Appleby Talking

by Michael Innes

  “You can’t ever tell what madmen will do. And as for corpses, there are more people than you would reckon what ’as uncommon queer interests in them at times.” And Albert shook his head. “I seen things,” he added.

  “No doubt you have. But have you seen anything just lately? Was there anything that might be considered as leading up to this shocking affair?”

  Albert hesitated. “Well, sir, in this line wot I come down to since they retired me it’s not always possible to up’old the law. In fact, it’s sometimes necessary to circumvent it, like. For, as the late professor was given to remarking, science must be served.” Albert paused and tapped his cadaver-racks. “Served with these ’ere. And of late we’ve been uncommon short. And there’s no doubt that now and then him and me was stretching a point.”

  “Good heavens!” Appleby was genuinely alarmed. “This affair is bad enough already. You don’t mean to say that it’s going to lead to some further scandal about body-snatching?”

  “Nothing like that, sir.” But as he said this Albert looked doubtful. “Nothing quite like that. They comes from institutions, you know. And nowadays they ’as to be got to sign papers. It’s a matter of tact. Sometimes relatives comes along afterwards and says there been too much tact by a long way. It’s not always easy to know just how much tact you can turn on. There’s no denying but we’ve ’ad one or two awkwardnesses this year. And it’s my belief as ’ow this sad affair is just another awkwardness – but more violent like than the others.”

  “It was violent, all right.” Appleby had turned and led the way into the deserted theatre. Flowers still strewed it. There was a mingled smell of lilies and formalin. Overhead, the single great lamp was like a vast all-seeing eye. But that morning the eye had blinked. And what deed of darkness had followed?

  “The professor was killed and laid out like that, sir, as an act of revenge by some barmy and outraged relation. And the cadaver was carried off by that same relation as what you might call an act of piety.”

  “Well, it’s an idea.” Appleby was strolling about, measuring distances with his eye. “But what about this particular body upon which Finlay was going to demonstrate? Had it outraged any pious relations?”

  “It only come in yesterday. Quite unprepared it was to be, you see – the same as hanatomists ’ad them in the sixteenth century. Very interesting the late professor was on all that. And why all them young varmints of students should take this partikler occasion to fool around–”

  “Quite so. It was all in extremely bad taste, I agree. And I don’t doubt that the Coroner will say so. And an Assize Judge too, if we have any luck. But you were going to tell me about this particular corpse.”

  “I was saying it only come in yesterday. And it was after that that somebody tried to break into the cadaver-racks. Last night, they did – and not a doubt of it. Quite professional, too. If this whole part of the building, sir, weren’t well-nigh like a strong-room they’d have done it, without a doubt. And when the late professor ’eard of it ’e was as worried as I was. Awkwardnesses we’ve ’ad. But body-snatching in reverse, as you might say, was a new one on us both.”

  “So you think that the outraged and pious relation had an earlier shot, in the programme for which murder was not included? I think it’s about time we hunted him up.”

  Albert looked sorely perplexed. “And so it would be – if we knew where to find him. But it almost seems as if there never was a cadaver with less in the way of relations than this one wot ’as caused all the trouble. A fair ideal cadaver it seemed to be. You don’t think, now” – Albert was frankly inconsequent – “that it might ’ave been an accident? You don’t think it might ’ave been one of them young varmint’s jokes gone a bit wrong?”

  “I do not.”

  “But listen, sir.” Albert was suddenly urgent. “Suppose there was a plan like this. The lights was to be put out and a great horrid dagger thrust into the cadaver. That would be quite like one of their jokes, believe me. For on would go the lights again and folk would get a pretty nasty shock. But now suppose – just suppose, sir – that when the lights were put out for that there purpose there came into the professor’s head the notion of a joke of his own. He would change places with the cadaver–”

  “But the man wasn’t mad!” Appleby was staring at the late Professor Finlay’s assistant in astonishment. “Anything so grotesque–”

  “He done queer things before now.” Albert was suddenly stubborn. “It would come on him sometimes to do something crazier than all them young fools could cudgel their silly brains after. And then the joke would come first and decency second. I seen some queer things at final lectures before this. And that would mean that the varmint thinking to stick the dagger in the cadaver would stick it in the late professor instead.”

