‘You put these things very unfairly – as I’ve already said.’ Raffaello was once more a man aggrieved. ‘I did gather that Tytherton intended to apply any money I could get him – or a good part of it – to another deal in the same field.’
‘To buying pictures, you mean?’
‘Something of the kind. He was in a position to make a very advantageous purchase. But of a highly confidential kind. It needed money. But nothing like the money it would finally bring in.’ Raffaello paused. ‘So we came to a gentleman’s agreement in the matter. I was to act as his agent when the moment came to market this asset he was acquiring.’
‘I see – and a precious pair of scoundrels you were. But go on.’
‘There is really nothing more to tell you, Sir John.’
‘Nonsense! Why are you here now?’
‘Well, that moment had come – or was coming. That is why I am here. But Tytherton was evasive with me – very evasive indeed. He simply would not tell me what was in question. Imagine that, Sir John! I am very sorry to say anything harsh about a dead man. But I really don’t think that Maurice Tytherton meant to be quite honest with me in the affair.’
‘You shock and surprise me. And that was the position up to the moment of Tytherton’s being killed?’
‘Yes.’
‘Then let us go back a little. How did the pictures you were quietly to dispose of two years ago come to you?’
‘Come to me?’ As he echoed the question, Raffaello glanced furtively round the long, deserted terrace. ‘His nephew delivered them to me. Archie Tytherton.’
‘The devil he did!’ Appleby had paused beside that statue of the god Hermes upon which one of Elvedon’s peacocks was accustomed to perch – a habit, he observed, of which there was humble evidence in the bespattered condition both of the divinity and his pedestal. And now Appleby leant against the adjacent balustrade and thoughtfully surveyed the splendours of the mansion itself. ‘Did the young man know what he was about?’
‘Ah! That is a question.’
‘How can it be a question?’
‘The pictures had been crated, Sir John. Each was in an individual light crate. Tytherton – this nephew, I mean – simply brought them up to town in an estate-car, and handed them over to my people at the gallery.’
‘So he may have known much or little?’
‘Or nothing at all. He was simply delivering to a highly reputable firm–’
‘Quite so. And, now, one final question for the moment. You had better answer it honestly. Have you, up to this present minute and as a result of all the prowling round the house that you are known to have been doing, arrived at any notion at all as to what Maurice Tytherton had in some clandestine manner acquired and was presently proposing to profit from?’
‘I have not!’ Articulating this with some vehemence, Raffaello further pointed his feelings by a gesture like a savage brandishing of the fist before the impassive face of Elvedon Court. ‘Do you know what, Sir John? I am coming to believe that I have been the victim of an unscrupulous imposture. I am deeply sorry to say it. But Maurice Tytherton was little better than a blackguard.’
At this edifying moment there was an interruption. Mark Tytherton had stepped abruptly from the house, with the result that Raffaello’s threatening gesticulation took on the appearance of having been directed at him. And Mark’s reaction was not of the most temperate sort.
‘It’s you again, is it?’ he demanded, and took three long steps forward. ‘And did I hear you say something about my father?’
‘Nothing of the kind!’ Raffaello – not unreasonably, considering the physical indignity to which he had already been subjected by this violent young man earlier in the day – was terrified. ‘I assure you–’
‘You assure me you are a beastly toad.’ Despite Appleby’s restraining presence, Mark took a further menacing step forward. ‘Isn’t that right?’
‘Yes, certainly. I agree. Anything!’ All dignity had forsaken the unfortunate art dealer. He began cautiously to back away down the terrace.
‘Sir John,’ Mark Tytherton demanded, ‘are the police finished with this man?’
‘I judge it improbable. Although not in the sense that they will insist on his staying here.’
‘Then you can clear out.’ Mark had turned to Raffaello. ‘First thing after breakfast.’
‘I’ll go now.’
