Case with 4 Clowns Read online

  CHAPTER V

  NOT for the first time I found Beef’s genius for non-committal pronouncements very unsatisfying. This was a time when he should have taken me into his confidence and I felt hurt that he should continue to treat me as no more than an appendage to himself and his investigations. What reason had he for thinking that something definite would emerge from this case? To me it seemed pure fantasy. How was he going to “investigate” on such a vague and undecided basis? And so at last, when we had finished our lunch, I turned to him with the intention of getting some decisive statement.

  “Look here,” I said, “you’ve got to tell me something about this case. At the moment I’m completely in the dark.”

  “No more than I am,” said Beef, removing his tooth-pick for a moment and grinning broadly. “But something’ll come of it, you see.”

  “Do mean to tell me,” I asked incredulously, “that you have no other evidence to go on than what that crazy gypsy told you?”

  “And,” said Beef with dignity, “my past experience in matters of crime and murder.”

  “And you mean to stay on here on the chance of there being a murder?”

  “I do,” said Beef, “and if you’ve any sense, you’ll stay with me.”

  “But Beef,” I protested, “at least give me something solid to go on. At present the whole thing is fantastic. Can’t you give me some good reason why I shouldn’t be wasting my time if I stayed on here?”

  “You take my advice,” said Beef, “and you won’t go far wrong.”

  But this was not enough for me. We might hang about with this circus for months and discover nothing unusual. “How do you intend to go about this case then?” I asked. “How are you going to look for evidence? How, as a matter of curiosity, do you know what to look for?”

  “Well,” said Beef, “I’m glad you asked me that, because I’ve got it all worked out nice. I thought to myself, the way to stop a murder what might happen anytime is to find out first who might want to murder who, and second, how he or she might do it. Now, it stands to reason that if this here murder was premeditated—and we can assume it will be—then the person responsible will want it to look like an accident. Especially since they’ll know that I’m on the scene. All right then. This is what we do. We go to the performance this evening and keep our eyes open. We look around and make a note of all the ways someone might be killed and everybody think it was an accident. You heard what Mr. Jackson said? He said there was danger in everything that was done in the ring. So we’ve got to find just where the danger lies. And everything’s straightforward.” He looked at me in triumph.

  “There was a boy at school with me,” I said thoughtfully, “who had an original way of birds-nesting.”

  “Here,” said Beef, “what’s that got to do with this case?”

  “You’ll see,” I answered. “The method this boy used was to go round all the hedges in his neighborhood and look for the places where he thought birds might possibly nest when the spring came. Then he cut away the brambles and nettles and put nails in the trees, so that when the birds did nest there he would be able to reach their eggs without any trouble.”

  “Well,” demanded Beef, “what happened?”

  “Nothing,” I answered, “the birds never nested in the places he’d chosen for them. And that is where your method strikes me as being useless. The birds—if they nest at all—won’t nest in your pet trees.”

  “So you don’t think it will work?” asked Beef.

  “Most decidedly not.”

  “Then what do you suggest?”

  “Going straight home,” I said shortly. “At least that’s what I’m going to do, and I think you’d better come with me. Now look here, Beef, be honest with yourself. Do you really think there’s going to be anything of a case in this place? Or do you just like the circus atmosphere and are using it as an excuse for a holiday away from your wife?”

  “You would put it like that,” snorted Beef, “and I can tell you straight that’s got nothing to do with it. You go on home if you want to. I’m going to stay here and get to the bottom of it. But I’ll tell you one thing. If you go home now you’ll be missing what looks like the most interesting case of my career. But that’s your affair.” And beyond that he refused to say another word.

  It was, I thought to myself, as I wandered out on to the ground, not a very easy question to decide. I quite honestly felt that our staying on now was little more than a gamble, and I hardly felt like wasting so much time and money on so small a chance. I decided in the end to put the question out of my mind until after the afternoon show. Time enough to make decisions then.

