Appleby Talks Again (6 page)

“It was. He apologised for not stopping longer. He confessed that it had been a strain, and that he didn’t think he had better take any more. And then he brought out the astounding thing. ‘Richard,’ he said, ‘there’s something I must tell you – in strict confidence.’

“We were standing beside his car. I felt instantly uneasy – partly because of an odd feeling that we were being overheard, and partly from sheer foreboding. I muttered something about respecting any confidence he cared to make.

“‘I’ve made a mistake,’ he said. ‘To leave money out of the family – a family like
our
family – is utterly wrong. This night has been a revelation to me. You stand by the old ways, Richard – and I know enough about the economic difficulties of this country to know that it must be against tremendous odds.’ I could see his glance going back to the dark bulk of the house. ‘It’s magnificent, Richard. I can’t tell you. I can’t begin to speak. But you shall be my sole heir. God bless you. And goodbye.’ And with that Hiram climbed into his car and drove away. And now you have the whole story. Of course he will have to be told. I see that now. I’ve been a frightful ass, and I’m back pretty well where I started.”

There was a long silence. Richard Poole produced a silk handkerchief and mopped his forehead. Mr Buttery, as if he were some aged anthropoid of an imitative bent, promptly did the same. Appleby took a turn round the hall, and on coming back addressed its owner quietly. “And where do you suppose Hiram Poole to be now?”

“On board the
Queen
Mary
, steaming for New York. He was to drive straight to London, change, and catch the boat train.”

“He was to change? Did he come here in fancy dress?”

“Yes. He had realised that it was the unnoticeable thing to do.”

“A black Caroline costume with a gold-embroidered cloak?”

“Yes.” Richard Poole’s eyes widened. “But I don’t see–”

“Your cousin is grey-haired, with a small scar on his chin?”

“Yes.”

“Then I am very sorry to say that he is not on board the
Queen Mary
. His dead body is lying at the bottom of the ruined staircase in this house.”

Miss Jones had fainted, been resuscitated, and at last accommodated on Mr Buttery’s box. Judith had driven off rapidly in her car. Richard Poole had identified his cousin’s body and was now back in the hall, looking pale and troubled. “It’s unbelievable,” he said.

“That is what you felt your tale was going to be.” Appleby spoke very seriously. “Hiram Poole has died, so to speak, at the end of a decidedly tall story put up by yourself. There are various possibilities. Some of them can’t be explored until we have a medical report. Others suggest themselves at once.”

“Such as?” The young man looked at him dully.

“You no doubt see for yourself that it would be easy to set your proceedings in a very damaging light. You are a poor man. You have admitted what it would be impossible long to conceal: that you brought this rich American cousin down to Water Poole and submitted him to a gross imposture. Your own story is that he was prompted by this fraud to declare his intention of making you his heir. It may very well be so. But one can conceive of other turns that the affair may have taken. It might be suggested that you were aware that you had already been constituted, at least in some degree, your cousin’s heir. It might be suggested that last night he penetrated to the nature of the charade in which you had involved him.”

“Stop!” Richard Poole’s face was bloodless. “You have no right to confront me with these insinuations. It is utterly irregular.”

“My dear sir, I have no official standing in this matter at all. I am speaking to you as a private citizen; and at the same time I am giving you, for your own benefit, an experienced view of certain lines of speculation which the officers who will investigate this business may be prompted to follow.”

“I see. Very well. Go on.”

“It is conceivable that Hiram Poole drove away more or less as you have claimed – but that he had his doubts. Suspicion grew on him; eventually he turned his car and came back to Water Poole; and what he found in the dawn was a derelict house, and his hopeful young heir pottering round clearing up a bit of litter. He wasn’t very pleased, and there may even have been a quarrel. So much for one hypothesis. We needn’t follow it further at the moment.”

“It sounds damnably convincing.” Richard Poole managed rather a harsh laugh.

“It has, as it happens, one weakness. It leaves something out. I think you claim to know certain particulars of Hiram’s existing testamentary dispositions? He had been proposing to leave his fortune to philanthropic organisations?”

