Case with 4 Clowns (18 page)

“I don't know about ‘ordinary',” said Beef. “As a matter of fact, this circus interests me very much. I'm up here on a sort of a case, you see. Not the usual case you read about, but one that hasn't exactly come off yet, if you see what I mean?”

“Oh, perfectly,” said Cora Frances. “As a matter of a fact,
I've been told
all
about you. I think it's a divine idea. You must let me help you over it. And all on account of something that old Gypsy Margot said, wasn't it? It's terribly original. I don't think any of the other detectives take very much notice of what gypsies say. But as I always say, unless you get out of the rut, you're doomed. What does it matter if you find there's no case—at least, you'll have got out of the rut.”

“Don't you think there's going to be a murder, then?” asked Beef.

Cora Frances laughed. It was a very cultivated laugh, based, I thought, on the novelist's statement that a woman could laugh like a tinkling of bells. He may have been right about some women, but Cora Frances was not one of them. “Oh, but my dear,” she said. “Of
course
there's going to be a murder. Some time or other it's bound to happen. With all these animals around, and the way they drink milk out of tins …”

“Who drinks milk out of tins?” asked Beef.

“Why, everybody in the circus does.”

“And what's that got to do with a murder?”

“Well,” said Cora Frances, “I think I read somewhere that if you kept stuff in a tin after you'd opened it, you'd get ptomaine poisoning. What could be better for a murder?”

“Hadn't thought of that,” said Beef. Fortunately the artist did not notice the wink the Sergeant gave me, but swept on.

“Why, the most likely person to be murdered is myself. I know two or three who would like to get me out of the way.”

“You?” asked Beef incredulously. “Why should anyone want to do you in?”

“Jealousy,” said Cora Frances in a slightly softer voice. “Jealousy. Simply mad with jealousy some of them are. Now there's Suzanne,” she ticked them off on her fingers, “who's frightened I'll take the Dariennes away from her. And there's
Anita, who likes to think herself the most popular person in the show and would like to get me out of the way. Then there's Mrs. Jackson, who thinks I might steal her husband from her. She hates me like poison.”

“How about Gypsy Margot?” asked Beef. “Isn't she jealous in case you take her fortune-telling business away from her?”

Cora Frances laughed again. “You know,” she said, “I have theories about Margot. She's an astonishing old dear. I think she's probably the best-read woman I've ever met.”

“Never heard her talk about books,” commented Beef.

“Oh, but neither have I,” said Cora blandly. “It's just an idea I have.”

“Any other idea about who might be murdered?” asked Beef.

“Well, there's yourself, Sergeant,” said Cora. “We mustn't forget you. In all good murder cases the criminals always have a shot at the detective when they find he's a little too hot on the scent.”

“Here,” said Beef, “we don't want nothing on those lines. I'm a peaceful sort of chap, I am. Don't want no shootings and that going on.”

“We shall see, anyway,” said Cora in her “tinkling” voice. “Well. I must go off and get dressed for the evening show now.”

“Why? Are you going in the ring?” asked Beef.

“Oh, no,” said Cora. “I meant
dressed,
not dressed. See you in the tent.” And waving a hand at us she walked away.

April 29th (continued).

I
T WAS
odd that Beef and I had never seen a complete performance of the circus. We had seen bits of it, a turn here and there, but never the whole show. Something had always happened to interrupt us. Sooner or later, for some reason or another, we always had to leave the tent before the show was ended.

That night, when we took our places in the tent, we intended to see the whole show, and it was therefore with some misgivings that I realized that we were seated next to the young man whom we had seen talking to Corinne Jackson a village or so back; a young man called Herbert Torrant.

During the first of the turns he leaned forward in his seat watching the ring with close attention, and for some time did not notice us. Then he turned round and stared at Beef.

“Aren't you Sergeant Beef?” he asked suddenly.

Beef grinned with obvious pleasure, as he always did when he was recognized. “How did you know that?” he asked. “I didn't know you'd seen me here before.”

