The Bloody Wood

by Michael Innes

  ‘Yes,’ Appleby said.

  ‘I suppose you’ve had a lot to do with death, sir? Violent death, I mean.’

  ‘I was up against a certain amount of it in the earlier part of my career.’ Appleby spoke a shade shortly. It must be something of quite recent occurrence, it struck him, that had excited this young man. He didn’t see why he himself should be drawn by it into chatter about death. But Bobby Angrave went on. This time, he might have been trying to talk philosophy with his tutor.

  ‘As to whether life is to be held desirable,’ he said, ‘the best opinions seem to differ. And, of course, mere death cannot be held either desirable or undesirable, since it is in fact not a state of being at all. Very well. Suppose that a killing disease – or suppose that a murderer – was coming at you. Would you have any rational ground for feeling resentment?’ Bobby paused briefly. ‘But perhaps,’ he added, ‘that is not a meaningful question.’

  Appleby said nothing. This, he felt, was probably what Bobby’s tutor would have done. They had come to a halt again at the foot of the steps leading up to the terrace. The house itself was invisible except for its topmost storey. But there were several splashes of light which could come only from the music room. So everybody hadn’t gone to bed.

  ‘There’s nothing in being dead,’ Bobby Angrave reiterated. ‘Whether there’s anything in going to death, I don’t know. It may well always be wicked. Certainly it can confer no positive benefit, but on the other hand it can annihilate despair and pain – which in practice comes to the same thing. So much for being dead and going to death. Then there’s dying. Certainly there is something to that: the kind of terror we were speaking about, and disagreeable physical sensations stretching from discomfort to agony. Of course some people are said to look forward to the hope of a joyful resurrection. But we can leave that out.’ Bobby paused again. He was in the enjoyment, Appleby supposed, of the persuasion that he was now handling his theme confidently and well, so that a clear alpha mark would be jotted down for him at the conclusion of the proceedings. ‘And so,’ he went on, ‘we come finally to being died on. And that really does give one pause.’

  ‘As your uncle is now being died on, you mean?’

  ‘Just that, sir. It brings in the whole business of love.’

  ‘It certainly does.”

  ‘The cruel madness. May I fly that net.’

  Appleby was startled. For now the young man was really speaking out of some vivid experience – experience more sudden in its impact than could have been his gathered perception of the present state of affairs at Charne. And experience surely, that was strictly traumatic, that might really wound or maim.

  ‘I’m not clear,’ Appleby said slowly, ‘as to quite what this is about. But I think that the cruel madness may really be in what you are saying and feeling. For it’s a denial of life to decline the richness of experience just because in the end there may be a bill to pay.’

  ‘People can do insane things, when in the net of love, passion, even affection. I know.’

  ‘For that matter, I know too. And I suppose one has simply to try to lend a hand.’

  ‘One has to extract some rational benefit from the mess.’

  ‘I can’t see that we’re talking about a mess.’

  ‘Well – say simply that one has to extract something out of the bizarre things people do. But I’m afraid I must be boring you frightfully, sir.’ Bobby produced this well-bred young man’s conventional deference and diffidence with his familiar faint irony. It wasn’t a quality for which there was much scope, Appleby supposed, in the fabricating of Latin verses. ‘In fact,’ Bobby went on, ‘we’re rather a boring crowd at Charne.’

  ‘I’ve never been in the least of that opinion.’ Appleby said this firmly enough to constitute a rebuke. ‘And at least you’ve made your way here in quite a hurry, surely? The Oxford summer term can’t be over.’

  ‘I cut out a week early. It’s one of the advantages of being a prize boy. The old gentlemen indulge you. The subject of the composition I’m working on, you know, is Rus in Urbe. I told our President that I needed immediate rus, and that another week of urbs would be fatal to my starting at all. He beamed approval and pressed my hand at parting. And here I am.’

