“THERE MUST be some little thing wrong that’s not quite right,” my wife said.
I gave her a look, but she settled back in the front seat of the car and closed her eyes. “You go right ahead, dear, and fix it,” she went on, snuggling deeper into the cushions. “After all, it’s broken down in a nice spot.”
I thought, if she were going to sleep and I, in my shirt sleeves, was to dig and delve into the disgusting entrails of the wretched bus, it didn’t matter what sort of place the thing had chosen to break down in. Nevertheless, as I looked about me, I confessed that Mona was right.
So far as the motor road knew them we were on the crest of the Hummocks, a line of low, bare hills that provided the tail to the range that stretched Northward to God knows where. We had climbed no noble height, but at least we commanded a view, even if it was only one of flat land stretching in an immense green carpet to the shores of the distant gulf. It was one of those clear, crisp mornings when we should have been able to see ships a-sailing. But there were no ships. As far as I could see, between us and the gulf, there was nothing but grass and stunted bush, with no sign of habitation. Watching closely you could discern the lazy movement of inaudible waves as they curled in to make patterns in foam along the flat, deserted beach. Except for that there was no movement. For miles around the country appeared to be holding its breath, sluggish in the welcome warmth of a perfect winter’s day. The sunshine was no more than a caress and twenty feet below the built-up highway, dew still glistened.
Lighting my pipe I scowled at the car.
Mona’s voice came drowsily: “Unless you’re going to make it work, Rodney, I think we should telephone Nell.”
“Mona, my true love,” I retorted, “there is no chance of telephoning your adorable sister.” I added, malevolently, “Let the sausages wither.”
“Oh, Nell wouldn’t have sausages,” Mona said.
I didn’t pursue the subject but peered into the innards of the ailing Retallick. I am not mechanically minded. I am a physician, not a surgeon. I felt that whatever I did to the inside of the automobile would be wrong, and I prayed fervently for the approach of a car driven by one of those cool, efficient fellows who talk off-handedly of carburetors and sparkplugs as if they were mere thromboses or polypi.
“Have you got it going?” Mona asked, after I had, by rattling the spanner against this and that, awakened the echoes with some hearty industrial noises.
“No, I haven’t,” I said, shortly. “If only I had a hairpin …” I was well aware she never used them.
“I really think, Rodney, we should telephone,” my wife said again.
“For the hundredth time, Mona,” I cried, exasperated into exaggeration, “how can we telephone from the midst of nowhere?”
“Well, it seems quite unfair to Nellie,” she retorted, as illogical as ever. “She’s probably put her best bib on. We’re hours late.”
I wanted to say, “And whose fault is that?” but asked myself, “What’s the use?” I’d wanted to start at eight. We could have been at my sister-in-law’s country home comfortably by noon and settled down to the holiday we’d planned. But by the time Mona had been ready to start, it was ten. And there had been the delay at the gipsy camp. My wife had insisted on having her fortune told. It had been a little queer the way that paunchy Romany had looked at her and said, “So you’ve come back, eh? Looking for more bad luck?” Of course she’d never been there before, as he realized when she spoke. All the rigmarole about prospective offspring and halcyon days ahead had taken up the best part of an hour and now the effete Retallick had played up.
Opening her eyes, Mona said, “For goodness’ sake, Rodney, make an effort. Hit a bolt or something.”
“Do you realize, my girl, that tinkering with the unknown may have disastrous consequences?” I asked grimly. “Hit a bolt, indeed! Suppose it was the right bolt. The car might leap suddenly forward and hurtle into the depths with you in it. How’d you like to be shot off the highway? You’d be dead in a jiffy. Worse … your new hat crushed beyond recognition.”
She patted the crazy thing affectionately and stepped out of the car, stretching her arms adorably.
“I know,” I said, feeling better for the nearness of her, “I’ll climb through the railing and hide below the level of the road. At the first sign of a car you’ll proceed to fix your stocking. I’ve heard it’s infallible. Every motorist stops dead in his tracks.”
“And when he stops?”
“I shall leap out—I mean up—and render him unconscious with this spanner. We will then leap lightly into his car, push our own over the nearest precipice, and live happily ever after.”
“It sounds enthralling,” Mona said, “but haven’t I heard crime doesn’t pay? Seriously, Rod, we can’t stay here and perish. I think we—I mean you should walk back and enquire at the hut we just passed.”
“I saw no hut,” I said.
“I suppose you had your eyes on the road and your thoughts on some other woman,” she said, and led me round the bend and pointed. Sure enough there was a mud excrescence on the side of the drab hill and, emerging from it, a tall and very thin man who waved furiously. I waved back, glad of anyone who might perhaps deal with the refractory car.
We stood leaning on the road railing, looking down on him as he approached. He was not exactly prepossessing. Hatless, his hair fell untidily over an abnormally high brow. His eyes were too small for the swollen dome above, and his face narrowed to a weak chin and simpering mouth. As he climbed the steepish slope to the highway, I noticed the scrawniness of the wrists and saw that he was barefooted. Mentally I classified him as hydrocephalic.
“Anyhow,” Mona said, sensing my thoughts, “he’s wearing his best suit—even it it wasn’t made for him.”
He was on the highway at last, towering over us, his beady eyes focused on my wife. Putting his fingers beside his absurd mouth he shuffled like a shy schoolboy.
“My!” he giggled.
Mona smiled at him brazenly, and I coughed significantly.
“Oh, let the boy have his hour,” she said, and like a mannequin, pirouetted. The stranger gazed spellbound; then said, mincingly:
“I’m going to see you tonight.”
Mona stopped abruptly in the middle of a pose.
“Yes,” he went on eagerly. “You’re in the circus, aren’t you? All night I been hearing the trucks go by.”
Mona was too surprised to speak.
“That’s what comes of wearing that hat,” I grinned.
“It’s a rare pretty hat,” the stranger said and Mona wrinkled her nose at me.
The man was grubbing into the inside pocket of his ridiculously inadequate coat. “But most I like you without clothes,” he said simply, and as Mona blinked, held out a printed paper. “Like that.”
