Case with 4 Clowns by Leo Bruce Read Free Book Online

out into the road.
    For some reason that I was unable to identify I began to feel a growing excitement. Familiar sounds took on a new significance; the snarling of the lions in the lion-tunnel, where they awaited their act; a tent hand driving home a shaky peg; the groom hissing between his teeth as he put the finishing touches to the horses; the sudden sound o£ a primus stove as one of the wagon doors opened and then closed again; the chatter and laughter from the waiting crowd; all of it seemed to build up into a clearly-defined crescendo. Then Mrs. Jackson came down the steps of the proprietor’s wagon with a jingling cash-box under her arm, and the sound was like the pause in a symphony, the faint reiteration by the leading violin of the theme, before the whole orchestra takes it up to the final climax.
    The tent-flaps were thrown open and the crowd began to file into their seats. The cool tent, which had smelt only of green grass and sawdust, began to warm to the sound of quick laughter, pennies chinking, the cries of the program sellers, and the expectation on each face as it stared for a moment at the empty ring and the clean sawdust under the white lights in the tent top.
    It seemed to me amazing that such a finely-graduated atmosphere of suspense could be possible. Not only in the audience, where it was more understandable, but in the circus people themselves. Even though it must be sheer routine to them, yet somehow, unconsciously, as the moment for the beginning of the show drew nearer, I felt them becoming tense, keyed up, more animated.
    I took a seat near the entrance, and was joined almost immediately by the Sergeant, who grinned but said nothing, as he sat carefully beside me on the narrow planking which served for seats. The band suddenly changed to another tune, abright rhythmical one, and the talking people became silent.
    â€œIt’s the Concinis first,” said Beef, who seemed already to know much more about the show than I did.
    As he spoke the twins came through the artists’ entrance at the back of the ring, riding two pure white horses.
    â€œI wonder which is Anita?” I whispered to Beef.
    â€œWell you ought to know,” he chuckled in a tone of voice which instantly made me wish I had not asked the question and I turned my attention quickly back to the ring.
    It was impossible to find any difference between the two girls. Both looked extremely beautiful in their bright costumes, with red leather boots and astrakhan hats in the Cossack style. As one of them passed round our side of the ring she seemed to be searching the crowd with a faint smile on her face, and then, catching my eye, she quickly raised one hand in salute. At least, then, I knew which was Anita. It was only a question of not getting mixed up. But the other twin, passing at that moment, interrupted my self-satisfied thoughts by saluting me in a similar way. I heard Beef’s chuckle beside me.
    â€œThey must have arranged that between them before they started,” he said. “You want to look out for yourself or you’ll find yourself in no end of a mess.”
    â€œI don’t know what you mean,” I replied coldly.
    There is nothing quite so cynical, I thought to myself, as the expression of a circus horse. It gallops steadily round the ring, while some human being performs numerous antics on its back for the amusement of more humans seated round the ring. The horse runs on, imperturbable, a little amused, almost condescendingly. I folded my arms, sat back, and watched the horses, feeling myself rather aloof.
    But slowly the mood vanished. The Concinis were doing so much more than what I had smugly called “antics.” There was, I discovered, a delicate artistry in the patterns they woveover and across their horses’ backs, passing, changing. It was not the difficulty of the act that counted, but the confident ease with which it was performed. For me, they seemed to extract