Carson's Conspiracy

by Michael Innes

  ‘I see – but it doesn’t sound terribly serious so far.’ The Chief Constable was hospitably producing sherry from a cupboard. ‘On what sort of scale is neighbour Carson, City-wise?’

  ‘Moderately substantial, I imagine. A Rolls-Royce in the shed, and pictures by approved masters on the walls. Or that until just lately. Now they’ve got lost just like Robin.’

  ‘What the Capital Transfer chappies call a marked change in one’s standard of living, would you say?’

  ‘It may stretch to that. What appears to me to be happening is that the fellow is going for sudden liquidity like mad. I believe that’s the expression. Collecting simple and straightforward cash in a big way.’

  ‘Elementary, my dear John. Your friend is in trouble on the markets, and is preparing to do a bunk. Do I divine that you don’t greatly care for him? He won’t be troubling you for long. Dallas, or some such place, is his natural home. And he’s on his way. May even take his wife. I suppose there is a wife?’

  ‘Yes – and she’s a bit dotty. It’s true that I don’t greatly take to Carson. But I’m not sure he isn’t to be sympathized with – and even given some cautious support.’

  ‘By the police, you mean?’ Pride had sat back in his chair. ‘I’m to see to it in a quiet way that nobody quarrels with his passport, or holds him on some convenient trumped-up affair about his dog licence? Anything to oblige an old chum, of course.’

  ‘It’s not quite that.’ Appleby paused to let the Chief Constable’s innocent pleasure in his own sense of fun subside. And when he did speak, it was with care. ‘There’s a good deal that doesn’t fit in with what I’m going to suggest. There’s a butler who behaves in a mysterious way, and a nice girl – also a neighbour – whose conduct is equally odd whenever the name of the elusive Robin turns up. But what does fit in are certain peculiar undercurrents in the bearing of Carson himself. His wife is worried about Robin’s non-appearance, but he declares he is not. But he is worried, all the same. I must say at once that there’s a kind of sub-text to his professions that I just sense without managing to get the hang of. But the main clou in the whole affair, I’m coming to think I have got hold of. Robin’s failure to turn up in the old home hasn’t been a matter of Robin’s own free will. It’s my hunch that the young man has been kidnapped en route; that his father has been intimidated into not calling in the police; and that all the money being hastily got together is required to ransom him while keeping the whole thing dark. It’s because of that possibility, Tommy, that I’ve turned up on you. Nothing’s more delicate – is it? – police-wise than just that situation.’

  ‘True enough.’ Pride spoke very quietly this time. ‘But, John, I wonder whether you ought to have come to me before going to Carson himself? Don’t misunderstand me. I simply mean that perhaps you should have tried him out with what you believe to be the truth. And, if he admitted it, put to him the case for coming to me himself. Or going to the local copper, for that matter. That would have seen it on my desk – I can assure you – in no time at all.’

  ‘I can still do that: tackle Carson, I mean. But after something only you can do. Press the buttons, Tommy.’

  ‘Meaning just what?’

  ‘Check up, over the past fortnight, on anything that looks like a possible kidnapping affair and that hasn’t been sorted out. The thing mayn’t have happened at all, and I may be quite wrong. Or it may have happened efficiently and without leaving a trace. Or somebody may have seen, and reported, just something. And it’s not a matter of every file in the country. We needn’t bother with the Orkneys and Shetlands.’

  ‘Or the Outer Hebrides, I suppose.’ The Chief Constable had reached for a telephone. ‘Computer boffins forward – eh, John? Can’t say I understand their contraptions. Much like the ancient johnnies consulting oracles. Go to sleep inside the skin of a dead sheep, and the correct dream bobs up on you.’ Tommy Pride, who seemed to favour somewhat cloudy analogies from classical antiquity, dialled a number. ‘But at least the boffins handle their hardware briskly. I’ll sift through what they turn up myself, and get in touch with you either late this afternoon or early tomorrow.’

