Ampersand Papers

by Michael Innes

‘Good heavens, the man’s a scoundrel! But we can get him for the theft, I suppose.’

  ‘I rather doubt that, my dear Craig. Certain rights in many of those papers, you see, Miss Deborah Digitt undoubtedly has.’

  ‘Copyright?’

  ‘Precisely so. And the mere fact of their having been lying unknown in Treskinnick Castle by no means gives Lord Ampersand a clear title to their ownership as physical objects. Charles Digitt has merely discovered them and handed them on to Adrian Digitt’s sole descendant – or perhaps has tactfully spared her perplexity by simply slipping them in among her existing possessions of that sort. In fact, Craig, it all sounds to me much more a case for civil proceedings than for criminal ones. And in such affairs as these, at least, possession really often is nine-tenths of the law.’ Appleby paused to examine the tip of his own cigar. ‘But all this,’ he said, ‘seems to take us rather far from the death of Dr Sutch.’

  ‘Seems to – or actually does?’

  ‘Ah, that’s very much a question. So let us forget about the papers for the moment, and turn to the treasure.’

  ‘The Spanish hypothesis,’ Craig said with a grin. ‘But it looks as if it’s a hypothesis no longer, and has turned into solid fact.’

  ‘I’m delighted to hear it – if only because I’ve been spinning myself a bit of a yarn about it.’

  ‘Is that so, sir? Well, a good many people in these parts do. Spin themselves a yarn, I mean, about Spanish gold. I think I’ve mentioned that before. And about its causing us a certain amount of trouble and annoyance from time to time. Which is why I haven’t been in a hurry to believe in this Digitt hoard. Well, I’ve seen it now, and seeing has to be believing.’

  ‘Seen it, Craig? You’re ahead of me. I haven’t seen the papers.’

  ‘To say I’ve seen it, Sir John, would be to stretch a point. But I’ve seen what it’s stowed away in. In the photographs, that is.’

  ‘Photographs you’ve secured through that spyhole, you mean?’

  ‘Just that. What shows up isn’t by any means all that may be down there. But it’s enough to be going on with, you may say. There’s three massive chests – iron-bound, padlocked, and looking as safe as the Bank of England.’

  ‘Well, well!’ Appleby seemed much impressed. ‘When archaeologists dig down into ancient tombs, you know, they frequently find that the wandering Bedouin or whoever have succeeded in rifling them long ago. You are sure those chests haven’t been neatly broken into at the back?’

  ‘Of course I’m not sure of anything of the sort.’ Craig was not quite pleased by this carefree conjecture. ‘Perhaps Charles Digitt has been miraculously in on this loot too, and has poured it out at the feet of his beloved. We can only wait and see, sir.’

  ‘Yes, of course. By the way, are Lord Ampersand and his family waiting and seeing too? I mean, have you told them about the discovery of this Aladdin’s Cave?’

  ‘Yes, sir. I rang up the Chief Constable, and he said it wouldn’t be proper not to inform Lord Ampersand of what had happened at this stage of the investigation.’

  ‘I suppose Brunton was right.’ Appleby didn’t say this with much conviction. ‘Did Lord Ampersand show much interest in this prospect of sudden wealth within his grasp?’

  ‘I doubt whether his mind got round to seeing it quite in that way, Sir John. He said he’d tell his wife, and then he said something about having to walk the dogs. Perhaps the penny would drop when he got under full steam with them.’

  ‘Several pennies will drop here and there in the castle, I don’t doubt. Is the whole family at home still?’

  ‘I believe so.’

  Appleby glanced at his watch.

  ‘It’s a pity,’ he said, ‘that we can’t clear this thing up tonight. But I’ll have a go, Craig, round about breakfast time.’

  19

  Faithful to this resolution, Appleby was back at Treskinnick Castle by nine o’clock on the following morning, and the first person he came upon was Lord Skillet, who was pacing up and down a small terrace which lay outside the moat on the landward side of what a guidebook might have called the frowning pile. Lord Skillet was frowning too, and he sufficiently forgot the canon of noblesse oblige to utter the words, ‘Good God, you here again!’ as Appleby came up to him. Appleby wasn’t perturbed. The meeting was entirely agreeable to his wishes, however disagreeable the heir of the Ampersands proposed to be.