I glanced over my wife’s shoulder. The paper had been torn from some cheap publication and the tall man pointed a crudely bandaged forefinger at a picture of a girl posing in tights. Before he carefully restored it to his pocket I had time to notice that there was certainly some resemblance to Mona. So far as the hut dweller was concerned there was no doubt at all. He said, like a child telling of promised pleasures, “I’m going to the circus tonight.” He looked pensively at the automobile.
It was a chance in a million. “If you can make it go,” I said, “we’ll take you.” I added mischievously, “You shall ride in the back with the lady.”
“You shouldn’t,” Mona whispered as he walked across to the car. “It’s not fair promising Mr. Simon …”
“Simon?”
“Sh-h.” She nodded warningly toward the gangling creature who was poking an experimental finger into the belly of the Retallick.
“But how do you know it’s Simon?”
She whispered. “Pieman … going to the fair. No money. Remember?”
I said, “If that poor devil can get the car going, I’ll eat my hat.”
And, surprisingly, at that moment the Retallick sprang to life.
“Oh-oh,” Mona said. “I hope you’re hungry.” She reached up, and removing my hat, handed it to me.
“Well,” I said, “your Mr. Simon deserves to ride beside his princess.”
He stood, wiping greasy fingers on his newly-pressed pants, gazing into the interior of the car. With one foot on the running board he suddenly looked round. There was the strangest expression in his eyes. Suspicion was there, certainly, but something of fear too.
“We better see him first,” he said.
“Him?”
“He’s down there,” he told us, pointing to the paddock below the road.
“Who?” I asked, and as he didn’t reply, shook his sleeve. “What’s he doing there?”
“I didn’t go near,” he said defensively. “I see him lying but I didn’t go near. I called, but he didn’t answer.”
“Better have a look-see,” Mona counselled and began to scramble under the railing. I helped her down the slope. When we reached the bottom Simple Simon was standing motionless, pointing at a spot some thirty feet from the roadway above. We followed his gaze and Mona caught her breath.
In the thin grass was a naked man. Even at that distance, and it must have been a dozen yards at least, I knew he was dead.
The tall man suddenly began whimpering.
“When did you find him?” I asked.
He turned slowly, blinking. “Before I put on this new suit.” He added eagerly, “But I haven’t been near him. No closer’n this,” and asked, “Who put him there?”
My eyes roamed the patches of grass and bare dampish earth surrounding the body. Then bidding them stay where they were, I walked forward gingerly. I knew the importance of footprints. The body was lying, face down, in a curiously humped position, almost as if it had been in the first stage of turning a somersault. The temple rested in an indentation in the soft earth but the head was twisted and part of the cheek and chin was visible.
I looked back to where Mona and the stranger were standing and could clearly distinguish the tracks I had made. Then my eyes carefully surveyed the area surrounding the corpse. There was not the slightest indentation. How then, I wondered, did the man come to be lying there, thirty feet from the road. Of course, I’d known at once the cause of death. There was a bullet hole behind his ear. I straightened, frowning, to find Mona beside me.
“Now, don’t be fussy,” she said. “Simon’s run away to be sick.” She looked down at the nude figure, ludicrous even in death, and made a little grimace.
“He’s been shot,” I told her. “See, the bullet went in there.” I pointed to the hole behind the ear. “He was shot at very close quarters.”
“And in the early morning,” Mona said. “That’s why he’s undressed.” She snapped her fingers. “I know. He was shot in the bath and dumped here. He must have shaved, finished his bath, and then got himself shot. It’s a lesson, isn’t it, always to lock your bathroom door and risk having a fainting fit?”
“O.K., Mrs. Sherlock Holmes,” I said. “Now tell me something else. How did he get thirty feet from the highway? Peek around. You can see my footprints, can’t you?” I raised my eyebrows. “Where are yours?”
“Oh,” she said, “I was very clever about that. I tiptoed in your marks.”
“Good for you,” I said. “Now, do you see any other prints? Any indentations? Any wheel tracks? There isn’t a sign. Then how did he get here?”
“Oh, you’ll never make a detective,” she said, calmly. “He was dropped, of course. Out of an airplane. He was murdered thousands of miles away and flown here.”
“But,” I objected, “airplanes have to travel at a good bat to keep up. When he hit the ground wouldn’t he roll or bounce or something? This man looks as if he’d just plopped!”
“I know,” she said. “Balloon! They were coming down and when they threw him out the balloon hurtled up again.”
“Balloons are extinct,” I told her. “Anyway, it’s not our worry. After all, my pet, you’re not going to ride with Simple Simon. Whether he likes it or not he’s got to stay here and watch the body.”
As her sister embraced her, Mona said breathlessly, “Oh, Nell, we’re so sorry we’re late. We’ve seen a murder.”
“Nothing of the sort,” I said, cutting short further exaggerations. “We came across a dead man.”
“A gipsy,” Mona said. “He was disgustingly naked in the middle of nowhere.”
“We know nothing about him,” I said. “We don’t know who he is or what he is. Now you two gossip about something else while I find the policeman.”
“He’ll be watching the circus,” Nell advised. “Half the population has gone to see the tent go up.” She added apologetically, “The circus is an event in this little town.”
Sergeant Copestone was watching an elephant hauling on some gadget affixed to a pulley that lifted the soiled and sagging canvas and gave it the shape and substance and magic that is the circus. He was frankly irritated when his attention was distracted from the unusual scene.
“Dead in a paddock, eh? Well it would have to happen today.”
I explained about Simple Simon. “Oh, Daffy!” he said lightly. “Did he find him? Well, he’s harmless. A half-wit and that’s an exaggeration.”
“He’s at least a mechanic,” I said.
“Daffy?” he scoffed. “A mechanic!”
“My car stalled. He made it go.”
“I didn’t think he’d ever ridden in one,” Copestone chortled. “He must have had a lucky break.” He looked at me keenly. “Did you say this chap was naked?”
“He wore less than Adam. And your Daffy had on a new suit—one that didn’t fit.”
“Don’t tell me Daffy shot him just to get his clothes,” Copestone grinned.
“In any case,” I said, “how would he get the corpse to where we found it without leaving any tracks? There’s no sign of anything.”
“You’re saying it,” Copestone said. “I know the spot. He could have been emptied off the highway.”
