Case with 4 Clowns (26 page)

“Circus people do so adore flowers,” went on Cora, “and yet they have such little opportunities to see them.”

“Course, they might see one or two growing in the hedges,” said Beef, with heavy sarcasm.

“But that's so different,” said Cora. “I always feel that flowers only give themselves up to you when they have been picked and brought indoors. But perhaps that's my civilized mind.”

Fortunately we were interrupted by the arrival of Clem Gail, so that there was no need to worry any further about Cora's original theories on flowers.

“Crumbs,” said Clem directly he got into the room. “Has somebody died or something?”

I glanced quickly at the artist to see how she would take this blow, but she was almost purring with pleasure. “How priceless,” she said. “ ‘Has somebody died'? Really, I must remember that.”

For a considerable part of the meal Beef and I played a very small part in the conversation. The Sergeant, in any case, was concentrating, as usual, on his food.

“Oh, Clem,” said Cora suddenly, “before I forget. Who
was
that girl you had with you last night? What a
frightful
little piece she was, my dear.”

Clem gave a smug smile. “I don't know who she was,” he said carelessly. “She came up to me, and after that I simply couldn't get rid of her.”

“I didn't notice you trying terribly hard,” said Cora. “I mean, your arm, my dear.”

“That!” said Clem, with scorn. “I didn't like to hurt her feelings, that's all.”

“Really, Clem, you're incurable.”

“Got a way with him, hasn't he?” said Beef suddenly, and gave the unembarrassed clown a broad grin.

Eventually, however, the luncheon came to its end, and Cora suggested that we go downstairs for a drink before we left.

“Sergeant,” she said as soon as we were in the bar, “I've heard so much about the way you play darts. Do show me, will you?”

“Same way as anybody else,” mumbled Beef.

“But they said you were awfully good at it. Couldn't you have a game with Mr. Townsend so that I could see with my own eyes?”

“What does she think I am,” mumbled Beef to me as we walked over to the dart-board, “a performing monkey or something? The
way
I play darts! Anybody would think I threw them with my toes.”

This must have put Beef a little off his game, for his first dart for the center landed in the treble sixteen.

“What a wonderfully straight eye,” said Cora Frances rapturously.

Beef merely grunted, and the game went on. But Cora appeared to take no more interest. She sat in a corner with Clem, and the regular cadence of her voice went on almost without interruption. It was fortunately impossible to hear the words, so Beef and I continued our game without further interruption.

“You know,” said Beef quietly to me after a while, “I don't like the way things are going over there,” and he jerked his head in the direction of the corner. “I think that lad's drinking a drop too much.”

“Nonsense,” I said. “He's got to go into the ring this afternoon. He wouldn't be such a fool as to get himself drunk.”

“I didn't exactly say drunk,” said Beef. “Take a look for yourself.”

Cora was still talking, but she now had her hand on the clown's knee, and Clem's face wore a faintly smiling expression as he leaned towards her.

“Anyway,” said Beef, “I think we'd better do something about it,” and he walked straight across to the couple before I had time to answer him.

“It's about time we were getting back,” he said bluntly to them. “There's only an hour before the show starts.”

Clem looked up at him and waved his hand. “The show?” he said, “yes, let's go and see the show.”

“You're in it, darling,” said Cora.

“In it? 'Course I'm in it. Come on then, let's go,” and he jumped to his feet, and dragging Cora after him made for the door. Beef and I followed at a little more sober speed.

“I wouldn't say as he was rocky,” said Beef as we drove slowly back to the tober, “but all the same, I think he's had a drop too much.”

When we arrived back at the ground I decided that I would see the show. The least I could do, I thought, was to see if Clem performed as usual, or whether he was affected by his condition. Cora apparently had the same idea, for she was already seated in her place when I went into the tent and she beckoned me over to her immediately.

“Do you think it was wicked of me?” she asked.

I pretended not to understand what she was talking about.

