Appleby's Answer (14 page)

‘We must discuss it all with Arthur,' Judith said hastily but firmly, ‘and let you know.'

 

 

‘Thirty years of chequered connubial experience,' Judith said from the driving-seat of the car, ‘and I discover myself to be married to a clown.'

‘Very true. But just move round the first bend of the drive, and stop. I think we'll take a stroll in the grounds.'

‘I'd have thought that
nequid nimis
applied.' Judith set the car in motion, and carried out her husband's tiresome instructions. ‘John, the only excuse you could possibly advance for poking around in the peculiar life of this locality is a lively persuasion that something really sinister is blowing up. And that's surely nonsense. Unless Bulkington is an inspired actor, he's the next thing to a harmless lunatic.'

‘Harmless?'

‘Harmless so far as any kind of plot or machination is concerned. His deceptions are so childish that nobody could possibly be taken in by them.'

‘That is certainly the impression he has – well, offered us. And offered us, as they say, very much on a plate. But who knows? Certainly not you or I. More facts are required. Let's get out and walk.'

They got out and walked. ‘Kandahar' owned a large, rambling, and extremely neglected garden, full of tall untrimmed hedges and hypertrophied shrubs. It appeared long since to have been abandoned by anything higher in the scale of creation than snails and slugs. At almost every step on the overgrown paths, indeed, an invisible snail crunched gruesomely under their feet. Although the house itself made up in height for what it lacked in any other form of imposingness, they were quite invisible from it as they moved around.

‘Wouldn't you say,' Appleby asked mildly, ‘that the learned and gallant Captain really wants Arthur?'

‘The answer to that one is your own: it was the impression he offered us.' Judith paused to brush a cobweb from her face. ‘What about trying it out?'

‘Trying it out?'

‘Coming back in a day or two, and bringing Arthur with us.'

‘My dear Judith, you forget. You have a number of grown-up children, and if you like I'll run over their names. But young Arthur isn't among them. To put the thing brutally, Arthur Appleby doesn't exist.'

‘Oh, but we could borrow him! A young man or boy, I mean. Or hire one. From a drama school, perhaps. Then we could see whether our military friend was merely disconcerted.'

‘That's very true.' Appleby had to speak as one impressed by his wife's resource. ‘The cramming establishment is distinctly in a vestigial state. Perhaps it really is a cover for something else. Perhaps Messrs Waterbird and Jenkins are not genuine pupils at all, but skilled accomplices in organised crime.'

‘I did have a sense that they were oddly under Bulkington's thumb. It seemed natural enough in Jenkins' case, because he has the air of a pretty dim youth. But Waterbird struck me as potentially truculent and tough.'

‘Don't forget that Bulkington discusses not merely the techniques of murder during railway journeys. He discusses the techniques of blackmail as well.'

‘I didn't gather that to be at all certain. It depends on whether, at that dinner, it was about the identical person that you were told two distinct stories.'

‘Perfectly true. Call it, however, what is termed in my trade a working hypothesis. Then perhaps Bulkington has developed a quiet pressurising line on his young charges. Involved them in something mum and dad wouldn't care to hear about: that kind of thing.'

‘What a squalid notion!'

‘Much in life
is
squalid, my dear girl. I've looked into the question rather thoroughly, and I know.'

‘Are you looking into
this
thoroughly – or just idling away an afternoon?'

‘Ah!' Appleby found this change of front on his wife's part momentarily disconcerting. ‘I admit that most of the work is yet to do. And don't forget that, for the time being, the principal character is off-stage.'

‘The Pringle woman? You'd better ask her to lunch at your club. She'd be thrilled. Indeed, she'd twitter.'

‘It's an idea. Incidentally, have you ever read one of her books?'

‘Of course not. But, as soon as we are home, I can get you some from the county library.'

‘Do you reckon people make much money out of writing such things?'

‘I'd hardly suppose so. A modest competence, perhaps, for so long as one keeps heroically scribbling.'

‘Poor souls!' This compassionate ejaculation was offered by Appleby sombrely to the heavens. ‘I suppose they are buoyed up by the notion of one day writing a best-seller.'

‘We're all buoyed up by something,' Judith said. ‘Otherwise, where should we be?'