  ‘Good morning,’ Appleby said. ‘I think we may hope for a sunny day. And, of course, a busy day as well. For I suppose you must have heard the remarkable news?’

  ‘About this nonsense in the North Tower? Of course I have. And my father has taken it into his head to get excited about it. What he ought to be is indignant. There are half a dozen damned impertinent fellows up there now, doing their best to pull the place to pieces. And without so much as a by-your-leave, curse them!’

  ‘I hardly think that can be so, Lord Skillet. The police would initiate or permit nothing of the kind without your father’s permission.’

  ‘If he gave them that sort of nod, it’s because he is addle-pated enough to believe that there’s money in it. He sees these fellows handing him over a healthy young fortune in a sack. Absolute tripe! Currency immured like that is treasure trove and will be impounded by the Crown. Which in this day and age is another word for the bloody proles. Simply go as a hand-out on the dole queues. The old dotard ought to be getting out an injunction to stop the bastards.’

  ‘It would need a very clever counsel to argue that one successfully, I fear. A judge in chambers, you see, would have to be told about our little troubles over Dr Sutch, and he would feel that the police had better be left to the exercise of their judgement. You have to face it, Lord Skillet. The day of cosy private plans in the matter of the Nuestra Señora del Rosario are over.’

  ‘What the devil do you mean by that?’

  ‘And Dr Sutch is over too. After life’s fitful fever he sleeps well. But the same can’t be said of the law. The law’s wide awake. And, sir, it has its eye on you.’

  Lord Skillet (as was extremely reasonable) failed to care for this speech. He turned first pale and then crimson, and in his eye there was something that made Appleby wonder – not for the first time – whether in a lurking way he was not a little mad. Had a halberd, falchion, broad-sword, poignard or other mediaeval weapon been to hand he would undoubtedly have despatched this insolent knight in a feudal and arbitrary fashion. As things were, he produced a spluttering sound and took a couple of alarmed steps backwards – thereby being in some danger of tumbling into the moat.

  ‘In fact,’ Appleby said, ‘there is a situation that you and I may usefully have a quiet word about. Wouldn’t you agree?’

  ‘Certainly not! I won’t hear a word from you. Just what are you up to?’

  Appleby judged this brief but confused speech to be satisfactory. The tiresome Archie was undoubtedly among those at Treskinnick who were dead scared by the developing situation.

  ‘I am suggesting, Lord Skillet, that you and I might confer – simply in a few minutes of quiet but revealing talk – about the murder of your father’s unfortunate archivist.’

  ‘You’re talking nonsense. The man wasn’t murdered.’

  ‘Possibly not. I don’t know that I’d care to be dogmatic at this stage. But Inspector Craig’s mind undoubtedly inclines that way.’

  ‘I tell you it’s nonsense. Sutch couldn’t have been murdered. There was nobody there to murder him.’

  ‘That depends – doesn’t it? – on what one means by “there”. It is certainly difficult to see how there could have been anybody up there in the muniment room with him. But even that isn’t impossible. The North Tower has three free-standing sides, after all. A man might slither down a rope, you know, and slip into the castle undetected. Again, there are adjacent parts of the castle whic
h can’t be said exactly to command the tower, but do attain to something over half its height. And from one or two points I find that at least a part of that platform must have been visible. So part of Dr Sutch may have been visible too – and in a highly vulnerable situation. He had only to be startled into losing his balance, you might say, and he might take a grab at something, manage only a heavy fall, and go tumbling down, staircase and all.’

  ‘That doesn’t sound like murder to me.’

  ‘Does it not? It would depend, I believe, entirely upon what the law calls mens rea: intent, in plain English. By the way, when you were a boy did you ever amuse yourself with a catapult?’

  As what might be called war-of-nerves stuff, all this nonsense on Appleby’s part was yielding a satisfactory result – as appeared when Lord Skillet now abruptly changed ground.

