The launch sheered away. Lunt called in a cracked voice: ‘For God sake, Jones—you’ve got it all wrong. I can tell you what happened…’
But before he could think of a story, the cruiser struck.
Death by Water
Michael Innes
Edinburgh-born John Innes Mackintosh Stewart (1906–94) enjoyed a distinguished academic career, culminating in a professorship in English at Oxford University. Writing as J. I. M. Stewart, he published non-fiction books such as Character and Motive in Shakespeare (1949) and novels including the quintet A Staircase in Surrey. As if this was not enough, he enjoyed a highly successful career as a writer of detective novels and short stories under the pen-name Michael Innes.
Innes’s debut, Death at the President’s Lodging (1936), was bought by the leading publisher Victor Gollancz, and the front cover of the dust jacket of the first edition announced: ‘This is the best “first” Detective Story that has ever come our way’. This bold claim was justified by the cleverness and wit of the story, and the novel established both Innes and his detective, Inspector (later Sir John) Appleby. The Appleby series continued for half a century, a remarkable achievement. ‘Death by Water’ was included in his collection The Appleby File (1975); confusingly, the novel Appleby at Allington (1968) has also been given the alternative title Death by Water.
Sir John Appleby had been worried about Charles Vandervell for some time. But this was probably true of a good many of the philosopher’s friends. Vandervell’s speculations, one of these had wittily remarked, could be conceived as going well or ill according to the sense one was prepared to accord that term. His last book, entitled (mysteriously to the uninstructed) Social Life as a Sign System, had been respectfully received by those who went in for that kind of thing; but it was clear that something had gone badly wrong with his investments. He was what is called a private scholar, for long unattached to any university or other salary-yielding institution, and had for years lived very comfortably indeed on inherited wealth of an unspecified but doubtless wholly respectable sort.
He was not a landed man. His country house, pleasantly situated a few miles from the Cornish coast, owned extensive gardens but was unsupported by any surrounding agricultural activities. The dividends came in, and that was that. Nobody could have thought of it as a particularly vulnerable condition. Some adverse change in the state of the national economy might be expected from time to time to produce a correspondingly adverse effect upon an income such as his. But it would surely require recessions, depressions, and slumps of a major order to result in anything like catastrophe.
Vandervell himself was vague about the whole thing. This might have been put down to simple incompetence, since it would certainly have been difficult to imagine a man with less of a head for practical affairs. But there were those who maintained that some feeling of guilt was operative as well. Vandervell was uneasy about living a life of leisure on the labours of others, and was unwilling to face up to considering his mundane affairs at all. He occasionally spoke in an old-fashioned way about his ‘man of business’. Nobody had ever met this personage, or could so much as name him; but it was obvious that he must occupy a key position in the conduct of his client’s monetary affairs. Vandervell himself acknowledged this. ‘Bound to say,’ he had once declared to Appleby, ‘that my financial wizard earns his fees. No hope of keeping my chin above water at all, if I didn’t have him on the job. And even as it is, I can’t be said to be doing too well.’
For some months this last persuasion had been gaining on Vandervell rapidly and throwing him into ever deepening gloom. One reading of this was clearly that the gloom was pathological and irrational—a depressive state generated entirely within the unfortunate man’s own head—and that a mere fantasy of being hard up, quite unrelated to the objective facts of the case, was one distressing symptom of his condition. One does hear every now and then, after all, of quite wealthy people who have stopped the milk and the newspaper out of a firm conviction they can no longer pay for them. There was a point at which Appleby took this view of Vandervell’s state of mind. Vandervell was a fairly prolific writer, and his essays and papers began to suggest that the adverse state of his bank balance (whether real or imagined) was bringing him to a vision of the universe at large as weighted against him and all mankind in an equally disagreeable way. Hitherto his philosophical work had been of a severely intellectual and dispassionate order. Now he produced in rapid succession a paper on Schopenhauer, a paper on von Hartmann, and a long essay called Existentialism and the Metaphysic of Despair. All this didn’t precisely suggest cheerfulness breaking in.
