Appleby Plays Chicken

by Michael Innes

  Appleby accepted brandy. He also remarked this advance to a more familiar mode of address. ‘Henchman must have got to Knack Tor’, he said, ‘round about noon. He appears to have been attracted to it by a column of smoke.’

  ‘Of smoke? How very unaccountable. It’s not a time of year for heath fires.’

  ‘There’s no heath up there, anyway. He formed a notion that what he saw might be a signal.’

  ‘A signal!’ Pettifor was startled. ‘A kind of appeal for help?’

  ‘Something of the sort. There can be little doubt that it was from a small fire kindled by a man who was presently shot dead. I have an idea myself that he may have been destroying papers.’

  ‘Here is the brandy. Armagnac – I hope that is all right? My friends maintain that it should always be taken in a warm cup from which one has just drunk the last of one’s coffee. But I am perfectly content with a rummer myself. Ah, with the grape my fading life provide.’ And Pettifor took a first sniff at his brandy. ‘Now, what were you saying? Something about destroying papers.’

  ‘There is as yet no clue to the identity of the man whose body Henchman first found. But the body that he and I found later on I happened to have no difficulty in identifying. It was that of a man who had enjoyed a discreditable career in espionage – who worked, in fact, for two sides at once.’

  ‘I see.’ Pettifor took this not undramatic information coolly enough. ‘It scarcely sounds as if we need much mourn him. And so you suppose that the first man – the one who kindled the fire – was of the same kidney?’

  ‘He may have been a victim rather than an associate. His death may have been the consequence of his resisting some demand or proposal.’ Appleby sipped his brandy. ‘That, of course, is a very tentative idea, but it’s the direction in which my mind is moving.’

  ‘Most interesting. But I need hardly say that it takes me over ground entirely unfamiliar to me. Am I wrong in supposing that this conjecture of yours doesn’t much assist to an understanding of why there was first one body and then another?’

  Appleby nodded. ‘That’s the core of the problem. And it certainly doesn’t get me far with it.’

  Pettifor considered for a moment. ‘I said that David Henchman was a thoroughly reliable young man. And so he is. But could he, after all, have been perhaps mistaken? One body seems so much simpler than two.’

  ‘That’s incontrovertible.’ Appleby spoke rather dryly. ‘But I’ve never found I got far by ignoring awkward evidence. And this wasn’t a matter of hurried glimpses. Henchman found a dead body, examined that dead body, and then, in the presence of that dead body, held quite a substantial conversation with another man. And the instant we returned to the Tor it was that other man’s body that he declared to be lying there in front of us. We must accept it as gospel, I think, that the substitution of one body for another did, after some fashion, take place.’

  There was a short silence, and then Pettifor sighed rather helplessly. ‘You puzzle me sorely,’ he said.

  At this moment the Italian maid returned to summon Pettifor to the telephone. He excused himself and went out, leaving Appleby with his nose buried thoughtfully in his rummer. David’s tutor was certainly right in supposing that Appleby’s conjectures weren’t taking him very far. He could see no key to that enigmatical switching of the bodies. Hither hurried whence, and whither hurried hence? He frowned as this absurd jingle formed itself in his mind. He took a sip of the Armagnac.

  Another and another cup to drown

  The memory of this impertinence…

  Pettifor’s habit of tags and snippets of verse was perhaps catching. Still, whither hurried hence? Where had that first body gone? And suddenly an extraordinary streak of light played upon the affair. He put down his rummer, and sat up with an exclamation. Then he rose and walked about the room, absorbed in thought. He hardly heard the door when it opened again, and it was a moment before he turned round, expecting to see Pettifor.

  But it wasn’t Pettifor who had come in. It was Dr Faircloth – obscurely conjectured, he remembered, to be a clergyman.

  ‘Good evening,’ Faircloth said. ‘Pettifor has asked me to make you his apologies. He has been called away – and, I fear, in considerable distress. There has been some sort of accident. His brother, I am sorry to say… What a shocking day it has been with us! I am really rather relieved that my daughter hasn’t been able to turn up.’