  ‘Anyway,’ he said, ‘why should anybody want to make away with the man? Are you thinking of those damned papers?’

  ‘They are certainly not absent from my mind. But what I’d say in general is this: that Dr Sutch was a man with a flair for discovering things. But equally, perhaps, with a weakness for being discovered as having discovered them. And, conceivably, for doing, or proposing to do, deals. In such circumstances, other interested parties might become a little impatient with him. So let us by all means discuss the papers – the literary remains, to put it more grandly, of Adrian Digitt. What is your own view, Lord Skillet, of their having turned up at Budleigh Salterton?’

  ‘Of their having what?’ It would have been hard to believe that Lord Skillet wasn’t genuinely astounded. ‘What the devil are you talking about?’

  ‘Dear me, I thought you’d have been bound to know about that by now. Miss Deborah Digitt has the whole lot – and says she always has had. But without knowing it, you see. Your cousin, Charles Digitt, has quite recently turned them up for her. He’s rather thick with her, it seems.’

  ‘Just how have you got hold of this absurd story? Was it from Charles himself?’

  ‘Definitely not. I called on Miss Digitt yesterday afternoon. We had quite a friendly chat.’

  ‘Then damn your impertinent interference in our private family affairs!’ For a moment it looked as if Lord Skillet were again meditating physical violence. Then he recovered himself. ‘But if there’s anything in it,’ he said slowly, ‘it looks as if Charles may have a good deal to answer for.’

  ‘Ah.’

  ‘And as if Sutch got no more than his deserts.’

  ‘A most interesting suggestion. Would you care to elaborate on it?’

  ‘I can’t imagine what Charles could think to gain by smuggling those papers into that old woman’s keeping. But, if you’re telling the truth, that’s what he did. And Sutch must have connived at it.’

  ‘I rather doubt at least that last statement.’

  ‘Very well.’ Lord Skillet was obviously thinking rapidly. ‘Sutch had found the papers, and had told Charles – or say Charles had simply discovered the fact. They removed them together to some temporary hiding-place in the castle, and started bargaining about a share-out. Then Charles did the spot of double-crossing you’d expect of him, made off with the stuff, and dumped it on that rascally old hag in Budleigh What-d’ye-call-it.’

  ‘Then?’

  For the first time, the resourceful Archie hesitated. A moment later, he took a plunge.

  ‘It left Sutch,’ he said calmly, ‘inconveniently well-informed.’

  ‘You have your own flair, my dear sir. Shall we call it for detective investigation? Sergeant Cuff or Inspector Bucket could scarcely do better.’

  ‘More damned policemen around the place? I’ve only met somebody called Craig – and pretty thick he is.’

  ‘You are in error about him, I fear. But we are losing sight – are we not? – of the Nuestra Señora del Rosario. Perhaps we ought again to address our minds to that. For here is something else that Sutch knew about. And again, perhaps, he was by one means or another constrained to share his knowledge with somebody else. But this time, of course, there was no making off with the booty to another part of England. For there it is still – and with the police peering down a hole at it. But that is to run a little ahead. We are merely establishing the fact that the learned but sadly acquisitive Dr Sutch was a man considerably at risk, perhaps from more quarters than one. The more one considers the matter, the more surprised one is that he survived as long as he did.’

  ‘I wish I’d never found the bloody man.’

  ‘That may well be.’ Appleby glanced curiously at Lord Skillet. It would have been accurate to say that he was well softened-up – indeed, scared out of his wits. And somewhere in the castle, Appleby imagined, his cousin Charles Digitt was in much the same case. The plot thickened. Or, rather, it might be said to be thinning, since it was destined soon entirely to dissipate itself. His wife hadn’t been wildly out, after all, in her estimate of when the mystery of the Ampersands might resolve itself.

  ‘Another thought occurs to me,’ Appleby said. ‘And perhaps I may be permitted to share it with you, since you have indulged me so far, Lord Skillet. Suppose two persons, each with their several reasons for wishing Dr Sutch not exactly too well. Might not a little sharing bob up again? They needn’t be precisely friendly with one another – but then adversity can make strange bed-fellows. And two might be better than one for the purpose of coping with the situation. Would you say there might be something in that?’

