Appleby at Allington

by Michael Innes

  ‘Sorry,’ Appleby said. ‘But never mind. I expect I’ll be able – ’ His words died away, and in the same instant he brought the car abruptly to a halt. ‘So that’s it,’ he said. ‘What a ghastly idiot I am! Not just two unnatural deaths. Two white gates as well.’

  The second white gate – which stood wide open – was on the same side of the road as the first, and only a few yards beyond the bridge. They climbed from the car and stared at it. And the gate stared back at them – like a yawning, self-evident truth. Standing within it, they were only a couple of dozen feet from the lake straight in front. The track – for it was no more than that – simply turned abruptly to the right and ran off towards a group of farm buildings a couple of hundred yards away.

  ‘I’ve driven past often enough,’ Appleby said. ‘No wonder the solution of the idiotic puzzle was somewhere in my head! Wilfred, why on earth didn’t you tell me?’

  ‘Tell you, my dear John? I have no idea what you’re talking about.’

  ‘Good Lord, man – don’t you see? Imagine yourself approaching Allington from the direction in which we came this afternoon. But in darkness. And it’s all tolerably familiar to you. You’re on the look out for the white gate that marks the drive. Unfortunately it isn’t there. It has been taken away.’

  ‘I don’t see–’

  ‘So the first white gate you come to is the wrong one. You swing in, quite fast, believing that in front of you is the straight drive up to the house. But what is actually in front of you is this – the lake at its full depth. And the one gate is so close to the other that a car going in head-on here would land in pretty well the same spot as a car going in slant-wise from the drive. It was all as simple as that. Add that Martin Allington may have been a bit fuddled, if you like. But it could have happened to him while as sober as a judge.’

  There was a moment’s silence. Wilfred Osborne passed a hand over his forehead. He appeared almost dazed.

  ‘Yes,’ he said slowly. ‘A much likelier accident. It happened once before. Funny that I didn’t remember that.’

  ‘Just how did it happen before?’

  ‘It wasn’t exactly the same. There was no intention of going up the drive to the house. It was the end of a long day’s hay-making on the home farm. They were still bringing the hay by moonlight. And just as the fellow with the big wain turned in here he must have fallen fast asleep.’

  ‘Horses?’ Judith asked.

  ‘Yes, we still employed horses. Perhaps they were asleep too, for the whole thing went into the lake. There was no tragedy. The wain floated, and two splendid fellows I had then managed to cut the traces and save the horses. I had a bit of post-and-rail fence put up. But that was a long time ago. As you can see, it has vanished.’

  ‘Ought we to go up to the edge?’ Judith asked. ‘Because of tracks, I mean.’

  ‘I think you’re right.’ Appleby nodded. ‘But I much doubt whether there will be a sign that could be called evidence. The ground’s baked hard. You can see a bit of a crumble there on the brink. But it might have been caused by anything. It’s unlikely they’ll detect anything like the tread of the poor chap’s tyres.’

  ‘So it can’t be called more than a theory of the accident?’

  ‘Probably not – unless the direction in which the car was lying on the bottom has been precisely noted, and affords evidence.’ Appleby was looking at his wife in some surprise. ‘Call it, if you want to, the more likely of the two possible ways in which the accident came about. But I’d take some persuading that I’m not right.’ Appleby paused. ‘The question is, what do we do now?’

  ‘Go home to dinner,’ Judith said.

  ‘That’s the attractive answer, I agree. But I think we ought to go back to the house and explain.’

  ‘I’m against that. We’ve been back once already. It would be ridiculous. And Wilfred must be extremely tired after this perfectly ghastly day. Our first job is to take him to his house.’

  ‘Very well. But Pride’s men, there in the drive, must certainly be told at once. If any faint traces are to be found, they must start looking for them now. I’ll walk back and do the job.’

  ‘Very well. At least you’re somebody they’ll attend to. Wilfred and I will wait.’

  ‘Good. And I’ll lay money it’s the end of this Martin Allington nonsense.’

  ‘I hope so,’ Judith said.

  5

  Appleby put down the telephone receiver and returned to the breakfast table.

