‘Certainly.’ Lasscock was perfectly amiable. ‘Anythin’ to oblige.’ He raised his right hand and began to twitch the fingers one by one. Then he frowned, as if this method of computation was either too laborious or confusing. ‘This nasty Pluckrose thing: what day did it happen?’
‘The day before yesterday, Mr Lasscock. Monday morning in fact.’
‘Then I wasn’t there. Not on Monday – and not since. Tiresome chill.’ Lasscock gave a twist to his muffler, made a pass with his handkerchief, and pointed to the table. ‘That’s the reason of the ruin. Most sovereign stuff, I think you’d find. But perhaps you haven’t got a chill?’
‘Thank you’ – Appleby spoke a shade austerely – ‘but I am perfectly well. We don’t have half-terms in the police force.’
Lasscock showed no sign of being stricken by this barb. He leant forward and applied himself to lighting the spirit-kettle. ‘Well,’ he said, ‘glad to know you’re all right. Treacherous time o’ year. But charmin’. Notice the boles of the elm trees?’
‘I must try to impress upon you that my business is to notice every circumstance which may be connected with the death of Professor Pluckrose. And you must have heard that it is almost certainly a matter of murder. So if you don’t mind we will defer comparing nature notes till another time. And now–’
‘Then I mustn’t detain you.’ Lasscock tipped sugar into a glass and reached for the rum; he poured out a small tot of it, added water, and settled himself comfortably back in his chair. A silver spoon clinked drowsily as he stirred. And slowly his eyes closed once more.
Appleby, momentarily baffled, stared at him in a kind of fascination. The endeavour to interrogate Lasscock was little more satisfactory than would be an attempt to cross-question a child in the womb. And indeed it was just such an environment that this elderly foetus carried about with him. Perhaps his tolerance of the hubbub of Miss Dearlove’s orchard lay in that: it was like the great pounding of a nearby heart…
But now Lasscock was speaking. Or rather, his voice was to be heard – for he was so lost in some drowsy other-world that one got the impression of a mere automatism in his speech. ‘Young man,’ said the voice of Lasscock, ‘Pluckrose is dead. Somebody dropped a horrid great rock on him from the tower. And I don’t know anything more about it.’ One eye opened, as if to take stock of the effect of this categorical announcement. It closed again. ‘Good day to you,’ said Mr Lasscock.
Appleby walked down the avenue. He observed the elm boles. He glanced behind him and saw that again there was an escort of cats. The sounds of the mill-wheel and the engine, the bull and the doves, and the hound and the cutlery and the vacuum-cleaner, still vibrated on his ear. He was out on the main road before he could hear what he wanted to hear: the ghost of his own voice reigning undisturbed in his own head and patiently setting about an analysis of the meagre gifts of the morning. Miss Dearlove: sundry social pretences, several hints, no lies. Lasscock: nothing in the nature of a big put-up job, but rather a genuine revelation of a decidedly unathletic personality, plus one lie – possibly not a very important one. Appleby shook his head as he trudged. It was scarcely encouraging. Still, the plot did a little begin to thicken. Certain aspects of the case were falling into at least an enigmatic relationship. For instance, the Duke of Nesfield had come – oddly – to Appleby and Hobhouse and, some time ago young Marlow had gone – not particularly oddly – to Nesfield Court. By the way, I suppose it is – ah – Pluckrose? Make it a hypothesis that this queer question of the Duke’s proceeded from a train of circumstances to which Marlow’s having gone to tutor the stupid Gerald stood in some causal relationship – Appleby frowned at this pedantic phraseology. Put it more simply. Because Marlow had stopped at Nesfield Court the Duke had been surprised that it was Pluckrose who was killed. That was it. And Appleby stared at it until he reached his bus.
6
Hobhouse was not in his office; he had, a sergeant announced with some pride, gone out to trace the meteorite. No, it wasn’t a matter of information having come in. The inspector had just thought of where such a thing would come from, and he had inquired, and it seemed likely he was right – as the inspector often was. And he had left a message. It appeared probable that the meteorite would be traced to a very considerable eminence. Beyond this obscure joke the sergeant had – or feigned to have – nothing to report. Appleby arranged to call later and went out to get himself a meal.
