But as you were. The peep-hole must be closed again. From the point of view of the unities Charles Valentine Smith is still lying in a hospital cot, writing daily but brief notes to Joan, forbidding her to come up, and receiving countless boxes of tightly-packed Santon flowers. We are in London again, during the last days of May.

One morning I had knocked off my private work rather earlier than usual (I had, in fact, been quite unable to settle down properly to it), and, to fill in the time before lunch, had walked up Queen's Gate, entered the Gardens by the Memorial, and strolled slowly along in the direction of the Row. It was a pleasant morning, and the riders were out in full force. Idly I was admiring glossy flanks and cruppers and bits jingling and flashing in the sun, when suddenly a horseman overtook me from behind and called me by my name. I turned, exclaimed, and shook hands with him.

He was a junior officer in the Australian Light Horse, and several times I had come more or less closely into contact with him during my own uneventful period of Military Service. His name was Dudley Hanson, he had been in Gallipoli, was still in uniform, and was awaiting his boat back home again and demobilization. He plays no part in this story except on this single occasion. He was riding a rather pretty little chestnut, and his hand patted the animal's neck as he leaned over the railings and talked.

"By the way," he remarked, after a little chat about men we both knew, "that was rotten luck for poor old Maxwell the other day. You saw it in the papers, didn't you?"

"Who?" I said, perhaps with rather a jump.

"Bobby Maxwell. He used to spot for our lot in Gallip. Came over here after. I thought you knew him."

"What was the rotten luck?" I asked.

"Why, he came down somewhere in London the other day—crashed—killed on the spot."

"Dud," I said, "where are you lunching?"

"Whoa, lass.... Oh, any old joint, I guess."

"Then get off back to your stable and come straight along to my Club. Come straight along. Don't stop to change or anything. I want to see you particularly."

He seemed a little surprised at my urgency, but waved his hand and was off. I continued my walk, but no longer slowly. I always walk quickly when I am interested, excited or moved by any emotion.

I was now all three. Maxwell! Dud Hanson knew him, and had even fancied that I might have known him myself!

Whatever luncheon engagement Hanson might have had that day I can assure you that I should have urged him to break it.

My Club is in Piccadilly, and I waited for him in the entrance hall with impatience. I gave his name to the porter as expressly as if otherwise he might have been denied; I set my watch by the club clock, I fiddled with the skeins of tape in the baskets. I had even a momentary scare lest I should not have pronounced the name of my Club distinctly or lest by any chance he should have misheard.

You see the reason for my eagerness. Maxwell was our unknown quantity, the one big blank in our Case. One or another of us could contribute his portion of knowledge about everybody else, but nobody knew anything of Maxwell. His function was entirely unconsidered, his rights totally disregarded. Rights? I know nothing of the law of the matter, nor whether a dead man has rights; but if he has they should be all the more enforceable because he is in no position to enforce them for himself. What would Maxwell have had to say about his own shooting? What had brought about that shooting? Was he the kind of man who, in Monty Rooke's large and equable view of the crime of murder, ought to have been shot? Or was he the other kind, whose death was a loss to the world? These were a few of the questions I wanted Dud Hanson to help me to answer.

He appeared, and we made our way to the dining-room at once. I gave the order for the whole of the lunch so that we might be interrupted as little as possible, and then I came straight to the point.

"First of all," I said, "you say you knew Maxwell. Do you know the fellow who came down with him—C. V. Smith?"

"Smith? Smith? Yes, I think I do, if he was Bobby's pilot out there. Smith's a pretty common name. Slightish build, but tough as they make 'em—dashing sort of chap with very lively dark eyes?"

At the time I could not verify this physical description. "Well, were they friends?" I asked.

"I guess a pilot and his observer are like the little birds in their nests—it's dangerous to fall out," Hanson replied. "What's to all this?"

"The position's this. They happened to crash on the roof of a friend of mine and this fellow Smith's. Smith's still in hospital, and neither my friend nor I knew Maxwell. So I want you to tell me about him—anything you know about the pair of them."

"Right you are...."

But if it was evidence of ill-feeling between the two men I was after he could give me none. Indeed, the probabilities were all the other way. In other Services the bond between man and man is strict, but there is still room for preferences and aversions. Your mess, for example, is yours, and you are filled with a jealous pride if an outsider has anything to say about it; but within its circle you pick and choose your friends. The ward-room forces you into the closest physical contacts, but you can still please yourself about the other intimacies. Even in a submarine, where the death of one is likely to be the death of all, you may yet like one man more than another. But two men in an aeroplane are twins in a womb. The very pulse of one must be the pulse of both, their senses, glances, thoughts, such a unison of coÖperation as the former world never saw. For one to harm the other is not assault, but semi-suicide. Rarely need you even "look for the woman." Gloriana both serve, but they hardly quarrel about lesser mistresses.

Yet is it not possible that this extraordinary attachment, this association somewhat in excess of that of natural and aeroplaneless man, may by its very nature have its own reactions? The closer the tie the bitterer the quarrel when it does come. And here an artificial element is superadded. For, in spite of Joan, who thought that Chummy simply thought of her and flew, man does not naturally fly. If nothing else forced him into accord the mere mechanical risks would be enough to do so. I remember Smith told me that at one time—whether this is still the case I cannot say—an observer was not allowed to be trained as a pilot also, lest, seeing his comrade doing something he himself would not have done and conscious of the functioning of a different mind, he should lose his head at a critical moment and instinctively seize the controls. Had there been such a dissolution of unity on that morning of the breakfast-party? Had hand hesitated, this factitious identity suddenly failed? Of all men living Charles Valentine Smith was the only one who could answer these questions with authority; but I wanted to get all I could out of Hanson.

"Had Maxwell his pilot's ticket?" I musingly asked him presently.

"Couldn't say. Lots of them have flown hundreds of miles without a ticket at all."

"Was he an Aiglon Company man, by the way?"

"Dunno. If he was he probably had his ticket. I can't see what use a commercial Company would have for a bomb-sight specialist."

"Oh, they might. You never know."

"Well, perhaps so. I'm sorry, old son, but you know as much about poor old Bobby as I do now."

Summarized, this was all the information I got in exchange for my lunch:—

Maxwell was four or five years older than Smith, in civil life a surveyor, unmarried, not (so far as Hanson knew) engaged to be married, nice fellow, reasonably abstemious, quite sound in wind and limb.

Hanson didn't think that Maxwell had spotted for any other pilot than Smith during the time the two of them were in Gallipoli.

Maxwell didn't strike Hanson as being a sort of man to lose his head in an emergency; had indeed rather a cool head and steady nerve.

In conclusion, Maxwell had always seemed particularly attached to Chummy Smith.

"But what's worrying you? Going to put it in a book?" Hanson asked.

I shook my head. I had no idea at that time that I should ever be writing this book.