Appleby's Answer

by Michael Innes

  ‘Perfectly true. Call it, however, what is termed in my trade a working hypothesis. Then perhaps Bulkington has developed a quiet pressurising line on his young charges. Involved them in something mum and dad wouldn’t care to hear about: that kind of thing.’

  ‘What a squalid notion!’

  ‘Much in life is squalid, my dear girl. I’ve looked into the question rather thoroughly, and I know.’

  ‘Are you looking into this thoroughly – or just idling away an afternoon?’

  ‘Ah!’ Appleby found this change of front on his wife’s part momentarily disconcerting. ‘I admit that most of the work is yet to do. And don’t forget that, for the time being, the principal character is off-stage.’

  ‘The Pringle woman? You’d better ask her to lunch at your club. She’d be thrilled. Indeed, she’d twitter.’

  ‘It’s an idea. Incidentally, have you ever read one of her books?’

  ‘Of course not. But, as soon as we are home, I can get you some from the county library.’

  ‘Do you reckon people make much money out of writing such things?’

  ‘I’d hardly suppose so. A modest competence, perhaps, for so long as one keeps heroically scribbling.’

  ‘Poor souls!’ This compassionate ejaculation was offered by Appleby sombrely to the heavens. ‘I suppose they are buoyed up by the notion of one day writing a best-seller.’

  ‘We’re all buoyed up by something,’ Judith said. ‘Otherwise, where should we be?’

  This mature reflection produced a full minute’s perambulation in silence. They paused to survey an abandoned tennis court, abundant in hemlock and thistle. A lean cat made a sudden appearance from out the undergrowth, and now slunk past; the effect in this solitude was much as if a lion had gone surly by.

  ‘We’ll move back towards the house,’ Appleby said. ‘But, this time, round towards the back. I wonder whether Bulkington is really on from bad to lethal terms with the Pinkertons?’

  ‘He spoke disobligingly about Lady Pinkerton.’

  ‘It was rather that he recorded her as speaking disobligingly about him. Something about Borstal boys. Perhaps Waterbird and Jenkins are Borstal boys, being academically rehabilitated. Or perhaps Bulkington himself is a Borstal boy. Seriously, though, I’d be interested in knowing about his record.’

  ‘Crooks have records. Commissioned officers have careers.’

  ‘True – but at times mildly odd ones. Hullo! We are no longer alone.’

  They had advanced to the edge of an irregular open space, here and there uncertainly paved, which had some appearance of once having been surrounded by stabling or domestic offices. Here, perhaps, was the site of a parson’s house a good deal older than that Old Rectory now known as ‘Kandahar’. And this suggestion of an ecclesiastical provenance was at the moment reinforced by the presence of an ecclesiastical person. Perched on a low circular stone wall, which at once revealed itself as a well-head, was a clergyman: lean, dark, and in only the earliest middle-age. His ascetic appearance was enhanced through his being habited in a long and close-fitting cassock. He had a book in his hands, but was studying not this but the Applebys.

  ‘The local padre,’ Appleby murmured. ‘He must be waiting his turn for Waterbird and Jenkins – to provide religious instruction as an extra but at a very high level indeed.’

  ‘Walk on,’ Judith said. ‘We can’t very decently shy away.’

  ‘Not unless we pretend to be alarmed by the goat.’

  This was, in fact, a possibility. For a billy-goat had suddenly appeared on the scene – from where, was not apparent – and planted itself more or less directly in their path. It possessed formidable-looking horns, a singularly wicked yellow eye, and every sign of active belligerency.

  ‘A cross-grained brute,’ the clergyman called out encouragingly. ‘Its temper is notorious. It ought to be tied up. But you may just be all right if you walk boldly past it.’

  Not without natural misgiving, the Applebys responded to this challenge. The goat lowered its head and tensed itself. Then, quite inconsequently, it turned and browsed. The clergyman, meanwhile, had risen to greet them. He gave some hint of politely dissimulating amusement.

  ‘Good afternoon,’ he said. ‘It looks as if I must thank you for taking on some part of my own duties. I happened to notice you driving away from the house of one of my parishioners, Miss Anketel. And now here you are, benevolently weighing in with the pastoral care of another. As the incumbent here, perhaps I may venture to introduce myself. My name is Henry Howard. And what, Lady Appleby, do you make of the worthy Captain and his select academy?’

