‘You interest me very much.’ Appleby reached for the bottle and replenished his companion’s glass. ‘But I ought to say that this report in the paper is in no sense inspired by the police. I’d very much like to know by whom it was inspired. If I had the faintest hope that the paper would tell me, I’d be on the line to them now.’
‘You mean it may be without substance?’ Rushout brightened. ‘The book may be safe?’
‘There is certainly some substance behind the story. As for the book, it may be safe enough, whatever it is. But I very much doubt it.’
‘You don’t know about it? You don’t know about the Ecatommiti?’ For a moment Rushout looked surprised. ‘But naturally you don’t. Packford had, I gather, been dropping hints. But he hadn’t come out with it. The paper he intended to send me for the Elizabethan and Jacobean was to be the first public word about it.’
‘I seem to remember,’ Appleby said, ‘that the Ecatommiti cropped up in a conversation I had with Packford in Italy not very long ago. It’s Shakespeare’s source for Othello?’
‘Well – yes and no. It’s a collection of yarns put together by an Italian we usually call Cintio, and published in 1565. One of the yarns is the Othello story. But it’s never been known whether Shakespeare worked straight from the Italian – a language there’s no positive evidence that he knew – or from a translation into French – a language he almost certainly had some knowledge of. Some people have supposed that he must have come across an English version now unknown to us. But Packford had settled the matter – and much more. He’d somehow acquired – I gather from a source in Verona – a copy of the original Italian, copiously annotated by Shakespeare himself. It’s the greatest Shakespearian find of the century. Indeed, it sounds to me like the greatest ever.’
‘You haven’t seen it?’
‘No. As far as I know, Packford at the time of his death had shown it to nobody. All I had from him was a letter announcing his discovery and saying that he proposed to send me a paper about it for publication later.’
‘It would have been far and away his most sensational contribution to scholarship?’
‘Oh, decidedly. I hope it still will be – although it must be a posthumous achievement now… I think there may be another half glass.’
Appleby poured the claret. ‘If this book turns up, there is bound to be a tremendous debate whether the annotations are really in Shakespeare’s hand?’
‘Inevitably.’ Rushout chuckled. ‘It will keep people busy for years. But Packford, for whose judgement most of us have a vast respect, was quite confident in the matter.’
‘Substantial specimens of Shakespeare’s hand are extant?’
‘Well – yes and no, again. There are signatures. And there is a substantial whack of a manuscript play, quite reasonably to be ascribed to him on literary grounds, in a hand which some of the best authorities declare to be the same that executed the signatures. And Packford declared that the annotations were indistinguishable from either.’
‘You gathered that he was excited about the business?’
‘Very much so. He did, you know, become tremendously enthusiastic. His letter assured me that the annotations gave a marvellous insight into the mind of the dramatist as he first addressed himself to his material.’
‘His enthusiasm might upset his judgement there.’
‘I think it very well might. And poor Packford was no literary critic, one is bound to admit. Even if the annotations were quite commonplace – which seems not terribly likely – he would readily convince himself of their profundity. But on the whole scholarly and palaeographical side of the matter he would be very shrewd.’
Appleby was silent for a moment. ‘Would you say that Packford,’ he then asked, ‘was thinking about his discovery at all in terms of money? I happen to know that his affairs were embarrassed – so embarrassed that even he couldn’t be unaware of the fact. Didn’t his find, if genuine, represent a fortune?’
Rushout drained his glass and nodded. ‘Undoubtedly. I haven’t, of course, any notion of a figure. But it would be staggering. You know the sort of fancy prices that have been given in the present century for paintings which people have taken it into their heads to declare among the very greatest in the world. I’d suppose this book, although it’s only a batch of rather inferior yarns scribbled in by a busy working dramatist, would certainly command money of that order.’
