The Open House

by Michael Innes

  There was a desk in one of the windows, but it was unpromisingly bare. Besides, he could hardly start rummaging in private papers. But works of reference were another matter. Who’s Who might turn up a relevant Snodgrass or two, and on Ledward as a property the invaluable Landed Gentry ought to help. These should certainly be in this room. For that matter, there was still something relevant in his own pocket. He could take another look at his map.

  He did so, spreading out the sheet on the desk beside him. And there, at least, Ledward Park was. The house, plus an actual park, was given some prominence, but the avenue was only faintly indicated, which must be why he had missed it in the first place. He looked at it now with a not very logical sense of its giving him some assurance that this entire adventure wasn’t a dream. And then he made a further inspection of the library. On three of its walls the books went up to the ceiling, so that the upper rows could be reached, or even identified, only from a library-ladder. There must be seven or eight thousand volumes, Appleby supposed, but he doubted whether the collection was particularly valuable. It looked like the typical country-house miscellaneous affair, with here and there coherent patches which suggested some vein of scholarship uncertainly surfacing in the family from time to time. There was a respectable assemblage of Antarctica, and one entire bay was devoted to the history and geography of South America. What was called standard literature wasn’t much in evidence, and Appleby didn’t notice a single work of fiction. It seemed almost possible to believe that the Snodgrasses of Ledward Park had remained ignorant of the existence of their poetically-disposed Dickensian namesake.

  The fourth wall was given over – and perhaps it might be informatively – to family portraits of the minor order: oil sketches, pastels, miniatures, pencil drawings, and photographs both ancient and modern. There was a handsome Victorian gentleman drawn by Richmond – a distinguished performance contrasting oddly with the stiffly posed, although technically accomplished, ‘studies’ by Victorian and Edwardian cameras. In these, generously bosomed but decently swathed ladies inclined their noses demonstratively over vases of flowers; gentlemen eased the unwonted process of absorbing themselves in a book by leaning a thoughtful brow on a supporting hand; children strangled kittens, clasped hoops, or with outstretched battledore unconvincingly simulated the expectation of a shuttlecock’s arriving thereupon. One small boy attracted Appleby’s notice. He had ‘dressed up’ in military uniform – not the unassuming cardboard ‘outfit’ Appleby remembered from his own childhood, but in well-tailored garments suggestive of some foreign, rather than a British, regiment. The boy had been firmly positioned four-square before the camera – his left arm stiffly at attention; his right hand also at his side, resting in an officer-like fashion on the hilt of his miniature sword; his eyes steadily fixed upon the threatening lens. Thus dragooned, the small boy nevertheless contrived to intimate in some indefinable way the possession of an unruly spirit. Appleby wondered whether a real army had eventually claimed him; and, if so, what it had made of him. Perhaps a battlefield had claimed him – in Burma, the Western Desert, Normandy. At a guess, he had been of about the right age for that.

  The little portrait gallery – the unassuming domestic note of which struck Appleby as rather pleasing in the middle of this grand house – was disappointing as a source of information. Nothing exhibited either a name or a date, so he was no further forward in discovering whether Snodgrasses still inhabited (or ought to be inhabiting) Ledward Park. He fell back on his former plan, and hunted around for Who’s Who. It proved not difficult to run to earth, and in its pages several Snodgrasses revealed themselves at once. The very first entry, moreover, appeared to be the one he sought. Adrian Snodgrass, described in the opening line of the notice as ‘soldier and traveller’, had been born in 1915, the second and now eldest surviving son of a brigadier. He was unmarried. His schooling had been partly in Azuera, South America, and partly at Harrow. He had gone to Oxford, entered a good regiment, resigned his commission within a couple of years, turned up in another South American country as a military attaché in the British Embassy, quitted this apparently in the interest of ‘exploration’, been later ‘associated with various governmental agencies’ in Azuera, and then shifted his activities to Africa. He had published a book unendearingly entitled My Niger Niggers, after – and perhaps because of – which he had returned to Azuera and been ‘prominent in securing measures of political reform’. With this activity, ascribed to 1961, the record ended. Adrian Snodgrass’ address was given as care of Professor Beddoes Snodgrass, Ledward Park.