  ‘Smart workers in these parts,’ he said approvingly. ‘Some obliging forensic characters toiling through the night, if you ask me. And with instructions from Pride to let me have their results at once. Excellent man, Pride.’

  ‘I thought you’d come to approve of Tommy Pride, John. He’s awfully like you. I don’t mean between the ears.’

  ‘I noticed yesterday a certain similarity in our attire.’ Appleby refrained from looking amused. ‘Well, they’re quite confident. Death took place shortly after midnight the day before yesterday. Martin Allington’s, that is. But so, for that matter, they say did Knockdown’s.’

  ‘We knew Knockdown was dead before you yourself left the Park. You discovered him.’ Judith poured herself a second cup of coffee. ‘But now that seems to hold of young Mr Allington’s death too.’

  ‘Just so. If I’d left a little earlier, I might have run into him. But no. I came out, as I went in, by the other drive. Incidentally, he had been drinking. But they can’t say to what incapacitating extent.’

  ‘And Knockdown?’

  ‘Yes, he’d certainly had a drink or two as well.’

  ‘And so had you, and so had Owain Allington. At that hour, everybody has always been at the bottle.’

  ‘It’s deplorably true.’ Appleby resumed his breakfast. ‘Well,’ he resumed presently, ‘have you slept on it?’

  ‘Slept on it, John?’

  ‘Don’t be tiresome. You said there was something you weren’t going to make an ass of yourself about, and you’d chew on it until the morning. The morning has arrived.’

  ‘But, John, there’s nothing to discuss. The Martin Allington mystery is a mystery no longer. It has been exploded by Sir John Appleby, and reduced to an accident befalling two horses and a hay-wain.’

  ‘First, there was something about that Italian servant, Enzo. You wouldn’t out with it in front of Wilfred Osborne. What was it?’

  ‘The less poor Wilfred’s mind is cast into perplexity the better. It was just this. You happened to give me a fairly detailed account of your dinner with Mr Allington, and what followed it. It was difficult to get away. And when it came to final drinks, he fussed because there was no ice. Didn’t he pretend to ring for Enzo?’

  ‘He did ring for Enzo.’ Appleby stared at Judith. ‘But no Enzo appeared. We agreed he had gone to bed. And I didn’t blame him. It was the devil’s own hour.’

  ‘Enzo wasn’t in the house at all. Allington had told him that he could go out after serving coffee. And out he went. He’s found a girl. The sort you can whistle quietly out of her bedroom and into a field when you want to.’

  ‘Judith, what absolutely fantastic things you find out! And all in half an hour – and in a butler’s pantry in which you have absolutely no business to be. But at least we now know that Enzo is a dissolute character. I will not permit his nude presence in your studio.’

  ‘He won’t be nude, and if he does come to Dream he won’t get beyond the drawing-room. I’ve decided he’s much too good-looking to sculpt. He’d be fit only for Burlington House.’

  ‘Well, that’s that.’ Appleby paused with a due sobriety over this dire dismissal. ‘As for what happened that night, Allington must simply have forgotten he’d told Enzo he could clear out.’

  ‘I suppose so. Had Allington drunk a lot?’

  ‘Quite a lot. And I had drunk quite a lot. We were both entirely sober, all the same. Most elderly men dining together remain entirely sober. Except, conceivably, in the view of a policeman.�
��

  ‘It was your first visit to the Park, wasn’t it?’

  ‘Yes, of course. As you know, I’ve just met Owain Allington casually, here and there. When he rang up, he asked for you. I suppose he meant to ask both of us for some time ahead. When I said you were still away, he suggested I drop in to dinner by myself. Actually, when I got there he made rather a fuss about it. Hoping I’d forgive such a casual invitation, and saying how much he looked forward to entertaining us both later on. What is called being punctilious, I suppose. He does fuss.’

  ‘Did he give you directions for getting there?’

  ‘Yes, he did. It seemed a bit unnecessary. But it was all part of the anxious-courtesy act, I suppose.’

  ‘He told you to come by the old main avenue, and not by the lake?’

  ‘That’s right.’ Appleby put down his cup. ‘Judith, just what is this in aid of?’

  ‘You see perfectly well what it’s in aid of.’