  ‘I’ll be most grateful to you. And so – if things go well as a result of our mucking in – may those wretched Carsons be in the end.’ Appleby got up to go. ‘But that puts one further thing in my head. I’ve been favoured with an odd yarn – reliable, I think, although perhaps a little spiced up in the telling – about something that happened to Mrs Carson only yesterday. She picked up a newspaper in rather mysterious circumstances, and was much upset by something she read in it. It’s an episode I can’t quite fit into the jigsaw, if jigsaw there be. But you might have somebody rake through the papers over, say, the past fortnight in search of anything likely to alarm a nervous lady with kidnapping or wayside violence or the like stirring in her head.’

  ‘At least that’s an easy one.’ The Chief Constable made a note. ‘Leaving no stone unturned is quite our sort of thing.’

  When he got home Appleby was informed that a gentleman had called on what he declared to be urgent business. Told that Sir John was out but expected back shortly, he had said he would wait. The Appleby’s home-help had disapproved of this – which hadn’t even come in the form of a suggestion or request. But it hadn’t occurred to her to require the caller’s name, and she had simply shown him, if with some misgiving, into the breakfast-room. He was there now.

  Appleby didn’t care for anonymous visitors. They commonly turned out to want to sell something. If Judith hadn’t happened to be on a shopping expedition, she’d have bowed this intrusive person out promptly enough. It was with a sense, therefore, of slight irritation that Appleby now made his way to the breakfast-room. What he found there was a young man comfortably disposed in an armchair. The young man got to his feet without haste.

  ‘Sir John Appleby?’ he asked. ‘I must introduce myself. My name is Peter Pluckworthy.’

  ‘How do you do?’ Appleby was not really much concerned about Mr Pluckworthy’s health. ‘Can I help you in any way?’

  Modern English usage has done a good job on this locution, since on its surface it is blameless and even benevolent, while a little lower down being as chilly as you please.

  Pluckworthy seemed to receive it as a cordial expression of concern.

  ‘I’m Carl’s secretary,’ he said engagingly.

  ‘Carl?’

  ‘Carl Carson. I call him Carl because I’m also, you might say, a friend of the family.’

  ‘Then you know Robin?’

  This question, crisply put, seemed slightly to disconcert Mr Pluckworthy. He answered, however, readily enough.

  ‘Well, no – I’ve never met Robin Carson. He lives, you see, mostly in America. But it’s about him, as it happens, Sir John, that I’ve really come to see you.’

  ‘You surprise me. But explain yourself.’

  ‘I know it must seem odd – and odder when I say that I’m acting off my own bat. It’s from anxiety about Cynthia – Mrs Carson, that is – that I’ve ventured to drop in. She’s terribly worried, and I’m very fond of her.’

  ‘I am sorry the lady should be distressed, and I shall be most grateful to hear there is anything I can do about it. Just what?’

  ‘It does take a little explaining, Sir John, and I hope you will bear with me.’ Pluckworthy appeared to be a young man as confident of his own good manners as of his own sharp wits. ‘I think you already know that Mrs Carson is very worried about what she feels to be an inexplicable delay in her son’s turning up at Garford. We have to suppose he has been on his way for quite some time to pay a visit to his parents. But for days there has been no sign of him, or word from him either. So Cynthia’s anxiety is understandable. Carl is much less worried. Perhaps he knows a little more about young men.’

  Pluckworthy paused on this, as if expecting Appleby to produce
some appropriate observation. But this didn’t happen, and he continued.

  ‘I hate to say it, but in some ways Cynthia isn’t always quite clear in her head. Carl has been a little embarrassed by some of her reactions to the situation.’

  ‘Mr Carson called on me to say something of the kind. I thought it slightly odd – as I am still inclined to judge your own call now, Mr Pluckworthy.’

  ‘I’m so sorry. Perhaps I’m not a good hand at explaining myself.’ Pluckworthy produced what he would probably have described as a wry smile. ‘I know that Cynthia rang up Lady Appleby with some notion of enlisting your help in finding Robin. I hope you regarded it as excusable. Of course she knows of your former high rank in the police. And her anxieties are reasonable too in a way. After all, you know, she had a phone call from Robin at Heathrow – and after that there has been this silence. It is a little worrying.’

