The Open House

by Michael Innes

  ‘You’d better not struggle,’ he said. ‘I have a pretty good hold on you.’

  ‘My dear Beddoes, you are being somewhat impetuous, are you not?’

  Appleby let go hastily. The clergyman – who now quite plainly was a clergyman – sat up. And, at the same moment, Professor Snodgrass emerged on the terrace.

  ‘That isn’t Beddoes,’ the Professor said prosaically. ‘It’s Sir John Appleby, my dear William. He’s our new neighbour. At least I take it he’s that. I suspect he has a notion there may be thieves around. I suppose him to imagine that he has apprehended one in your person. Appleby, this is our vicar, Dr Absolon. Shall we all go inside? William, you need a clothes-brush. Leonidas must find you one. He’s coming over to the Park presently. Your visit is at a surprising hour – but timely, as a matter of fact. I’ll tell you why, as soon as you’ve had a drink.’

  ‘I don’t know what you mean by a surprising hour.’ Dr Absolon had risen and was dusting himself down. He was also regarding Appleby (whom he might reasonably have considered to be little better than a mad dog) with perfect charity. ‘It’s the hour you asked me to turn up at, after all.’

  ‘Dear me!’ The Professor appeared slightly disconcerted. ‘Are you sure, my dear fellow?’

  ‘Of course I’m sure. You said there was a strong probability of your nephew arriving, and that I ought to be here to welcome him on behalf of the parish.’

  ‘Did I? In any case, it’s very jolly of you, William, to have come across. And Adrian is certainly back at Ledward, I’m delighted to say. So come inside, both of you.’

  Although conscious of thereby indicting himself of some infirmity of purpose, Appleby submitted, along with the new arrival, to this injunction. The odd posture of affairs at Ledward was really too seducing to abandon. Had Professor Snodgrass, or had Professor Snodgrass not, really invited Dr Absolon to turn up at this unearthly hour? If he had, the manner in which he had now received the vicar suggested that he had forgotten all about it. Had Absolon (like other problematical persons earlier that night) been for some reason lurking outside the library when Appleby tumbled out on him? Or did that particular terrace constitute his normal route from his vicarage to the Park? As he framed these silent questions, Appleby found himself in possession of another glass of port. He regarded it without enthusiasm. He was again feeling hungry, and what he would chiefly have liked would have been to return to the dining-room, and there – whether in the company of Adrian Snodgrass or not – recruit himself from the collation provided. But it was clear that Adrian’s uncle attached an almost sacramental significance to the returned wanderer’s supping in august solitude. And probably he would regard the inside of an hour as the minimum time requisite for this refection. Appleby would have to put up with satisfying a purely intellectual appetite.

  Resigned to this, he took a good look at Dr Absolon. He was a middle-aged man, and plainly in the enjoyment of a robust constitution and benign temperament. This latter endowment, indeed, he had decidedly required to carry him unperturbed through his recent upsetting experience. He seemed to bear Appleby no ill-will, but he was certainly eyeing him with some curiosity. Considering that this stranger had been abruptly presented to him as a new neighbour with a more or less obsessive interest in thieves, this was natural enough. Appleby decided further to expand his claim to the role.

  ‘On this occasion last year,’ he said firmly, ‘the Professor had some reason to suppose that there might be thieves around. And this year – although I haven’t so far alarmed him with the mention of it – I have had some reason to feel the same thing myself. I wonder, sir, whether you have seen or heard anything as you walked over to the Park?’

  ‘Too dark to see even the nose on one’s face. I simply aimed at the Professor’s illuminations, and walked straight ahead. Lead, kindly Light, to Ledward, so to speak.’ Absolon appeared to find this turn of phrase amusing rather than profane, for he laughed cheerfully. ‘But I did hear something, as a matter of fact. Voices somewhere in the dark, and close to where my path joins the drive.’

  ‘Do people normally move through that part of the park?’

  ‘Oh, certainly. There are several paths that people in the local hamlets are let use quite freely. It was uncommonly late for anything of the kind. But I imagined there had been some junketing somewhere in the neighbourhood.’

  ‘Ah – then they were rustic voices?’

  ‘No, I don’t think they were. No, decidedly they were not.’