  “I see.” Appleby was looking at Albert with serious admiration; the fellow didn’t look very bright – nevertheless his days in the Force should have been spent in the detective branch. “It’s a better theory than we’ve had yet, I’m bound to say. But it leaves out two things: the disappearance of the original body, and the fact that Finlay was stabbed from behind. For if he did substitute himself for the body it would have been in the same position – a supine position, and not a prone one. So I don’t think your notion will do. And, anyway, we must have all the information about the cadaver that we can get.”

  “It isn’t much.” Albert bore the discountenance of his hypothesis well. “We don’t know much more about ’im than this – that ’e was a seafaring man.”

  The cadaver, it appeared, had at least possessed a name: James Cass. He had also possessed a nationality, for his seaman’s papers declared him to be a citizen of the United States, and that his next-of-kin was a certain Martha Cass, with an indecipherable address in Seattle, Washington. For some years he had been sailing pretty constantly in freighters between England and America. Anybody less likely to bring down upon the Anatomy Department of Nessfield University the vengeance of outraged and pious relations it would have been difficult to conceive. And the story of Cass’ death and relegation to the service of science was an equally bare one. He had come off his ship and was making his way to an unknown lodging when he had been knocked down by a tram and taken to the casualty ward of Nessfield Infirmary. There he had been visited by the watchful Albert, who had surreptitiously presented him with a flask of gin, receiving in exchange Cass’ signature to a document bequeathing his remains for the purposes of medical science. Cass had then died, and his body had been delivered at the Anatomy School.

  And, after that, somebody had ruthlessly killed Professor Finlay and then carried James Cass’ body away again. Stripped of the bewildering nonsense of the final lecture, thought Appleby, the terms of the problem were fairly simple. And yet that nonsense, too, was relevant. For it had surely been counted upon in the plans of the murderer.

  For a few minutes Appleby worked with a stop-watch. Then he turned once more to Albert. “At the moment,” he said, “Cass himself appears to be something of a dead end. So now, let us take the lecture – or the small part of it that Finlay had got through before the lights went out. You were a witness of it – and a trained police witness, which is an uncommonly fortunate thing. I want you to give me every detail you can – down to the least squawk or flutter by that damned vulture.”

  Albert was gratified, and did as he was bid. Appleby listened, absorbed. Only once a flicker passed over his features. But when Albert was finished he had some questions to ask.

  “There was the audience,” he said, “–if audience is the right name for it. Apparently all sorts of people were accustomed to turn up?”

  “All manner of unlikely and unsuitable folk.” Albert looked disgusted. “Though most of them would be medical, one way or another. As you can imagine, sir, a demonstration of a sixteenth-century dissecting technique isn’t every layman’s fancy.”

  “It certainly wouldn’t be mine.”

  “I couldn’t put a name to
a good many of them. But there was Dr Holroyd, whom you’ll have met, sir; he’s our professor of Human Physiology. Went away early, he did; and looking mighty disgusted, too. Then there was Dr Wesselman, the lecturer in Prosthetics – an alien, he is, and not been in Nessfield many years. He brought a friend I never had sight of before. And out they went too.”

  “Well, that’s very interesting. And can you recall anyone else?”

  “I don’t know that I can, sir. Except of course our Vice-Chancellor, Sir David Evans.”

  Appleby jumped. “Evans! But he swore to me that–”

  Albert smiled indulgently. “Bless you, that’s his regular way. Did you ever know a Welshman who could let a day pass without a bit of ’armless deceit like?”

  “There may be something in that.”

  “’E don’t think it dignified, as you might say, to attend the final lecture openly. But more often than not he’s up there at the far doorway, peering in at the fun. Well, this time ’e ’ad more than ’e bargained for.”

  “No doubt he had. And the same prescription might be good for some of the rest of us.” Appleby paused and glanced quickly round the empty theatre. “Just step to a telephone, will you, and ask Dr Holroyd to come over here.”