  2

  ‘Your daughter was to have joined you?’ Appleby thought it civil for a moment to continue this theme.

  ‘Yes, my daughter Alice. She was to have motored from Hampshire, where she has been staying with friends. When she hadn’t turned up by lunch-time, I was a little worried. However, there was a telegram later. I showed it to our friend David Henchman at dinner. I’m not supposed to know, but Pettifor’s young men have been indulging in various conjectures about Alice. Many of them, I have no doubt, would be unsuitable for elderly ears.’ Faircloth, who was comfortably smoking a cigar, sat down opposite Appleby in an entirely companionable way. ‘Not that today’s adventures haven’t put Alice and everything else out of their delightful heads. These have been horrible events, my dear Sir John. They shock me profoundly. I am glad, as I say, that my child hasn’t tumbled in upon them. But for the young men they represent a wonderful irruption of excitement and speculation. I am afraid that Plato and Kant and the rest of them will be very poor seconds for some days – and even if the mystery is cleared up at once. For I suppose it is a mystery? You would – expert in these matters as you are – accord it that status?’

  Appleby could understand why Pettifor’s youths had decided Faircloth was a clergyman. It wasn’t just something vaguely suggestive in his name. He could find a good many words to cover no great quantity of matter. A few years ago, some of the young men had been surreptitiously timing such discourses in their school chapel, whether in the interest of winning wagers or merely compiling records. ‘A mystery?’ he said. ‘I need make no bones about that. What happened on Knack Tor is at present completely inexplicable.’

  ‘Pettifor has no theory?’

  ‘Well, he certainly hasn’t advanced one.’ Appleby eyed Faircloth curiously. ‘Have you any theory yourself?’

  ‘My dear sir, I’m not even in possession of the facts.’ And Faircloth suddenly raised a hand, as if anxious to forestall a flow of indiscreet communication. ‘Nor, I assure you, do I ask for them. I quite under-stand that matters of this sort, especially where national security is concerned, must be treated with the utmost circumspection. It is something I have been impressing – or endeavouring to impress – upon Colonel Farquharson. As a military man he ought, of course, already to be aware of it.’

  Appleby raised his eyes from his brandy – he had been letting it circle slowly round the glass – and regarded Faircloth more thoughtfully than he had yet done. ‘Farquharson?’ he said presently. ‘Do you know much about him?’

  ‘My dear sir, nothing at all. Remember that I have been in Nymph Monachorum only for a few days. And I don’t think, indeed, that Farquharson is a man with whom I should readily become intimate.’

  ‘But you have nevertheless been discussing the affair with him this evening?’ Appleby shook his head seriously. ‘May I be so impertinent, sir, as to offer you a word of advice? Hold very little communication with him over this matter.’

  ‘Dear me!’ Faircloth was impressed. ‘Would it be too venturesome to ask whether he is somebody already known to you?’

  Appleby shook his head. ‘Not exactly that. And nobody concerned, I may say, was known to me before today, with the exception of Redwine, the man that Henchman and I found dead on Knack Tor. But I have been making what inquiries I could, both locally and by telephone to my own people in London.’

  ‘About the whole lot of us?’ Faircloth appeared to find this idea amusing, for he took the cigar from his mout
h in order to laugh the more unrestrainedly.

  ‘I am afraid so. It is a very early piece of routine. Of course the connection between the events on the moor today and anybody in this hotel may be extremely tenuous. Henchman may be the only link – and a purely fortuitous one. Still, one does what one can. And one result has been the discovery that this Colonel Farquharson is not a person of estimable character.’

  ‘I am very sorry to hear it.’ Faircloth said this with a proper sobriety.

  ‘Perhaps if you become conscious of anything out of the way in his conduct, you will be good enough to let me know.’

  ‘Certainly, certainly.’ Faircloth clearly regarded this proposed alliance with interest and satisfaction. ‘But is what you have heard about him – well, of likely relevance to our mystery? Does it in any way point a finger of suspicion at him?’

