The Open House

by Michael Innes

  The dining-room was undisturbed. It was in the same disorder, that is to say, as before: the tumbled and broken chair, the shivered wine glass and little puddles of champagne, the ice-bucket that appeared to have been used as a football. Detective officers would presently come to measure and photograph all these appearances with due solemnity. Appleby resisted an inclination to reflect that somebody ought to be keeping an eye on the place meanwhile. At the moment, no doubt, Stride hadn’t all that many men to deploy. And there was something much more important to chew on: his own instant sense, as it had been, that the chaos was altogether too much of a good thing, and added cogency to a suspicion which on other grounds it was fairly easy to form. Wasn’t there something factitious about the whole affair? Didn’t it match the hoary old formula of the inside job disguised as an outside job? Or did it? The fingers of one hand, Appleby told himself, wouldn’t serve to enumerate the difficulties in the way of that temptingly simple interpretation.

  And now there was again the question of the sequence of certain events – here, in this, as it were, subsidiary area of the mystery. Apart from the library with its welcoming fire, two rooms appeared to have been particularly prepared for the returning Adrian Snodgrass: this dining-room, and the master-bedroom which almost adjoined it. He himself had inspected the bedroom, and had been mildly unnerved, if not by the waiting pyjamas, at least by the waiting hot-water bottle. He had then come into the dining-room, with its answering signs of an expected arrival. And Adrian had arrived, and had sat down to a meal. He had rung a bell (somewhat speculatively, that must have been); Leonidas had appeared and explained himself; Leonidas had opened the champagne and at once put another whole bottle on the ice. (Appleby checked on this story now. Yes, sure enough: there was an unbroken bottle that had rolled to a corner of the room.) Adrian had then sent a disrespectfully framed message to his uncle, but before letting Leonidas go had asked him to take a glass of madeira. (Yes, again: two glasses which had been used for madeira stood unbroken on the table.) Leonidas had made his way to the library, and was still giving an account of himself when the house was plunged into darkness.

  And now had come the main sequence of events, beginning with that angry shout. Adrian’s shout, it must be supposed: an Adrian who had in the same moment jumped to his feet so violently as to smash a chair, shiver a champagne glass, and send an ice-bucket flying. A mere failure of the electricity supply would surely not occasion such a reaction; in the second before darkness fell Adrian must have seen something that made him furious. It must have made him furious enough, or alarmed enough, to pick up a poker. But how had he managed that?

  Anticipating the coming efforts of Stride’s assistants, Appleby started searching the dining-room for a burnt match. There just wasn’t one. Had Adrian happened to have an electric torch in his pocket? There had been no torch on or near the dead man.

  But stick, for the moment, to these two rooms – or rather, now, just to the bedroom, which was so notably a scene of unelucidated events. It had been hard upon the lights going on again (presumably through the instrumentality of Leonidas) that Professor Snodgrass (already much shocked, one must suppose, by the death of his nephew) had made his way there, at Appleby’s suggestion, in quest of a sheet with which to cover the body. At this point, Appleby told himself, there had been a time-gap worth remembering. The Professor’s mission had taken rather a substantial period in which to fulfil itself. Nor had it, in fact, fulfilled itself. The Professor had returned without a sheet, but in a remarkable state of perturbation. Arrived in the bedroom, or at the bedroom door, he had become aware of two or more persons whom he supposed to be thieves and murderers. This had unnerved him to what was really a very surprising extent. He had cowered or hidden for an unspecified number of minutes. And then he had bolted.

  What had been happening in the bedroom, or what had then happened there? The next witness was Mrs Anglebury. For some reason (or for no reason at all, perhaps, if she was as crazy as she appeared to be) her wandering progress round the house had brought her there. Like the Professor, she had seen ‘some men’, and had so little cared for the look of them that she had contrived (in an unexplained fashion) to hide under the bed. It was these men, presumably, who had made an abortive snatch at the mediocre family portrait. In this episode the time-intervals were short, since Appleby had arrived in the bedroom, and rapidly discovered the hidden lady, within minutes of Professor Snodgrass’ reappearance in unedifying panic.

  Having got so far in this sketchy retrospect, Appleby, who was still standing in the dining-room, decided that the bedroom itself might be worth taking another look at. That portrait of some female Snodgrass of the Victorian era was obscurely coming to him as holding some central significance in the affair. He’d give himself another chance to make reasonable sense of it.

