Appleby's End

by Michael Innes

  “No doubt, Mr Appleby, you will have your little joke. We understand that you have a bit of a fondness for that sort of thing.” Mutlow paused on this dark saying. “But that’s not all the queer doings,” he presently proceeded, “that I’ve heard of last night. This carriage was seen earlier, mark you, floating down the Dream in clear moonlight. There happens to be a road-mender–”

  “Who lives at the end of Noblet’s Lane.”

  Mutlow frowned. “A road-mender called Scrase. And I must say that for a stranger you’ve come by a queer knowledge of these parts, Mr Appleby. Well, this Scrase was making his way home late at night, and he saw the carriage floating down the river. Two people were sitting on the roof of it – a man and a woman.”

  “Dear me,” said Appleby mildly.

  “They were pretty well undressed–”

  “What?”

  “–and Scrase saw quite clearly that they were waving a couple of bottles–”

  “Well, of all the infernal–”

  “–and presently he heard them a-hollering and singing at the top of their voices–”

  Words had failed Appleby; he was looking at the abominable Mutlow aghast.

  “–all manner of filthy songs. This Scrase is an extremely godly man, it appears, and he was very much shocked.”

  “Was he, indeed? I shouldn’t be surprised if another severe shock came his way quite soon.”

  Mutlow appeared uncomfortable. “It must be admitted, Mr Appleby, that stories tend to get a bit exaggerated when they begin to circulate in these parts, For instance, there’s that lad, Billy Bidewell. It seems he’s been saying that last night you and Miss–”

  “I want to find Gregory Grope.” Appleby’s interruption was decided. “Where is he likely to be?”

  “The engine-driver?” Mutlow, evidently surprised, looked at his watch. “If he’s on time, he’ll be just about drawing into Sneak. But he may be well on the way to Linger. Unless, of course, he’s running really late – in which case he’ll still be at Snarl.”

  “Find him.”

  “Find him, Mr Appleby?”

  “There’s a road within sight of the railway line, I suppose? Cruise along it, inspector, until you spot Gregory Grope. He may take us a little way in our investigation.” Appleby looked wrathfully at Mutlow. “Which is probably more than the vulgar gossip to which you have been listening will do.”

  Mutlow swung the car obediently down a by-lane. “No offence, Mr Appleby, I hope. It’s simply that something very queer has happened over at your friends’ place at Dream. As I don’t doubt you know. And now all sorts of strange stories are being built round it of what happened in the night. A regular sensation, the thing is like to cause. There’s half a dozen reporters about the place already. And as soon as the Colonel gets wind of it we’ll have him over, drinking Mr Raven’s port and barking about dictaphones.”

  Ahead of them now could be discerned the line of a railway embankment. Appleby searched it for the puff of smoke by which the late Mrs Grope’s grandson might be located. “You think there’s the makings of a sensation in the Heyhoe affair? No doubt you’re right, and it will put the little matter of the Tiffin Place petrifactions in the shade. Particularly as the Ravens probably haven’t the advantage of being related to the Banner and the Blare… Has Heyhoe’s body been competently examined?”

  “Well, there was our local police surgeon this morning–”

  “Humph.”

  “–but Mr Raven, it seems, made a bit of a fuss, and they’re having some big-wig over later.”

  “Very wise.” Appleby was leaning down under Inspector Mutlow’s windscreen to light a pipe. “Your friend Billy Bidewell is of the opinion that this old man Heyhoe was simply put away by the Raven family acting in concert – the sufficient reason being that they felt he was a nuisance, and that Billy was now capable of managing Spot.”

  “Well, I’m blessed!”

  “Quite so; it has your lock-keeper beaten hollow. But you can’t see any better reason, can you, why the Ravens should do away with their coachman?” Appleby had sat up again and was looking sharply at Mutlow.

  “Dear me, no, Mr Appleby. Of course, I’ve barely heard the details since I saw you last. But it seems altogether mysterious. Not that one possibility hasn’t occurred to me.”

  “What’s that?”

  “That this matter of the old man Heyhoe’s death might be connected in some way with these queer doings at Tiffin Place.”