  Albert did as he was asked, and presently the physiologist came nervously in. “Is another interview really necessary?” he demanded. “I have a most important–”

  “We shall hope not to detain you long.” Appleby’s voice was dry rather than reassuring. “It is merely that I want you to assist me in a reconstruction of the crime.”

  Holroyd flushed. “And may I ask by what right you ask me to take part in such a foolery?”

  Appleby suddenly smiled. “None, sir – none at all. I merely wanted a trained mind – and one with a pronounced instinct to get at the truth of a problem when it arises. I was sure you would be glad to help.”

  “Perhaps I am. Anyway, go ahead.”

  “Then I should be obliged if you would be the murderer. Perhaps I should say the first murderer, for it seems likely enough that there were at least two – accomplices. You have no objection to so disagreeable a part?”

  Holroyd shrugged his shoulders. “Naturally, I have none whatever. But I fear I must be coached in it and given my cues. For I assure you it is a role entirely foreign to me. And I have no theatrical flair, as Sir David pointed out.”

  Once more Appleby brought out his stop-watch. “Albert,” he said briskly, “shall be the cadaver, and I shall be Finlay standing in front of it. Your business is to enter by the back, switch off the light, step into the theatre and there affect to stab me. I shall fall to the floor. You must then dislodge Albert, hoist me into his place and cover me with the tarpaulin. Then you must get hold of Albert by the legs or shoulders and haul him from the theatre.”

  “And all this in the dark? It seems a bit of a programme.”

  Appleby nodded. “I agree with you. But we shall at least discover if it is at all possible of accomplishment by one man in the time available. So are you ready?”

  “One moment, sir.” Albert, about to assume the passive part of the late James Cass, sat up abruptly. “You seem to have missed me out. Me as I was, that is to say.”

  “Quite true.” Appleby looked at him thoughtfully. “We are short of a stand-in for you as you were this morning. But I shall stop off being Finlay’s body and turn on the lights again myself. So go ahead.”

  Albert lay down and drew the tarpaulin over his head. Holroyd slipped out. Appleby advanced as if to address an audience. “Now,” he said.

  And Appleby talked. Being thorough, he made such anatomical observations as his ignorance allowed. Once he glanced round at the corpse, and out of the corner of his eye glimpsed Holroyd beyond the glass-panelled door, his hand already going up to flick at the switch. A moment later the theatre was in darkness, and seconds after that Appleby felt a sharp tap beneath the shoulder-blade. He pitched to the floor, pressing his stop-watch as he did so. Various heaving sounds followed as Holroyd got the portly Albert off the table; then Appleby felt himself seized in surprisingly strong arms and hoisted up in Albert’s place. Next came a shuffle and a scrape as Holroyd, panting heavily now, dragged the inert Albert from the theatre. Appleby waited for a couple of seconds, threw back the tarpaulin and lowered himself to the floor. Then he groped his way through the door, flicked on the light and looked at his watch. “And the audience,” he said, “is now sitting back and waiting – until presently somebody points out that the cadaver is the wrong size. Thank you very much. The reconstruction has been more instructive than I hoped.” He turned to Holroyd. “I am still inclined to think that it has the appearance of being the work of two men. And yet you managed it pretty well on schedule when single-handed. Never a fumble and just the right lift. You might almost have been practising it.”

  Holroyd frowned. “Yachting,” he said briefly, “–and particularly at night. It makes one handy.”

  And Albert looked with sudden suspicion at Nessfield’s professor of Human Physiology. “Yachting?” he asked. “Now, would that have put you in the way of acquaintance with many seafaring men?”

  Of James Cass, that luckless waif who would be a seafarer no longer, Appleby learned little more that afternoon. The cargo-vessel from which he had disembarked was already at sea again, and a couple of days must elapse before any line could be tapped there. But one elderly seaman who had recently made several voyages with him a little research did produce, and from this witness two facts emerged. There was nothing out of the way about Cass – except that he was a man distinctly on the simple side. Cass had been suggestible, Appleby gathered; so much so as to have been slightly a butt among his fellows. And Appleby asked a question: had the dead man appeared to have any regular engagement or preoccupation when he came into port? The answer to this was definitive. Within a couple of hours, Appleby felt, the file dealing with this queer mystery of the anatomy theatre would be virtually closed for good.

