A Connoisseur's Case

by Michael Innes

  ‘Channing-Kennedy?’ Judith seemed to take this last suggestion seriously and almost hopefully. She must really have taken a most particular dislike to the landlord of the Jolly Leggers. ‘But surely Channing-Kennedy almost has an alibi provided by ourselves?’

  ‘I think not. A bicycle along that secondary road, south of the canal, would have done the trick. The road, incidentally, which was being graced by the progress of Mr Alfred Binns’ Phantom V at an hour when Mr Binns would like it to be believed that he was a couple of counties away. There’s not going to be any shortage of suspects in this business. So you needn’t begin by talking nonsense about your uncle.’

  ‘It isn’t nonsense.’ With some surprise, Appleby saw that Judith was speaking seriously now. ‘You know that all my family are mad.’

  ‘That’s perfectly true – in a popular manner of speaking. My own experience of Ravens includes one or two bizarre episodes, I must confess.’

  ‘Very well. And at least part of what Uncle Julius had to say about Seth Crabtree last night was pretty mad, wasn’t it? All that about poaching.’

  ‘It certainly doesn’t quite knit with your uncle’s generally amiable character. He talks about poachers and so on rather like an eighteenth-century comic squire in a novel. But I take it to be some sort of private joke or affectation, like his calling all those old servants he dotes on dunderheads and rascals.’

  ‘He did get out and about yesterday, although he wasn’t expected to. Suppose he met Crabtree by the lock, recognized him, said something like “You damned scoundrel!” and gave him a whack on the head. What then?’

  ‘What then?’ Appleby considered this fantastic-seeming question soberly. ‘Well, your uncle would have walked back to Pryde and said something like “Tarbox, I’ve taken a crack at an atrocious ruffian and knocked him into the canal. He’s probably dead.”’ Appleby glanced at Judith. ‘Wouldn’t something like that be the way of it?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Dash it all, girl, you can’t imagine your uncle embarking on an elaborate course of deceit, can you? We’re not in a whodunnit, you know, with everybody capable of anything.’

  ‘But, John, Uncle Julius is rather mad. And don’t mad people do things and then just forget about them?’

  ‘A good many crimes of violence, impulsive in nature, are only imperfectly preserved in the conscious memories of those who commit them. But it takes a rare and absolute mania blankly to lose all recollection of such a thing. If we had dinner last night in the company of a homicidal maniac, we shall make quite a name for ourselves, believe me, in the annals of psychiatry. Hullo, here’s the lock again.’

  ‘Yes,’ Judith said. ‘And some morbid persons peering at it.’

  The police had concluded such investigations of the spot as they judged might be useful, and there was now no trace of what had happened there. The gates on the down-falling side were open, as Appleby and Judith had managed to drag them. The other gates were, of course, closed, and a young man and woman were standing on them, staring gloomily at the water.

  ‘Not villagers,’ Judith said. ‘Hikers? Not that, either. There aren’t any young Coulsons, are there?’

  ‘I gather not. And my guess is that these are the young Binnses, who stay with the Coulsons from time to time. You know, I had several ideas about the call of Binns père at Pryde last night. And one of them was that he came fishing for information as to the whereabouts of his progeny.’

  ‘He can’t be very trustful of them.’

  ‘At the moment, the young people don’t look very trustful of each other.’

  This was true. The girl and youth on the gates did now seem to be in attitudes suggesting that they were at odds with one another. At this moment, however, they became aware of the Applebys. And it was possible to feel them as joining forces immediately.

  ‘Good morning,’ Appleby said, when he had come up with them. ‘Am I right in thinking that, if we walk east along the other side of the canal, we shall come on a track leading up to Scroop House?’

  Without much suggesting pleasure at being thus appealed to, the young man nodded. He was about twenty-four, and Appleby saw at once that he was a young Binns. Thirty years on, he would be the image of his father. The girl, who was perhaps five years younger, was of a different type. And for a moment he wondered whether he had seen her somewhere before. But the slight air of familiarity she suggested was of the sort that is commonly illusory.

  ‘Quite right,’ the young man said – and gave Appleby a frank scowl. ‘You come to a small wharf and a boathouse. The track goes up from there through the park. It used to be quite a road. You can’t miss it.

