A Connoisseur's Case

by Michael Innes

  ‘Do you know,’ Appleby said casually, ‘that I think I’ll go and try to mend my acquaintance with him? Would that be all right?’

  ‘By all means.’ Bertram Coulson rose. ‘And perhaps Lady Appleby would care to see the house?’ He turned to Judith. ‘Edith and I will be delighted to show it to you.’

  Appleby saw Judith react most favourably to this suggestion. It was in unexpected circumstances, he reflected, that she was fulfilling her ambition of inspecting the interior of Scroop. He had a notion that he ought perhaps to inspect it too. But that would keep. So he made some polite remark to Mrs Coulson and descended from the terrace on the trail of young Binns.

  But for some minutes it was Mrs Coulson who stuck in his head. Outwardly she was composed enough: a woman poised over and in control of a familiar environment – an environment acknowledged in her heart, perhaps, to be irksome or inadequate, but an environment accepted and made the best of, nevertheless. That was certainly the normal Edith Coulson, for many years the mistress of Scroop House. But, beneath this, was there another woman – one who had lately, and to her own bewilderment, visited a different world? Appleby didn’t know. He could only take note that something indefinable about Bertram Coulson’s wife had raised this speculation in his mind.

  ‘It’s you, is it?’ Peter Binns had delivered himself of this on swinging round and discovering Appleby behind him.

  ‘Yes – and I must really apologize. But it is the hunter’s instinct, Mr Binns’ – and Appleby glanced at the weapon in Peter Binns’ hands – ‘so perhaps you will forgive me. It’s true I’m not after pigeons. I’m after a killer.’

  ‘I don’t believe this old man was murdered.’

  ‘I’m afraid I do. And I want to find the murderer. I begin by ruling people out. I know when Crabtree died. So I check up on people’s movements and whereabouts at that time. You see?’

  Not perhaps without justification, Peter Binns took offence at this question.

  ‘Look,’ he said, ‘I’m not utterly a moron – although you seem to have me typed as that. I suppose it’s because of the way you heard Daphne talking to me.’

  ‘I don’t know that I concluded much from that. Are you fond of your sister?’

  Again with justification, Peter Binns was outraged.

  ‘What the hell do you mean?’ he demanded. And then, curiously, he added: ‘I wouldn’t want the young idiot to have too rough a spin.’

  ‘No, of course not.’ Appleby took this smoothly. ‘By the way, I suppose you were out after the pigeons during this half hour or so that I’m interested in?’

  ‘If you mean just after lunch yesterday, sir, you’re quite right. I was.’

  ‘And lunch ended rather early?’

  ‘Yes. It was a dismal sort of meal. Everybody feeling glum.’

  ‘Because of Crabtree?’

  Peter Binns’ face took on its panic-stricken look.

  ‘What do you mean – because of Crabtree?’

  ‘I think you’d all heard that this old man had just turned up out of the past, so to speak. Would that be why you were all glum?’

  ‘Do you mean that we all had secrets which this old man might tell about?’

  ‘That is a possibility. Or perhaps just one secret which was of some concern to all of you. What did your sister do after this glum lunch?’

  ‘She said she was going to her room to write a letter.’

  ‘Was that quite usual?’

  ‘I don’t think Daphne often writes letters. You’re too interested in Daphne, by a long way. She’s nineteen. You don’t think that a girl like that suddenly walked out and killed somebody, do you?’

  ‘Put like that, Mr Binns, it sounds most improbable. It’s even mildly improbable that you did, you know. I shouldn’t say that large and uncontrollable passions are your line. But perhaps you have a stock of little ones.’

  ‘Didn’t you say that you didn’t like my manners? I don’t like yours.’ Peter Binns had flushed. ‘And they’re not even natural to you – as mine, for what they’re worth, are to me. You’re putting on this bloody turn because you think I’ll blurt out something if I can be made to lose my temper. Rule number something or other for detectives: If they’re stupid, rile them, and they’ll come clean. Isn’t that it? I’d have nothing against it in an up and coming police sergeant from the village. But from a Sir Tom-noddy, nicely grey at the well-groomed temples, and turning up just in time to be in on that Madeira, I call it a bit steep.’