“No,” I said, definitely, “He was too far from the road. I guess he was dropped from a plane.”
Copestone groaned. “That means all sorts of blinking experts. Of course the stripping’s to avoid identification. That won’t help if it’s a local lad, but if he was thrown from a plane he might have come from anywhere.”
Well, he wasn’t a local lad, and Cincotta, the circus proprietor, at the Sergeant’s request, had a look at the body and said it was no one from his show. When I had a close-up with the local doctor I knew the man had died late the previous night, probably not more than an hour or so before he’d been dumped. He’d a number of injuries all consistent with a fall from a height, and for a moment I wondered if he could have come down in a parachute that had landed him none too gently. But, then, where was the parachute? I told Copestone I’d be in the town for two weeks and left him with his headache.
I’d been warned that tea would be served promptly at three-thirty and although I arrived on the dot, the girls were already taking theirs. Opposite them a young woman sat bolt upright, a cup held stiffly in her right hand. She gave me quite a shock because, as far as features went, she was the counterpart of Mona. She made as if to rise but Mona said:
“Don’t move. It’s only my brute of a husband.” She turned to me. “This is M’lle. Valda from the circus,” and left me to wonder while Nell served tea as if it were quite usual to have itinerant show-folk dropping in.
After some desultory conversation Mona said abruptly, “Rodney, you’ve got to give M’lle. Valda a certificate or something to say she can’t perform tonight. She’s had a great shock.”
The circus woman attempted to wipe her eye with her free hand. I said, “I’m sorry to hear that.” And with that the cup fell from M’lle. Valda’s fingers and she burst into tears.
“There, there,” Nell said, putting her arms about her. “You come to my room and rest.”
When she had led the sobbing girl away I said: “Now what is all this? What’s she doing here?”
“I met her at the chemist’s,” Mona explained. “The chemist introduced us … sort of. He said, ‘Are you ladies sisters?’ I remembered the picture poor silly Simon showed us and I knew who she was. I couldn’t help being interested. When the chemist went away to mix something she’d ordered, she began to dab her eyes. I said, ‘You’re M’lle. Valda, aren’t you? Can I help you?’ I think she was just dying to talk to somebody. She broke down and on the spur of the moment, I invited her round for a cup of tea. I knew Nell wouldn’t mind. And she told me all about it.”
“And what was it all about?”
“Her boy friend has run away. He’s not coming back.”
“How does she know that?”
“He wrote her a letter. He wanted to be free.”
“Nothing unusual in that,” I said.
“Now you’re being Dr. Smug,” Mona said. “And, anyway, I’ll bet my suspenders against your stethoscope that Valda’s boy friend is the naked lad Simple Simon found in the paddock.”
“Oh, that’s just guessing,” I said. “The circus boss saw the body. It’s no one from the show.”
“He might be lying.”
“Mona,” I protested, “that’s unreasonable. However, if you wish to satisfy your romantic little mind, why not ask the girl to describe her friend. You can then check with the corpse. Heaven knows you saw enough of him.”
“I’ll get it out of her,” she promised. “He must have been a detestable man sending a letter like that.”
“Oh, so you’ve seen the note?”
“He didn’t actually write it,” Mona said. “He got someone to do it. He can’t write.”
“Well, we are moving in nice company,” I said, smugly. “Naked men dropping from the sky! Crying circus girls! Illiterate Casanovas!”
“Maybe writing isn’t so important in a circus,” Mona said. “Valda’s friend is a bareback rider. I don’t see that knowing how to write would help him to stick on.”
Nell returned just then, looking a mite serious. “If Rod would like to assume his bedside manner he could visit the patient.” She added in another tone, “You’ve only my word, but I fancy our visitor is going to have a baby.”
“There!” Mona exploded. “What a beast of a man!”
Nell asked: “What man?”
“The jockey … the bareback rider. Saying in his letter ‘I’m sick of you. You won’t ever see me again.’ He must have known about the baby. I bet he’s some monkey-faced, under-sized rat,” she said, entirely forgetting that she’d previously identified him with the man in the paddock who had been slim and well-shaped and not bad-looking.
“He’s nothing of the sort, Mona,” Nell said, unexpectedly. “I’ve seen his picture. She asked me to get something from her bag and it was there. He’s quite picturesque with the fiercest mustache and a tuft on his chin that might have come off Napoleon the Third.”
“There!” I said. “That disposes of your idea about Valda’s lover being the corpse in the copse.”
“Anyway,” Mona said, “he deserved to be murdered. Writing such a brutal letter!” She regarded me sternly. “If you were half a doctor,” she said, “you wouldn’t stand eating your head off while that poor child …”
“Oh, all right,” I said, swallowing my cream cake. “I’ll see the lady.”
“And if it’s what Nell thinks,” my wife went on, “you’ve got to march over and tell the ringmaster she can’t possibly perform tonight. I’m not going to have that girl bounding about on a slack-wire.”
“Oh, she’s a wire-walker?”
“I don’t know,” Mona admitted. “In the circus they do everything. She might even go in with the lion.”
“Oh, go on in with the patient,” Nell said, laughing, pushing me through the door.
I found it was true enough about the baby, but there’d be quite an interval before its birth. M’lle. Valda wept as she told me, “I don’t want you to think I’m bad,” she said. “You’ve all been so kind. You’re not snobs. We were going to be married and now he’s run away.”
“He knew about the baby?”
She nodded.
I sighed. “I’ll walk across and tell your boss you can’t perform tonight.”
She regarded me curiously. There was something in her expression I couldn’t fathom. “You’re a doctor,” she said at length. “You know men—men who are going to have babies they think will be a tie. Do you think Joe will come back?”
I patted her hand. “In time, yes,” I lied. “I feel sure of it. Don’t you?”
“No,” she said, “I don’t think he’ll ever come back.”
On my way to the circus I met Sergeant Copestone. “They’re round the body like bees,” he told me. “It’s got ’em guessing. The absence of tracks, I mean. Cincotta lent us a blacktracker who does a boomerang act in the circus but he couldn’t pick up a damn thing. I think you’re right, doc. He was dropped from a plane.” He sighed prodigiously. “That’s where the tax-payers’ money goes. He could have been flown from anywhere in Australia and Australia’s a damn big place. I hear the newspapers are playing it up. ‘The Flying Corpse’ or something.”
