Appleby's End

by Michael Innes

  Colonel Pike snorted. “In Sir Mulberry’s last eight years in India,” he said, “he was shot at twenty-seven times. Other means of assassination were also tried. When he says it’s queer that he’s been rattled, he means what he says.”

  They had turned a corner of the terrace and were heading for the back of the house. Appleby refused to be disconcerted. “It doesn’t necessarily follow,” he said. “Presumably those people in India didn’t start turning things to stone. And something utterly fantastic may disturb a man who takes shooting as all part of the day’s work.”

  “Quite right.” Sir Mulberry nodded emphatically. “Do you know, anything having to do with stone or statues fascinates me now? What you might call an idée fixe.” He chuckled. “Decidedly fixe, Mr Appleby. Did you ever read of the Stone Men of Malekula? Identify themselves with their own statuary. Something of the sort was in my head when you arrived.”

  “So we noticed,” Appleby said.

  Colonel Pike frowned, as if disapproving of this manner of speech to a Lord Lieutenant. But Sir Mulberry nodded amiably. “It doesn’t at all surprise me that I should respond eccentrically to the affair. As a family we are a bit like that, particularly in our later years. And, of course, I’m getting on. But what does surprise me is that I was scared. You understand?”

  “Yes,” Appleby said.

  “Well, that’s a start. And seeing the pig will be another. There’s just time. Don’t attend to the stable clock – hasn’t gone for years. These are my wife’s guinea-fowl. I was scared, and there was a reason, and I couldn’t put a finger on it. You understand that?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then you’re ahead of the Chief Constable.” Sir Mulberry vigorously laughed. “And here we are. This first freak was, of course, months ago. But I haven’t let it be touched.”

  They were surveying a handsome brick building which it seemed invidious to think of as a sty. It had plainly been designed by a previous owner of Tiffin Place when much under the influence of the late Mr Ruskin, and in detail it was not unreminiscent of a villa in the northern suburbs of Oxford. The only living occupant at present was a vast and lethargic sow; three Gothic courts were hers; and this spacious solitude she shared only with a large, lugubrious and indefinably inept white marble boar. Appleby took one glance and had no doubts left. The monumental creature had Theodore written all over it.

  “Anybody could drive a cart in during the night and simply slide the tiresome thing down a plank.” Colonel Pike was apparently explaining the hopelessness of arriving at any substantial clue to the mystery. “I wonder if it might have been stolen from a museum? It has the letters T R carved on the back.”

  “Has it, indeed?” said Appleby. “You know, it might be taken simply for a sculptural embellishment planned by Sir Mulberry – particularly in view of the somewhat ornate character of the surroundings.”

  Sir Mulberry Farmer had provided himself with a stick and was scratching the recumbent sow in a routine manner. “Just what we hoped,” he said. “There was a fuss among the men when the creature was discovered – and no doubt some talk since. We just kept quiet. And, as a matter of fact, we’ve managed to be pretty mum about the whole affair. Of course, the old lady who went demented proved rather a difficulty, and the disappearance of the half-witted boy has been more awkward still. However, we’ve contrived to avoid any damned publicity.” Sir Mulberry’s eye, which had been fixed on his sow with an expression of affectionate regard, turned to the stone intruder and hardened in distaste. “Ghastly,” he said. “Thoroughly coarse in the bone. Hindquarters high and narrow. To think of wasting all that marble on perpetuating a lard-hog.” He shook his head gloomily. “Spot of luncheon won’t be amiss. Then we can look at the dog, and that great staring waxwork, and the cow.”

  “The cow!” exclaimed Appleby, dismayed. This nonsense was altogether inordinately piling up.

  Sir Mulberry looked at him in mild surprise. “It was the cow that turned that wretched old woman from Drool demented, wasn’t it?” he asked. “Has Pike not told you–”

  Appleby sighed – and remembered about the lady who no longer let a room in that hamlet. “Ah,” he said. “Old Mrs Ulstrup. Of course.”

  They walked away. Colonel Pike covertly nudged his host. “Deuced queer his knowing about the woman at Drool. Other things, too. Young, of course. But great confidence. Think a world of him.”

