Appleby And Honeybath (17 page)

‘And what did you do?’

‘I went straight home and got Mr Denver on the telephone, sir. And that’s all. Of my part in the thing, I mean.’

‘I think Mr Denver will agree with me that you didn’t do badly. And now we can move off.’

The body had been moved out of the charnel-house (which did in fact shelter a little pile of bones) and into a police van of sombre character in which it was to be whisked away for what Inspector Denver called forensication. Appleby contented himself with a look at the dead man’s features and found them uninformative: during the night hours it was to be presumed that their internal chemistry had wiped out the expression that had so vividly struck Charles Honeybath.

‘No external signs of violence immediately apparent,’ Denver said. ‘Of course we’ll know more in a few hours’ time. As for the clothes, they’re American beyond question. There’s the label of a New York store, or tailor, on the inside of the jacket. That’s the only scrap of documentation, though. All the pockets turned out and emptied. But this is an odd sort of hiding place, wouldn’t you say? Gruesome.’

‘Or at least fantastic. Have you discovered how often this shed is likely to be entered?’

‘At this time of year, with nothing much going on in the way of tidying up the churchyard, not all that often. Probably not until the fellow concerned has a burial on his hands.’

‘What about the church, where your young man tells me those scraps of furniture were found by him tucked away in the vestry?’

‘Every second Sunday only. The vicar has three other rural parishes on his hands, and manages only one early-morning communion and one matins in the month. No demand, he’d tell you – and he never bobs in just on his own. Strange, that – don’t you think?’

‘What I chiefly think, Denver, is that this has the character of a holding operation: a temporary cache while taking a second breath in an alarming situation. But another thing: why both shed and vestry? There would have been plenty of room, surely, for both the corpse and the paraphernalia in either. Perhaps it’s a pointer to something in the character of the operator.’

‘How so, sir?’

‘My guess is that he made two journeys. One with the body and one with the furniture. And the body first, on a trip Mr Bill Mace didn’t spot. When he came back with the furniture – the existence of which he may have been unaware of at the time of bringing the body – he suddenly felt he didn’t want to face the body again. So he thought of the vestry, and dumped the stuff there.’

‘And he knew the lie of the land, Sir John, and about the infrequency of the services here. A local man – like, for instance, Mr Grinton himself.’

‘Aren’t you being rather determined, Denver, not to lose sight of Mr Grinton?’

‘Certainly I am, Sir John. I’ve no mind to lose sight of anybody.’ Denver said this stiffly, but at once added, ‘You’ve produced a picture, sir. Not a doubt about that. I’m most grateful to you.’

‘The chap who will be grateful to the police for finding the corpse is Mr Honeybath. He can’t any longer be suspected of having dealings with little green men.’

‘I never thought Honeybath was off his head.’ Denver was a shade indignant again. ‘But I did think that his supposed dead man might be ambulant – capable of packing up and making off under his own steam. Do you happen to have heard, Sir John, of anything of particularly high value that may be tucked away in the library up there?’

This sudden and penetrating question took Appleby by surprise.

‘Yes,’ he said at once. ‘A group of small paintings or drawings by a French artist of the seventeenth century, Claude Lorrain.’

‘Good Lord!’ Denver had taken the measure of this at once. ‘That’s just something more that it’s hard to believe. Who knows about them?’

‘Certainly not Mr Grinton. Just possibly, his butler. Assuredly my wife and myself. And, among the present guests up there, almost certainly Mr Hillam.’

‘Well, I’m definitely not losing sight of
him
. That was a poor show he put up in the library last night, wouldn’t you say? Not that the same wasn’t true of the other fellow as well. The son-in-law. Tancock. Mightn’t he know about the Claudes too?’

‘He might. Or he might know about something else. Or they may be hand in glove with one another, although they gave no hint of it. But neither of them seems to me to guide us to the dead man. Where did this American come from, and why did he come?’

‘For the matter of that, Sir John, why did he go – and why had he been camping – if it had been he – in that little room behind the library? No end of questions. What seems fairly clear to me is that it all ended up with an effort to remove the slightest trace of a crime. And it looks as if it were an effort made by somebody unaware of Mr Honeybath having come upon the body, or of you and Mr Honeybath having come upon the camping kit. But for these two things, there would be no mystery at this moment. There would only be a body and some junk in hideaways of tolerable security, waiting to be permanently disposed of at the first safe opportunity.’