“Why, giving Clem just a tiny drop too much to drink. I have a feeling that it may lead to something. It would never do for the others to find out that he had had lunch with me. My dear, you've no idea how terrible they would be over it. Jealousy isn't in it. Why, if Eric—he's a dear boy but so
flippant. He hasn't the depth of character that Clem has—if Eric found out he'd be simply
livid.
And Sid Bolton too. You've no idea what children they all are really. Sometimes they squabble over me as though I had no say in the matter at all. But that's so like circus men. So masterful.”

But the show had started, and at last Cora Frances turned her attention away from me and towards the ring. I waited impatiently for the first appearance of the clowns, which was after the first turn.

It was quite a small appearance, in which the three clowns came on and attempted to clear the ring of the previous properties and set up the apparatus for the next turn. They ran in now, Sid Bolton in front trailing a length of sacking on which the other two kept stepping and losing their balance to fall flat on the ground. They conspired together, with Sid blissfully unaware of them pretending to talk to the crowd, and then, their scheme hatched, they began to creep up on him. Meanwhile Sid had rolled the sacking up into a large bundle and was trying to auction it to the audience. “All right,” he said in despair when no one would bid for it, “if you don't want it I'll throw it away,” and with these words he pitched the bundle suddenly behind him, catching the two approaching clowns full in the face. A roar of laughter filled the tent as Clem and Eric fell once more on the ground.

Sid seemed to be overcome with remose, and ran quickly from one to the other helping them to stand and brushing the sawdust off them. “All I was doing,” he explained to Eric, “was to throw the old sack away like
this,”
and he flung his hand back in imitation of his action. Clem, who was in the way, seemed to catch the blow on the side of his cheek, although actually he clapped his hands together to make the sound of an imaginary blow. The laughter roared out again.

And now the quick climax of the act came. Each clown
began to slap the next one, shouting as if he himself were hit, until finally all three should lie prone on the ground to be moved roughly aside by the Dariennes when they came in for their act. The rolling laughter of the audience filled the tent as the slapping grew louder and the actions of the clowns more and more vigorous. Then suddenly Cora gripped my arm.

“My God,” she said, “those slaps are real.”

“Real?” I stared at the figures in the ring. They were no longer clapping their hands to imitate the sound of the face-slapping, but were actually hitting each other. Even as I realized this the audience seemed to feel that something was wrong and their laughter dwindled quickly to silence. One loud individual laughed persistently for a moment and then broke off in the middle. Amid a deadly silence from the crowd the three clowns faced each other on the sawdust and struck out. The heavy sound of the open-handed slaps echoed horribly.

Then slowly a murmuring spread over the audience, swelling into a continuous buzz, and I noticed the heads turning restlessly from side to side as people spoke to this or that neighbor.

“I must put a stop to this,” whispered Cora in my ear, and giving her jacket a quick, almost masculine tug, she stood up and walked towards the ring. The audience was immediately silent again, watching her stepping briskly out under the hard lights to the center of the ring. When she reached the clowns she tugged at Clem's shoulder and said something which was inaudible to the audience.

“Don't you come poking your nose into our affairs,” shouted Clem loudly, and then before she could move he brought his hand down in an immense whack on her behind. “Go on, get out,” he said. The crowd, satisfied that is was a gag after all, roared louder than before and began to applaud the act enthusiastically.

The curtain at the end of the ring parted immediately and
the Darienne brothers, dressed ready for their trapeze act, ran quickly into the center of the ring and grabbed each of the clowns by an ear to lead them away. For a moment it looked as though they would be resisted, and then the clowns suddenly seemed to become aware of the huge applause coming from the house, and the effect was too great for them. With a few characteristic clowning tricks they were led from the ring.

Cora, however, made straight for the exit, and I followed as unobtrusively as possible and caught her up before she had gone very far.

“How terrible for you,” I sympathized. “It was awfully brave of you, but really you ought not to have tried it.”

