“Of hares?”
“Of hares. That’s the unknown element at the moment. And trouble number three is that it looks as if the engineer is going to be hoist with his own petard.” Appleby halted. “I suggested to the local police inspector that perhaps in the burying of Heyhoe there was a sort of poetic justice. That’s as may be – and Mutlow will go away and chew on it. But possibly poetic justice isn’t going to stop there.” Appleby paused. “Judith, how would you describe the whole business from the Coach of Cacus incident down through Luke’s tombstone to the present moment?”
“Describe it, John? I think I should describe it as blocking out. But that’s a sculptor’s word. Call it spadework.”
“Precisely. But what if it’s labouring another man’s ground?”
“I don’t understand you a bit.”
“Or if the spade went right into a nest of hornets?” Appleby opened the door. “You know what’s been happening at Tiffin Place?”
Judith hesitated for a moment. “You’re asking too many questions. But, yes – I do.”
“Our reporter friends will be on to that in no time. And to much else – for the thing ramifies like anything, as you very well know. A great big rambling mystery – if not too complex – is just meat and drink to them. But – mark you – it needs a focus. And that’s where Heyhoe was to come in. A sound instinct there, no doubt. Still, I don’t know that Heyhoe will quite do – or not now. You see, for newspaper purposes the core of the thing ought to be murder.” Appleby was pacing up and down again. “A blood-soaked hatchet. Brains scattered about the carpet. Something going bad inside a trunk. Dismembered–”
“Shut up, for goodness sake.”
“Very well. But what’s not wanted is something finical, and merely finical. A series of odd happenings, linked together in rather a complicated way by an obscure and rather literary thread, a booksy thread–” Appleby paused and stared thoughtfully into the gathering darkness of the studio, where Judith was now extinguishing the lamps. “It’s not really satisfactory – or not without a centre in some brute and readily intelligible fact. And Heyhoe isn’t quite that – or not now. But the whole thing has possibilities still, they’ll feel. And so they’ll cast about… Judith, do you remember old Mrs Grope?”
“You mean Gregory Grope’s grandmother?” Judith looked puzzled. “I remember her very well. She had some sort of accident.”
“She came to a mysterious end on a dirty night.”
“Like Heyhoe, you mean? Is that what you’re driving at?”
“Exactly so. And she was Heyhoe’s mother.”
Judith looked completely startled. “Heyhoe’s mother? I had absolutely no idea–”
“I know you hadn’t. There’s quite a lot in this business that you had no idea of. In fact, that none of you had any idea of. And that’s the trouble. Moreover, there are still mysterious things happening that I don’t understand myself – though I’m beginning to have a glimmering. So we have two jobs in front of us.”
“Two? I should have thought one was enough.”
“Two. Getting to the heart of the mystery.” Appleby chuckled. “And getting away again.”
They returned down a long corridor hung with vast canvases dimly discerned. Broken wheels, the bellies of horses, gleaming steel, patches of scarlet and gold, cannon mouths flowed endlessly past them; once they came to a corner and were abruptly confronted with a line of bayonets; a little farther on, the rays of a solitary lamp fell dramatically on a soldier who brandished a sword in one hand while with the other, and with two rows of admirably regular teeth, he contrived to tie a bandage round an extensively shattered knee.
“Great-aunt Elizabeth,” Judith said. “She admired Lady Butler and tried the same line herself. She was a friend of Tennyson’s, and particularly good at breaking down in the right place when he read his poetry aloud. We don’t know whether he broke down when she showed him her battle-pieces… Hullo, Rainbird seems to be holding the fort. And against the police, too. Does that mean we are all going to be rounded up?”
A flurry of cold air blew down the cavernous hall where the Kurds and Tartars, in ranks as stiff and unwavering as one of Great-aunt Elizabeth’s British regiments under fire, opposed a hostile immobility to a constable who was talking urgently to Rainbird through an open glass door.
