Case with 4 Clowns (14 page)

“What do you mean by that?” I asked.

“Oh, it's just one of those funny little things about a lion. You see a lion's skin isn't fixed down like ours is, but moves about like a shirt. Then, if you stick a knife into a lion—not that I'd advise you to—the place won't bleed, because the hole in the skin doesn't often come in the same place as the hole in his flesh. Course, it festers up after a week or so, but it sometimes makes lions very touchy and you can't always find out what's the matter.”

“Suppose,” interrupted Beef, “that someone had something against you, and wanted to do you in without getting caught.”

“Who's got something against me?” demanded Kurt truculently.

“Nobody, so far as we know,” said Beef. “But just suppose that someone has.”

“But if nobody has,” objected Kurt. “Why suppose anything so silly?”

“Well, just for the sake of argument.”

“I don't like arguments,” said Kurt.

Beef looked nonplussed for a moment. “All right,” he said at last. “Look at it this way. Suppose there's a lion-trainer called Smith …”

“You mean the one with Stirrup's Circus?” asked Kurt. “Yes, I know him. Got a good mixed act this year.”

“No,” said Beef patiently, “I don't mean any particular lion-trainer. This is just a story.”

“Oh,” said Kurt, understanding dawning at last, “why didn't you say that in the first place? Do you mean the sort of stories that Mr. Townsend writes?”

“That's right,” said Beef, clutching at any straw. “Now Mr. Townsend wants to write a story about a lion-trainer who was murdered, and he doesn't know how it could be done. Can you tell us how someone might get the lions to do away with him, so that the murderer wouldn't be caught?”

“Well,” said Kurt thoughtfully, “he could grease the tops of the stands, so that the lion would slip when he started to jump.”

“That would be found out too easily,” I said. “Or he could fire a gun just near the cage.”

“So would that.”

“Well, I don't know,” said Kurt in exasperation. “Strikes me it's a silly problem anyway. There are lots of ways. All he's got to do is to scare the lions when the act is on. Nobody need see him. He could hide under the seats, or even do it from outside the tent. He could easily get away before anyone saw him.”

Beef had been taking all this down in his notebook, and after a brief suspicious glance, Kurt turned back to the cage again. The cubs immediately climbed on to their pedestals as soon as he entered and sat waiting. This time he was apparently going to try the same trick on the second cub which he had been practicing on the first when we came in. The second cub answered quicker than its companion, and was down off the stool almost as soon as Kurt gave the command. But as soon as it had grabbed the meat, the first cub leaped from its stool and attacked it. For a moment the two cubs rolled on the ground snarling at each other, but apparently in nothing more than a mock battle, for Kurt merely took a step back away from them and waited for the fight to finish. But at that moment the two struggling animals rolled towards him and as he moved to step out of their way he tripped and sprawled across them. Immediately, the two animals turned on him, and Beef and I leaped to our feet to run towards the cage. But before we reached it the trainer had got things in hand himself and was out of the cage, slamming the door behind him by the time we got to him.

“Are you hurt?” asked Beef.

“That blasted feeder will be when I get hold of him,”
shouted Kurt by way of an answer, and before we could say anything he had gone at a run out of the tent.

“This ought to be interesting,” said Beef in an almost ghoulish voice.

“Why?” I asked.

“Well,” explained Beef, “the animals' feeder, Ansell, is supposed to be here ready whenever Kurt goes in with the lions, in case there's an accident. Apparently he scarpa'd just after Kurt had started.”

“Scarpa'd?” I asked.

“Yes, cleared off, skipped it. Circus palari,” said Beef.

“Palari?” I asked.

“Oh, skip it,” said Beef. “Let's go and see the fun.”

But there was no need to go very far, because at that minute we heard the voices of the two men raised in argument just outside the opening of the tent. Beef motioned me to keep still, and we stood just inside listening to them. The argument appeared to have passed the initial stages already, for the two voices, peculiarly different, were not discussing lions at all, but generalities. Peter Ansell's suave educated voice was saying:

“My dear George, it is surprising that you can't handle a couple of baby lions. You can't even handle women.”

