‘Sir John!’ the girl cried out. ‘How absolutely splendid. Come in, come in. We’re calling it a party.’
It was Mary Watling, mysteriously transported to the Carson home, and like Mrs Carson apparently out of her mind. But she was merely radiant. Without waiting for a word, she led the way into the nearest room, which was also the drawing-room and principal apartment in the house. At the party there didn’t appear to be many guests. What Appleby first saw, indeed, wasn’t people at all but on a table a couple of bottles of champagne. Then he found that there was a young man: a tall and handsome young man distinguishably of an athletic rather than an intellectual sort. And there was Cynthia Carson, who promptly flung herself into Appleby’s arms.
‘At last, at last!’ she cried. ‘He has come at last. Robin, my son.’
Much as if he and the champagne had been for some time acquainted, Appleby felt his head swim. He stared at the young man.
‘Robin Carson?’ he said.
‘Not exactly that, I guess.’ The young man was smiling easily, was even laughing in a good humoured way. ‘Robin Hood, sir – and happy to know you.’
‘Robin Hood?’
And Mrs Carson explained. It was with an odd, momentary poise and dignity.
‘My first husband was called Hood,’ she said. ‘He was a realtor, Sir John. He topped the tree over a wide region in making real estate more thoroughly a commodity than it was in any other part of the States.’ It was on a nostalgic note that Mrs Carson revived these memories of grandeur. ‘My poor Carl knew very little of Mr Hood.’
‘I just had to send a cable,’ Mary Watling explained. ‘It was all becoming too difficult. I often simply didn’t know what to say. Because of Robin’s being thought of, being so generally thought of’ – and here Mary glanced cautiously at the eccentric person who was presumably her future mother-in-law – ‘as Mr Carson’s son.’
‘It was a kindness,’ Mrs Carson said. Mrs Carson was now entirely calm. ‘Robin, dear, will you give Sir John a glass of the champagne? It was a kindness to poor Carl, who did so want a son, always to speak as if he were Robin’s father. I don’t think Carl ever quite understood about Robin. He was rather strange about it all. I sometimes think – naturally, I am speaking quite confidentially – that Carl was just a tiny bit mad. But Carl is dead now, you know. Just like Mr Hood. Carl is definitely dead. So we can all be open and comfortable.’
‘I just had to send a cable,’ Mary Watling was repeating. ‘And Robin managed to get away. He is terribly involved in his business affairs. But he managed to fly over at once. Isn’t it wonderful?’
‘It is certainly most remarkable.’ Appleby’s chief concern was not to look with open commiseration at this girl, so blithely proposing to bear Cynthia Carson’s grandchildren. ‘And I hope you will be very happy.’ It occurred to him that he had better shake hands with Robin Hood again, and felicitate him as well. And this he managed to do. He wondered what on earth could have been the young man’s history: the origin, growth and progress of the weird deception in which he had been involved. He’d never know. Nor, for that matter, did he much want to. He wondered whether he ought to say something to Cynthia Carson about the husband she had just, in effect, so comfortably buried. Far from being dead, Carl Carson was probably in South America by now, comfortably awaiting the arrival of his smuggled fortune. Appleby decided to say nothing. It would spoil the party.
‘I’m only sorry dear Peter Pluckworthy isn’t here,’ Mrs Carson was saying. ‘I don’t know why, but he had to go away in a hurry.’
Sir John Appleby was a conscientious man, and it was midnight before he arrived home at Dream. As not at Garford, the house was in darkness. Judith would long before have gone to bed. He put the car away, entered the house quietly, and made his way upstairs. He was already in his pyjamas when he heard the telephone ring below. Cursing inwardly, he went down and answered it.
‘Detective-Inspector Davidson speaking,’ a formal voice said. ‘I have the Chief Constable’s instructions, even although the hour be inconvenient, to speak to Sir John Appleby.’
‘Speaking, Mr Davidson.’
‘We found the body, sir, this afternoon.’
‘The body! Whose body?’ For a moment – for it was after a long day – a most improper irritation overcame Appleby. ‘What the devil do you mean?’