‘Don’t you think,’ Appleby asked, ‘that there’s something a bit queer about the whole thing? How did Packford come by the book? If from somebody in Verona, did that somebody know, or didn’t he know, what he was selling? If he knew, how did he ever come to part with the thing at any figure Packford could rise to? If he didn’t know, how was contact between seller and purchaser ever made? I have it from another source, I may say, that Packford paid a thousand pounds. That seems just wrong, when you come to think about it. It’s far too little to have been a reasonable offer to make to an informed person for such a treasure. And it’s surely a good deal too much to offer for a copy of Cintio’s work if Shakespeare’s association with it was unsuspected by the owner.’
‘I agree with you. There is a great deal of force in what you say.’
‘And there’s another puzzle. If Shakespeare really visited Italy, acquired a Cintio, and scribbled in it copiously with the notion of blocking out a play, why did he then leave the book behind him? Wouldn’t it have been reasonable to shove it in his luggage and bring it home? Then again, he did write a play about Othello. Did he do it from memory?’
Rushout chuckled. ‘My dear Sir John, you are starting in on just the sort of questions that all the learned will be asking – supposing that the book is safe and sound, and presently given to the world. There are numerous possible answers. Shakespeare may have visited Italy rather late on in his career, and written Othello on the spot. Or he may have gone there as a young man, come across the Ecatommiti, scribbled on it and then abandoned it. Later on, and back in England, he may have remembered his abortive interest in the story of the noble Moor, and got hold either of another copy of the Italian or of the French translation of it.’
‘Yes, any of these things is possible.’ Appleby spoke this time with his eye on the dining-room door. He was awaiting with some curiosity the arrival of Mr Moody for his dinner and his bottle of champagne. ‘I ought to tell you,’ he said, ‘that there are several people at Urchins now who possess a more or less professional interest in our topic. Have you heard of some sort of learned joke about a fellow called Bogdown?’
‘I think I have.’
‘Well, the members of the Bogdown Society, or whatever it is called, were gathered at Urchins at the time of Packford’s death. And they are there still. In addition to which there is Packford’s widow, who also belongs to the learned world.’
‘A widow?’ Rushout was surprised. ‘I’d no idea he was married.’
‘Nor, till the other day, had anyone else. And that’s not entirely the end of the story. But the important people at the moment are those who might take a special interest in Cintio. None of them, so far as I can tell, knows the whole story you have told me. But some of them know quite a lot. Prodger, Limbrick, Rixon. Do these names convey anything to you?’
‘Certainly they do. And they would all be very interested indeed.’
Appleby still had his eye on the door. ‘And Sankey – does that convey anything?’
‘No. I’ve never heard of him.’
‘Prodger had a good deal to say about an American collector called Sankey. But I think he may have got the name wrong. He’s been muddled by Gospel Hymns.’
‘Gospel Hymns?’
It was at this moment that Mr Moody entered the dining-room. Appleby indicated him with a swift gesture. ‘You wouldn’t associate him with Gospel Hymns?’
Rushout looked quite blank. ‘I’ve never seen him before. And I’m afraid I don’t know what you’re talking about.’
‘That is Moody. Presently he�
��s going to drink champagne. Prodger gets his name wrong, simply because, once upon a time, another Moody collaborated with a Sankey in making a hymn-book. But you, Professor Rushout, know nothing about this Moody?’
Rushout hesitated. For a moment, indeed, he seemed thoroughly confused. ‘I didn’t say that,’ he said. ‘I only declared that I’d never seen him before. Nor has he ever seen me.’
‘May I take it, then, that you have corresponded?’
‘Yes.’
Appleby smiled. ‘You’ve told me quite a lot, over this very tolerable claret of ours. Might it be a good idea if you told me a little more?’
The editor of The Elizabethan and Jacobean Quarterly received this proposition without enthusiasm. ‘Aren’t we,’ he asked, ‘getting on to something quite irrelevant?’
‘It certainly isn’t irrelevant that the chap over there – who is one of the biggest collectors of this, that and the other thing in America – should be lurking within a few miles of Urchins. That it’s irrelevant that you and he have corresponded is something which, of course, you are at liberty to maintain. But perhaps’ – and Appleby looked ironically at his companion – ‘a moment’s further thought will suggest some connexction to you, after all.’