  Appleby shook his head. ‘It isn’t possible to go as far as that.’ He hesitated. ‘You understand, Dr Faircloth, that all this is highly confidential?’

  ‘By all means. And I may truly say that I support a very tolerable character for discretion.’

  For a moment Appleby was silent. He might have been admiring the orotundity of this last turn of phrase on Faircloth’s part. Then he finished his brandy. ‘Not to put too fine a point on it,’ he said, ‘this man Farquharson is a professional blackmailer.’

  Faircloth received this confidence with notable aplomb. ‘My brief observation of Farquharson’s bearing’, he said, ‘would have inclined me rather to the supposition that he was a blackmailee. But perhaps I coin a word.’

  ‘If you do, it’s a perfectly comprehensible one. And as blackmail is a crime, and a grave one, it is of course true that every blackmailer is potentially on every other blackmailer’s list. Farquharson is, in fact, a convicted blackmailer; and they are commonly extremely cautious in their future operations. His presence down here may be entirely innocent.’

  Faircloth nodded. ‘And even if he is in Nymph Monachorum for what we may term professional purposes, are these at all likely to be related to our affair?’

  ‘My guess is that they are. That secret meeting on Knack Tor, together with a sudden burning of what were in all probability some sort of papers, looks to me to belong within a context of blackmail.’ Appleby rose. ‘Anyway, I’m going to have a little conversation with Colonel Farquharson now.’

  ‘I believe you’ll find him in his room. It’s Number 10. He seems to work away at something there with a typewriter.’

  ‘Thank you. And I need hardly ask you to keep our discussion entirely between ourselves.’

  ‘My dear Sir John, you can rely on me. This is a most distressing business, and I am only too anxious that it should be cleared up. And – do you know? – I am a little concerned about Pettifor. A delightful man, I judge. But sensitive, very sensitive. His young men’s involvement in those terrible risks has upset him, I can see. And now some quite different trouble has come along. I shall be rather glad when we see him back.’

  If Appleby thought this solicitude for a very slight acquaintance remarkable, he didn’t say so. ‘A brother?’ he asked. ‘Living near here?’

  ‘So I understand. And Pettifor has gone off in his car. I hope it doesn’t let him down. He was having trouble with it this morning. I don’t know why people run these elderly cars.’

  Appleby thought there was rather an obvious answer to this one, but that it didn’t require embarking upon. ‘I think’, he said, ‘that I’ll try to persuade this Farquharson to take a little stroll. His kind are sometimes more communicative when they are sure there can be no eavesdroppers. And there’s a moon. And the night’s surprisingly mild.’

  Faircloth nodded. ‘I hope you will tell me what happens. I am most interested in what you have told me about Farquharson. He strikes me as promising… Do you know, I believe I could become quite an amateur of crime?’

  There was certainly a clatter of typewriting from Farquharson’s room. Appleby knocked and walked in. The occupant was working at a small table piled with books and papers, and there were more of these on the bed. He turned and looked at Appleby sombrely but without any appearance of hostility. ‘Good evening,’ he said.

  ‘Good evening, Colonel. You will remember me as a little involved in the afternoon’s operations. My name is Appleby.’

  ‘Yes, indeed. Sir John Appleby. Bad show, that. But might have been a damned sight worse.’

  ‘Decidedly. I hope I’m not interrupting you too inconveniently.’

  ‘No, no. I put in some time of an evening working at my regimental history. Not a regiment that ever did much in a spectacular way. But I was glad to take the job on. Whiles away the time of an evening.’

  ‘And by day you fish? Did you have good sport this morning?’

  Farquharson took a moment to consider this. ‘I didn’t take my rod out, as a matter of fact. Hung about, rather. Thought one of those lads might care for a tramp. But they were all hard at their books. Examinations ahead, it seems. I admire their application. Never much at it myself.’

  ‘I wonder whether you’d care for a short walk now?’

  Farquharson didn’t appear particularly surprised at this invitation – nor much gratified either. But he pushed his typewriter aside and stood up. ‘Very well,’ he said. ‘It’s not a bad night. We might ask Pettifor too. And any of the lads.’