I found Cincotta suave and swarthy—all teeth and sideburns. I imagined, in make-up, under arc lights, he’d look well in a dress-suit. Just now he was a little grimy in oil-smeared slacks and dirty pullover. I began with some politeness about intruding upon him at a busy time and with an African lion in a cage roaring in my ears, broached the subject of my visit.
“I’ve called to see you regarding M’lle. Valda,” I said. “I have advised her to rest tonight. She is suffering from shock.”
He shrugged. “She will get over it. They all do. Her man has run away.”
“Oh, you know that?”
He shrugged again. “The girl, she rides him too hard. Joe Varella, he is never serious.” He looked at me slyly. “Maybe something has happened?”
I ignored the implication. I certainly wasn’t going to tell him about Valda’s condition.
He went on: “Mister, if you knew Joe, you would understand. Two days ago he hands me his notice. I am not surprised. I am sorry but I understand. Joe!—he can pick up dames like that …” he snapped his fingers. “Why should he stick to one woman? She wants he should marry her, he tells me. Joe Varella marry? pouf!”
“You mean he gave up his job because Valda was pressing him to marry her?”
“Why not?” he asked. “Joe can get plenty jobs. Valda can get plenty men. But me? I am the poor mug because Varella must have his fun and maybe carries the game too far. I lose a good rider the dames come twice to see in the two-night stands and now you want I should lose little Valda.” He smiled, deprecatingly, showing all his teeth. “Well, mister, I still got that mangy lion and a good elephant. I should worry.” He spat into the tanbark, then lit a cigarette without offering me one. “Where is she now?” he asked.
“Quite safe,” I told him.
He grinned. “Wherever she is, she will not stay, my friend. She is circus. When she hears the band tonight she will come running. Tomorrow she forgets you. The day after she forgets Varella.”
He bawled instructions to a man fixing some gear at the top of the tent, then turned to me apologetically.
“Excuse me,” he said. “Plenty to do, you understand. Tell Valda she shall take it easy. I find her some simple act. Not too much jolt, eh?” He smirked, knowingly. “Later, maybe, she sells the tickets.” He took my arm familiarly and steered me toward the entrance. “Don’t worry too much, doc. Circus girls is tough.”
“What exactly does Valda do?” I asked, but he was no longer interested. His eyes had gone to the tent top again and he directed such a spate of obscenity at the fellow perched there that I was glad to escape. I paused at the entrance, feeling for a cigarette, and heard a complaining circus hand: “Listen to him. I feel like turning the game in. There’s no programs tonight. How does he think a man can live without side-lines?”
As I lit my cigarette a telegraph messenger thrust an envelope at me. “Mr. Cincotta?” I pointed to the ring. A moment later I heard Cincotta shout. “Doc!” He came hurrying, waving a telegram, then held it under my nose. “See! Joe, he is not such a bad fellow, eh?”
I read the message: “I admit nothing but give Valda ten pounds for me.”
Cincotta said: “He has got a conscience, that fellow. I’ll bet he’s been worrying and this morning he sends the telegram.” He tapped the paper. “See—from the city.” He put the envelope in his pocket. “Poor Joe. He thinks maybe he’ll have bad luck if he don’t do the right thing. Very superstitious. D’you know, doc, that man is so superstitious he has a picture of some saint pasted in his watch-case so he can get protection any minute! Well,” he clapped his hands, rubbing them together as if all were well with the world, “now I get Valda back tonight, sure. Ten pounds, eh? That makes everything okey-doke.”
I was a little disgusted with Mr. Cincotta but had to admit he knew his people. At any rate M’lle. Valda refused Nell’s invitation to remain for dinner. I impressed upon her the wisdom of resting and she promised to take it easy.
“And,” Mona said, “you must on no account walk any wires or things.”
Valda stood at the door looking back at us with that queer enigmatic expression. “She reminds me of someone,” I said, when she had gone.
“It’s me,” Mona said, promptly.
I shook my head. “Not the face, the expression.”
“Mona Lisa,” Nell suggested and of course that was it.
We assured ourselves we didn’t want to see the circus. Distantly we could hear the band and noisy ballyhoo and occasionally the poor lion roared. The footsteps and excited chatter of people on their way to the show came to us clearly.
“I wish I knew what that girl is doing,” Mona said. “I bet that brute of a circus man will make her go in with the animals.”
“He promised she would do some simple act,” I protested.
“Simple!” she cried. “What’s simple about circus acts? Do you call swinging by your toes from a trapeze ninety miles high simple?” She eyed me sternly. “You ought to be there to forbid it.”
“Which adds up to—you’d like to see the circus?” I said.
“It’s all very well to be complacent,” Mona said, “but I keep thinking of that poor lamb.”
“All right,” Nell said, good-naturedly. “Just to satisfy ourselves Valda isn’t being cruelly exploited, we’ll go.”
Cincotta was standing near the entrance, a picturesque figure in his evening clothes. He flashed me a smile and I asked after Valda. He shrugged, characteristically. “My friend, I have done my best.” He went on hurriedly, “But it is only a little act. Just looking pretty.”
As we were hustled along the gangway by those following, Mona whispered, “Who was that?”
“Cincotta. Valda’s boss,” I told her.
“He looks every inch a white-slaver,” she commented, and just then a megaphone voice announced the grand parade and we had only just reached our seats when the cavalcade entered.
When, later, Valda tripped into the ring Mona gasped and clutched my arm. “It’s her,” she said.
“Looking exactly like you, only in pink tights,” I whispered.
“Oh, shut up,” she said, her eyes on the ring. “Now, listen, Rodney, if she starts performing catherine wheels you must stop the show.”
“I’ll do nothing of the kind,” I said. “Besides, she isn’t going to perform catherine wheels.”
Valda had advanced to the centre of the ring followed by Cincotta. The latter cupped his hand and into it she placed a pink-slippered foot. Her hands grasped a hanging rope and she began to climb. At the tent top she rested a moment on a trapeze and then, while Mona protested so audibly that even Nell shushed her, she began posing on the rope. Cincotta, from the ring below, pulled upon the end so that Valda, clinging now by her feet, now by her hands, swayed gently while a spotlight picked up her rounded figure and the band played “Dreaming.”
