Appleby's Other Story (20 page)

‘What you insisted on kids doing when you took that stick to them,' Mark said.

‘What on earth are you talking about?'

‘Oh, never mind. Sir John's question is, what has become of Archie now. Have you any notion?'

‘I have, as a matter of fact. About a quarter of an hour ago, I saw him slinking off across the park.'

‘Ah!' Appleby said. ‘Then I will take a walk there myself. And I'll be glad of your company.'

‘Both of us?' Ramsden asked.

‘Yes, if you will be so good. I'm rather tired of tête-à-têtes. I've a notion that a little committee work might advance matters now.'

 

 

But their first encounter was with Mr Voysey. He rose up suddenly before them, like a clerical triton, from amid a green sea of mare's-tails.

‘Ah, good afternoon,' he said, and made a vaguely benignant gesture with what proved to be a pair of field glasses. ‘I think I have just spotted a lesser whitethroat. One frequently hears – does one not? – that flat little rattle from thick cover. But actual observation is another matter. However, I scarcely think I can have been mistaken. There was that small dark patch behind the eye.' Having concluded these ornithological remarks, Voysey appeared to notice Mark Tytherton for the first time. ‘My dear Mark,' he said, ‘I am glad to see you. But I fear you have had a sad welcome home. You will have everybody's sympathy. And we must remember–' The vicar checked himself, apparently judging the moment inapposite for the more formal comforts of religion. ‘Perhaps we may have a talk one day soon.'

‘Perhaps we may. I believe it is through a hole in a little glass window. This is Sir John Appleby–'

‘I have already met Sir John.'

‘–and he is going to put either Ronnie or me in gaol. Or perhaps Archie, unless he opts for Catmull instead. Or you, for that matter.' Having decided to exercise his wit in this acrid way, Mark went at it with a will. ‘Incidentally, I'm not confident you are right about that lesser whitethroat. I even think you may be getting a little hazy about your species. Didn't you mistake me for a badger only last night?'

‘Stop being stupid, Mark.' Ronnie Ramsden said this with the precise degree of authority proper in the captain of a school towards a fellow prefect. ‘And what's this about last night?'

‘I was prowling around. I came into the house. I saw my father and had a row with him. What you might call a terminal row. I thought everybody knew by now. The police do.'

‘I see.' Ramsden said this so quietly that Appleby saw the information had startled him. But their encounter with the vicar appeared to be a mere marking time, and there had been enough of that. So Appleby intervened.

‘We are looking for Archie Tytherton,' he said briskly. ‘He's thought to be walking in the park. You don't happen to have seen him?'

‘Yes, I have. And he was in my mind only a moment ago, when Mark said something about badgers, the sense of which escaped me. Archie has never mentioned the fact to me, but I believe he must be interested in badgers himself.'

‘I'd have expected him to stick to bipeds,' Mark said. ‘But, of course, one never knows.'

‘Restrain yourself,' Mr Voysey said, with sudden and surprising severity. ‘You are in the company of two people much older than yourself.'

‘Sorry, padre.' Mark Tytherton – Appleby had remarked before – did quite well when rebuked. ‘Tell us about Archie.'

‘Only seconds before you came up with me, I happened to turn my glasses on the spinney in Low Coomb. You know there are several setts there?'

‘Of course.' Mark was impatient. ‘They've been there for hundreds of years. The whole coomb is a maze of the things. I knew it very well when I was a kid.'

‘Quite so. And you can see something of the nearest sett with the naked eye now. Archie Tytherton was examining it closely.'

‘Archie was turning to natural history?' Ramsden was sharply incredulous. ‘And this afternoon, when he's in a blue funk?'

‘I could not possibly be mistaken. I trained these binoculars on him. He was on his hands and knees, peering down into the sett. And this was not ten minutes ago.'

‘Then he must be in the spinney, or on the path leading from it, now.' Ramsden turned to Appleby. ‘Shall we walk across to it?'

‘Certainly.' And with no more than a gesture to the vicar, Appleby stepped out at once. ‘Do you know,' he said to Mark, ‘that I believe your cousin is going to have the small distinction of satisfying what may be pretty well my last curiosity in this affair?'