  ‘I am inclined, Mr Pluckworthy, to regard it as a little more than that. But I still don’t know what you expect me to do.’

  ‘Nothing.’

  ‘I beg your pardon?’

  ‘I’ve come to ask you to do nothing.’ For a moment Pluckworthy’s readiness seemed to desert him. He might have been hunting about for words. And it was somewhat tartly (and more than somewhat disingenuously) that Appleby took him up.

  ‘My dear young man, why should you suppose that I contemplate interfering in the matter? And how could I do it if I did?’

  ‘Come, Sir John. A word from you would set the entire police force of the county hunting for this wretched young man. Or nation-wide, for that matter.’

  ‘I fear, Mr Pluckworthy, that you overestimate the influence of a retired metropolitan man. But the merits of what you touch on are another matter. Now that you have put it in my head, I think I might well have a word with the Chief Constable. His men probably enjoy practice in setting up road-blocks and searching empty garages – and even dredging canals and diving into ponds.’

  ‘It might be absolutely fatal!’ Pluckworthy had sprung to his feet, apparently in uncontrollable agitation. Then he checked himself and sat down again. ‘The point is that I think it possible that Mrs Carson may make another appeal to you – and at a pitch you might find it difficult to resist. It seems – I had a telephone call from Carl only this morning – that she has come on some alarmist and sensational rubbish in a newspaper. About some sort of fracas just off a motorway, I gather. And she has taken it into her head that Robin must have been mixed up in it. That he has been robbed and killed and heaven knows what.’

  ‘Have you any positive proof, Mr Pluckworthy, that Mrs Carson’s persuasion is unjustified?’

  ‘Unjustified?’ It was clearly for the sake of gaining time that Pluckworthy echoed this word. He was momentarily at a loss how to reply. But then he recovered himself. ‘But it’s such obvious nonsense!’ he exclaimed. ‘Why should anyone fall on this young man – virtually a stranger in England – and rob him or kidnap him or beat him up or whatever?’

  ‘The word of most weight there, I imagine, is “kidnap”. Isn’t Robin Carson’s father a very wealthy man?’

  Pluckworthy’s response to this question was to make an odd groping gesture which for a moment had Appleby baffled. Then he saw that his visitor was reaching for an umbrella which he had deposited on the carpet beside him. He was being prompted, in fact, to bolt from the room. But again – if very uncertainly – he rallied.

  ‘Well, yes,’ he said, ‘I suppose it’s a rational suspicion. But…’

  ‘But if this distressed lady comes to me with what you now agree to be a rational fear for the safety of her son, you want me to decline to do anything about it? I am to dismiss her as a muddle-headed person? Or do I mistake you, Mr Pluckworthy?’

  This sudden broadside brought the young man to his feet again – and looking rather wildly round the room as if to remind himself where he would find the door.

  ‘It’s all just too difficult!’ he cried. ‘I’ve made a mess of it. I oughtn’t to have come. I’m sorry – really frightfully sorry, Sir John. But I do beg of you – really beg of you – to hold your hand so far as the police are concerned. It would be disastrous. Please believe me. Goodbye!’

  And with this Carl Carson’s secretary took himself off, seemingly in blind disarray. But at least he had taken his umbrella with him, and at least he was quickly in command of his car. Within a minute the sound of an engine was diminishing down the drive.

  ‘Whoever was that?’ Judith asked. ‘He came charging through the hall, and almost knocked this shopping-basket out of my hand.’

  ‘A young gentleman called Pluckworthy, who describes himself as Carson’s secretary, and a family friend.’

  ‘And what was he doing here?’

  ‘You saw what he was doing. I believe it’s called creating.’

  ‘Mounting a scene?’

  ‘It would perhaps be injudicious to say more than that he has a distinct stage sense. But so many people have, that the fact isn’t notable in itself. He said he’d come to see me off his own bat – which rather makes me think he hadn’t. In fact, I take him to be an emissary of his employer. And the picture now is this. The unfortunate Mrs Carson has had another shock about her Robin. That, I know to be true. I also know that it was administered, as one may put it, in a covert way by the Carson butler, Punter. Just why, heaven knows. But the idea of Messrs Carson and Pluckworthy seems to be that the lady is due to make a fuss about it all on a larger scale than before.’