Mona said: “It’s ghastly. She’ll be dashed to pieces.”
It would be a nasty drop, I thought, but there was nothing harmful in the exercises themselves even if, sooner or later, she was going to have a baby.
When it was over and Valda had bowed herself out of the ring, Mona said indignantly: “And that’s what that white-slaver calls a simple little act? Butchering her to make a Roman holiday! Making her swing in mid-air with a breaking heart!”
In bed that night Mona tossed and turned and suddenly was wide-awake, sitting up so abruptly that, startled, I switched on the light.
“I’ve just remembered,” she said. “That fat gipsy mistook me for someone. He thought I was Valda. They’d prophesied misfortune for her.”
“What of it?” I asked. “They were right for once. Her man’s run away.”
“Listen, Rodney,” my wife said, “You can turn over and go to sleep in cold blood if you like, but there was something foreboding about that gipsy. There was death in his eye.”
“You’ve been dreaming,” I said.
“Anyway,” she said, settling down, “tomorrow you’re driving us to the gipsies’ camp. I’m going to see what I can find out. It’s high time Nell had her fortune told.”
“Maybe Nell doesn’t want to know her fate.”
“Nonsense,” Mona said. “Everyone should know their fate. How else can they guard against it?” And with that piece of logic ringing in my ears I fell asleep.
The gipsy camp looked deserted but when I hallooed, the paunchy Romany we had met previously appeared. He was flashily dressed with an opal tie-pin and several rings on fingers more bronzed by dirt than nature.
“Remember me?” Mona said, using the smile Nell calls male-bait.
“Could I forget, lady?” he responded, and Mona looked pleased.
She pointed to Nell. “This lady wants to cross your palm, but first I want to ask you something. Yesterday you mistook me for someone.”
I fancied the man’s eyes narrowed.
“You said,” Mona went on, “ ‘Have you come back for more back luck?’ Please, I want to know. Did you prophesy something bad for the lady like me? I will pay, just as if you were telling her fortune again.”
The gipsy smiled. “If someone else asked me,” he said, “I would never tell. For you, it is different. You are so lovely.” Mona cast down her eyes. “To you I say the woman is like you only in face. Her ways are dark ways. Her fate is a dark fate. For you there is love and happiness and children—let me see! How many?”
“Really, I think that will do, thank you very much,” Mona said in a rush. “My husband’s a doctor, you see,” she added with seeming irrelevance. “Now you can tell my sister all about some tall dark man.” She smiled at him, bewitchingly.
As I walked discreetly away, I heard Nell giggle. “Goodness! I don’t believe a word of this but I hope it will be good.”
They were so long about the business that, becoming restless, I sauntered back. “I don’t want to interfere with fate,” I began, “but—”
“Pooh!” Mona interrupted. “It’s quite early.” She rested her hand on the Romany’s sleeve as if she’d known him for years. “What time is it, Mr. er—?”
“Rialando,” he volunteered, his eyes avid. Somehow she seemed to have hypnotized the fellow for, without a by-your-leave, she took hold of his massive gold chain and jerked his watch from his pocket. She released the spring and the lid flew open. “Why, it’s only three,” she said, snapping it shut and thrusting it back. It was an outrageous familiarity and it angered me to see the gipsy pass his tongue over his thick lips; but Mona seemed oblivious and Nell was laughing.
“I can’t believe it,” she was saying, “Five children!” And then, suddenly, I remembered what I had seen. The highly-colored picture of some saint pasted inside the lid of the gipsy’s watch!
“I knew it,” Mona exclaimed when, later, I told her about the picture and Cincotta’s reference to Varella’s superstition. “The gipsies lured him to the camp, robbed and murdered him, and heaved his body into that paddock.”
“My dear girl,” I remonstrated, “why will you persist in associating Mr. Varella with the corpse? In the first place, Joe was a man with whiskers and rings in his ears.…”
“There!” Mona cried, excitedly. “I knew there was something. That body had had rings in its ears. Don’t you remember how I told Nell we’d found a dead gipsy? I’d forgotten, but now I remember. Surely you noticed his ears had been pierced?”
“No, I didn’t,” I said, a little sulky. Then I shook my head. “It won’t do. It’s purely coincidence. Cincotta didn’t recognize the body. And your gipsy friends are not so strong they could heave a corpse thirty feet. No, Mona my love, they’d have had to drag him and they’d have left traces. And don’t forget, my precious, he wrote a valedictory message to Valda.”
“I told you he can’t write,” she countered.
“Well, got someone to write for him. And while your naked friend was in the morgue the bareback rider was in the city sending a telegram to Mr. Cincotta instructing him to salve Valda’s feelings with ten pounds.”
“I don’t care,” Mona said, obstinately. “I think we should tell the policeman.”
“I’ll tell him about the watch,” I said, “but I don’t expect him to do anything about it. That is, unless there’s been a complaint that it was stolen.” I put my arms around her. “Don’t let this thing get you down, my pet. The circus has gone. Cincotta has gone. Valda has gone. And Varella has gone. Stop being Mrs. Sherlock and be the doctor’s wife.”
“I suppose I should,” she said, “but I can’t help thinking of that poor girl hanging by her toes.”
“Actually, you’re being sorry for yourself,” I said. “Because Valda resembles you, you put yourself in her place. If she’d been a frowsy little imitation blonde you’d have forgotten her long ago.”
“You can be terribly wise, Rodney,” she said, meekly, then kissed me excitingly. “If ever I run away, be sure to smack me when I come back.”
When I awoke next morning she’d gone. An envelope stuck on the mirror bore the dramatic message, FAREWELL, in Mona’s characteristic scrawl.
I was at the door in a bound, shouting for Nell. She appeared at once.
“Now, don’t get excited,” she said. “She’s only eloped.”
“What is this joke?”
“She’s motored to the city with Tommy Stewart,” she informed me in mock horror, then grinned impishly. “Tommy’s wife went with them.”
