The amateur crime

by Anthony Berkeley

She began to talk very earnestly about Dora. Monica, it appeared, had long cherished the conviction that she, too, had a call to the stage. She had taken part occasionally in local amateur theatricals at home, and though that was of course nothing to go by, people really had said quite decent things. Not that she wanted to swank or anything like that, but she did somehow feel she could act. Did George think that Dora would be too bored to give her some advice? Did Dora know any managers? Had Dora enough influence to get one of them to give Monica a trial? Did George think Dora would let Monica come and see her in London? Was it possible to see Dora at the theatre? Could Dora, did George think, let Monica have a peep behind the scenes—just a tiny peep? What did George think about this, about that, and about the other?

George began to brighten. Here was somebody who actually wanted to know his opinion. Very few people ever wanted to know George’s opinion. It was a pleasant novelty. Monica had improved. In the old days she had shown no signs of interest in George’s opinion. If she had consulted George as to his candid opinion, he would have informed her that on the whole he did not think he much wanted to dance before the wedding-guests; but she had done nothing of the sort. Now, she seemed to be hanging on his words. By Jove, yes; Monica had improved. George forgot all about hose-pipes and became very nearly animated.

No, George’s brain was not a subtle organ. It never occurred to him for a moment that his sudden importance was merely owing to the fact that he was his sister’s brother. He accepted Monica’s interest in his opinion as a tribute to his own worth, and as he received very few tributes of that nature was correspondingly delighted. Somebody once said something about ignorance and wisdom, turning a neat phrase upon the advisability in certain cases of the one and the drawbacks attendant upon the other. He might have applied his aphorism to George that morning. In his folly George expanded like a flower in the sun, and looked back with incredulous astonishment to the remote time when he had brooded sorrowfully upon radiators and petrol-tanks in connection with this extraordinarily nice young person.

A very pleasant morning was spent.

George and Monica were not the only two people to spend a pleasant morning. Cynthia did also in her way, and Mr. Doyle and Guy too, were not ill-pleased with it, though their enjoyment was not wholly unmixed. It was one thing to realise the use to them of Alan’s presence; it was another to obtain a monopoly of it.

For Alan was sorely torn. On the one hand was a perfectly topping murder mystery, right on the premises, which, of course, demanded the most breathless and undivided attention; on the other, within only a few yards was a real genuine chorus-girl, who was going away that same afternoon; and Alan was naturally a good deal interested in chorus-girls, as befitted a young man of fourteen.

There is a ring about the word “chorus-girl.” One wonders whether it will ever quite outlive its naughty Victorian associations. The chorus-girl of to-day is more respectable than a churchwarden, more straight than a straight line (though having more breadth to her length; even to-day, one gathers, some chorus-girls are tolerably broad-minded), more refined than Grade “A” petrol—or so we are earnestly given to understand by those who ought to know. Yet still in clubs and places where men gather, the bare mention of the word is enough to provoke the knowing wink and the cunning dig in the ribs. And where the clubs wink the public schools guffaw; there is no place where tradition is so strong as a public school. It gave Alan a pleasurable feeling of doggishness just to enter the room where Dora was sedately reading a magazine; to sit on the same couch with her was sheer daredevilry.

Here he was, yes, he Alan Spence, alone in a room with a chorus girl, exchanging light badinage, keeping his wicked end up as well as a grown man! But for the unfortunate absence of champagne and oysters (the inevitable concomitant of all genuine chorus-girls, as any Victorian novelist will tell you) the scene was as abandoned as you like. Alan was looking forward quite intensely to a number of casual conversations next term which would begin; “Yes, a chorus-girl I know, told me….” Or, “Did you see Thumbs Up! last hols? I knew one of the chorus-girls in it. Quite a decent kid….” Or, “Chorus-girls don’t always dye their hair, you know. One of the girls in Thumbs Up!—Dora, her name is; frightfully decent sort—told me that …” That Dora really was George’s sister, Alan could still hardly bring himself to believe; but he was quite sure he knew why her presence was being kept so dark. (Yes, madam, public schools are dreadful places, aren’t they? I certainly shouldn’t send your boy to one.)

Inspector Cottingham did not put in an appearance till nearly half-past eleven, so that the two conspirators were not unduly pressed for time. Their idea was a simple one. They wished Alan to make the discovery for himself that the undisputed footprint of Mr. Reginald Foster in the flower-bed bore a striking likeness to certain newly manufactured prints on the river bank, and to draw the obvious conclusion. This conclusion they were then prepared to scoff at and deride, with the result that Alan, seeking a more sympathetic audience for the news with which he ought to be bursting, would have recourse to the Inspector. The Inspector was then hopefully expected to put three and two together, and make it four. There is nothing so honest as honesty, and in this means Guy and Mr. Doyle saw a way of causing their new clues to be officially swallowed with no possible suspicions as to their administration.

Up to a point matters turned out as they intended. Alan was conveyed into the garden immediately after breakfast, as agog as Guy could have hoped, and shown Mr. Foster’s footprint; thence he was led to the river bank and shown the other footprints. Unfortunately, however, he failed to notice any connecting link. He was impressed, even thrilled, but he displayed no brightness of uptake. Guy left him for a moment to confer with Mr. Doyle, who was strolling through the dividing gate between the gardens to join them; when they looked round, the lad was gone.