“What do you mean by that?” shouted Kurt.

“I should have thought it was obvious,” continued Ansell, who seemed to be enjoying himself. “Take Miss Jackson for example. Do you know where she is at this moment?”

“You leave Corinne out of this,” shouted Kurt, “it's got nothing to do with the argument.”

“Nevertheless, you don't know where she is,” gibed Ansell, and it struck me that he was covering his own negligence by hitting Kurt on the raw, instead of justifying his absence from the ring.

“All right then, Mr. Clever Ansell,” said Kurt, “and where is she?”

“As a matter of fact, she's gone into Hull with a certain Mr. Herbert Torrant. He called for her in his car about ten minutes ago, and asked me to tell her father that she would not be back until just before the afternoon show.”

At this point, however, the two men began to walk away from the tent and Beef and I could hear no more.

“That Miss Corinne,” Beef commented, “isn't half a one. Leads them all up the garden path she does.”

“But there's nothing serious in that,” I answered sharply. “Nothing in any case which would lead to a murder.”

“You haven't seen half of it yet,” chuckled Beef.

April 28th (continued).

T
HERE
was no doubt about Kurt being in a rage. After a brief, but obvious, argument with his feeder, Ansell, he turned abruptly and walked across to his cabin. As he slammed the door behind him Beef said: “There you are. I told you.”

“Yes,” I agreed. “But you said something about Ansell. Are you sure of that?”

“Well, I don't know about sure,” said Beef. “Let's go over and see him now. Soon find out.”

We could see Ansell moving towards the zoo and we quickly followed him. By the time we reached him he was beginning to unload the horse-meat which had arrived that day at the station. He seemed quite pleased when Beef offered that we should help him.

“Didn't know this came in your job,” I said casually, as we transferred the meat from the station lorry to the circus meat wagon.

“Bit of everything,” said Ansell shortly. “Kurt looks after the supply part, works out the quantity and so on, but the actual work on it is part of my job.” He threw a huge section of a carcass into the wagon with a distasteful expression. It looked as though it might have been almost any part of the horse's anatomy, hewn off with very blunt axes. The fat was a deep yellow, and the rest a dull red. It looked stale and unappetizing, even from the lion's point of view.

I realized that Ansell was not in one of his talkative moods, and that if we wanted to get anything out of him about his attitude to Corinne Jackson, we should have to wait until he had mellowed a little to our company. This was a mood in which I had not seen him before. He was abrupt in his
movements, and only answered our questions in short sentences. And even these had an acid quality which had been absent from his speech at our previous interview.

“Having a good season so far?” said Beef. It was more of a statement than a question.

“There's always plenty of mugs,” said Ansell.

After a slight pause Beef tried again. “You don't get on too well with Kurt?” he asked.

“I'd like to see anyone who could get on with that half-baked moron!” said Ansell bitterly.

But it seemed that this little release of feelings had placed him back in something of his normal cynical good-humor.

“You know,” he said suddenly, “I've stuck this job for nearly a year. Apart from the time I spent in prison that's the longest I've ever been able to hold one down.”

“And why's that?” asked Beef. “Does that mean you're thinking of staying in the circus business for good?”

“Good Lord, I hope not,” answered Ansell.

“Then why do you stay?” I asked.

Peter Ansell seemed not to want to answer my question, or at least not to answer it directly, because after a pause he said:

“Well, it's not exactly the job which keeps me here. You see, sometimes as one roves around one meets a person who seems different, more interesting, than the rest of the world. Not very often, I admit, but when one does meet such a person it becomes quite sufficient reason for sticking a bit. Humanity, as a whole, rather bores me. People are such hypocrites. I don't mind a good all-round hypocrite; what I dislike is the person who thinks he's being honest and is simply deceiving himself. And in my opinion most people spend their lives doing just that. In the circus, strangely enough, that sort of person is rarer than any other place. They're cut off from all that nasty suburban littleness I suppose, and are more
selfish in an obvious way instead of that pseudo-Christian pretense of concern for their fellow men which characterizes the majority of mankind.”

