Appleby and the Ospreys

by Michael Innes

  ‘I scarcely think one can say that of it. But it has its strengths, I believe. Slender coins from Assyria and thick ones from Latium. Tablets of Bactriana. Bull, star, globe, crescent, and so on. All attractively named for amateurs. Who could resist zianies? They’re things minted by the Moors in a gold alloy.’

  ‘And every one of them worth ten reales.’

  ‘Sir John, I’ve been showing off, and now you’re making fun of me. You must be something of a numismatist yourself.’

  ‘Far from it. I’ve simply read Don Quixote. But, for the moment, let’s forget about Miss Minnychip. Of course it’s the Osprey Collection that’s in every way important now. Have you had a sight of it?’

  ‘No, I have not, Sir John. Nor many other people either, so far as I can make out. But there’s been a catalogue.’

  ‘I know about that. Are you here because you hoped to be given sight of it?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘But you haven’t been?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘But you were still hoping, right up to this nasty affair?’

  ‘Certainly I was. I came here with my mother because Lord Osprey had more or less promised to show me his collection.’

  ‘But he didn’t?’

  ‘No. I’ve already said that, haven’t I? Today or tomorrow, it would have happened, I think. We were getting on rather well together, Lord Osprey and I.’

  ‘Did he tell you where the Osprey Collection was kept?’

  ‘Kept, Sir John?’

  ‘He made a secret of it, it seems. He didn’t divulge it to you?’

  ‘Definitely not. I imagine it must be in some sort of strong room. It is extremely valuable. Its nature makes it that. It’s not like, say, a great Mantegna or Turner, the direct market value of which, to a thief, is nil. Coins can be sent all over the place, and simply sold piecemeal. Ideal booty, in fact.’

  ‘Worth committing murder for?’

  ‘Most definitely. And that’s what has happened, I suppose.’

  ‘I don’t know that we can yet be quite sure of that, Miss Wimpole. And may I now venture on more delicate ground?’

  ‘Yes, you may. And I know what’s in your head, Sir John. The reach of the late Lord Osprey’s amorous proclivities.’

  ‘Well, yes.’ This was going a little fast for Sir John Appleby, an elderly and therefore misdoubting spectator of a much younger generation. ‘The territory we seemed to be hearing about from that Mr Trumfitt.’

  ‘Quite so. And you want to know whether I tried softening up Lord Osprey through an exhibition of female charm.’

  ‘Stuff and nonsense, Miss Wimpole. You wouldn’t need to put on any turn in order to be attractive to this wretched dead man. My question is simply whether you judged him to be on the inflammable side?’

  ‘As in this story about Miss Trumfitt? Very probably, I’d say. But he was also prepared to doat, which isn’t quite the same thing.’

  ‘I’m not sure that I follow you, Miss Wimpole.’

  ‘By doating I mean a kind of flirting to no practical intent in what he perfectly well knew to be a no-go area. It’s tiresome to have to admit to such a thing as going on in one’s own frosty cabbage patch. But I did let him doat, and thereby got a little nearer to the Osprey Collection.’ Honoria Wimpole paused on this. ‘He wasn’t, by the way, altogether a stupid man. And that cut down my feeling of false pretences. I mean that he knew perfectly well that, even if he poured his every treasure on my head – owls from Athens, winged horses from Corinth, turtles from Aegina – it wouldn’t bring us an inch nearer together. He doated, all right. But there was always a groat’s worth of wit in his pate.’

  ‘Can you cite an instance of that?’

  ‘His putting up with Marcus Broadwater. Broadwater seems to me to have been a thoroughly tiresome brother-in-law. But at some point or other Lord Osprey had the wit to spot him as a godsend.’

  ‘Explain.’

  ‘I’m afraid you’ll find it rather fanciful. I seem to see Lord Osprey as one of nature’s misers – and in a quite pathological way. Discovering in himself an impulse to conceal small bags of money in secure hiding-places all over this enormous house. That sort of thing.’

  ‘It’s an ingenious thought, Miss Wimpole. Go on.’

