Appleby's Answer

by Michael Innes

  Captain A G de P Bulkington

  ‘Kandahar’

  Long Canings

  Wilts.

  At this moment Miss Pringle heard the sliding-door of the compartment open again. She relapsed abruptly into her seat – or rather into the seat opposite Captain Bulkington’s. It was a very awkward moment.

  2

  But Captain Bulkington seemed to notice nothing amiss. Perhaps he merely supposed that Miss Pringle preferred the view from this side of the train or imagined that she was avoiding a draught. He moved his overcoat a little, absently shoving the letter back into his pocket as he did so. He sat down, stiffly and this time with an audible creak, and slanted his legs unobtrusively in the manner necessary even in first-class carriages if one is to avoid an accidental flick or kick at opposing toes or ankles. All was well; nothing was going to be said. Miss Pringle, in consequence, was about to breathe freely (in a literal, not metaphorical sense, since she was a nervous woman) when she suddenly became aware of a fresh occasion of embarrassment. Murder in the Cathedral was lying on the floor of the compartment, with Orlando and herself uppermost. In her perturbed withdrawal she must have made some movement which had brushed it from the seat.

  ‘Oh, dear – your book!’ she exclaimed, and made a dive for it in a random and undignified fashion which might have suggested to anybody that she had mysteriously lost her head. And Captain Bulkington had, in fact, forestalled her. His own dive, if not exactly agile, had been more exact, and now the volume was in his hand. He glanced at the photograph, and he glanced at Miss Pringle.

  ‘And your book, too,’ he said.

  The recognition scene had taken place.

  Miss Pringle had enjoyed an almost similar experience two or three times before. Still, not quite similar – and it was precisely the element of dissimilarity that would have made ‘enjoyed’ something of a misnomer now. She was still shaken by her narrow escape from being discovered in what would have been a most humiliating situation. And there is obvious difficulty in extracting pleasure from being identified as the authoress of a beta-minus-query-minus book. It was a little spurt of indignation that must have prompted the remark she now (with some surprise) heard herself offer.

  ‘You didn’t much like my novel,’ she said. ‘But I hope that you do at least like my cat.’

  Captain Bulkington was startled – which was natural enough. He even glanced around the compartment and under its seats, as if supposing the lady to have referred to some actual feline co-partner in their colloquy. He also looked alarmed. Perhaps he owned a pathological fear of cats, and would have found Orlando in the flesh (or fur) not merely a brute tertium quid but positively what the witty Italians call a terzo incomodo. Then he became aware of Miss Pringle’s politely pointing finger.

  ‘Oh, I see!’ he said. ‘A delightful-looking creature, madam, ’pon my soul. But not got him with you – eh? In a basket, or anything of that kind?’

  ‘When I have to travel, Orlando goes to a cats’ hotel. A really good hotel, accepting only pedigree cats.’ Miss Pringle provided this information quite cordially. The truth is that Captain Bulkington’s ’pon my soul’ had not a little enchanted her. She had never before actually met an English gentleman given to this antique locution, although she had come across it in novels, and even employed it in fiction herself, dowering with it some socially apposite character – a peer, perhaps, or what her father had used to call a Harrovian of the old school.

  ‘Quite right,’ Captain Bulkington was saying approvingly. ‘One can’t be too careful in choosing a well-bred cat’s company, eh? Evil communications corrupt good manners. And Manners maketh Cat. True of Dog, too. Ha-ha!’

  Miss Pringle joined in this conventional evocation of merriment. She had forgotten for the moment the Captain’s invidious and dyslogistic employment of the Greek alphabet. She had been absolutely right in judging him (like Orlando) eminently well-bred. And now he further vindicated his possession of this character by boldly declining to flinch from the point of discomfort between them.

  ‘That scribble, eh? Unfortunate misconception, madam. Word of honour. Bad habit of mine. Something I have to remember comes into my head, and I stick it down on whatever’s in front of me. This time, it was a mark I’m simply bound in conscience to put into a pupil’s report. His father won’t relish it, I fear. But one’s obliged to tell the truth.’

