Case with 4 Clowns (30 page)

“Heard what?”

“Them Bogli's Circus people are coming over,” answered Ginger. “Coming over to see the show.”

“How can they?” I protested. “They have their own performance to run. Do you mean they'll be coming over afterwards?”

“No, that's what's funny,” explained Ginger. “They're not giving one. Never heard of such a thing before. But that's what I was told. They said that seeing as how this was such an important show for us, and seeing as how they were in the district themselves, they'd cut their own gate, so that more people would come to see us. Then they said they'd be coming themselves,
and
they'd pay. Queer, I call it.” Ginger shook his head. “Whoever heard of circus people paying to go to see another circus? Fishy, if you ask me.”

“And you think they may give some trouble?” I asked.

“Well, there's no harm in being ready in case they do,” said Ginger, and gave me a broad wink, which I interpreted as meaning that preparations had already been made for the followers of Bogli's Circus.

In the afternoon I decided to look in on Kurt to see how he was feeling. As I crossed the tober I noticed a familiar car drawn up in front of the proprietor's wagon. It was Herbert Torrant's, and he himself was standing by the steps of Jackson's wagon, talking earnestly to Corinne. He did not see me, but in a few moments turned and walked down towards the village, accompanied by the girl. It must have been a good seventy miles drive for him, and I wondered what had made him come so far. Corinne's young men, I had learned, were not usually so persistent.

Kurt, I realized directly I saw him, was very ill. His face was white and looked thinner than only a day before. When I entered his wagon he leaned up on his elbow to greet me. The sickness did not seem to have sapped his strength much, but he was nervous, and his fingers fidgeted on the sheet. After a few ordinary questions about the routine of the circus he led the conversation round to Corinne, and asked me if I had seen her that day.

“As a matter of fact,” I said incautiously, “I saw her just as I was coming over here. She was talking to that young Torrant chap.”

Kurt seemed immediately interested. “When did he come over?” he asked.

“I don't really know,” I confessed. “I only noticed his car a few minutes ago. Some time this afternoon I suppose it must have been.”

“A long way to come,” said Kurt. “What do you think made him come all that way?”

“I suppose,” I said, “he's got some idea about the circus being terribly romantic and so on. Most people outside the show see you people in a rather rosy glow, you know.”

This seemed to comfort him a little and he lay back in bed without speaking for several minutes.

“Is there anything you'd like me to get for you?” I asked.

He shook his head impatiently, and it was obvious he was still thinking about Corinne and Herbert Torrant. “You don't think, then,” he said after a moment, “that he's come across just to see Corinne? You don't think there's anything in it?”

“Who?” I asked, pretending not to know what he was talking about.

“Corinne and young Torrant, of course,” he said. “Of course, she's picked up all sorts of young men before, but they've always drifted away. I expect she feels a bit hemmed in in the circus. You can understand that. She isn't the sort of person for this life. She ought to have something better.”

I decided that it was best not to answer his question and merely grunted non-committally.

“I know what she wants,” he went on, “she's told me often enough. Comfort, and clothes, and people to call on her, something a bit more steady than this forever moving along, as if there was a policeman behind you all the time. I think I'd like to settle down myself sometimes—but what could I do?”

I let him talk himself out of it, and then, when he was calmer, I left the wagon quietly, with a promise to call in again at the first opportunity. I did not want to stay in his wagon while everybody else was getting ready for the show.

There was still an hour or two before the performance and I decided to spend it around the tober. The few people who had come along early, either not knowing that the afternoon show had been cut, or because they expected something special from the Jubilee, were being entertained for the most part in the Wild Animal Zoo. Quite a large crowd was in the enclosure when I entered, spread fairly evenly around the cages. Something, however, began to occur in the monkey cage, and the crowd moved quickly over towards it, so that I had some difficulty in seeing over their heads. One of the smallest monkeys had been stretching out of the cage to grab
a banana from a visitor, and had succeeded in getting his head right through one of the holes in the cage. But there it had stuck, and the crowd's amusement was caused by his frantic efforts to get himself loose and at the same time retain the banana, with which his pouches were already stuffed.

