‘The other prowler and peeper. Her as calls herself Miss Kentwell.’
‘I’ve heard something about her prowling and peeping. But isn’t she Miss Kentwell? I confess she doesn’t suggest herself as a foreigner to me, Mrs Catmull.’
‘Then with respect, sir, you don’t know what you didn’t ought not to be aware of.’ Mrs Catmull paused on this syntactically complicated reproof. ‘A Russian Bolshevik, she is, and nothing else. Kentwell! If you ask me, Kentwellski’s her middle name.’
‘You astonish me, Mrs Catmull.’ Appleby was able to reflect that this was literally true. He wondered whether Mrs Catmull’s cooking was as bizarre as what appeared to go on inside her head. ‘Suspicion has been more or less my trade. But here is something which, I must confess, has totally eluded me.’
‘I know what I know.’ With this gnomic utterance, Mrs Catmull’s own suspicions seemed to deepen – as they well might while Appleby allowed himself this ironical vein. ‘And so does others in this house. Them girls.’
‘Ah, I’d forgotten. Your housemaids, and so on, make up quite a little colony of foreigners.’
‘And very well-conducted young persons they are. No trouble with the outside men – or not that they’re so careless as to let you hear of.’ Mrs Catmull paused on this generous encomium. ‘On account of the Pope of Rome, that is. Keeps them properly in order, he does. What they do, they have to confess. And when he doesn’t like it, he slaps them down hard.’
‘It sounds an admirable system. But just what are you telling me, Mrs Catmull, about Miss Kentwell and these Italian girls?’
‘There’s one of them does her room. And tidies her drawers.’
‘Garments, Mrs Catmull?’
‘Chests of drawers, and the like, sir.’ Mrs Catmull showed some sign of being offended by this wanton indelicacy. ‘Part of their proper duties, that is. And taught them myself, sir – which is no part of a cook’s junction, as you’ll admit. But junctions get mixed up, when you’re in service as a married couple.’
‘It seems undesirable in junctions. But just what did this rummaging in drawers produce?’
‘Excommunications from the Kremlin.’ Mrs Catmull paused, as she very justly might upon such an astounding announcement. ‘The same being clear,’ she added a shade bathetically, ‘through having Russian stamps.’
‘Miss Kentwell gets letters from Russia. Is that what you are telling me?’
‘Not sent to her at Elvedon, they weren’t. Brought them with her, she must have done. And hidden away in a wallet.’
‘It was obliging of the young Italian lady to tidy her wallet. Have you seen any of these letters yourself?’
‘I have not – nor would be the wiser either, seeing they must be in a heathen tongue. But there was no doubt about the stamps, this girl says. Hammers and sickles all over them.’
‘If Miss Kentwell was indeed an emissary of the Kremlin, Mrs Catmull, it was rather careless of her to be carrying such letters around with her. And even odder that she should have received them through the post at all. Incidentally, how would you account for the late Mr Tytherton’s having admitted such a person into his house?’
‘She infiltrated, that’s what she did.’ Mrs Catmull paused again. ‘Catmull’s word,’ she said. ‘He’s an educated man, he is. Means no more than making coffee to me.’
‘Mr Tytherton would have been unaware of her true identity and purpose?’
‘Just that. Thought her one sort of spy, he’d have done. And all the time she was another.’
‘I see.’ Despite the lunatic cast of Mrs Catmull’s mind, Appleby was rather impressed by this. ‘So what do you think should be done?’
‘An importation order – that’s what she needs.’ Mrs Catmull was incisive. ‘An importation order, and put on the first plane available. And that Raffaello gaoled, like I said. It would be the beginning of a clearance, wouldn’t it?’
‘A clearance which you would then like to see continue?’
‘Well, that’s Catmull’s idea. After all this, he says, they ought to leave the place to ourselves. It’s quite often done, he says.’
‘I was remarking something of the sort to him earlier today.’
‘That’s right. While the lawyers and probate people do their work, and that. Not that I take account of such things.’