‘The body of the man Carl Carson, sir. I had a hundred men searching every inch…’
‘Of course you had. Well?’
‘I drafted in another hundred, and extended the radius of the search. It paid off.’ For a moment there was a hint of satisfaction in the matter-of-fact voice on the line. ‘They found the well.’
‘The well?’
‘Or rather the whole obsolete system, Sir John. Empty cisterns and exhausted wells. It appears that, many years ago, there was a large-scale attempt to divert the water through the chalk. That kind of thing.’
‘Yes?’
‘There are five wells in all. I had a man down every one of them. The body was at the bottom of the last and deepest of the lot. Carson had been shot through the back of the head. And then through the body – which accounts for the large effusion of blood.’
‘It would.’
‘Formal identification will take place tomorrow. But, of course, there is no doubt about it. None whatever.’
‘There wouldn’t be, no.’ Appleby felt that this wasn’t a particularly bright remark. Detective-Inspector Davidson was being extremely respectful. He knew the almost legendary person to whom he was talking. But he might very well be telling himself that the old boy was probably a bit past it. And perhaps he was right. Appleby felt that he ought to have kept better tabs on the gentleman referred to by Tommy Pride as Peter Pluckworthy Esquire. ‘And have you anything further to report?’ he asked – and was at once conscious that ‘report’ hadn’t been quite right. He was being kept informed.
‘Yes, Sir John. A telephone message from London only half an hour ago. They’ve got him.’
‘Pluckworthy?’
‘Yes. In his flat. He’d just got back there, and was packing up like mad. If it can be called packing. Just enormous sums of money. The picture’s pretty clear, isn’t it? He was this Carson’s accomplice all the way through. Had been, indeed, what you might call his confidential agent for some years. Would he have been the master mind, would you say, in this entire swindle?’
‘I’d say you have yet to find out.’ Appleby was cautious. ‘But he certainly came within an ace of bringing off a pretty piece of treachery in the end. He’d have managed it, Mr Davidson, but for your very efficient conduct of the operation. I congratulate you.’
‘Thank you, Sir John.’
‘I’ll be seeing the Chief Constable fairly soon, no doubt. Please give him my compliments, meanwhile.’
‘Certainly, Sir John.’
‘And a message. Tell him that Mycroft has retired.’
‘Sir?’
‘That Mycroft has retired.’
‘Very good, Sir John. Message understood.’
Note on Inspector (later, Sir John) Appleby Series
John Appleby first appears in Death at the President's Lodging, by which time he has risen to the rank of Inspector in the police force. A cerebral detective, with ready wit, charm and good manners, he rose from humble origins to being educated at 'St Anthony's College', Oxford, prior to joining the police as an ordinary constable.
Having decided to take early retirement just after World War II, he nonetheless continued his police career at a later stage and is subsequently appointed an Assistant Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police at Scotland Yard, where his crime solving talents are put to good use, despite the lofty administrative position. Final retirement from the police force (as Commissioner and Sir John Appleby) does not, however, diminish Appleby's taste for solving crime and h
e continues to be active, Appleby and the Ospreys marking his final appearance in the late 1980's.
In Appleby's End he meets Judith Raven, whom he marries and who has an involvement in many subsequent cases, as does their son Bobby and other members of his family.