  ‘But he had sense enough to fear that, if he carried that to an extreme, his family would be worried, and doctors called in, and in no time he’d find himself put under trustees or even carted away as a lunatic. And then he found the expedient of hiding not current coins but ancient ones. And having realized that this would be judged a perfectly respectable activity, and that he had a brother-in-law in a position to advise him and at the same time to cover his own almost complete ignorance of numismatics, he started up what we now call the Osprey Collection. What do you think, Sir John?’

  ‘I think that you yourself, in becoming a professional numismatist, cheated the world of a very promising novelist.’

  ‘But doesn’t my theory – well, fit? All this concealment of where the Osprey Collection is kept: what’s that if it isn’t miserhood?’

  ‘You have a point or two there, Miss Wimpole. Broadwater says that he himself has been kept in ignorance of the collection’s whereabouts – and that, to my mind, is a striking dottiness in itself. But I’m not at all sure of its helping me to solve the mystery of Lord Osprey’s murder. And that’s the job I seem to have taken on. I’m at Clusters as a policeman – retired, but still a bit of a policeman – and not as an alienist.’

  ‘And my discovery – because I’m convinced it’s that – takes us a long way from Mr Trumfitt and his daughter.’

  ‘It does seem so. But I’m not quite sure of the irrelevance, as one may call it, of the Trumfitt dimension.’

  ‘But, Sir John, you must at least admit that Trumfitt is not the murderer. For here he was, less than an hour ago, roaring and thirsting for Lord Osprey’s blood.’

  ‘Again you have a point, Miss Wimpole. But I’m not quite sure that it is a conclusive one. And if we go back to the theme of what you have called Lord Osprey’s amorous proclivities, there’s the odd fact that Mr Quickfall – who must normally be pretty clear-headed to have got where he has as a barrister – managed to believe that it was Adrian, and not Adrian’s father – who disgraced himself in relation to the lovely Avice Trumfitt.’

  Appleby paused on this, quite aware that he had produced something of a non sequitur, but watching Honoria keenly as he spoke. And the young woman instantly flushed with anger.

  ‘Disgusting nonsense!’ she said. ‘And if Quickfall believed he was told anything of the sort, it must have been because he was thoroughly fuddled at the time. And he looks to me as if he drinks like a fish.’

  ‘The notion of Adrian as a crude ravisher is utterly alien to the young man’s character?’

  ‘Of course it is. I don’t care tuppence for Adrian Osprey’ – and Honoria’s flush deepened as she spoke – ‘but he isn’t in the least that sort of person.’

  Appleby accepted this with a nod. He had the habit of taking satisfaction in making discoveries, whether relevant to some matter in hand, or not.

  ‘May I just take up one further point?’ he asked. ‘It’s rather a crude one, I’m afraid – but murder mysteries often have to move that way. It’s just about the pounds and pence aspect of the thing. Or perhaps the dollars and cents. You have seen that privately printed catalogue; studied it pretty carefully, I don’t doubt. So can you put an approximate value on the Osprey Collection?’

  ‘By value, Sir John, I suppose you mean something like brute cost – what the Osprey Collection might be expected to fetch at the fall of the hammer?’

  ‘Exactly that. Call it an auctioneer’s estimate.’

  ‘It’s something not at all simple to arrive at.’ Honoria glanced at Appleby i
n what might have been taken as mild amusement. ‘There are private collectors in America, you know, who might either turn up or stay away. There might even be a Saudi prince or two, with a large whack of the world’s oil revenues at command. One of these people might be a mad collector. Even a couple of them might be that. And the parties might all favour a private deal to a public auction. Lord Osprey himself would have done so, provided he was at all well advised. A little man like that Purvis could explain the point to him at once. Lord Osprey, you see, no doubt guided by Marcus Broadwater, will have been fairly active in the auction rooms himself over the last few years at least. So in the eyes of the Inland Revenue any auction he authorized would rank as one in a series of transactions – and to anything that can be so represented very heavy taxation applies. It’s a situation – as you can well imagine – that conduces to the engineering of quiet private deals. And collectors – private collectors at least – are particularly attracted to that if they are a little loco, as many are. Which is a long-winded way of saying that your question is a non-question. There’s no answer to it.’