  It took Lady Appleby, thus addressed, a moment to realise that it was precisely the being thus addressed that had surprised her. Whereupon she intimated to the rector of Long Canings that she supposed they must have met on a previous occasion.

  ‘No, indeed. I fear not. It is simply that I have an excellent memory for press photographs. Moreover, I have heard a good deal about Sir John from time to time.’

  ‘How do you do?’ Appleby said. This was as civil a rejoinder as he could think up.

  ‘Then perhaps you are aware,’ Judith asked, ‘that my husband is a notorious practical joker?’

  ‘I can’t say that I have.’ Dr Howard showed no surprise at this odd question. ‘But possibly such proclivities don’t readily get into the public prints. Is he, by any chance, up to a practical joke now? Has he untethered that abominable goat, for instance? I should be delighted to hear about anything of the kind. And most faithfully promise not to give him away.’

  ‘Then I’ll tell you. John has been pretending to Captain Bulkington that we have a backward son called Arthur, whom we think of sending to “Kandahar”. And on the strength of that we have been going round the place.’

  ‘I see.’ It rather looked as if the rector did see; and it would certainly have been obtuse to rate him as other than extremely shrewd. He turned to Appleby. ‘And you wouldn’t care, Sir John, to be found out?’

  ‘On the whole, no.’ Although conscious of the absurdity of this encounter, Appleby remained serious. ‘Just at present, I wouldn’t care to have Captain Bulkington upset or disturbed.’

  ‘Or alerted?’ Dr Howard didn’t wait for a reply to this. ‘Well, well!’ he said. ‘But it is true that curious things happen in these parts from time to time. I come to this precise spot periodically, as it happens, simply to meditate on one of them. But, Lady Appleby, won’t you sit down?’ He pointed towards the well-head. ‘The stone is quite pleasantly warm. Be a little careful, however. The well is quite unguarded, as you see. Which is curious, considering its history.’

  ‘It looks alarmingly deep.’ Judith had peered over the edge. ‘But that’s no reason why one shouldn’t perch.’

  And at this, Judith perched. So did Dr Howard; he seemed a man not unwilling to display an exact command of informal manners. Appleby, declining to make a third in the row, remained on his feet, glancing from one to the other of them.

  ‘Could you tell us,’ Judith asked, ‘just what is the curious thing you come here to meditate about?’

  ‘By all means. It is simply the sad and sudden end of my predecessor in this parish. He fell down the well and was drowned. At least, I suppose he was drowned, poor fellow.’ Dr Howard arranged his cassock more comfortably over his knees. ‘So it seems proper that I should sometimes come here and reflect on his fate.’

  ‘I suppose it can be called curious,’ Appleby said. ‘It isn’t really easy to fall down a well. Might it be called sinister into the bargain?’

  ‘Assuredly – although not by me. Gossip, I believe, had it all sorts of ways. But there is no shred of evidence that the unfortunate man met with other than simple misadventure. Indeed, “curious” would be too strong a word, but for one small circumstance. My predecessor’s name, my dear Sir John. A name with a good Anglican background to it. He was a Dr Pusey.’

  ‘Pusey?’ Appleby repeated, rather blankly.

  ‘Ye
s, indeed. “Ding, dong, dell – Pusey’s in the well.” Once one has thought of it, it is a jingle not easy to get out of one’s head.’

  14

  This macabre joke appeared to interest rather than amuse Sir John Appleby. Indeed, he looked so consideringly at the speaker as plainly to occasion that self-possessed cleric a certain discomfiture.

  ‘I am afraid, Sir John, that you judge me to have spoken too lightly of my predecessor’s untoward end. I apologise.’

  ‘Nothing of the kind. I am merely wondering whether you have been quite frank with me.’

  ‘Frank with you?’ Howard stiffened. ‘One is not on oath, I think, when in casual conversation with a stranger.’

  ‘Certainly not – and I have expressed myself badly. Let me simply say I record an impression of reticence most agreeably dissimulated. I suppose they got the poor chap’s body out?’