  ‘We came down that way ourselves,’ the girl said. This was plainly by way of continuing the conversation and making up for something approaching incivility in her brother. ‘We are staying at Scroop House. As a matter of fact, we lived there once.’

  ‘In fact, you are Daphne and Peter Binns.’ Appleby shook hands, gave his name, and introduced the young people to Judith. ‘If you are returning to the house,’ he went on, ‘perhaps we may walk up together. Colonel Raven has sent us to pay a call.’ He smiled at the young Binnses – very much a courteous elderly man, accustomed to authority. ‘As it happens, I feel not entirely a stranger to you. For I met your father last night.’

  There was no mistaking the startled character of the swift glance the young Binnses exchanged on hearing this news.

  ‘In London?’ Peter Binns asked abruptly.

  ‘At Pryde. Your father dropped in on Colonel Raven while motoring through. It was his first visit, I gathered, for some time. And he was in too much of a hurry to go on to Scroop.’

  ‘Daddy never–’ Daphne Binns had begun to say something which she thought better of. She checked herself – but only to plunge at something else. ‘Wasn’t it awful,’ she said, ‘about that old man – here, in the lock?’

  ‘Tight, I expect. And fell and bashed his head.’ Peter Binns broke in with this roughly. ‘But the police are making a stink about it. Earn their keep that way, I suppose.’

  ‘And how do you earn your keep, Mr Binns?’ Appleby asked this question in a tone sufficiently whimsical to make it inoffensive enough. But it put Peter Binns on his dignity.

  ‘I have a position in my father’s firm, sir,’ he said.

  ‘Gained,’ Daphne Binns put in, ‘by native merit and honest application. Signed, Daphne Binns.’

  ‘You shut up,’ Peter Binns said.

  The Applebys, had they been the sort of people provided with eyebrows for such occasions, would no doubt have raised them. The manners of the young Binnses were unpolished. It was impossible to feel that the Grand Collector would have approved of them.

  ‘Aren’t you from the police?’ Peter Binns suddenly demanded.

  Appleby glanced at the young man in amusement. It was a fair enough question, although the manner of its being put was again not engaging. But Peter Binns was nervous as well as truculent. He was glancing sidelong at Appleby in a curiously uncertain way.

  ‘Yes, I suppose I am – after a fashion, Mr Binns. But how did you know?’

  ‘Oh, just the skivvies.’

  ‘I beg your pardon?’ It was so long since Appleby had heard this displeasing term used that he had actually failed to get hold of it.

  ‘The servants, up at the house. Kitchen gossip. It’s said that you’re some sort of police inspector from London, and that just by chance you found this body. Have a nose for that sort of thing, I suppose.’

  The Applebys could receive this only in silence. But Daphne Binns spoke up.

  ‘The shocking thing is,’ she said, ‘that Peter doesn’t mean to be offensive. I mean, not more than usual. He’s been to a public school, he’s been to Cambridge, he held a commission during his National Service, and yet he’s like this.’

  ‘At least I’m not pert,’ Peter said. ‘And that’s how I overheard the vicar describing you to Dr West. A pert girl. So there. Signed, Pete
r Binns.’

  After these exchanges, the party proceeded along the canal bank in silence. Appleby was wondering how it came about that Bertram Coulson, if indeed a romantic idealist as Colonel Raven had declared, came to have these young people apparently as frequent guests. But he abandoned this speculation when he found himself on the small wharf which he had noticed earlier on the map.

  ‘This is where Scroop House originally got its supplies,’ he said to Judith. Then he turned to Peter Binns. ‘Do you ever try the canal?’ he asked. ‘There seems to be a foot or so of water in this stretch. Do you keep any sort of craft in that boathouse?’ And he nodded towards a small structure at the farther end of the wharf.

  ‘Go on the canal?’ Peter was surprised. ‘The rotten old thing stinks, doesn’t it? Even without having corpses dumped in it. As to whether there’s anything in the boathouse, snoop for yourself. I never have.’

  ‘I’ve peered in.’ Daphne volunteered this in an almost conciliatory tone. ‘There seems to be a big old punt, and I believe it’s floating. But Mr Coulson or somebody keeps the place locked. Peter’ – Daphne turned to challenge her brother – ‘why do you keep on in that filthy way about the corpse? After all, you must remember the old man. I don’t.’

