The Weight of the Evidence

by Michael Innes

  And now here was the young man Marlow – pale and gripping the arms of his chair. Why this fury? Young men, unless much inhibited by religious or other influences, are naturally given to Rabelaisian conversation among themselves. On the other hand, they are commonly a good deal embarrassed and displeased upon encountering the same thing in markedly older men. An odd but incontestable fact of psychology, this. But did it account for the present situation? Appleby thought not. Marlow’s reactions, stifled though they were, showed as being in excess of anything that could be covered by such an explanation. In fact there was only one reasonable hypothesis… Appleby frowned. No, there were two hypotheses. Consider, for instance, the fact that the undergraduate Gerald would have to be present were the ‘reunion’ to be complete…

  And there was the point that the Duke of Nesfield was far from pleased with the whole affair. Upon his face there was something drawn and strained which had been absent the day before. He was going to get at the truth, but he was far from liking it. And perhaps he was going to get at the truth privately; had decided that his cryptic hint to the police was a mistake. Certainly he showed small disposition to acknowledge the professional existence of Hobhouse and Appleby here and now.

  The Duke disliked the affair. He disliked Prisk. One could discern this in the way he said ‘professor’; in the ever so slightly gingerly way he handed the man a glass. And, equally, it was possible to feel that Marlow he sympathized with. Which would fit in well enough…

  Only – thought Appleby looking at his untouched glass – there was so much to fit in. Sir David Evans’ bust and Timmy Church’s bigamy – how, for instance, could those be made to cohere with what was going obscurely forward now? And the meteorite: where did that have its place? Again, there was the lackadaisical Lasscock, whose frequent habit it was to sun himself in the Wool Court. And there was Miss Godkin of St Cecilia’s – that latter-day Lady Politick could-be – murmuring mysteriously of the Foreign Office. There was all this and there was the as yet unexplored mechanics of the case. A not inconsiderable jigsaw – and one still perhaps without a focal point round which to build.

  Appleby took a conventional sip at his whisky and looked at Marlow again. He was a young man who created a displeasing impression at first. One would probably write him down as flippant, hard, contemptuous, shallow – and inconsiderable. But perhaps all this was a disguise to hide strong and what he feared were unsophisticated and therefore disgraceful impulses. Actually, it might be, a markedly idealistic young man – and of course a tolerably able one. His wits were getting the better of his emotions now. Although evidently extremely allergic to Prisk in his present vein, he had caught at the essential fact of something artificial and contrived in the whole affair. And he was not going to he drawn. One could feel the tension slowly relaxing in him. Perhaps like Dr Johnson on an altogether dissimilar occasion he had succeeded in removing his mind and thinking of Tom Thumb. If the Duke had planned that Marlow should clarify the situation by jumping up and pelting Prisk with billiard balls, his little piece of stage managing had failed.

  In fact the party, thus obscurely at an impasse, was hanging fire. Prisk had passed suddenly from a state of bawdy volubility to one of moroseness and suspicion. Hobhouse was fidgeting. It might be as well to bring forward the matter of the meteorite at last. ‘This affair that was dropped on Pluckrose,’ said Appleby into the next silence; ‘it appears it came from Nesfield Court. That’s why Hobhouse and I have ventured to come out and see you.’ He looked innocently at the Duke. ‘And perhaps that’s why you took such a friendly interest in us yesterday, sir?’

  The Duke appeared to be studying a large and dreary Canaletto which hung above the fireplace; without taking his gaze from its green waters he slightly shook his head. ‘No,’ he said; ‘you are mistaken in that. I knew nothing of it until this evening. And I haven’t heard properly about it yet; they just sent me across a message when your people rang up.’

  Hobhouse, with considerable hardihood, had produced a notebook. ‘Your Grace’, he said severely, ‘didn’t know this thing had been stolen?’

  The Duke smiled charmingly. ‘I’m really afraid I didn’t, inspector. It wasn’t at all among my cherished possessions. Indeed, whether it can be called a possession of mine is a nice philosophical point. What do you say, professor? Can I be said to possess something the existence of which is unknown to me?’

  Prisk shook his head. ‘In Nesfield Court’, he said ponderously, ‘there must be much, Duke, of which you are only unwittingly the impropriator.’