  ‘Cultivated voices, in fact?’

  ‘I wouldn’t say they were that, either.’ Justifiably, the vicar seemed a little surprised at this inquisition. ‘Come to think of it, I’d say they might be described as lower-class urban voices.’

  ‘And just engaged in careless nocturnal chat?’

  ‘That wasn’t my impression, at all. What I seem to recall is two or three men, talking in low tones or whispering, as if to avoid all possibility of being overheard, but swearing at each other, and therefore raising their voices a little from time to time. I think one of them may have had a bicycle, since there was a sudden metallic sound which might have been a pedal scraping a wall in the dark. But certainly there were at least two men on foot, because I heard them go off more or less at a run.’

  ‘You must be credited with a most discriminating ear, sir.’ Appleby looked thoughtfully at Dr Absolon. ‘Would you draw any conclusion from this encounter?’

  ‘Thieves again, eh?’ The Professor interrupted with this. ‘But retreating, baffled, because the house is so brightly lit. I believe, my dear Appleby, I put that point to you earlier.’

  ‘You did. But they mayn’t have been baffled this time. Certainly we’ve taken no hand at baffling them. They may have made off with the Lord knows what, and they may have sounded cross to Dr Absolon because they were starting to quarrel over the booty.’

  ‘This is very disturbing,’ Dr Absolon said. He sniffed comfortably at his port. ‘Anything of the sort would sadly mar the homecoming of your nephew, my dear Beddoes. Ought we, perhaps, to investigate?’ As he made this suggestion, Absolon settled himself more deeply into his chair. ‘A most vexatious thing!’ he added. ‘I appear not to have brought my pipe.’

  ‘Then you must have a cigar.’ Professor Snodgrass had risen hospitably to his feet. ‘As for investigating, there is much to be said for it. Appleby, would you agree?’

  ‘Most definitely. But it’s not quite my place to take the initiative.’

  ‘Quite so. Nor mine, either.’ Having found and offered a cigar-box, the Professor was settling down again as for leisured chat. ‘We must put the matter to Adrian, wouldn’t you say? Report to him the slight uneasiness we feel. But not, of course, until the dear fellow has supped comfortably.’

  ‘I hope he appears to be in good health?’ Absolon asked.

  ‘So do I. I haven’t yet seen him, you know. As I’ve explained to Appleby, I feel Adrian should begin by taking undisturbed possession of the house.’

  ‘I see.’ Absolon looked puzzled; it was apparent that he found this whimsy as odd as Appleby did. ‘In fact, it is not yet quite certain that your nephew has arrived? It may be somebody quite different?’

  ‘Stuff and nonsense, my dear William! This is Adrian’s birthday, and there is a compact between us. Of course it is he. He simply drove up, and dismissed his conveyance. Appleby and I heard it quite clearly. Adrian will by now be in the dining-room.’

  ‘But has he not always been something of a jester, Beddoes? What if he has sent some wholly unsuitable person to keep this tryst with you?’ Dr Absolon, who was beginning to strike Appleby as possessing as curious a turn of mind as the Professor himself, paused consideringly. ‘A mistress, for example? It has never been clear to me that your nephew’s morals were particularly good. What if it is some outrageous Paphian girl, my dear fellow, who is scoffing whatever is upon your outspread board?’

  ‘This is no occasion for foolery, William.’

  ‘Perfectly true.�
�� The vicar paused to draw appreciatively upon his cigar. ‘For let me mention another hazard. It is many years since you saw Adrian; and your faculties, you know, are not quite what they were. My own acquaintance with him was slight, and my memory of him is a very general one. And he can never have been known to your butler, Simonides.’

  ‘Leonidas.’

  ‘To be sure. But my point is that, in this queer business we are involved in, there exist almost ideal conditions for successful impersonation. This ritual return, with its extravagant build-up of expectation on your part, must have the effect of rendering you wholly uncritical. Credulous, in fact, and ready to swallow anything. Sir John, don’t you agree with me?’

  ‘There is some cogency in your line of thought. But I don’t think the Professor is very happy with it.’

