and equalopportunities for all. I am afraid he had never got over the unconscioustrouncing Billy Mackwith had administered on that coroner's jury, andthe collapse of his righteous cause, ending in Inspector Webster'srefusal to have him hanging about the Police Station any longer, hadcompletely upset his mental balance. He declaims from his box until theopening-time of the public-houses, and then adjourns, box and all, tothe establishment near the Marble Arch Tube Station. Here he is as wellknown as he formerly was in the King's Road; but whether he has hisprivate billiard cue there I do not know.

  "Well, I give it up, Philip," I yielded at last. "I claim my singlepoint, though--that it was news to you that Mrs. Rooke knew."

  Philip rose.

  "Then come along," he said. "We must get it over before Chummy comesback. Light the candle, somebody."

  He led the way to the cellar door.

  VII

  "Why, you've changed it all!" was Monty Rooke's first exclamation asPhilip stood there with the candle held at arm's-length.

  As for myself, I was looking round the dark, clammy place with apositive passion of curiosity. That it had been rearranged I knew atonce from Monty's former description of it. The dust-sheeted furnitureand packing-cases had been pushed back against the walls, leaving themiddle of the floor clear, and once more the candlelight barelypenetrated into the gloomy recesses. It showed Philip's face, too,serious, but not to the complete exclusion of a certain quietsatisfaction and triumph. And in Hubbard's sailor eyes I fancied Ialready saw the dawning of comprehension.

  "No I haven't--that is, I've only changed it back again as it was,"Philip replied. "I told you I'd been moving furniture that morning....Well, do you want to lose a bet, Cecil?"

  Hubbard spoke oddly quietly. "No. I'll win one," he said.

  "Ah! Then you're barred.... Take this, somebody, and you fellows waithere. I shall be back in a minute."

  He thrust into my hand the candle, which he instantly blew out, leavingus in sudden and pitchy darkness.

  I confess to a light creeping of the skin of my face. This may have beendue to the chill, clammy air, to my stimulated imagination, or to both.Nobody spoke, and so still were the others that I had no difficulty indoing what in fact I was already doing--putting myself months back,alone down there, as Esdaile had been alone when he had descended forthe jar of orange curacao that morning. I seemed to myself to bestanding there waiting for a sound of splintering glass, the muffledthud of two falling bodies, the faint murmur of half Chelsea running outof doors. I was conscious that the candle shook in my hand, and suddenlyI wanted to relight it. I am not sure that my fingers did not go to mypocket for a match.

  But it was another light that irradiated us as we stood waiting there--asoft bright cone that all at once spread down from the ceiling above. Upwent my startled eyes as if at some trick of thaumaturgy, someimposition on my credulity. Down as if through a funnel streamed thatcircular shower of pale brightness, outfanning from its smallorifice--the hole in the floor.

  The hole in the floor! It was that to which my thoughts, following thatinstinctive movement of my eyes, turned like a flash. The hole in thefloor! With my body still in the cellar, I seemed in some transcendentalway to be upstairs at the same time, stooping over that hole as AudreyCunningham had stooped before me. We seemed to be stooping inherentlytogether, yet at the same time independently, so that, I was able towatch her. I saw her in my imagination pallid and hysterical, puttingforth one honeysuckle finger half-way to the hole, and then, seized by awild and baseless urge to put some torturing fancy to the test, changingher mind and putting forth another finger--the finger that bore herengagement-ring.

  "_If he does not come before I count a hundred he will not come atall...._"

  "_If I thrust in that finger and anything happens I shall know what todo...._"

  And then her cry as the ring jammed and the finger was withdrawn withoutit.

  But understand that all this did not take a moment, and that I was stilldown in the cellar, looking up at that hypnotizing cone of white light.

  The glimpse suddenly vanished, and I heard Esdaile's voice. I had notheard him come down.

  "Stand back a bit," he said, his hand on my sleeve.

  Then it was that my eyes fell on the floor.

  VIII

  On the floor? Rather on the roof itself, for, spread out over the floor,was a perfect image of that glazed studio roof high above us. Thedivisions between the panes were marvelously penciled there, and aboutone of them, though not the one I had expected, the browning branches ofthe mulberry crept and played. Something darted across and was gone--abird.

  And it was too late to bet now, for the book was closed. By merelyseeing that the roof-blinds were open, and then pushing away a rug withhis foot, Philip had confounded us all. Again I hardly heard his words:"House simply a big pinhole camera, you see...." Once more I was seeingwhat he had seen that morning so many months ago.

  His mild astonishment at witnessing that phenomenon for the first time(for it was the first time)--

  His interested reali
zation of the cause of it as he had stood there withthe bottle of liqueur in his hand----

  And then the half-heard shock and the light tremor of the house and thewhole astonishing scene instantly enacted before his eyes!

  But I had little time to marvel anew. He was speaking.

  "... so down they came, not at this end, but over there, in reverse, youknow. And of course I'd no idea then it was Chummy; didn't learn thattill the afternoon; I simply saw him point that pistol at the other man,who crumpled up. That was a shock, you understand, but you could haveknocked me down with a feather when I saw another shape crawl across andpick the pistol up!... Eh? Oh, with the light above they weresilhouettes more or less; we'll send somebody up and try if you like;but I knew it was Monty the moment I came upstairs and saw him."

  "And then---?"

  "I'm afraid I can't give you any very clear account of it. Time didn'tseem to exist, if you know what I mean. But I know that all of a suddenI was moving furniture about, to break up that beastly picture, a bit ona box top and another bit on a sofa-end and so on. It didn't seem quitedecent, somehow, all spread out dead flat like that. But I don't wonderyou fellows were puzzled."

  "But," said Mackwith presently, as we still stood looking at thatmoonlike radiance spread across the floor, "why couldn't you tell us allthis sooner?"

  "What for?" Philip retorted. "It didn't take me long to realize that I'dtold you a dashed sight too much as it was! I had to have it out withMonty and Chummy, of course; but the less said after that the better.Suppose it _had_ been a common Murder Case. I saw it, and could havehanged a man straight away with a word. You didn't, so why fill you upwith a lot of hearsay? Don't you think I was right?"