Appleby File (21 page)

Lord Roydon considered for a moment.

‘The children,’ he barked. ‘Half a dozen about the place. Gardeners’ kids, and so forth. Sharp nippers.’

It seemed an astute suggestion – and it bore astonishing fruit. The fourth child interviewed was a small boy called Alf. Alf confessed, amid tears and surprising terror, that he had indeed seen Lord Roydon. He had seen him while playing near a little-frequented cart-track through the park. His lordship had been preparing to drive away in an unfamiliar car. Alf appeared to brace himself at this point in his narrative.

‘But first, sir, ’e stopped and took ’is beard off.’

‘Dear me!’ Appleby said mildly. ‘Did you ever see his lordship do that before, Alf?’

‘No, sir,’ Alf gulped. ‘But then ’e saw me a-watching, sir. And ’e came after me and said ’e’d break my jaw if ever I told on ’im.’

‘Now, Alf, this was clearly a man wearing a
false
beard. So could it have been his lordship?’

‘No, sir.’

‘And are you sure that you have never seen this man before?’

Alf was confident.

‘No, sir. But I’d know ’im again. I’d know ’im by his size, and by a great scar on his chin.’

‘That will do!’ Surprisingly, Lord Roydon seized the small boy and ran him out of the hall. Then he turned to Appleby. ‘The matter is not to be pursued,’ he said shortly. ‘Be good enough to consider it closed.’

But Appleby had turned to the portrait of Lord Roydon’s brother, Lord Charles Doutremere – the portrait painted in profile.

‘I think not,’ he said grimly.

Lord Charles was indeed a more than typical Doutremere recluse. He lived in a remote cottage some twenty miles away, attended by only a single manservant. And the man, although respectful to Lord Roydon, was reluctant to admit them.

‘Lord Charles’ condition is still critical,’ he said. ‘The doctor advises there should be no visitors, my lord.’

And Lord Roydon turned pale.

‘Critical? What the devil do you mean?’

‘A hunting accident a month ago, my lord. Lord Charles insisted you shouldn’t be let know. He spoke’ – the man hesitated – ‘he spoke of the bad blood between you, my lord.’

Appleby gave Lord Roydon a single glance, and then turned again to the man.

‘Just what sort of accident?’

‘To the spine, sir. Lord Charles hasn’t been able to stir from his bed for over a month.’

It was a couple of hours later, and the Applebys were on their way to inspect Barrington Court – much as if nothing had happened.

‘I still don’t really understand,’ Judith Appleby said.

‘Lord Roydon’s determination was to sell his El Greco secretly, and at the same time to collect insurance on it. That meant, of course, finding a collector content to keep the thing more or less permanently hidden away. But, as you know, a few such odd chaps, rolling in the necessary money, do exist.’

‘Arrested development, or something.’

‘No doubt. Well, our friend Lord Roydon shaved. He painted a scar on his jaw. He put on a false beard and interviewed Mrs Cumpsty. It’s not surprising the short-sighted old soul was so sure it was Lord Roydon, since a beard would be a beard to her, whether false or authentic. Then, having made off with the picture, his lordship went through that pantomime with poor young Alf. No wonder he had that inspiration about my questioning the children.’

‘You mean–’

‘Yes – he was planning to plant the theft very ingeniously on his brother. Not at all pretty, but there it was. And the plan broke down only because of that hunting accident, which was bound to give the unfortunate Charles an absolute alibi. Only Lord Roydon – as we heard – had learnt nothing about that, since the brothers very seldom communicated with each other.’

‘But if Lord Roydon
shaved
his beard–’

‘He simply went off in his yacht and waited for it to grow. And then he turned up at the Abbey again – a few minutes after we did.’ Appleby paused, and when he spoke again there was a note of professional admiration in his voice. ‘Really quite a remarkable criminal formula. Unique, I imagine. X disguised as Y disguised as X. Think it out like that.’

Appleby glanced at his watch, accelerated, and laughed softly.

‘One has to call it,’ he said, ‘a notably bare-faced fraud.’

Sitting in front of Florian’s café in Venice, Lady Appleby counted her resources. She began with her remaining traveller’s cheques, went on to Italian banknotes, and ended up with small change. Her husband divided his attention between watching this operation tolerantly – Judith was always extremely businesslike on holidays – and surveying the tourists who thronged the Piazza San Marco.