  With this object in view, he made his way down the short corridor that brought him to the bedroom door. And here he halted, in a good deal of surprise.

  There was a woman in the room. And she was a woman in black.

  11

  Women in white – Appleby, who had read much popular fiction in youth, told himself – but spies in black. Perhaps this person in black was a spy. Perhaps this whole nocturnal episode in which he had involved himself was a spy-story. Its general unaccountability would thus be explained.

  But now the woman in black was looking at him with extreme disapprobation. Or so, for a moment, he supposed. Then he divined that her disapprobation was by no means concentrated upon himself. She was taking a comprehensively dark view of everything surrounding her.

  ‘And who may you be?’ the woman in black said.

  Instantly upon these words – and because of their accent rather than their burden – Appleby perceived the character of the black garments before him. They didn’t belong to a spy in some romance of a past age. They belonged to a contemporary domestic servant. And Appleby was quite good at names.

  ‘Mrs Gathercoal, I think?’ he said.

  ‘I’m sure I don’t know how you come to know that,’ the woman said. ‘You’ve never been seen at Ledward before, you haven’t. Not that I know, you haven’t, have you?’

  It was clear to Appleby that Mrs Gathercoal must be a very good cook. Not otherwise could she have overcome educational disabilities inadmissible in good service, and so risen to command the kitchens of Professor Beddoes Snodgrass of Ledward’s Old Dower House.

  ‘You’re absolutely right,’ he said admiringly. ‘But I am, as it happens, a guest of the Professor’s at the moment. And it won’t surprise you that he has mentioned to me the name of his wholly admirable cook.’ He paused to mark this going home. ‘Did you come over with Leonidas in his car?’ he asked.

  ‘Did I not!’ It was with vigorous emphasis that Mrs Gathercoal produced this syntactically obscure disclaimer. ‘On my own two feet I came. Feeling that an eye ought to be kep’ on all this ’ere nonsensicalness.’

  ‘A thoroughly sound feeling.’ Appleby had warmed to this. ‘It has all been very great nonsense, has it not? Only you haven’t yet perhaps heard what it has ended in.’

  ‘Ended in? Would I be surprised! Year after year treating this ’ouse like it was a public – and well after closing time at that.’

  ‘As a matter of fact, my own first notion of Ledward was that it was going to be a public house. But I quite understand what you mean. You disapprove of opening up on the chance of this wandering Mr Adrian choosing to drop in?’

  ‘Arsking for trouble, I call it. Particularly now, with that Leonidas about the place.’

  ‘Mr Leonidas hasn’t been at Ledward long?’

  ‘Eighteen months, it might be – but with a lot of come and go as you please. And do I trust him? Like Hitler, I do. Mark you, every butler is entitled to his occasional brandy and cigar. But not to being that idle you’d suppose he was a gentleman. And wenches, too. They’ll be ’is Antilles Heel one day is what I say.’

  ‘Ah, Mrs Gathercoal, women are a terrible r
isk. I suppose you have been with Professor Snodgrass for some time?’

  ‘Twenty years, I have. And in better ’ouses before that. Seats and residences, I’ve seen – although I admit its ’aving been in inferior capabilities. Kitchenmaid twice in establishments bigger than Ledward itself. Not that I ’ave anything against the Professor and ’is station in life, I haven’t. The old gentry written all over ’im, the Professor has – even although e’s ’ad to make a living in a University.’

  ‘I’m delighted that you are so well affected towards your employer, Mrs Gathercoal. I don’t suppose you ever knew Mr Adrian?’

  ‘Of course I knew ’im!’ Mrs Gathercoal was indignant. ‘Lived for the outside of a year in this very ’ouse, ’e did, shortly after I came to the Professor. Not that ’e owned it then, not as far as I know. ’Is brother’s it was – ’im that lived abroad and died afterwards. That as ’ow I know what nonsensicalness all this is’ – Mrs Gathercoal made a gesture comprehending the whole bedroom – ‘this and all that in the dining-room too. ’Ot plates and champagne, I arsk you! What a gentleman wants – coming ’ome like that if ’e does come ’ome – is a sandwich and a couple of large whisky-and-sodas.’

  ‘Perfectly true, Mrs Gathercoal.’ Appleby was regarding the woman in black with genuine respect. ‘But perhaps it was different when the Professor was young.’