“The household,” Rainbird was saying firmly, “is about to dine. Come back, young man, in a couple of hours. And if you want something to do in the meantime go and clear those folk off the lawn. Pitched themselves there without Mr Raven’s invitation, they have; and it’s plain trespass.” Rainbird peered out into the night. “A good many of them gone, I’m glad to see. But there’s three or four cars there still.”
“The cars be no business of mine.”
“Then they ought to be. What’s the good of a gentleman paying his taxes if the likes of you can’t see that he’s permitted to live undisturbed on his own estate?” As he uttered this manorial sentiment, Rainbird endeavoured to edge the door to.
But the constable was obstinate. “Them as wants to live undisturbed,” he said, “ought to avoid carryings-on. And, by all accounts, there’s been a power of carryings-on at Dream.”
“There has been untoward circumstances.” Rainbird was dignified.
“There has been untoward circumstances, without a doubt. But your sphere, my lad, is protecting cottagers’ poultry. Now, be off with you.”
“I mun see ’un.” Under stress of an offended dignity, the constable was becoming as massively rural as Billy Bidewell. “Here be message for Inspector Appleby.”
“Mr John” – Rainbird pronounced these words presumably for the first time, and with great formality – “Mr John is dressing for dinner and not to be disturbed for the convenience of his professional subordinates. If you care to wait, we shall be pleased to accommodate you with a chair in the servants’ hall. In which case you’ll kindly step round to the back and enter by the offices.”
Appleby came forward. “All right, Rainbird; I haven’t gone to change yet.” He turned to the constable. “Now then, what is it – a message from Inspector Mutlow?”
“Yes, sir. He sent me across as soon as he got in. It’s about Woolworth, sir.”
“Woolworth – the threepence-and-sixpence-a-time fellow?”
“No, sir.” The constable looked mystified. “Ten shillings a time, he be.”
“Who be?”
“Woolworth, sir. Woolworth be the Sturrock’s bull, over Tew way.”
“I see. Well, what’s happened to Woolworth?”
The constable lowered his voice. “Sturrock do say someone put the pins to un.”
“Put the pins to him! Do you mean that somebody has been using this old, ’unhappy creature as a pincushion?”
“Witchcraft!” Judith had come forward and addressed the constable. “They found a model of Woolworth?”
“Yes, miss. Very nicely done in clay, it was, and hid right in Woolworth’s straw. And pins, miss, so that Sturrock be afeard that poor Woolworth–”
“When was this discovered?” Appleby was glancing through the outer door and up the long dark drive to where the headlights of a car were sweeping towards Dream.
“Not an hour since, sir. And Inspector Mutlow thought it was important-like–”
“He was perfectly correct. Moreover, it is most vital that the affair should be widely known at once. Did you ever have your picture in the papers? No? Well, here’s your chance. Over there on the lawn there are several gentlemen in cars. Tell them you’ve got something new. Tell them you oughtn’t really to mention it–”
The constable scratched his head, much bewildered. “But you just said, sir, as how the affair–”
“My dear man, it’s nice to have your picture in the papers – but why not have five pounds as well? Tell
them you rather think it’s confidential still – and then give them Woolworth hot and strong. Ram home the pins good and hearty. Good night.” And Appleby gave the constable a friendly but decisive shove and shut the door.
Judith was looking at Appleby in complete bewilderment. “Witchcraft,” she repeated. “But it just doesn’t fit in or make sense. It’s got nothing to do with us. And why should you be so keen–”
“You know my methods, Judith.” Appleby’s eye had brightened; he was contemplating Rainbird as if inspiration glinted from every crease of that melancholic serving-man’s frayed shirt. “Weren’t you citing Sherlock Holmes? Well, he had nothing on this. And – listen! – the next batch of mysterious strangers is arriving. We must seclude ourselves.” And Appleby grabbed Judith by the wrist and hauled her within one of those curious contrivances, midway between a sentry-box and a family sarcophagus, which the eighteenth century considerately provided for the porters in its draughty halls. Rainbird, faintly raising an eyebrow at the skittishness of young engaged persons, opened the door once more. For a car had drawn up outside, and now two men were advancing side by side up the steps. Appleby peered out at them. “Observe,” he said in a hoarse whisper, “that the taller of the two has recently changed his occupation. How do I know, Judith? Elementary, my dear. He has the weaver’s tooth and the compositor’s thumb; no other deduction is possible! And the shorter – what shall we say of him? Is he a musician or does he work a typewriter? Mark a certain refinement about the features–”
“Do shut up. It’s–”
“–but mark too the worn line two inches above the cuff–”
“You silly ass!” With a strength born of much kneading of clay, Judith vigorously pinched her fiancé on the thigh. “It’s Mr Scott, the publisher.”