‘So much the better.' It was observable that a certain confidence, hitherto lacking, had come to Mark Tytherton. ‘You clear up the mystery of my father's death, and I'll turn a stiff spot of spit-and-polish on Elvedon in general.' He turned cheerfully to Ramsden. ‘What you bloody well did at school,' he said. ‘My turn now.'

 

In a couple of minutes Archie Tytherton had come into view. He had very little the appearance of one at ease amid the beautiful and permanent forms of nature. He was scurrying along in the manner of something that has been disturbed under a stone.

‘Like one,' Appleby said, ‘that on a lonesome road doth walk in fear and dread.'

‘Precisely.' Ramsden laughed softly. ‘Because he knows a frightful fiend doth close behind him tread.'

‘It's no sight to prompt poetical effusion.' Mark seemed to offer this reproof seriously. ‘The poor chap's funk is bluer still. As blue as a baboon's behind. And you won't find
that
in
The Ancient
Mariner
… He's spotted us. I think he's going to bolt.'

This, however, didn't happen – perhaps for no better reason than that there was nowhere very useful to bolt to. Although in a wavering fashion, Archie came on. And he halted when he had to, which was when Appleby and the two young men barred his way. There was a moment's unkind silence.

‘Oh, hullo,' Archie said in a surprised tone, as if it were only in this instant that he had noticed them.

‘Oh, hullo, you squalid little brute,' Mark said with a plunge into his most juvenile manner. ‘This is Sir John Appleby. He hoped for a word with you while you munched your bun in the tea-break. But you bolted for the wide open spaces. And apparently to muck in with the badgers.'

‘The badgers?' For a moment Archie was blank. ‘Oh, yes. I've been reading a book about them.'

‘Whose book?'

‘How should I know? It's a green book, but with a kind of yellow-green cover.'

‘You shocking little–'

‘Perhaps,' Appleby interrupted, ‘I may have my word with Mr Tytherton now? Mr Tytherton, you have in fact just been observing the habits of these interesting creatures in what is called, I believe, Low Coomb?'

‘I don't see how you can–'

‘Old Voysey,' Mark said, ‘with a pair of field glasses. I-God-see-you kind of thing.'

‘Mark, please be quiet.' Appleby had raised a mildly restraining hand. ‘Do I understand, Mr Tytherton, that your reading in the green book has prompted you to believe that badgers are to be seen gambolling around in daylight?'

‘Must be fair,' Mark said. ‘Does sometimes happen. But it's damned uncommon.'

‘Shut up, Mark.' Ramsden's easy authority was suddenly tinged with annoyance, or something more. ‘You're too bloody fond of the sound of your own voice. Save it up. It will sound splendid in a deserted Elvedon.'

‘Will you two gentlemen,' Appleby said, ‘be good enough to let me continue my conversation with Mr Tytherton? Perhaps, Mr Tytherton, on this occasion your interest was simply in the appearance of the setts?'

‘The setts? Oh, yes – of course. That was it. Pad marks and dung pits. And they put out their bedding to air.'

‘And all these interesting appearances are on view in Low Coomb?'

‘Oh, yes.' Archie Tytherton nodded vigorously. ‘Everything the book says.'

‘Perhaps you won't mind turning back and showing me. I am myself a keen naturalist. And I believe that both your cousin and Mr Ramsden will find a good deal of curiosity in what we are going to see.'

‘I really don't think–'

‘March, Archie.' Mark Tytherton was peremptory. ‘Or
be
marched. Which won't be comfortable.'

Thus under threat of outrageous compulsion, Archie looked despairingly around him. He was a plump and flabby youth, somewhat undersized, and neither in physique nor by temperament likely to put up a good show. Appleby, who would have been indisposed to lend countenance to violence, hoped that intimidation (equally reprehensible, but less easy to prove before a magistrate) would suffice. And it did. Archie turned round and moved off reluctantly in his former tracks.

‘Round this side,' Archie said.

‘I think not, Mr Tytherton. Your recollection is at fault – for here are your footprints in the grass. Your cousin, who was certainly a Boy Scout in his time, will support me.'

‘Quite right,' Mark said. ‘We go this way. But I wasn't a Scout for very long. They poured water down my sleeve for no better reason than that I called them bloody little bastards. So I quit.'