  ‘This ’ere bedroom, too. A regular museum piece, it is, and Mr Adrian never slep’ in it in ’is life. I could take you to ’is proper room, I could, one up from this, which is the one as ought to ’ave been got ready for ’im.’

  ‘Could you, indeed? Do you know, Mrs Gathercoal, I’d be most grateful if you’d do precisely that now. I’d be most interested. Let us go there at once.’

  ‘And just who are you, anyway?’ It was with distinguishably diminished challenge that Mrs Gathercoal reiterated this question. Conceivably she had formed the erroneous impression that Appleby, like the Professor, belonged to the old gentry.

  ‘As a matter of fact, Mrs Gathercoal, I am a policeman. In case that puzzles you, perhaps I ought to say rather an upper policeman.’

  ‘Officer class, I can see.’

  ‘Well, staff-officer, as a matter of fact. And I’m here – at least I’m remaining here – because a very shocking thing has happened. I must tell you about it, I’m afraid. Mr Adrian Snodgrass did come home tonight. But now he’s dead. His body’s in the drawing-room. Somebody has murdered him.’

  ‘That doesn’t surprise me, it doesn’t!’ It was demonstrably without the least striving for effect that the amazing Mrs Gathercoal took this shattering information in her stride. ‘A bad ’at, if ever there was one, that young man was. Not that ’e’s young now no longer, not if what you say is true. There being neither youth or age, sir, in the ’eavenly mansions – no, nor in the other place either.’

  ‘I imagine your theology to be impeccable. And I must acknowledge that I have myself not formed a favourable impression of Adrian Snodgrass’ character. Still, it seems rather hard that he should be done to death hard upon stepping over his ancestral threshold. The matter deserves looking into – wouldn’t you agree?’

  ‘That there Leonidas deserves looking into, ’e does. And poking about in too, if you asks me. You’d find evil in that man’s guts. Begging your pardon.’

  ‘I intend looking into pretty well everybody, as a matter of fact. And every where and every thing, while I’m about it.’ And Appleby pointed suddenly at the displaced portrait of the Victorian lady. ‘Would you, now, know anything about that painting?’

  For the first time, Mrs Gathercoal appeared surprised. She walked over to the canvas and stared at it.

  ‘Come off its ’ook, it seems to ’ave done. Mind you, family portraits are said to fall with a crash sometimes when there’s ill luck coming to a ’ouse. I’ve ’eard of that in some very ’igh-class establishments. Would it be that, do you think, sir?’

  ‘I’ve certainly heard of such phenomena.’ Appleby marked with satisfaction that he was now coming in for a properly respectful form of address. ‘Although I must admit I hadn’t thought of it in this instance. You are not aware of anything special about this picture?’

  ‘Dusted it, from time to time, I ’ave. Not my proper work, not by a long way. But we all give a hand at keeping this place up – being willing to oblige the poor Professor, bless ’im. But it’s a poor class of thing, to my eye – me ’aving been in places with Joshuas and the like on the walls.’

  ‘There are some very fine and valuable pictures here at Ledward, Mrs Gathercoal. But your taste is absolutely correct. This isn’t one of them. Shall we go up to that bedroom now?’

  ‘Come this way,’ Mrs Gathercoal said.

  Ledward – Appleby was presently discovering – had what could best be described as a dilatible character. He had earlier concluded (on the basis of some interest in such things) that here was a kind of Kedleston Hall miniaturized. But now the place was taking on the dimensions, if not of a Versailles, at least of a Knole or a Hampton Court. Mrs Gathercoal, having undertaken to conduct him to an apartment modestly described as ‘one up from this’, had first led him up a service staircase roughly in parallel with the main staircase of the house, and then through a maze of corridors, each sufficiently stately in itself, the rooms opening upon which would have served very adequately to accommodate the general staff of an invading army. Perhaps there was an invading army. Almost any number of people, it occurred to Appleby, could have walked into this open house round about midnight, and be still lurking around the place in the interest of no end of nefarious purposes. His progress could not actually have occupied more than two or three minutes. But his sense of disorientation was complete. Were Mrs Gathercoal suddenly to vanish (as so dream-like a character might well do) his hope of returning to the known terrain of that pillared hall before dawn would be slender indeed. But in fact Mrs Gathercoal had now halted before a closed door.

  ‘It’s ’ere,’ Mrs Gathercoal said.