  Most of the artists were in their wagons, changing, and there was peculiar quietness about the camp. A small crowd had gathered by the gate, but it was impossible to tell whether they were simply curious, or whether they intended coming to the show and did not like to be first. The band, tuning, practicing, or simply running up and down the scale on their instruments, could be heard quite clearly, and then, after a brief silence, they struck up together with a Souza march. This seemed to be the signal, for people began to enter the ground and line up in front of the empty pay-box. In ones and twos at first, and then in a steady stream, until soon the queue reached to the gate and out into the road.

  For some reason that I was unable to identify I began to feel a growing excitement. Familiar sounds took on a new significance; the snarling of the lions in the lion-tunnel, where they awaited their act; a tent hand driving home a shaky peg; the groom hissing between his teeth as he put the finishing touches to the horses; the sudden sound o£ a primus stove as one of the wagon doors opened and then closed again; the chatter and laughter from the waiting crowd; all of it seemed to build up into a clearly-defined crescendo. Then Mrs. Jackson came down the steps of the proprietor’s wagon with a jingling cash-box under her arm, and the sound was like the pause in a symphony, the faint reiteration by the leading violin of the theme, before the whole orchestra takes it up to the final climax.

  The tent-flaps were thrown open and the crowd began to file into their seats. The cool tent, which had smelt only of green grass and sawdust, began to warm to the sound of quick laughter, pennies chinking, the cries of the program sellers, and the expectation on each face as it stared for a moment at the empty ring and the clean sawdust under the white lights in the tent top.

  It seemed to me amazing that such a finely-graduated atmosphere of suspense could be possible. Not only in the audience, where it was more understandable, but in the circus people themselves. Even though it must be sheer routine to them, yet somehow, unconsciously, as the moment for the beginning of the show drew nearer, I felt them becoming tense, keyed up, more animated.

  I took a seat near the entrance, and was joined almost immediately by the Sergeant, who grinned but said nothing, as he sat carefully beside me on the narrow planking which served for seats. The band suddenly changed to another tune, a bright rhythmical one, and the talking people became silent.

  “It’s the Concinis first,” said Beef, who seemed already to know much more about the show than I did.

  As he spoke the twins came through the artists’ entrance at the back of the ring, riding two pure white horses.

  “I wonder which is Anita?” I whispered to Beef.

  “Well you ought to know,” he chuckled in a tone of voice which instantly made me wish I had not asked the question and I turned my attention quickly back to the ring.

  It was impossible to find any difference between the two girls. Both looked extremely beautiful in their bright costumes, with red leather boots and astrakhan hats in the Cossack style. As one of them passed round our side of the ring she seemed to be searching the crowd with a faint smile on her face, and then, catching my eye, she quickly raised one hand in salute. At least, then, I knew which was Anita. It was only a question of not getting mixed up. But the other twin, passing at that moment, interrupted my self-satisfied thoughts by saluting me in a similar way. I he
ard Beef’s chuckle beside me.

  “They must have arranged that between them before they started,” he said. “You want to look out for yourself or you’ll find yourself in no end of a mess.”

  “I don’t know what you mean,” I replied coldly.

  There is nothing quite so cynical, I thought to myself, as the expression of a circus horse. It gallops steadily round the ring, while some human being performs numerous antics on its back for the amusement of more humans seated round the ring. The horse runs on, imperturbable, a little amused, almost condescendingly. I folded my arms, sat back, and watched the horses, feeling myself rather aloof.

  But slowly the mood vanished. The Concinis were doing so much more than what I had smugly called “antics.” There was, I discovered, a delicate artistry in the patterns they wove over and across their horses’ backs, passing, changing. It was not the difficulty of the act that counted, but the confident ease with which it was performed. For me, they seemed to extract pure motion from the flesh and blood which was creating it, and like music, or the dipping swallows in the summer, they left behind them the evanescent curves of a beautiful design. A design which had disappeared as soon as it was formed, but which left its impression on the mind. I felt a little sad at the quickness of its vanishing.

