A Connoisseur's Case

by Michael Innes

  ‘Well, no. His mind seems to be running on foul play. But policemen are obliged to think of such things.’ Coulson checked himself, and made what appeared to be a spontaneous gesture of apology. ‘But I really forgot, Sir John, that you must yourself, I suppose, be called a policeman.’

  Appleby felt that it was his turn to offer a straight glance, and at the same time make it explicit that in fact he wasn’t paying a merely social call.

  ‘Of course,’ he said, ‘I have no standing in this affair at all. Or not officially. But, as it happens, I have spent the better part of my career in criminal investigation. So when I happen to stumble upon what may be a crime, the local police take it for granted that I’ll give them a hand if I can. Something of the sort is plainly in this man Hilliard’s head. And I have to confess that an unsolved mystery acts as a kind of irritant on me. I want to scratch. So wherever I go at the moment – Scroop House or anywhere else – I shall be thinking about Crabtree’s death, and looking round for any light I can get on it. This is rather an awkward thing to say. But it must be said.’

  There was a short silence. Mrs Coulson employed it in remarking a drooping plant on the balustrade, rising, watering it, and returning composedly to her chair.

  ‘Quite right,’ Bertram Coulson said. ‘If there’s a mystery about this man’s death, I’m glad you’re here to look into it. We don’t want anything of a dubious nature going unquestioned, I assure you. Bad for local feeling. Of course I’m a magistrate and so forth, as well as passing pretty tolerably as the squire, and perhaps I can say without impertinence that your help is welcome.’

  ‘Thank you.’ Appleby felt that Coulson had come rather well out of this. ‘And I’m afraid we can’t very lightly dismiss the possibility of foul play. Frankly, I don’t see how Crabtree’s injuries could have been accidentally occasioned.’

  ‘Well, I’ve been down to the lock, and I think I do. It’s astonishing, the queer things that can happen through sheer misadventure and accident. I’ve seen a good many in Australia. And I don’t doubt that you’ve seen a good many nearer home.’

  ‘That’s perfectly true.’

  ‘Take something I was reading of the other day. An American on a golf course. Millionaire, as it happens, which is why it hit the headlines. Took a swipe with one of those steel clubs, broke it, and contrived to have it pierce his groin, so that he died on the spot. Unbelievable, wouldn’t you say?’

  ‘Oh, how horrible!’ Mrs Coulson had sprung to her feet, knocking over her watering can with a clatter. She instantly sat down again. ‘Forgive me! Bertram, is there any point in your telling us of such a thing?’

  ‘My dear Edith, I am so sorry!’ Coulson appeared genuinely concerned. ‘I wanted merely to remind Sir John that one sometimes hears of very unlikely accidents indeed. And at least I shall continue to hope that Crabtree wasn’t murdered. His death is sufficiently upsetting even if due to natural causes. He had come back to Scroop – and out of the most admirable local piety, I believe. Yesterday I met him, and I liked him. He was elderly, but I should certainly have found him employment. I blame myself that I didn’t inquire more particularly about his immediate circumstances, and perhaps offer him a bed in the servants’ wing.’

  ‘I rather gather,’ Appleby said, ‘that you had never met him before, since he went off to America while the Binnses were still here at Scroop. But had you heard of him?’

  ‘It depends what you mean.’ Coulson appeared to be gaining confidence with Appleby. ‘I don’t believe, as it happens, that I ever heard anybody speak of him. Peter Binns may have done so, but I don’t remember anything of the sort. But, all the same, Crabtree wasn’t a complete surprise to me. I’d read about him.’

  For a moment this statement seemed entirely odd. Seth Crabtree had not, perhaps, been a wholly commonplace person. But Judith at least, who had placed him so securely in the context of Gray’s Elegy, was disposed to see him as eminently a youth to fortune and to fame unknown. Nor did Appleby see how he could well have been written about.

  ‘You must take a glance at my books.’ Suddenly Coulson was speaking with diffidence. ‘I have pretty well everything, I think, in which this old place is mentioned. Not, of course, that it is old.’

  ‘1786,’ Judith said.

