Buffet for Unwelcome Guests(59)

In the last of the half-dozen little rooms that had so far received their dividing walls, there was a rough tripod formed of three planks. These had been shaped at their ends so that, propped against the skirting boards on three sides of the room, they met and dovetailed to form a crotch into which the butt of the rifle fitted securely. A short length of rope had been tied round the whole, and this was further reinforced by a twelve-foot length of twine, doubled for extra strength, its ends roughly tucked in as though hurriedly done. Into the wood of the window-sill two nails had been driven to form a triangle through which the muzzle of the rifle had been thrust. The whole was trained, steady as a rock, on the site below.

And spilled out of a torn paper bag, too small to hold so many, three out of half a dozen rosy apples had rolled out on the dusty boards of the wooden floor.

‘We stood and stared, and as we stood, there was a scraping and scuffling overhead, a small shower of debris, and when we looked up we saw two hands tearing at the slates above us and a face peering through. And a voice said, “For God’s sake, what’s happening? They’ve shot him!” And then added, “But, my God, what a picture!” ’

The picture that had brought Mr. Photoze fame and fortune: the picture of the famous lion head raised, mouth half-open in that great outraged bellow, heedless of danger: ‘You bloody, bloody murderers—you’ve got the wrong man!’

Usually, for publication, the head was lifted out of the rest, but the whole picture showed the scene moments after the impact of the bullet. First the edge of the parapet, then an expanse of grass between the main building and the cornerstone; the smoother grass where turf had been laid for the ceremony, the flowering shrubs temporarily planted for the occasion, the tubs of geraniums; the partially built wall with the cornerstone at its centre, the small crowd swung about to stare up, stupefied with shock.

But as the press photographer had exclaimed, in instant recognition of what he had achieved—what a picture! A murdered man, caught in the very act of dying; the hands that held him as famous a pair as existed in the world; and the splendid head, the magnificent, ravaged, upturned face. But the most beautiful thing in the whole photograph, Mr. Photoze assured them now, had been the glimpse in the foreground of the parapet’s edge. ‘Because if the parapet is in the picture, then I took that picture from the roof and not from the room below, where the rifle was.’

‘Anyone can fake a photograph,’ said the boy.

‘The police confiscated my equipment,’ said Mr. Photoze, ‘before I had time to do any faking. And before you get any sharper and cut yourself, dear boy, there was no apparatus by which the camera could be left to take pictures all by itself. I wasn’t lugging more than I had to up to that roof.’

It was a splendid room—big and luxurious, all just a bit larger than life, like Mr. Mysterioso himself. But the boy sat tensed like a wild thing about to spring, and his tension communicated itself to the rest of them, meeting his sick and angry stare with eyes divided between understanding, pity, and impatience. He resumed his parrot cry. ‘You were there. And nobody else was. My father didn’t do it, so it must have been you.’

Mr. Photoze was—understandably enough—one of the impatient ones. ‘Now, look here!’ He appealed to them all. ‘I was up on that damn roof. I was there the whole time, anyone could have seen me there—’

‘No one was looking,’ said the boy. ‘They were all watching the ceremony.’

‘And so was I, you silly fool! I was taking photographs—that’s what I was there for. And then suddenly this gun goes off somewhere below me, and I saw the two men fall.’ It was like a film shot in slow motion, he recalled, the two of them collapsing, but slowly, slowly. ‘I stood there frozen, and then I saw that Mysterioso had lifted up his head and was shouting up to the window where the gun was; and I seemed to come to life and started clicking away like mad—’

‘Without a thought that a man was dying?’

‘Sort of reflex action, I suppose,’ said Mr. Photoze. He added simply, ‘It’s my job.’

Mr. Mysterioso had had much cause to be grateful to the photographer who had forgotten all but getting on with his job. The photograph had kept alive the legend of that moment of bravado, of selfless courage on behalf of one who had after all been only a servant. They had remained on friendly terms ever since; it was to him that Mr. Photoze had turned for advice when the young man’s foolish threats had suddenly turned into action. ‘You did quite right,’ Mysterioso said. ‘The show must go on.’