  ‘And everybody is pleased.’ Since Bobby was now laughing, Appleby laughed too. Like most young men, Bobby Angrave could strike his elders as tiresome enough at times. But one of the tiresome habits of youth is judging it necessary to lay a kind of smoke-screen over their more generous impulses. It might well be that Bobby had cut short a thoroughly enjoyable term at Oxford in order to be with his uncle in this grim period. And he hadn’t perhaps known that his aunt was clinging to her habit of filling – or quarter-filling – Charne with guests.

  ‘What do you think of my cousin Martine Rivière?’ Bobby asked abruptly.

  ‘I haven’t had much conversation with her, so far. She’s clever, isn’t she?’

  ‘Yes – unlike that poor old thicky, Diana Page.’ Bobby began mounting the steps to the terrace. ‘I suppose Martine trundles Diana round as a kind of foil.’

  ‘I rather like Diana. As a matter of fact, you might find her–’ Appleby checked himself. He had been about to say ‘a good deal more responsive in certain ways than Martine is ever likely to be’. But if Bobby didn’t know this – he told himself – it had perhaps better not be put in his head. For there was a lurking ruthlessness in Bobby – the ruthlessness, and perhaps even the chilly sensuality, that goes with the theoretical mind. And Diana, after all, was very young. So, instead, he said lightly: ‘Is it Martine who has drawn you so quickly to Charne?’

  ‘I had heard she was here.’

  ‘You find her attractive?’

  ‘Oh, decidedly. In other circumstances, I can imagine myself hunting her like mad. Of course, nothing much would come of it, even when everything had. But that might be the essence of fun. Or that’s my guess. But I’m totally ignorant, of course. The mundus muliebris isn’t my affair. Still, I’m keeping an eye on Martine.’

  Appleby, beset by the peculiar discomfort that attends the reception of callow talk, said nothing. At least it would be an error to suppose that this accomplished young man didn’t know his way around in the sphere just touched upon. There was no harm in that. Nevertheless he felt that, for the moment, he and Bobby Angrave had enjoyed enough of each other’s company.

  ‘I’ll take one more turn along the terrace,’ he said, ‘and then follow you in. It will let me finish this cigar. I’ve always suspected that your aunt doesn’t love the things.’

  ‘Aunt Grace is a fastidious woman.’ Bobby nodded, prepared to turn away. ‘It must make it all additionally formidable for her – wouldn’t you say? I believe that dying doesn’t merely have those terrors and agonies. It has its bad smells as well. Enjoy your cigar.’

  And Bobby walked off towards the house. The moonlight thrust a pale shadow before him on the gravel. Appleby stood still for a moment, and watched him go. He was far from convinced that Bobby had scored any sort of alpha during this curious half-hour.

  4

  It had been to find Bobby Angrave, Appleby recalled, that he had separated himself from the party in the loggia and strolled out into the grounds. Or rather he had made that an excuse for wandering away. And it suddenly came to him now, with an odd effect of belated discovery, that he had really been prompted to seek solitude by something quite different. Something – and he had wanted to find out what – had been twitching at his mind.

  It was long professional habit that made him attentive to these obscure intimations of subliminal uneasiness. The detection of crime is a scientific process; he had watched it becoming progressively more so throughout his own professional career. But, like mathematics or modern physics, it is surprisingly dependent on intuitive factors, all the same. There are times at which the solution of a mystery ca
n simply start up in the mind like a creation. Or it may lurk in the obscurer regions of the psyche and teasingly refuse to appear – or it may do no more than flash a fin, so to speak, above the surface of consciousness. It was second nature to Appleby to be sensitive to these tiny signals – so much so that he could not do other than attend to them when they came, even when it was in a context quite aside from his official life. Nowadays his crime-solving days were really over; he had to sit back and watch others at the job. But he still treated with unfailing respect these faint, momentary intimations that in this or that insignificant appearance lay something that ought to be attended to, that ought to be coaxed into revealing itself. The sense that there had been something, but that only deep down in his head did he know what, was still the keenest challenge that he knew. And he would attend to it in or out of season: it might be while reading a memorandum at his desk; it might be while taking tea with one of Judith’s aunts. This was what had really brought him out of the loggia this evening. Here he was at Charne, miles away from any possibility of crime. But there had been something. Something that somebody had said had given that small familiar twitch to his mind, and he had left the party in the loggia – this itself by an almost unconscious process – in order to give it an opportunity less uncertainly to declare itself.