“Of course it is. Ranulph Raven’s publisher. And the other fellow is no one less than Liddell, the news editor of the Blare. What would he be doing round these parts, I wonder? But Rainbird is receiving them coldly. You can tell from the back of his neck that there is a frosty gleam in his eye. Publisher Scott is claiming old acquaintance. Editor Liddell is producing his card. Rainbird sees nothing for it but to show them into the library. Editor Liddell is plainly a stranger; he edges apprehensively past the first rank of Tartars–”
Judith scrambled out of the sarcophagus. “If you do retire from the police, why not get a job as a radio commentator? The Mayor has finished his speech. There is breathless expectation in the crowd. And now Lady Augusta has risen. I think – yes, I think – that the Mayor is about to hand her the trowel. We’ll be certain of that in a minute. It’s a lovely afternoon, a perfect afternoon; there must be at least four hundred people here; five hundred, perhaps I should say. Lady Augusta has taken the trowel; there’s a man standing by with some mortar all ready–”
“And here comes Everard. He looks worried. Can it be that he is wondering whether the cabbage soup will go round?” Appleby followed Judith across the hall. Everard Raven, once more in his faded pink wine-jacket, stopped on seeing them.
“Judith, here is Scott come unexpectedly down. I wonder what can bring him to Dream? We must welcome him, of course, though I fear his visit must be described as a shade untimely. However, it will be a pleasure to have him meet John.”
“Perhaps that’s why he has come,” said Judith gravely. “And isn’t there somebody else?”
Everard glanced at a slip of pasteboard in his hand and looked more worried still. “A fellow who seems to have given him a lift. Another of these intolerable journalists, I fear.”
“News editor of the Blare,” Appleby said.
“Dear me! Well, Rainbird must simply turn him out. He must invite him out of the library and tell him pointedly that I am not at home.” Everard glanced at the card again. “A H Liddell. It wouldn’t be Archie Hamilton Liddell, by any chance?”
“That’s the man.” Appleby was decided. “Used to sign articles as A Hamilton Liddell.”
“Oh dear, oh dear!” Everard’s voice rose to something like a wail of despair. “We were up at Corpus together. And Corpus men always continue to acknowledge each other, I suppose you know. An excellent custom, I am sure. Have you ever remarked the cold glare that marks the meeting of Balliol men wherever they be? Judith, I am afraid he must be asked to dine. Pray see Clarissa and let her speak to Rainbird and have him approach Cook. It may be that there are some tins of sardines–” And, agitatedly dodging Kurds and Tartars, Everard toddled off across the hall.
“Well, well!” said Appleby. He looked speculatively at Judith. “And all for Hannah Hoobin’s boy.”
