traffic. “Unless you are in urgent need of assistance, pray do not interrupt this moment. The light is just so.”
Pitt looked to where they all seemed to be staring, and indeed the rays of the sun shone through the leaves of a great oak with a remarkable luminescence, but he doubted it would translate into anything so spectacular without the green and gold of reality. How could mere sepia tint be worth anything after what the eye had seen? Nevertheless he waited while twelve cameras clicked and squeaked and generally recorded the instant.
“Yes sir,” the young man said at last. “Now, what may we do for you? Do you wish your photograph taken? Or you are perhaps an enthusiast yourself, and you wish to join us? Bring us some of your work, and we will make our decision. We are very generous, I assure you. We desire only to increase our art, enlarge the boundaries of what may be achieved. Colors will be next, you know.” His voice rose excitedly. “I mean real colors! Reds-blues- greens-everything!”
“Will they?” For a moment Pitt’s mind was taken with the idea. First he thought of the beauty of it, then hard on its heels he thought of the police use. If photographs could be taken of things shown in the color they really were, then the possibilities were limitless, not just to identify people, but to trace stolen goods-paintings, works of art, all the sort of things in Delbert Cathcart’s home. Verbal descriptions never did justice to them. Police constables were not meant to be poets. “That will be marvelous,” he agreed. “But I came to speak to Mr. Hathaway. He is a member, I believe?”
“Oh yes, very good, he is; in fact, most talented.” He very nearly asked what Pitt wanted, and curbed his inquisitiveness only just in time. He inclined his head towards a young man with rather long fair hair who was still gazing with rapt attention at the light on the branches. “That’s Hathaway over there.”
“Thank you,” Pitt acknowledged, and strode off before he could be further drawn into enthusiasm for the photographic inventions of the future.
Hathaway looked up as Pitt’s shadow fell across his camera.
“I’m sorry,” Pitt apologized. “Are you Peter Hathaway?”
“Yes. Is there something I can do for you?”
“Superintendent Pitt, from the Bow Street station,” Pitt explained, handing him his card.
“Oh!” Hathaway looked serious. He swallowed hard. “Is it about that report I made to the local police? Look, could we discuss it a little farther off?” He gestured rather wildly with his free arm. “Would you mind fearfully pretending it is a business matter or something? It is sort of. . well. . delicate. I don’t want people to think I’m some kind of busybody who goes around repeating everything he knows. It’s just that. . well. . with Cathcart dead, and all that. . you know?” A flicker of distress crossed his face. “He was a damn decent photographer. Almost the best, I’d say. Can’t let him be killed and do nothing about it. . not when I saw the quarrel.”
“Tell me exactly what you did see, Mr. Hathaway,” Pitt encouraged him. “First of all, where did this happen? Set the scene for me, if you like.”
“Ah. . yes. Well, it was the Tuesday before he was killed, as I said.” Hathaway thought hard, re-creating it in his mind, his eyes almost closed. “We were by the Serpentine, trying to catch the early light on the water, so we were there about eight o’clock. A bit inconvenient, certainly, but one has to follow nature, you can’t lead it. We did some excellent work, really excellent.” He looked away quickly. “You’ve no idea how blind one can be to the glories of light and shade, the intricacies of form, until you see them through a lens. You really do see the world through a new eye. Pardon the obvious, but it’s true. You should take up photography, sir, you really should! Bit expensive, I suppose, but most pleasures are, and without the artistic merit or the truly spiritual uplift of catching a moment of nature’s glory and immortalizing it to share with all mankind.” His voice increased in enthusiasm. “It’s a window in time, sir. A kind of immortality.”
Pitt could not help catching a glimpse of what Hathaway meant. It was true, a photograph far more than any painting caught the moment and made it, if not eternal, at least of unimaginable duration. But Delbert Cathcart had been a great photographer, and an ordinary, mortal man, and he was dead. It was Pitt’s duty to find out how and why, and by whose hand. There might be time for thoughts of capturing beauty later on.
“It is marvelous,” he agreed. “I don’t suppose you took any photographs of Mr. Cathcart and Mr. Antrim while they were there?”
For a moment Hathaway’s face fell with disappointment that Pitt should think of something so mundane, but he was too much of an enthusiast to miss the point. Interest flared up in his eyes and his face brightened. “Oh, if only I had! What a wonderful thing that would be, wouldn’t it? Unarguable evidence. It will come, sir! It will come. The camera is a witness whose testimony no one can doubt. Oh, the future is full of wonders we can barely imagine. Just think of-”
“What was Mr. Cathcart doing at the Serpentine?” Pitt interrupted. Speculation on the marvels of the future could go on indefinitely, and fascinating as it was, it was a luxury he could not afford now.
“Er. . I don’t know.” Hathaway sounded surprised. “Actually, when I think of it, it was quite odd. As far as I know, he only takes portraits. He wasn’t there to teach us. . which would have been marvelous, of course. But he didn’t speak to us at all. I imagine he was looking at places to use for backdrop. That’s all that would make sense.”
“But you did see him?”
“Oh yes, quite clearly.”
“Did you speak to him?”
“No. No, it would have been. . intrusive. He is a-was a-very great man. . something of an idol to an amateur like me.” He flushed slightly as he said it. “It is a most awful thing that he should have been killed, an act of barbarism. That’s what makes it so hard to understand. But great artists can be volatile. Perhaps it was over a woman?”
“Maybe. What was Orlando Antrim doing here? Is he an amateur photographer?”
“Oh yes, really quite good, you know. Of course he also prefers figures, but one would expect that. After all, drama is his art.”
“Tell me exactly what you saw, Mr. Hathaway.”
A couple of young men walked past them carrying their cameras and tripods and talking to each other excitedly, their voices raised, trying to gesticulate with arms weighed down by their equipment. The bowler hat of one of them had been knocked to a rakish angle, but he seemed quite unaware of it. They disappeared into the shade of a tree, propped their tripods and began looking at the area with interest.
“I saw them arguing,” Hathaway answered, frowning. “Antrim seemed to be pleading with Cathcart, trying to persuade him of something. He appeared very emphatic about it, waving his hands around.”
“Did you hear what he said?”
“No.” His eyes widened. “No, that’s the odd thing. Neither of them raised their voices at all. I knew they were quarreling because of the furious gestures and the anger in their faces. Antrim was trying to persuade Cathcart to do something, and Cathcart kept refusing more and more vehemently, until finally Antrim stormed off in a rage.”
“But Cathcart remained?”
“Only for a few moments. Then he picked up his camera and snapped his tripod closed and went off as well.”
“In the same direction?”
“More or less. But then they would. It was towards the road and the natural way out.”
“Did anyone else observe this exchange.”
“I don’t know. One does tend to get rather absorbed in what one is doing. I’m afraid I have lost a few friends because of my obsession. I noticed them because I was at that moment casting my eye around for a particular pattern against which to take a picture of one of my friends, a young lady with fair hair. I imagined clothing her in white and having her stand looking-”
Pitt smiled, but interrupted his explanation.
“Yes, I understand. You have been very helpful, Mr. Hathaway. Is there anything else you can tell me about this encounter? Have you seen the two together on any other occasion? Do you know either of them personally-as members of the club, perhaps?”
Hathaway lifted his shoulders in a shrug. “I’m so sorry. I’ve only been a member a short time. I know perhaps three or four of the other fellows: Crabtree, Worthing, Ullinshaw, Dobbs, that’s about all. Dobbs has the most wonderful knack with light on stones and fences and things, and he’s so good with birds.” His voice rose again with excitement. “He’s the first one who showed me film on a roll, rather than plates. It was absolutely marvelous. You