It was the height of the season. There were Germans fathoms deep in guidebooks, Americans obsessively intent on peering into cameras, and English with their brows furrowed in various degrees of that financial anxiety which Judith herself was evincing. There were also some Italians. These, Appleby thought, appeared agreeably carefree.

‘And six days to go,’ Judith said. She had arrived at her grand total. ‘Of course, we have to remember the children’s presents. I’ve got a list.’ She produced a notebook. ‘A mechanical mouse that squeaks and runs; a hunting-crop that turns into a stiletto; an exploding battleship; an atomic submarine; a bone or some other bit of an old saint or martyr; and three caskets in gold, silver, and lead.’

‘I’m surprised,’ Appleby said, ‘that Bobby didn’t add an heiress: Portia as well as her caskets. “In Belmont is a lady richly left.” It sounds most attractive. But don’t you think they all sound rather unlikely objects to pick up in Venice? Even the lethal hunting-crop.’

‘Pardon me.’ A polite American voice sounded in the Appleby’s ears. ‘But I guess I’d like to know what is meant by an exploding battleship.’

The American was at the next table. He was elderly and had the air of feeling lonesome. He was also – Appleby decided with his policeman’s habit of rapid appraisal – wealthy, unsophisticated, and highly intelligent.

‘An exploding battleship?’ Appleby turned his chair round and addressed the stranger companionably. ‘It’s built up, I think, in a number of interlocking sections, and there’s some sort of simple spring-mechanism inside. You shoot at it with a little gun. And when you hit the vital spot, the spring is released, and the whole thing flies into bits.’

‘Sure.’ The American produced this monosyllable thoughtfully and with much deliberation. Then he turned to Judith. ‘Marm,’ he said courteously, ‘I can direct you to that mechanical mouse. The small toy-store at this end of the Merceria dell’ Orologio.’ He paused, and then addressed Appleby. ‘Would you be in the way, sir, of buying objects of antique art in this remarkable town?’

‘Well, no.’ Appleby was amused by this question. ‘I used to pick up very modest things here once upon a time. But I don’t nowadays.’

The stranger nodded wisely.

‘In that case,’ he said, ‘I needn’t communicate to you a certain darned nasty suspicion building up in my mind right now.’

And with this cryptic remark the elderly American stood up, made Judith Appleby a careful bow, and walked away.

Four days later Appleby received an unexpected request to call on the Chief of Police. He made his way in some perplexity to the Fondamenta San Lorenzo, and was received with great politeness.

‘My dear Sir John,’ the functionary said, ‘it was decided by one of my officers that you must be questioned. But when I discovered in you a distinguished colleague, I ventured to give myself the pleasure of inviting you to call. You were well acquainted with Mr Conklin?’

‘Conklin?’ Appleby was perplexed.

‘An American visitor with whom one of our
vigili
happened to observe you in conversation in the Piazza on Monday.’ The Chief of Police spread out his hands expressively. ‘A most elusive and unobtrusive man. He proved to be unaccompanied by a wife or other companion. We can discover almost nothing about him, so far. Except, indeed, that the gentleman was a millionaire.’

‘
Was?
’ Appleby said.

‘Alas, yes. His body has been recovered from the lagoon. And almost certainly there has been foul play. A perplexing affair. We do not like unresolved mysteries in Venice.’

‘Nor do we care for them in London, my dear sir. But what you tell me is most surprising. Mr Conklin seemed a most inoffensive man, quite unlikely to get into trouble.’ Appleby reflected for a moment. ‘You know nothing about him?’

‘It appears that he was something of an art-collector. Not, perhaps, among the more highly-informed in the field. But – as I have said – a millionaire.’

‘In other words, a ready-made dupe?’

‘It is sad, Sir John.’ The Chief of Police again made his expressive gesture. ‘But they have much wealth, these people. And they come among us, who have little wealth, but much colourable junk lying ready to our hand. I command very poor English, I fear. But at least I make myself comprehensible?’

‘Certainly you do. And you feel, I think, that drowning the dupes is going rather too far?’

‘It is my sentiment in the matter. Decidedly.’

Again Appleby reflected.

‘My encounter with this unfortunate man,’ he said, ‘was of the slightest, as I shall explain. But I believe I can possibly help you, all the same.’