  Lady Farmer was a lean woman with features so extremely like a hare’s that to the urban mind she would have appeared natural only if hung upside down with her nose in a little silver can. And, as if to lend piquancy to this resemblance, she entered her dining-room surrounded by a small pack of beagles – creatures, Appleby supposed, not commonly admitted to such domesticities by the gross – and for a time seemed disposed to pay more attention to these than to her guests. Sir Mulberry did the talking, though with increasing absence of mind. And the cause of his distraction – Appleby suspected – was the salt. As Sherlock Holmes, noting Dr Watson’s eye travel to the portrait of the American general, and seeing his hands clench in a martial ardour, was able brilliantly to deduce that his medical friend was meditating upon the battles of the Civil War, so Appleby, observing Sir Mulberry toy absorbedly with the contents of a silver salt-cellar, inferred that here was a man vividly envisaging the fate of Lot’s wife. The truth, no doubt, was this: that deep in his unconscious mind Sir Mulberry longed for the stony change. It was a notion holding all those charms of security and convenience that psychologists associate with a return to the womb, while at the same time having the advantage of being altogether more dignified.

  Appleby became aware that Lady Farmer had fixed him with a steely stare, much as if she had an insight into the fatuous nature of his present reflections. Being aware of a steely stare in a hare, as well as being suggestive of nonsense verses, was disconcerting in itself. Appleby was trying to think of an intelligent remark when Lady Farmer spoke.

  “This is an extremely disagreeable business,” she said. “It brings such extremely disagreeable people about the place.”

  “Ah,” said Appleby.

  “There was a journalist. The very morning after the pig. A most impertinent man. Fortunately I discovered he was from the Banner–”

  “The Banner?” said Appleby curiously.

  “He had come straight down from Town. The Banner happens to be owned by my brother.” Lady Farmer paused grimly. “So the fellow went away.”

  “Extremely fortunate,” said Appleby.

  “Extremely disagreeable altogether,” said Lady Farmer. “It brings a rag, tag and bobtail about the place. Mulberry, I don’t remember that we have ever had to receive the police before.”

  “Come, come, Mary.” Colonel Pike glanced in cautious apology at Appleby. “Policeman myself, after all.”

  “After the Hoobin boy, too” – Lady Farmer ignored the interjection – “after the waxwork affair a reporter came down. From the Blare. But as it happened the Blare had been bought the week before by Lord Sparshott, one of my dear father’s closest friends.”

  “So the Blare fellow went away too?” Appleby asked this question absently. He was frowning as if at some problem laid out on the table before him. “But tell me about the boy Hoobin, Lady Farmer. He was employed here?”

  “Quite recently my husband agreed to his being engaged to help the stable boys. They objected to his odd ways and he was quartered by himself. Then one morning this” – Lady Farmer paused, as if in search of a perfectly accurate expression – “this extremely disagreeable joke repeated itself. The boy was gone and there was a waxwork there instead.”

  “I suppose,” asked Appleby mildly, “that it would be rather an exotic-looking waxwork? Swarthy with suggestions of yellow, altogether ferocious in expression, and recalling the Orient or the inner reaches of Asia?”

  Lady Farmer looked uncommonly
startled – which was the last touch in the hare-like effect. Sir Mulberry, who had been puffing out his cheeks as if meditating the possibilities of a Della Robbia bambino in nicely glazed terracotta, deflated them rapidly and looked at Appleby open-mouthed. Colonel Pike laid down a knife and fork with a clatter. “Precisely so!” he said. “But how–”

  “It is what we commonly find,” said Appleby solemnly, “in cases of this sort. The Oriental or Eurasian waxwork.”

  “By Jove!” said Colonel Pike. “Is that so?” He turned to Sir Mulberry. “Man has great experience,” he murmured. “Took to him at once. Have everything explained in a jiffy. You’ll see.”