“No, not here,” answered Torrant. “I used to know you in Wraxham—I was there for a short time when you were solving that second big mystery of yours. I was in the Ordnance Survey. Get about a bit, you know. But it's funny meeting you here.”

“Ordnance Survey?” said Beef. “I don't seem to remember that. Was it the one just past the station? The one where the landlord never quite filled the glasses? I never went there but the once.”

Torrant laughed. “No, Ordnance Survey,” he said. “You know, we make maps and things.”

Beef must have thought a change of subject the best way out of this situation, for he asked, after a slight pause: “And what, might I ask, would you be doing following this show around?”

“Well …” said the young man, turning slightly pink, and stuttering, went on to say that he was “interested in the show business.”

“Oh, I see.” Beef nodded wisely. “ 'Course, this is no holiday for me,” he went on. “I'm working.”

“On a case?” asked Torrant, lowering his voice and looking round suspiciously.

“Murder,” said Beef, with a brief decisive nod.

Torrant appeared to jump slightly in his seat at this simple word, and he stared at the Sergeant incredulously with slightly open mouth.

“Hasn't happened yet,” went on Beef, “but it will do, all right. I got my eye on quite a number of people.”

Torrant's hands began to stray unaccountably up the buttons of his waistcoat towards his tie, until he noticed them and stuffed them quickly in his coat pockets.

Frankly, I found this attitude surprising. I had always imagined that a generation brought up on “thrillers” and “shockers” would find little to make them nervous in a murder in real life. Perhaps the fact that the crime had not actually been committed made this difference. Solving a murder when it had been done was rather like a cross-word puzzle, but when, as in this case, the possibility of a crime lay in the future, then perhaps it was not quite so commonplace. At any rate, Torrant's nerviness seemed to hint this.

At this point Paul Darienne, still in his ring clothes after his act, came through the opening of the tent and sat down next to me. Beef and Torrant continued their conversation in low voices.

“Have you seen Christophe?” asked Paul.

“No.”

“Funny. He left the tent with me, and then he seemed to disappear. I can't find him anywhere.”

“Perhaps he's gone down to the pub,” I suggested.

“No. He didn't change, and he couldn't have gone down like he was.”

“Perhaps Cora Frances has stolen him,” I said facetiously.

“That's what I'm afraid of,” muttered Paul quickly. “I don't like the way she chases after him. It's not right.”

“But surely,” I protested, “that's his business. I mean, a little flirtation now and again. And, anyway, I should think she's perfectly harmless.”

Paul did not answer, but in a few minutes slid off his seat and left the tent again. As I watched him go I noticed for the first time the figure of the old gypsy woman standing not more than a yard away in the gangway. I had not seen her come in. She seemed to be chuckling to herself over something, and in a few minutes turned to me.

“He was looking for his brother, wasn't he?” she asked me.

“Yes. Do you know where he is?”

The old gypsy chuckled knowingly. “And suppose I did,” she answered evasively.

I was irritated by her secretive manner, but attempted not to show it. “Then where is he?” I asked.

Old Margot looked around her suspiciously. “You're not to tell anyone, young man,” she said slyly, and coming closer so that she seemed almost to breathe in my ear, she went on: “Christophe is in my tent with Suzanne. Yes, that's where they are. They go there and talk sometimes. You see, Paul wouldn't let his brother out of his sight if he could help it, so they have to sneak away from him.”

“Why shouldn't Paul like his brother talking to Suzanne?” I asked. “Do you mean he's jealous of his brother?” I was getting a little tired of this jealousy theme, which seemed to
dominate all the people in the circus in one form or another. I could see that it offered little enough variety in the matter of motive, and it was a pity, as far as writing the story of the case was concerned (if there was ever a case to write about) that there was not a rather larger choice of “bad” feelings in this case.

“Not him,” answered the old woman. “Jealous of the woman, if anything.”