18
The dining-room had been illuminated with unwonted splendour; one could see the cobwebs in the corners, and the places where the wallpaper was peeling off, and a large patch of green and brown and yellow where the damp was coming through. But one could also see more of the artistic treasures of the Ravens, for hung round the room in pairs were the masterpieces of Gawain Raven, RA (1827–84), and Mordred Raven, ARA (1840–1900). Gawain, like Jan Davidsz de Heem and Adriaen van Utrecht, appeared to have painted straight from his stomach; his canvases were a riot of boars newly slaughtered, hams long since cured and now part demolished, half-empty glasses of wine, meat, game and vegetables piled in cornucopian profusion, and in the corners oranges and lemons carefully studied while in process of peeling. Mordred had painted from elsewhere; Susannah and the Elders was the subject by which his imagination had been most compelled, and covering the greater part of all his canvases were ladies so uniformly rosy that one was compelled to suppose him as having worked exclusively from models who had come straight from an uncomfortably hot bath. Occasionally Gawain appeared to have painted in a good square feed for Mordred’s nymphs and goddesses – commonly in the form of an inordinate picnic displayed upon a grassy sward. And once or twice Mordred had provided Gawain with a background in which female forms, browned to a duskier hue, disported themselves on the surface of a canvas within the canvas. But this scarcely mitigated the somewhat overpowering regularity with which the pictures delivered their alternate summons to bed and board; and there was positive relief to the appetites as well as to the eye in certain large blank spaces arbitrarily disposed about the walls. It was to be suspected that the Ravens had been compelled at times to eat their way not only through copies of Dodsley’s Miscellany, Dryden’s Fables, and the voluminous works of Voltaire in full calf, but also through the fantasmal boars, hares, cucumbers and pineapples of Gawain’s inspiration – and even to submit to the further indignity of being supported by whatever Mordred’s rose-red Paphians could bring in. A critic of the family unamiably disposed might have maintained that their behaviour-pattern approximated to that of a cannibal culture of the baser and more utilitarian kind. They devoured their kinsmen, not for the sake of any mysterious power thereby gained, but simply of necessity when having a thin time. And this state of affairs – Appleby reflected as he sipped his claret – had its place in the deplorable mystery which it was now so desirable to elucidate or dispel.
And meanwhile the mystery held the board. Everard Raven had made some attempt to treat it as a subject unsuitable for present airing, but any resolution he brought to this course had been defeated by the general inclination of the company. Mr Liddell was openly curious; Mr Scott was discreetly so; and of the family only Miss Clarissa appeared to be entirely unoppressed by a sense of awkward issues pending. For the soup had been not cabbage, but artichoke; a mushroom omelette had followed; and now at a side table Rainbird was operating upon a noble loin of pork. These dishes, although possibly not of the first elegance, were amply sufficient to vindicate the dignity of the establishment – and, moreover, Peggy Pitches, albeit in a pair of new silk stockings of a shade scarcely congruous with a parlourmaid’s attire, was manipulating the vegetable dishes competently enough. Miss Clarissa, therefore, had reason to be soothed. She had even made some entirely amiable remarks
to Appleby. And now she was talking to Mr Scott on her left hand.
“The unfortunate man who died last night,” she explained, “was far from reliable. I could not conscientiously describe him as a valued servant.”
“His new situation,” said Mark, “is scarcely likely to be such that he will require a testimonial.”
“Although he had been with us for a number of years. Everard, for how many years had the man Heyhoe been in your employment?”
“Really, Clarissa, I can scarcely tell. Certainly, for a long time.”
“Quite so. And he was excellent with Spot, Mr Scott. And with the two horses we had before Scott – I mean Spot. And with the four horses we had before the two horses we had before–” Miss Clarissa paused, as one to whom a point of interest has just occurred. “Everard,” she continued, “I think it might be a good idea to keep four horses again. One would then have no hesitation in calling out the carriage.”
“None whatever,” said Everard.
“And Bidewell might be put in livery.”
“Bidewell?” said Mr Liddell. “Is that the thoughtful young man with the scholar’s stoop?”
“And who has some knowledge,” asked Mr Scott, “of a piece of folklore about a head, which recalls the circumstances of Heyhoe’s death?”
“I can scarcely subscribe to the scholar’s stoop.” Everard Raven fidgeted with the stem of his wine glass. “But, as for the piece of folklore, it does appear–”
“And you have a Ranulph Raven story, turning on the same circumstance, preserved in manuscript?”
“That is so.” Everard looked round the table, frowning in perplexity. “But just how–”
“There may be something in this!” Mr Scott tapped the table for emphasis, and turned to Mr Liddell. “Liddell, don’t you agree with me?”
“I am certainly inclined to agree. But, you know, it’s uncommonly bewildering.”
“Very bewildering indeed,” Appleby interjected decidedly. “I don’t know that I’ve ever come across anything more so. A literary sort of affair, too.”
Appleby's End Page 19