  Perhaps it was so; perhaps everything could be explained in a jiffy. Appleby found himself looking more distastedly than was civil at Lady Farmer’s beagles. They lay about, mildly salivating, and got in the way of the servants. As household pets, even Bishop Adolphus’ Tartars and Kurds would be preferable… And there, of course, was the point. It was undoubtedly one of Adolphus Raven’s waxworks that had taken the place of the Hoobin boy. The transmogrification of Sir Mulberry’s prized Gloucester Old Spot into the ill-conceived marble lard-hog of Theodore Raven was equally beyond question. In fact, it had not been in vain that the road to Tiffin Place had lain through Dream Manor. The mystery of the one was the mystery of the other. And never surely had detective arrived upon a case to find himself in unexpected possession of so much relevant information. Had he not been apprised even of the dementia of Mrs Ulstrup, the pyromania of young Hoobin and the breed of pig purveyed to the squirearchy by Brettingham Scurl? The untoward end of Gregory Grope’s grandmother, it seemed to Appleby, was his sole piece of local lore that had not yet entered the picture. The affair had all the promise of that extreme tidiness which marks a well-made play. The dénouement, therefore, must be as rapid and decisive as Colonel Pike could desire. He turned again to Lady Farmer. “I suppose,” he asked casually, “you knew Heyhoe?”

  Lady Farmer stared. “Everard Raven’s man? Yes, I know Heyhoe. An extremely disagreeable old person.”

  “He’s dead. They found him last night, buried in the snow.”

  Sir Mulberry emerged momentarily from the abstraction into which he had sunk. “All frozen and stiff?” he asked.

  “Decidedly so. As stiff as a statue, as they say.”

  “No doubt he drank,” said Lady Farmer.

  “I suppose he did.” Appleby paused. “Did you ever hear an odd story about him?”

  Rather as one turns the knob on a refrigerator, Lady Farmer increased the chilliness of her stare. “I don’t often hear odd stories about other people’s servants.”

  Colonel Pike coughed deprecatingly. “Come to think of it, there was something about the old fellow. But I’m dashed if I can remember what. Except that he was the only man who could handle a great horse they kept over there.”

  “That’s so.” Appleby nodded gravely. “Billy Bidewell seems to do not too badly, but I’m told that, with Billy, Spot may revolt at any moment. Which is awkward, as Spot seems to be the only means of locomotion about the place.”

  “Ah,” said Colonel Pike respectfully. “Bit hard up at Dream, one can’t help seeing.”

  “I believe Ranulph Raven got through a lot of money. I wonder if any of you remember him?”

  “Just remember seeing him about when I was a boy. Distinguished-looking old chap in an artistic way.” Colonel Pike shook his head. “Been told he was wild enough, early on. A bit of a byword about the county even. And that took some managing in those days. For instance, there was the old marquis at Linger Court. I remember my father telling me–” Colonel Pike caught the eye of Lady Farmer. “Or rather I don’t.”

  “Ranulph Raven was celebrated in his time,” Appleby said. “But I don’t ever remember seeing a biography of him, or even a brief memoir. And I’ve rather come to feel that the family is glad to keep him quiet. Except as a legend, that is to say. Only a few of them seem really to know his books.”

  “Books?” said Sir Mulberry vaguely. “Do you know, that was why I was rattled. Something about a book. But I can’t at all remember what. Odd.”

  Appleby looked quickly across the table. “You mean one of Ranulph Raven’s books?”

  “I’m sure I couldn’t say.” Sir Mulberry was drifting rapidly away again. He had clasped his hands lightly on the two arms of his chair and was making some calculations as to the right inclination of his head. This time, Appleby obscurely surmised, it was Houdon’s celebrated figure of Voltaire.

  “If you have finished your coffee,” said Lady Farmer, “we may as well look at the dog.”

  They looked at the dog. “Extremely disagreeable,” Lady Farmer said. “Entirely misses the broad splay feet. And look at the tail – no bushy fringe hanging from the dorsal border.”

