Death at the Chase (18 page)

‘They’re all quite mad, one way or another. Take the scheme that Giles latched on to – the present of wine, and all that. Amusing to suggest to a chap, and egg him on to. But crazy to act out, so to speak.’

‘But wasn’t it Giles’ impression that it had worked?’

‘Yes – but that was just the more fool Giles, once again. The old man was laughing at him.’

‘And then
this
happened – what we are facing now. But what you, Finn, are facing – just at this moment – is Ambrose. Ambrose Ashmore
chez lui
. And this must be the drive.’

‘May I have fuller instructions, please?’

Finn said this as he prepared to get out of the car. Appleby, instead of turning up the drive of Abbot’s Yatter, had gone on for a hundred yards and parked unobtrusively behind a high hedge.

‘Very well. Listen.’ Appleby talked rapidly for a couple of minutes. ‘Now, hand me that revolver,’ he said. He slipped the weapon into a pocket, and watched Finn move off, not very briskly, in the direction of Ambrose Ashmore’s lair. ‘Don’t forget about the field path,’ he called after him. Finn, without turning round, gave a perfunctory wave. Appleby watched him go, and then fished out an Ordnance Survey map. The new series, he recalled, had paths where there was an uncontested right-of-way printed in red. This made the present operation less chancy. He wasn’t sure that he didn’t feel a certain compunction about Finn. It wouldn’t be pleasant to look back and realize that he had treated the young man as expendable. But that was an over-dramatic view of the situation. Indeed, there probably
wasn’t
a situation – not here at Abbot’s Yatter. It was a long time since he had moved so extravagantly on a mere hunch. He fell to studying the map with care.

Finn walked up the drive. Or rather he strolled up the drive, since he remembered that he was on an undirected rural ramble. He paused to stare with a kind of ignorant interest at some cows, moved on, rounded a bend, and had his goal before him. Abbot’s Yatter, despite the ancient suggestion of its name, was a modern brick house of the incongruously suburban sort that is sometimes pitched down in the middle of an unoffending countryside. Its perpetrator had perhaps been ashamed of it, for it now stood amid a huddle of hastily grown Austrian pines. These gave it a furtive look, as if it were hoping to escape observation altogether. Perhaps the place was ashamed of not appearing more prosperous than it did. The woodwork stood in need of a coat of paint. The garden, which was large, hinted various adaptations and make-shift arrangements to reduce the need of labour. There was no sign of life.

The front door was defended by an ecclesiastical-looking porch and a variety of repellent objects for scraping boots on. There was a twisty wrought iron bell-pull, and Finn gave a tug at it. Somewhere in the depths of the house this produced an effect as of many tin cans being kicked around a large void space. It also prompted several dogs to yap, bark, or growl. Presently the door opened upon an elderly woman dressed in black. What they call an upper servant, Finn thought. He peered past her into a large gloomy hall. It had shiny tiles, with here and there some unfortunate animal flattened out in order to make a rug. There was an enormous black bear on its hind legs and still in the round; it looked so extremely ferocious that one was surprised to observe it politely holding out a brass salver – no doubt in the expectation of a shower of visiting-cards. There was a bit of an elephant – in fact a leg amputated at the knee, if elephants have knees – for people to put umbrellas or fishing-rods in. Finn had no doubt that more leisured scrutiny would reveal further objects of equal cheer. But this was not allowed.

‘Well?’ the woman in black said.

‘Oh, good morning.’ (Finn doubted whether the best upper servants say ‘Well?’ just like that.) ‘Is Mr Giles at home?’

‘Giles? There’s no Mr Giles here.’

‘I asked whether Mr Giles is at home.’ Remembering his instructions, Finn bellowed this as if he had every reason to suppose the woman deaf. ‘Mr Giles Ashmore. I’m a friend of his.’

‘You very well may be. But you’ve come to the wrong house.’

‘The wrong house?’ Finn shouted. ‘This is King’s Yatter, isn’t it?’

‘Nothing of the sort.’

‘But I was
told
it was King’s Yatter.’

‘This is Abbot’s Yatter, the residence of Mr Ambrose Ashmore.’

‘Is he at home? Can I see him? I’m sure there must be a mistake. About my friend Giles.’ As Finn said this – he had to take deep breaths between sentences in order to keep up what he judged to be an adequate racket – he became aware of a shaft of light at the back of the hideous hall. Somebody had opened a door. Finn took a step backwards into sunlight, and looked first this way and then that. It was essential that he should be clearly identifiable. ‘You see, I was told that Giles lives at King’s Yatter.’

