Appleby File

by Michael Innes

  Or so Appleby thought until Mrs Mountmorris arrived. Mrs Mountmorris was apparently a near neighbour and almost certainly a widow; and Mrs Mountmorris came to tea. Litter took her arrival distinguishably in ill part; he was a privileged retainer of long standing, and seemingly licensed to express himself in such matters through the instrumentality of heavy sighs and sour looks. Vandervell, on the other hand, brightened up so markedly when the lady was announced that Appleby at once concluded Litter to have rational ground for viewing her as a threat to the established order of things at Pentallon. Moreover Vandervell took considerable pleasure in presenting Appleby to the new arrival, and Mrs Mountmorris obligingly played up by treating her host’s friend as a celebrity. It was, of course, a quiet part of the world. But Appleby, being well aware of Vandervell as owning a distinction of quite another flight to any attainable by a policeman, found in this piece of nonsense something a little touching as well as absurd.

  Not that, beneath an instant social competence, Mrs Mountmorris was in the least pleased at finding another visitor around. She marked herself at once as a woman of strong character, and perhaps as one who was making it her business to take her philosophic neighbour in hand. If that was it – if she had decided to organize Charles Vandervell – then organized Charles Vandervell would be. On the man’s chances of escape, Appleby told himself, he wouldn’t wager so much as a bottle of that respectable claret to which he had entertained Vandervell’s nephew Fabian at his club. And Fabian, if he knew about the lady, would certainly take as dark a view of her as Litter did.

  ‘Charles’ roses,’ Mrs Mountmorris said, ‘refuse to bloom. His bees produce honey no different from yours, Sir John, or mine.’ Mrs Mountmorris paused to dispense tea – a duty which, to Litter’s visible displeasure, she had made no bones about taking to herself. ‘As for his ships, they just won’t come home. Mais nous changerons tout cela.’

  This, whatever one thought of the French, was nothing if not forthright, and Appleby glanced at the lady with some respect.

  ‘But a philosopher’s argosies,’ he said a shade pedantically, ‘must voyage in distant waters, don’t you think? They may return all the more richly freighted in the end.’

  ‘Of that I have no doubt.’ Mrs Mountmorris spoke briskly and dismissively, although the dismissiveness may have been directed primarily at Appleby’s flight of fancy. ‘But practical issues have to be considered as well. And Charles, I think, has come to agree with me. Charles?’

  ‘Yes, of course.’ Thus abruptly challenged, Vandervell would have had to be described as mumbling his reply. At the same time, however, he was gazing at his female friend in an admiration there was no mistaking.

  ‘Has that man turned up yet?’ Mrs Mountmorris handed Vandervell his teacup, and at the same time indicated that he might consume a cucumber sandwich. ‘The showdown is overdue.’

  ‘Yes, of course.’ Vandervell reiterated with a nervous nod what appeared to be his leit-motif in Mrs Mountmorris’ presence. ‘And I’ve sent for him. An absolute summons, I assure you. And you and I must have a talk about it, tête-à-tête, soon.’

  ‘Indeed we must.’ Mrs Mountmorris was too well-bred not to accept this as closing the mysterious topic she had introduced. ‘And as for these’ – and she gestured at an unpromising rose-bed in the near vicinity of which the tea-table was disposed – ‘derris dust is the answer, and nothing else.’

  After this, Appleby didn’t linger at Pentallon for very long. His own call had been casual and unheralded. It would be tactful to let that tête-à-tête take place sooner rather than later. Driving on to his sister’s house at Bude, he reflected that Mrs Mountmorris must be categorized as a good thing. Signs were not wanting that she was putting stuffing into Charles Vandervell, of late so inclined to unwholesome meditation on headlong dying. It was almost as if a worm were going to turn. Yet one ought not, perhaps, to jump to conclusions. On an off-day, and to a diffident and resigned man, the lady might well assume the character of a last straw herself. Litter, certainly, was already seeing her in that light. His gloom as he politely performed the onerous duty of opening the door of Appleby’s car, suggested his being in no doubt, at least, that the roses would be deluged in derris dust before the day was out.

