He wasn’t, however, to take his walk in solitude. He had hardly entered Charne Wood – for he had decided to take that route – when Bobby Angrave appeared out of the trees and sauntered over to join him.
‘Can I come too?’ Bobby asked cheerfully, when Appleby had explained himself. ‘I really think I need some chewing gum – or perhaps it’s a pair of shoelaces. Anyway, it’s something that will take me outside this blessed ring-fence for a bit. Shall we go on with our talk about death?’
‘If you’ve discovered anything more that you think is improving to say on the subject, Bobby, of course it’s my duty to listen. If not, not.’
‘It’s not, then. And we must find something else. What about scientific medicine? That old buffer Pendleton–’
‘Edward Pendleton is my exact contemporary.’
‘Yes, so I’d suppose – more or less.’ Bobby seemed unconscious of offence. ‘But, as I was going to say, Pendleton is always talking about scientific medicine. He seems to think it’s a new kind.’
‘It’s true in a way, I imagine. Far less in medical practice is merely empirical than was formerly the case. I’m not an authority.’
‘You must be an authority on forensic medicine – poisons and things.’
‘Of course I’ve had to know my way about.’ Appleby was rather amused. ‘But matters of that sort are often so intricate nowadays that one is very much in the hands of experts.’
‘What about drugs? I mean things like mescalin and Purple Hearts.’
Appleby was silent for a moment. Then he decided that he wasn’t going to concur in this sort of wary fishing.
‘Bobby,’ he said, ‘what’s in your head is that your uncle has been in some anxiety about such things.’
‘Perfectly true. Uncle Charles is a most extraordinary man. Think of worrying about that at this time.’ Bobby paused in his stride to glance at Appleby in a kind of horror. His mood seemed to have changed abruptly. ‘He’s desperate, you know. I ran into him coming out of Aunt Grace’s room this morning. She was…well, moaning. And Uncle Charles looked like death. That’s another thing about drugs – and it’s really more terrible, to my mind, than all that bosh about young people turning into dope-fiends wholesale. I mean how people can be kept alive on them. And ambulatory, if that’s the word. Aunt Grace can be made presentable for hours on end – and then, it seems to me, she pays for it.’ Bobby, who was carrying a walking-stick as was his rather elderly habit, took a vicious cut at a clump of hogweed. ‘She ought to be dead.’
‘About the other sort of drug-taking,’ Appleby said. ‘Have you done anything to relieve your uncle’s mind?’
‘Well, yes – of course I have.’ Bobby looked surprised. ‘But I’m not in a position to do so tout court. You see, when those chaps were mucking about with them, I did a little mucking in. It was uncommonly interesting, as a matter of fact.’
‘But you didn’t get addicted?’
‘Of course not!’ Bobby’s familiar contemptuous impatience flashed out. ‘I have some intelligence, after all.’
‘So had Coleridge and De Quincey.’
‘That’s what my uncle said. But it’s all nonsense. I exhausted the interest of the subject – and I’m still at large, and still in the hemisphere I was born in. But if you want to start inquiring where Ronny and Tim and the rest of that brainless crowd got the stuff, I’m afraid I can’t tell you.’
‘I haven’t the slightest intention of inquiring about anything of the sort.’
‘Oh, haven’t you? I thought that might be why you started in on the subject.’ Bobby offered this quite idle perversion of fact as if it were a stroke of wit. Appleby failed to indicate amusement. They walked on in silence to the farther side of the wood, and dropped down into the village. ‘Let’s go to the chemist’s,’ Bobby said, ‘and buy up every grain of caffeine he has. I believe there’s nothing to prevent us – and remarkable things can be done with it.’
‘Bobby, I think you ought to get away from Charne. It’s doing you no good. It isn’t even doing your blessed Latin prize poem any good, I imagine.’
‘Too true. And I’m sorry to be so absolutely filthy… Well, here’s the everything shop – tobacco, shoelaces and all.’
Bobby Angrave, however, made no further pretence of actually wanting shoelaces or anything. He remained outside the shop, and was still mooning around the little street when Appleby emerged.