  The oddity of all this was, if anything, enhanced by the blaze of light in which every corner of the house was still bathed. It had occurred to nobody to moderate or mitigate the pervasive illumination which Professor Snodgrass had deemed it proper to create for the reception of the wandering heir. Appleby glanced to right and left. This particular corridor had been judged suitable for the exhibition, or storage, of rather a large collection of mediaeval armour. It hung on the walls with the suggestion of a kitchen lavishly equipped with outlandish utensils in some sort of stainless steel; it perched on stands to the creating of a threatening appearance of ranked and patient flunkeys stricken into a robot-like cohort of metallic presences. The family of Snodgrass had not, it was to be presumed, flourished in great station when such accoutrements were of much practical utility. These vistas of junk witnessed only to the ineradicable acquisitiveness of the human species. Snodgrasses had been for quite some time, of course, followers of the profession of arms. Busbies, bearskins, and Balaclava helmets would have been entirely in order, and one might even have expected outlandish uniforms from the fringes of civilization such as the little Adrian was dressed up in for the purposes of the photograph now to be seen in the library downstairs. But there was something disturbing in this entirely bogus suggestion of ancestral activity on the fields of Poictiers and Agincourt.

  Reflections of this sort (not at all relevant to the matter in hand) were cut abruptly short. Mrs Gathercoal had opened the door of Adrian Snodgrass’ authentic bedroom.

  This was the moment – as it transpired – when the less boring part of Sir John Appleby’s night out began.

  There were certainly two men – and Appleby wasn’t at all sure that he hadn’t glimpsed a third. They were patently not policemen – although it might certainly be termed investigation that they seemed to be about. There was a desk in a window embrasure with half its drawers pulled out – beginning (Appleby instantly recognized the professional touch) from the bottom and not from the top. O
n the farther wall, beyond a simple bed, hung what appeared to be a dim and darkened portrait of a Tudor lady. And one of the men was in the act of lifting it from its hook.

  ‘You can stop all that,’ Appleby said – and heard his own voice come to him with the calm authority of years at this sort of thing. ‘The police are here, and you’re through.’

  This admirable speech certainly produced an instant effect – but not quite the effect that was to be desired. Instantly and entirely, darkness fell. The lights in this bedroom, it had to be supposed, could be controlled from a farther door, and one of the intruders had made a very successful dash to the switch. There was still, indeed, a beam of light from the corridor behind Appleby and Mrs Gathercoal. But it was a moment before this effectively assisted sight. And this moment was filled by the sound of flying feet – a sound, Appleby told himself, which was becoming something like the leit-motif of this perplexing nocturnal occasion. This time, they made it clear that the marauders were by no means trapped. In a house like this, rooms still communicated with rooms which communicated with yet farther rooms in quasi-regal fashion. And through this sort of vista the footsteps were fading fast.

  ‘Mrs Gathercoal, go downstairs to the drawing-room and send up the police.’ Appleby shouted this as he ran. A proper professional phlegm had suddenly deserted him. He’d had enough. He was very angry indeed. If he could come within reach of one of these rascals, he’d bring him down with a crash he wouldn’t quickly forget.

  This resolution, perhaps injudicious in an elderly man whose occupation had been many years of a sedentary sort, was at least spirited and indeed inspiriting. Appleby made surprising speed. Even so, he saw that any success attending his pursuit must depend on two factors: the promptness with which he was backed up by Stride and his men, and the extent to which the lay-out of the house was as unfamiliar to his quarry as it was to himself. In this second regard he might, indeed, hold an advantage. The evidence, although painfully contradictory and obscure so far, did point to the possibility that these noisy and blundering people were not up to their job – whatever that job might prove to be. They knew how to rifle a desk. But, facing the problem of what looked like a rummage through Ledward, it seemed conceivable that they had failed to do adequate homework in the way of casing the joint first. Very full ground-plans and elevations of a notable house like this could certainly be turned up with only a little informed research among books on English architecture. If they hadn’t thought of this then Appleby, knowing about such places in a general way, might have the edge on them. Knowing, for example, that he was now on the first floor of the main building, and that the outer wall was on his right, he knew that eventually there must be a left turn which would prove to be a cul-de-sac. Stateliness has to be paid for by inconvenience: the hall and saloon between them, thrusting up the full height of the building from façade to façade, must cut the entire formidable structure into two symmetrical and self-contained halves, between which the only communication would be at basement level or through the hall or saloon themselves. It might be possible to corner a fellow who didn’t realize that.