‘Yes, Inspector – only I’m not quite sure about the crime – or at least about its having been at all a bumper one. We’ve found the corpse, but is it very substantially what the lawyers call a
corpus delicti
, evidence of a major breach of the law? There may be light on that when you get your police-surgeon’s report.’

‘In a preliminary and informal way, Sir John, that may be within an hour or two. And I’ll let you know as soon as it comes in. But the dead man’s identity may be a real headache. Missing persons have a way of not being missed. Particularly, as you know, if they happen to be foreigners. Shall I get that constable to drive you back to the house?’

‘Thank you, no. I think I’ll walk. And perhaps take a turn round the place. I’ll contact you if anything comes into my head. Or anything that at all looks like standing up.’

So Appleby went strolling through what Terence Grinton called his park. It wasn’t really much of a park, since the ancient manorial status of Grinton was still evident in the fact that what fairly closely surrounded the house was the territory of the original home farm, around which now extended the fields of further farms which the Grintons had progressively acquired for themselves over several centuries. Appleby thus strolled for quite some time, having thinking to do.

The identity of the intrusive American, now dead, would no doubt emerge in time. It was less important than his role. With just what – and perhaps with whom – did he tie up? It seemed unlikely that he could be in any way connected with the shifty Hallam Hillam. About Hillam there was no doubt. He had somehow got wind of the possible treasure trove of Claudes, and he had wished himself upon the Grintons, or at least upon Dolly Grinton, as a result. He was entirely a newcomer on the scene. And he believed himself – Appleby was almost certain of this – to be on the brink of successful depredation when baffled and incommoded by unexpected complications in the situation. It was, of course, possible that he had in some way acted rashly as a result, and was implicated in the main mischief under review. So it wouldn’t be quite prudent to write him off as, so to speak, a peripheral phenomenon. But the likelihood lay that way.

Giles Tancock was a different fish. Depredation was his line too, but it was on a long-term basis. With those catalogues in his pocket, he was in the habit of prowling his father-in-law’s library, and unobtrusively milking it. Perhaps his wife Magda knew or suspected this; to Honeybath she had acknowledged herself to be nervous, even apprehensive, of the now police-infested Grinton scene. It was a minor point. What was significant was her husband’s movements – and even, perhaps, something in his character. Had he been in any sort of collusion with the dead man – either for some time, or abruptly drawn into something of the sort by an unforeseen turn of events? He was a more resourceful person than Hillam: his performance during that nocturnal episode in the library, when in a tight place, had been evidence of a certain power of quick thinking.

What else was to be said about Tancock? Looked at hard, the notion of his being in any sort of settled partnership with the American just didn’t wash. Tancock’s behaviour was commonplace in a shabby fashion; the American’s was almost too fantastic to be believed. What could bring a man to consume hasty Welsh rabbits in a lurking-place in another man’s house? Find an answer to that conundrum, Appleby told himself, and this weekend mystery was solved.

As he became aware of this conclusion he became aware, too, that he was about to be joined by another guest taking the morning air, Magda Tancock’s former tutor, the learned Miss Arne. She greeted him briskly, and fell into step with him at once – not, it presently appeared, without designs upon him.

‘Chilly but no puddles,’ she said. ‘So we can walk right round the gardens, Sir John, and call it the day’s constitutional.’

‘An odd use of the word,’ Appleby returned. ‘Would it perhaps have been university slang?’

‘Definitely – and a sort of academic ancestor of jogging. A constitutional of forty minutes every day was
de rigueur
at Oxford in the eighteen-eighties. What is this I hear of further absurdities in the library during the night?’

‘They occurred.’ Appleby felt that this was a little bleak and off-putting. ‘Our friend Mrs Mustard was involved. She appears to have believed that the mysterious affair of the afternoon might be cleared up by means of supernatural solicitation. Nothing came of the idea.’

‘I am sorry to hear it. An unresolved fatality is an unsatisfactory thing to leave behind one after a quiet weekend in the country. I suspect you, Sir John, of having your own views about it all.’

‘Well, yes. But they are inchoate, so far,’ Miss Arne, Appleby reflected, drew inkhorn terms from one willy-nilly. But he also felt that conceivably the lady’s special knowledge might be tapped with advantage. ‘I’ve certainly been wondering about that library – meaning the contents, not the building. It must be representative of a good many country house libraries – except as being even less explored than most. What are the chances of such a place containing first-class bibliographical treasures mouldering unsuspected on the shelves?’

