The Bloody Wood

by Michael Innes

  Having reflected on all this, Appleby found himself seeking out Charles Martineau at once. He told himself he was going to ask when Fell might next be expected at Charne; in his heart he rather supposed that he was himself going to plunge in straight away. For it was, after all, eminently the kind of event it is idle to think on too precisely.

  Charles was in the room he liked to call his office: a small apartment opening off the library, and itself lined with eighteenth-century books. On these shelves you would probably find a preponderance of sermons and forgotten historical and archaeological works. You would find too, no doubt, William – or was it John? – Halfpenny’s Rural Architecture in the Chinese Taste. This inconsequent thought was in Appleby’s head as he entered the room. Charles was at his desk, and just putting down the receiver of his telephone. Appleby took one glance at him, and at once concluded that the catastrophe had come – just a little earlier than everybody had expected. Charles was deathly pale. His whole body was trembling. The receiver had gone home with an uncontrolled clatter.

  ‘Fell…is he here?’ For the moment it was the only thing Appleby found to say.

  ‘Fell?’ It was almost meaninglessly that Charles Martineau seemed to repeat the word. He looked round the room as if unable to see where Appleby stood. Then he pulled himself upright. ‘I have been trying to get Dr Robson,’ he said. ‘He is away from home.’

  ‘Dr Robson?’ Appleby now supposed that there had come no more than a sudden crisis – one in which a second medical opinion was urgently called for. ‘Grace is–?’

  ‘Grace?’ Charles spoke sharply, almost challengingly. ‘Grace has gone to her room to dress. She is looking forward to…to our dinner party. And Fell has been and gone. He has discharged himself from the case.’

  ‘Charles, pull yourself together. What you say is impossible. No doctor could do such a thing.’

  ‘It is true, John. I have behaved rashly, and can’t forgive myself. It is this new and terrible anxiety. I taxed him with what must be the truth of the matter. He was very angry. It was not what I expected. He left the house in passion.’

  ‘Charles, I don’t know what you are talking about. And I suspect some misunderstanding. Tell me, please.’

  Very strongly, Charles Martineau shook his head. He sank down in a chair. ‘No,’ he said. ‘I cannot enter into it. I cannot enter into this new thing now. We have known each other for a long time, John. Forgive me.’

  ‘Of course I mustn’t press you. But just a little information might enable me to be of some help. Has this to do with something Edward Pendleton has thought it his duty to tell you?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And Fell lost control of himself– and you did too?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘You told him you would call in this Dr Robson?’

  ‘No. I – I didn’t get round to it.’ Charles produced this lame colloquialism with a moving helplessness. ‘John, what shall I do?’

  ‘You need only calm yourself, I think. It won’t be long before Fell–’

  Appleby broke off sharply. There had been a knock at the door, and Friary was in the room. For a moment the man stood silent. He might have been waiting respectfully for permission to speak. But he carried again that rather ugly hint of dispassionate scrutiny of the scene revealed to him. Appleby found himself remembering the loggia, and Diana Page in tears.

  ‘Yes, Friary?’ Martineau had made a big effort, and his voice was level and unemotional. ‘What do you want?’

  ‘A message from Dr Fell, sir. He returned to give it. He asked me to make you his apologies – I presume for being called rather hastily away. I am to say that he will pay his usual late evening call upon Mrs Martineau.’

  ‘Thank you, Friary. It was good of the doctor – but there was no need of it. Of course we expect him as usual.’

  ‘Quite so, sir. I am also to say that, at the same time, he would like a word with Mr Angrave. And in your presence, sir. Those were Dr Fell’s words.’

  ‘Very well, Friary. You decanted the burgundy? It ought to breathe a little, I think.’

  ‘Yes, sir. The point has not escaped me. I hope that nothing does.’

  Friary gave his ghost of a bow, and withdrew. There was a prolonged silence.