  ‘Quite right.’ Coulson was pleased. ‘There was, as a matter of fact, a Jacobean house, built by an earlier Coulson. For what it’s worth, I may mention that he had been Speaker of the House of Commons.’ There was a faint quiver in Coulson’s voice as he casually announced this. ‘But the family went rather to pot in the later seventeenth century, and the house became ruinous and simply disappeared. It was pretty well as a new man that a fellow called Bertram Coulson, who had restored the family fortunes as a merchant in Bristol, called in William Chambers to build this house.’ Coulson turned in his chair, so that he had a view of his inheritance. ‘In its plain way, it’s not too bad, wouldn’t you say?’

  ‘I love it, Mr Coulson.’ Judith said this honestly enough. ‘But you were saying that you have most of the books that have any mention of Scroop.’

  ‘Ah, yes – I was forgetting. And this poor fellow Crabtree comes in. Quite casually, that is to say, in the memoirs of two or three people who record visits to the place in old Sara Coulson’s time.’

  ‘You mean that Crabtree was a sort of character among the servants, and got mentioned as being quaint or humorous or something of that sort?’

  ‘Almost that. But not quite.’ Coulson seemed anxious to be precise. ‘He had some sort of position with the old lady. People felt that she relied on him. It was something like that. Nobody makes much of it. But it had caught my eye as I read. And I remembered about it as soon as Crabtree mentioned his name to me yesterday.’

  ‘Do any of the books,’ Appleby asked, ‘say anything about your butler?’

  ‘Hollywood?’ Coulson was surprised. ‘Why should they? Ah, but I forgot. He is, of course, our link with the old lady. He was with her for some years, and stayed on with Binns and later with ourselves. But Hollywood is an unnoticeable man. Nobody would think to mention Hollywood in a book. Don’t you agree, Edith?’

  ‘Yes, I do agree.’ Mrs Coulson was glancing along the terrace. ‘But I think it will have occurred to Sir John that Hollywood may be able to tell him something about this unfortunate dead man in the old days. If, that is to say, his death really calls for inquiry into the past history of Scroop. And here is Hollywood coming now.’

  An elderly man was advancing down the terrace, carrying a silver tray. And Bertram Coulson noted this with approval. He turned to Judith.

  ‘Ah, yes,’ he said. ‘A glass of Madeira, Lady Appleby. It’s our habit at this hour.’

  9

  Appleby’s first glance at the Coulsons’ butler was taken, not unnaturally, in the light of his colleague Tarbox’s lurid portrait of his past. For here, if Tarbox was to be believed, was a retired – presumably a retired – Tarquin: the ravisher, or at least seducer, of bevies of female domestics now known at Scroop no more.

  One would scarcely, Appleby decided, have guessed anything of the sort. Indeed, confronted with Hollywood, one would have felt very little sanguine of guessing anything at all. He was a spare man of indefinite age, parchment-like pallor, and absolute immobility of countenance. Unlike Tarbox, who, beneath a convention of impassivity was both communicative and cordially disposed, Hollywood was the sort of servant who admits no shadow of personal relationship with his employers. Appleby, judging him unattractive, thought it odd that he should have survived through three successive regimes at Scroop. Old Mrs Coulson must first have engaged or promoted him, and perhaps her notions of the grand manner had included servants like automata. Alfred Binns, whose social origins were presumably simple, might have kept him on as a man who at least usefully knew all the local ropes. But it was more surprising that Bertram Coulson, who was simple only in a more subtle and idiosyncratic way, should have kept him on as well. For one would somehow expect the presen
t proprietor of Scroop to have in his mind, as appropriate to this particular employment, a man capable of a little more personal warmth, and better answering to the traditional notion of a family retainer, than the grim and grey person now disposing a decanter and glasses on a table beside his employer.

  ‘Just a moment, Hollywood.’ Bertram Coulson spoke briskly and pleasantly. His feeling of inadequacy as the inheritor of Scroop, if it really existed, certainly didn’t extend to awkwardness with servants. ‘A Mr Hilliard, an inspector of police, is coming up later this morning in connection with the man who was found dead yesterday. It seems likely that there will be extensive inquiries. And my guest here, Sir John Appleby, who is a great authority on such matters, is also interested.’

  ‘Yes, sir?’ Hollywood, after offering his employer this response in a chilly tone, turned and offered Appleby an equally chilly bow.