Appleby Titles in order of first publication
These titles can be read as a series, or randomly as standalone novels
1. Death at the President's Lodging Also as: Seven Suspects 1936
2. Hamlet! Revenge 1937
3. Lament for a Maker 1938
4. Stop Press Also as: The Spider Strikes 1939
5. The Secret Vanguard 1940
6. Their Came Both Mist and Snow Also as: A Comedy of Terrors 1940
7. Appleby on Ararat 1941
8. The Daffodil Affair 1942
9. The Weight of the Evidence 1943
10. Appleby's End 1945
11. A Night of Errors 1947
12. Operation Pax Also as: The Paper Thunderbolt 1951
13. A Private View Also as: One Man Show and Murder is an Art 1952
14. Appleby Talking Also as: Dead Man's Shoes 1954
15. Appleby Talks Again 1956
16. Appleby Plays Chicken Also as: Death on a Quiet Day 1957
17. The Long Farewell 1958
18. Hare Sitting Up 1959
19. Silence Observed 1961
20. A Connoisseur's Case Also as: The Crabtree Affair 1962
21. The Bloody Wood 1966
22. Appleby at Allington Also as: Death by Water 1968
23. A Family Affair Also as: Picture of Guilt 1969
24. Death at the Chase 1970
25. An Awkward Lie 1971
26. The Open House 1972
27. Appleby's Answer 1973
28. Appleby's Other Story 1974
29. The Appleby File 1975
30. The Gay Phoenix 1976
31. The Ampersand Papers 1978
32. Shieks and Adders 1982
33. Appleby and Honeybath 1983
34. Carson's Conspiracy 1984
35. Appleby and the Ospreys 1986
Honeybath Titles in order of first publication
These titles can be read as a series, or randomly as standalone novels
1. The Mysterious Commission 1974
2. Honeybath's Haven 1977
3. Lord Mullion's Secret 1981
4. Appleby and Honeybath 1983
Synopses (Both Series & ‘Stand-alone’ Titles)
Published by House of Stratus
The Ampersand Papers
While Appleby is strolling along a Cornish beach, he narrowly escapes being struck by a body falling down a cliff. The body is that of Dr Sutch, an archivist, and he has fallen from the North Tower of Treskinnick Castle, home of Lord Ampersand. Two possible motivations present themselves to Appleby – the Ampersand gold, treasure from an Armada galleon; and the Ampersand papers, valuable family documents that have associations with Wordsworth and Shelley.
Appleby and Honeybath
Every English mansion has a locked room, and Grinton Hall is no exception – the library has hidden doors and passages…and a corpse. But when the corpse goes missing, Sir John Appleby and Charles Honeybath have an even more perplexing case on their hands – just how did it disappear when the doors and windows were securely locked? A bevy of helpful houseguests offer endless assistance, but the two detectives suspect that they are concealing vital information. Could the treasures on the library shelves be so valuable that someone would murder for them?
Appleby and the Ospreys
Clusters, a great country house, is troubled by bats, as Lord and Lady Osprey complain to their guests, who include first rate detective, Sir John Appleby. In the matter of bats, Appleby is indifferent, but he is soon faced with a real challenge – the murder of Lord Osprey, stabbed with an ornate dagger in the library.
Appleby at Allington
Sir John Appleby dines one evening at Allington Park, the Georgian home of his acquaintance Owain Allington, who is new to the area. His curiosity is aroused when Allington mentions his nephew and heir to the estate, Martin Allington, whose name Appleby recognises. The evening comes to an end but just as Appleby is leaving, they find a dead man – electrocuted in the son et lumière box which had been installed in the grounds.
The Appleby File
There are fifteen stories in this compelling collection, including: Poltergeist – when Appleby's wife tells him that her aunt is experiencing trouble with a Poltergeist, he is amused but dismissive, until he discovers that several priceless artefacts have been smashed as a result; A Question of Confidence – when Bobby Appleby's friend, Brian Button, is caught up in a scandalous murder in Oxford, Bobby's famous detective father is their first port of call; The Ascham – an abandoned car on a narrow lane intrigues Appleby and his wife, but even more intriguing is the medieval castle they stumble upon.
Appleby on Ararat
Inspector Appleby is stranded on a very strange island, with a rather odd bunch of people – too many men, too few women (and one of them too attractive) cause a deal of trouble. But that is nothing compared to later developments, including the body afloat in the water, and the attack by local inhabitants.
Appleby Plays Chicken
David was hiking across Dartmoor, pleased to have escaped the oppressively juvenile and sometimes perilous behaviour of his fellow undergraduates. As far as he could tell, he was the only human being for miles – but it turns out that he was the only living human being for miles. At least, that is what he presumed when he found a dead man on top of the tor.