The station buffet was the nearest place, and he strolled in there. One sat at a long, horseshoe-like counter; there were cauldrons of tripe and reservoirs of sausages; there was a brave clatter of pewter pots; there were barmaids to whom several gentlemen were usually offering jocose conversation at the same time. After Miss Dearlove’s retired manor it was all remarkably peaceful. Appleby, having contributed his conventional quota of badinage, applied himself to his victuals and to meditation.
Somewhere in this same vast building he had lunched the day before with a nobleman concerned to see that there should be no mistake about Pluckrose. The police must be sure of what really had been achieved by the murderer. Or – alternatively – they must be sure of what the murderer had really intended. Now, the Duke had two kinds of contact with the University of Nesfield: he was its Chancellor and concerned himself a good deal with its affairs in a general way; he was a grandfather and had engaged one or more members of its staff as a holiday tutor. That it was this second and more personal contact with which the Pluckrose affair was somehow tied up was, Appleby realized, only a guess. The Duke himself had refrained from any mention of the circumstance – but little could be read into that. Probably there had been, at most, only one more tutor; for to turn a whole team of such people upon Gerald would be absurd. Gerald was apparently a schoolboy, and the attempt was presumably to screw him up to whatever shadowy standard of learning an Oxford or Cambridge college required of young men of his sort. Marlow was a lecturer in English, which meant that he could probably stuff Gerald with a little Latin and French or German as well. What else would be required? Presumably some mathematics – and that might mean that the second tutor had been Timmy Church. But this was mere speculation.
And perhaps all speculation beginning with the curious irruption of the Duke of Nesfield was of secondary importance; perhaps it was only the magnetism of the strawberry leaves which suggested that here was really a profitable point of attack. Hobhouse was out after the meteorite – and surely the meteorite was the thing. Where had it come from? Was there anything in Sir David Evans’s extraordinary theory – or had Pluckrose known nothing of the meteorite until – ? Appleby put down his knife and fork. Until what? Until the thing had come crashing down and killed him? Appleby stared unseeingly at the row of persons opposite him. He remembered the displeasing Tavender…something Tavender had said about the meteorite… a tentative conclusion to which he had himself come in the night. But at least the meteorite must be weighed and manoeuvred; the windows of that store-room must be measured; the hoist must be examined; Galileo-like experiments, perhaps, made. All this was the direct line on the case, and it ought to precede any further exploration of all those personal relationships which might or might not be involved. Mrs Tavender’s tea-party, for instance – what, as a field of inquiry, could be vaguer and more nebulous than that? Something thrown out by an irresponsible young man, like the dragging of the river for Lasscock. And yet there had been something in that; it had been based on the observation, not perhaps irrelevant, that Lasscock had been apparently absent from the university on Monday and Tuesday – the days of the crime and of Applieby’s first investigations respectively. So perhaps there might be something in the tea-party too, and in some of the other suggestions Marlow and Pinnegar had made. For instance, there was that curious maze between the dark-room and Pluckrose’s private laboratory. Somebody had once hung a skeleton there. But was that why Marlow – no, Pinnegar, it had been – had directed Appleby’s attention to it? Appleby fished from his pocket the plan Hobhouse had sk
etched for him the previous day. Yes, undoubtedly there was something to look into there. Pluckrose’s laboratory, the maze, the dark-room, the hoist, the lowermost of the store-rooms – these, with Prisk on one side, Marlow on another, and the spot where the body had been found on a third: the whole thing was as compact and had as many possibilities as a well-set-up scene in an abstract theatre. Decidedly, thought Appleby, finishing his tripe, he must go for all that.
