Read Online Case with 4 Clowns by Leo Bruce - Free Book Online Page B

cut so short that it stood straight up over his forehead in the old pre-war German fashion, and his face was large, heavy, and brooding. There was a sour and worried look on his solid features, and his big fleshy jowls were set uncompromisingly. Christophe was a very different type. He was slight, blond, and in thetrue sense of the word, gay. His clear-cut features were almost pretty, and his movements were swift and eager. He talked a great deal more than Paul, and had a little chiming laugh, the effect of which I found altogether charming. Both of them spoke English with a strong French accent, which gave to their conversation a special, if artificial, attraction, like the love-making speeches of Chevalier in the more obvious of his films.
    Both the brothers were a queer mixture of delicacy and hardness. It was easier to understand this when they began to talk about their early life. Born in France, they had lost both father and mother before the age of ten, and had chosen then, rather than live with an elderly aunt in the south, to go on the roads and earn their own living as best they could. It had been a very hard life, and was a case of being strong and agile, or dying. Somehow they had survived, and by the time they were sixteen and thirteen respectively, they had been taken on as tent hands in a small circus. From that time their progress had been steady, and, as Paul put it, completely without exciting details. They had come to England because they heard the pay was better, and because they wanted to travel. They had been together, dependent on each other, since infancy.
    Suzanne, who had been sitting silent, now spoke directly to Beef for the first time. “I mother them, Mr. Beef,” she said and although the phrase was lightly spoken, it seemed to carry more significance than a joke normally does. Suzanne Beckett was still a very pretty woman. She gave one the impression of having once been a very beautiful one, and in the irregular, nervous movements of her hands, there was still something exquisite left, something extremely graceful. She might have been almost any age, but when she told Beef that she was thirty-five I could see that he believed her. And Beef generally knew when people were lying to him. A widow, past the peak of her career, she should not normally have been veryinteresting, and Beef would probably have taken little notice of her had it not been for one little incident which occurred just before we left.
    While we had chatted, Beef had solemnly, steadily, loudly drunk the whole of his large cup of tea. It was not until he had set the cup down empty that he seemed really to turn his attention to the matter in hand.
    â€œNow,” he began heavily, “you’re the top of the bill, aren’t you?”
    â€œWhy, yes,” said Christophe cheerfully, “of course we are.” And he launched in to a long explanation of why such an important act as theirs should have deigned to travel with a tenting show at all.
    At the end of it Suzanne gave him a quick smile, and turning aside to him as though she did not want us, or perhaps even Paul, to understand, she made a remark in French in a very low voice.
    Beef might have missed this, but I saw Paul look up sharply and his eyes traveled from one to the other of his partners. At first it seemed that he was not going to speak, but at last he said slowly and in English: “Suzanne, I never knew you spoke French!”
    The emphasis of this remark was as strange as the subject of it. How could it be, I wondered, that the girl who worked with them every day, who seemed to be looking after them now, should speak his language without him knowing it?
    Even Christophe seemed flummoxed. “I’ve been teaching her a little,” he said, and reaching over for Suzanne’s spoon, he hurriedly stirred his tea.
    Nothing more noteworthy took place during our interview, which ended with the cordial invitation from all three of them to