“How could he be jealous of Suzanne?” I asked sharply, suspecting that she was trying to bewilder me. But she refused to answer. Or rather, she appeared not to hear, for she placed her almost fleshless hand on my arm and whispered: “Don't tell anyone,” and quickly made her way out of the tent.

This seemed to me to be exactly the sort of thing we were looking for, and I turned to Beef, who seemed, by this time, to have elicited a great deal of personal information from young Torrant.

“I see,” he was saying. “So, in a manner of speaking, you only came over to the circus to see Miss Corinne?”

“That's right,” said Torrant. “It's a bit dull being stuck in this lousy county all by yourself. You know what I mean. You don't get time to pick up any friends, so you just drift around and pick up anything there is going.”

“Just a harmless flirtation?” asked Beef heavily.

Torrant laughed. “Hardly a flirtation,” he said. “She keeps me at arm's length all the time. It strikes me she's having some sort of a little game. I'll tell you what makes me think so. The other night I was going to drive her into Hull to go to the flicks—the pictures—but then we found they weren't open. They don't in Hull on Sundays, you know; just like these awkward Yorkshire people. Then, when I asked her what she'd like to do for the evening, we thought we'd just drop into a pub while we thought it over. Now here comes the funny bit. All the way in the car she'd been sitting right
over the far side of the seat as if I was rat-poison, but when we were just going into the pub she suddenly grabbed my arm and hung on it, and just at that moment the door opened and we found the bar was full of circus people who'd come into Hull as well. She walked me straight through them hanging on to my arm all the way. And the looks I got from two of them were enough to stop anyone sleeping for a fortnight—especially when you start talking about a murder to be done in the circus. That chap Kurt was one of them, and the other was the college fellow; the one who feeds animals.”

“Peter Ansell,” suggested Beef.

“That's right. But directly we'd got away from them she made me drive straight back to the camp, and wouldn't have anything more to do with me. I thought to myself: ‘She's trying to impress somebody, that's what she's doing.' ”

“Very interesting,” said Beef. “Ve-ry interesting.”

At this point Corinne came on to do her riding act, and I was able to attract the Sergeant's attention and tell him at last what I had just heard from Gypsy Margot.

“And the most interesting point is,” I concluded, “that Paul apparently suspects Cora Frances of flirting with his brother and doesn't know anything about the Suzanne affair.”

“How do you know it
is
an affair?” queried Beef sharply. “You've got a romantic mind, you have. It might be something far more serious. Suppose they're hatching a robbery, or something.”

“Beef,” I protested, “you must try and forget that you were once a village constable. All the time you seem to be looking for the most hackneyed sort of clues and motives when they're only to be found in the people themselves. At least, in this case.”

Beef looked at me with a faintly derisive grin, but said nothing.

“To me,” I went on, “it seems that the core of this problem will be found in this very relationship; the relationship which binds Paul and Christophe, and includes Suzanne. There is something I feel whenever I meet those two brothers together. I can't quite define it, perhaps uncanny is the word which fits them most, but in any case, it's something which we can't afford to neglect.”

“Who said I was neglecting anything?” demanded Beef.

“Oh yes, I know,” I said impatiently. “But this is different. There's no blood, or sword-sticks, or footprints in what I mean. You've got to get at the minds of those people or you'll never get anywhere at all.”

“Ah, now there,” said Beef, “I think I know what you mean. Frenchmen, those two chaps are, and Frenchmen always are hard to understand. Now if it was Englishmen … you know where you are with an Englishman.”

I turned away from him in despair to watch the performance going on in the ring. Despite our intention to watch it right through, I had so far seen remarkably little of it. We were seated in the best seats in the tent; that is the section of seating immediately on the left of the entrance to the tent which were covered by a thick red carpet. The seats in general were arranged like the positions round an arena, in an oval bank of steps. In the cheaper seats the planking was uncovered and one stood in constant danger of slipping through the space between the planks and falling on the ground. This space under the seats was often used by children as a means of entering the tent unseen, since if they slipped under the wall of the tent they could crawl along under the audience and reach an empty place unless the sharp-eyed attendants caught them in the process.