  ‘I see your point.’ Appleby was looking at young Peter with what might have been called new eyes. The remarks offered to him were not merely appallingly just; they were crisply phrased. Peter Binns no doubt remained an unsatisfactory character. But it seemed very possible that Appleby had got his IQ quite wrong. And this decidedly didn’t make him the less worthy of study. ‘I see your point,’ Appleby repeated. ‘But the thing does work, wouldn’t you admit? You are – aren’t you? prodded into speaking out? We’re almost within hail of understanding each other.’

  ‘This is all rot – shooting those bloody harmless birds.’ Peter had leant his gun against a tree as he thus went off at a tangent. ‘Every now and then Uncle Bertram – we call him that – gets in a lot of bloodthirsty old gents who go banging away at the creatures. It’s considered virtuous. Carrion crows, too. What rubbish! Do you remember getting at me about being the young squire? And how I responded like an absolute sucker? Christ! It makes me sick.’

  ‘Then what are you doing here?’

  ‘I got into the habit. And I got into the habit because I hadn’t the guts for a clean–’ Peter checked himself, and his intermittent look of panic returned. ‘Your technique works, all right,’ he said sullenly.

  ‘Clean break, Mr Binns? Or clean sweep?’

  ‘You don’t miss a trick, do you? The retired high-grade professional, still with all his old cunning at his command. Why can’t you apply it, damn you, the right way on?’

  ‘I’m not sure that I quite follow that.’

  ‘Didn’t you say I was talking sense when I said that here was a perfectly commonplace crime? It’s true that this old man had just returned to England. But there’s no more than mere coincidence in that. He’s old and unprotected and in a lonely place. And some thug bashes him in order to take his petty cash.’

  ‘There’s no evidence of that. But something was taken. You remember that Crabtree once made you a sledge. Did he make other things too? Model yachts, say? Was he a bit of a craftsman in that way?’

  Peter Binns stared.

  ‘Yes, he was. But you’re merely confusing the matter again. It’s miles less likely that Crabtree was killed by the sort of people who don’t go about killing people, than that he was killed by the sort of people who do. That’s not terribly elegant English, but I expect you see what I mean.’

  ‘Yes, I do.’

  ‘Then why not start at the right end? Why not go after whatever tramps and vagrants are around? Why come bothering us?’

  ‘I’m quite sure that the local police can be trusted to go after the tramps and vagrants.’

  ‘That’s no answer. And barging in like this on any household is a damned irresponsible thing.’

  ‘No, Mr Binns – not irresponsible. A responsibility – yes. You mean – don’t you? – that when a strong wind of inquiry happens to blow through any respectable family the skeletons are likely to begin rattling in the cupboards.’

  ‘Yes, that’s what I mean. And it’s unfair. The Coulsons are decent people. Daphne’s all right – although I tell her she’s a ghastly little bitch. My father – who, you say, was down here yesterday – is just an ordinary worried sort of father, I’d suppose. I’m not a totally hopeless little cad myself. But everybody’s got something. Don’t you see?’

  ‘Yes, I do see. But the question, Mr Binns, is whether one of you has something that somehow hitches on to Seth Crabtree. I have no interest in any of you, apart from that.’

  ‘But you might have.’ P
eter Binns was obstinate. ‘You might, while looking for a crime that isn’t there, hit on quite a different crime that is. What then?’

  ‘Ah – what then.’ Appleby looked at the young man curiously, and didn’t for a moment reply. It was a real question, and he rather respected the boy for coming out with it. When he spoke, it was gravely. ‘That would depend, you know, on the size of the crime. On its gravity.’

  ‘But that’s not very logical, is it, in a policeman?’

  ‘No, Mr Binns, it isn’t logical – or even consonant with one’s responsibilities under the law. But I give you my word that it represents my own attitude.’

  ‘I see. But what you grub up with your snooping mayn’t be crime at all. It may merely be scandal, mayn’t it? Just pain and humiliation and hurts that can’t be mended.’

  ‘I’m afraid that that’s true.’ Appleby’s glance at Peter Binns was now of real surprise. For the boy was talking from some depth of feeling that one wouldn’t have suspected in him.