  ‘I don’t intend to say anything. I’ve had enough of this. And it’s all highly irregular.’

  ‘That puts the matter mildly, does it not?’

  ‘You know perfectly well what I mean. You have no standing here whatever. I shall speak to the Home Secretary.’

  ‘You may be lucky, Lord Skillet, if you don’t find yourself speaking to the Lord Chief Justice, or someone of that order.’

  At this grim moment there came an interruption in the person of Inspector Craig. He had emerged from the castle, spotted the conference going on, and come hurrying forward.

  ‘Good morning, sir,’ he said. ‘Good morning, my lord. They’ve risked it and got through, I’m glad to say. Knocked out something like a manhole, and put in what they call a collar. No danger at all. And anybody can go down that pleases.’

  20

  Everybody pleased, since it had appeared to the mind of Lord Ampersand that a momentous family occasion was about to transact itself. As Warren Hastings had restored the fortunes of his house from the wealth of India, so was Lord Ampersand now to do from the wealth of what he thought of vaguely as the Spanish Main. Before undertaking those severer studies at Eton and Christ Church which had distinguished his later youth he had no doubt dipped into romances turning upon that sort of thing. And these were informing his intelligence now.

  Even Lady Ampersand and her daughters had made that emergency ascent to the muniment room up the zigzag of ladders – and from thence the shorter but not less tricky climb down a further ladder through the narrow aperture now communicating with the treasure house below. Ludlow, moreover, was in attendance. Judging that this portentous occasion might be of a protracted order, he had brought up a basket containing china and a couple of vacuum flasks. At an appropriate moment he would no doubt formally announce that coffee was served.

  Not that the chamber now revealed beneath the muniment room was at all a nice place for a party, and Lady Ampersand must be said to have taken against it at once. It was dusty and cobwebby and presumably alive with spiders. It contrived to have a bad smell which possibly had something to do with bats or owls. Except for a glimmer of light that now came from above, it seemed to be a region of darkness immemorial and entire. The police, indeed, had run in an electric flex to which they had connected a single powerful bulb. Unfortunately they were having trouble with this, and when Appleby arrived the place was being intermittently plunge
d back into repellent gloom while they tinkered. Craig was displeased, the two constables on the job were agitated, Lord Skillet plucked up spirit to make contemptuous remarks, Charles Digitt judged it amusing to strike up with that ditty in Treasure Island which celebrates fifteen men on a dead man’s chest.

  There was, of course, nowhere to sit down. There was nothing in the chamber at all except what Craig had described to Appleby as three massive chests. They were massive rather than large, and although impressively impregnable-looking and antique seemed not quite up to accommodating that amount of bullion, specie and whatever which might fairly have been expected to go sailing in the Nuestra Señora del Rosario. Of course what they contained was likely to be wealth in a very concentrated form indeed. But great expectations had been aroused, and the general effect was now a shade in the way of anticlimax. The company stood round staring at the chests rather in the manner of passengers thinking to identify their luggage at an airport.

  ‘There are those big padlocks, my lord,’ Inspector Craig was saying. ‘But it turns out that we shall not need the services of a locksmith. They look formidable, but actually no key has been turned in them. So, barring a little rust on the bolts, and corrosion in the hinges and so forth, we ought to be able to open up without doing much damage. It’s entirely as your lordship pleases.’

  ‘Aren’t there any legal formalities?’ Charles Digitt asked. ‘An inventory to be made by officers of a court, or something of that sort? I only put the question.’

  ‘Thank you, Mr Digitt,’ Craig said with gravity. ‘But I have inquired into the point, and we are quite in order. The constables and myself, and of course Sir John, will be considered as very adequate independent witnesses to what takes place.’

  ‘Capital!’ Lord Ampersand said. ‘Go ahead, my dear sir. We needn’t begin actually counting the money, you know. Not at this moment. Just get a general idea of the thing, eh?’ He glanced round the gathering. ‘Sad,’ he added unexpectedly, ‘that that poor fellow Sutch ain’t here. Quite a moment for him, it would have been bound to be.’