‘Ah, yes. Everything will have to be valued, no doubt. And in a place like Elvedon, that is liable to take quite a lot of time.’
‘Well, they’re not coming in here, they aren’t.’
‘I am sure, Mrs Catmull, they will not be so discourteous. And I must apologize for my own intrusion. You will no doubt be having to think of dinner.’
‘A saddle of mutton, sir, and the peas and beans our own, I’m thankful to say – and the same going for the basil for the tomato salad. It all takes some preparing, it does, for a company like the present – and me with no more than a couple of girls from the village to help me, so far as all the kitchen work goes. May I make bold to ask if you will be dining yourself? In which event I’d manage a soufflé, sir, if your taste was such.’
‘That’s most obliging of you.’ Appleby was surprised and gratified by this signal mark of favour. ‘But I shall be going home to dinner, although I may return to Elvedon later. And now I must continue my search for Mr Archie Tytherton.’
‘Ah, him! I’d look under the beds, if I was you. Treacherous, is that young man. Treacherous as a sparrow.’
‘I believe I understand you, Mrs Catmull. Has he been a nuisance to the maids?’
‘A nuisance to the pigs and the chickens, he’d be, if you gave him half a chance at them. Even made passes at me, he has.’ It was with no particular appearance of humility that the robustly spoken Mrs Catmull appeared thus to rate herself below the beasts of the field.
‘I am very sorry to hear it, Mrs Catmull. My advice is to take that rolling pin to him, should he think to annoy you again. However, I judge it probable that, for some time, other matters will be occupying his mind.’
18
The company had dispersed from the library, with the sole exception of Miss Kentwell. The emissary from the Kremlin sat in a window embrasure, engaged in a task of embroidery. It occurred to Appleby that it might not be entirely without profit to have a word with her before resuming his quest of the elusive Archie.
‘Good afternoon,’ he said. ‘What a charming design, and how delicate the execution! I see that you are a person of aesthetic sensibility. Elvedon and its treasures must hold a great deal of interest for you.’
For the first time in their admittedly scant acquaintance, Miss Kentwell looked at Appleby with a hint of suspicion and even of alarm. He had already, he remembered, congratulated her on being a woman of iron nerve, and it was not unreasonable that this further absurdity should puzzle her.
‘Thank you,’ Miss Kentwell said. ‘But I have few pretensions, Sir John, of the sort you suggest. My embroidery work is undertaken for charity. The Society for the Suppression of Savage Customs. It has lately been making great headway, I am glad to say.’
‘Has it, indeed? You surprise me. And you do seem to have a variety of calls of this sort upon your time. You must be anxious by now to conclude your visit to Elvedon, with all its distressing associations, and return to your customary fields of philanthropic endeavour.’
‘That, of course, is true.’ Miss Kentwell inclined her head sedately. ‘But I plan, in fact, to stay on for a few days. Mrs Tytherton, indeed, does now have her delightful stepson to support her. But feminine counsel has its special place in times of sorrow.’
‘There is Mrs Graves, however. Would you say she might serve?’
‘I fear, Sir John, that Mrs Graves is not a person whom we ought to discuss.’
Appleby accepted this rebuke with a good grace. He was wondering wheth
er he had, somehow, got Miss Kentwell wrong. If she had really come to Elvedon for the reason he supposed – as a private inquiry agent hired by Maurice Tytherton to spy upon his wife – it was odd that she was now parading what was plainly a wholly fictitious reason for lingering any longer in the house. The Catmulls wanted to linger – whether as a matter of professional security or in order to have the opportunity for a little quiet thieving. The tenor of Catmull’s artless questions, indeed, rather powerfully suggested the latter motive. Raffaello wanted to linger – and almost certainly to pursue some better informed and more considerable act of depredation. But why Miss Kentwell? Appleby noted the question as worth meditating, and turned to something else.
‘Miss Kentwell, I am sure you have been most helpful to Inspector Henderson in his inquiries. But I wonder whether you would answer one or two questions which have occurred to me as well? They may really be called timetable inquiries, and they stem from my feeling that quite a number of things – really, of disconnected incidents – may have fitted themselves into a very short interval last night. And into one definite place: Maurice Tytherton’s workroom.’