I suppose I looked a little sheepish for she patted my arm. “There,” she said, consolingly. “It takes time getting used to Mona. You’ve only had her two years. I’ve known her a lifetime.”
When Mona came back she looked radiant. “Darling,” she cried, throwing her arms about me, “I hope you were frantic. But I was quite safe. Tommy drives beautifully and his wife kept her eye on him all the time.”
“And that’s all the explanation I get?”
“For the present, Dr. Fusspot.” She was thoughtful a moment. “Could you find out where the circus is?”
“No, I can’t,” I said. “I’m sick of the circus.”
“Then I shall ask that nice policeman, Mr. Cobblestone.”
“Copestone,” I corrected, and added, ungraciously, “What is it you want him to do?”
“Get a circus pass for you and me. You know—a free ticket. Admit Two.”
“For heaven’s sake, Mona, be sensible,” I said. “The circus is probably a hundred miles away. We’ve seen it, and we don’t want to see it again. Even if we did we could afford to pay. We don’t want a free ticket.”
“Ah, but we do, darling,” she replied. “Just an admit-two from that white-slaver.”
“Cincotta is not a white-slaver.”
“Well, he looks like one,” Mona said, unperturbed. “Another thing! I want that poor girl taken off the trapeze and brought here.”
I sat down heavily and she caressed my hair. “Darling,” she said, “you weren’t really upset about my clearing out with Tommy, were you? I’ll get you some aspirin.”
“I don’t want aspirin,” I said. “All I want is some sense out of what you’re saying. All this nonsense about bringing Valda back! Why?”
“Why?” she repeated in surprise. “To identify Mr. Varella’s body. It’s still here, isn’t it?”
“No,” I said, “they’ve taken it to the city. And it isn’t Varella. Varella is alive and probably kicking. I’m not going to Copestone with any cock-and-bull story.”
“You don’t have to talk about cocks and bulls at all,” Mona retorted with spirit. “All right,” she added, “we’ll forget about it. Every single thing.”
From experience I knew that was just what she was not going to do.
We had barely finished dinner when a goggling maid informed us that the policeman wanted Mona on the phone. She rose hurriedly and we heard her honey-sweet voice. “Oh, that’s splendid, Mr. Cob—Copestone. I think you’re wonderful. We’ll be right over.”
Nell raised her eyebrows. “Here we go,” she said. “Plunging into crime again.”
Mona bustled in as if we were all dying for a good old romp with a corpse. “Mr. Copestone says we can go over at once,” she said, her eyes shining. “It won’t take a minute. Just fancy, Rodney, he remembered that the white-slaver gave him a pass for the sanitary inspector and the sanitary inspector’s wife was having a ten-pound baby girl and couldn’t go so he’s still got it.”
On our way I said: “Listen, Mona. I haven’t a notion what this is all about.”
“Oh, but you have, darling,” she said in genuine surprise. “It’s about the admit-two and the telegram the white-slaver got from Varella.”
“Don’t keep on calling Cincotta a white-slaver,” I said sternly, as a passer-by, who had caught the word, turned and stared.
“All right,” she agreed. “I’ll just say W. S. and you’ll know.”
Copestone made quite a fuss over Mona, settling her in the best chair, then dived into a drawer. “There you are, ma’am,” he said. Mona took the pasteboard he produced. It was characteristic of her that she gave him a dazzling smile before she looked at the card on which she had built high hopes. When at last she looked at it she said, “Yes, it’s the same,” and from her bag produced a folded paper, spreading it before us.
The paper was a telegraph form—one that had been handed in for transmission. It read: “I admit nothing but give Valda ten pounds for me.”
“What is this?” Copestone asked.
“That,” Mona said, with a little note of triumph, “is the telegram Mr. Varella sent to the W. S.—I mean to Cincotta—after he died.”
“Died?” Copestone exclaimed. “How could he send it if he was dead?”
“He didn’t,” Mona explained. “Cincotta sent it himself to make it look as if Mr. Varella was alive.”
I studied the form with new interest, recalling how Cincotta had thrust the message into my hand impressing upon me it had been sent that morning.
“Where did you get this?” I asked Mona.
Just for a moment she appeared confused. “Well, dear,” she said. “I suddenly remembered Leo White. He’s something awfully important in the head post office. I knew he could get it for me.” She hurried on. “You remember Leo, surely, dear? The tall dark boy who took me to the theatre on nights when you had to study.”
“I don’t understand,” Copestone said. “Who is Varella?”
“He’s the dead man in the paddock,” Mona said, promptly.
“Nothing of the sort, Sergeant,” I objected. “She’s guessing.”
“Varella was a circus man?” Copestone asked.
“With rings in his ears and whiskers. Cincotta shaved them off—the whiskers I mean—and put him in the paddock,” my wife told him.
“Mona!” I exclaimed. “This is outrageous. We have nothing against Mr. Cincotta. All the experts say the body fell from an airplane.”
“That’s right, ma’am,” the policeman said. “It’s the only conclusion you could come to. There were absolutely no signs of anyone ever being near the body.”
“Well,” Mona said, “I don’t know how it got there but I am sure Cincotta did it.”
“He didn’t recognize the body,” Copestone said, heavily.
“Well, you wouldn’t expect him to bound in and say, ‘Oh, goody, here’s the man I murdered,’ now would you?” Mona smiled.
“But,” I objected, “we don’t even know he sent the wire.”
“Oh, yes, we do,” she replied. “But we wouldn’t have found out if Mr. Copestone hadn’t so cleverly remembered about the sanitary man’s free pass.” She took up the pasteboard. “See, it says, Admit Two. Look at the ‘Admit.’ Now look at the ‘Admit’ on the telegraph form.”
There wasn’t the slightest doubt that the words had been written by the same hand.
“Cincotta killed Varella,” Mona announced, definitely. “And he wants you to think Joe is alive. I bet the note Valda got was written by Cincotta, too. When I think of that poor girl going to have a baby on the high trapeze—”
Copestone cleared his throat loudly. “Perhaps you had better tell it all,” he said and spread an enormous sheaf of paper before him. Carefully he selected a nib. “Now then, nice and clear like, eh?”