  ‘That’s just it.’ The Duke nodded as if something very sage had been said. ‘And it’s difficult to keep one’s hand on everything one does know about.’ He made a gesture, vague and apologetic, which seemed to comprehend the whole grotesque profusion of the building in which they sat. ‘However, I don’t doubt that there was a meteorite, and that it was stolen. Martin’ – he was addressing Marlow by his Christian name – ‘you used to mooch about the place a good deal; did you ever notice anything of the sort?’

  Was there, Appleby wondered, an edge to this question? Or was it merely the Duke’s habit of politely bringing everyone into the conversation in turn? Marlow was shaking his head. ‘No, sir. But then there are at least three separate museums about the place. And any number of collections and oddities and curiosities scattered here and there.’

  ‘That’s very true.’ The Duke was still apologetic. ‘Members of the family take it into their heads to form collections from time to time. My grandfather collected carriages; there are about eighty in the old orangery. And my uncle Hubert collected stage scenery; I believe it’s still about somewhere. One hesitates to turn such things out. There’s plenty of room, after all.’ He got to his feet. ‘Shall we go and find out? Mr Collins may know, and I don’t think it’s too late to disturb him.’ The Duke rang a bell. ‘Thomas,’ he said carefully to the answering footman, ‘will you give my compliments to Mr Collins and ask him if I may bring in some friends?’ He sat down again. ‘We’ll give Thomas a good start.’ He looked at Appleby ironically and chuckled. ‘Say a hundred yards.’

  ‘Angelica Kauffmann,’ said the Duke of Nesfield. He took Hobhouse and Appleby each by an arm and drew them to a halt; then he cocked up his head until his commanding nose indicated the ceiling. ‘Woman must have been a sort of human fly. Not many places like this without some of her work. And she did the doors too. Come and look at this one. Wouldn’t you call it rather a delicate arabesque?’

  Prisk and Marlow had gone ahead; now, as a result of the Duke’s zeal as a cicerone, they were out of sight in some farther corridor. Nor did their host appear anxious to overtake them in the course of this pilgrimage to Mr Collins; a few paces more and he had halted again before a portrait on the wall. ‘Lady Caroline Lamb,’ he said. ‘One of those portraits of her in page’s costume. She must have been what they call a transvestist nowadays. My great-grandfather was rather struck on her at one time. After Byron, that was. What do you think about Byron?’ The Duke had turned amiably to Hobhouse. ‘Myself, I don’t care for him at all.’

  ‘Do you care for Prisk?’ Appleby dropped the question casually, while politely studying Lady Caroline’s features.

  The Duke looked mildly surprised. ‘Dear me,’ he said; ‘what can I have done to prompt such a question?’

  ‘Arranged matters so that he infuriates this young man Marlow, and then packed them off together down a lonely corridor. All this after having hinted more than a doubt as to whether Pluckrose was really the target designed for the meteorite. In fact, sir, it is quite clear that you are deliberately testing out the strength of Marlow’s animosity. Does it extend to the positively murderous? And the experiment seems to me rather a risky one.’

  For some moments the Duke said nothing; they moved on down the corridor and passed into a dimly lit saloon hung with pale blue silk. ‘Inspector,’ he said at length, ‘what is this that you have been putting into your colleague’s head?’

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p; Hobhouse, cautious and alarmed, made no reply. They had entered another corridor, white and cold, and were moving down an endless vista of bronzes set in alcoves on either side. ‘Yes,’ said the Duke slowly. ‘I don’t exactly expect murder and sudden death just ahead of us there; but in general you are right. If Martin Marlow is so unbalanced that he attempted to kill Prisk, then we might as well get at the truth. And it occurred to me that throwing them together again might bring the truth to the surface. Neither knew that I was asking the other this evening. But may I ask what you think it’s all about?’

  They had turned a corner and the sweep of a great staircase was before them; they began to climb. ‘Perhaps a girl,’ said Appleby. ‘These two were living here together for some time. Perhaps Marlow had a girl – a pure girl or one whom he imagined to be so. And then perhaps Prisk, who clearly has a disreputable side to him–’

  ‘It’s not a bad theory.’ The Duke reached the top of the staircase and quickened his pace. ‘Unfortunately it’s not true.’