  ‘Charles,’ Appleby asked, ‘why do you keep on an insolent fellow like that?’

  ‘Insolent?’ Martineau seemed genuinely surprised. ‘Friary is an excellent man. There are irresponsible stories about him in the village, but I judge him to be completely trustworthy.’ Martineau rose from his chair. ‘We had better be getting along to change, John. And do forgive me, once more. In this last quarter of an hour there has been a good deal to forget.’ He smiled wanly, and touched Appleby on the arm to guide him to the door. ‘But at least Friary hasn’t forgotten the burgundy.’

  ‘I look forward to it,’ Appleby said.

  11

  It was to seem to Appleby a curious feature of the affair at Charne that for just a little more than twenty-four hours after this enigmatical and painful scene in the small library almost nothing happened. At least if anything did happen it failed to do so within the scope of Appleby’s observation. After dinner, Charles and Grace Martineau made the little trip to the belvedere which they had planned – and presumably they heard the nightingale there, since the nightingale sang once more. But if Charles had indeed had to listen to his wife’s strange proposal and been duly staggered the only sign of it that appeared in him was perhaps the rather careful composure which he preserved among his guests during the short remainder of the evening.

  This composure certainly extended to Charles’ attitude to his nephew Bobby, whom he addressed with all his customary consideration. Bobby himself, on the other hand, appeared ruffled. Whether this was as a consequence of the proposed mysterious confrontation with Dr Fell in the presence of his uncle didn’t appear. What did appear was that he had abruptly lost interest in Mrs Gillingham. Perhaps he had been rebuffed in some improper proposal advanced to her – although Appleby was inclined to think that this notion was the issue only of his own sustained professional acquaintance with human misconduct. Perhaps Bobby had somehow tumbled to the fact that Mrs Gillingham was not the sort of threat it had been possible to suppose. However this might be, after dinner Bobby had given Diana Page a somewhat perfunctory invitation to get into his car and run round one or two pubs. Whether Diana would have liked to do this it was impossible to say. She was certainly too well brought up to treat a tolerably formal party in this casual fashion, and Bobby had presently driven off alone. Appleby didn’t know when he returned. Dr Fell was certainly in the house shortly after Charles and Grace came slowly back from their small expedition. So perhaps Bobby and Fell met, after all.

  It was at least certain that Martine could not have been presented with a sudden vision of herself as her uncle Charles’ pre-emptive bride. She had ceased, indeed, to be in any way challenging towards Mrs Gillingham, but the only explanation required for this was, after all, that she had recovered her manners. To both the Martineaus her bearing was perfectly normal, and Appleby was convinced that she was not in the position of having to put any extra effort into this.

  Amid this general calm it was only Edward Pendleton who appeared a little troubled. He was a man who, if he never positively relaxed – let alone unbuttoned – commonly presented the world with the most equable of faces. But now it might have been said of him, as of another weighty character, that on his front deliberation sat and public care. Appleby was far from disposed to make any inquiry into this. But, at the end of the evening, Pendleton sought him out of his own accord.

  ‘My dear John,’ he said amiably, ‘I gather you have elicited from Charles some rather confidential matters which I felt bound to communicate to him early today.’

  ‘Scarcely that.’ Appleby wasn’t too pleased with this manner of
address. ‘I came upon Charles in a state of considerable agitation, and trying to contact a strange doctor. He told me that this chap Fell had walked out on his patient. I thought it most improbable, and I was right. Fell is back on the job. But there had been a flaming row. It wasn’t very difficult for me to make the inference that you were at the bottom of it – if I may express myself in that way. And there my information ends.’

  ‘Yes, yes. It would be absurd in us to reproach each other, my dear fellow.’

  ‘I quite agree. And if I was curious at the time, it was simply out of an impulse to help Charles if I could. But he didn’t want to discuss the matter, so that’s that. And no more, Edward, have I broached it with you.’