Rushout didn’t reply to this. He was glancing with some misgivings at Mr Moody, who was now in process of ordering his dinner. ‘You know,’ he said rather defensively, ‘so many of the great American collectors are highly cultivated men. Indeed, one may confidently say scholarly men. It is a pleasure to have any association with them.’
Appleby smiled. ‘I don’t doubt it for a moment. In fact, I know several myself. But, just at present, our concern is with the gentleman over there. I’d describe him – well, as belonging to another tradition.’
‘He looks deplorable.’
‘My dear Professor, that, if I may say so, is a somewhat illiberal and hasty judgement. My own acquaintance with Mr Moody is perhaps also too slight for confident appraisal. But I rather like him.’
‘I certainly ought to labour to do so.’ Rushout peered rather gloomily into his empty glass. ‘For he is, in fact, a benefactor of mine. Not in a personal sense. But – well, he puts up most of the money for The Elizabethan and Jacobean. Learned journals, you know, are now uncommonly expensive affairs to finance.’
‘That is most enlightened of him. Don’t you think, Professor, that you ought to go over and introduce yourself to him? And might I, perhaps, venture to join you for coffee? You and I will have a cognac. Moody, on the orders of Dr Cahoon, will continue to drink champagne.’
Rushout received this suspiciously. ‘Don’t make fun of me,’ he said. ‘The position has been a delicate one, as you are perfectly capable of guessing.’
‘You mean that Moody’s financial aid to the – um – investigating classes hasn’t been of an order of the most disinterested?’
‘And don’t quote Henry James at me.’ Rushout grinned with recovered cheerfulness. ‘It’s not seemly in a policeman.’
‘You gave him tips?’
‘Just that. As editor of The Elizabethan and Jacobean, and with the full agreement of my Advisory Panel–’
‘Whatever’s that?’
‘A collection of impeccably respectable learned persons who are supposed to advise me about my job. With their approval, as I say, I have from time to time given this Moody chap tips. That’s to say, when I’ve had early notice of the turning up of something that might be of interest to a collector, I’ve let him know.’
‘I see. That wouldn’t include General Gordon’s Bible?’
‘General Gordon’s Bible?’
‘Moody believes himself to own it – together with the prayer- book which Mary Queen of Scots took to the scaffold. Both are satisfactorily drenched in blood. I was puzzled at first, because I thought he was referring to pictures.’
‘I didn’t know he went in for relics. Beastly things, if you ask me, whether drenched in blood or not. But he has got a tremendous collection of books and manuscripts in the literary field.’
Appleby nodded. ‘It sounds as if old Prodger was right in maintaining that Moody – or rather Sankey – was just the man for Packford’s big find, and that this fellow Limbrick wouldn’t have a chance against him. So I understand you let Moody know about Shakespeare’s Ecatommiti?’
‘In the strictest confidence.’ Rushout was again defensive. ‘Simply to get him in at the head of the queue. That was more or less the spirit of our agreement.’
‘No wonder he’s come hurtling across the Atlantic at the news of Packford’s death. If he gets the book, I suppose he’ll finance your journal for the rest of his days?’
Rushout managed a spirited reply to this. ‘If he doesn’t’, he said, ‘he damned well ought to.’
III
Denouements at Night and in the Morning
Pleasure and action make the hours seem short
— Othello
1
When Appleby got back to Urchins he was shown to his room by the maid who answered the door. His suitcase had been unpacked and his bed turned down; it continued to be evident that the place had a smooth domestic routine which hadn’t been disturbed by the untoward events recently taking place in it. The night was mild, and Appleby spent a few minutes by the open window, smoking a cigarette and staring out into the darkness. The ground must fall away here, for there were a few sleepy yellow lights low down in the middle distance. It suddenly seemed a very short time ago since he had been gazing into quite a different darkness, with Lewis Packford beside him and the waters of Garda invisible below. There hadn’t been any mystery then. Or rather – Appleby thought – there had been, but he had lacked the alertness to mark the fact. It was deplorably true that, as a detective, he had a certain leeway to make up.