  ‘But some sort of side-glance, perhaps? I’d like to hear you actually name a sum of money.’

  ‘Very well.’ And Honoria reflected for a moment. ‘Go back to Miss Minnychip’s Anglo-Indian papa, and consider the kind of coins he was in a particular position to collect. For example, the East India Company’s mohurs struck in silver. In a strict numismatic regard, they’re of very little interest. And aesthetically considered, they’re not all that. But the other day I heard of one – minted, I think, in 1854 or thereabouts – knocked down for about £2,000. It’s annoying, really, if one happens to be on the side of the major public collections.’

  Sir John Appleby, thus rather ruthlessly and at length taught his ABC, laughed good-humouredly.

  ‘I should have thought of all that,’ he said. ‘Can I get you another cup of coffee? No? Then I think I’ll go and have a word with my colleague Ringwood. But thank you very much.’

  17

  Having thus formally re-enlisted himself, as it were, in the police force, Appleby made his way back to the Music Saloon. Ringwood was there, and came to him at once.

  ‘Having lunch with the nobs, Sir John?’ The Detective-Inspector had clearly taken a liking to the eminently tactful veteran. ‘I went to a local pub, and had what they call a ploughman’s lunch. Bread and cheese and beer, but no ploughmen present. There were several locals of one sort or another, however, and I managed to have a word with them. They hadn’t, of course, heard about Lord Osprey’s death. Incidentally, the pub is called The Osprey Arms. It always strikes me as odd, how many pot-houses are named like that. You’d think the relevant armigerous grandees would object.’

  ‘They never seem to have objected, and I suppose the thing was taken to add to their consequence. They used even to like having their arms engraved on milestones. Did you manage to have a word with the licensee?’

  ‘He didn’t seem to be around. But I noticed his name over the door, and heard a bit about him. Trumfitt.’

  ‘Trumfitt it would be, and he was here, paying what might be termed a morning call.’ And Appleby briefly sketched the untoward incident at luncheon. ‘Did you hit on any relevant talk?’ he then asked.

  ‘I gathered something that may be very relevant, in the light of what you’ve just told me, Sir John. Despite his years, Lord Osprey seems to have been a bit of a lad. That was the expression. It seemed to mean that he interested himself from time to time in village girls.’

  ‘Relevant, indeed. Did you gather anything about Trumfitt?’

  ‘Careful about his licence. A third pint the limit. And if a man gets really stroppy, out he goes on his ear. Trumfitt must have a strong arm and a quick temper.’

  ‘He wasn’t exactly being careful about his licence, Ringwood, here at Clusters less than an hour ago. Storming into this stately home, and bellowing, more or less, for its proprietor’s blood, is scarcely the way to keep in with a bench of local magistrates.’ Appleby considered this for a moment. ‘Do you know,’ he said, ‘I think I’m wrong there? If Lord Osprey wasn’t much admired by the gentry of the county – if they thought of him as rather a pompous and boring fellow who didn’t always behave himself with young women – they might be inclined to give Trumfitt quite a good mark for the show he put up here. By the way, did you gather whether there’s a Mrs Trumfitt?’

  ‘There isn’t. She died a couple of years ago.’

  ‘How very odd! I mean, Ringwood, how remarkable that you should have extracted such information over a pint of beer in The Osprey Arms.’

  ‘I didn’t, Sir John. It’s just my habit to take a stroll through any country churchyard that comes my way. And there she was. Beloved wife and mother, and so on.’

  ‘God bless my soul, Ringwood! It’s the sort of habit that Conan Doyle might have planted on Sherlock Holmes. But what about the lovely Avice? Did you hear anything about her when you were in the pub?’

  ‘I did hear a little. She helps regularly in the bar, and is much admired by the yokels. But, again, they have to mind their Ps and Qs. A bit of lip to the girl, and out you go.’