  ‘Quite so, quite so.’ Pendleton was frowning indecisively. ‘I would like you to believe that I have been put in a peculiarly difficult position. You say Charles didn’t pass on to you–?’ Pendleton hesitated.

  ‘What you felt you had to tell him? Definitely not. He said something to the effect that he couldn’t bring himself to enter upon it.’

  ‘I see. I hope he didn’t offend you by his reticence. But it is difficult – really very difficult. It would be idle in me to pretend now that I don’t know something which must be admitted to this man’s disadvantage. But here he is, respectably and legitimately employed in his profession. And I would stress legitimately. Moreover I haven’t the slightest reason to suppose that he is not a thoroughly competent GP. And again, as far as Grace’s case goes, I have made sure that he has been securing amply adequate advice from the best consultants. I would not myself have dreamt of saying a word to Charles – particularly, as you may imagine, at a juncture the nature of which must be only too clear to us all – but for something extremely disturbing which came to my notice only today. Even so, my dear John, I may well have committed an error of judgement.’

  Pendleton had produced this last reflection not without a detectable air of mentioning a circumstance wildly improbable. Having done so, and having – Appleby couldn’t help feeling – elevated the whole matter to a suitable pitch of the mysterious – he now seemed to feel that this particular conference was concluded, and his own mind in some measure relieved.

  ‘Dear me!’ Pendleton said. ‘The household keeps early hours, does it not. But it is very understandable, of course. You and I had better be off to bed too.’

  ‘So we had.’ Appleby moved towards the door of the deserted music room – in which this conversation had been taking place. ‘By the way,’ he said casually, ‘would I be right in supposing that, at one time, our friend Fell was an anaesthetist?’

  ‘Yes.’ Edward Pendleton not only gave this reply curtly; he swerved away from Appleby as he did so. ‘I’ll just find those light-switches,’ he said. ‘Don’t wait for me, my dear fellow. Good night.’

  ‘Edward’s attitude may seem odd,’ Appleby said, when reporting this interview to Judith a few minutes later. ‘But at least it’s tolerably clear. He lays an information against Fell with Charles – I think that’s the fair description of it – and then simply leaves the ball in Charles’ court. As if Charles hadn’t enough on his plate already.’

  ‘It’s hard to believe that anything can be tolerably clear that produces such a muddle of metaphors.’ Judith, who was already in bed, put down the book she had been reading. ‘What’s it all about, anyway?’

  ‘I imagine that Fell may at some time have been in trouble with a professional body – the General Medical Council, or whatever – of which Edward was an august member. I imagine, too, that the trouble came to nothing – perhaps because of lack of evidence, or the like. But it meant a switch in Fell’s career – a switch by no means for the better. And it has put him in the position of a suspected person. If trouble of a certain kind blows up in his neighbourhood, the police will make no bones about pulling him in and searching under his bed for housebreaking implements.’

  ‘Really housebreaking implements?’

  ‘Don’t be silly. Of course it would be a matter – at the start, at least – simply of unprofessional conduct. But eventually the police might arrive, all the same.’

  ‘But why does Edward simply shove this on poor Charles?’

  ‘Because nothing was ever brought home to Fell, and it is really highly improper in Edward to breathe a word to Fell’s disadvantage. At the same time, he feels his old friend Charles must be warned.’

  ‘The man’s a menace.’

  ‘Fell?’

  ‘He may be, for all I know. But I mean that Edward is. Coming at Charles with such stuff at this particular time.’

  ‘Quite so. As a matter of fact, Edward is making quite a to-do about the point himself. He calls it being in a peculiarly difficult position.’

  ‘Whatever Edward told Charles, I don’t see why Charles need have had an immediate row with Fell because of it. Suppose that Fell has been at some time a confirmed alcoholic–’

  ‘Or a drug addict.’