  Well, it hadn’t worked – perhaps because of the sudden manner in which Bobby Angrave had appeared on the scene. This was of no more importance than a failure to solve a chess problem or to find a clue in a crossword puzzle. Still, he didn’t like being baffled. So now he gave his mind one last chance. Instead of simply walking down the terrace and back, he walked right round the house.

  The door most frequently used for familiar comings and goings at Charne was in the west front. It lay in shadow at the moment, as did a diagonal slice of the broad paved yard separating it from a sprawl of stables and offices in part concealed behind a high stone wall. But as Appleby approached a light went on, the door opened, and Friary could be seen and heard bidding goodnight to a briskly moving man who carried a small bag. This was Dr Fell. He almost collided with Appleby as he made for his car, and then started back in an agitation that seemed to suggest either a sick or a very tired man. The two men exchanged greetings – perhaps with a slight awkwardness, since Appleby felt that he should scarcely inquire as to how the doctor had found his patient.

  ‘It’s wonderful how Friary gets back on the job,’ he said, by way of finding some casual remark.

  ‘Back on the job?’ Dr Fell had a brusque manner. ‘I don’t understand you.’

  ‘Oh, merely that he takes a little constitutional to the village every evening.’

  ‘Does he, indeed? It might be better if he didn’t.’

  ‘You confirm my worst suspicions. At least, I suppose you do. Is Friary the local Lothario?’

  ‘I wouldn’t give it so romantic a name.’ Fell opened the door of his car, and shoved in his case. ‘Where did Martineau get hold of him, I wonder? It’s usually a groom or an under-gardener – or a footman, where they still happen – who makes a nuisance of himself when he has a strategic base in a house like this. At least you’d suppose the wretched girls might be safe from a butler.’

  ‘I see. Well, Friary might be described, I suppose, as a well-preserved butler. As to where Martineau picked him up, I haven’t a notion. He may have a past, no doubt. But then we all do.’

  ‘Just what do you mean by that?’

  Appleby was startled. The words had come, sharp and uncontrolled, from the obscurity of the car into which Dr Fell had now climbed.

  ‘I mean no more than I say,’ he said. ‘That’s my habit.’

  ‘Sorry.’ Fell’s voice was at once confused and apologetic. ‘I’ve had a damnable day – and you can guess I’m not happy about Mrs Martineau. And now I must be off. Another couple of calls, as a matter of fact.’

  ‘I wouldn’t like your job – although I wish I did as useful a one.’ Appleby stood back, waiting for Fell to slam his door. ‘Certainly not in winter. It’s something you have to grow up to, I think.’

  ‘Well, I didn’t. As you know. Good night.’

  At this the door did shut; the engine of the car came to life with an unimpressive rattle; Dr Fell flicked on his lights, and drove off rapidly down the drive.

  One can put a foot in it, Appleby thought. One can put both feet in it. But to put each foot in it successively is something of an achievement. And with Dr Fell he seemed to have managed just that. To be so touchy, the man must have had some nasty check to his career, and a country doctor’s job must irk him, even although he was good at it. Appleby turned back, and made his way round to the terrace. Perhaps Fell had thought he was hinting some knowledge of him, and proposing to winkle out more. People did sometimes take it for granted that his profession must render him ceaselessly inquisitive about other folks’ affairs. It was a misconception. And certainly he hadn’t the slightest wish to learn more about Dr Fell.

  I do not love you Dr Fell… Nor hate you, nor care twopence for you either way. Appleby had come to this conclusion on the matter – which showed that he was not very pleased with himself – when he rounded the corner of the house. Lights were still burning in the music room, but in addition to this somebody appeared to have returned to the loggia, for there was a light there also. Appleby strolled over to it, vaguely supposing it might be his wife. Judith too – although so inveterately sociable – was fond of occasional solitude.