  ‘Well, Hollywood’ – for a moment Coulson seemed to feel for an opening – ‘I think you must remember something of this man Crabtree in the old days?’

  ‘I remember him, sir.’

  ‘And you recognized him when he came up to the house yesterday?’

  ‘Yes and no, sir. I had a feeling that he was somebody who had worked about the place long ago. And a little more came back to me later.’

  ‘May I mention something?’ Appleby interposed. ‘Crabtree seemed to feel that you were unresponsive.’

  ‘It may have been so, sir. I had a feeling that he was not a man up to much good.’

  ‘That is most interesting.’ Appleby, who was now being handed a glass of Madeira, looked steadily at Hollywood. ‘Did you feel that he had come here for the purpose of making some troublesome application to Mr Coulson?’

  ‘Yes, sir. That was my feeling. It was not a matter of anything the man said, but rather of his manner. There was something he was proposing to presume on. I felt that there was even a suggestion of a threat.’

  ‘A threat, Hollywood?’ It was Mrs Coulson who spoke. And there was something new in her voice. ‘This was yesterday morning?’

  ‘Yes, madam. Shortly before eleven o’clock.’

  There was a short silence. Appleby took a sip at his Madeira – of which he didn’t, at this hour, propose to drink much.

  ‘I’m trying,’ he said, ‘to get a clear picture of Crabtree’s standing in the late Mrs Coulson’s household. Can you help me there?’

  ‘He had none, sir. He was an outdoor man.’

  ‘No doubt. But there is evidence that Mrs Coulson held him in some regard. This must be something you know about, I think – if you will just try to remember.’

  Hollywood produced his most aloof bow.

  ‘I believe I do, sir. Mrs Coulson judged Crabtree to have taste. In the gardens in general. But particularly with herbaceous borders. He became rather a tyrant, I believe, in matters of that sort.’

  Bertram Coulson shook his head impatiently.

  ‘This doesn’t seem to be getting us very far,’ he said. ‘And my own impression of Crabtree yesterday doesn’t support Hollywood’s in the least. I found nothing troublesome in him, and certainly no suggestion of a threat.’

  ‘I am very glad to hear it, sir.’ Hollywood’s tone was excessively smooth. ‘I must have been mistaken, of course. Can I be of any further assistance?’

  ‘Everybody must try to be that, Hollywood.’ For the first time, Bertram Coulson spoke a shade sharply. ‘Sir John knows that I am not convinced that anything criminal or sinister has occurred. But, if the police think otherwise, they are likely to be right. It’s their business to be so. And now, Hollywood, here is the plain fact. As long as the affair is a mystery, none of us is beyond suspicion. Or that’s my reading of the matter. Appleby, am I right?’

  Appleby nodded. Whatever the origin – he was thinking – of the curious uncertainty that lurked deep in Coulson, the man had a thoroughly sound intelligence. His wife was probably not wrong in the supposition that, had not Scroop House turned up on him, he would have gone even farther than he had in the matter of packing meat.

  ‘Yes,’ Appleby said. ‘That’s fair enough. Hilliard will want to question everybody – and he’s entitled to. I want to do the same thing – and I’m not.’

  Mrs Coulson, who had been silent for some time, and whose gaze had been rather wistfully on her watering can, was moved to speech by this.

  ‘What kind of questions, Sir John?’

  ‘Some rather crude ones, I’m afraid. But please realize that they may very well turn out to be entirely irrelevant. Crabtree, as has been suggested to me, may have been killed by some ruffian totally unknown to any of us, and as a mere matter of petty robbery. But, until some positive evidence to that effect appears, we have to explore other assumptions. He worked here long ago. He comes back and contacts the place. Within a matter of hours, he is killed. We must consider the implications of that.’

  ‘You mean’ – Mrs Coulson hesitated – ‘that the explanation of his death lies far back in the history of Scroop?’

  ‘I consider that possibility – among others.’

  ‘I see.’ Very curiously, Mrs Coulson uttered an uncontrolled gasp or sigh. It might have been of apprehension, or it might have been of relief. It might even have betokened a confused mingling of these emotions. Or – Appleby told himself out of long experience – it might have no significance at all, except as a reminder that the most innocent of English gentlewomen may be subject to a modicum of emotional distress when suddenly brought hard up against a violent crime.