Only this was Ladies’ Day. And although the female element in the case appeared meagre, it was by no means exhausted. Miss Dearlove did not look like being a very active element, but she had made one or two remarks which, as far as searching out the woman was concerned, might be described as a sort of passing the buck. For instance, when she had said of Pluckrose and Sir David Evans –
At this point, Appleby, looking absently about him as he speculated, let his eye stray to a far corner of the buffet at which there were a half-a-dozen small tables. The buffet too was a preponderantly masculine affair; if you were a woman it appeared that you were prescriptively confined to this retired corner. And on one of the tables Appleby’s glance halted. Those broad shoulders and that untidy hair were surely familiar; they belonged in fact to the belligerent young mathematician, Timmy Church. And opposite him was a girl of about his own age – what one might call a wholesome girl, Appleby thought; a girl of reasonable features, equable disposition, and sufficient intelligence. For a young scholar of somewhat unruly temperament it looked like a very sound match. Only at the moment things were clearly going far from smoothly; the girl was leaning forward and speaking with what looked like precise and controlled indignation; Church was leaning back with his hands in his pockets and his chin sunk on his chest – and probably scowling ferociously. And suddenly this melancholy scene came to a crisis. The girl paused for breath and then said something briefly and with particular decision; the young man jumped to his feet, banged down what looked like half-a-crown on the table, and marched out without looking behind him.
Appleby sighed. Duty, duty must be done. He picked up his cup of coffee, moved across the room, and sat down in the young man’s vacant chair. ‘Are you’, he asked, ‘Timmy Church’s girl?’
The young woman, who had been continuing her meal quietly, laid down her knife and fork. ‘I don’t know you,’ she said. ‘Please go away.’
Appleby got to his feet again. ‘I’m sorry. But I assure you I’m something perfectly respectable. In fact a policeman.’
She looked at him with startled eyes. ‘One of the policemen about the murder?’
‘Yes. Indeed, the principal policeman about the murder.’
‘Then you may sit down again. My name is Joan Cavenett.’
Appleby introduced himself. Miss Cavenett, he thought, if not a cool card, was yet having a good shot at appearing one. A business girl of the superior, private-secretary-to-someone-important sort. Or that was a good guess. At any rate, a young person much impressed with the necessity of coping with the world. First, then, a little fishing after the young woman’s background. ‘I’m sorry to see there’s been a rumpus.’ Appleby looked at her gravely. ‘Have you known Mr Church for long?’
‘We were at Cambridge together.’
‘I see. Then don’t you think you ought to have got your quarrelling over by this time?’
‘You’ve no business to come barging over and talk about it.’ Joan Cavenett spoke with decision; nevertheless, Appleby noted, her tone was now not really hostile.
‘I have, really. It’s unpleasant, of course, but my business is to barge into pretty nearly everything. This quarrel hasn’t anything to do with the Pluckrose affair? But of course it hasn’t; it’s older than that.’
‘Did Timmy tell you so?’ Now she was looking at him with a smouldering eye.
‘Of course not. He didn’t say anything about you. It was just a piece of vulgar gossip. Somebody wondered what had become of you – I suppose because the two of you haven’t been seen about together.’
‘How perfectly odious. Ordinary people ought to be able to mind their own business, even if policemen can’t.’ She glanced at him suspiciously. ‘You don’t look like a policeman.’
‘I’m a new and rather hazardously experimental sort. I have approximately the same smell as Mr Church and yourself.’
‘It doesn’t seem to me that that improves matters at all. If I’m to be badgered I’d rather be badgered by a man in thick boots and a helmet. I’d feel I knew better where I was.’ She paused. ‘Look here,’ she said, ‘I wouldn’t go on quarrelling with him if I could help it. Not now this has happened. I know he was always arguing with this awful Pluckrose. And I know you think–’
Appleby interrupted her with a chuckle. ‘Mr Church is an aggressive young man, isn’t he? And you’ll probably find later on that a temperament of that sort goes with a mild and perfectly normal leaning towards persecution fantasies. He’s been telling you we’re hunting him as a murderer?’
Miss Cavenett looked at him uncertainly. ‘More or less.’
‘Well, it’s all bosh. An elderly professor called Crunkhorn–’
‘He’s his boss. Not a bad old chap really. But hasn’t much mathematics.’