‘So he does. And I tell you this is Abbot’s Yatter. Haven’t you got ears to your head?’

‘Then I’ve made a mistake?’ Finn stared at the woman in a manner so exaggeratedly imbecile that she took a step backward in her turn.

‘You want King’s Yatter,’ the woman said. ‘The residence of Mr Ashmore’s brother, and no doubt of Mr Giles Ashmore as well. Good morning.’

‘But will you please tell me how to get there? I don’t know this part of the world at all. Is there a nice field path to King’s Yatter? I don’t often get into the country. So, when I do, I try–’

‘I know nothing about field paths. Go back to the road, and turn right, and watch the sign-posts.’

‘I’d much rather ramble through the fields.’ Finn fancied he heard a man’s voice say something from the back of the hall. ‘I wonder whether Mr Ashmore –
your
Mr Ashmore – could help me? May I see him, please?’

‘Just wait here,’ the woman in black said ungraciously, and shut the front door in Finn’s face. She had certainly received some more or less covert summons from her employer. And after a couple of minutes she opened the door again. ‘Mr Ashmore is engaged,’ she said. ‘But I’m to give you a message. Go round to the back of the house, and through the white gate. Cross the field and take the path through the wood. It’s about two miles to King’s Yatter.’

‘Thank you very much.’ Finn fancied he heard, somewhere at the side of the house, the engine of a car start into life. He turned away from the front door – it was already closed again – and made his way in the direction of the sound. Whatever the vehicle was, it had vanished. He went on to the back of the house, and through a yard. There, sure enough, was a white gate, and beyond it a faint track going diagonally across a field. Finn followed the directions he had been given.

The October day was now filled with bright sunshine. It had the odd effect of turning the grass – which everyone knows to be permanently green – to primrose colour. Finn found this quite pleasant; it was like looking at a decent Impressionist painting. But there was a striking contrast when he reached the wood. He wasn’t fifty yards into it when he saw that it was a nasty sort of place. He couldn’t name the trees, but they were very close together, and went up a very long way, and at the top were so abundant in leaves or something that very little light came through. It was very quiet. Finn couldn’t hear his own footsteps, because of some soft sort of carpeting he was walking on. But every now and then a twig snapped in the middle distance – just as in a novel when the author wants to turn on a spot of suspense.

A spot of suspense, as a matter of fact,
had
been turned on. Finn felt it as something doing things with his spine. He wasn’t in the least unaware of what this rural ramble was in aid of, and he felt that he ought to be cursing Bobby Appleby’s father roundly; either that, or simply turning round and walking out of this whole Ashmore business altogether. Not that that might be entirely wise. It was conceivably what Giles had done – and perhaps it was the way to get yourself tapped on the shoulder by a policeman. He had better go on. It was rather fun, as a matter of fact. Perhaps his heart was feeling it to be rather fun. Perhaps that was why it was bumping inside his chest.

He wished he hadn’t formed that suspicion about Bobby’s father being a bit past it. One wants, in a spot like this, to be pretty sure –

Finn found that he had come to a halt. It wasn’t because he had heard anything, or because anything had moved. For nearly half a mile the trees had been pressing close around him, for his path barely had an independent existence in their midst. But now, only a dozen yards ahead, he was going to pass through a glade. He believed that was the word for it: an oval clearing perhaps just large enough to contain a tennis-court. Finn wondered why he had thought of tennis-court, which was something nobody would think to plank down in a god-forsaken spot like this. The path made a distinguishable track across the glade – following its narrower axis: where the net would be, you might say. There was no need, of course, to follow it exactly. Indeed, there was no need to enter the glade at all. It would be perfectly sensible to skirt it, keeping among the trees. More shady, for instance. Cooler. Finn took a deep breath, and walked straight ahead.

This proved to be a good thing, because it was all over in an instant. First there was an angry shout, and then a very loud report, and in the same instant as that a curiously ugly tearing sound high up in the trees ahead of him. Then he heard the voice of Bobby’s father saying – very calmly – ‘Put it down, I’m armed.’ There was a moment’s silence, in which Finn could just hear the sound of heavy breathing. Then Appleby spoke again. ‘This way, Finn. There’s an acquaintance of yours here.’