  ‘Or both.’ Peter picked up his gun again. ‘Petty crime here and deep scandal there. A mess all round. And just because this old idiot got himself killed at our back door.’

  ‘I repeat that I see your point. But does it occur to you that you are presenting rather a lurid picture of Scroop House? More skeletons in the cupboards than it’s natural to suppose would have accumulated since a mere 1786?’

  ‘1786?’ For a moment Peter Binns was at a loss. Then, for the first time, something like the flicker of a smile appeared on his face. ‘You don’t know us,’ he said. ‘And, although you’re so bloody clever, there’s still a chance you never will.’

  ‘That’s true enough.’ Appleby nodded soberly. ‘It will be a matter of – well, of the fortune of war.’

  10

  When Appleby got back to the terrace, he found it occupied only by Hollywood. The butler greeted him with respectful indifference.

  ‘Mr Coulson and Lady Appleby have walked over to the farm, sir. Lady Appleby expressed an interest in the milking parlour. I am to direct you there, if I may.’

  ‘Ah, yes. And Mrs Coulson?’ Appleby thought that this was the point at which he might take leave of his hostess.

  ‘Mrs Coulson has unfortunately been taken a little unwell, and has had to retire. She wished me to give you her apologies.’

  ‘I am very sorry. Now, if you will just point out the direction of the home farm, I shall find it easily enough.’

  ‘Yes, sir. But I had better guide you through the gardens. It is the quicker route. If you will come this way.’

  Appleby, being thus constrained to Hollywood’s society, judged that he might as well try to improve the occasion.

  ‘I have been thinking,’ he said, ‘of what you told me – or didn’t tell me – about your recollections of Crabtree.’

  ‘Indeed, sir?’

  ‘The question in my mind is really this: were you quite frank in the matter? Don’t, please, misunderstand me. One who has been long in your responsible position in a household like this – particularly a household such as the former Mrs Coulson’s was – naturally develops a good deal of reticence, particularly in the presence of strangers. That is entirely proper.’

  Hollywood gave his remote bow in acknowledgement of this civil speech. He was a chilly person. Appleby wondered whether, if Tarbox’s account of his vicious past were true, he had commonly begun by freezing the young persons he proposed to ravish.

  ‘It may be so, sir. Down these steps, if you please.’

  ‘Nothing impairs the good order of such a household more than its mistress’ making an injudicious favourite or confidant of somebody with very little standing in it.’

  Hollywood said nothing. He merely opened a gate and stood aside for Appleby to pass through. Appleby did so – and came firmly to a halt.

  ‘Mr Hollywood, just what was this threat that you supposed Crabtree to be turning up with?’

  ‘I spoke only of a very vague impression, sir.’

  ‘You don’t strike me as being a vague person. I think there was something definite in your mind. Aren’t you being secretive?’

  ‘The word is an interesting one, sir. In the connection we are considering.’

  Appleby in his turn said nothing. It almost looked as if Hollywood were coming unstuck.

  ‘The late Mrs Coulson was secretive. At least in her later years, when I entered her service. And this is not itself a secret. You may have heard it. The left-hand path, sir.

  ‘One moment. Crabtree had some place in this secretive habit of hers?’

  There was a moment’s silence. For the first time, Hollywood had hesitated. He might have been regretting the course upon which he had embarked. Appleby tried prompting.

  ‘Mrs Coulson’s fondness for herbaceous borders – in which you say she relied upon Crabtree’s taste – can scarcely have been a secret indulgence?’

  ‘No, sir. The truth is that Crabtree had something else, as well as skill in such matters. Although untrained, he was a good working carpenter.’

  ‘And what was the significance of that?’

  Again Hollywood took a moment to reply.

  ‘Well, sir, it is matter upon which you are bound to come. It was gossiped about. The present Scroop is not an ancient house – not as the country houses of the older gentry go. But it does offer scope. It is extensive.’

  ‘Scope?’

  ‘For hiding things away, sir. This became something of a mania with the late Mrs Coulson. Crabtree constructed hiding places.’