‘That is precisely my own view.’ Miss Kentwell checked herself – conceivably, Appleby thought, because she detected this speech of hers as having been a little out of character. ‘But my mind is not at all clear about it all. It is so shockingly remote, Sir John, from anything within my experience hitherto.’
‘That I can well imagine. But my principal question is simply this: on the first occasion that you went into Tytherton’s workroom, and found it untenanted, how long did you and Mr Ramsden remain there?’
‘I’m afraid I find that hard to say.’
‘Perhaps you can arrive at an approximate answer by recalling the sequence of your actions, or for how long you were engaged in any one of them. For example, did you spend a little time looking at the Goya?’
‘The what, Sir John?’
‘The picture over the mantelpiece: a portrait of a man, by the Spanish painter, Francisco Goya.’
‘Oh, yes – I think I have heard of him. And I suppose – now you mention it – that Mr Ramsden may have meant to draw my attention to the picture. I certainly didn’t spend any appreciable time studying it. But now I can remember something I did – or thought of doing. Lighting a cigarette. There was a glass box with cigarettes on the mantelpiece–’
‘I remember that.’
‘And I thought I’d take one. That was why I put down my bag, when I come to think of it. You will remember about my bag. I put it down just where, on my return to the room, the tray with the brandy was standing.’
‘Ah, yes. And you didn’t, in fact, take a cigarette.’
‘No. Because of the scream.’
‘I beg your pardon?’ Appleby looked at Miss Kentwell in astonishment.
‘There was a scream, you see – from outside the house. We heard it particularly clearly, because the window was open. So I–’
‘One moment, Miss Kentwell. I suppose you have told Inspector Henderson about this scream?’
‘Oh, no. He didn’t ask me about it.’
‘Good God, madam! How could he ask you about something he had no notion of? But no doubt Mr Ramsden–’
‘Sir John, pray do not indulge in profanity. The matter was entirely trivial, but I am embarked upon a narrative of it, and will continue. The sound, I will own, startled me, and I moved over to the window to investigate.’
‘That was most courageous of you.’
‘Stuff and nonsense. I believe, however, that Mr Ramsden may have supposed something unpleasant to have occurred, since he made a motion to restrain me. However, we reached the window together, and realized how absurd was any apprehension we might have entertained.’
‘I am relieved to hear it.’
‘On the terrace directly below – as you will have noticed, if you have glanced out – there is a statue.’
‘Hermes, Miss Kentwell. He conducts the souls of the dead to Hades, and is therefore designated psuchopompos by the ancient Greeks. An appropriate divinity for you to observe. But continue.’
‘There is hardly anything more to tell. In that clear moonlight, all was apparent at once. The scream had come from a peacock, perched on the statue’s head.’
‘I’ve seen him there myself.’ Appleby, if disappointed, was at least amused by this anticlimax. ‘So here you are recalling an incident lasting no more than perhaps a couple of minutes. You propose to take a cigarette; are diverted by this alarming scream; and discover it to be, so to speak, a peacock’s nest. What then?’
‘I believe, Sir John, that it was immediately thereafter that I came to reflect that I was not in what might formally be styled one of the reception-rooms of the house. A study, or the like, is prescriptively not so regarded. Of course Mr Ramsden had behaved with complete propriety in taking me there. We were seeking Mr Tytherton – and Mr Ramsden himself has clearly been entirely free of the establishment, and on a footing of perfect social equality with the Tythertons.’
‘Clearly.’ Appleby was very willing to accept these social niceties. ‘So what?’
‘I suggested to Mr Ramsden that we go on our way. And so we did.’
‘Thank you very much. You have told me something that I find extremely interesting. I suppose you didn’t see or hear the peacock again?’
‘As I have just explained, we left the room at once.’
‘Quite so. But what I have in mind is your return to it. In the interval Tytherton had been shot. And you were, I believe, in the room for some little time, attended by Mrs Catmull.’