‘You’ll go when I say – at ten o’clock tomorrow morning. You were my father’s guest, and you’ll end your connection with the place at decent notice. But get off this terrace. I don’t like you.’ For some moments Mark’s eye brooded over Raffaello’s precipitate retreat, and then he turned to Appleby. ‘Well,’ he asked, ‘did Henderson tell you?’
‘About your interview with your father last night? Certainly.’
‘Do you think they’ll lock me up?’
‘Let us not pursue that for the moment. And, even if they do, you’ll have a bit of a run for your money, Mark.’
‘What do you mean by that, sir?’ The young man looked sharply at Appleby, very aware of this use of his Christian name.
‘As master of Elvedon. Who else are you going to order off the premises – Ronnie Ramsden?’
‘Yes, of course – all in due time. You don’t imagine, do you, I need a chap to manage a home farm and some tenants for me?’
‘I don’t think I do. By the way, I gather Ramsden and you were at school together. What was he like?’
‘Brutal.’
‘Was he brutal to you?’
‘He didn’t have the chance. We became prefects together. But then he was given the top job, and ran the place. I’ll give it to him that he did it damned well. The school was a slack dump when he became head boy, and he sorted it out extremely efficiently.’
‘But not gently?’
‘Not gently at all.’
‘And you sound as if you disapproved, Mark. Didn’t you throw your weight about a bit yourself? You seem to me a little given to–’
‘Not like that.’ Mark Tytherton produced what was suddenly a disarming grin. ‘I never thought much of morale building with a stick. Still, the stick-merchants have something. It can be done.’
‘Yes, it can be done.’ Appleby accepted this mature view of things soberly. ‘Incidentally, do you think there would be any gentler way of building a little morale into that cousin of yours?’
‘Archie? I’m sure there wouldn’t. He’s in a disgusting funk – isn’t he? I’ve no use for Master Archie Tytherton. Out he goes, double quick.’
‘You don’t feel that might be a little – well, brutal?’
‘Lord, no! My father will have left him something. Archie has a kind of legitimate vested interest as a parasite. But he can go off and enjoy the status elsewhere. I don’t want to see him again.’
‘As it happens, I do. Do you by any chance know where I can find him now?’
‘I haven’t a clue. But here’s the omniscient Ronnie Ramsden, who always has tabs on everything. Ask him.’
Ramsden had indeed appeared on the terrace, and was now pausing before them. It wasn’t, clearly, a chance encounter. Ramsden had something to say to one or other of them. It turned out to be Appleby.
‘I have a message from Colonel Pride,’ he said. ‘He has been called away for some urgent reason or other. But one of his men will keep a car at your disposal until he returns.’
‘Thank you. I’ll have it take me home in an hour’s time, or thereabouts. My wife won’t be pleased if I’m late for dinner.’
‘I’ll give her a message to that effect.’ Ramsden looked at Appleby curiously. ‘Shall you be coming back tomorrow?’
‘Oh, later tonight, quite possibly. I’m sure everybody wants this affair cleared up as soon as may be.’
‘And
that’s what you’re going to do?’
‘I judge it probable.’
‘Well, I shall be much relieved, for one.’ Ramsden had glanced quickly at Mark Tytherton, as if wondering how he had been struck by the attitude of this cocksure retired policeman. But he spoke unaffectedly enough. ‘We’re not a comfortable or agreeable household. The sooner we’re sorted out, the better pleased Mark is likely to be. Isn’t that so, Mark? And, of course, your stepmother.’
‘I’ll thank you, Ronnie, not to go on calling Alice that.’
‘My dear man, I’ll call her whatever you please. You’re the boss.’ Ramsden said this without irony or resentment; it was as if he acknowledged it as being in the nature of the situation that his own status had changed, and was perfectly willing amicably to pack his bag when asked. And this good humour had an effect on Mark.
‘Ronnie, I was saying you’re the chap who has tabs on everything. I expect you’ve been doing quite a job. Just at this moment, do you happen to know where Archie is? Sir John wants to have a go at him.’