Which was a good reason, he told himself, for getting on with the job now. He put out his cigarette and left the bedroom. It was almost at the end of a long corridor – one corresponding, he supposed, to the downstairs corridor along which he had been conducted that morning. He was stepping into this when he became aware of another door opening a little farther down. It was the manner in which this was happening that arrested him. For the door was being opened from within, and inch by inch. He was in the presence of extreme nervousness and caution – and of these qualities exercising themselves in a manner not very effectively controlled by intelligence. If one wants to reconnoitre the outer world from inside a room, one’s best plan is to act swiftly. A door briskly opened and briskly shut again attracts little attention. A door opening in very slow motion is something that most people become aware of at once.
Appleby stepped back into the darkness of his room, leaving his own door a little ajar. Probably what he was witnessing was something of no great significance. There are people for whom other people’s rooms hold a compulsive fascination, and the phenomenon known as ‘just taking a peep’ is of not uncommon occurrence in miscellaneous house-parties. Still, he had better make sure. He had better both mark who this was emerging, and then discover whose room was being emerged from.
It was Mrs Husbands. For a moment Appleby was disposed to conclude that this was very much a mare’s nest. Nobody at Urchins, presumably, had a better title to move from room to room than the housekeeper. And if there was something a little odd in her manner of performing this commonplace task, that might simply be because recent events had badly shaken her nerve. She might, for instance, have become subject to irrational fears, and have taken her preliminary survey of the corridor in order to reassure herself that she wasn’t being stalked by somebody with a gun.
Only it wasn’t like that. Appleby had to take only a glance at the woman as she now stood revealed to realize that any such explanation of her conduct and condition was totally inadequate. The corridor was brightly lit, and her features as well as her posture were clearly distinguishable. Mrs Husbands was breathing fast; she was as pale as the wall behind her; and her eyes glittered with what might have been either e
xcitement or fear. Even when one remembered that she rather went in for putting on emotional turns, her present bearing in the apparent solitude of this corridor was sufficiently striking. But now she seemed to brace herself, and Appleby heard her taking a single deep breath. Then she looked quickly in either direction, walked quickly but rather unsteadily to a staircase, and disappeared.
Appleby stepped back into the corridor and moved towards the room from which Mrs Husbands had appeared. It wasn’t necessary to suppose that it was empty; what Mrs Husbands had emerged from might be some harrowing or alarming interview. She might even have found another dead body, complete with a valedictory message still wet upon a postcard… Appleby checked himself before this irresponsible fancy. He would knock at the door. If there was a summons to enter, he would stick his head in, identify the occupant, and excuse himself on the score of unfamiliarity with the house. If there was no reply, he would simply walk in and look around.
But this plan didn’t come off. His hand was raised to knock, when a voice spoke reproachfully behind him. ‘Oh, hullo! Why didn’t you come in to dinner?’
He turned round. It was Alice who had somehow appeared just behind him, and she was now looking at him with frank curiosity. ‘I went out to the local,’ he said.
‘I can’t say I blame you.’ Alice gave a large unashamed yawn. Then, seeming to remember that this was somewhat unrefined, she gave another, imitation, one with a rosy hand elegantly raised to her lips. ‘Oh, my,’ she said, ‘wouldn’t it be lovely to go to bed!’
‘Well – why not?’ Appleby wasn’t sure, as he heard himself say this, that it didn’t contain an undesirable ambiguity. ‘Why don’t you?’ he amended.
‘It wouldn’t be polite – not before a quarter past ten.’ Alice spoke with confidence; this must be something that she had read in a manual of such matters. ‘But – I say – I know where we can get a drink. And without anybody knowing.’
The Long Farewell Page 13