  ‘Unfortunately the truth concerns your grandson, Gerald, whom both these men were brought in to coach.’

  ‘Quite so.’ The monstrous house was flowing past them still in unending saloons and corridors. ‘Quite so. Gerald is a most attractive lad – and very much what one calls clean-living. Marlow became extremely attached to him – perhaps in an emotional, but certainly not in an unseemly way. Then this Mr Prisk – whom I regret ever having retained – took it into his head to amuse himself by making what he called a “man” of Gerald. He meant a sort of young Regency buck. He took Gerald up to town and introduced him to disreputable women. There would have been no great harm in that’ – the Duke’s eye was momentarily on the shocked Hobhouse – ‘although it was certainly conduct extraordinarily unbecoming in a scholar placed in a position of some confidence. But unfortunately Gerald is not at all that sort of boy. He reacted to these stupid but quite common experiences with a neurotic explosion: irrational feelings of guilt and so on. Not that that is anything very out of the way either. In my day there was always a bishop or two to whom parents would turn to set such matters right. Nowadays it’s psychologists – and Gerald has one jawing away at him now. I don’t myself attach very great importance to the whole affair. But the point is that this young Marlow was tremendously upset. He saw – and I suppose still sees – the lewd Prisk as having blighted Gerald’s whole life. But it’s his own life that is blighted, poor chap, if he killed Pluckrose. Perhaps he was just proposing to give Prisk a horrible fright, and the thing fell truer than he intended. Or perhaps there is nothing in my whole hypothesis – and I’m sure I hope not. After all, it would be astonishingly inefficient to manage to kill the wrong man.’ The Duke halted and looked at Appleby hopefully. ‘Don’t you think?’

  ‘I rather do. But it happens that Pluckrose and Prisk shared a telephone. And if a telephone message was used to lure the victim, as it were, into position, then a mistake becomes more possible.’ Appleby frowned. ‘Does Prisk know that you know all this?’

  ‘Certainly not. He has no idea that Gerald has confessed the whole thing to me. Otherwise I hardly suppose that he could sit with comfort at my table.’

  The Duke of Nesfield had perhaps something of the same constitution as his grandson. The leading of Gerald into evil courses shocked him far more than he cared to admit, and certainly he was very far indeed from forgiving the disreputable Prisk… But now surely even the recesses of Nesfield Court could not much longer conceal Mr Collins, and Appleby had another set of questions to put. ‘About the meteorite, sir. If it were here to be stolen, presumably Marlow – or for that matter Prisk – could have stolen it?’

  ‘Presumably. But why anyone should want–’

  ‘Quite so, sir. Why steal a meteorite? I’m coming to see the crux of the whole matter as lying there. Is there any conceivable reason why a man should steal such a thing in order to drop it on – or near – another man? We’ve had the suggestion that it was a matter of symbolism, and there might be something in that. It’s a theory with two branches, so to speak. The meteorite might be attractive or relevant in virtue of its general symbolism: the associations which such a thing carries for every man. Or it might be attractive or relevant in virtue of some particular symbolism: some particular association which it had just for murderer and victim and, perhaps, other specific people. But now notice this. The meteorite was stolen; the meteorite was hurled down on Pluckrose. It doesn’t at all follow that the meteorite was stolen with that end in view. So we must also ask: Is there any conceivable reason why a man should steal a meteorite? Just that – as a problem quite independent of the murder. For instance, can such a thing contain precious metal? Might it have a high degree of scientific interest?’

  The Duke smiled. ‘My dear sir, it’s nice to hear one question that one can answer. The meteorite could have high scientific interest only for a scientist. And such a person would have sufficient information to know that I should be likely to relinquish the thing at once for any reasonably accredited scientific purpose. A scientist wouldn’t need to steal it. The idea of a precious metal seems a more likely one. But somehow I feel that gold or platinum, say, doesn’t happen in meteorites. We’ll ask Collins to look it up. And here we are.’

  ‘May I ask one more question before we rejoin the others? It’s still about the meteorite. Suppose that neither Marlow nor Prisk stole it. Would any of the other university people be possible – have the opportunity of noticing it, I mean, if it were about?’

