I ask you to notice several untenable points about the position I had taken up. Twice at least I had flatly lied, once when I had told him that I had not seen Mackwith since the morning of the accident, and once when I had given him to understand that I knew nothing of the police search of Esdaile's premises. I say nothing of the greater lie, that we were all ready to help him in his efforts to get to the bottom of the Case. I count that as more the natural momentum the Case itself had now acquired than any personal untruthfulness on my own part.

Next, I now saw that as an eavesdropper my technique had been painfully clumsy. I had attracted attention to myself. I had accepted Westbury's hospitality, but (believe me, out of pure forgetfulness) had omitted to return it. Several times he had given me an opportunity, which I had not taken, of telling him my name, though I had admitted my knowledge of his. These may seem small things, but there are ways and ways of drinking a glass of beer. Within certain limits, I had a distinct sense of social failure.

And if, over and above all this, I had given him and his associates credit for too little intelligence, that I am afraid is rather a fault of mine. It may even have something to do with my position as a younger novelist. I constantly forget that one man is as good as another because he is as many.

So here I was, a clumsy, unmannerly fellow with a guilty conscience to boot, face to face with a very Chesterfield of the best licensed establishments and the whole body of law and order and public duty overwhelmingly on his side. We stood there under the unlighted public-house lamp, while the violet light of the May evening slowly faded from what Hodgson had called "Chelsea's pleasant roofs."

He was fully aware that he possessed what the correspondents used to call the initiative. This showed in his very few first words. I, it appeared, was to be forced to open the ball.

"Now, sir, you wished to see me, I believe," he said pompously.

I was on the point of reminding him that it was he who had made the proposal to come outside when he put up a peremptory hand.

"No, no. I know what you're going to say, and that don't go down. When I say you wanted to see me I mean you came here to-night for that purpose. Specially. Well, here I am."

I suppose I should have been within my rights in answering that I had entered those swing doors for a glass of beer and had not spoken to him until he had borrowed my newspaper; but obviously that line led nowhere. Moreover, from his comparative calm of manner now, I realized that while the larger advantages lay with him, at least one small tactical superiority was mine. He was quiet for the moment, but would probably flare up again immediately at the mention of Mackwith's name. So I kept Mackwith in reserve.

"Well," I said in a conciliatory tone. "I have a feeling that both of us wished to see the other, and from what you've told me with very good reason. Isn't that so?"

"How do you mean, what I've told you?" he said suspiciously.

"I mean that you've given me the impression that there's more in this Case than meets the eye."

He grunted. "Impression's good!"

"That there's some sort of a misunderstanding that ought to be cleared up."

"'Impression's' damned good!" he muttered again. "I like 'impression.'"

"Well, never mind the word. You reminded me a few minutes ago that we were all there that morning, and so I take it that we're all interested. Can't we talk it quietly over?"

I don't think I ever saw eyes capable of staring for so long without a blink. Old Dadley had been right when he had said, "He stares you down, he does." I awaited his pleasure.

"No, that won't wash either," he said curtly at last. "You came here for a purpose. Specially. I won't say the place isn't free to anybody, but it would be bad for trade if everybody stood behind a paper looking for twenty minutes at a glass of beer. I don't think there's any need to be plainer than that."

"Very well, have it that way if you like," I returned. "You tell me the whole of Chelsea is interested in this Case. Well, as I was there when it happened it's natural that I should be interested too."

"Hah!... Well, all I have to say to that is that nobody would have guessed it at the time," he answered.

"Indeed? Why not?"

"Hah! Why not? It is a bit of a puzzle, isn't it? But suppose we put it this way: Here's two men come tumbling on a man's roof. Bit of a bump they make, don't they? Say a thousand people watching, eh? It isn't a thing that happens every day exactly, you'd think? Very well. Now where were all of you? Finishing your breakfast? 'Interested,' you say. Well, you'd expect the master of the house to be a bit interested. But where was he? Where were all the rest of you, except him that went up on the roof? You seem to me more interested now than you did then. That's the first point that strikes me."

It struck me, too, as being both stupid and acute, at the same time hardly worth mentioning and yet unpleasantly significant. If his suggestion was that at the time of the accident we were all whispering together in some dark nefarious plot, it was too ridiculous to answer; but if he meant that it was at least remarkable that not one of us except Rooke, and Hubbard for one brief moment before his arrival, had taken the trouble to step outside to see what had happened, I could only reluctantly agree with him. You will remember that precisely the same observation had struck Hubbard and myself at the time.