This was the state of the case when Appleby encountered Vandervell’s nephew, Fabian Vandervell, in a picture gallery off Bond Street and took him to his club for lunch.
‘How is your uncle getting along?’ Appleby asked. ‘He doesn’t seem to come much to town nowadays, and it’s a long time since I’ve been down your way.’
Fabian, who was a painter, also lived in Cornwall—more or less in a colony of artists in a small fishing village called Targan Bay. As his uncle was a bachelor, and he himself his only near relation, it was generally assumed that he would prove to be his uncle’s heir. The prospect was probably important to him, since nobody had ever heard of Fabian’s selling a picture. So Fabian too might well be concerned at the manner in which the family fortunes were said to be in a decline.
‘He muddles along,’ Fabian said. ‘And his interests continue to change for the worse, if you ask me. Did you ever hear of a book called Biathanatos?’
‘It rings a faint bell.’
‘It’s by John Donne, and is all about what Donne liked to call “the scandalous disease of headlong dying”. It caused a bit of a scandal, I imagine. Donne was Dean of St Paul’s, you remember, as well as a poet; so he had no business to be fudging up an apology for suicide. Uncle Charles is talking about editing Biathanatos, complete with his own learned commentary on the theme. Morbid notion.’ Fabian paused. ‘Uncommonly nice claret you have here.’
‘I’m delighted you approve of it.’ Appleby noticed that the modest decanter of the wine with which Fabian had been provided was already empty. ‘Do you mean that you are alarmed about your uncle?’
‘Well, he does talk about suicide in a general way, as well. But perhaps there’s no great cause for alarm.’
‘We’ll hope not.’ Appleby decided not to pursue this topic, which it didn’t strike him as his business to discuss. ‘I have it in mind to call in on your uncle, incidentally, in a few weeks’ time, when I go down to visit my sister at Bude. And now I want you to explain to me those pictures we both found ourselves looking at this morning. Puzzling things to one of my generation.’
Fabian Vandervell proved perfectly willing to accept this invitation. He held forth contentedly for the rest of the meal.
Appleby fulfilled his intention a month later, and his first impression was that Charles Vandervell had become rather a lonely man. Pentallon Hall was a substantial dwelling, yet apart from its owner only an elderly manservant called Litter was much in evidence. But at least one gardener must be lurking around, since the extensive grounds which shielded the place from the general surrounding bleakness of the Cornish scene were all in apple-pie order. Vandervell led Appleby over all this with the air of a country gentleman who has nothing in his head except the small concerns which the managing of such a property must generate. But the role wasn’t quite native to the man; and in an indefinable way none of the interests or projects which he paraded appeared quite to be coming off. Vandervell had a theory about bees, but the Pentallon bees were refusing to back it up. In a series of somewhat suburban-looking ponds he bred tropical fish, but even the mild Cornish climate didn’t suit these creatures at all. Nor at the moment did it suit the roses Vandervell was proposing to exhibit at some local flower show later in the season; they were plainly (like so much human hope and aspiration,
their owner commented morosely) nipped in the bud. All in all, Charles Vandervell was revealing himself more than ever as a man not booked for much success except, conceivably, within certain rather specialised kingdoms of the mind.
Or so Appleby thought until Mrs Mountmorris arrived. Mrs Mountmorris was apparently a near neighbour and almost certainly a widow; and Mrs Mountmorris came to tea. Litter took her arrival distinguishably in ill part; he was a privileged retainer of long standing, and seemingly licensed to express himself in such matters through the instrumentality of heavy sighs and sour looks. Vandervell, on the other hand, brightened up so markedly when the lady was announced that Appleby at once concluded Litter to have rational ground for viewing her as a threat to the established order of things at Pentallon. Moreover Vandervell took considerable pleasure in presenting Appleby to the new arrival, and Mrs Mountmorris obligingly played up by treating her host’s friend as a celebrity. It was, of course, a quiet part of the world. But Appleby, being well aware of Vandervell as owning a distinction of quite another flight to any attainable by a policeman, found in this piece of nonsense something a little touching as well as absurd.