‘But it
isn't
that way! I came
this
way – and over to
that
sett.' Archie had halted with the stubbornness of despair. ‘And I
won't
be marched.'

‘Mr Tytherton, perhaps we have had enough of this nonsense.' Appleby was walking on. ‘If we don't find what we are looking for now, I can have this whole coomb dug up by noon tomorrow. The badgers won't be pleased – nor the police either. So have some sense.'

‘I don't know what–'

‘Mr Tytherton, try the truth. It's what I go round Elvedon recommending. It can be very liberating, the truth. Literally so. Have a stab at it, and it's conceivable you'll have a chance of staying out of gaol. I don't put it higher than that. Just a chance.'

‘All right, all right,' Archie said. ‘I only took them because I wanted to give them to Mark. Everybody knows they belong to him.'

‘What the devil are you talking about, you little rat?' Mark had seized his cousin, not amicably, by the collar.

‘You let go!' Archie produced this as a squeal. ‘If you assault me, you filthy great oaf, Sir John What's-His-Name will have to be a witness.'

‘It's a colourable reason for having taken them,' Appleby said. ‘But what then?'

‘I suppose I got a bit scared.'

‘A bit scared!' Mark was contemptuous. ‘Why, you've been sweating your bags off, you poor sot, all day. Your nerve would crumble, if you'd pinched a bag of sweets from a four-year-old.'

‘Mark, keep your reading of character for another occasion.' Appleby turned to Archie. ‘Fish them out, please – from whichever of these holes you've hidden them in.'

This part of the coomb bore an odd resemblance, on a Lilliputian scale, to a derelict industrial landscape. Everywhere spreading deposits of earth, part-overgrown, with nettles and elders, suggested extensive mining operations for the most part abandoned long ago. It would have been possible to count at least a dozen major entrances to what were doubtless the commodious, if often untenanted, mansions within. A large rabbit warren could not have been a more suitable place for what had been Archie Tytherton's purpose; and what he had hidden, it might have taken much digging to reveal. But Archie had knelt down, and thrust his arm into a cavity. He straightened up, and shoved a small, untidily wrapped parcel into Appleby's hands.

‘There you damned well are,' he cried – with a sudden viciousness momentarily overcoming his terror. ‘And much good may they do anyone.'

‘Thank you.' Appleby undid the parcel and opened the jewel case. ‘
Une parure de diamants
,' he said, snapped the case shut again, and handed it to Mark Tytherton. ‘I don't recommend ever attaching massive sentimental associations to such things. It only leads to trouble – as I think your recent experience must constrain you to agree. Mr Ramsden, have you anything useful to say about this?'

‘Nothing whatever.' Ramsden had started upon being addressed. He was staring at Archie fixedly. ‘You ought to be prosecuted and sent to prison,' he said coldly. ‘But I suppose the very circumstance that makes your theft most disgusting – its being a family affair – will save your beastly skin. Mark won't prosecute.'

‘That is not quite the position.' Appleby was grim. ‘It's for the police to decide whether to prosecute this young man. And, if they do, it will take a hazardous amount of perjury on Mark's part to get him off. However, that's for the future. At the moment, I think Mr Tytherton has a certain amount to tell me. So we'll say that the committee now breaks up. I'll walk back to the house with him, and leave you two to have your own amicable chat.'

‘We're not enemies,' Ramsden said easily. ‘Or are we, Mark?'

‘We're old acquaintances.' Mark turned abruptly to Appleby. ‘I hope,' he said with an odd formality, ‘you'll dine at Elvedon?'

‘Thank you, but no. I must go home to Dream.'

‘To dream, sir?' Mark was perplexed.

‘A house called Long Dream. It's where I live.'

 

 

‘The Chief Constable was most apologetic,' Inspector Henderson was saying to Appleby half an hour later. ‘He thought it uncivil to go off without a word to you. Particularly as he can't get back. An impromptu royal visit somewhere – and he works it all out himself. A very conscientious man, Colonel Pride.' Henderson opened the door of his car. ‘I thought that, if you'd let me drive you home myself, we might have a kind of conference on the way.'

‘We can certainly have a conference. But I'm not going home, as a matter of fact. So draw up just on the other side of that imposing bridge.'