  ‘A pupil? You are–’ Miss Pringle hesitated. She judged it awkward to say ‘a schoolmaster’. Schoolmasters nowadays are liable to be people who go on strike, and thus definitely align themselves with the lower orders. ‘A college tutor?’ she ventured.

  ‘A coach, madam. An old-fashioned crammer. Lads going into the Services mostly. Usually the Brigade.’

  ‘Yes, of course.’ This ready confirmation was rashly offered, since it turned upon Captain Bulkington’s own possession of martial status, which was something she was not supposed to know about.

  ‘Enjoyed your yarn very much,’ the Captain said easily. ‘Deuced ingenious. Dashed if I know how you people think of these things. Ladies particularly.’

  ‘Women, as it happens, have been outstandingly successful at writing detective stories.’

  ‘Perfectly true, perfectly true. Noticed it myself, ’pon my word.’

  ‘It is what first directed my own attention to that branch of literature.’

  ‘Jolly good. Dashed fortunate, if I may say so. World deprived of a lot of pleasure – innocent pleasure, eh? – if you’d taken up tragedies, or anything morbid of that sort.’

  ‘I have always liked to think so.’ Miss Pringle had flushed with satisfaction, for this was a genuine persuasion of her own. ‘There are times when an absorbing yarn – you have used entirely the right word – provides distraction and solace, does it not? Times of anxiety, periods of illness or convalescence, even occasions of bereavement.’

  ‘Bereavement?’ Captain Bulkington looked doubtful. ‘I’m not sure about that. Too much sudden death in your sort of thing, if you ask me, to be just right for reading after a funeral. Better than poetry, of course. When my poor father died – he had been in the regiment before me – the padre said he was sending me something called In Memoriam. Thought it would be one of those little notices you pay for in a newspaper. Turned out to be an interminable thing by Tennyson. Ring out wild bells, and so-forth. Queer stuff.’

  ‘But extremely melodious,’ Miss Pringle demurred. She didn’t know quite what to make of this summary judgement. The Captain, presumably, employed an assistant to instruct his charges in English literature. ‘May I ask if you are a regular reader of detective fiction?’

  ‘Regular?’ Rather oddly, the Captain gave an impression of shying away from this. ‘Pick one up on a bookstall from time to time. Or from our local library. Couple of shelves of them there. Grubby, rather. But dashed impracticable, most of them.’ Captain Bulkington suddenly relapsed into his former gloom. ‘I suppose you have to read the lot,’ he said, rousing himself. ‘Make sure somebody hasn’t had the idea before.’

  ‘Well, that can be an anxiety. Of course, one talks to one’s fellow practitioners – to one’s confrères.’

  ‘And one’s consoeurs too, eh? Ha-ha!’ This learned witticism, although it struck Miss Pringle as displeasing, appeared to amuse Captain Bulkington very much.

  ‘Something of the kind is the object of my present journey.’ It was an occasion of gratification to Miss Pringle that she now had a secure footing among men (and women) of letters. She never failed to attend cocktail parties at the invitation of publishers; she went to lectures of a superior sort, followed by tea and discussion, such as are organised by the National Book League and the Society of Authors; she had even been given dinner by a distinguished fan in a rearward region of the Athenaeum. ‘I have recently been elected to membership of the Crooks’ Colloquium. Tonight is the occasion of our annual dinner. We call it the Diner Dupin. A little joke.’

  ‘Crooks’ Colloquium?’ the Captain repeated
blankly. ‘Dupin?’

  ‘Perhaps it ought really to be Tecs’ Colloquium – only the alliteration wouldn’t be so good. And Dupin, of course, is in honour of the great Poe.’

  ‘The great po?’ This, from a lady, appeared to leave the Captain a little shocked. ‘In mess games our subalterns used to – But never mind.’

  ‘Edgar Allan Poe, the founder of detective literature. At the annual dinner we are addressed by a guest of honour – usually an eminent criminologist. Tonight it is to be Sir John Appleby. I believe he was at one time head of the CID at New Scotland Yard. Or perhaps it was something even more distinguished than that.’

  ‘Talking about cunning ways of bringing it off, eh?’ New horizons seemed to be opening before Captain Bulkington. ‘Straight from the horse’s mouth, and all that? Dashed interesting.’