This mature reflection produced a full minute's perambulation in silence. They paused to survey an abandoned tennis court, abundant in hemlock and thistle. A lean cat made a sudden appearance from out the undergrowth, and now slunk past; the effect in this solitude was much as if a lion had gone surly by.

‘We'll move back towards the house,' Appleby said. ‘But, this time, round towards the back. I wonder whether Bulkington is really on from bad to lethal terms with the Pinkertons?'

‘He spoke disobligingly about Lady Pinkerton.'

‘It was rather that he recorded her as speaking disobligingly about him. Something about Borstal boys. Perhaps Waterbird and Jenkins
are
Borstal boys, being academically rehabilitated. Or perhaps Bulkington himself is a Borstal boy. Seriously, though, I'd be interested in knowing about his record.'

‘Crooks have records. Commissioned officers have careers.'

‘True – but at times mildly odd ones. Hullo! We are no longer alone.'

 

They had advanced to the edge of an irregular open space, here and there uncertainly paved, which had some appearance of once having been surrounded by stabling or domestic offices. Here, perhaps, was the site of a parson's house a good deal older than that Old Rectory now known as ‘Kandahar'. And this suggestion of an ecclesiastical provenance was at the moment reinforced by the presence of an ecclesiastical person. Perched on a low circular stone wall, which at once revealed itself as a well-head, was a clergyman: lean, dark, and in only the earliest middle-age. His ascetic appearance was enhanced through his being habited in a long and close-fitting cassock. He had a book in his hands, but was studying not this but the Applebys.

‘The local padre,' Appleby murmured. ‘He must be waiting his turn for Waterbird and Jenkins – to provide religious instruction as an extra but at a very high level indeed.'

‘Walk on,' Judith said. ‘We can't very decently shy away.'

‘Not unless we pretend to be alarmed by the goat.'

This was, in fact, a possibility. For a billy-goat had suddenly appeared on the scene – from where, was not apparent – and planted itself more or less directly in their path. It possessed formidable-looking horns, a singularly wicked yellow eye, and every sign of active belligerency.

‘A cross-grained brute,' the clergyman called out encouragingly. ‘Its temper is notorious. It ought to be tied up. But you may just be all right if you walk boldly past it.'

Not without natural misgiving, the Applebys responded to this challenge. The goat lowered its head and tensed itself. Then, quite inconsequently, it turned and browsed. The clergyman, meanwhile, had risen to greet them. He gave some hint of politely dissimulating amusement.

‘Good afternoon,' he said. ‘It looks as if I must thank you for taking on some part of my own duties. I happened to notice you driving away from the house of one of my parishioners, Miss Anketel. And now here you are, benevolently weighing in with the pastoral care of another. As the incumbent here, perhaps I may venture to introduce myself. My name is Henry Howard. And what, Lady Appleby, do you make of the worthy Captain and his select academy?'

It took Lady Appleby, thus addressed, a moment to realise that it was precisely the being thus addressed that had surprised her. Whereupon she intimated to the rector of Long Canings that she supposed they must have met on a previous occasion.

‘No, indeed. I fear not. It is simply that I have an excellent memory for press photographs. Moreover, I have heard a good deal about Sir John from time to time.'

‘How do you do?' Appleby said. This was as civil a rejoinder as he could think up.

‘Then perhaps you are aware,' Judith asked, ‘that my husband is a notorious practical joker?'

‘I can't say that I have.' Dr Howard showed no surprise at this odd question. ‘But possibly such proclivities don't readily get into the public prints. Is he, by any chance, up to a practical joke now? Has he untethered that abominable goat, for instance? I should be delighted to hear about anything of the kind. And most faithfully promise not to give him away.'

‘Then I'll tell you. John has been pretending to Captain Bulkington that we have a backward son called Arthur, whom we think of sending to “Kandahar”. And on the strength of that we have been going round the place.'

‘I see.' It rather looked as if the rector did see; and it would certainly have been obtuse to rate him as other than extremely shrewd. He turned to Appleby. ‘And you wouldn't care, Sir John, to be found out?'