‘How interesting,’ he said, ‘that the top man in London’s police smokes the kind of tobacco you can buy–’ He broke off abruptly. ‘I say!’ he said softly. ‘Look over there.’
Opposite where they stood, and at right-angles to the village street, a narrow lane ran between the gardens of a straggle of cottages. From one of these cottages the figure of a girl had emerged and moved hastily down the garden path. Now she had come through a little gate, and turned to fasten it. The movement had brought her directly in front of Bobby and Appleby, and at a distance which must have been less than thirty yards. It was Diana Page. She was looking straight at them – and quite blindly. It was to this strange appearance that Bobby’s exclamation had drawn attention.
But there was much more to see – although the seeing, indeed, had to be done in an instant of time. For almost without a further pause, Diana had turned away and half-walked, half-run down the lane.
For a moment Appleby said nothing, and it was Bobby who first spoke again. ‘I’ve never seen Diana look like that,’ he said slowly. ‘And she must be in a queer state. She just didn’t notice us.’ He laughed uncertainly. ‘She used to notice me a mile away.’ He looked uneasily at Appleby. ‘What was that expression?’ he asked. ‘Fear?’
‘I’d call it several things.’ Appleby spoke very soberly. ‘Shock and revulsion – and a lot of anger as well.’
‘It isn’t the first time I’ve seen her poking about the village. I thought she was doing Aunt Grace’s lady-of-the-manor stuff – taking soup to old women, and all that.’
‘She may have taken soup into that cottage. If she did, she has come away with something quite different.’ Appleby’s tone was now grim. ‘Who lives in it?’
‘Good Lord, I haven’t a clue. I’m not all that the hopeful young heir, you know.’ As Bobby said this, he grinned rather feebly. The incident seemed to have upset him badly – even frightened him. ‘It must just be one rural character or another. Most of them are my uncle’s people. Perhaps one of the foresters… Let’s get back to the house.’
‘Very well,’ Appleby said. They turned and walked up the village street in silence. There was hardly anybody about. It was curious how much the place contrived to remain a village, even when a new and urban life was now only a couple of fields away.
‘Do you know what I think?’ Bobby Angrave spoke abruptly. ‘There’s more going on at Charne than meets the eye – even the eye, perhaps, of that top London policeman.’
‘I agree,’ Appleby said.
‘So what are you going to do about it?’
‘Nothing whatever, Bobby. I see no reason to suppose that the hidden currents of which you speak have anything criminal about them. Even if they had, they would be no more my business than they would be yours, or any other private person’s. Forget this top-policeman business, for heaven’s sake.’
‘You disappoint me – or you would, if I believed you. By the way, you and Lady Appleby are going out to dinner, I think?’
‘Yes – to some friends of Judith’s at a place called Clinton Amber.’
‘The Winstanleys, that must be.’ Bobby Angrave brightened again. ‘Well, I’ll keep an eye on things for you, while you’re away.’
‘Thank you very much – but I haven’t the slightest wish that you should do anything of the sort. I might be a private detective, hired to keep watch on your uncle’s spoons and forks, to judge from your manner of talkin
g… Are we going to be late for lunch?’
‘Heaven forbid. The punctual Friary would be most displeased with us… I don’t think I like that man.’
‘Your uncle regards him as most trustworthy.’
‘That’s because my uncle is uncommonly trusting. One hates his ever being disillusioned.’
‘How does he behave when that does happen?’
‘With severity.’ Bobby offered this seriously. ‘I think you’ll like the Winstanleys,’ he added inconsequently. ‘You’ll find them restful.’
‘That may be.’
‘And – even though you don’t seem to want it – I promise you vigilance, meantime. Yes – I’ll be your little Private Eye.’ Bobby Angrave was gay again. He tossed his stick in the air and caught it as he made this absurd remark. ‘You don’t know what I shall report.’
The moon had risen when the Applebys left Clinton Amber. It was another warm, near-midsummer night.