  ‘I don’t at all know what subject he will choose. But he is said to have solved the most impenetrable mysteries. Real-life ones, that is.’

  ‘Ah, real life!’ The Captain had recaptured his sombre tone. ‘The trouble with you people’ – and he tapped Miss Pringle’s book – ‘is that you need such deuced peculiar circumstances. In this one, for example, you need a cathedral. Now, how is a fellow to come by that? A local parish church would be a different matter. But how, I repeat, is a fellow to come by a cathedral? It just isn’t on.’

  ‘I’m not sure that I quite follow you.’ Miss Pringle was wondering whether, had she chosen a more modest ecclesiastical edifice as setting for the mystery in question, she would have rated a good beta-plus. She was also wondering, if only fleetingly, whether Captain Bulkington mightn’t be a trifle mad.

  ‘A mere random thought.’ The Captain waved a dismissive hand. ‘This crooks’ affair – what else does it go in for?’

  ‘We have a little quarterly journal, with articles on things that interest us – professionally, that is.’

  ‘Good Lord! False beards, and silencers, and secret codes, and poisons unknown to science – all that?’

  ‘Certainly things of that sort. And police procedure, and how criminal trials are really conducted, and so on. It is so important to get one’s facts right. To control one’s all too powerful imagination.’

  ‘Can anybody buy the thing? Could I get it at Smith’s?’

  ‘Our journal? Well, no. One doesn’t want such information in the wrong hands. Not in the hands of people making a living out of crime. One has to belong.’

  ‘To this crooks’ club? Can anybody join – I mean by paying a subscription?’

  ‘Oh, no.’ Miss Pringle tried not to betray amusement. ‘One must have contributed to detective literature.’

  ‘Published a yarn, eh? It can’t be too hard to do that.’

  ‘I suppose not.’ Secretly, Miss Pringle did not agree. ‘It’s quite competitive,’ she said.

  ‘One would have to have a head for it, of course.’ For some moments Captain Bulkington brooded darkly. ‘Thought of it myself, as a matter of fact.’

  ‘A good many people have.’

  ‘Rather jolly to have one’s name to a book. Once started on a manual of cavalry training. Only, just then, they pretty well stopped having cavalry.’

  ‘We shan’t stop having crime.’

  ‘Always with us, eh? You have a point there.’

  During the course of this stimulating conversation the train had traversed the greater part of one of the home counties, and both Windsor Castle and Eton College Chapel (always agreeable objects in Miss Pringle’s regard) had appeared briefly on the horizon. They were a signal, moreover, to begin preparing for the end of her journey, and she thought with satisfaction of the porters who, although now so diminished a band at the London railway termini, still had the trick of being available outside the first-class carriages. She would take a taxi to her well-appointed ladies’ club (another fairly recent index of status and prosperity, this), where she would find her friend and fellow-writer, Barbara Vanderpump. Miss Vanderpump was the authoress of historical novels, but had been admitted to the Colloquium on the strength of dealings with certain deeply mysterious events associated with the career of Cardinal Richelieu. So they would go together to the Diner Dupin, having first severally applied themselves with proper concentration to the grandes toilettes they had elected for the occasion. It was probable that they would even have a glass of sherry before setting out, thus ensuring that they should be one up and at their liveliest in the event of any such crisis as having, for example, Sir John Appleby presented to them early in the proceedings.

  All this was putting Miss Pringle in good humour, for she was a nice woman, finding contentment in simple things. She was even inclined to find contentment in Captain Bulkington of ‘Kandahar’, Long Canings, Wilts – although whether he was a simple thing was not exactly clear to her.

  ‘Some devilish-queer experiences in India,’ Captain Bulkington was saying. ‘In the old days, that is. Might work up into something. As a thriller, I mean. Anybody ever offer you ideas – likely plots, and so on?’

  ‘Oh, quite frequently. A great many people – and sometimes most surprising people – believe they know how to commit an undetectable murder. The trouble is, they quite often are undetectable.’

  ‘But isn’t that what you want?’

  ‘Of course not. Think of poor Catfish.’

  ‘Catfish?’