  Appleby took time to digest this. It certainly opened up surprising possibilities.

  ‘And you connect this,’ he asked, ‘with a certain sense of threat in Crabtree’s bearing when he presented himself yesterday?’

  ‘It is a possible line of thought, sir.’

  ‘Mr Coulson appears to have been aware of nothing of the sort. So if Crabtree did arrive armed with some dangerous knowledge and the disposition to use it, Mr Coulson himself was not the object of his designs.’

  ‘It may be so, sir. There are other possibilities, no doubt.’

  ‘Quite so. We all have pasts, have we not?’

  If this in any way went home to the conscience of Hollywood, he gave no sign of it – or no sign, perhaps, other than a further drop in the temperature of the chill air he seemed to inhabit.

  ‘Yes, sir. But pasts, in the sense you suggest, cannot be hidden away in small cupboards. Only physical objects can be so hidden.’

  ‘That’s very true. Small objects in small cupboards, and large objects in large ones. For that matter, middling objects in middling ones. I’ve known a human body hidden in a surprisingly modest cupboard.’

  This bizarre remark at least had some effect, since it caused a flicker of unidentifiable emotion to pass over the impassive features of Hollywood.

  ‘No doubt, sir. But not, I hope, in a good family. One associates crimes and expedients of that order with the lower classes, does one not?’

  Appleby found himself wondering whether, in former years, Colonel Raven’s Tarbox had associated a little more with Mrs Coulson’s Hollywood than he was now disposed to admit. Hollywood, when forced or persuaded to utter, discovered a rather similar vein of formal speech.

  ‘Do I understand,’ Appleby asked, ‘that Crabtree actually constructed a number of small hiding places for Mrs Coulson’s use? Behind panels and under floors – that sort of thing?’

  ‘Gossip said so, sir.’

  ‘But what about your own certain knowledge? After all, you had the freedom of the whole house. Could you lead me – or lead your employer – to one of these supposed hiding places now?’

  For a fraction of a second Hollywood hesitated, so that Appleby had a sudden sharp sense of the man as choosing between two answers one of which, in the nature of the case, must be a flat lie.

  ‘No, sir. Certainly not. I speak of gossip, and have perhaps been wrong to do so. But, naturally, I am anxious to help the law. You must underst
and that Mrs Coulson’s private apartments were not always accessible to me. Again, there were occasions upon which the house was closed and the servants put upon board wages. Crabtree may have had the run of the place then.’

  ‘I see. And what do you suppose that Mrs Coulson – the former Mrs Coulson – was disposed to hide in these places?’

  ‘I have never conjectured, sir. It was not my place.’

  ‘Rubbish, man!’ Appleby was suddenly briskly impatient. ‘You must have thought about it, even if you didn’t discuss it with others.’

  ‘It may be so, sir.’

  ‘Well – what was your guess?’

  ‘I had thought of improper books, sir.’

  ‘Had you, indeed?’ Appleby found that he couldn’t at all decide whether this strange suggestion proceeded from nastiness of mind or from covert mockery. ‘But Crabtree could hardly have hoped to make much capital, after all those years, out of a minor depravity of that sort?’

  ‘One would suppose not, sir. But the present Mr Coulson is a man very jealous of the honour of his family.’

  ‘So he is.’ Appleby was rather struck by the cogency of this.

  ‘And I have thought of stolen property, to which the same consideration would apply. It is said that persons of substance, and particularly ladies, are sometimes given to petty theft in a quite irrational way. There is a word for it.’

  ‘Kleptomania, I suppose.’

  ‘Thank you, sir. And stolen property, if retained, must be secreted.’

  ‘Certainly it must. But were you, in fact, ever aware of Mrs Coulson’s stealing anything from anybody?’

  ‘Dear me, no, sir. I could scarcely have remained in her employment, if I had become aware of anything of the sort. It would have been injudicious. Where mysterious disappearances occur, it is servants that commonly get the blame of it. These are only conjectures that I have been putting forward. I fear I may have been talking at random, sir.

  ‘I don’t think so.’ Appleby turned to look keenly at Hollywood. ‘No – I don’t think so, at all.’