  This further Snodgrass appeared – several Snodgrasses on – on the opposite page. Beddoes, who was a widower in his seventies and apparently a younger brother of the brigadier, was also a soldier, and indeed the son of a soldier. He had seen active service, taught at the Staff College, left the army to lecture on military history at universities in South America, and eventually become Professor of the History of Warfare at Cambridge. His publications had not been numerous; what seemed to be the most important of them was called Terrain and Tactics: Three Campaigns in Brazil. His address was The Old Dower House, Ledward.

  Having provided himself with this succinctly rendered information, Appleby proceeded to digest it as well as he could. For this purpose he established himself in a comfortable chair before the fire. This was no doubt a further stage in the mild impropriety of his conduct. But it was going to be his attitude, he told himself, that he had stood in as caretaker of Ledward until a better turned up.

  It was a fair inference from the record, he supposed, that the owner of the house was Adrian Snodgrass, who had followed the military tradition of his family, left the army for what suggested itself as having been a wandering and adventurous life, and seen no reason to provide the world with any information about his activities for a period of what was now more than ten years. He might be dead – but, if so, it was unlikely that he had been dead for long: otherwise, Who Was Who would be the volume in which his career was chronicled. What else could be inferred about this descendant – as he presumably was – of Augustus Snodgrass Esquire? He didn’t announce himself as having a club, and a London club was a convenience which it would occur to few Englishmen of some substance and of nomadic habit to do without. It was conceivable that the missing latter part of Adrian’s life had landed him in some situation incompatible with continued membership of anything of the sort. This might be so without its following that he was a thoroughly bad hat. There were all sorts of possibilities upon which it was idle to speculate.

  As this went through his mind, Appleby found that he had turned in his chair to take another look at the small boy in the soldier’s uniform. He had a hunch that this was Adrian. In which case the uniform was perhaps a replica of something South American. It was clear from the record that Adrian had spent at least some active years in South America. And this, taken in conjunction with the other Who’s Who entry, suggested that the Snodgrasses were one of those English families which had for some generations maintained contact with relations settled in one or another of the South American states.

  Appleby turned to review the other little life-story he had paused upon. Beddoes Snodgrass was Adrian’s uncle, and he too had been a soldier. But he had exchanged, as Shakespeare put it, the casque for the cushion, and there was every appearance of his having enjoyed a blameless and useful academic career. His book on Brazil was no doubt a standard work. He now appeared to live in retirement on the Ledward estate. The Old Dower House might be a couple of miles away, or it might be no more than a hundred yards. And Adrian’s address was given as care of Professor Snodgrass at Ledward Park itself. It looked as if this elderly character managed his nephew’s house and affairs. At the moment, he seemed not to be looking after them too well.

  It was at this moment that Appleby heard voices.

  He stood up and faced the door, prepared to explain himself. For here, surely, was Beddoes Snodgrass after all. If, as was popularly believed, all profe
ssors were absent-minded, then perhaps emeritus professors were liable to an intensification of this condition amounting to intermittent amnesia. Beddoes Snodgrass had been working late in this empty house; he had possibly intended to sleep here; and his own servants had been instructed to prepare a meal and withdraw to the Old Dower House. Later, Snodgrass had obliviously tottered home, gone to bed, and then awakened to the memory that he had neither eaten his dinner, turned out his eccentric blaze of lights, or so much as shut the front door. So here he was back again, accompanied by a retainer who had guided his aged footsteps through the night.

  This would have been an excellent explanation – quite the best and simplest Appleby had thought up yet – but for the fact that his ear had briefly betrayed him. The voices weren’t coming from the quadrant-corridor. They were coming from outside the house.

  Appleby’s hypothesis, of course, still didn’t need to be abandoned. The learned Snodgrass was at hand, but still only traversing the terrace outside this part of the private wing. Yet there was surely something a little odd… Appleby strode rapidly to one of the uncurtained windows. For what he had heard couldn’t be described as conversation. It was much more like a hoarse whispering. And he had no sooner realized this than there came a sudden clatter as of some small metal object dropped on flags. There followed a muttered curse, and the sound of several pairs of rapidly retreating footsteps. By the time Appleby got the French window open silence had returned. And nowhere within the glow radiating from the house was the slightest movement to be seen.