“And this person,” demanded Beef eagerly. “Who is it?”

“Corinne Jackson,” answered Ansell.

“Then you're in love with her?” insisted Beef.

Ansell's mouth twisted a little bitterly. “Of course,” he said, “you would put that construction on it. Brought up in an atmosphere of sickly sentiment, of Christmas decorations and popular songs, it's only natural that any interest whatever which a man takes in a woman is something to do with ‘love.' Well, you may be right. Perhaps I'm running away from it, and it's I who am the hypocrite. But, so far as I know, I'm not in love with Corinne Jackson. To tell you the truth, I don't see how anybody could be, unless they were absolutely blind to her defects. No, I like her because she's honest with herself, although she manages to fool everybody else. She knows just what she wants and some day, some way, she's going to get it. Why shouldn't I give it to her? I don't want to stay in this perishing circus any more than she does. That's why I bear no resentment against the rather stupid George. If she married him there would be nothing for her but a long life in the circus; no possibility of escape.”

Beef looked rather puzzled, and not a little hurt at the animal-feeder's tone. “I don't know what fancy names you put to it,” he said bluntly, “but it still sounds like love to me.”

“My dear Sergeant,” laughed Ansell, “you have a habit of wanting to put labels on things. Put it away in its little box and everything's all right. Well, if you want to, you can call it love. I suppose it's as good a name as any. But, personally, I feel there's more to it than that. Of course, I'm not trying to kid you that the whole thing is purely platonic. But,
believe me, these labels have a nasty habit of never quite answering their purpose.”

When I heard Ansell talk like that, I realized in what particular sense he was
déclassé.
He had gone beyond reticence. If he had ever, as he had said, been at a public school, it was many years since its influence had died in him. A man who could stand there and discuss his petty emotional reactions was not what I understood by an educated man. I had never heard anyone so frank, and I wondered whether that frankness in itself was an elaborate façade.

“Anyway, the point is,” Beef said to me afterwards, as we were walking slowly down to the local pub, “that whether he's in love with her or not, he wants to marry her and take her away from the circus. All right then. That's all we wanted to know. He can have as many fancy ideas as he likes about why he's going to do it, it still means the same to me.”

On the whole, perhaps, I agreed with him. There is always something a little bogus in the man who delights in denying the obvious and universal emotions in order to replace them by vaguer and less sure definitions. But despite this, I felt a little sorry for Ansell. It was obvious that what he lacked was any anchorage; anything firm to turn to. He was alone in the world, and though it may be sentimental to feel for this particular type of orphan, I could not help attempting to give Beef some idea of my sympathy for him.

“Oh, he's all right,” said Beef. “Wouldn't be happy unless he had something queer going on in that head of his. I've met chaps like that before. Make a profession of being a misfit, most of them.”

The subject, apparently, did not interest Beef very much, for after a slight pause he went on: “What does strike me, though, is that Kurt. He's got a temper on him all right. The way he turned on Ansell when he had that trouble with the
cubs. It just shows you. Wouldn't do no harm to keep a close eye on him.”

The pub was now in sight and Beef quickened his pace noticeably. “One of the beauties of being with a circus,” he said with a grin, “is the way you can get into pubs at all hours. Something I missed a bit since the days I used to be in the Force, that is.”

“How do they get away with it?” I asked.

“Well, no landlord likes to turn his back on the amount of custom that a circus brings. What's a few by-laws, anyway? And then, the village policeman probably understands.”

And with this he turned quickly through the door marked public bar. The bar was filled with circus people, and Beef was immediately grabbed on his entry to play a game of darts with three of the tent hands. Ginger was rubbing his hands in obvious anticipation, while Beef was elucidating a somewhat technical question on the value of feathered darts as opposed to those with paper flights.