  Appleby hadn’t, however, left Pentallon without a promise to call in on his return journey, which took place a week later. This time, he rang up to announce his arrival. He didn’t again want to find himself that sort of awkward extra whom the Italians style a terzo incomodo.

  Litter answered the telephone, and in a manner which instantly communicated considerable agitation. Mr Vandervell, he said abruptly, was not in residence. Then, as if recalling his training, he desired Appleby to repeat his name, that he might apprise his employer of the inquiry on his return.

  ‘Sir John Appleby.’

  ‘Oh, yes, sir – yes, indeed.’ It was as if a penny had dropped in the butler’s sombre mind. ‘Pray let me detain you for a moment, Sir John. We are in some distress at Pentallon – really very perturbed, sir. The fact is that Mr Vandervell has disappeared. Without a trace, Sir John, as the newspapers sometimes express it. Except that I have received a letter from him – a letter susceptible of the most shocking interpretation.’ Litter paused on this – as if it were a phrase in which, even amid the perturbation to which he had referred, he took a certain just satisfaction. ‘To tell you the truth, sir, I have felt it my duty to inform the police. I wonder whether you could possibly break your journey here, as you had proposed? I know your reputation, Sir John, begging your pardon.’

  ‘My dear Litter, my reputation scarcely entitles me to impose myself on the Cornish constabulary. Are they with you now?’

  ‘Not just at the moment, sir. They come and go, you might say. And very civil they are. But it’s not at all the kind of thing we are accustomed to.’

  ‘I suppose not. is there anybody else at Pentallon?’

  ‘Mr Fabian has arrived from Targan Bay. And Mr Truebody, sir, who is understood to look after Mr Vandervell’s affairs.’

  ‘It’s Mr Truebody whom Mr Vandervell refers to as his man of business?’

  ‘Just so, sir. I wonder whether you would care to speak to Mr Fabian? He is in the library now, sorting through his uncle’s papers.’

  ‘The devil he is.’ Appleby’s professional instinct was alerted by this scrap of information. ‘It mightn’t be a bad idea. Be so good as to tell him I’m on the telephone.’

  Within a minute of this, Fabian Vandervell’s urgent voice was on the line.

  ‘Appleby – is it really you? For God’s sake come over to this accursed place quick. You must have gathered even from that moronic Litter that something pretty grim has happened to my uncle. Unless he’s merely up to some ghastly foolery, the brute fact is that Biathanatos has nobbled him. You’re a family friend–’

  ‘I’m on the way,’ Appleby said, and put down the receiver.

  But Appleby’s first call was at a police station, since there was a certain measure of protocol to observe. An hour later, and accompanied by a Detective Inspector called Gamley, he was in Charles Vandervell’s library, and reading Charles Vandervell’s letter.

  My Dear Litter,

  There are parties one does not quit without making a round of the room, and just such a party I am now preparing to take my leave of. In this instance it must be a round of letters that is in question, and of these the first must assuredly be addressed to you, who have been so faithful a servant and friend. I need not particularize the manner of what I propose to do. This will reveal itself at a convenient time and prove, I hope, not to have been too untidy. And now, all my thanks! I am only sorry that the small token of my esteem which is to come to you must, in point of its amount, reflect the sadly embarrassed state of my affairs.

  Yours sincerely,

  CHARLES VANDERVELL

  ‘Most affecting,
’ Mr Truebody said. ‘Litter, I am sure you were very much moved.’ Truebody was a large and powerful looking man, disadvantageously possessed of the sort of wildly staring eyes popularly associated with atrocious criminals. Perhaps it was to compensate for this that he exhibited a notably mild manner.

  ‘It was upsetting, of course.’ Litter said this in a wooden way. Since he had so evident a difficulty in liking anybody, it wasn’t surprising that he didn’t greatly care for the man of business. ‘But we must all remember,’ he added with mournful piety, ‘that while there is life there is hope. A very sound proverb that is – if an opinion may be permitted me.’