‘An absurd woman. Yes, that is so.’
‘No further sight or sound of the peacock?’
‘Definitely not. But I hardly see–’
‘It isn’t absolutely certain – is it? – that Tytherton was shot in that room, more or less as he sat at his desk. Just conceivably, his dead body may have been dragged there. But if a shot was fired there, close to the open window, I’d rather expect that peacock to make himself scarce for the rest of the night.’
‘That, no doubt, is what is called detection.’ Rather alarmingly, there was a faint hint of irony in Miss Kentwell’s voice.
‘I don’t know that it’s more than common sense.’ Appleby, who had been sitting beside Miss Kentwell in quite a companionable way, stood up. ‘And now I must continue my search for Mr Archie Tytherton. I wonder whether you have any observations to offer on that young man?’
Miss Kentwell considered.
‘I can imagine,’ she said, ‘circumstances in which I should entertain high expectations of him.’
‘Quite so.’ And Appleby and Miss Kentwell exchanged what might fairly have been described as a meaningful glance. Only Appleby, as he walked away, found himself wondering whether this notable lady would find the slightest difficulty in rising to the boldest double bluff.
19
But the quest for Archie was again abortive for a time. Outside the library, Appleby ran into Raffaello.
‘I have,’ Raffaello said.
‘I beg your pardon?’
‘Thought it over.’ Raffaello glanced around him uneasily. ‘Sir John, you are a man of discretion. We might perhaps have a quiet conversation, away from your Inspector Henderson, don’t you think? Come outside. It is pleasantly warm on the terrace still. And here is a French window we can slip through.’
‘Very well. But you mustn’t think I am going to enter into a conspiracy with you.’
‘Certainly not. Nothing of the kind.’ Raffaello followed Appleby into the open air. ‘But I know you take a broad view of this matter. Your only concern is with the shocking murder of Tytherton.’
‘Understand clearly that my concern is with the law. But it remains true that you will be wise to explain yourself, Raffaello. And I think y
ou want to begin with what was supposed to be a robbery a couple of years ago.’
‘It can be put that way – but only very unfairly, Sir John. I had been out of the country, you see, and had heard nothing about any disappearance of pictures from Elvedon. It all seemed quite legitimate. Otherwise, I would in no circumstances–’
‘Tell your story, and don’t waste time talking nonsense.’
‘Very well.’ Raffaello sighed like a man much ill-used. ‘The late Mr Tytherton called on me, and we had a confidential discussion. He had a number of pictures of which he wished to dispose – quite unobtrusively, you understand. I agreed to put inquiries in hand.’
‘Did he say anything about the background of this proposed quiet transaction?’
‘I did form an opinion, Sir John.’ Raffaello had now drawn his companion into a dignified perambulation of the splendid terrace of Elvedon. An uninstructed observer – Appleby thought – might have taken them for two Ministers of the Crown, gravely deliberating affairs of state. ‘It was my business to satisfy myself of the propriety of what was being proposed. From, that is to say, an ethical point of view. So I did think about the matter. My conclusion was that Mr Tytherton felt rather in need of ready cash.’
‘That sounds plausible. In the last year or so, at least, he is known to have been rather hard up.’
‘Just so, Sir John.’ Raffaello paused. He might have been calculating how much he was going to get away with, and soberly concluding it was likely to be very little. ‘But another matter came up. I must be frank with you.’
‘I’m afraid you must. And I suggest this to you, Raffaello. Whether you had been abroad or not, you knew perfectly well that the pictures Tytherton was proposing to part with were those that had already disappeared from Elvedon as the result of a faked robbery shortly before. Tytherton had already collected money on them from an insurance company, and now he was going to collect it all over again from your clients. Perhaps he really was desperately in need of money, or perhaps he just enjoyed dishonesty for its own sake. I rather suspect a mixture of the two. Well, however that may be, you tumbled to the situation. He couldn’t really have had much expectation that you would not. You then told him that, if you were to play ball with him, there would have to be rather more in it for you. Whereupon he let you into some further plan or plot that was in his head. Am I right?’
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