  This was an understatement. Absolon had certainly not paused to put much tact into the role of candid friend; and Professor Snodgrass was not taking kindly the suggestion that his wits were so decayed as to render him incapable of identifying his own nephew. That the vicar’s remarks were offered with perfect good humour and a kind of genial pastoral concern probably rendered them all the more annoying. Certainly the Professor retorted upon them with some heat.

  ‘William, the truth about you is that you spend too little time writing your sermons, and too much reading mystery stories. If you only came over to talk rubbish to me…’

  ‘But I didn’t. I came to make sure that no successful imposture takes place. For some years, I don’t think people had a clear notion of what you were about on this annual occasion. But now, as I happen to know, the whole neighbourhood has more or less got the hang of it – and it may well have spread a good deal farther than that. The very least that you must expect sooner or later is either some tiresome joke, or the much worse annoyance of a kind of Tichborne Claimant. I believe that imposture of that kind, my dear chap, has to be killed at once and on the ground. Let it take the air, and the devil’s own mischief may follow. Sir John, you would again agree with me?’

  ‘Certainly.’ Appleby was allowing himself to look with some astonishment at the vicar. ‘And you feel, sir, that you are the man to make that early kill?’

  ‘I could have a pretty good shot at it. And if anything of the sort is a possibility, I judged that Beddoes would be the better of a friend standing by. I was supposing, you know, that there would be nobody else here – except, perhaps, that fellow Leonidas. So I decided that Beddoes’ invitation should be accepted.’

  ‘You would nevertheless agree that, if somebody is indeed at supper in the dining-room at this moment, he is much more likely to be the genuine Adrian Snodgrass than a pretender?’

  ‘Oh, dear me, yes! I merely claim that there must be some substantial possibility of vexatious foolery, or of deception. Beddoes, I hope you are not upset by these cautions and suspicions of mine?’

  The Professor, it seemed to Appleby, was less upset than bewildered. He had stood up to Absolon stoutly enough, but – if only obscurely – his confidence could be felt as flickering. Or was it rather that the vicar’s unexpected onslaught had caused him to lose command of a role, so that he was searching round to recover it? Flushed, whether with indignation or alarm, he made only an unsuccessful attempt at utterance. Before he could try again, the library door had opened as library doors can only open under the hand of a trained manservant. The figure revealed was heavily bearded, and he was not dressed as butlers are dressed in the advertisements. Nevertheless Appleby was instantly assured that this stiff and ponderous figure was Leonidas, who had been received into the service of an eminent retired military historian on account of his name’s recalling the hero of Thermopylae.

  If Leonidas was surprised to find that his employer had company, nothing of it showed on features which were at once professionally impassive and so unprofessionally hirsute. If his glance did pause on Appleby, it was for no longer than was wholly decorous. And then he addressed Professor Snodgrass with an impassive formality.

  ‘Mr Snodgrass is in residence, sir,’ Leonidas said.

  6

  The first reaction to Leonidas’ announcement came, oddly enough, from the Reverend Doctor Absolon, so comfortably relaxed over his port and his cigar. It took the form, indeed, of no more than a flicker of the eyebrows, directed at Appleby. For a moment Appleby supposed that what was being suggested was merely a sense of mild amusement at a form of words which might have been deemed more appropriate to the movements of a duke or marquess than of one so addicted as Adrian Snodgrass appeared to be to the role of a very private gentleman. But then Appleby divined that it was something quite different that Absolon wanted to convey. Leonidas, he was indicating, had taken the identity of the new arrival for granted. Adrian Snodgrass was totally unknown to him, so here might be, as it were, the Tichborne Claimant in person. And the Claimant had won his first small round. A preliminary assumption was established. Professor Snodgrass had only to behave in as dotty a fashion as he appeared abundantly capable of, and the fellow might get away with goodness knew what.

  But Absolon was very tolerably dotty himself. Beneficed clergymen of the Church of England ought not to drift around scattering bizarre suspicions among their parishioners. And the suspicion was, of course, fantastic. Something quite sufficiently surprising had happened. Adrian Snodgrass was indeed in residence.

  ‘Quite so,’ the Professor was saying. ‘Precisely so, Leonidas. My guest and I heard Mr Snodgrass arrive. You have presented yourself?’