  It wasn’t Judith; it was Diana Page. For a moment he thought she was asleep, for she was sitting hunched across a small table, with her head buried in her arms. Then he saw her shoulders heave, and heard the sound of convulsive sobbing. For some reason or other – and, like Dr Gregory Fell’s past, it was no business of his – Diana was having a good, a very good, cry. Appleby backed hastily, proposing to steal away. Only this time, unfortunately, he put his foot in it quite literally. Mrs Martineau’s gardening basket was on the ground by the loggia door. It contained, among other things, a small watering can. He stepped into the one, and overturned the other.

  Diana jerked herself upright. She stared at Appleby, and Appleby stared at her. To step forward with some word, or some mere gesture of comfort might have seemed natural enough. But there are tears and tears – and Diana’s, at the moment, somehow didn’t prompt to consolation. She was, as Appleby had told himself earlier, little more than a child. It was a child’s face that looked at him now. At the same time it was a face vividly sensuous – and with a sensuousness that had somehow been outraged or baffled. Angry mortification was what Appleby saw as he looked. It could be read as plainly as a book.

  ‘Go away! You beastly, beastly spy, go away!’ This came from Diana as a mere cry; she reiterated the words again and again; like a small girl in a tantrum, she waved her fists in front of her face.

  It seemed undeniable to Appleby that he was having a bad evening. First Dr Fell had put on a turn for him, and then – much more violently – this spoilt and sulky child. The judicious response to Diana, he supposed, would be stern words, briskly spoken. Or perhaps she ought to be slapped. Again, her hysteria might be controlled by means of the contents of the watering can. But on the whole it would probably be best to do exactly what she asked, and go away. Diana was in real misery, no doubt, but he was pretty sure its occasion didn’t lie in any quarter where he could be helpful.

  Having come to this conclusion, Appleby turned to leave the loggia. He found himself confronted by Friary.

  ‘I beg your pardon, sir. I supposed there was nobody here, and came to turn off the light.’ As he said this, Friary was clearly enough taking in the scene before him. His expression might have been described as impassive – except, indeed, that this would have been to convey a wrong idea of him. It is the word conventionally applied to the features of upper servants when confronted with an untoward situation. But although Friary was undeniably an
upper servant there was something about him – Appleby reflected, not for the first time – that didn’t quite cohere with the character. It wasn’t entirely a matter of his age. It wasn’t even his physique – although that suggested itself as an athlete’s – or anything definably out of the way in his manner. Perhaps it was something that ought to have been quite insignificant: how he held his hands, or the way be brushed his hair.

  But what chiefly struck Appleby now was something quite different; it was consciousness of the turn of speed Friary had put on between closing that distant door upon Dr Fell and presenting himself here in the loggia. He must have had the shocking circumstance of a needlessly burning light very much on his mind. For a moment Appleby even had the strange thought that the man had been hastening to keep an assignation with Diana Page. If it were so, it wouldn’t be quite right, this time, to tell himself that the matter was no business of his. Fortunately – or unfortunately – the idea was probably just another instance of his deplorable professional instinct to uncover intrigue. He simply wasn’t fit – he sometimes told himself – to frequent normal society.

  Meanwhile, Friary was still watching Diana – and doing so very much at his ease. Appleby saw no occasion for this.

  ‘Thank you,’ he said briskly. ‘I’ll see to the lights.’

  ‘Thank you, sir.’ Friary gave the ghost of a bow, and walked from the loggia. His manner of doing so wasn’t remotely offensive. But even in this action there was something that left one wondering, all the same.

  The interruption had at least served to pull Diana Page together. She had blown her nose; she was now dabbing at herself out of some small cosmetic contrivance.

  ‘I was being silly,’ she said. ‘It’s Mrs Martineau. I can’t bear it.’

  ‘Have you and Martine been staying at Charne long?’ Appleby asked. He had better, he thought, say something that didn’t contravert Diana’s explanation of her conduct, although it wasn’t an explanation he believed.