The Daffodil Affair (2 page)

‘No, sir.’

The Assistant-Commissioner appeared dashed. ‘Look here,’ he said, ‘I know it sounds tiresome. But just you listen. There’s a quirk in it later on.’

Appleby, who quite liked this old gentleman, endeavoured to smile with cheerful interest. ‘I suppose, sir, it is Daffodil who has disappeared?’

‘Quite right. At first my sister was told the animal was dead. She was distressed, because the creature was a favourite, and not at all an old horse.’ The Assistant-Commissioner hesitated. ‘In fact, she felt rather like the poet.’

Appleby smiled – genuinely this time. ‘Quite so, sir. Fair Daffodil, we weep to see you haste away so soon.’

The Assistant-Commissioner nodded his head emphatically, much pleased with the success of his cultural reconnaissance. ‘Exactly. Exactly – my dear man. At first, then, they said the horse was dead – apparently feeling that the mention of anything shady would be bad for trade. Now, my sister is inquisitive – or what a politer age used to call a person of much observation. She sent for Bodfish, intending to learn the manner of the brute’s death. Bodfish came to see her – and I am sorry to say he was drunk. It had taken him that way. Caroline at once made Maidment – Miss Maidment, I should say – ring up the stables for a closed cab, a respectable driver and a quiet horse. She then drove Bodfish home, gave Mrs Bodfish a receipt for brewing cocoa in a particularly wholesome and attractive manner, and went on to make searching inquiries of Daffodil’s owner. When she learnt that the animal had been stolen she – well, she sent me a somewhat urgent telegram. Scotland Yard, apparently, came at once to her mind. Natural, having a brother there – I suppose.’

‘Very natural, sir.’

‘Of course I replied that the local police were the people. So, if you please, she went to see the Chief Constable, taking her solicitor along with her. Seemingly nothing much had been done in the matter of Daffodil. And the Chief Constable, who had hard-worked officers to protect, was pretty stiff with Caroline. Not at first: I gather he tried heading her off by explaining some of the jobs he had on hand, and letting her in on a harmless wartime secret or two. But Caroline, who is even more specifically pertinacious than generally curious, held to her theme. It was
aut asphodelos
aut nullus
with her. I believe her motive was quite selfish and practical: Daffodil was the only horse in Harrogate in which she really had confidence, and she was consequently determined that Daffodil should be traced. Too determined, I gather, for in the end the Chief Constable had pretty well to turn her out. So she went home, thought it over, dictated a stately letter of apology through Miss Maidment – and was thus in a position to present herself without absolute indecency on the poor chap’s doorstep once more on the following afternoon. He was a bit baffled.’

‘As one would imagine, sir.’

‘Quite so. And I think he tried a spot of irony – suggested Scotland Yard. Caroline explained that she was already in communication with me. I fear he rather crumpled up, and really did – er – pass the buck. In short – well, it is difficult, you know.’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘My sister lives in the most modest way. As peers go we’re nobody in particular, as you know.’ The old gentleman smiled charmingly. ‘But then she is the widow–’

‘Quite so, sir.’

‘Which means that among her brothers-in-law–’

‘Clearly, sir. You would like me to go down?’

The Assistant-Commissioner sighed unhappily. ‘It
is
difficult, isn’t it? And, you know, you look a bit tired.’ This was outrageous, but true. ‘And you can’t always be after those whopping big affairs. A man who manages in a twelve-month to fight a battle on a Scottish moor, and get wrecked on a desert island, and–’

‘Of course I’ll go if you wish it, sir.’

‘Just for a weekend it’s a nice quiet place enough.’ The Assistant-Commissioner, here touching perhaps maximum discomfort, thrust his toes despairingly out of sight beneath his desk and looked at Appleby in frank dismay. ‘You might even
find
the horse, I suppose.’ He shook his head perplexedly. ‘Caroline would be pleased – but then would it be tactful to the local men?’ He smiled wanly. ‘I leave the finding of Daffodil entirely to your discretion. The creature is said to be worth fifteen pounds. And that reminds me.’

‘Of the quirk, sir?’