  ‘It seems to depend on just where about it lay. But a great many university people would have just as good a chance as Prisk or Marlow. You see, I give a party for them twice a year. And they wander all over the place.’

  ‘I see.’

  ‘In my mother’s time they weren’t let inside.’ The Duke smiled his always faintly arrogant smile. ‘She had them in a book called “Garden Parties Only” along with the city aldermen and the country doctors and the lower clergy. How remote those times seem!’ The Duke’s hand was on the door before him; his voice was gently ironical. ‘Now I let them in. Twice a year. And what happens? They steal my meteorites.’ He opened the door. ‘Collins,’ he said amiably, ‘I’ve brought the police.’

  The room, Appleby reckoned in a vulgar comparison, was about the size of a small cinema. Everything showed cream and gold – including the greater part of the tens of thousands of books which clothed the walls. Ionic pillars supported a ceiling which was one swirling mythological battle-piece; Ionic pillars flanked a fireplace of green marble in which a great log was burning. And before this stood Mr Collins, a rosy-faced old man wearing a brocaded smoking-jacket and holding a churchwarden pipe. He had Prisk and Marlow comfortably placed on either side of him and was himself arranging a great silver bowl on a table. ‘Duke,’ he said when he had greeted Appleby and Hobhouse, ‘I think we have only to call for more lemons. Do you know how they came to give Punch its name? Because its first editor was Mark Lemon. I knew him well, Mr Appleby; a fellow of infinite jest, of most excellent fancy. His friends knew him as Uncle Mark. Alas, my dear professor, tempus ferax’ – Mr Collins busied himself above his bowl – ‘tempus edax rerum. Mr Hobhouse, are you at your ease? Here is a lower and more comfortable chair. Morals and domestic furniture, they say, grow lower together. A suggestive thesis, Marlow, my dear lad, for your learned pen. Pray draw up, gentlemen, draw up. Duke, it is nearly a week since you have assisted at these compotations. Commonly I sit here of an evening now.’ Mr Collins glanced round the vast room. ‘It is cosier in early spring. But had I known of your intended visit, I would have had fires lit in the library.’ His eye caught Hobhouse’s surprised blink round the room and he chuckled. ‘Ah, Mr Hobhouse, I often remind the Duke of something said by the poet Coleridge when he was stopping in a deserted palace in Malta. He lived, he said, like a mouse in a cathedral. How admirable a phrase! And here at Nesfield we are all like mice in a cathedral – and waiting for the cat.’ Mr Collins chuckled again and
picked up a long-handled silver spoon. ‘Will it be a Cheshire cat? Well, the mob is distinguished by nothing if not by its grin. Will it be Dick Whittington’s cat? I judge it will scarcely be amiably disposed towards the City of London. Will it be Puss in Boots? Ah, gentlemen, it may have boots but it certainly won’t have breeches. The Duke’s cat is a sansculottic cat. And a sanguinary cat and a socialistic cat. But meantime the mice may play and the punch is ready. Professor, you will take a glass? Nunc est bibendum, Marlow, nunc est bibendum. And if pede libero pulsanda tellus be ruled out by our advancing years, at least we may have a catch.’ And Mr Collins, having served out the punch to his satisfaction, gave every indication of being about to break into song.

  What used to be called Table Talk, thought Appleby. Perhaps the old gentleman wrote it all down afterwards and would one day publish it in a book. Table Talk by Dash Collins Esquire, Librarian to His Grace the Duke of Nesfield, KG… And meantime it made another atmosphere somewhat inimical to brisk criminal investigation.

  ‘Talking of cats,’ said the Duke adroitly, ‘there is one that has got out of the bag. The meteorite, Collins, the meteorite. Our friends here have discovered that it came from somewhere about the place and they have called to inquire. I don’t remember ever having seen it myself.’

  ‘Probably you never have.’ Mr Collins abandoned his singing posture and sat back comfortably by the fire. ‘Very probably you never have, Duke. You bought it only a few months ago. And hard upon its arrival on this dim spot which men call Earth.’ Mr Collins paused as if to savour the flavour of this quotation and of the punch together. ‘Hammond got you to buy it.’