  ‘The first and elementary questions,’ Appleby went on, ‘concern the time at which Crabtree died, and the account that each individual can give of how he was employing himself – and in whose company, if any – at the relevant period.’

  At this, Coulson gave a harsh laugh.

  ‘Well,’ he said, ‘I call that crude enough. But it’s plain good sense, as well. We’d better begin – and have our information ready for Hilliard. Ought we to have the young people along?’

  ‘Peter and Daphne?’ Mrs Coulson, who had abandoned the study of her watering can in favour of an absent glance into empty space, turned alert at this. ‘I don’t think we want any effect of summoning them, Bertram. We have, of course, known them from childhood. But they remain our guests. If Mr Hilliard wishes to question them when he arrives, let him do so.’

  ‘I am sure you are quite right, Edith.’ Coulson turned to Appleby. ‘May we know, for a start, just when Crabtree is supposed to have died? Or is that to go about the matter the wrong way round?’

  ‘Not at all. Let us begin there, by all means. And it is very much Judith’s and my own part in the affair. We were talking to Crabtree at one o’clock. He left us at approximately one-twenty. We saw his body in the lock at precisely one fifty-eight. Take the distance from the Jolly Leggers to the lock into account, and you will see that we have a tight time schedule on our hands. Nobody can have been directly concerned in his death who can account for his, or her, movements during a crucial twenty minutes which these times indicate. And it’s a twenty minutes, I should imagine, during which this household would have been in each other’s presence at luncheon.’

  ‘One-forty onwards?’ Bertram Coulson asked this question slowly and with a new severity of accent.

  ‘Precisely that,’ Appleby said.

  ‘Then luncheon doesn’t help. We eat it at twelve-thirty at this time of year. And yesterday, for some reason, it was a somewhat perfunctory and hasty affair. I know I was out in the park by one o’clock. I had one or two things to think over – and did the job on a solitary walk. The rest of us were probably dispersed by the same hour. Wouldn’t that be right, Hollywood?’

  ‘You forget, sir, that I did not serve luncheon yesterday. I instructed Evans to do so. I was engaged in checking over the table linen, since the mistress and I were to consider replacements.’

  ‘By yourself?’ Appleby asked.

  ‘Certainly, sir. But I was joined by the mistress at half past one, and
we were then in the linen room together until a little after two o’clock.’ Hollywood turned to Mrs Coulson. ‘That, madam, I think would be correct?’

  For a moment Mrs Coulson, who had returned to studying space, made no reply.

  ‘You would confirm the hour, madam?’ There was no trace of urgency or anxiety in Hollywood’s voice.

  ‘Yes, Hollywood – of course.’

  Mrs Coulson, too, spoke without excitement. But she was looking at her husband’s butler, Appleby thought, as if she had never seen him before.

  ‘That takes us some way, then,’ Bertram Coulson said. And he in his turn spoke calmly. It came to Appleby that Mrs Coulson’s having established an alibi – or her having an alibi established for her – meant absolutely nothing to her husband. And this was not because of indifference. It was because it would never have occurred to him to suspect her for a moment of complicity in anything resembling crime. ‘And now,’ Coulson went on, ‘it really is only the children whom Sir John may want to talk to. Unless, that is, all the servants are to be considered as in the picture.’

  ‘They’ll be in Hilliard’s picture,’ Appleby said. ‘I don’t think they need be in mine.’ He paused. There had been something in the way Coulson had said ‘the children’ making it clear that Alfred Binns’ not wholly engaging son and daughter enjoyed almost an adoptive position here at Scroop. ‘Peter and Daphne,’ he asked, ‘come here a good deal?’

  ‘Yes – and we are always glad to have them. They are, you know, motherless. Edith’ – Coulson glanced at his wife – ‘has always tried to do what she could, particularly for the girl. But it was the boy who, at first, used to be keener on coming back here.’

  ‘He enjoys country life and sports?’ Judith asked.

  ‘I don’t know that one could say that.’ Bertram Coulson sounded faintly puzzled. ‘He likes a little shooting. In fact there he is, going after the pigeons again now.’

  The figure of Peter Binns had appeared at a corner of the house. He was carrying a gun and making for the wood.