Finn looked from Appleby’s prisoner – and as he did so his hand went instinctively to his jaw. It was true that there was no bruise. But it still ached. And here was the chap who had punched it. This time, he hadn’t judged a fist adequate to the job on hand. On the ground near where he stood there lay a sporting rifle. Appleby had a foot on it.

‘Your ferocious friend, I think?’ Appleby said.

‘Absolutely. Not a doubt about it.’

‘And not a doubt that he is Mr Ambrose Ashmore – who reads detective stories, and knows that one must obliterate fingerprints. He may even know that it is worth taking a very stiff risk indeed to liquidate a fatally damaging witness.’

‘Me?’ Finn said. Although he had so clearly known himself not to be in the dark about what he had just been put through, he noticed that it was now his stomach rather than his spine that something was happening to.

‘Demonstrably, my dear Finn.’

‘I have the hang of it, sir. At least, I think I have. But how did you know?’

‘I can’t be said to have known. It would be quite wildly the wrong word. But I had a notion.
For a moment, I had a queer impression it was Giles.’

‘What?’

‘You remember saying that? Mr Ambrose Ashmore here is about three times his nephew’s age. Still, family likenesses sometimes do flash out. So I told myself that the fellow who knocked you out might well have been an Ashmore. I don’t know much about the tribe – although my wife has a good deal to tell about them. But I do happen to know that our friend here’ – and Appleby nodded towards the silent and glowering Ambrose – ‘may be described as the ferocious one. That, again, was your word for the chap who took a smack at you.’

‘Just how ferocious?’ Finn asked.

‘A very good question, Finn. Answering it accurately may take us quite a long way. At least he has a violent temper: horse-whips his garden-boy and pitches his wife’s
chef
through a window. That sort of thing. It struck me that, if it was he last night, he might already be regretting that he hadn’t been a little more definitively – I think we may put it that way – violent when you found him emerging from the Chase–’

‘Emerging? Definitely that?’

‘No, Finn; it’s only a hypothesis. I’m just telling you – and our friend here – how my mind worked. Or what’s left of my mind… My dear lad, have I embarrassed you?’

‘Of course not,’ Finn said. And he added desperately: ‘I don’t know what you mean.’

‘Let us stick to hypotheses. Mr Ashmore – this Mr Ashmore – is suddenly confronted last night by a total stranger. This happens when he is in an awkward situation. We needn’t pause over the degree of awkwardness. Various terms will have to be considered’ – Appleby glanced again at Ambrose Ashmore – ‘such as “compromising” and “incriminating”. But we may leave that aside. The point is that, in this admittedly difficult moment of time, he miscalculates. He decides that a sock on the jaw will do. He neglects the fact that the stranger he knocks out in this way may bob up again – next day, next week, next year – and confront him. How will he react, if and when this confrontation takes place? I think it may be said that we’ve been devoting part of the morning to find out.’ Appleby smiled. ‘But please don’t feel, Finn, that you’ve been in all that physical danger. Of course my mental processes are becoming very slow. But simple physical action – say, throwing up a man’s rifle in a split instant of time – is still quite reasonably within my command. It comes of a tolerably sober life. And now I think we’ll return to the Chase. All three of us.’

‘Yes, of course.’ Finn was staring at Ambrose Ashmore as if fascinated by a snake. ‘Sir,’ he said, ‘does all this mean that this man had just killed his brother? It’s something there’s a word for, isn’t there?’

‘Fratricide, Finn. But I don’t think I want to answer your question.’ Appleby paused, and looked at the young man sombrely. ‘We mustn’t run too far ahead, you know.’

‘Isn’t that Ambrose Ashmore in your car?’ Colonel Pride asked. ‘And with the young fellow called Finn?’

‘That’s right.’ Once more, Appleby looked round the room in which Martyn Ashmore had died. ‘It’s the ferocious Ambrose. And Finn is guarding him.’

‘Ferocious? Well, he’s known to have the devil of a temper. But why should Finn be guarding him? Why should he put up with such a thing?’

‘Finn is guarding him because he’s on our murder-list. And he’s putting up with it because he’s scared. Not that he is without what may be called a truculent story. He took a gun out this morning over some land where he has shooting rights. And I jumped on him with a revolver, accused him of trying to kill Finn, and have brought him to the Chase by a wholly illegal use of force.’