‘A go at him?’ Ramsden smiled grimly. ‘Why, the poor devil’s dead scared already. I don’t know what he’ll be like when the big guns are brought to bear. Still, it’s his own messy fault.’
‘I wonder,’ Appleby asked, ‘if you would elaborate on that judgement?’
‘I suppose I could, sir.’ Ramsden again glanced at Mark, but this time uncomfortably. ‘Only, Mr Tytherton’s just dead, and Mark’s just home–’
‘Ronnie, stop parading nice feelings. They’re not your line.’ Mark spoke roughly. ‘And everybody knows Elvedon has been a pigsty for quite some time. So get on with it.’
‘Very well.’ Ramsden had flushed faintly. ‘Your father found Archie in bed with somebody, and very much disapproved. There was–’
‘With Alice, you mean?’
‘Of course not. With that awful woman Cynthia Graves. There was a revolting row–’
‘When was this?’
‘Don’t be so thick, Mark.’ Ramsden was suddenly impatient. ‘You know perfectly well. It happened only yesterday. And your father rang up his solicitor, intending to bash Archie out of his will. And then it was your father who got bashed – fatally. So Archie’s panic at least has a rational basis. Like almost everybody else in Elvedon, he’s in an awkward spot.’ Ramsden had directed one of his swift glances at Appleby. ‘Only other people keep a slightly stiffer upper lip.’
‘What you insisted on kids doing when you took that stick to them,’ Mark said.
‘What on earth are you talking about?’
‘Oh, never mind. Sir John’s question is, what has become of Archie now. Have you any notion?’
‘I have, as a matter of fact. About a quarter of an hour ago, I saw him slinking off across the park.’
‘Ah!’ Appleby said. ‘Then I will take a walk there myself. And I’ll be glad of your company.’
‘Both of us?’ Ramsden asked.
‘Yes, if you will be so good. I’m rather tired of tête-à-têtes. I’ve a notion that a little committee work might advance matters now.’
20
But their first encounter was with Mr Voysey. He rose up suddenly before them, like a clerical triton, from amid a green sea of mare’s-tails.
‘Ah, good afternoon,’ he said, and made a vaguely benignant gesture with what proved to be a pair of field glasses. ‘I think I have just spotted a lesser whitethroat. One frequently hears – does one not? – that flat little rattle from thick cover. But actual observation is another matter. However, I scarcely think I can have been mistaken. There was that small dark patch behind the eye.’ Having concluded these ornithological remarks, Voysey appeared to notice Mark Tytherton for the first time. ‘My dear Mark,’ he said, ‘I am glad to see you. But I fear you have had a sad welcome home. You will have everybody’s sympathy. And we must remember–’ The vicar checked himself, apparently judging the moment inapposite for the more formal comforts of religion. ‘Perhaps we may have a talk one day soon.’
‘Perhaps we may. I believe it is through a hole in a little glass window. This is Sir John Appleby–’
‘I have already met Sir John.’
‘–and he is going to put either Ronnie or me in gaol. Or perhaps Archie, unless he opts for Catmull instead. Or you, for that matter.’ Having decided to exercise his wit in this acrid way, Mark went at it with a will. ‘Incidentally, I’m not confident you are right about that lesser whitethroat. I even think you may be getting a little hazy about your species. Didn’t you mistake me for a badger only last night?’
‘Stop being stupid, Mark.’ Ronnie Ramsden said this with the precise degree of authority proper in the captain of a school towards a fellow prefect. ‘And what’s this about last night?’
‘I was prowling around. I came into the house. I saw my father and had a row with him. What you might call a terminal row. I thought everybody knew by now. The police do.’
‘I see.’ Ramsden said this so quietly that Appleby saw the information had startled him. But their encounter with the vicar appeared to be a mere marking time, and there had been enough of that. So Appleby intervened.
‘We are looking for Archie Tytherton,’ he said briskly. ‘He’s thought to be walking in the park. You don’t happen to have seen him?’