  ‘Yes, I do. You still want to present Allington as a homicidal maniac.’

  ‘I don’t think he’s a maniac.’ Judith paused to light a cigarette. ‘But I am wondering about those white gates. And all I’m saying is that, if you’d happened to go or come by the lake-drive and not the old avenue, you’d know a bit more about one of them than you now do. Perhaps a vital bit more.’

  ‘I’m taking a little too much for granted?’ Appleby asked mildly.

  ‘Something like that. You’re supposing, I think, that the gate on the drive was taken off its hinges and put right aside for the son et lumière – probably when the heavy stuff for it was being brought in – and that it remained like that for some weeks. But what if it wasn’t? What if it was removed when the stuff was brought to the Park, put back again during the period of the show, and removed again only to get the stuff away? Or perhaps only when they were getting the stuff away. That seems to have been a rush job, and it’s then that they may have felt they required a little additional space to manoeuvre in.’

  ‘Which would be only yesterday morning, long after Martin Allington was dead. So what may be called my two-gate theory would be nonsense. All this is exceedingly acute in you, Judith.’

  ‘Thank you very much.’ Judith glanced at her husband suspiciously. ‘John, I believe–’

  ‘Well, yes. Inquiries are being made. I pointed out the importance of the matter to Pride’s chief henchman when I walked back to tell him of what I’ll still call my discovery. The son et lumière people will have been contacted by now. So will the locals who use that road. The result – gate there or not there – may turn out a topic of shockingly conflicting testimony. It’s often like that, but we’ll hope for the best. Don’t tell me, though, after all this, that you haven’t got something further in your head.’

  ‘Of course I have. The gate mayn’t have been removed in aid of the son et lumière at all. It may have been removed in order to bring about what, according to your theory, it did bring about: the death of Martin Allington.’

  ‘In other words, poor old Owain Allington went and lugged the thing off its hinges?’

  ‘Oh, not necessarily him at all. Some other maniac.’

  ‘Barford, perhaps – or Lethbridge?’

  ‘They’re not maniacs. They’re only bores.’

  ‘Hope Allington, then. I’m not sure that she isn’t a kind of young Lady Macbeth.’

  ‘Not Hope either. I think I’d put my money on poor Mr Scrape.’

  ‘Scrape?’ Perhaps by way of rebuking his wife for this descent into mere frivolity, Appleby reached for The Times. ‘You would describe Scrape – even outside his Bingo palace – as a maniac?’

  ‘I’m not really quite certain what a maniac is.’ Judith seemed perfectly serious. ‘But Mr Scrape is certainly as mad as a hatter.’

  Mid-morning brought a second telephone-call from the headquarters of the County Constabulary. The subordinates of the admirable Tommy Pride had been instructed to let Appleby know at once that a thorough examination had now been made of Mr Martin Allington’s car. It was without mechanical defect of any kind. Both brakes and steering, in particular, were in excellent order.

  Appleby hung up the receiver, and took a brooding turn round the garden. It was the two-gate theory or nothing, he told himself. And there was a little more to be said for it than he had fired off at Judith. Her notion of the Reverend Mr Scrape or another lifting the first gate from its hinges and tossing it into the grass was absurd. Conceivably two men could do the job, but certainly not one. And Appleby had managed to study the grass in which it lay. He was pretty sure that the grass had grown since the gate arrived among it. Dirty work with the gate on the actual day, or night of Martin Allington’s death really seemed exceedingly improbable.

  But, of course, there was another possibility. Some ill-wisher might simply have seen the hazard the missing gate constituted for Martin, and done nothing about it. There was something particularly nasty in this thought. It was so nasty, indeed, that Appleby sought briefly to distract his mind from Allington Park by a little conversation with the aged Hoobin. The aged Hoobin, he found, was resolutely opposed to the idea of putting the soft fruit inside cages. Man and boy at Dream, he could remember nothing but nets over the raspberries. It appeared, moreover, that the garden boy regarded such birds as got under the existing nets as a kind of perquisite. They couldn’t, indeed, be put in a pie. But the boy enjoyed catching them and wringing their necks.