  ‘The Detective-Inspector you’ve been reading about in my story. He has to solve his crimes, hasn’t he? So they just mustn’t be undetectable. It would never do. That’s the point that Timothy misses.’

  ‘Timothy Catfish?’

  ‘No, no. Timothy is my nephew, and he has some very clever young scientists among his friends. They often bring me ideas that are no good at all. Either one would have to offer such obvious clues that the murder would be completely boring, or there could be no means of getting at it whatever. You see?’

  ‘I believe I do.’ Captain Bulkington was now (as novelists say) all attention; in fact he had bent on Miss Pringle a fascinated stare. ‘Where does this Timothy live?’

  ‘Timothy lives in London.’

  ‘I mean, what is his address?’ The Captain had actually produced a pocket-diary. ‘I’d like to look him up.’

  Miss Pringle now saw that her momentary, and seemingly bizarre, suspicion had been correct. Captain Bulkington was mad. She was so convinced of this that she glanced up nervously at the communic-ation-cord. A notice beside it informed her that the penalty for its improper use had been raised from £5 to £20. But there are occasions upon which one has to face up boldly to the soaring cost of living. Miss Pringle felt she ought to risk it, and pull. Her story would be an improbable one, but at least she would have gained the protection of the guard. She half-rose, and then sank back in her seat.

  ‘Timothy,’ she heard herself saying firmly, ‘is at present abroad.’

  ‘A pity. He sounds a nice lad.’ Quite amiably, Captain Bulkington had put the pocket-diary away again. ‘May I ask whether you have ever collaborated with another writer?’

  ‘I never have.’

  ‘It might be quite an idea, wouldn’t you say? Labour-saving, and so on. One partner provides the ideas, and the other sweats it out on the typewriter.’

  ‘I am sure that I should not myself take satisfaction in such a division of labour.’

  ‘Or perhaps one do the whole job, and the other simply provide the working capital.’

  ‘The working capital?’

  ‘Well – ha-ha ! – while the grass grows the steed mustn’t starve. Say five hundred down, and both names on the title-page. How about it?’

  ‘You appear to be proposing a peculiar variant of what is called vanity publishing.’ Miss Pringle had decided that, after all, Captain Bulkington was harmless. ‘A sort of ghost-writing.’

  ‘Call it what you like. But it would get a fellow in with that Colloquium crowd – journal and all?’

  As he asked this, the Captain got to his feet, and made a sudden lurch towards Mi
ss Pringle. Her alarm was renewed, and then the thought suddenly occurred to her that she had perhaps been travelling with a drunkard. But Captain Bulkington didn’t smell of drink. And at once she realised that he had simply risen to secure his suitcase, and that his loss of balance had been occasioned merely by the train’s passing over some complicated system of points as it approached Paddington.

  ‘Venture to give you my card,’ the Captain said. ‘Hope you won’t consider it impertinent. Professional matter, eh? We might fix something up between us yet. Basis, as they say, of mutual advantage. Shall remain great admirer of yours, in any case.’

  Miss Pringle had, of course, no need of Captain Bulkington’s card. His address was engraved on her memory as securely as on any piece of pasteboard, and she could find him if she wanted to – although no contingency could be less probable. But he hadn’t, so far, so much as mentioned his own name, and it would be rather rude simply to reject this valedictory gesture. She wouldn’t, naturally, give him her address, nor would her publisher divulge it to him without permission. So there was no great risk of this eccentric character’s proving a nuisance. Perhaps if she accepted the card with a faintly indicated air of amused indulgence he would take a hint from that. Miss Pringle evinced such an air, or hoped she did, and put the card in her bag.

  ‘How very charming of you,’ she said in an appropriately conventional tone. ‘I shall remember our interesting talk. And now I must say goodbye.’

  The train had, in fact, come to a halt, and Captain Bulkington was gallantly getting her suitcase down from the rack and pulling back the door of the compartment. Although so curiously deranged, there was no question of his agreeable manners. No doubt he had himself been in what he called the Brigade – which meant the soldiers who looked so splendid when the Colours were trooped, or the Guard was changed at Buckingham Palace. He might even be personally known to the Queen, or at least to the Duke of Edinburgh. Miss Pringle decided to go so far as to shake hands.