  Appleby shut the window again, and turned back into the room. It was to find that he was no longer alone, for in the doorway of the library stood a very old man.

  ‘You’ve aged a great deal,’ the very old man said.

  4

  ‘Professor Snodgrass?’Appleby began. ‘I owe you…’

  ‘But your eyes haven’t changed.’ Professor Snodgrass (who got along on a stick with a thick rubber tip) had taken a few steps forward, and was glancing at the photograph of the boy-soldier. ‘No, not since you were a child. Nor your nature either, I suppose.’ The Professor produced a chuckle which appeared to betoken indulgence rather than censure. ‘At least you keep your word – eh?’

  ‘My dear sir, you are quite mistaken. My name…’

  ‘Later than you might have done. But let that be, my dear boy. I have kept my word too. It’s one of our few family virtues, as your dear father used to say. The candle in the window, and the table spread. Have you had your supper yet?’

  ‘Professor Snodgrass, I am very sorry – but I have occasioned a total misapprehension. You are supposing me to be a relation, whereas I am an entire stranger. My name is Appleby, and I have no business at Ledward at all.’

  ‘No more you have. What a deuced odd thing!’ The Professor took out a watch and consulted it. ‘But the night remains young, and Adrian may turn up still. Did you say you were a friend of his? He has made an appointment with you?’

  ‘Nothing of the sort.’ The awkwardness of the occasion, Appleby reflected, was being enhanced by the fact that this aged academic person was no longer very fully in command of his wits. ‘It is simply that my car broke down a couple of miles away…’

  ‘That’s very bad – very bad, indeed.’ The Professor was suddenly emphatic. ‘Reliable transport, I have always insisted, is the vital condition of success in the field. Fire-power itself comes second to it. And my own vote is for camels, every time. I am delighted that you are interested in the subject. You and I must have a talk about the Sudan. I have been doing a good deal of work lately on the Juba River expedition of 1875. By the way, have you ever asked yourself why it took Sir Samuel Baker all that time to reach Gondokoro in 1870? We must take a careful look at the maps. Only tonight I am a little preoccupied by the arrival of my nephew Adrian Snodgrass, whom you no doubt know. Have the servants shown you to your room?’

  ‘No. You see…’

  ‘Ah, that is because there are no servants. Not here at the Park. My own people just come over, you see, from time to time.’ Professor Snodgrass paused, rather as if some perplexing problem had suddenly presented itself to him. And then his brow cleared. ‘And so do I,’ he said. ‘That accounts for my being here now.’ He fleetingly looked with great acuteness at Appleby. ‘But it doesn’t account for your being here. I’m far from certain there isn’t something damned fishy about you. I think perhaps I’d better call the police.’

  ‘By all means do. It’s an excellent idea. They will quite quickly be able to reassure you about me, as a matter of fact. Which won’t mean that I shan’t still owe you a great many apologies.’

  ‘My dear fellow, nothing of the kind is needed – nothing at all.’ The inconsequence of Professor Snodgrass seemed capable of continuing indefinitely and, as it were, accelerando. ‘May I suggest our taking a glass of wine while waiting for my nephew? Working over here from time to time as I do, I have them keep a decanter of port in that little cupboard by the desk. Quinta do Noval ’55, at the moment. Modest but wholesome stuff. To put my lips to when I am so disposed. Are you a Dickensian? The great novelist honoured my family, it may be said, quite early in his career.’ Not waiting for a reply, Appleby’s host (as he might now be called) made his way almost briskly to the cupboard he had indicated, and did in fact produce from it a decanter and two glasses. He set them on a table, and courteously motioned Appleby to a chair. ‘Delightful of you to have dropped in,’ he said. ‘I am conscious of seeing too little of my neighbours nowadays.’