  ‘Exactly!’ Fabian Vandervell, who had been standing in a window and staring out over the gardens, turned round and broke in unexpectedly. ‘At first, I was quite bowled over by this thing. But I’ve been thinking. And it seems to me–’

  ‘One thing at a time, Fabian.’ Appleby handed the letter back to Gamley, who was in charge of it. ‘Was this simply left on Mr Vandervell’s desk, or something of that kind?’

  ‘It came by post.’

  ‘Then where’s the envelope?’

  ‘Mr Litter’ – Gamley favoured the butler with rather a grim look – ‘has unfortunately failed to preserve it.’

  ‘A matter of habit, sir.’ Litter was suddenly extremely nervous. ‘When I open a postal communication I commonly drop the outer cover straight into the waste-paper basket in my pantry. It was what I did on this occasion, and unfortunately the basket was emptied into an incinerator almost at once.’

  ‘Did you notice the postmark?’

  ‘I’m afraid not, sir.’

  ‘The envelope, like the letter itself, was undoubtedly in Mr Vandervell’s handwriting?’

  ‘No, sir. The address was typewritten.’

  ‘That’s another point – and an uncommonly odd one.’ Fabian had advanced to the centre of the room. ‘It makes me feel the whole thing is merely funny-business, after all. And there’s the further fact that the letter isn’t dated. I’m inclined to think my uncle may simply have grabbed it from the pile, gone off Lord knows where, and then typed out an envelope and posted the thing in pursuance of some mere whim or fantasy.’

  ‘Isn’t that pretty well to declare him insane!’ Appleby looked hard at Fabian. ‘And just what do you mean by talking about a pile?’

  ‘I believe he was always writing these things. Elegant valedictions. Making sure that nothing so became him in his life as–’

  ‘We’ve had Donne; we needn’t have Shakespeare too.’ Appleby was impatient. ‘I must say 1 don’t find the notion of your uncle occasionally concocting such things in the least implausible, psychologically regarded. But is there any hard evidence?’

  ‘I’ve been hunting around, as a matter of fact. In his papers, I mean. I can’t say I’ve found anything. Uncle Charles may have destroyed any efforts of the kind when he cleared out, taking this prize specimen to Litter with him.’

  ‘Isn’t all this rather on the elaborate side?’ Truebody asked, with much gentleness of manner. ‘I am really afraid that we are failing to face the sad simplicity of the thing. Everybody acquainted with him knows that Vandervell has been turning increasingly melancholic. We just have to admit that this had reached a point at which he decided to make away with himself. So he wrote this perfectly genuine letter to Litter, and perhaps others we haven’t yet heard of–’

  ‘Why did he take it away and post it?’ Inspector Gamley demanded.

  ‘That’s obvious enough, I should have thought. He wanted to avoid an immediate hue and cry, such as might have been started at once, had he simply left the letter to Litter behind him.’

  ‘It’s certainly a possibility,’ Appleby said. ‘Would you consider, Mr Truebody, that such a delaying tactic on Vandervell’s part may afford some clue to the precise way in which he intended to commit suicide? He tells Litter it isn’t going to be too untidy.’

  ‘I fear I am without an answer, Sir John. The common thing, where a country gentleman is in question, is to take out a shotgun and fake a more or less plausible accident at a stile. But Vandervell clearly didn’t propose any faking. The letter-writing shows that his suicide was to be declared and open. I feel that this goes with his deepening morbidity.’

  ‘But that’s not, if you ask me, how Mr Vandervell was feeling at all.’ Litter had spoken suddenly and with surprising energy. ‘For he’d taken the turn, as they say. Or that’s my opinion.’

  ‘And just what might you mean by that, Mr Litter?’ Gamley had produced a notebook, as if he felt in the presence of too much unrecorded chat.