  At the risk of alienating the aged Hoobin, Appleby placed a peremptory interdict upon this sadistic practice. Hoobin turned gloomily to the subject of the moles. Appleby was quite glad when the faint ringing of a telephone-bell called him back to the house.

  It was the Constabulary again. A garage-hand twenty miles away on the London road had identified a photograph of Martin Allington. It was an all-night service station, and Allington had filled up with petrol some time between midnight and one o’clock. The man couldn’t fix it nearer than that. But he had had a little conversation with his customer, and watched him drive away and negotiate a tricky turn. He had had his pint, all right. But nothing to speak of. You wouldn’t swear to his having a totally unimpaired reaction time in a sudden crisis. But he was driving perfectly well… There was as yet no word from the son et lumière people, or from anybody else, about that gate.

  Appleby resumed his wandering in the garden. He wondered why he was supposed to be bothering about Allington Park. Pride’s men were clearly an efficient crowd. They were making all the running. Appleby recalled that he was a retired person, engaged in moving decently from bed-time to bed-time, from lunch to dinner.

  Lunch was rather a subdued affair. Judith appeared to have forgotten the whole business. She had brought what she called a bozzetto to table with her, and she studied this small wax object with absorbed attention. As soon as the meal was over, she would certainly disappear into her studio for the rest of the day. Appleby tried The Times again. He even tried its business section, that last bulwark against the sin of accidie. It appeared that a gloomy autumn was likely as car production fell. Feeling out of sympathy with this Weltanschauung, he dropped the paper, and stared out of the window.

  Enzo was cycling up the drive.

  ‘Your young man appears to have got his half-day very promptly,’ Appleby said to Judith. And he looked at her suspiciously. ‘Are you quite sure you haven’t bribed him to take French leave?’

  ‘Quite sure, as it happens.’ Judith studied the young man as he rounded a corner of the house; he appeared to feel that propriety forbad his presenting himself at the front door. ‘I’d say he looks agitated – wouldn’t you? And I did have a feeling he wanted to say more than he did. It’s hard for him, you know, having so little English.’

  ‘I see.’ Appleby’s suspicion was undiminished. ‘Did you happen to tell him that I was a great policeman?’

  ‘The great policeman. Il grande poliziotto.’

  ‘Good heavens! That means a police-spy.’

  ‘Well, he got t
he idea, and here he is. We must go and talk to him. Your study will be the most impressive place. Let’s lay out some handcuffs. And perhaps a whip or two and some canes.’

  ‘Don’t be so exceedingly foolish.’ Appleby was not at all sure that he wanted to interview this young Italian – or not under such false pretences as Judith seemed unblushingly to have engineered. But, as there was no help for it, he submitted with a good grace.

  Enzo, however improper his nocturnal occasions, appeared a very well-conducted young man by day. He was reluctant to sit down, but did so immediately upon being bidden to do so a second time. Appleby, to whom elderly and morose English upper servants were not congenial, judged him rather attractive. It was perhaps odd that Owain Allington, whose notions appeared conventional, should not employ somebody more like a stage butler. But if the rest of the staff at the Park was Italian, Enzo was no doubt an effective choice for running it. He was intelligent. And, at the moment, he was plainly perturbed. The reason appeared almost at once. The polizia had shown him a photograph of the dead man.

  It was another instance of Pride’s men being on their toes, Appleby thought. Summoning such Italian as he had, he asked Enzo whether he had recognized Mr Martin Allington. But at this the young man was at a loss, and Judith had to clear up the misunderstanding. The photograph had been of l’altro morto, the other dead man. And he had recognized the other dead man? Yes, Enzo had recognized him – although he had seen him only once and in the dark. Prese lungo l’albereto.

  ‘He was going along the avenue,’ Judith said. ‘Something like that. Knockdown, apparently. Perhaps–’ She broke off. Enzo was now saying something about the parroco.

  And then, rather slowly and laboriously, Enzo’s small story emerged. He had served his employer and the General (who was Appleby) with dinner and with coffee. He had been instructed that he was then free andare a far una breve passeggiata in the agreeable summer night. But, for reasons with which he would not trouble the nobiltà, he had not set out at once.