  Appleby puffed at his pipe and looked thoughtfully at Mutlow – rather as one might view a chimpanzee manoeuvring a banana towards himself with a stick. “A very ingenious fancy,” he said. “Does great credit, if I may say so, to your agility of mind. But a bit far-fetched, all the same.”

  Inspector Mutlow – as no chimpanzee would do – began to whistle with a faintly ironical intonation. He was quite a songster, Appleby noted, and possessed of four or five notes to Billy Bidewell’s one.

  But a well-made play would have altogether more economy of incident. The old blind man who had so oddly questioned Mark and Judith Raven years ago; the illegitimacy of Heyhoe; the apprehensions of Sir Mulberry Farmer; Mrs Ulstrup’s marble milker; Paxton’s Destined Hour; the Ranulph legend; the family preference for Adolphus, Theodore, and that Latinate Roger who had received the commendations of Dr Jowett: to what neatly dropped curtain could all these lead? A play, the philosopher had sagely discerned, must not concern many actions of many men, or even many actions of one man, but one action of one man – one action, whole and completed. Well, who was the man here? Was he Ranulph Raven, who had followed his own numerous writings into oblivion round about the turn of the century? Ranulph had been stirring in his grave for some time, chiefly for the purpose of playing tricks upon his children. To his son Luke he had delivered a tombstone, and to that Caliban-like Heyhoe whom he had begotten – it was to be presumed – upon the late Mrs Grope, he had offered the whimsical little gesture of a minor practical joke on Spot. What sense was there in all this, and in Heyhoe’s macabre burial; where was there discernible a single action, whole and completed?

  And now more Ravens were stirring. Theodore’s ghost had marched on the stage and begun an exhibition of supernatural legerdemain on a characteristically massive scale. There are séances in which fans and handkerchiefs flutter across the room, in which buttons and coins and matchboxes, hot from the ether, materialise themselves and drop dramatically from the ceiling. But Theodore was playing this sort of game in monumental terms; large chunks of marble, with the faint displeasingness that marked them as authentic from the master’s hand, were the counters in this gigantic spiritualist demonstration. And what of Bishop Adolphus – was he not prowling too? The waxwork which had taken the place of Hannah Hoobin’s boy: had the ghostly Theodore borrowed it because he had no suitable marble to hand? Or was the wraith of Adolphus, having abandoned for the time its contemplation of the religious system of the Zend-Avesta, beginning to take his part in this tiresome family diversion? And plainly there were still plenty of Ravens in reserve: Grandfather Herbert of the Foreign Office and the madrigals, for example, was no doubt capable of an outré posthumous behaviour of his own.

  With his eye still on the railway line in quest of Gregory Grope, Appleby sighed – so that Inspector Mutlow glanced at him suspiciously across his wheel. It was, of course, all very confusing. And yet, aesthetically viewed, the whole random composition had its charm. The fact or notion of the Tiffin Place petrifactions was pleasing in itself, and it was almost a pity that hard sense, satisfying to Mutlow, must be screwed from it; that the cellar must be resolutely descended to and the port-drinking footman unmasked. Would it not be pleasant to retire from the elucidating of crime and give oneself to the creating of unashamed fantasies in which champion milkers might turn to marble at one’s whim, and no explanation need be required? From th
ese dangerous thoughts Appleby was roused by the whistle of a locomotive engine somewhere ahead.

  “That’s Grope,” said Mutlow. “He’s whistling at old Amos Sturrock’s goats.” The car rounded a bend and a long curve of railway line lay before them. “But he’s not going from Sneak to Linger. He’s going from Linger to Sneak. He’s forgotten Murcott’s milk, if you ask me, and now he’s coming back for it.”

  “We’ll stop him. Draw up.”

  The train was now approaching. Its engine, it occurred to Appleby, might be of considerable interest to the compiler of the New Millennium encyclopaedia, since it had every appearance of being closely related to that Stourbridge Lion which delighted the hearts of the Delaware and Hudson Canal Company on the 9th of August 1829. Behind the engine were two closed trucks, and behind these was a carriage of the stubby or truncated proportions commonly found in nurseries. And this completed Gregory Grope’s charge. Appleby stood up and waved vigorously. “Stop!” he shouted. “Stop!” And Inspector Mutlow, after what was evidently a moment’s indecision and even disapproval, got up and did the same. “Stop!” they both shouted, and their gesturing arms collided in air. It was a vigorous demonstration that took on positive drama from the silent, snow-covered fields about them.