  Too soon the act was finished, and the stormy applause from the audience aroused me as the two white horses galloped out of the ring side by side as they had entered. I found myself applauding vigorously.

  “Of course,” I heard Beef’s voice sarcastically beside me, “it wouldn’t do to say you was biased, would it?”

  Feeling misjudged, I kept silent, and watched the far side of the ring for the next turn. It was the performing seal—known as Eustace—which Corinne Jackson showed. She entered now, her arms held above her head, introducing herself in the traditional circus manner, while the seal followed her in, sprawling along in the sawdust and giving an occasional coughing sound, as if in self-encouragement.

  I found the turn rather dull, although I heard Beef chuckling with the rest of the audience when, after each particular trick, Eustace lay on his side in the ring and slapped his flippers together to show his own appreciation of what he had just done. A sudden whispering at the entrance to the tent diverted my attention, and I turned to see two of the attendants talking earnestly together.

  “Varda me parlari, col,” one of them called quietly across the ring, and then followed a dozen or so sentences in the circus language which I did not understand, but which were answered by one of the attendants in the ring. In a few moments half a dozen men were making their way as unobtrusively as possible towards the exit, while Corinne continued her act as if nothing were happening, and the audience seemed completely unaware that anything unusual had occurred. I turned to Beef.

  “Come on,” he said briskly, “something’s happening.”

  “What were they saying?” I asked.

  “Well, I only caught some of it, but there’s been an accident or something outside,” said Beef as we made our way out into the open. For a moment I could see nothing unusual as I looked quickly round the tober, but then I noticed a small crowd of six or seven people grouped by the steps of the Concinis’ wagon. Jackson hurried past us in that direction, and Beef and I followed, pushing our way quickly up the steps.

  The wagon seemed crowded with the artists and hands, so that it was impossible to move, but Beef took the situation in at a glance.

  “Come on,” he said firmly to everybody in general, “no good hanging about like this. Let’s have the wagon to ourselves for a bit, will you?”

  Silently they obeyed him, leaving only five of us in the narrow wagon, and at last I saw what no doubt Beef had already noticed or guessed at; the still form of one of the twins lying on the bed. Gypsy Margot was crouched beside her on the floor, staring as one mesmerized and vainly rubbing the girl’s hands.

  Beef walked briskly over to the bed and bent over the figure. The girl’s back was bare, as if she had been changing after her act, and she lay across the bed, sprawling, as if from a fall, with one foot just touching the floor.

  “Which one is this?” asked Beef. “Anita or Helen?”

  “Anita,” answered Margot. “How could it have happened? I was only out of the wag …”

  “All right,” said Beef. “We can save that till afterwards. Let’s have a look at her.”

  His thick fingers gently touched the flesh around a long bleeding wound on Anita’s back.

  “Water—lint—bandages,” he said curtly.

  When they were brought to him he proceeded to bind the wound, passing the strips of linen over and round Anita’s shoulder. His usually clumsy-looking fingers seemed adroit and expert as he worked, unrolling the bandage with a neat, sure touch. Finally, when he had finished, he lifted the girl in his arms, while Margot drew back the bedcovers, and placed Anita in the bed.

  “She’ll be all right,” he said turning to us. “Only a flesh-wound. Her shoulder-blade stopped it being anything more serious. Still, we might send for a doctor, just in case.”

  “Is it absolutely necessary?” asked Jackson.

  “Well,” answered Beef, “it’s a clean wound.”

  “Then we won’t fetch a doctor,” stated Jackson. Gypsy Margot nodded her agreement with this, and Beef merely shrugged his shoulders. I realized that doctors were almost unheard of to circus people. Only extreme cases were taken to them. Used to dealing with the wounds of their animals or their fellow artists, they regarded interference from outside with an almost superstitious eye.

  “In any case,” I said abruptly, “we ought to call in the police.”