‘Just that.’ The Assistant-Commissioner brightened. ‘It really is a bit remarkable. Like those tiny but disconcerting puzzles they used to take to Sherlock Holmes. In fact there’s really a mystery in the Daffodil affair – and mysteries don’t turn up here every day, do they? Oceans of crime in islets of anything like genuine mystification.’ He paused, obscurely troubled by something in this image. ‘The place is what is called a livery stables. Means just a business you hire from. But there’s the older meaning of a place you put your own horses to board. And somebody was doing that. Captain Somebody who has to do with tanks down there but likes to get on a horse from time to time. In a loose box next to Daffodil he had an animal that was worth hundreds of pounds. And this brute was stolen
first
.’

Appleby looked up sharply. ‘You don’t mean that–?’

‘Yes. This whopping valuable brute was stolen in the night. In the morning there was a great rumpus, and nobody much bothered about Daffodil or the stable any more. Anything of the sort would have been like locking–’

‘Quite so, sir.’

‘And then in the course of the day up drove one of those motor things for horses, returned Captain Somebody’s brute, and carried off Daffodil instead – this without anybody being more than vaguely aware of what was happening. Apparently a mistake had been made the first time. Daffodil was the wanted horse.’

‘And Daffodil is really worth almost nothing?’

‘Apparently not – except to my sister’s sense of security round and about the streets of Harrogate. Not very old, apparently – but broken-kneed or winded or something.’

Appleby shook his head. ‘I doubt whether Lady Caroline ought to have confidence in a horse that has been down.’

‘My dear man, she no doubt likes its face. Anyway, Daffodil was not a valuable horse.’

‘There could be no question of pedigree, stud purposes – that sort of thing?’

‘Good Heavens, man! Bodfish – I mean Daffodil – wasn’t – um – that sort of horse.’

‘I suppose not.’ Appleby got up. ‘It does seem a little queer. I’ll catch the first train on Friday.’ He paused by the Assistant-Commissioner’s door. ‘There’s nothing else you can tell me about Daffodil?’

‘As a matter of fact there is. It’s an odd thing to say about a horse. But it appears – this despite Caroline’s good opinion of the creature – well, that it was rather a half-witted sort of horse. What would you say was implied by that? Don’t know much about the animals myself.’

Daffodil, the half-witted horse. Appleby wandered down the corridors of the Yard and seemed to see – for indeed he was tired – a host of these dubious creatures in his inward eye, tossing their heads in sprightly dance, curvetting and bowing to an equal number of Captain Somebody’s whopping valuable brutes. A policeman could not but be gay in such a jocund company…

A half-witted horse.

In vain the soft warm air washed over Superintendent Hudspith; he marched unmollified from one investigation to the next. It was June, and for another man Piccadilly Circus might have been filled with the ghosts of flowers: violets in little bunches wafting on bus tops to distant suburbs; roses to be carried off by sheaves in limousines; carnations that slip singly down St James’s, glow duskily from tail-coats in the bow window of White’s, adorn tweeds in the rustic Boodle’s, vie with the more appropriate orchid in the Travellers’ – haunt of those hardy souls who have journeyed out of the British Islands to a distance of at least 500 m from London in a direct line. But these wraiths were nothing to Hudspith’s purpose. Fleetingly he allowed himself a glance of suspicion down Jermyn Street, as fleetingly a nod of sanction at the Athenaeum – and stumped down the steps and across to the park. The park was like green stuff spilt on a counter, shot with the sheen of a long fragment of blue–grey silk. The waterfowl were there as usual; statesmen paused in perambulations to observe their habits with attention; shadowing detectives, distantly known to Hudspith, exercised their corresponding vigilance behind. Hudspith marched on. His visual field was all inward and shadowy – no more than a floating wreath of cheated girls. Sometimes they had been drugged, hypnotized; and sometimes they had been robbed of nearly all their clothes… Hudspith marched – as if behind Queen Anne’s Mansions, beyond the Underground’s clock, somewhere near Victoria station maybe, blew and wallowed that elusive Whale.

Rideout: it was not, Hudspith thought, what you would call a tony name. On the other hand the address – a block of service flats here on the fringes of Westminster – suggested substance; and if the Rideouts were substantial the more substantial would be Hudspith’s severity. He had received no particulars; it was his habit to disregard the first, and often confused, report that came in; he had learnt, however, that there was a mother, a Mrs Rideout – and by this he was obscurely pleased. Mothers, when there were mothers, were commonly greatly to blame. Although Mrs Rideout could scarcely be herself the Whale, she might yet be abundantly deserving of one or two preliminary harpoons. Hudspith was accustomed to limber up in this way. He quickened his pace, turned a corner, and his objective was before him.