‘Yes, I have. And he was in my mind only a moment ago, when Mark said something about badgers, the sense of which escaped me. Archie has never mentioned the fact to me, but I believe he must be interested in badgers himself.’
‘I’d have expected him to stick to bipeds,’ Mark said. ‘But, of course, one never knows.’
‘Restrain yourself,’ Mr Voysey said, with sudden and surprising severity. ‘You are in the company of two people much older than yourself.’
‘Sorry, padre.’ Mark Tytherton – Appleby had remarked before – did quite well when rebuked. ‘Tell us about Archie.’
‘Only seconds before you came up with me, I happened to turn my glasses on the spinney in Low Coomb. You know there are several setts there?’
‘Of course.’ Mark was impatient. ‘They’ve been there for hundreds of years. The whole coomb is a maze of the things. I knew it very well when I was a kid.’
‘Quite so. And you can see something of the nearest sett with the naked eye now. Archie Tytherton was examining it closely.’
‘Archie was turning to natural history?’ Ramsden was sharply incredulous. ‘And this afternoon, when he’s in a blue funk?’
‘I could not possibly be mistaken. I trained these binoculars on him. He was on his hands and knees, peering down into the sett. And this was not ten minutes ago.’
‘Then he must be in the spinney, or on the path leading from it, now.’ Ramsden turned to Appleby. ‘Shall we walk across to it?’
‘Certainly.’ And with no more than a gesture to the vicar, Appleby stepped out at once. ‘Do you know,’ he said to Mark, ‘that I believe your cousin is going to have the small distinction of satisfying what may be pretty well my last curiosity in this affair?’
‘So much the better.’ It was observable that a certain confidence, hitherto lacking, had come to Mark Tytherton. ‘You clear up the mystery of my father’s death, and I’ll turn a stiff spot of spit-and-polish on Elvedon in general.’ He turned cheerfully to Ramsden. ‘What you bloody well did at school,’ he said. ‘My turn now.’
In a couple of minutes Archie Tytherton had come into view. He had very little the appearance of one at ease amid the beautiful and permanent forms of nature. He was scurrying along in the manner of something that has been disturbed under a stone.
‘Like one,’ Appleby said, ‘that on a lonesome road doth walk in fear and dread.’
‘Precisely.’ Ramsden laughed softly. ‘Because he knows a frightful fiend doth close behind him tread.’
‘It’
s no sight to prompt poetical effusion.’ Mark seemed to offer this reproof seriously. ‘The poor chap’s funk is bluer still. As blue as a baboon’s behind. And you won’t find that in The Ancient Mariner… He’s spotted us. I think he’s going to bolt.’
This, however, didn’t happen – perhaps for no better reason than that there was nowhere very useful to bolt to. Although in a wavering fashion, Archie came on. And he halted when he had to, which was when Appleby and the two young men barred his way. There was a moment’s unkind silence.
‘Oh, hullo,’ Archie said in a surprised tone, as if it were only in this instant that he had noticed them.
‘Oh, hullo, you squalid little brute,’ Mark said with a plunge into his most juvenile manner. ‘This is Sir John Appleby. He hoped for a word with you while you munched your bun in the tea-break. But you bolted for the wide open spaces. And apparently to muck in with the badgers.’
‘The badgers?’ For a moment Archie was blank. ‘Oh, yes. I’ve been reading a book about them.’
‘Whose book?’
‘How should I know? It’s a green book, but with a kind of yellow-green cover.’
‘You shocking little–’
‘Perhaps,’ Appleby interrupted, ‘I may have my word with Mr Tytherton now? Mr Tytherton, you have in fact just been observing the habits of these interesting creatures in what is called, I believe, Low Coomb?’
‘I don’t see how you can–’
‘Old Voysey,’ Mark said, ‘with a pair of field glasses. I-God-see-you kind of thing.’
‘Mark, please be quiet.’ Appleby had raised a mildly restraining hand. ‘Do I understand, Mr Tytherton, that your reading in the green book has prompted you to believe that badgers are to be seen gambolling around in daylight?’
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