  And now Gregory Grope himself was visible. He leant out of his cab and waved. Appleby and Mutlow continued to gesture wildly. Gregory Grope, much pleased, took off his cap and waved that. The train puffed slowly past. Mutlow, urged by Appleby, started the car, turned it, and followed. Appleby continued to wave. So did Gregory Grope – as also a youthful assistant, who now appeared beside him, brandishing a shovel. In the little carriage at the back a window was lowered and an old man with a white beard joined the orgy of salutations. The engine whistled with unexpected power. Mutlow, in a spasm of excitement, gave a long blast on his horn. In the closed trucks sheep bleated and cattle lowed. And then a look of pleased comprehension came over Gregory’s features; there was a hiss of steam and clanking of buffers; and quite suddenly the little train was at a dead stop.

  Mutlow and Appleby crossed to the line, and were received with the cordial hospitality that characterises the English railway system at its best. “Jump in, sir,” said Gregory; “jump in, whichever gent is coming.” He turned to his assistant and gestured towards the furnace. “Another passenger, William. Better have a bit more steam. And now, sir, which way would you be wanting to go?”

  This implied so accommodating a spirit that Appleby found it difficult not to beg to be wafted to Sneak forthwith. But professional austerity triumphed. “As a matter of fact,” he answered, “neither. What I want is a word with you about your grandmother – if you can spare the time, that is to say.”

  The assistant put down his shovel, produced a catapult, and climbed from the cab. Gregory looked disappointed for a moment, but then leant out and squinted up at the red, wintry sun. “Running nicely to time,” he said. “And it’s wonderful the head of steam William can get up if we’re a bit late. So go right ahead.” He gave a wave to the old gentleman with the beard, who was taking the air still at his window while meditatively filling a pipe. “Signals up on grandmother, sir, right down the line.”

  “Do you remember your grandfather?” Appleby asked.

  Gregory nodded vigorously. “It was Grandfather,” he said, “that started me off.”

  “Started you off?”

  “Gave me the Wonder Book of Trains. After that I never looked back.”

  “Ah.” Appleby was philosophic. “Many a man’s ambition has been fired by the gift of a book, Mr Grope.”

  “That’s it, sir.” Gregory Grope patted some worn but shiny brass contrivance in his cab. “Fired and stoked it, as you might say – and here I am. And we’re not standing still either.”

  “Is that so?”… The old man with the beard had now got his pipe going and was puffing placidly at the landscape. The bleating and lowing of the freight had subsided. William – whether proposing a brace of rabbits or merely a little quiet tormenting of old Amos Sturrock’s goats – had altogether disappeared. “Not standing still,” said Appleby. “That’s capital.”

  “There’s talk of a branch line to Slumber.” Gregory paused dramatically. “There’s even talk of electrification, from time to time.” His eye swept the half-dozen fields and the little valley which separated Sneak from Linger. “Like on the Chicago, Milwaukee and St Paul run.”

  “Capital,” repeated Appleby. “And no doubt even heavier traffic will be the result. Wake some people up, too. Brettingham Scurl will have to clear those pigs out of the waiting-room at Linger.”

  This was a great success. For Gregory, it was clear, took railways seriously – even if he was a little weak on the timetable side. Conversation became both amiable and intimate. The early sex-life of a grandmother is not a theme upon which any man can speak at first hand, but Gregory was able to provide a certain amount of family tradition upon the subject – which was one on which Appleby, despite the silent disapproval of Inspector Mutlow, displayed a positively prurient interest. When old Mrs Grope married Gregory’s grandfather her reputation for virtue had not been outstanding. Indeed, she had several times disappeared for considerable periods on end, so that it was supposed that she was on somewhat easy terms with members of the local gentry. On this Gregory had several stories, altogether unedifying in character, to which Appleby listened with the closest attention. His interest, indeed, only slackened when Gregory came to the middle phases of his grandmother’s career; and it quickened again as the narrative approached the old lady’s last years. Long after age had brought her to a merely contemplative habit Mrs Grope, it seemed, had maintained a keen interest in sexual psychology and erotic science in general. And just as the great Sir Francis Bacon, climbing out of his carriage to stuff a dead hen with snow, died a martyr to Knowledge, so had Mrs Grope in her humbler sphere ended her life in the disinterested pursuit of her studies. For having gone out one night to make certain observations in a nearby dingle much frequented by local lovers, she had allowed an unexpected wealth of material to blind her to the fact of an approaching storm – and when the storm in fact descended it was supposed that she had recourse to the fortifying effects of a bottle of gin which she commonly carried upon her person. This – together with somebody’s regrettable carelessness with the cover of a well – was judged to have been the end of her. When brought up with the bucket she had been very decidedly beyond the reach of interrogation.