  ‘Your brother must certainly remember Crabtree.’ Appleby interposed with this gravely. ‘He would have been about nine when Crabtree went to America. Which means that you, Miss Binns, would have been three or four. Some people have quite a number of memories from that age. But you don’t remember Seth Crabtree at all?’

  ‘I certainly don’t. I remember my nurse at that time. But this man was only somebody working out in the gardens or the stables, and naturally I wouldn’t remember him. But Peter was always hanging around the servants’ quarters. As a matter of fact, it’s his thing now. Nothing really spectacular. He wouldn’t have the nerve for that. Just pinching the bottoms of Mrs Coulson’s maids, and thinking he’s the hell of a dog.’

  ‘Shut up,’ Peter said. This time, he didn’t say it particularly fiercely. It was almost as if he found mildly gratifying the light in which he had just been exhibited.

  ‘And as a kid I gather he became quite a crony of this man Crabtree. Crabtree showed him all sorts of things.’

  ‘Now, will you shut up, you ghastly little bitch?’

  This time, the Applebys had difficulty in not stopping dead in their tracks. For Daphne had somehow contrived, with this last remark, to whip her brother into sudden fury. And into panic as well, Appleby thought, as he glanced at the young man. It was as if Daphne had made some treacherous move towards revealing a secret – and a secret so shabby, or so dirty, or even so criminal, that any approach to it scared Peter stiff. Yet that Peter had been no more than eight or nine at the time of Crabtree’s departure was a fact which had just been agreed upon. What could Crabtree have shown such a child that should, in the retrospect, have such an effect on the grown man – if Peter Binns could be called a grown man – now? There were various unbeautiful possibilities, no doubt. And Appleby was far too case-hardened to have any difficulty in turning them over in his mind. But he was left with a feeling that his guesses were bad ones. Perhaps, with tact, a little genuine information could be got out of Peter himself.

  ‘I see your sister somehow wants to make fun of you.’ Appleby tried to speak with reassuring vagueness. ‘But it’s something that, as responsible men, we have to be serious about, don’t you think? I know you lived here for many years, Mr Binns, and that you must have quite a position in the district. Many of the people round about here must still regard you as the young squire.’

  ‘Quite right. Of course they do. Particularly as the Coulsons haven’t an heir.’ Peter Binns was much mollified.

  ‘So when an affair like this turns up, people will naturally look to you to give a bit of a lead. In fact, you owe it to yourself to help the law in any way you can.’

  ‘I suppose that’s so.’ Peter shot a far from trustful glance at Appleby. ‘But it has nothing to do with me, all the same. I know nothing about Crabtree. Although naturally I do have a few memories of him from when I was a boy. Nothing much. But Daphne makes everything sound so damned silly.’

  ‘We needn’t bother about that.’ Appleby continued to be soothing. ‘I know that when your father became tenant here at Scroop, this man Crabtree stayed on. Would you say that it was in just the same capacity as in old Mrs Coulson’s time?’

  ‘How could I know anything about that?’ Peter was definitely defensive again. ‘I know nothing about that at all.’

  ‘You see, I’ve picked up an impression – I don’t quite know how – that Crabtree had some special position in old Mrs Coulson’s scheme of things. Perhaps, even, he had some ascendancy over her.’

  Judith interrupted here.

  ‘I don’t think that likely, at all. Mrs Coulson was clearly a person of very strong character, accustomed to boss rather a glittering scene. It isn’t likely that a servant would gain an ascendancy over her.’

  ‘It happened with Queen Victoria.’ Daphne Binns offered this – to the general surprise. ‘And Crabtree may have had a lot of charm, or something.’

  ‘I know nothing about him,’ Peter reiterated obstinately. ‘But I dare say he got in a lot of places where he shouldn’t.’

  Daphne Binns swung round on her brother.

  ‘And just what do you mean by that, Peter?’

  ‘I don’t mean anything.’

  ‘You don’t mean anything. You don’t know anything. And you don’t signify anything, either. You’re a mess. Signed–’

  ‘But I think, Mr Binns, you did say you had a few memories of Crabtree.’ Appleby had interrupted these unseemly children at their exchanges rather brusquely. ‘Are you sure they are entirely irrelevant to the puzzle of his death?’

