3
“Christine Clay! Christine Clay!” yelled the mid-day posters.
“Christine Clay!” screamed the headlines.
“Christine Clay!” chattered the wireless.
“Christine Clay!” said neighbour to neighbour.
All over the world people paused to speak the words. Christine Clay was drowned! And in all civilisation only one person said, “Who is Christine Clay?”—a bright young man at a Bloomsbury party. And he was merely being “bright.”
All over the world things happened because one woman had lost her life. In California a man telephoned a summons to a girl in Greenwich Village. A Texas airplane pilot did an extra night flight carrying Clay films for rush showing. A New York firm cancelled an order. An Italian nobleman went bankrupt: he had hoped to sell her his yacht. A man in Philadelphia ate his first square meal in months, thanks to an “I knew her when” story. A woman in Le Touquet sang because now her chance had come. And in an English cathedral town a man thanked God on his knees.
The Press, becalmed in the doldrums of the silly season, leaped to movement at so unhoped-for a wind. The Clarion recalled Bart Bartholomew, their “descriptive” man, from a beauty contest in Brighton (much to Bart’s thankfulness—he came back loudly wondering how butchers ate meat), and “Jammy” Hopkins, their “crime and passion” star, from a very dull and low-class poker killing in Bradford. (So far had the Clarion sunk.) News photographers deserted motor race tracks, reviews, society weddings, cricket, and the man who was going to Mars in a balloon, and swarmed like beetles over the cottage in Kent, the maisonette in South Street, and the furnished manor in Hampshire. That, having rented so charming a country retreat as this last, Christine Clay had yet run away to an unknown and inconvenient cottage without the knowledge of her friends made a very pleasant appendage to the main sensation of her death. Photographs of the manor (garden front, because of the yews) appeared labelled, “The place Christine Clay owned” (she had only rented it for the season, but there was no emotion in renting a place); and next these impressive pictures were placed photographs of the rose-embowered home of the people, with the caption, “The place she preferred.”
Her press agent shed tears over that. Something like that would break when it was too late.
It might have been observed by any student of nature not too actively engaged in the consequences of it that Christine Clay’s death, while it gave rise to pity, dismay, horror, regret, and half a dozen other emotions in varying degrees, yet seemed to move no one to grief. The only outburst of real feeling had been that hysterical crisis of Robert Tisdall’s over her body. And who should say how much of that was self-pity? Christine was too international a figure to belong to anything so small as a “set.” But among her immediate acquaintances dismay was the most marked reaction of the dreadful news. And not always that. Coyne, who was due to direct her third and final picture in England, might be at the point of despair, but Lejeune (late Tomkins), who had been engaged to play opposite her, was greatly relieved; a picture with Clay might be a feather in your cap but it was a jinx in your box-office. The Duchess of Trent, who had arranged a Clay luncheon which was to rehabilitate her as a hostess in the eyes of London, might be gnashing her teeth, but Lydia Keats was openly jubilant. She had prophesied the death, and even for a successful society seer that was a good guess. “Darling, how wonderful of you!” fluttered her friends. “Darling how wonderful of you!” On and on. Until Lydia so lost her head with delight that she spent all her days going from one gathering to another so that she might make that delicious entrance all over again, hear them say: “Here’s Lydia! Darling how—” and bask in the radiance of their wonder. No, as far as anyone could see, no hearts were breaking because Christine Clay was no more. The world dusted off its blacks and hoped for invitations to the funeral.
4
But first there was the inquest. And it was at the inquest that the first faint stirring of a much greater sensation began to appear. It was Jammy Hopkins who noted the quiver on the smooth surface. He had earned his nickname because of his glad cry of “Jam! Jam!” when a good story broke, and his philosophical reflection when times were thin that “all was jam that came to the rollers.” Hopkins had an excellent nose for jam, and so it was that he stopped suddenly in the middle of analysing for Bartholomew’s benefit the various sensation seekers crowding the little Kentish village hall. Stopped dead and stared. Because, between the fly-away hats of two bright sensationalists, he could see a man’s calm face which was much more sensational than anything in that building.
“Seen something?” Bart asked.
“Have I seen something!” Hopkins slid from the end of the form, just as the coroner sat down and tapped for silence. “Keep my place,” he whispered, and disappeared out of the building. He entered it again at the back door, expertly pushed his way to the place he wanted, and sat down. The man turned his head to view this gate-crasher.
“Morning, Inspector,” said Hopkins.
The Inspector looked his disgust.
“I wouldn’t do it if I didn’t need the money,” Hopkins said, vox humana.
The coroner tapped again for silence, but the Inspector’s face relaxed.
Presently, under cover of the bustle of Potticary’s arrival to give evidence, Hopkins said, “What is Scotland Yard doing here, Inspector?”
“Looking on.”
“I see. Just studying inquests as an institution. Crime slack these days?” As the Inspector showed no sign of being drawn: “Oh, have a heart, Inspector. What’s in the wind? Is there something phoney about the death? Suspicions, eh? If you don’t want to talk for publication I’m the original locked casket.”
“You’re the original camel-fly.”
“Oh, well, look at the hides I have to get through!” This produced a grin and nothing else. “Look here. Just tell me one thing, Inspector. Is this inquest going to be adjourned?”
“I shouldn’t be surprised.”
“Thank you. That tells me everything,” Hopkins said, half sarcastic, half serious, as he made his way out again. He prised Mrs. Pitts’ Albert away from the wall where he clung limpet-like by the window, persuaded him that two shillings was better than a partial view of dull proceedings, and sent him to Liddlestone with a telegram which set the Clarion office buzzing. Then he went back to Bart.
“Something wrong,” he said out of the corner of his mouth in answer to Bart’s eyebrows. “The Yard’s here. That’s Grant, behind the scarlet hat. Inquest going to be adjourned. Spot the murderer!”
“Not here,” Bart said, having considered the gathering.
“No,” agreed Jammy. “Who’s the chap in the flannel bags?”
“Boy friend.”
“Thought the boy friend was Jay Harmer.”
“Was. This one newer.”
“ ‘Love nest killing’?”
“Wouldn’t mind betting.”
“Supposed to be cold, I thought?”
“Yes. So they say. Fooled them, seemingly. Good enough reason for murder, I should think.”
The evidence was of the most formal kind—the finding and identification of the body—and as soon as that had been offered the coroner brought the proceedings to an end, and fixed no date for resumption.
Hopkins