  ‘All right – that. If it’s a thing of the past, and hasn’t in any way interfered with Fell’s professional skill in looking after Grace, I can’t see why Charles, who’s the gentlest of men–’

  ‘I don’t think I told you about Ronny Clandon and Tim Gorham.’ Appleby was now in pyjamas. ‘They’re the key.’

  ‘Whoever are they?’

  ‘Two young gentlemen resident in the county – or formerly resident in the county. Ronny has been put in a home. An even worse fate has befallen Tim. He’s been sent to Australia.’

  ‘You certainly didn’t tell me about them.’

  ‘I suppose I thought their story unedifying. They used to be a resource of Diana Page’s when staying at Charne. And they were friends of Bobby’s.’

  ‘They took drugs?’ Judith asked.

  ‘You’re there in one. And what I think has happened is this. Edward has heard about these two unfortunate young men – quite probably from Charles himself. And drug-taking, as Diana told me, is catching. When a little pocket of it turns up, it is natural for the parents of young people who have been on the fringes of it to get pretty alarmed. Indeed, they’d be fools if they didn’t. Now Charles, who does easily get worried, may have been in this state of anxiety regarding Bobby, of whom he thinks the world. He may even have had good reason to be so.’

  ‘I can see Bobby having a go at drug-taking, but being very careful not to get hooked. He’s a wary as well as a very intelligent young man.’

  ‘I quite agree. But now suppose that it is drugs that are in Fell’s past. It probably is. Indeed, I asked Edward one question about Fell, which he answered. And he knew very well why I was asking it. Fell used to be an anaesthetist. As you know, it’s the point of maximum exposure to temptation in the whole medical profession. Very well. Edward has been told that there has been drug-taking in Bobby Angrave’s set – and then, quite unexpectedly, he discovers that it is Fell who is the local medical practitioner. He feels, absolutely rightly, that it is not his business to take any action on the strength of what can be no more than nebulous suspicion. At the same time, he feels that he has a duty to Charles, so he murmurs a word in his ear. Charles rather loses his head – for which one can’t blame him at this time, poor chap – and comes out with something to Fell which obliges Fell to be very angry. And that, I imagine, is the whole story.’

  ‘And what do you think of it?’

  ‘I don’t want to think of it at all. I don’t want to be poking round Charne as if it was a kind of underworld. To be truthful, I’ll be quite glad when it’s time to go away.’

  ‘We can’t possibly cut our visit short.’ Judith picked up her book again. ‘But I’ve arranged a kind of holiday for you tomorrow evening.’

  ‘A holiday?’

  ‘You and I are going over to dinner with the Winstanleys at Clinton Amber.’

  ‘Who on earth are the Winstanleys, and whe
re on earth is–’

  ‘You know perfectly well that Hugo and Cynthia Winstanley are cousins of mine. You’ve met them several times. As for Clinton Amber–’

  ‘It sounds most pretentious.’

  ‘It’s nothing of the sort. And it’s barely fifty miles away.’

  ‘Very well – but I suppose you’ve fixed this in a decent way with Grace?’

  ‘Of course I have. She knows Hugo and Cynthia very well, and she wants news of them. She has that kind of feeling about people at present. She wants to gather them to her as she can.’

  ‘Yes.’ Appleby was silent for a moment. ‘But we oughtn’t to arrive back too late.’

  ‘There will be no need to. Cynthia has promised to have dinner rather early. Do you approve of your holiday?’

  ‘Yes,’ Appleby said. ‘I do.’

  12

  Appleby put in part of the following morning walking to the village to buy tobacco. It wasn’t a particularly necessary expedition; he could well have waited until the excursion due to be undertaken later in the day. He simply felt that, for a short time at least, it might be tactful to keep out of Charles Martineau’s way. On the previous evening, during the awkwardness over Dr Fell, Charles had begged to be excused from explaining himself. Any uneasiness consequent upon this wasn’t, perhaps, considerable; yet it existed, and was enhanced for Appleby by the fact that he had almost certainly pieced together the true facts of the case.