  ‘Yes, sir. I came over to the Park at the time you directed, and very shortly afterwards Mr Snodgrass rang the dining-room bell. I found him at table, sir. I uncorked the champagne.’

  ‘Excellent! And he appears to be in good spirits?’

  ‘Decidedly, sir. Most affable, he was. A jocose gentleman, if the word may be permitted me. I followed your instructions, explained that I was in your service at the Old Dower House, and that you had said I was to venture to wait upon him. He asked at once if I would consider being employed by himself at what he termed a stiffer screw. I took this as evidence of a facetious disposition. He then told me to put a second bottle of champagne on the ice.’

  ‘The devil he did!’ It was Dr Absolon who uttered this unclerical ejaculation. ‘Well, well!’

  ‘The which I did at once.’ Leonidas looked with a kind of respectful disapproval at the vicar. ‘I presume Mr Snodgrass had it in mind that he would presently be joined by the Professor. In fact, he indicated as much.’

  ‘Good!’ Professor Snodgrass said. ‘Capital! Just what did he say, Leonidas?’

  ‘Verbatim, sir?’

  ‘Certainly verbatim. I am most anxious to hear the dear lad’s words.’

  ‘He said, sir, to send the old fellow along at any time. I understand myself to be following the injunction – if that be an agreeable term, sir – now.’

  Not unnaturally, this piece of information produced a small pause. Appleby wondered whether Professor Snodgrass was experiencing a certain difficulty in swallowing it. He also conjectured that Leonidas had taken the suggestion of changed employment and a higher wage seriously. This would account for a certain cautiously menial insolence which the bearded butler was permitting himself.

  ‘Adrian appears affectionately disposed,’ Absolon offered dryly. ‘He does not propose to stand upon ceremony.’

  ‘But first,’ Leonidas continued with satisfaction, ‘he invited me to take a glass of madeira. I was honoured, and complied.’

  ‘Quite right,’ Professor Snodgrass said. ‘The gesture was a very proper one on my nephew’s part. Did he say anything else, Leonidas?’

  ‘Well, yes.’ Very rapidly, Leonidas gave his employer what Appleby found himself judging a wary glance. ‘He asked me whether I knew who the girl was.’

  ‘The girl, Leonidas!’

  ‘He said he had glimpsed a female person, sir. As he entered the house.’

  ‘Did he happen to say anything,’ Appleby interposed, ‘about the fema
le person’s being in white?’

  ‘No.’ Leonidas looked at Appleby with open disapprobation. ‘Mr Snodgrass did not animadvert upon the person’s attire.’

  ‘Have you yourself glimpsed this woman?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Or anybody else, since you came over to the Park?’

  For a moment Leonidas made no reply. Instead, he looked at his employer as if reproaching him for having suddenly descended to keeping low company. Then he brought himself again to glance at Appleby.

  ‘No,’ Leonidas said.

  There was another pause.

  ‘Dr Absolon,’ the Professor said pacifically to his butler, ‘has been aware of what might be called suspicious movements out in the park. And so, it appears, nearer the house, has Sir John Appleby. Sir John, by the way, Leonidas, is a new neighbour. It is a little worrying, you know. We did have that alarm at this time last year. But, of course, the lights keep actual burglars, and so forth, away.’

  ‘I am afraid that has never been my opinion, sir. Contrariwise, indeed.’ Leonidas’ disaffection appeared to be growing. ‘A residence like this, all lit up and deserted, has never made sense to me, I’m bound to say. I wouldn’t do it myself, not for a single night, I wouldn’t, not for a waggon-load of nephews, or monkeys either. It’s asking for suspicious happenings, it is. And when suspicious happenings happen, it’s the servants that get the worst of it. In good service, such oughtn’t to happen at all. To my mind, if I may be permitted to obtrude such a thing.’

  This highly improper speech naturally produced adverse reactions in the three gentlemen to whom, indifferently, it had been proffered. Dr Absolon’s glance contrived to express the conviction that, if one did employ a pampered butler, it was exactly this sort of impertinence that one must expect sooner or later. Appleby found himself wondering whether here was not so much a pampered butler as a clever rogue. And Professor Snodgrass himself appeared to feel that some mild rebuke was requisite.