"Yes," he repeated, seeing my discomfiture, "that's the first point that strikes me; where was Mr. Esdaile, for instance, that he didn't come out?"

I answered rather slowly. "I see what you mean. As a matter of fact that was very curious. I wonder if you'll believe me when I tell you that Mr. Esdaile knew nothing of that accident till it was all over?"

He stopped for a moment in his walk. Without noticing it we had begun to walk. "Why not?" he demanded.

"Because he was down in the cellar at the time. He'd gone down to fetch a bottle of wine."

He resumed his walk. "But he came up again. I saw him."

"That was some time after."

"That's right," he confirmed, as if he had been testing my truthfulness. "It was about half an hour after. Funny way to spend half an hour with all that going on, wasn't it?"

As I was entirely of his opinion, I made no reply.

"So," he continued, "what strikes me about it is that you're more interested now than you were then. Now we'll pass on to another point. All the time this is happening you're all inside except one of you, and he's on the roof. He's the only person up there till the police came—has the field to himself so to speak. Then he comes down the ladder in a very shaky sort of state."

"Do you wonder?" I interposed with a quickness that surprised myself. "You were on that jury——"

"In a very shaky state," he repeated. "Nervous as a cat, as you might say. That was the state he was in when he came down that ladder. Why?" His manner changed suddenly to truculence. "Why? Hah! That's the question, isn't it? Some of you'd like to make out you know nothing at all about it, but they laugh best that laugh last, and don't you make any error about it!"

Apprehensive as I was, I forced myself also to laugh.

"And you're doing your laughing in the newspapers? Well, do you know, Mr. Westbury, I see very little in all this. Your letter certainly raises a very interesting subject, and I'm quite of your opinion that flying ought to be better regulated; but I wonder if you'd resent a piece of advice from an older man?"

"Much obliged, I'm sure." Those were the words. The tone in which they were uttered bore no relation to them.

"But let me give it, for all that. You seem to be on the point of making charges against somebody for something or other. Well, that's never a safe thing to do, but if I were you I'd certainly think twice before I started with a rather distinguished barrister. They're usually able to look after themselves pretty well in such matters."

I said it quite deliberately. It was abundantly plain that unless I kindled his wrath again he might go on laughs-best-ing and laughs-last-ing all night. I didn't want to hear his vague and muttered menaces. I wanted to know whether that bullet was in the hands of the police, and if so, what action was to be taken. So I produced Mackwith from my sleeve.

"And another thing I'll tell you plainly," I said with something nearer real warmth. "If I were to hear any annoying whispers about myself I shouldn't have a moment's hesitation in taking any steps I thought proper. As I see this business, you force your way into a private garden under cover of an accident, pick up some cock-and-bull story or other, go spreading it about, and then, when you're very properly put in your place by a coroner's court——"

But I got no further. By this time we were in a quiet and dingy street where almost every house seemed to have an "Apartments" card over the door, and at the fury of his outbreak I expected every door to be flung open and every blind to be drawn up.

"Hah! So that's your lay, is it, Mister Man? We've got it at last, have we? You think you can come it heavy like your blasted barrister friend, do you? Oh yes, you're all in it together! I knew what you came for to-night! I forced my way into gardens, did I? And what about those that force themselves on roofs before the police come, touching things they've no business to be touching, eh? I pick up cock-and-bull stories, do I? And what does some others pick up? I'm put in my place, am I? We'll see what sort of a place some of you fine gentry's put in presently! Trying to cod me one of you was in the cellar for half an hour! A bit too much roof and cellar for my fancy! I was a shade over the odds for one of you anyway! He had to come down the ladder again, hadn't he? And you hold a ladder when you see a man coming down it, don't you? Very well, Mister Pry! You go prying somewhere else, and drink your beer a bit quicker next time! My kids aren't going to be shot at and no questions asked! The questions'll come presently. They laugh best that laugh last——"

And, as a neighboring door was opened, and a blind across the street was drawn up, and a window-sash creaked somewhere else, it came upon me in a moment what had happened.

Philip Esdaile's hands had not been the first to pat Monty Rooke's pockets that morning. Westbury, holding the ladder, had been before him.

[Pg 168]
[Pg 169]