It was over at last and the sergeant said: “There’s some funny aspects but it all hinges on the identity of the corpse. Perhaps this M’lle. Valda should view the body.”
“Yes,” my wife said, quietly. “I think that, too. It’s hateful, but she would have to know sometime.”
“We’ll be tactful,” Copestone promised. “Now, ma’am, you’re sure you have told us everything?”
“Why, yes,” Mona said, picking up her bag. She suddenly put it down again. “Oh, I forgot all about the gipsy and the watch.”
“Gipsy? Watch?” Copestone blinked.
“Yes,” Mona went on, “yesterday I went to the camp again.” She gave me an apologetic glance. “I persuaded Mrs. Stewart to have her fortune told. It was awfully good. She’s going to have three husbands. And while the woman was telling it I got that fat gipsy on one side and I told him he was going to be arrested for murder.”
“Mona! for heaven’s sake!” I ejaculated.
“I told him he had the corpse’s watch and I asked him if he didn’t kill him, how did he get it? He was terribly flustered.”
“I’ll bet he was,” Nell said, dryly.
“He told me all about it—in confidence, of course,” Mona went on. “He pinched it off Varella the night he was murdered.”
“If he was murdered,” Copestone amended, painstakingly. “So this Varella was at the camp?”
“Yes,” Mona said, blandly. “He was there with Mr. Cincotta.”
I leaned across Copestone’s desk. “Mona,” I said, “don’t make such definite statements unless you’re sure.”
“But I am sure, darling,” she said. “Didn’t the gipsy tell me?” She appealed to Nell. “You know him. The fat one who told you you’d have five children. You said yourself that you thought he told the truth.”
I hardly noticed Nell’s blush. “And Valda was there, too?”
Mona nodded. “Varella and Valda had their fortunes told, then they all drove off in their truck.” She thrust her hand into her bag. “There’s the watch to prove it,” she said and handed it to Copestone. “Mr. Rialando says he never wants to see the damn thing again.”
“If it wasn’t for the way the corpse was found,” Copestone said as we left, “this would look very pretty, but even if Valda recognizes the body we still don’t know how it got where Daffy found it.”
“Did Daffy hear any plane that morning?” I enquired.
“Yes, he heard one,” Copestone grinned, “but he also heard the Angel Gabriel.”
“Perhaps,” suggested Nell, “it was Mr. Cincotta who dropped the body from the plane.”
Copestone dealt with the suggestion with official gravity. “No, miss, if he was at the camp as alleged, there wouldn’t have been time. You can’t pick up a plane like a taxi.”
“Unless,” I said, “he’d arranged for one. That’s pretty flat country.”
Copestone telephoned me late next afternoon. He’d caught up with the circus and rushed Valda to the city. No, Cincotta hadn’t objected. “But it’s no go,” the sergeant told me. “The girl couldn’t recognize the corpse.”
When I told Mona she stared at me as if she couldn’t believe it; then she burst into tears.
For the next two days golf had my serious and undivided attention. In the evenings my wife appeared quieter than usual but seemed to have forgotten the murder.
It was a shock, therefore, when meeting Copestone on my first morning free from golf, he said, “If I might say so, doctor, that wife of yours is a very remarkable woman.”
“Indeed,” I said with foreboding.
He watched me slyly. “Says I’ll become Chief of Police.”
I recognized Mona’s brand of flattery and sighed. “Tell me the worst, Copestone. What is she up to now?”
“As a matter of fact, doc,” he said. “I’m running her up to Parriwatta. Cincotta’s circus is there tonight.”
“Now, listen, sergeant,” I said. “If my wife is still harking—”
He interrupted me. “I thought you’d come along, doc. I think it might be interesting.”
I taxed Mona later. “But you were at Parriwatta yesterday,” I said. “With that Stewart fellow and his mother.”
She nodded. “We had a bush picnic on the way. The circus is there two nights. Darling, do please come. I promise I won’t open my mouth about the old murder the whole way.”
Which, just then, was exactly what I didn’t want.
As we parked at Parriwatta it was dark. We could hear the circus music and see the shadows of people sitting on the back bleachers. Mona led the way, stepping carefully over guy ropes and moving in and out among the caravans surrounding the big top. In a few minutes she stopped, pointing. “There’s her tent, Mr. Copestone.”
Copestone said: “You two wait.” I drew Mona into the shadows and watched him step up to Valda’s tent. A shadow appeared on the canvas, grew enormously, and the girl came into view. She was wearing tights as in the picture Daffy had shown us, and started as she saw the uniformed figure. We heard Copestone mumble something.
She appeared to hesitate, then her voice came clearly: “Not here—I share this tent. Let’s walk across the lot.” She disappeared, returning instantly, a cloak draped about her, and with the policeman, moved out of the line of light.
Mona leaned against me suddenly, breathing hard. “It’s hot,” she said.
“It isn’t hot at all,” I said, alarmed. “You’re fainting.”
Despite her protests I carried her across the intervening gloom into Valda’s tent, and sat her on a trunk, then looked about for water. Finding none, I stepped outside and moved toward the caravan alongside. The door was open and the interior lit. There was no one inside. I glanced back and saw Mona’s profile silhouetted on the side of the tent; and then, suddenly, there was a man standing alongside the shadow with only the canvas dividing him and her.
I heard him whisper, “Valda,” and saw the shadowed head lift slightly. The voice continued: “Listen, the policeman is here. You must be careful. Behave naturally. You must do the act. Understand?”
The silhouetted head nodded and in a moment the man had gone. Without moving from where I stood, I reached out and pushed the caravan door slightly so that a beam of light streamed directly across his path. I had no more than a glimpse, but it was sufficient to show me it was Cincotta. I had barely time to rush over and ask Mona if she were all right when Copestone and Valda returned.
Valda stared at my wife, then that enigmatic smile altered her whole expression. “I might have known,” she said.
Someone bawled in the darkness. “Valda, you’ve got five minutes!”
The smile never left her face. She turned to Copestone. “The show’s got to go on. You don’t mind?” She looked at Mona. “Excuse me,” she said. “There’s a letter I must send.” She walked inside the tent and sat at a make-shift table, her back to us. Nobody spoke.
After what seemed an age, the voice bawled again: “Valda, you’re on!”