Appleby chuckled again. ‘You’re not really wholly estranged, you know, or you wouldn’t go on repeating your young man’s favourite dogmas.’ Well, this Crunkhorn – whom he rather irritates at times – seems to have had an idea that he might have perpetrated some joke which fatally miscarried and resulted in Pluckrose’s death. But there’s nothing in it at all. Timmy Church is no more suspected than the Duke of Nesfield is. Put it right out of your head.’
She looked at him quickly, at once suspicious and enormously relieved. ‘Then–’
‘Then you can, as far as that is concerned, go on quarrelling with him as long as you like. Except that it’s rather silly and unnecessary, likely enough.’
‘It’s nothing of the sort.’
‘Very well, then; it isn’t.’ Appleby sipped his coffee and waited. A competent young woman, but at a very considerable strain. Ten to one, out it would all come.
‘It’s not just a silly tiff. We’re not kids. He wants me to–’ She hesitated. Appleby sipped again, outwardly unperturbed. Some intimate and probably utterly irrelevant disclosure. A policeman’s lot –
‘He wants me to – to commit bigamy,’ said Joan Cavenett.
‘Well, well,’ said Appleby. ‘That isn’t too bad. It might be worse. So cheer up.’
‘Worse than bigamy? I don’t believe a policeman can think there’s anything worse than bigamy. A stupid, horrid thing you read about in corners of the paper.’
Appleby shook his head. ‘It’s very trying, no doubt. But at least it’s something perfectly definite and clear-cut. And trouble between lovers is really serious only when they don’t at all know what it’s about.’ He paused on this piece of homely wisdom and looked at Miss Cavenett with a slightly malicious eye. ‘By the way,’ he said, ‘–what’s wrong with your present husband?’
The young woman opened her mouth as if to say something very decided indeed. Then she changed her mind and laughed softly. ‘Must you really play the benevolent uncle?’ she asked. ‘And lighten the young people’s troubles with quiet merriment? You understand perfectly well it’s Timmy who’s married already.’
‘I’ve turned uncle because as policeman it’s plainly not at all on my beat.’ Appleby smiled reassuringly. ‘But you might tell me about it, all the same.’
‘There’s nothing to tell. I mean I know nothing about it. Once when we were talking about getting married Timmy just said in an off-hand way that it would be bigamy. And then he shut up and wouldn’t say any more.’
‘Which was very unreasonable of him. But then probably you made a bit of an ass of yourself too. Flared up and talked at him like something out of a book.’
‘Perfectly true.’ Joan Cavenett had finished her meal and now sat back with elaborate composure. ‘But he’s kept it up, which se
ems stupid. He says it’s no business of mine – which is absurd. And that it doesn’t matter – which is absurd too. And when I said well, couldn’t he get divorced, he said it was too difficult and that I had better forget about it.’
‘And so you better had.’
‘And be a – a bigamist?’ She stared at him, amazed.
‘If you want him I really wouldn’t let any little irregularity stand in your way. The thing will clear itself up, likely enough.’ He was looking at her maliciously still. ‘He hasn’t mentioned which you’ll be?’
‘Which I’ll be?’
‘Third or fourth or fifth? I mean, you don’t know how many wives he’s got already?’
She stood up. ‘This is horrible. And I thought you were going to be rather nice.’
‘I suppose he goes abroad fairly often?’ Appleby spoke softly, looking up at her still from the table.
‘Yes.’ She sat down again, suddenly limp and bewildered. ‘You seem to know a lot.’
‘What we do in my profession is guess. And I think I’ve guessed right. Your Timmy goes abroad just to get married. And I think it will be all right.’ Appleby was perfectly grave now. ‘It will be quite all right, Miss Cavenett.’
‘All right!’ Suddenly she blazed out at him. ‘When he’s conducting himself like a howling cad? If it was just that he’d had a mistress–’
‘You’re talking like that book again. And he’s not conducting himself like a cad. On the contrary. He’s conducting himself like an English gentleman.’
The Weight of the Evidence Page 9