  ‘Pettifor has gone off in his car. He’s had bad news about a brother. And, as a matter of fact, Colonel, I thought you and I might have a confidential talk.’

  Farquharson gave what might have been a small sigh, and nodded. This proposal didn’t seem to surprise him either. ‘Is it your idea’, he asked, ‘that all this shooting is in some way connected with people in the hotel?’

  ‘It’s a possibility I have to consider.’ Appleby spoke cautiously. ‘You know how, for a start, Henchman walked straight into it.’

  ‘Straight would be the word, if you ask me. Nothing wrong with that boy.’

  ‘Probably not. But then there’s another odd fact in the way the whole lot of you turned up later.’

  ‘At the kill, eh? Perfectly true.’ For a moment Farquharson appeared to give this careful consideration. ‘We might have been staging a sort of alibi – is that the word? Making it clear, I mean, that we weren’t operating behind the scenes. It was that fellow Faircloth, I think, who suggested the jaunt. Not on your list of suspects, I’d suppose. They say he’s a parson. Time on his hands, though. And that’s not a blessing, believe me.’ And Farquharson took a restless turn about the room. ‘Overcoat? I think not.’

  They went downstairs and through the hall. Timothy Dumble and Arthur Drury were standing, tankards of cider in hand, before a map that hung on the wall. They appeared to be engaged, politely and obstinately, in some interminable topographical argument. Appleby nodded to them, and they looked at him curiously as he went past, but without addressing him. Outside, the moon was up in a clear sky, and the quiet village street appeared to be already asleep beneath it. Appleby walked a few paces with his companion, and then stopped. ‘Will you wait just a couple of minutes?’ he asked. ‘I think I must have left my pipe in the smoking room.’

  ‘Certainly. I’ll just take a turn down to the bridge.’ Farquharson had produced a pipe of his own. ‘Surprisingly mild. Might be June.’

  Appleby hurried back to the George. The two young men were still standing before the map. ‘Come with me,’ he said briskly. ‘Both of you.’

  They followed him like a shot, and were halfway upstairs before Timothy Dumble ventured to ask a question. ‘Where to, sir?’

  ‘Colonel Farquharson’s room.’ Appleby had got out a penknife and was opening it. ‘As quick as we can.’

  ‘I say!’ Timothy was delighted. ‘You want us as assistant burglars?’

  ‘No. Only as witnesses – witnesses of quite a sma
ll job I have to do. A long shot, I’m afraid.’

  ‘Long shots are quite the go today, sir.’

  ‘Quite so. And this is another that mayn’t come off. But it’s worth trying, all the same. Mark what you see, gentlemen, but don’t tell a soul.’

  Timothy nodded happily. ‘Mum’s the word,’ he said. ‘And I’ll see that Arthur here doesn’t blab.’

  3

  Appleby’s short walk, whether or not it was agreeable to Colonel Farquharson, didn’t last long. The two men were back in the George within half an hour. And they parted at the foot of the staircase without a word.

  Timothy Dumble was still in the hall. This time he was alone – sprawled across an armchair, and idly turning over the pages of a magazine. But as soon as Farquharson had vanished he spoke in a low voice. ‘I say, sir!’

  Appleby strolled over to him and sat down. ‘Yes?’

  ‘I don’t know if I’m just making a fuss. The sort of alarms that have been happening today rather start one imagining things, I suppose. And when you, sir, set about playing odd tricks on retired military men–’

  ‘Never mind about that.’ Appleby cut this apologetic rambling short. ‘Has something happened?’

  ‘I don’t know. But David isn’t in his room. And he did go to bed. I know he did.’

  Appleby glanced quickly about him. ‘You’ve been to see?’

  ‘Yes – just since you went out with that glum soldier. David’s had the hell of a day, if you ask me, and it did just occur to me to stick my head in quietly and see that he was all tucked up and slumbering. He’d vanished.’

  Appleby frowned. ‘Lavatory – something like that?’

  ‘I don’t think so. I went back just five minutes ago, and there was still no sign of him.’