  Another fifteen minutes found him mounting the staircase of one of Nessfield’s most superior blocks of professional chambers. But the building, if imposing, was gloomy as well, and when Appleby was overtaken and jostled by a hurrying form it was a second before he recognised that he was again in the presence of Dr Holroyd.

  “Just a moment,” Appleby laid a hand on the other’s arm. “May I ask if this coincidence extends to our both aiming at the third floor?”

  Holroyd was startled, but made no reply. They mounted the final flight side by side and in silence. Appleby rang a bell before a door with a handsome brass plate. After a perceptible delay the door was opened by a decidedly flurried nurse, who showed the two men into a sombre waiting-room. “I don’t think,” she said, “that you have an appointment? And as an emergency has just arisen I am afraid there is no chance of seeing Dr–”

  She stopped at an exclamation from Appleby. Hunched in a corner of the waiting-room was a figure whose face was almost entirely swathed in a voluminous silk muffler. But there was no mistaking that flowing silver hair. “Sir David!” exclaimed Appleby. “This is really a most remarkable rendezvous.”

  Sir David Evans groaned. “My chaw,” he said. “It is one pig ache, look you.”

  Holroyd laughed nervously. “Shakespeare was demonstrably right. There was never yet philosopher could bear the toothache patiently – nor Vice-Chancellor either.”

  But Appleby paid no attention; he was listening keenly to something else. From beyond a door on the right came sound of hurried, heavy movement. Appleby strode across the room and turned the handle. He flung back the door and found himself looking into the dentist’s surgery. “Dr Wesselmann?” he said.

  The answer was an angry shout from a bullet-headed man in a white coat. “How dare you intrude in this way!” he cried. “My colleague and myself are confronted with a serious emergency. Be so good as to withdraw at once.”

  Appleby stood his ground and surveyed the room; Holroyd stepped close behind him. The dentist
’s chair was empty, but on a surgical couch nearby lay a patient covered with a light rug. Over this figure another white-coated man was bending, and appeared to be holding an oxygen-mask over its face.

  And Nessfield’s lecturer in Prosthetics seemed to find further explanations necessary. “A patient,” he said rapidly, “with an unsuspected idiosyncrasy to intravenous barbiturates. Oxygen has to be administered, and the position is critical. So be so good–”

  Appleby leaped forward and sent the white-coated holder of the oxygen-mask spinning; he flung back the rug. There could be no doubt that what was revealed was James Cass’ body. And since lying on Professor Finlay’s dissecting-table it had sustained a great gash in the throat. It had never been very pleasant to look at. It was ghastly enough now.

  Wesselmann’s hand darted to his pocket; Holroyd leaped on him with his yachtsman’s litheness, and the alien dentist went down heavily on the floor. The second man showed no fight as he was handcuffed. Appleby looked curiously at Holroyd. “So you saw,” he asked, “how the land lay?”

  “In my purely amateur fashion I suppose I did. And I think I finished on schedule once again.”

  Appleby laughed. “Your intervention saved me from something decidedly nasty at the hands of Nessfield’s authority on false teeth. By the way, would you look round for the teeth in question? And then we can have in Sir David – seeing he is so conveniently in attendance – and say an explanatory word.”

  “I got the hang of it,” said Appleby, “when we did a very rough-and-ready reconstruction of the crime. For when, while playing Finlay’s part, I glanced round at the cadaver, I found myself catching a glimpse of Dr Holroyd here when he was obligingly playing First Murderer and turning off the lights. There was a glass panel in the door, and through this he was perfectly visible. I saw at once why Finlay had been killed. It was merely because he had seen, and recognised, somebody who was about to plunge the theatre in darkness for some nefarious, but not necessarily murderous, end. What did this person want? There could be only one answer: the body of James Cass. Already he had tried to get it in the night, but the housebreaking involved had proved too difficult.”