‘Nice people,’ Appleby said. ‘I enjoyed meeting them.’
‘You mean that you enjoyed meeting them again.’
‘I assure you I didn’t know them from Adam – or Adam and Eve. But Winstanley’s an interesting man. I’m glad we went. It was a good idea.’
‘Thank you very much. And now – once more into the breach?’
‘Oh, I wouldn’t quite call it that – although Charne has been having its tiresome moments. Did I tell you how Bobby caught me on a walk into the village this morning? He talked some awful nonsense. But at the moment the place must be calm enough. They’re sitting in the loggia; the nightingale is singing or not singing, as the case may be. Martine is remembering to be civil to Mrs Gillingham. Bobby has wandered off and is mouthing Latin hexameters to himself. Grace will presently be going to bed, and Charles and Edward will be deciding to have a very short game of billiards. Another quiet day in the lives of the English landed gentry will have transacted itself.’
‘Well, that’s something, I suppose. You’ve missed out Diana.’
‘So I have.’ For a moment Appleby said nothing further. They had been driving down what was little more than a country lane, and he was bringing the car to a halt before joining a high road. ‘We’ll be back in no time now,’ he said presently, as they gathered speed. ‘Diana Page? I’m sure I don’t know about her. It’s my guess that she’s in rather deep water. But I’m blessed if I’m going to swim in it.’ Appleby frowned over the steering wheel. ‘Not that I’d have her drown, poor child.’
‘In fact, you’d swim for all you were worth.’ Judith glanced at her husband and laughed. ‘But nobody’s going to get drowned.’
‘No doubt you’re right. And the object of this little expedition was to get Charne in perspective, wasn’t it?’
‘Just that,’ Judith said.
The lodge gates were open when they reached Charne. Appleby drove through – and then suddenly checked his pace.
‘Did somebody call out to us?’ he asked.
‘I don’t think it was that. Drive on.’ Judith was looking back into the near-darkness. ‘The people in the west lodge are called Coombs. He used to be a forester. That was old Mrs Coombs. She was staring as if we were the fire brigade. And she certainly exclaimed in one way or another. I expect she’s a bit dottled, as my Scottish grandmother used to say. Charles keeps on all sorts of queer old people.’
Appleby picked up speed again, and then slowed as he approached the sweep to the west of the house.
‘Fell’s car,’ he said. ‘He’s a little later than usual. It’s satisfactory that there’s no more of that nonsense about Dr Robson, or whatever his name was.’
‘Yes. Drop me, before putting the car away. I’d like to go straight up and say goodnight to Grace. She’s usually fully conscious for half an hour, before something or other takes effect. She always reads Jane Austen. It’s Emma at present.’
‘Very well.’ Appleby brought the car to a halt. ‘There’s another car,’ he said. ‘And an ambulance.’
Judith had opened the door beside her. But now she turned, and for a second husband and wife looked at each other.
‘I’ll go and see,’ she said.
‘Yes – and I’ll get this car out of the way. There’s been some emergency, I’m afraid.’
As Appleby spoke, the west door of the house opened, and Bobby Angrave stood framed in it. He appeared to look out into the darkness, and identify the new arrivals. For a moment he turned round, as if speaking to somebody behind him. Then he came down the steps, and walked straight to the Applebys’ car. He waited until Judith had climbed out.
‘My aunt is dead,’ he said quietly.
‘Oh, Bobby – I am so deeply sorry.’ Judith laid a hand on the young man’s arm. ‘But we ought to be glad, perhaps.’
‘Perhaps.’
‘Can I go to your uncle?’
‘No.’ Bobby Angrave shook his head slowly. ‘No…you can’t. My uncle is dead too.’