She rose. “I must go,” she said and handed Mona an envelope. “Would you post it?”
“Of course,” Mona said.
The girl regarded Copestone quietly. “You ought to go in and watch,” she said. “You get in for nothing, don’t you?” Next moment the darkness had swallowed her and I heard the band start the music for her act.
Copestone was preoccupied as we walked to the entrance of the big top, and Mona said, “I’ll stand in the air. You go in.”
“You’re sure you’re all right?”
“Please. Go in,” she urged.
Standing in the entrance I could see Valda high in the tent posing on the rope, wrapping it about her tinselled waist, kissing her fingers to the crowd outside the orbit of the spotlight. Occasionally the beam picked up the gleaming white of Cincotta’s shirt in the ring below.
The music ceased as Valda returned to the trapeze and gracefully acknowledged the applause. Suddenly, she stood and reaching up, detached a rope from some gear above her head. It had a buckled end and this she clipped to the seat of the trapeze. Then, sitting with lower limbs extended, and with every gesture and movement reeking of circus, she began to manipulate the other end of the rope.
I heard Cincotta’s surprised ejaculation and heard him call “Valda!” There was consternation in his voice. Copestone sensed something unrehearsed was happening and made a step forward. The queer Mona Lisa smile played about the lips of the girl and as Cincotta cried again, “Valda!” I saw that she had contrived a loop in the free end of the rope. This she held up for the audience to see, smiling through it; then she looped the rope about her slender neck. She looked down and around her again, kissing her fingertips to each section of the audience in turn.
There was that deathly silence that showmanship insists must preface all death-defying acts and then the unbelievable happened. We heard Cincotta cry “No!” I am sure the crowd thought it was “Go!” Copestone cried, “Good God,” and then Valda dropped from the trapeze like a stone. Down, down, down, until she stopped suddenly in mid-air with a hideous jerk and the silver sequins on her pink tights threw out myriad flashes as the shapely body spun, then twitched convulsively and hung in an attitude of shameful death.
“You shouldn’t let it worry you,” Copestone said later at Nell’s house. “It saved a lot of trouble.”
“I only wanted to help her,” Mona said. “I thought Cincotta killed him, but when she said she didn’t recognize the body, I knew she was hiding something. I believed Cincotta was frightening her into silence.”
The policeman said: “I think they were both in it.”
“It was Valda who killed him,” Mona said, and handed Copestone a letter. “I didn’t realize it was addressed to me. It’s all there.” While Copestone read, she told me.
Cincotta, Varella, and Valda left the gipsy camp, Varella driving the truck. He’d had a big win at the races and Valda said: “Now you can marry me.” He laughed at her and produced a roll of notes waving them in her face. “Look!” he said. “There’s a thousand pounds there and I wouldn’t give you a single tenner for yourself or Cincotta’s brat.”
Mona said: “It was the first time Valda realized he knew who was the baby’s father. Cincotta couldn’t marry her even if he wanted to because he was married already. Varella kept boasting about the money he could make and the women he could have, and how he would eventually settle down and marry some nice girl.”
All the while, it seemed, Valda sitting between the two men could feel the bulge in Cincotta’s pocket that was his gun. In the end she couldn’t stand Varella’s taunts. She shot him while he was waving the notes in her face. Cincotta leaned over and took the money. He owed Varella five hundred on a gambling debt so he was fifteen hundred up if he could get away with it. But it was his gun, and his word against Valda’s.
He said: “We’ll split fifty-fifty. I know just what to do.”
I glanced quickly through Valda’s letter. “It doesn’t say what he did,” I said. “How did they get his body into the paddock?”
Copestone said: “Cincotta is a showman. He knows how easily the mind can be diverted. Conjurers always keep you watching something that really doesn’t matter. He and Valda cooked up a plausible excuse for Varella leaving the circus, and their method of disposing of the body clinched the whole thing. Afterwards he whipped back to the city somehow and arranged for a wire to be sent while Valda drove the lorry on here. Everybody but your good wife forgot the circus.”
“And my good wife discovered how Varella’s body got into the paddock?”
“Yes, I did, darling,” Mona admitted, “but you have to take the credit because you told me all the important things like about the boy complaining there weren’t any programs. I thought to myself, there’s something that W. S. is trying to hide. Then you told me he’d promised Valda would do another act. Somehow that made me remember there was something I’d forgotten about the picture Daffy showed us. So I went and had tea with him … out of a pannikin.”
“But why, in heaven’s name?”
“I asked him to show me Valda’s picture—the one he thought was me without clothes.”
Copestone coughed and I gritted my teeth. “And he did?”
“He was awfully sweet, darling. He gave it to me.” She began fiddling in her bag. “We’ll have to find some theatrical costumers when we go home and hire the tights.”
“Tights?” Nell gasped. “Who for?”
“Why, for me,” Mona said. “I had to promise Daffy I’d give him a lovely framed picture for the one I took away.”
“Over my dead body,” I said.
“Now, darling,” she said, “don’t be difficult. After all, Daffy’s picture of Valda put us on the track.” She handed me the print the half-wit had shown us. “I remembered the wonderful clue you gave me the day we discovered the body.”
“What clue?” I asked and read the caption under the picture.
M’LLE. VALDA, THE HUMAN CANNON BALL
“What clue?” she repeated. “Why, surely you remember? You asked me how I’d like to be shot off the highway. I began thinking and asked Mr. Copestone had he seen many circuses and then he said, “Well, I’m b——”
Copestone coughed. He said: “It struck me all of a heap, Doc.”
“So,” Mona went on, “he had a good look through the circus and there it was.”
“There what was?” I asked.
“Why, the big, wooden cannon, darling. Don’t be so dense.”
“It was there all right, doc,” Copestone said. “After they’d done him in, they stripped him, shaved him, pushed him into the muzzle of the cannon which is really a camouflaged catapult and which they were carrying on the truck as part of the circus props, drove to the crest of the Hummocks, and shot him over.”
“Don’t you see, darling?” Mona said. “The Human Cannon Ball. It was a copy of the act Valda did in the circus. They used to shoot her out of the gun into a net … only there was no net for Mr. Varella.”