  ‘I mean that what Mr Truebody says isn’t what you might call up to date. More than once, just lately, I’ve told myself Mr Vandervell was cheering up a trifle – and high time, too. More confident, in a manner of speaking. Told me off once or twice about this or that. I can’t say I was pleased at the time. But it’s what makes me a little hopeful now.’

  ‘This more aggressive stance on your employer’s part,’ Appleby asked, ‘disposes you against the view that he must indeed have committed suicide?’

  ‘Yes, Sir John. Just that.’

  There was a short silence, which was broken by a constable’s entering the library. He walked up to Gamley, and then hesitated – as if doubtful whether what he had to say ought to be communicated to the company at large. Then he took the plunge.

  ‘Definite news at last, sir. And just what we’ve been afraid of. They’ve discovered Mr Vandervell’s body – washed up on a beach near Targan Bay.’

  ‘Drowned, you mean?’

  ‘Yes, sir. Beyond doubt, the report says. And they’re looking for his clothes now.’

  ‘His clothes?’

  ‘Just that, sir. The body was stark naked.’

  Although the North Cornish coast was only a few miles away, Charles Vandervell owned no regular habit of bathing there – this even although he was known to be an accomplished swimmer. Even if the letter to Litter had never been written, it would have had to be judged extremely improbable that his death could be accounted for as an accident following upon a sudden whim to go bathing. For one thing, Targan Bay and its environs, although little built over, were not so unfrequented that a man of conventional instincts (and Vandervell was that) would have been likely to dispense with some decent scrap of swimming apparel. On the other hand – or this, at least, was the opinion expressed by his nephew – a resolution to drown himself might well have been accompanied by just that. To strip naked and swim straight out to sea could well have come to him as the tidy thing.

  Yet there were other possibilities, and Appleby saw one of them at once. The sea – and particularly a Cornish sea – can perform astonishing tricks with a drowned man. It can transform into a nude corpse a sailor who has gone overboard in oilskins, sea-boots, and a great deal else. It can thus cast up a body itself unblemished. Or it can go on to whip and lacerate such a body to a grim effect of sadistic frenzy. Or it can set its own living creatures, tiny perhaps but multitudinous, nibbling and worrying till the bones appear. What particular fate awaits a body is all a matter of rocks and shoals – shoals in either sense – and of currents and tides.

  Appleby had a feeling that the sea might yield up some further secret about Charles Vandervell yet. Meantime, it was to be hoped there was more to be learnt on land. The circumstances of the missing man’s disappearance plainly needed investigation.

  Appleby’s first visit to Pentallon had been on a Monday, and it was a Monday again now. According to Litter, the remainder of that first Monday had been uneventful, except in two minor regards. The formidable Mrs Mountmorris had stayed on almost till dinner-time, which wasn’t Litter’s notion of an afternoon call. There had been a business discussion of some sort, and it had been conducted with sufficient circumspection to prevent Litter, who had been curious, from hearing so many as ha
lf a dozen illuminating words. But Litter rather supposed (since one must speak frankly in face of a crisis like the present) that the lady had more than a thought of abandoning her widowed state, and that she was in process of thoroughly sorting out Vandervell’s affairs before committing herself. When she had at length gone away Vandervell had made a number of telephone calls. At dinner he had been quite cheerful – or perhaps it would be better to say that he had appeared to be in a state of rather grim satisfaction. Litter confessed to having been a little uncertain of his employer’s wavelength.

  On the Tuesday morning Mr Truebody had turned up at Pentallon, but hadn’t stayed long. Litter had received the impression – just in passing the library door, as he had several times been obliged to do – that Mr Truebody was receiving instructions or requests which were being pretty forcefully expressed. No doubt Mr Truebody himself would speak as to that. There had been no question, Litter opined, of the two gentlemen having words. Or it might be better to say there had been no question of their having a row – not as there had been with Mr Fabian when he turned up on the same afternoon. And about that – Litter supposed – Mr Fabian would speak.