  Appleby, though unable to regard this latest petrifaction with the expert eye thus invoked, felt inclined to agree that no enthusiasm was possible before it. Theodore had lavished much anatomical care upon its production, but unfortunately no gleam of the canine – or even the doggy – had visited his work. Having the bodily form of some species of terrier, it remarkably managed to convey the suggestion of a snake. Lady Farmer was the last person to welcome such a changeling. It appeared, moreover, that the creature it had mysteriously replaced possessed as many virtues as this had vices – having been a dachshund with a body extremely long and cylindrical, legs notably thick and twisted, and quite uncommonly everted paws. Appleby listened to these particulars with forbearance and then proceeded to enquire into the facts of the case. But very little emerged. Lady Farmer’s favourite dachshund had been secluded for a time in the stables, and one night the substitution of this stony monstrosity had taken place. A general acquaintance with the lie of the buildings, and the sort of casual information on kennel matters that might be picked up from a groom in a pub, were all that the perpetrator of this particular absurdity would have required. There seemed nothing for it but to pass on to the next exhibit.

  And this the party did, in deepening gloom. No doubt it was the gloom that prompted Appleby to offer some remark indicating mild professional confidence. “I think,” he said – they were viewing the cow – “I think it’s possible to begin to see a little light in all this.”

  “See light?” said Sir Mulberry. “Nothing but grope in the dark, if you ask me.”

  Colonel Pike slapped his thigh – with the vehemence of one in whom appropriate intellectual reactions seldom occur. “Jove!” he said. “That’s it – just come into my head. Told you I knew some yarn about the old fellow Heyhoe. No particular reason to be called Heyhoe at all. Father unknown – though there’s a tale he was Ranulph Raven himself. But mother was old Mrs Grope. Woman they found in the well.”

  11

  Colonel Pike had suddenly remembered that he was invited to tea at Linger Court. This had occasioned his departure in a great hurry, with demands upon Blight for a turn of speed which seemed altogether to ignore the convenience of Kerrisk’s cows and Major Molsher’s colts. And presently Inspector Mutlow arrived in a modest Morris and retrieved Appleby from the Farmers. He was in a state of considerable excitement. “Very curious things taken to happening in these parts, Mr Appleby,” he said as they drove off. “Very curious, indeed.”

  “Well – yes, I suppose so.” Appleby was not sure that he quite liked the tone of Mutlow’s voice. “I must say that when it came to the cow and poor old Mrs Ulstrup I did feel that things were becoming a bit out of the way.”

  “Cow? Ah – to be sure. But I’m speaking of last night, Mr Appleby. To begin with, a very peculiar thing happened at Tew. The lock-keeper’s wife rang up about it less than a couple of hours ago. Didn’t at all know what to do. Was she to let the carriage go on, or hold it? Such a thing hadn’t happened before.”

  “Carriage?”

  “Carriage.” Mutlow reiterated th
e word with severe emphasis. “Turbill, the lock-keeper’s name is – and he drinks. Late last night he was out taking a breath of air, no doubt so as to sober up a bit before going to bed. And down the river he sees coming what looks like a small barge with a deck cargo. There was never a light nor a sound from it, and down it came all the same straight for the lock gates, so that this Turbill thinks he’d better swing them open. And open them he does and in floats the craft. There was scarcely a blink of moon now, and he shouts at the thing and still there isn’t a sound, so he goes and opens the sluices, and down the thing sinks into the lock until of course he can’t see a thing. Well, Turbill hollers again that there’s a bob to pay, and when still the folk on board make no reply he damns their eyes and goes off to bed. Thinking – you see, Mr Appleby – that he’s served them a nasty turn, since the bottom of a lock isn’t the easiest place to get away from in darkness.”

  “Dear me,” said Appleby. “And what did these people say in the morning?”

  Inspector Mutlow, who was engaged in steering his way with all proper caution through Little Boss, glanced sideways at Appleby with the frankest suspicion. “There wasn’t anybody. Turbill came out in the morning – with a nasty hangover, I don’t doubt – and what he saw floating in his lock was an empty carriage. What you might call a gentleman’s travelling-carriage of the old-fashioned sort.”

  “Ah,” said Appleby.

  Inspector Mutlow heavily respired. “The result was that this fellow Turbill thought he’d got the horrors, and down he fell in a sort of fit and has been carried off to hospital.”

  “It appears to me,” said Appleby, “that there is much nervous excitability in your district, my dear inspector. Old Mrs Ulstrup goes off her head when required to milk a marble cow, and now this Turbill–”