Not that, beneath an instant social competence, Mrs Mountmorris was in the least pleased at finding another visitor around. She marked herself at once as a woman of strong character, and perhaps as one who was making it her business to take her philosophic neighbour in hand. If that was it—if she had decided to organise Charles Vandervell—then organised Charles Vandervell would be. On the man’s chances of escape, Appleby told himself, he wouldn’t wager so much as a bottle of that respectable claret to which he had entertained Vandervell’s nephew Fabian at his club. And Fabian, if he knew about the lady, would certainly take as dark a view of her as Litter did.
‘Charles’s roses,’ Mrs Mountmorris said, ‘refuse to bloom. His bees produce honey no different from yours, Sir John, or mine.’ Mrs Mountmorris paused to dispense tea—a duty which, to Litter’s visible displeasure, she had made no bones about taking to herself. ‘As for his ships, they just won’t come home. Mais nous changerons tout cela.’
This, whatever one thought of the French, was nothing if not forthright, and Appleby glanced at the lady with some respect.
‘But a philosopher’s argosies,’ he said a shade pedantically, ‘must voyage in distant waters, don’t you think? They may return all the more richly freighted in the end.’
‘Of that I have no doubt.’ Mrs Mountmorris spoke briskly and dismissively, although the dismissiveness may have been directed primarily at Appleby’s flight of fancy. ‘But practical issues have to be considered as well. And Charles, I think, has come to agree with me. Charles?’
‘Yes, of course.’ Thus abruptly challenged, Vandervell would have had to be described as mumbling his reply. At the same time, however, he was gazing at his female friend in an admiration there was no mistaking.
‘Has that man turned up yet?’ Mrs Mountmorris handed Vandervell his tea-cup, and at the same time indicated that he might consume a cucumber sandwich. ‘The show-down is overdue.’
‘Yes, of course.’ Vandervell reiterated with a nervous nod what appeared to be his leit-motif in Mrs Mountmorris’s presence. ‘And I’ve sent for him. An absolute summons, I assure you. And you and I must have a talk about it, tête-à-tête, soon.’
‘Indeed we must.’ Mrs Mountmorris was too well-bred not to accept this as closing the mysterious topic she had introduced. ‘And as for these’—and she gestured at an unpromising rose-bed in the near vicinity of which the tea-table was disposed—‘derris dust is the answer, and nothing else.’
After this, Appleby didn’t linger at Pentallon for very long. His own call had been casual and unheralded. It would be tactful to let that tête-à-tête take place sooner rather than later. Driving on to his sister’s house at Bude, he reflected that Mrs Mountmorris must be categorised as a good thing. Signs were not wanting that she was putting stuffing into Charles Vandervell, of late so inclined to unwholesome meditation on headlong dying. It was almost as if a worm were going to turn. Yet one ought not, perhaps, to jump to conclusions. On an off-day, and to a diffident and resigned man, the lady might well assume the character of a last straw herself. Litter, certainly, was already seeing her in that light. His gloom as he politely performed the onerous duty of opening the door of Appleby’s car suggested his being in no doubt, at least, that the roses would be deluged in derris dust before the day was out.
Appleby hadn’t, however, left Pentallon without a promise to call in on his return journey, which took place a week later. This time, he rang up to announce his arrival. He didn’t again want to find himself that sort of awkward extra whom the Italians style a terzo incomodo.
Litter answered the telephone, and in a manner which instantly communicated considerable agitation. Mr Vandervell, he said abruptly, was not in residence. Then, as if recalling his training, he desired Appleby to repeat his name, that he might apprise his employer of the inquiry on his return.
‘Sir John Appleby.’