  Although no more a neighbour than a nephew, Appleby drank his port with a clear conscience. He had done his best to clarify the anomalous position in which he found himself. He was inclined to wonder – although he couldn’t quite have told why – whether Beddoes Snodgrass was altogether as crazed as he seemed. The old man’s words, like Hamlet’s, were wild and whirling. But his glance, at least intermittently, was that of one who knew a hawk from a handsaw. And no doubt a steady assumption of his rationality was the best means of getting a modicum of sense out of him. Although curious, Appleby acknowledged to himself that the why and wherefore of Adrian Snodgrass’ being expected to turn up at Ledward in the watches of the night was no business of his. But what he had heard on the terrace was another matter. It had rendered the effect, indeed, of amateur effort. But it certainly hadn’t been effort in any lawful direction. It would be irresponsible not to try to bring this old creature to some sense of the hazard to which his eccentric proceedings were putting his property – or his missing nephew’s property. Appleby decided to tackle this head-on.

  ‘Professor Snodgrass,’ he said, ‘I have something to urge upon you. And it is relevant to begin by saying that I am a retired policeman.’

  ‘India, eh?’ The Professor appeared much interested. ‘Very decent service, to my mind. Never been adequately recognized. I expect you knew my friend Strickland. Ran your show on the hush-hush side. Keeping an eye on the Czar, and all that.’

  ‘Not India. London.’

  ‘Oh.’ Professor Snodgrass’ interest sensibly diminished. But then he suddenly set down his glass. ‘Didn’t you say Appleby? It’s not Sir John Appleby?’

  ‘Yes, it is.’

  ‘Dear me!’ The Professor appeared to recognize that he had occasioned surprise by being thus swiftly on the ball. ‘Odd thing – but I remember Tommy Titherton used to talk about you. When he was Home Secretary, that was. I’m delighted to have you call. Curious that I should have taken you for Adrian. He’ll be amused to hear about it. I expect him at any moment.’

  ‘I shall be interested to meet him.’ Appleby found this further example of matter and impertinency mixed no less baffling than before. ‘But my point is that, just as a point of professional feeling, I don’t like coming across open invitations to crime. And that’s what your open house is. A very open invitation to crime indeed. I’ve seen that the Park is full of valuable things – and I’ve done so while roaming in it without anybody to stop me.’


  ‘Ah, but you forget the candle in the window.’

  ‘I beg your pardon?’

  ‘One of my promises to Adrian. I interpret it a shade liberally, my dear Sir John, by flicking a switch that turns on every light in Ledward.’

  ‘I’m very aware of the resulting effect.’

  ‘No doubt – or no doubt in one sense. But have you considered how it must take burglars, and fellows of that sort? Scare them out of their wits, my dear chap.’

  ‘Once in a way – perhaps.’ Appleby paused. ‘I don’t want to be intrusive, but may I know how often you – well, mount this ritual reception for your nephew? It’s not every night of the week?’

  ‘Heavens above, no!’ Professor Snodgrass’ astonishment sounded entirely sane. ‘Only on Adrian’s birthday, of course. That was our compact, you know.’

  ‘Very well. But surely it must be known for miles around that this extraordinary affair happens yearly: Ledward all prepared for the return of its owner (as I suppose your nephew to be) and then vacated?’

  ‘Known for miles around?’ Professor Snodgrass had the air of one confronting a novel idea. ‘But what if it is? Over that sort of area they’re all our own people, more or less. They’d be as delighted to see Adrian back as I’d be.’

  ‘No doubt.’ Appleby judged it pointless to question this squirarchal assumption. ‘But, you know, quite apart from this annual tryst you keep, the house strikes me as uncommonly vulnerable to burglary. If, that is, it is regularly untenanted by night – which is what I seem to gather from you. May I ask if the Dower House is far away?’

  ‘The Old Dower House. The New Dower House is a ruin. I’m just across the park. Matter of less than half a mile. Fellow from the insurance company did once come and take up your point. Had a lot to say about rascals who steal pictures, and so forth. Of course I reassured him. Showed him my double action Colt. Reliable weapon. Used by an uncle of mine, as a matter of fact, at Balaclava.’