  Questioning elicited a few further facts. Old Mrs Grope had not been given to book-learning. Like another natural philosopher, Charles Darwin, she was markedly without literary interests or linguistic abilities. Her husband, however – the same who gave grandson Gregory his Wonder Book of Trains – had been a reader. He had taken a particular interest in the works of the eminent local author, Ranulph Raven.

  This was coming near the heart of the matter. “Did you ever,” Appleby asked, “have any dealings with an old fellow from Dream by the name of Heyhoe?”

  “I know ’un,” said Gregory. “Surly old bastard.”

  “Bastard?” said Appleby hopefully.

  “Bastard?” echoed Gregory – evidently puzzled. “Oh, bastard. Well, I don’t know as to that.”

  “He’s dead, as a matter of fact. Somebody buried him in a snowdrift last night.” Appleby paused. “Set ’un, so to speak.”

  “Set ’un?” Gregory was mildly interested – but suddenly went off at a tangent. “More snow coming,” he said with satisfaction. “William and me are like to have the snowplough out, come Wednesday. Come and see us, if you’re anywhere near the line.”

  “I’ll make a point of it.” Appleby was extremely cordial. “But this Heyhoe–”

  “But it’s in America they have the champion snowploughs.” Gregory’s eye had kindled. “There’s a picture in the Wonder Book–”

  “So there is. I
remember it very well. And so does Inspector Mutlow here. Somebody told me this Heyhoe had once worked on American railroads.”

  Gregory opened his eyes very wide. “I never heard tell of that, now! He’d worked all his days for the Ravens, to my thinking. Except when he went off – the shameless old brute – and lived on that wench over Tew way. Before the hussy married t’other fellow. Heyhoe and his Hannah was a regular scandal about these parts, I’ve been told.”

  “Hannah?” It was now Appleby who was wide-eyed. “Do you mean the woman who’s now Hannah Hoobin?”

  “That’s right. And didn’t you say something about bastards? Well, there you are. Hannah Hoobin’s boy – the half-wit, that is – is this dirty old Heyhoe’s son.”

  12

  William was now returning through the snow; in one hand he dangled his catapult and in the other – mysteriously – the carcase of a domestic fowl. The old man with the beard, having knocked out his pipe and deposited it unexpectedly in the band of his hat, was placidly consulting a large silver watch. Gregory Grope himself seemed perfectly agreeable to conversation both indefinitely prolonged and enigmatical in intention – but Appleby felt that the time had come to set the local railway system in operation once more. Reiterating, therefore, his lively expectation of pleasure from the snowplough come Wednesday, he climbed down from the cab, with Mutlow following. William, having deposited his fowl in a box labelled First Aid, fell to raking cinders and shovelling coal, and Gregory, by dint of much tugging at a lanyard above his head, produced a very creditable whistle as the engine got slowly under way. Gregory waved and William waved; the old man with the beard raised his hand in a gesture at once economical of effort and expressive of the most patriarchal benignity; the sheep bleated and the cattle lowed. And so Gregory Grope’s care and pride steamed away – incidentally, in the direction whence it had come, so that it had to be presumed that the matter of Murcott’s milk was in abeyance once more. It steamed away most purposefully, nevertheless. Were the paint only a little brighter, Appleby thought, and the impression of speed more convincing, the whole would have been virtually indistinguishable from the more moderately priced sort of Hornby Train. Almost one expected a vast but juvenile Hand to descend from the heavens and transfer the complete outfit to a neatly compartmented cardboard box.