The Rideouts were in the humblest station: there lay something of disappointment in this. Mrs Rideout was employed as a cleaner and her daughter as a waitress, and normally they lived ‘out’. But recently their home had disappeared in the night; this had moved Mrs Rideout to announce her intention of withdrawing to her sister’s in the country; whereupon the management of the flats where she was employed, being much in need of such services as Rideouts supply, had provided restricted but sufficient living quarters on the premises. Through the basement, past the ironing-room and the two small storerooms, the temporary abode of the Rideouts would be found.

Hudspith, having learnt so much from a melancholy porter whose own living quarters appeared to be in a lift, descended menacingly into the cold, the half-light and the gloom. It was familiar territory. Like the poet, but perhaps from a more pressing professional necessity, he was much aware of the damp souls of housemaids; he knew how easily perdition attended their despondent sprouting at area gates. And he knew – he told himself – all about Lucy Rideout, the half-witted waitress. Unsettlement, cramped quarters with an uncongenial parent, inadequate privacy, the constant sight of expensive or at least prosperous living upstairs, the drift of male guests – themselves often unsettled, uprooted: in all this – and in the pictures, the glamorized advertisements, the pulsing sexy music – the story lay. Had he not probed it a hundred times? And Hudspith marched on, confident in his abundant experience, his often-tested technique. Hudspith marched against the demons – all unaware of the curiously literal way in which, far in the distance, demons awaited him.

Mrs Rideout had friends. Almost might she be said, in upstairs language, to be receiving – for two ladies were coming away as Hudspith reached the door; a third, approaching from some other angle through this subterraneous world, was making a ceremonious claim for admittance; and from inside there came a murmur of voices and a chink of cups. Here however was nothing to confound the experienced investigator; it would be untoward were Mrs Rideout found enjoying her sensational sorrow in solitude.

‘Good afternoon,’ said Hudspith to his fellow visitor. ‘A sad occasion this, marm; very sad indeed.’

‘What I asks,’ said the visitor, ‘is – where was the police?’

‘Ah,’ said Hudspith. ‘Where, indeed? But they’re here now, missis.’ With subdued drama he tapped himself on the chest. ‘Come along.’

The woman, who had been about to open the door, paused round-eyed. ‘Toomer’s my name,’ she said. Her voice sank to a whisper. ‘Would it be worse than death?’

Hudspith frowned austerely. ‘That remains to be seen.’ And he opened the door and ushered Mrs Toomer – she was a dim-featured, almost obliterated woman – into the Rideout home.

It was possible – or it ought to have been possible – to see at a single glance all that was to be seen, for clearly in this one room consisted all the territory that the Rideouts, mother and daughter, enjoyed. It was long, narrow and of considerable size, lit by a filter of light from windows which hovered uncertainly near the ceiling; there was a bed at each extreme end, and a table and arrangements for cooking near the middle. There was little that was remarkable in this. But Hudspith, if unaware of his own habitual surroundings, had a trained eye for domestic interiors, and that eye became positively hawk-like when scrutinizing the late environment of levanting or abducted girls. Here there looked to be plenty of evidence. The influence of Lucy Rideout was dominant in the room. Her handwriting, as it were, was not only decisive at her own end; it declared itself unmistakably far beyond any fair line of demarcation, so that one immediately discerned Mrs Rideout’s kingdom as a sort of beleaguered fortress within ever-contracting lines. Only here and there was evidence of a species of cautious sortie undertaken, no doubt, since the daughter’s departure; a pair of elastic-sided boots had found their way to the foot of Lucy’s bed; a small empty bottle of the kind in which ladies are accustomed to keep gin stood on what had served her as a dressing-table; hard by this lay a journal devoted to the celebration of the Christian Hearth and Home. All this was immediately decipherable. But there remained an element of puzzle which Hudspith at a rapid inspection was unable to resolve. And now Mrs Toomer, exalted by the fact of arriving virtually on the arm of Scotland Yard, was contriving introductions to the assembled company. ‘Mrs Rideout,’ she said, ‘this is the police.’

Mrs Rideout was not much over forty and belonged to the inefficient type that contrives to get through life by the aid of a sort of massive unfocussed vehemence. She set down a teacup and looked from Mrs Toomer to Hudspith. ‘That’s right,’ she said, largely and vaguely. ‘Yes, that’s right.’ She exuded that repetitive and dazed acquiescence that makes so considerable a part of the social communion of the folk. ‘And I’m sure they ought to do something.’