  ‘Of course they are. I remember that he made me a sledge. I suppose my father told him to.’

  ‘Perhaps he did. Or perhaps Crabtree just happened to like making a sledge for a boy. Did he take you poaching?’

  ‘Why should he take me poaching? My father had the sporting rights of the whole place.’

  ‘Well, there was Colonel Raven’s estate next door. A boy might find it fun to be taken over there on a dark night.’

  ‘I don’t expect that, as a boy, Peter was much of an outdoor type.’ Daphne had interrupted. ‘He had a splendid collection of birds’ eggs. He still has them, because he hates letting anything go. But – do you know? – he bought them all out of a catalogue from some shop in London. He had a whole museum which impressed me very much – until I found out he’d bought everything in it. I can’t think where he got the money from.’

  ‘Can’t you keep quiet?’ Peter demanded. ‘Yes, when I come to think of it, Crabtree did show me how to snare rabbits, and things like that.’

  Appleby had come to a halt – apparently to admire the south front of Scroop House, which was now in full view. He seemed even to have become more interested in this than in the conversation, so casually did his next question drop from him.

  ‘So did you look forward to seeing him again?’

  ‘Not in the–’ Peter Binns checked himself. ‘What do you mean?’ he demanded. ‘I knew nothing about him.’

  ‘But I understand that Mr Coulson ran into him yesterday morning, and that Crabtree gave an account of himself. Mr Coulson proposed to see him again, and perhaps find him work. Didn’t this crop up – perhaps in talk before lunch, or round about then?’

  There was a moment’s silence. Peter and Daphne Binns – who, if conspirators, were unaccomplished ones – glanced at each other swiftly and blankly.

  ‘Oh, yes,’ Peter said. His manner was at once careless and awkward. ‘Mr Coulson mentioned it when he came in from his morning prowl. We all heard it: Mrs Coulson, Hollywood, everybody.’

  ‘Hollywood knew already,’ Appleby said. ‘Because Crabtree had called at the house earlier in the morning.’

  ‘You seem to know a damned lot about us.�
�� Peter Binns scowled at Appleby.

  ‘Do you think so?’ Appleby shook his head, and began moving again towards Scroop House. ‘To be quite frank with you, I feel I’ve a lot still to learn.’

  ‘But I don’t see,’ Daphne Binns said, ‘that you’re going to learn much by coming to Scroop. I mean, about this dead man. Peter has these vague memories, I have none at all, and neither of the Coulsons can ever have set eyes on Crabtree. They didn’t live here for ages, you know. First there was old Mrs Coulson, who employed the man. Then there was Daddy as Mr Coulson’s tenant, and he employed the man too. But a few years after that, it seems that the man went to America or somewhere. It was only after that again that we left, and the Coulsons moved in. So there’s no reason to suppose that the Coulsons had as much as heard of the man until he turned up yesterday. It doesn’t look as if you’ll get much out of them.’

  ‘Possibly not.’ Appleby had listened patiently to Daphne’s rather plodding speech. ‘But, you see, one never can be sure that one won’t get something out of people. And it’s possible I may get something more out of you.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Even if it’s only an opinion or a guess.’ Daphne, Appleby thought, had the same liability as her brother towards sudden alarm and even panic. ‘What do you think would make an old man like this turn up again as Crabtree did yesterday?’

  ‘He’d come for what he could get.’ Daphne’s alarm had melted oddly into a sort of savage vehemence. ‘Or do you think that he just had nice feelings about a golden past, and was anxious to see how the roses were continuing to grow round the door – or if Peter had grown up into a fine upstanding English gentleman? I think not. He was a crook who thought he had a line on somebody.’

  ‘What awful rubbish!’ Peter broke in with a savagery of his own, and with a glare at his sister as if she had committed some utterly crass blunder. ‘He was just some old peasant with a superstitious notion that he should die and be buried in his own village. And some tramp came along and obliged him – probably for the sake of robbing the corpse of a pocketful of small change. Why all this fuss over a common or garden squalid crime, with top coppers getting foot-loose from Scotland Yard, I just can’t think.’