  ‘Than on the occasion, you mean, of her ringing me up to enlist your help?’

  ‘Just that. And why not? Almost anyone would say it was high time to investigate this entire Robin business.’ Appleby suddenly laughed softly. ‘As I happen to be doing myself in a quiet way. I’ve set Tommy Pride working.’

  ‘Did you tell this Pluckworthy person about that?’

  ‘No I didn’t. In perplexed situations there is much to be said for reticence. And what is chiefly perplexing – if perhaps only superficially so – is that Carson and Pluckworthy feel that the lady ought to be discouraged. And that I ought to be as well. You might say they’re all for taking it lying down. Each seems to go out of his way to obtrude – repeat, obtrude – both confidence that the whole thing is nonsense, and alarm and funk about it. There seems to be a contradiction in that. But the main pivot of the thing looks like being wide open.’

  ‘Can pivots be wide open, John?’

  ‘Don’t quibble. I mean that the wretched Robin Carson has been waylaid and kidnapped when making for the sanctity of the family home. He’s being held to ransom, in fact, and Carson and his henchman are trying – although in a confused way – to keep the fact from the police while Carson hastily scrambles together the money required to ransom the boy. I’ve put that – but with a certain misgiving, I’m bound to say – to Tommy, and it’s my hope that the fact will presently establish itself beyond doubt.’

  ‘There will have been threats about Robin’s safety, and even about his life?’

  ‘There have been, or there will be. Mrs Carson may receive one of her son’s ears through the post. That sort of thing.’

  ‘John, you take on a terrible responsibility in having anything to do with it.’

  ‘That’s obvious. It’s equally obvious that I have to behave rationally about it. Villains have to be caught, you know, even at the cost of an enhanced risk to third persons. But there’s more to it than that. Carson on his own has no means of setting a trap for the criminals. Given a fair chance, the police have. And I myself am just waiting for Tommy to turn up a little more evidence before I tackle Carson himself and try to persuade him to co-operate.’

  ‘You mean you want him to seem to be caving in and paying up, while really…’

  ‘Just that. It takes nerve. Whether Carson has the nerve, or his young whipper-snapper has the nerve, of
course I just don’t know.’

  ‘So meanwhile?’

  ‘We have some tea, and wait for a telephone call from Tommy. Patience, Judith, and shuffle the cards.’

  13

  It has to be recorded of Sir John Appleby that at this point he was confident of having penetrated at least to the essentials of the Robin Carson mystery. He hadn’t, of course, kept his conclusion to himself. He had mentioned it to his wife as a matter of course, and briefly expounded it to Tommy Pride as a matter of duty. Robin had been kidnapped on the last stage of his journey to Garford. He was being held for ransom now: a fact known to his father, though not with any precision to his mother. Carl Carson was hard at work getting the money together. It must be a very large sum that was being demanded, since Carson, clearly a wealthy man, was being so hard put to it. Appleby didn’t greatly care for Carson; obscurely, he felt he hadn’t quite got the hang of the man; but he would have been ashamed of himself if he hadn’t felt sympathy with the father’s plight. And the fellow had a downright silly wife, who was unlikely to be of much support to him. If William Lockett’s story was to be trusted, the woman had now got near to the truth of the matter. Perhaps it would turn out that it was she, after all, who had the guts or the good judgement to go to the police.

  Appleby found himself pausing on young Lockett’s story, and felt that he saw further illumination in it. One snag in the path of the kidnap theory was the difficulty of seeing how the kidnappers had been aware in advance of Robin Carson’s movements. Punter could now be viewed as the answer to that one. The butler was a crook and a spy, and had got hold of the essential facts through his employer and – more probably – his employer’s wife. He had heard about that cable; and, with everything down to a vital hour or half hour, he had heard about that telephone call from Heathrow too. His covert planting of that newspaper in Mrs Carson’s way explained itself as well. What she had there read had sharpened her fears about Robin; had, in fact, got them almost in the target area; had thus, no doubt, increased the pressure upon Carson himself.