To my surprise the face she turned to me was beaming. “Oh, but my dear,” she said, “you don't know … it was too marvelous for words … doesn't it just show how much they think of me … right out there in the ring. And turning it into a joke too.”

“But I thought he slapped you,” I gasped.

“And how like these adorable creatures that was,” gurgled Cora Frances. “So boisterous, so healthy. I've never been so excited in all my life. Right out there in front of the whole audience …”

“It was a little public,” I admitted.

“But don't you see,” she said, “that only proves how much they adore me. To make me one of themselves. You just can't imagine how pleased I am about it.”

And to be quite honest, I don't think I could. Yet neither could I help seeing, in that display in the ring, something far less casual than Cora seemed to suspect. The venom which had been obvious to me could not be explained away by some little theory of petty jealousy. I felt that there was some antagonism much more fundamental at the root of it all.

May 2nd.

T
HE
next day's tober after South Cave was only a few miles along the road, so the circus did not need to start off as early as usual in the morning. The sun was already warm and the dew gone from the grass as the king-poles were hoisted into position. Ginger passed the wagon singing raucously with the heavy hammer balanced on his shoulder.

“How I love to hear the organ,” he bellowed, with complete insincerity. And then, as he caught sight of me he stopped in mid-song to shout: “You want to go and have a look at old Kurt. Swinging the lead this morning, he is, the lazy beggar.”

“What's the matter with him?” I asked.

“Miking,” said Ginger briefly. “Never heard such a lot of fuss about nothing. Go and have a chat with him.” And he jerked his thumb in the direction of the lion-trainer's wagon.

“What's up with him, then?” asked Beef, looking over my shoulder and wiping the remains of his shaving lather out of his ears.

“He
says,”
answered Ginger, with fine scorn, “that he's ill. ‘Orrible pains.”

“Come on,” said Beef, “let's go and see what's up.”

We walked over towards Kurt's wagon, and even before we had reached it the sound of his voice raised in a shout could be heard.

“I tell you I want to see a doctor,” he was demanding. “There's no good you looking like that. I'm not crazy. I want to see a doctor, that's all.”

The door of the wagon opened and Jackson came down the steps shaking his head. When he saw us he beckoned Beef over.

“I don't know what's the matter with Kurt,” he said. “It's either something serious, or else he's just trying to fool us.”

“You mean about wanting a doctor?” asked Beef, and then added quickly: “We couldn't hardly help hearing what he was shouting the odds about.”

“Yes,” said Jackson. “It's just that. You know, of course, the almost superstitious dislike all circus people have of the medical profession. I have it myself, although I'm quite aware of the illogicality of it. But in all the years I've been in the circus I've never known a person actually
want
to see a doctor. And now Kurt is shouting that he must see one. Really I find it a little odd.”

“We'll go and have a talk to him,” said Beef. “Sounds as if he might be interesting.”

Jackson waved his hand vaguely as if to say that he delivered the peculiarities of the lion-trainer over to us, and Beef approached the wagon and rapped sharply on the door.

“Come in,” Kurt's voice invited. “Come in.”

His eyes stared brightly and hopefully at us as Beef opened the door, and then, seeing who it was, he quickly pulled the bed-covers tightly up to his chin and shut his eyes determinedly.

“Now then,” said Beef, “what's all this I hear? How are you feeling?”

“Considerably worse than I did two minutes ago,” said Kurt pointedly.

Beef laughed. “Like that, is it?” he said. “Is there anything I can do for you?”

Kurt grunted and then leaned up on his elbow and looked at the Sergeant. “Look here,” he said. “I only want one thing—and that is to see a doctor. The idiots round here seem to think that I'm playing a game on them and they won't help me.

“What do you think's the matter with you, then?” asked Beef.

Kurt stared at him for a second, and then said slowly: “I think I've been poisoned.”

“Poisoned?” I gasped. “Who by? Have you got any idea who might have done it?”