‘Oh, yes, sir—yes, indeed.’ It was as if a penny had dropped in the butler’s sombre mind. ‘Pray let me detain you for a moment, Sir John. We are in some distress at Pentallon—really very perturbed, sir. The fact is that Mr Vandervell has disappeared. Without a trace, Sir John, as the newspapers sometimes express it. Except that I have received a letter from him—a letter susceptible of the most shocking interpretation.’ Litter paused on this—as if it were a phrase in which, even amid the perturbation to which he had referred, he took a certain just satisfaction. ‘To tell you the truth, sir, I have felt it my duty to inform the police. I wonder whether you could possibly break your journey here, as you had proposed? I know your reputation, Sir John, begging your pardon.’
‘My dear Litter, my reputation scarcely entitles me to impose myself on the Cornish constabulary. Are they with you now?’
‘Not just at the moment, sir. They come and go, you might say. And very civil they are. But it’s not at all the kind of thing we are accustomed to.’
‘I suppose not. Is there anybody else at Pentallon?’
‘Mr Fabian has arrived from Targan Bay. And Mr Truebody, sir, who is understood to look after Mr Vandervell’s affairs.’
‘It’s Mr Truebody whom Mr Vandervell refers to as his man of business?’
‘Just so, sir. I wonder whether you would care to speak to Mr Fabian? He is in the library now, sorting through his uncle’s papers.’
‘The devil he is.’ Appleby’s professional instinct was alerted by this scrap of information. ‘It mightn’t be a bad idea. Be so good as to tell him I’m on the telephone.’
Within a minute of this, Fabian Vandervell’s urgent voice was on the line.
‘Appleby—is it really you? For God’s sake come over to this accursed place quick. You must have gathered even from that moronic Litter that something pretty grim has happened to my uncle. Unless he’s merely up to some ghastly foolery, the brute fact is that Biathanatos has nobbled him. You’re a family friend—’
‘I’m on the way,’ Appleby said, and put down the receiver.
But Appleby’s first call was at a police station, since there was a certain measure of protocol to observe. An hour later, and accompanied by a Detective Inspector called Gamley, he was in Charles Vandervell’s library, and reading Charles Vandervell’s letter.
My dear Litter,
There are parties one does not quit without making a round of the room, and just such a party I am now preparing to take my leave of. In this instance it must be a round of letters that is in question, and of these the first must assuredly be addressed to you, who have been so faithful a servant and friend. I need not particularise the manner of what I propose to do. This will reveal itself at a convenient time and prove, I hope, not to have been too untidy. And now, all my thanks! I am only sorry that the small token of my esteem which is to come to you must, in
point of its amount, reflect the sadly embarrassed state of my affairs.
Yours sincerely,
Charles Vandervell
‘Most affecting,’ Mr Truebody said. ‘Litter, I am sure you were very much moved.’ Truebody was a large and powerful looking man, disadvantageously possessed of the sort of wildly staring eyes popularly associated with atrocious criminals. Perhaps it was to compensate for this that he exhibited a notably mild manner.
‘It was upsetting, of course.’ Litter said this in a wooden way. Since he had so evident a difficulty in liking anybody, it wasn’t surprising that he didn’t greatly care for the man of business. ‘But we must all remember,’ he added with mournful piety, ‘that while there is life there is hope. A very sound proverb that is—if an opinion may be permitted me.’
‘Exactly!’ Fabian Vandervell, who had been standing in a window and staring out over the gardens, turned round and broke in unexpectedly. ‘At first, I was quite bowled over by this thing. But I’ve been thinking. And it seems to me—’
‘One thing at a time, Fabian.’ Appleby handed the letter back to Gamley, who was in charge of it. ‘Was this simply left on Mr Vandervell’s desk, or something of that kind?’
‘It came by post.’
‘Then where’s the envelope?’
‘Mr Litter’—Gamley favoured the butler with rather a grim look—‘has unfortunately failed to preserve it.’
‘A matter of habit, sir.’ Litter was suddenly extremely nervous. ‘When I open a postal communication I commonly drop the outer cover straight into the waste-paper basket in my pantry. It was what I did on this occasion, and unfortunately the basket was emptied into an incinerator almost at once.’
‘Did you notice the postmark?’
‘I’m afraid not, sir.’
‘The envelope, like the letter itself, was undoubtedly in Mr Vandervell’s handwriting?’
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