  ‘Good heavens, yes!’ The rector was shocked. ‘And he received Christian burial.’

  ‘Is it possible that an earlier age might have denied him that?’

  ‘You are asking me whether I think Pusey committed suicide. I have already said–’

  ‘Yes, I know. Only – you will forgive me – I fancied I detected you, Dr Howard, to be rather deliberately choosing your words. “No shred of evidence”, I think you said. And I had just remarked that it isn’t easy to fall down a well. Is it quite certain that there is nothing – shall one say, to wonder about?’

  ‘May I ask a question myself before we go on?’

  ‘By all means. My wife probably thinks you are entitled to ask several.’

  ‘Then here goes. Have you come to Long Canings – and achieved your decidedly odd interview with Bulkington – in some professional capacity?’

  ‘Nothing of the kind – although professional curiosity is certainly at work in me. Call it a trick of the old rage.’

  ‘I see.’ Dr Howard looked thoughtfully at the Applebys – as he well might do. ‘Then let me tell you a little more about Pusey’s death. He had the habit of perching here just as your wife and I are perching now. And of reading his book, much as I was doing a few minutes ago. It wouldn’t have been in the least dangerous – but for one thing. It appears he went in for giddy spells. It was some progressive trouble, I have been told. Towards the end of his life he even had one or two fainting fits.’ Dr Howard looked steadily at Appleby. ‘Perhaps that disposes of the matter?’

  ‘Perhaps it does.’ For the first time since involving himself in the absurd affairs of Long Canings and Gibber Porcorum, Appleby looked thoroughly sombre. ‘I suppose your own knowledge of the circumstances is necessarily at second hand? It was before you had any acquaintance with this part of the world?’

  ‘Oh, decidedly.’

  ‘You wouldn’t, for example, know whether Pusey’s habit of coming out and sitting on that wall was an old-established one?’

  ‘I have no idea.’

  ‘Nor of how long he had suffered from his giddy spells?’

  ‘Nor of that either.’

  There was a moment’s silence. Judith Appleby had got up from the well – very understandably, she found herself no longer much caring for it – and had taken a short turn up one of the overgrown paths, but not so far as to remove her out of earshot. Now she strolled back, and asked a question at a tangent.

  ‘He was taking private pupils at the time?’

  ‘Oh, yes. It is still sometimes a resource in my penurious profession, Lady Appleby. But dying out, I’d say. Stupid boys can’t easily be coached and crammed into colleges and so forth nowadays.’

  ‘Dr Pusey sounds to have been not too bright himself – to take, I mean, such an idiotic risk.’

  ‘I agree. However, it appears that his establishment enjoyed a modest success. He even employed an assistant.’

  ‘This grotesque Captain Bulkington?’

  ‘Bulkington’s eccentricities have perhaps gained upon him in recent years. But Lord knows what he can ever have taught. He strikes me as a most ignorant man.’

  ‘He is something of a chronologist.’ Appleby offered this comment idly. He was picking up a stone, which he now tossed into the well. ‘Quite deep, wouldn’t you say? I wonder what’s at the bottom of it. Truth – could it conceivably be?’

  ‘Truth at the bottom of the well?’ There was a trace of impatience in Dr Howard’s voice. ‘A foolish proverb – but then most proverbs are thoroughly foolish. Folk-wisdom is almost always fatuous. One doesn’t come at truth – or not at any truth worth finding – by peering down into dark places.’

  ‘Possibly not.’ Appleby seemed to give a moment to considering this generalisation civilly. ‘But what about the proverb advising one to let sleeping dogs lie? Isn’t it your own view that there may be some wisdom in that?’

  ‘It depends on the character of the sleeping dog, Sir John. And, perhaps, a little on one’s own individual function in society. To me, pastoral theology may have something to say about such matters. I’d see no advantage in kicking any slumbering dog awake if the result were to be an occasion of scandal.’

  ‘Scandal? Yes. I understand you. And by all means let us forget about the well. Captain Bulkington, however, remains interesting to me.’

  ‘As a psychological study?’

  ‘I’d rather say an economic one. We must presume he was rather unsuccessful as a soldier – and without much in the way of private resources. Otherwise, it would be hard to explain his taking the rather lowly job of assistant in a cramming establishment.’