“Laugh,” said a voice behind me. “Go on, laugh, you ignorant lot of blighters. Laugh!”

I turned, to discover Sid Bolton close at my elbow. “You sound very bitter,” I commented.

“Well, look at them,” he said, indicating the crowd in front of the cage. “They're all like that. They don't know what they're laughing at, they don't think, they just laugh. Open their great mouths and roar at the slightest chance.”

“I suppose the basis of most humor is the discomfort of others,” I observed.

“Humor,” Sid was scornful. “People don't laugh like that at humor. That sort of laugh is hate. People hating anything a little bit like themselves. Everybody has some small fear, some stupidity or ugliness he wants to hide. And when he sees it in others he laughs, he roars, because he hates seeing himself so clearly. That little monkey, frightened and greedy, is like a mirror for most of the people here. Somewhere, they're all frightened and greedy. So they laugh. Listen to them. Aren't they horrible?”

Without waiting for my answer Sid Bolton turned away in disgust and left the enclosure. How bitter he had sounded. I realized afresh how deeply this aversion for human beings had sunk. It must have sprung from those early days on the fair-ground, when people had paid to laugh at him because he was fat. But it had grown and blossomed into a loathing which now seemed almost to dominate his life.

I wandered round the zoo until I noticed Peter Ansell beside the lions' cages. He appeared to have noticed me some time before, for when I looked up he had a quiet smile on his lips,
as if I amused him. Perhaps my nervousness was noticeable. I had not thought of it before, but I must have been pacing along with an intensely worried expression on my face, altogether unusual in me.

“Don't you ever do any work?” I asked, with an attempt at cheerfulness.

Ansell slowly removed the cigarette from his lower lip and looked at me. “I seem to have the night off tonight,” he said with a smile. “I shall be able to come in and watch the show with the big nobs.”

“Why, aren't you …” I began, and then realized what he was talking about. “Oh, of course, there can't be a lion act while Kurt is ill, can there? I'd forgotten about that.”

“Oh, I could have handled them,” said Ansell airily, “but nobody asked me, so why should I put myself out? As a matter of fact, Clem Gail's going to do a little tumbling act of his own to fill in the program.”

“Tumbling? I didn't know he was an acrobat!”

“Good heavens,” Ansell was amused. “Clem's a damn good little acrobat. That's what's such a shame about it. Jackson will never let him do anything but clowning, and Clem just sits there and says nothing. I know what I'd do in his place. I'd made a stink about it. Jackson seems to think he owns the world. It would do him good for someone to take him up on that sometime. But they're like a lot of poodles when it comes to sticking up for themselves.”

“How right you are,” said a familiar voice behind us, and there was no need to turn round to recognize Cora Frances. “Isn't that just what I've been telling you all?” she went on. “Anything for a quiet life, that's what's the matter with most of the people here. I hate a quiet life.”

“Be a bit late to start trying it,” said Ansell quietly to me.

“What I say is,” swept on Cora Frances, “if everybody insisted on getting their own way, like I do, the world would
be a far happier place. Why, if everybody got their own way there'd be no such things as unemployment, or Mussolini, or football coupons, or pedestrian crossings, or …”

“In fact,” said Ansell, “there'd be hardly anything at all.”

“Not a thing,” agreed Cora. “That's the beauty of the scheme. But, of course, it's too Utopian. We can only do our best in little things, that's what I believe in. Now tonight, for instance, I've just had my own way about those elephants.”

“The elephants?” I asked, with a strange suspicion of what was coming.

“Yes,” cooed Cora Frances. “I managed to persuade the new hand to let me enamel their toe-nails. I said to myself, if the elephants can have gilded toe-nails for the Coronation, I see no reason why they should not be painted for the Jubilee.”