“Yes – and to one such organisation in particular. The bulk of his estate was to go to a body advocating temperance reform. I remember thinking it odd in him. It didn’t really cohere with the kind of feelings and attitudes that Hiram revealed when he was over here. But there it was. Prohibition all over again: it was something like that, I gathered, that his money was to go to the support of.”

“Capital!”

Appleby turned in astonishment, to see Mr Buttery emphatically nodding his venerable head. “You approve of such an endeavour?”

“Certainly.” Mr Buttery was quite excited. “I declare Mr Poole’s cousin to have been most enlightened. The attempt to prohibit by law all use of alcoholic beverages is one which interests me very much. I think I can say that I approve of it. I regret that it has never made more headway on this side of the Atlantic.”

“Sir, let me say that you do honour to your calling.” Miss Jones had risen from the box, advanced upon the clergyman, and was now shaking him vigorously by the hand. She turned to Appleby and Richard Poole. “Thousands will take fresh heart when they hear of the noble declaration of this truly reverend old man!”

“Thank you, madam, thank you.” Mr Buttery – perhaps recalling that he had been termed a pale-faced drinker – appeared a little embarrassed by this unexpected effusion.

And Appleby was looking at him in surprise. “What about that burgundy and madeira? Would you propose, sir, that in framing their legislation our prohibitionists should insert a clause exempting the clergy?” He turned to Miss Jones. “I’m not quite certain that you and Mr Buttery are going to be at one in this matter, after all. But, for the moment, we have another sort of concern with it. May I take it, madam, that it would not be incorrect to assert that the urging of temperance reform constitutes your profession? Mr Poole, I think, has already had an inkling of it.”

“It has certainly been hovering in my head for some time.” Poole swung round to survey the American lady, and as he did so he produced a strained smile. “The rival charity – that’s what you are!”

Appleby nodded. “Exactly. Water Poole or water wagon – it might be expressed like that. Which was cousin Hiram’s fortune going to the support of?… And now perhaps Miss Jones will speak.”

“I am
not
Miss Jones.” The American lady had advanced to the middle of the hall, and her announcement was made with a very sufficient sense of drama. “Let there be no more subterfuge. I am not Miss Jones. I am Miss Brown.”

“Not, surely” – Richard Poole, despite his awkward situation, was prompted to a freak of humour – ”not, surely,
the
Miss Brown?”

“I guess so.” Miss Brown’s was a wholly modest acknowledgement. “I am Louisa Brown, Vice-President of the Daughters of Abstinence.”

“It sounds like William Blake.” Poole might have been slightly dazed. “Are they something in America?”

“Certainly. They constitute one of our leading temperance bodies, and the one to which the late Hiram Poole has bequeathed almost his entire fortune. And I have been acting as a guardian.”

“Why should Hiram require a guardian? I never heard such nonsense.”

“It’s a precaution we are accustomed to take with potential major benefactors. Particularly when they go overseas.” Miss Brown spoke with confidence. “Temptations are manifold. Haven’t we just heard that Mr Hiram Poole was seduced, in this very house, into drinking a glass of champagne? Disgusting! Revolting!”

This view of the hospitality of Water Poole appeared to strike the owner of the mansion as decidedly offensive. “As a self-appointed bodyguard, madam, you have been thoroughly inefficient. Hiram is dead, and when you get back to your own country I sincerely trust that all the other Daughters will give you a thoroughly bad time.”

“You haven’t got the picture quite right.” Appleby intervened dryly. “It wasn’t Miss Brown’s business to keep your cousin alive. Her guardianship consisted in ensuring that, if he died, it wasn’t with the wrong sort of last will and testament immediately behind him. It is a consideration in which there is food for thought. But we still haven’t had Miss Brown’s story. Will you please proceed?”

“I certainly will.” Miss Brown put her hands behind her back and eyed the three men before her as if they had been a large assembly of recalcitrant brewers or vintners. “It was well known to me that Mr Hiram Poole had these unwholesome interests in family history and a feudal past. So when upon his arrival in England he made the acquaintance of Mr Poole – this Mr Poole – I realised that the utmost vigilance would be required of me. As a matter of routine, I got to know all about Water Poole. I got to know all about Mr Richard Poole’s feelings for it – or lack of feelings for it.”