‘On the whole, no.' Although conscious of the absurdity of this encounter, Appleby remained serious. ‘Just at present, I wouldn't care to have Captain Bulkington upset or disturbed.'

‘Or alerted?' Dr Howard didn't wait for a reply to this. ‘Well, well!' he said. ‘But it is true that curious things happen in these parts from time to time. I come to this precise spot periodically, as it happens, simply to meditate on one of them. But, Lady Appleby, won't you sit down?' He pointed towards the well-head. ‘The stone is quite pleasantly warm. Be a little careful, however. The well is quite unguarded, as you see. Which is curious, considering its history.'

‘It looks alarmingly deep.' Judith had peered over the edge. ‘But that's no reason why one shouldn't perch.'

And at this, Judith perched. So did Dr Howard; he seemed a man not unwilling to display an exact command of informal manners. Appleby, declining to make a third in the row, remained on his feet, glancing from one to the other of them.

‘Could you tell us,' Judith asked, ‘just what is the curious thing you come here to meditate about?'

‘By all means. It is simply the sad and sudden end of my predecessor in this parish. He fell down the well and was drowned. At least, I suppose he was drowned, poor fellow.' Dr Howard arranged his cassock more comfortably over his knees. ‘So it seems proper that I should sometimes come here and reflect on his fate.'

‘I suppose it can be called curious,' Appleby said. ‘It isn't really easy to fall down a well. Might it be called sinister into the bargain?'

‘Assuredly – although not by me. Gossip, I believe, had it all sorts of ways. But there is no shred of evidence that the unfortunate man met with other than simple misadventure. Indeed, “curious” would be too strong a word, but for one small circumstance. My predecessor's name, my dear Sir John. A name with a good Anglican background to it. He was a Dr Pusey.'

‘Pusey?' Appleby repeated, rather blankly.

‘Yes, indeed. “Ding, dong, dell – Pusey's in the well.” Once one has thought of it, it is a jingle not easy to get out of one's head.'

 

 

This macabre joke appeared to interest rather than amuse Sir John Appleby. Indeed, he looked so consideringly at the speaker as plainly to occasion that self-possessed cleric a certain discomfiture.

‘I am afraid, Sir John, that you judge me to have spoken too lightly of my predecessor's untoward end. I apologise.'

‘Nothing of the kind. I am merely wondering whether you have been quite frank with me.'

‘Frank with you?' Howard stiffened. ‘One is not on oath, I think, when in casual conversation with a stranger.'

‘Certainly not – and I have expressed myself badly. Let me simply say I record an impression of reticence most agreeably dissimulated. I suppose they got the poor chap's body out?'

‘Good heavens, yes!' The rector was shocked. ‘And he received Christian burial.'

‘Is it possible that an earlier age might have denied him that?'

‘You are asking me whether I think Pusey committed suicide. I have already said–'

‘Yes, I know. Only – you will forgive me – I fancied I detected you, Dr Howard, to be rather deliberately choosing your words. “No shred of evidence”, I think you said. And I had just remarked that it isn't easy to fall down a well. Is it quite certain that there is nothing – shall one say, to wonder about?'

‘May I ask a question myself before we go on?'

‘By all means. My wife probably thinks you are entitled to ask several.'

‘Then here goes. Have you come to Long Canings – and achieved your decidedly odd interview with Bulkington – in some professional capacity?'

‘Nothing of the kind – although professional curiosity is certainly at work in me. Call it a trick of the old rage.'

‘I see.' Dr Howard looked thoughtfully at the Applebys – as he well might do. ‘Then let me tell you a little more about Pusey's death. He had the habit of perching here just as your wife and I are perching now. And of reading his book, much as I was doing a few minutes ago. It wouldn't have been in the least dangerous – but for one thing. It appears he went in for giddy spells. It was some progressive trouble, I have been told. Towards the end of his life he even had one or two fainting fits.' Dr Howard looked steadily at Appleby. ‘Perhaps that disposes of the matter?'

‘Perhaps it does.' For the first time since involving himself in the absurd affairs of Long Canings and Gibber Porcorum, Appleby looked thoroughly sombre. ‘I suppose your own knowledge of the circumstances is necessarily at second hand? It was before you had any acquaintance with this part of the world?'