Part Two
Friends and Relations
13
A notable English novelist – one bearing, indeed, the highest of contemporary names – has exhibited Muddle as the arch-enemy of human happiness. It is certainly the arch-enemy of Commissioners of Metropolitan Police. It is the arch-enemy, for that matter, of any policeman who finds himself with a sudden press of human testimony on his hands. Mr X’s car has an unfortunate brush with Miss Y’s bicycle; Mrs Z – on the pavement, shopping-basket in hand – has been ideally circumstanced to look on. But confusion is immediate, and is presently enhanced by young Master A – who steps forward (out of series, one may say), school satchel on back, too young to be relied on (except covertly) by the magistrate, but plainly to be given some credence by anybody really concerned to arrive at the truth. Everybody wants to be honest; everybody, in one degree or another, is frightened; the conflict of voices thus generated has to be heard to be believed.
In Death at Charne House it wouldn’t be at all like this. The dramatis personae would advance one by one, each in turn under the spot-light – a mild sort of spot-light, by no means glaring pitilessly into the contracted pupils of wretches successively under interrogation. The only penetrating beam would live in the level gaze of the person – Great Detective or humble sergeant of police – charged with the business of presently rendering all lucid to the sleepy reader curled up in bed.
Sir John Appleby knew that at Charne matters weren’t going to be conducted after this fashion. He was to be confronted by Muddle – and Muddle that was none of his business. He was – it was idle to deny – the authority in exigencies of the kind that had blown up; long ago he had sorted out such affairs in St Anthony’s College, in Scamnum Court, in the rat-ridden castle of Erchany, far up the Parana (had it been?) where they kept the calculating horse and the disassociated girl, even on that wholly deplorable Pacific island known for some reason as Ararat. It was natural that people should gape at him now – or should do so, at least, as soon as it was acknowledged that something more than simple fatality had occurred. But he didn’t like it. He had traffic problems to get back to, and the wickedly disinherited children they called Mods and Rockers, and disgusting pockets of indecency organized to collect ten-pound notes from business gentlemen, impeccably chapel-going in Preston or Hull, who unfortunately found themselves at large for an evening in London’s West End. This was Appleby’s world – quite a serious world, quite enough to be going on with. And now he found himself confessing with a bewildered local constabulary in the country house of an old friend – an old friend just deceased.
The police had actually arrived. Dr Fell had declared – pretty well on the instant – that they must be sent for. They were in the music room, being regaled by Holman Hunt’s Shakespearian musicians with ditties of no tone.
Musing among these masterpieces, Appleby looked broodingly at Christopher Sly. He was, for some
reason, compelled by Christopher Sly – perhaps because that sadly bewildered tinker had a natural right to be considered the presiding genius of the present gathering. For bewilderment is just what happens when your host and hostess both die on you. Nobody knows who ought to give this quite trivial direction or that. And the absurdity of such small social dubieties throws into relief the stark fact of mortality.
One looks, oddly enough, for a chief mourner – for only upon him, or her, can the beginnings of a composing social ritual be built. It was Bobby Angrave, rather than Martine Rivière, who seemed to fill the bill. Bobby’s controlled reception of Appleby and Judith must have been the product of a stiff exercise of the will. It looked as if the young man’s legs had ceased to be useful to him now; he was limp in a chair; intermittently his whole body trembled.
If an opposite extreme were to be sought, it would be found in Friary. Friary – quite incredibly, but simply because it was his prescriptive task at this hour – was dispensing drinks. No longer having an employer to consult, he had decided off his own bat that the two uniformed officers of police should be included in this dispensation. He received with evident disfavour their somewhat abrupt indication that thus to join in the household’s compotations would not be at all in order. Not that anybody else, for that matter, was accepting drinks. Or nobody except Mrs Gillingham. She had allowed herself to be provided with a glass of barley water. It was clear that at Charne nothing at all in the nature of a Wake was likely to get under way.
‘This is deeply distressing – most deeply distressing.’ Edward Pendleton had come up to Appleby with this remark. His tone couldn’t quite justly have been called perfunctory, but his manner clearly intimated a conviction that it was time the two Top People on the scene began to pull together. ‘Of course when it has been a matter of fire-arms these fellows have to be called in. They will be required to give evidence before the coroner, and so on. But these are mere wretched formalities. Can’t you get them away, my dear fellow, and leave us to our grief?’
The Bloody Wood Page 9