Richard Poole exploded. “The woman’s crazy!”

“For instance, I have in my file – it struck me as worth paying for – a letter from Mr Richard offering to sell this house for the purpose of what is called an approved school. He also had a project for turning the place over to a syndicate to run as a scientific pig farm.”

“Crazy?” Appleby looked rather grimly at the owner of Water Poole. “I’d be inclined to say myself that there’s method in her madness.”

“Madness in her method, if you ask me.” Poole was gloomy. “But go on, madam – go on.”

“Murray’s is an excellent hotel, and the servants don’t gossip. But it was a different matter with the firm from whom Mr Hiram hired a car, and I was soon in a position to know most of his movements a day or so in advance. That’s how it came about that, when he set out for Water Poole in his fancy dress last night, I was on the road in my own car a hundred yards behind.”

Appleby was looking at Miss Brown in admiration. “That was very efficient, I’m bound to say. And just what did you know about what was going forward?”

“I knew that Mr Richard had been dashing round the firms that provide stage furniture, and that he had been holding long meetings with large numbers of his theatrical friends. I think I may say that I had the greater part of the picture already in my head. When we got down here, of course, I let Mr Hiram get a good lead, and then I parked my own car and explored the ground. I guess I hadn’t got hold of the fancy-dress aspect of the affair, and the significance of that puzzled me a good deal. But the rest was clear enough. I saw that the moment to expose Mr Richard Poole had arrived.”

“You were probably right.” Appleby contributed this soberly. “And how did you propose to set about it?”

“I thought at first of simply walking in upon the feast and denouncing it – denouncing the imposture and denouncing the champagne. Then it occurred to me that I might, as a consequence, put myself in considerable personal danger. I might be thrown in the river and drowned, and the Daughters of Abstinence would never so much as know what had become of me.”

“Bless me!” Richard Poole stared. “The woman might believe herself to be on the banks of the Niger, not of the–”

“Mr Richard and his friends were flown with wine.” Miss Brown interrupted brusquely. “The expression is that of the great English poet Milton, justly celebrated for confining himself at the supper-table to a few olives and a glass of water. Any insolence, any outrage might be expected of them. I therefore skulked.”

“I bet you did.” Richard Poole breathed heavily.

“I was almost at Mr Richard’s elbow when Mr Hiram made the shameful speech.”

“The shameful speech?” For a moment Appleby was at sea.

“About making this dishonest and intemperate young man his heir. Then Mr Hiram drove off, and I hurried to my own car and followed. But he had a good lead and was driving very fast. It was many miles before I overtook him and signalled him to stop. He took no notice. I therefore passed him and edged him almost into the ditch. One sees it done on the movies. He stopped, but I found it very hard to open communication with him. I have an idea that he took me for a person of disreputable character.”

“You must remember it was in the dark.” Richard Poole produced this with obscure but massive irony. “And then?”

“It took what must have been hours – but at length I did contrive to explain to him the imposture to which he had been subjected. He refused to believe it. Finally I persuaded him to drive back to Water Poole. When we arrived, the place was already in darkness. I got out a torch and led him on a tour of inspection. It was then that he began to behave very queerly.”

“What do you mean?” Poole’s voice held real anxiety. “Was he very angry – or upset?”

“He wouldn’t speak. We went over almost the whole place with the aid of a torch he had brought from his car. And he wouldn’t speak a word to me. I thought it most discourteous. There was one particularly striking instance. We had glanced into a small pantry – one from which a staircase runs down to some of the cellars – and it simply reeked of spirits. No doubt it was your disgusting champagne and so on. I drew Mr Hiram’s attention to it as evidence of the depraved society into which his acquaintance with you had brought him. He simply stared at me without uttering a syllable. And then, when we had emerged again into the open air, we parted.”

“Parted?” Appleby was surprised. “In what circumstances?”

Miss Brown hesitated. “He told me to go away.”

Richard Poole laughed again – less harshly this time. “Hiram, you know, had very good taste. When he did speak, he said the sensible thing. He asked you to clear out. And you did?”

“I did.” Miss Brown flushed. “I considered that my good offices had been scorned, and that I had been personally insulted. I got into my car and drove away.”