  ‘A jealous and zealous and hot-tempered papa. It all fits in with the exhibition we had here. An irrelevant side-show, at a guess. But I’m bound to say it bobs up uncommonly pat.’

  ‘When one is guessing, Sir John, I suppose it’s a sign one ought to be trying to find out more. In whatever the area in question may be, that is.’

  ‘You’re absolutely right, Ringwood, and we mustn’t simply let Trumfitt pass by. Suppose we go the whole hog and swear to ourselves that it was this infuriated publican who killed Lord Osprey. Just what difficulties do we face?’

  ‘For a start, Sir John, there’s his having turned up here in the way he did, not an hour ago. What do we say about that?’

  ‘We say that it’s an instance of the very common phenomenon of the guilty man returning to haunt the scene of his crime. But to that we have to add what may be called an element of primitive deception. Trumfitt, dragging the unfortunate Avice along with him, burst into Clusters more or less howling for Lord Osprey’s blood. And you don’t howl for the blood of a man you’ve already killed. So by putting on today’s turn he felt he was distancing himself from his last night’s murder. So far, it’s plain sailing. But what other difficulties do we face, Ringwood?’

  ‘The possibility of alibi, Sir John. Actually, of two alibis. The dinner-hour here at Clusters seems to be eight o’clock. So it was round about half past seven that there was that appearance at the library window. That’s well past opening time at a pub. Was Trumfitt on view behind his bar at that hour? It’s a crucial question, and one not too difficult to get an answer to. I can have one of my men get into plain clothes, take himself off to the public bar at The Osprey Arms this evening, and raise hell by swearing he was short changed there at the same hour yesterday. It will at once become evident whether Trumfitt was then in charge of things or not.’

  ‘Excellent – and that’s the crucial point in the way of alibi. The other one doesn’t pack much punch. Osprey seems to have been killed round about midnight, or in the small hours. A widower can’t be expected to provide witnesses to his whereabouts at such a time. But there is another question I’d like to get settled. Do you know? I think you and I ought to have a further word with that fellow Bagot.’

  The butler was discovered in his pantry, recruiting himself against any further stresses the day might bring by a leisured ingestion of sandwiches and burgundy. Appleby found himself thinking rather well of Bagot – at least in point of his professional character. Clusters was a rambling anachronism, an outmoded machine rusty in some parts, in others distinctly in need of oil, or fined away by friction in areas where replacements would be distinctly hard to find. And amid all this Bagot clearly had the function of a tireless escapement, an insignificant part
of the whole, but one entirely dedicated to maintaining the appearance of an orderly progression of hour upon hour and day upon day. Appleby, who was inwardly still a little resentful at having got himself caught up in the messy business of Lord Osprey’s sudden decease, was abruptly aware in himself of a freakish wish that it should be Bagot who would finally be unmasked as the villain of the piece. In popular fiction butlers, although in real life of a race almost as extinct as the dodo, were still constantly coming upon slaughtered employers in libraries. Why not, for a change, a butler who had himself done the deed? Had anyone thought of that? Appleby, who had read singularly few detective stories, didn’t at all know. Certainly the present situation at Clusters held small promise in this direction. Almost everything in the set-up would have to be drastically rearranged if anything of the sort were to be achieved.

  All this was a most culpable vagary on Appleby’s part, and as its consequence Detective-Inspector Ringwood was for the moment left to make all the running. As Ringwood was without any clear notion of why this visit to the butler’s pantry was being made, a certain sense of inconsequence not unnaturally ensued. And it was contributed to by Bagot himself, who quite failed to exhibit his customary poise in the presence of his callers. This was perhaps a matter of social confusion. Bagot knew precisely how to comport himself with Sir John Appleby. He had a fairly clear notion of what would be proper with a detective-inspector, who could be thought of as roughly equivalent to a regimental sergeant-major. The obscure factor lay in the relationship between his two visitors, an understanding of which must necessarily condition his own current bearing to each. This shadowy punctilio amused Appleby, who had the hang of it. Ringwood, sensing it more obscurely, was impatient and annoyed.