“Does Daroga know?” asked Ansell.

“But of course not. It will be such a surprise to him.”

“But he'll be furious,” I said in amazement. “You know what he was like last time.”

“Oh, my dear, this traditionalism,” said Cora. “He'll get used to it in time. There has to be a first time for everything. I think he'll be thrilled to bits really.”

Personally, I doubted this, but there was no point in arguing the matter further. There was simply no limit to the way Daroga would behave when he found Cora had been tampering with his elephants. The trick she had played was so stupid that it seemed diabolically clever. I looked closely at the artist, and it struck me that her face looked tired and the lines around her eyes could not be completely hidden, however made-up she was. Had there been a shade of strain in her voice too? It was so difficult to tell in this woman, who was putting on an act all her life, whether she was acting for a different reason.

“Oh, by the way,” she said coyly, just as she was about to
leave us, “Anita asked me to give you a message.” She came close to me, with the exaggerated pretense of whispering in my ear, although when she spoke Ansell must have heard quite clearly.

“She said she'd like to speak to you when you have a moment to spare,” she said. “She'll be over by her wagon.”

Whatever had possessed Anita to use Cora Frances as a messenger I did not know, but it seemed the height of foolishness to me. If there was any jealousy about us, Cora would be bound to spread the news of our meeting and the message, it would only exaggerate any danger I already stood in. I wished Anita might have been a little more thoughtful over it.

It was with a pleasant anticipation, however, that I walked over to see what she wanted. She was seated on the foot of the wagon-steps, in the attitude in which I had first seen her reading one of my books. Strangely enough, she had it in her hands now.

“I've just finished your book,” she said, as soon as I had approached.

“And what did you think of it?” I asked expectantly. “I think,” she said, “that I never want to speak to you again.”

“Good heavens, what are you talking about?” I asked with surprise.

“I've only just realized what you've been doing in this case of yours,” she said vehemently. “I'm just a ‘love interest,' that's all I am. You've been using me for your next book, and you've been pretending to like me because it might be useful to you, because it might help to sell the book.”

“But Anita,” I tried to interrupt.

“You're not a human being at all,” she stormed. “You're just a poking prying writer, who only wants to know people's affairs to make money out of them. All right then. This time
it's not going to work out the way you want it to. You want the reader to go on to the end of the book, in case anything happens between you and me. Well, I can tell them now, that it won't. I'm not going to have anything more to do with you. This is the end of the love interest as' far as I'm concerned, so you'd better hurry up and find someone else, while there's still time.” And with that she ran quickly up the steps of the wagon, and slammed the door behind her before I had a chance to say anything.

There was no doubt that she had reason enough for what she had said. On the surface it did look as though I was behaving in a peculiarly cold-blooded way. But she might have given me a chance to clear myself—or did I want to clear myself? I was not quite sure on that point, even now. In any case, I thought ruefully as I walked away from the wagon, she had been extremely violent over the affair. Had she actually been in love with me, or was there something else behind it? Had not there been something just a little exaggerated in her anger? I could find nothing to completely explain her attitude.

By the time I had wandered back to the box-office, there was a long queue already formed there. I had a strange feeling that I was looking at the audience for the last show Jacobi's Circus would ever give. Could there be anything in that feeling? And yet, when one realized that the whole case so far had been built up on a series of predictions and presentiments, it was not impossible that what I felt now had some validity. I could think of no reason why it should come true, I just felt it to be so. Somehow, during tonight's performance, I was certain that a murder would take place.

And what was more surprising was that the artists felt it too.

In contrast, I remembered the day, not much more than a week ago, when Albert Stiles had hushed us for mentioning the word “murder.” He had been afraid then that the
others might laugh. But now there was no laughing. Everybody knew why Beef was with the circus, and they still did not laugh. That was, perhaps, the most terrifying aspect of them all; that the idea of murder had been accepted by these people, they believed in it, and thought it would happen tonight.