  ‘Perfectly true. Of course, he may have felt he had a talent for it. Even a vocation. Lady Appleby, you would agree?’

  Judith, who may have been a little impatient of this colloquy, had so far braved the goat as to go poking around with a stick in search of such residual flora as the dismally abandoned garden might disclose. Under the rector’s challenge, however, she returned to the matter in hand.

  ‘Captain Bulkington scarcely struck me as a born teacher. He must have been on his beam-ends, I’d say, to take a job here at “Kandahar”. But when Dr Pusey died – and when the two parishes were combined under your charge – he seems to have been able to take over this house, and what good-will there may have been – and establish himself as proprietor, headmaster, and everything else. Of course the enterprise hasn’t the air of having much flourished since. But money must have been required at the start – and how did Bulkington come by it? That’s what my husband must mean by saying there’s an economic slant to the thing.’

  ‘Quite so. But perhaps not a great deal was required. Bulkington may have managed to borrow money from his bank, or some similar source. I know nothing about it. The selling of this house, when it ceased to be required as a rectory, was a matter of business with which I was not invited to concern myself. Such matters are for archdeacons, and persons of that sort.’ Dr Howard’s tone failed to suggest that he held those referred to in much regard. ‘Nor – perhaps I ought to say – do I know anything about Bulkington’s current affairs. My making free with his garden may suggest my being better acquainted with him than I am.’

  ‘So you don’t,’ Judith asked, ‘visit “Kandahar” for the purpose of giving religious instruction to the pupils?’

  ‘As an extra?’ Appleby added on an interrogative note.

  ‘Certainly not. Did the fellow say I did?’

  ‘Not quite that. He implied that something of the kind was available – and at a high level.’

  ‘Indeed!’ Dr Howard sounded far from pleased. ‘Am I to understand that you included in this charade about a nonexistent son professions of concern for the due performance of his religious duties?’

  ‘Well, yes.’ Appleby was almost abashed. ‘But we didn’t pursue the question very far.’

  ‘I am glad that your frivolity was at least measured. The two young men – Waterbird and Jenkins – come to church from time to time. Perhaps it would be better to say that they are constrained to come. I see nothing more of them.’

&
nbsp; ‘Would you say that Bulkington has them in a well-disciplined state?’

  ‘It is not the expression I’d use. A cowed and sullen state, perhaps. There is almost something a little odd about it. Great louts like that cannot go in actual physical fear of the man.’

  ‘I should suppose not. By the way, do you think that your predecessor may have been in a cowed and sullen state – when, for example, he sat here reading his book?’

  ‘How I wish that we could continue to talk further about poor Pusey.’ Dr Howard had looked at his watch. ‘Unfortunately I must make my way back to Gibber. There are one or two things I have to attend to before evensong.’ Apparently about to take a conventional leave of the Applebys, the rector suddenly hesitated. ‘About that trick of the old rage, Sir John,’ he said. ‘I won’t pretend to think your interest in this place idle and irresponsible. You must feel there’s something it’s your duty to clear up. So perhaps I ought to tell you that you are not the first person to have come–’ Howard hesitated.

  ‘Nosing around?’ Judith suggested.

  ‘Well, yes. There was a woman who writes murder stories. I don’t know whether you–’

  ‘Miss Pringle?’ Appleby asked.

  ‘Ah, I see you know about her. She turned up one Sunday in these parts. As a matter of fact, she came to matins. It was almost a suspicious circumstance.’

  ‘Lady Pinkerton,’ Judith said, ‘regards it in the light of an impertinence.’

  ‘I don’t think I’d go as far as that.’ Rather unexpectedly, the rector had laughed robustly. ‘But Miss Pringle turned out to have some acquaintance with Bulkington, and he carried her off to lunch. For some reason, however, she lunched in the local pub instead – and, as a consequence, had an encounter with Waterbird and Jenkins. Later, I had a short conversation with her myself. There was an impression of the disingenuous about her. I felt her to be cherishing some obscure design.’

  ‘Might she have been proposing to haul something – metaphorically speaking – out of this well?’ Appleby paused. ‘I do apologise for returning to the well. But might that be it?’