  “Police,” said Beef scornfully. “What do we want them in here for?”

  Jackson and Margot were violent in their repudiation of my idea, and feeling slightly crushed, I looked at Beef in bewilderment.

  “And now,” said the Sergeant, “we want to get to the bottom of this. What I want to know is just what happened in here.”

  Nobody answered. Jackson stood sullenly leaning against the door, Mrs. Jackson was quietly clearing away the remains of the bandages, lint and water that Beef had been using, Helen was sitting on a low stool by the bed staring unblinkingly at her sister’s face, and Gypsy Margot was mumbling gently to herself apparently oblivious of all that was going on.

  “Now come on,” said Beef impatiently. “Some of you must know what happened.”

  Helen suddenly moved her eyes and looked full at the Sergeant. “I did it,” she said, and her voice had a vague, uncomprehending quality which changed almost to a scream as she went on, “I did it. I stabbed her. I don’t know what made me … I saw her … her back … I …”

  “Now don’t go getting yourself all excited,” said Beef calmly. And then, turning to the others, he went on: “Look, I’d just like to have a little talk with Helen alone, if you don’t mind. Perhaps she’ll be better if there’s not so many people about.”

  We moved towards the door, but he gave me a slight sign that I was to stay. The other three left without a word, and I closed the door softly behind them. Beef turned to Helen.

  “Now tell me just what happened,” he said.

  CHAPTER VI

  HELEN looked at the Sergeant for a moment before she began to speak. She seemed to be weighing something in her mind, and I thought she was probably wondering how much she could tell us.

  “You needn’t be afraid,” said Beef. “We’re not trying to trap you, or anything like that. I just want to hear what happened after you left the tent. Start from there. Start where you came out of the ring.”

  “I don’t know that I can explain it really,” said Helen. “I still feel that it can’t really have happened to me. I mean, the whole thing is like a dream. But I’ll try. When we came out of the ring we took our horses round to the groom, and then walked to the wagon. We were laughing at a little joke we’d had with Mr. Townsend—you know, so that he wouldn’t know which of us was Anita.”

 
“Yes, I know,” grinned Beef. “Took him in proper, it did, too.”

  “I think perhaps that’s what started it,” said Helen.

  “What do you mean? The joke you played on Mr. Townsend? Did you have a quarrel over it then?”

  “No, not that. I’ll try and tell you. You see, as we were walking along Anita made some remark about how Mr. Townsend hadn’t been able to tell the difference between us. I said: ‘Perhaps it would be better for us if he could; if everybody could.’ I don’t know what made me say that. It just came out. ‘Why, what do you mean?’ said Anita. ‘I don’t know,’ I said, ‘It’s just that I feel tired of us being so alike, I suppose.’ ”

  “And what did she say to that?” asked Beef.

  “Nothing, she just laughed. We’d got to the wagon by then, and we started changing. She said she was going round into the tent to speak to you and Mr. Townsend, and then she suddenly had the idea that I should go instead of her. She tried to persuade me, but I wouldn’t do it. It wasn’t because I didn’t like a joke sometimes. I felt something worse than that; something I can’t describe.”

  “You mean,” I asked, “that you thought it wasn’t in very good taste. You didn’t think it was a joke at all?”

  “No. Nothing like that. It’s a feeling I’ve had before sometimes. Every time we do something that proves I’m exactly like Anita I feel a little the same. It’s almost as if she were stealing something of mine. As if it weren’t my own life I’m leading at all, but only half of hers. I don’t know if you see what I mean, it’s so hard to put it into words.”

  “Yes,” said Beef thoughtfully, “I think I do. What it comes to is this. When you look at your sister and she’s doing something—we might say like tying her shoe-lace up—then it seems to you that it’s like looking at yourself in the mirror. Only you know you’re not doing that thing at all, so you’re sort of jealous, because it looks as though she’s taken something away from you. Is that what you mean?”