‘My dear Sir John, I am enchanted.’

‘Only I am afraid it may cost money. Or at least
look
as if it were costing money.’

‘
Non importa
,’ the Chief of Police said.

Appleby began by buying – or appearing to buy – a genuine Tintoretto. He followed this up with a clamantly spurious Carpaccio, and then with a Guardi so authentically lovely that he could hardly bear to reflect on how fictitious his purchase really was. Judith sometimes watched him covertly from over the way. It intrigued her to think that she might really have married an American precisely like this.

It was on the third day that Appleby made the acquaintance of the Conte Alfonso Forobosco. This gentleman’s conversation, casually offered over a
cappuccino
, showed him to be familiarly acquainted not only with his fellow members of the Italian aristocracy but also with the President of the Republic, the exiled Royal Family, and most of the more important dignitaries in the Vatican. All of which didn’t prevent Conte Alfonso from being hard up. This fact, emerging in due season and with delightful candour, precluded the further revelation that he was even constrained, from time to time, to part with a few of the innumerable artistic treasures which had descended to him from his ancestors.

All this was extremely impressive. And so was the speed with which the Conte worked. Half an hour later, Appleby found himself in a gaunt and semi-derelict
palazzo
on the Grand Canal.

‘The goblets,’ Conte Alfonso said, ‘belonged to Machiavelli. The pistols were Mazzini’s. The writing-table was used by Manzoni.’

Appleby made the sort of responses he judged appropriate in a wealthy American. The
palazzo
– or its
piano nobile
at least – had been well stocked with a variety of imposing objects. And presently the Conte came to the most imposing of the lot: a species of elaborately convoluted urn in Venetian glass. Appleby doubted whether anything more completely hideous had ever issued from the glass-factories on Murano.

‘The poison-vase of Lucrezia Borgia,’ the Conte said, pointing to it on a table. ‘Take it – but carefully – and hold it up to the light.’

Appleby did as he was told. But even as he raised the precious object in his two hands there was an ominous crack. And then he was looking at its shattered fragments lying at his feet.

Conte Alfonso gave an agonized cry. Then, with a gesture magnificently magnanimous, he stopped, picked up the pieces, strode to a window, and pitched them into the Grand Canal of Venice.

‘
Non fa niente
,’ he said. ‘No matter. An accident. And you are my guest.’

Appleby went through a pantomime of extreme contrition and dismay. The least he could do, he intimated, was to pay up. The Conte protested. Appleby insisted. Reluctantly the Conte named a sum – a nominal sum, a bare million lire. And then Appleby led him to the window.

‘At least,’ he said, ‘I may get back the bits.’

And this seemed true. Several police launches were diverting the
vaporetti
and other traffic on the canal. Just beneath the window a frogman was already at work. It would have been possible to reflect that there was an authentic Carpaccio depicting a very similar scene.

‘And now I think you have visitors,’ Appleby said, turning round. ‘Including your Chief of Police himself.’

‘It was this so-called Conte Alfonso’s regular racket?’ Judith asked afterwards.

‘Certainly it was.’ Appleby paused in the task of packing his suitcase. ‘The fellow had a steady supply of Lucrezia Borgia’s teapots, or whatever. Two seconds after you picked them up, the spring went off and shattered them. And then, of course, the problem was to get rid of the evidence. But there lay the advantage of having the scene of the operation on the Grand Canal. The Conte made detection impossible simply by putting on that aristocratic turn of gathering up the bits and chucking them into the water. Our friend Conklin, however, was a shrewd chap in his way, and he suspected he’d been had. When I explained about the exploding battleship, the full truth flashed on him.’

‘So he went back and taxed the Conte with the fraud?’

‘Just that. And the scoundrel – rather an engaging scoundrel if he hadn’t gone so decidedly too far – liquidated him at once. Quite in the antique Venetian manner, I suppose one may say. But, apart from that, there was certainly nothing genuinely antique about him.’

A knock came at the bedroom door, and a hotel servant handed in a parcel. Appleby received it, regarded it doubtfully, and then opened it up. What lay inside was the little Guardi.

‘John!’ – Judith was very startled – ‘you haven’t really gone and bought the thing?’

‘Of course not.’ Appleby had opened a letter. ‘It’s a present – call it from the Doge and the Serenissimi.’