‘Substantial. It is rather, you know, as with paintings and the like. Prices have been going through the roof.’

‘Have they, indeed?’ Appleby was startled by this whiff, as it were, from the Claude Lorrain world.

‘I heard of a curious instance quite recently. It was recounted to me by an old friend, the Savilian Professor of Astronomy. He was visiting a former schoolfellow – actually an impoverished landowner rather like our present host. They rummaged together in just such a library as Mr Grinton’s – not without hopes of the kind one might nourish here, since at one time there had been learning in the family. What they came upon was called, I think,
Uranographia Britannica, or Exact View of the Heavens
, by one Bevis, a Fellow of the Royal Society. It dated from the mid-eighteenth century, and was in good condition. It gained for its unsuspecting owner five thousand pounds. Half a dozen such random treasures, as you call them, would bring in a very useful sum of money indeed.’

‘Decidedly so.’ Appleby felt that he must revise his ideas. That book by the Reverend Mr Shaw on the antiquities of Staffordshire was small beer compared with this. Think of that American. A trip across the Atlantic and much clandestine activity would be amply rewarded by the discovery of a few companions to one Bevis. You could pick up Richard Jefferies’
Bevis
, an immortal work, for a few shilling from a barrow, but
Uranographia
Bevis was a different matter. A mad world, my masters.

While Appleby conversed with the informative lady, Honeybath had been conversing with Burrow. This was because Lady Appleby, by way of passing the ball around, had suggested that it was he who should return
Reliquiae Grintonianae
to its owner. Burrow was rinsing decanters. But behind him, on row upon row of shelves, stood what bore much the appearance of the working library of a scholar. As Honeybath sought permission to enter, Burrow glanced at an elegant bracket clock on his mantelshelf. But this was certainly not by way of an uncivil hint that he was busy; rather it was to assure himself that the morning hour was not yet sufficiently advanced to admit of his offering his visitor a glass of Madeira.

‘I hope I don’t disturb you, Mr Burrow,’ Honeybath said. ‘Lady Appleby let me have this book, and suggested that I bring it back to you. It is extremely interesting.’

‘To the family and family friends, certainly, sir.’ Burrow was again being entirely civil; he was acknowledging Honeybath’s position within a privileged circle. ‘Lady Appleby, as you know, is a Raven. Very good people, sir, and variously distinguished in a number of fields from time to time. A little like the Grintons in that. You will recall, for example, her ladyship’s cousin, Mr Everard Raven, editor both of
The New Millennium Encyclopaedia
and of
The Revised and Enlarged Resurrection Dictionary
. Each is a work of very substantial learning. And the Ravens, of course, are related to the Mounteagles. It is thus that her ladyship may trace her descent from Charles Martel.’

‘Is that so?’ Honeybath tried to remember something impressive to say about Charles Martel, but could recall only that he was a terrible swell who hammered the Moors at the battle of Tours in 732. Commanding this date was rather impressive after a fashion, but he doubted whether the jingle would appeal to this studious butler. So he tried something else. ‘Is Mr Grinton’s library,’ he asked, ‘particularly rich in that fascinating field of genealogy?’

‘Well, sir, the library is much in all our minds at the moment.’

‘Yes, indeed.’ Thus firmly indicted as having asked a fishing question, Honeybath opted for frankness. ‘Although not intimate with the family, Mr Burrow, and merely being privileged to stay here as the result of a professional engagement, I am a good deal worried myself.’

‘The unexpected discovery of a dead man, even if a total stranger, must certainly be distressing.’ Burrow might almost have been the family doctor. ‘Nothing could be more natural. The reaction itself is not to be worried about unduly. But the surrounding circumstances’ – and Burrow frowned momentarily, as if aware of having perpetrated a tautology – ‘are disturbing, without a doubt. As to genealogy, so far as it concerns the Grintons, one would expect to find any relevant materials largely in manuscript form. But Mr Grinton is peculiar about anything of the sort. And so, I believe, was his father before him. My own father, as you may have heard, sir, was in the late Mr Grinton’s service. And like son, like father, if one may so vary the old expression. Neither of them reading men, Mr Honeybath. And particularly impatient of written records. I believe my present employer might well tell you that nothing done by hand is likely to be of the slightest value.’