Appleby Talking
Arbuthnot is paying for a rash decision – he recently married a beautiful but slightly amoral girl whose crazy antics caught his rather cynical professional interest. His wife has taken a lover, Rupert Slade, and Arbuthnot wants nothing more than to see him dead – but the last thing he expected was that he'd walk into his living room and find just that!
Inspector Appleby shares the details of this and many other fascinating crimes in this un-missable collection.
Appleby Talks Again
Ralph Dangerfield, an Edwardian playwright who belonged to the smartest young set of his day, kept a scandalous diary recording the intimate details of his own life and those of his friends. After his death, it was believed that his mother had burnt the incriminating evidence, but fifty years later, a famous collector of literary curiosities claims to have the diary in his possession and threatens to blackmail fashionable London with belated secrets about people now in respectable old age. Sir John Appleby reveals how he uncovered this unscrupulous crime and talks about his key role in seventeen more intriguing cases.
Appleby's Answer
Author of detective novels, Priscilla Pringle, is pleased to find that she is sharing a railway compartment with a gentleman who happens to be reading one of her books – Murder in the Cathedral. He is military officer, Captain Bulkington, who recognises Miss Pringle and offers her £500 to collaborate on a detective novel. To everyone's surprise, Miss Pringle is rather taken with Captain Bulkington – is she out of her depth?
Appleby's End
Appleby's End was the name of the station where Detective Inspector John Appleby got off the train from Scotland Yard. But that was not the only coincidence. Everything that happened from then on related back to stories by Ranulph Raven, Victorian novelist – animals were replaced by marble effigies, someone received a tombstone telling him when he would die, and a servant was found buried up to his neck in snow, dead. Why did Ranulph Raven's mysterious descendants make such a point of inviting Appleby to spend the night at their house?
Appleby's Other Story
During a walk to Elvedon House, palatial home of the Tythertons, Sir John Appleby and Chief Constable Colonel Pride are stunned to find a police van and two cars parked outside. Wealthy Maurice Tytherton has been found shot dead, and Appleby is faced with a number of suspects – Alice Tytherton, flirtatious, younger wife
of the deceased; Egon Raffaello, disreputable art dealer; and the prodigal son, Mark Tytherton, who has just returned from Argentina. Could the death be linked to the robbery of some paintings several years ago?
An Awkward Lie
Sir John Appleby's son, Bobby, assumes his father's detective role in this baffling crime. When Bobby finds a dead man, in a bunker on a golf course, he notices something rather strange – the first finger of the man's right hand is missing. A young girl approaches the scene and offers to watch the body while Bobby goes for help, but when he returns with the police in tow, the body and the girl are missing.
The Bloody Wood
An assorted party of guests have gathered at Charne, home of Charles Martineau and his ailing wife, Grace, including Sir John Appleby and his wife, Judith. Appleby's suspicions are soon aroused with the odd behaviour of Charles, and the curious last request of Grace – who desires that upon her death, Charles marries her favourite niece, Martine. When Charles and Grace die on the same day, foul play is suspected.
Carson's Conspiracy
Businessman Carl Carson decides to make a dash for South America to escape the economic slump, leaving his home and his barmy wife. But he has a problem – if his company were seen to be drawing in its horns, it wouldn't last a week. His solution is his wife's favourite delusion – an imaginary son, named Robin. Carson plans to stage a fictitious kidnapping – after all, what could be more natural than a father liquidating his assets to pay the ransom demand? Unfortunately, Carson has a rather astute neighbour – Sir John Appleby, ex-Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police.
A Change of Heir
George Gadberry, 'resting actor', packs his bags and heads for obscurity when the Tax Inspector beckons. Then he receives a mysterious invitation and a proposition that could lead to enormous riches. Wealthy imbiber, Nicholas Comberford, wants George to impersonate him in order to secure a place in the will of fabulously affluent Great-Aunt Prudence, who lives in a Cistercian monastery and won't allow a single drop of liquor in the place. Gadberry's luck seems to have changed – but at what cost?
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