The Long Farewell (17 page)

Rushout didn’t reply to this. He was glancing with some misgivings at Mr Moody, who was now in process of ordering his dinner. ‘You know,’ he said rather defensively, ‘so many of the great American collectors are highly cultivated men. Indeed, one may confidently say scholarly men. It is a pleasure to have any association with them.’

Appleby smiled. ‘I don’t doubt it for a moment. In fact, I know several myself. But, just at present, our concern is with the gentleman over there. I’d describe him – well, as belonging to another tradition.’

‘He looks deplorable.’

‘My dear Professor, that, if I may say so, is a somewhat illiberal and hasty judgement. My own acquaintance with Mr Moody is perhaps also too slight for confident appraisal. But I rather like him.’

‘I certainly ought to labour to do so.’ Rushout peered rather gloomily into his empty glass. ‘For he is, in fact, a benefactor of mine. Not in a personal sense. But – well, he puts up most of the money for
The Elizabethan and Jacobean
. Learned journals, you know, are now uncommonly expensive affairs to finance.’

‘That is most enlightened of him. Don’t you think, Professor, that you ought to go over and introduce yourself to him? And might I, perhaps, venture to join you for coffee? You and I will have a cognac. Moody, on the orders of Dr Cahoon, will continue to drink champagne.’

Rushout received this suspiciously. ‘Don’t make fun of me,’ he said. ‘The position has been a delicate one, as you are perfectly capable of guessing.’

‘You mean that Moody’s financial aid to the – um – investigating classes hasn’t been of an order of the most disinterested?’

‘And don’t quote Henry James at me.’ Rushout grinned with recovered cheerfulness. ‘It’s not seemly in a policeman.’

‘You gave him tips?’

‘Just that. As editor of
The Elizabethan and Jacobean
, and with the full agreement of my Advisory Panel–’

‘Whatever’s that?’

‘A collection of impeccably respectable learned persons who are supposed to advise me about my job. With their approval, as I say, I have from time to time given this Moody chap tips. That’s to say, when I’ve had early notice of the turning up of something that might be of interest to a collector, I’ve let him know.’

‘I see. That wouldn’t include General Gordon’s Bible?’

‘General Gordon’s Bible?’

‘Moody believes himself to own it – together with the prayer- book which Mary Queen of Scots took to the scaffold. Both are satisfactorily drenched in blood. I was puzzled at first, because I thought he was referring to pictures.’

‘I didn’t know he went in for relics. Beastly things, if you ask me, whether drenched in blood or not. But he has got a tremendous collection of books and manuscripts in the literary field.’

Appleby nodded. ‘It sounds as if old Prodger was right in maintaining that Moody – or rather Sankey – was just the man for Packford’s big find, and that this fellow Limbrick wouldn’t have a chance against him. So I understand you let Moody know about Shakespeare’s
Ecatommiti
?’

‘In the strictest confidence.’ Rushout was again defensive. ‘Simply to get him in at the head of the queue. That was more or less the spirit of our agreement.’

‘No wonder he’s come hurtling across the Atlantic at the news of Packford’s death. If he gets the book, I suppose he’ll finance your journal for the rest of his days?’

Rushout managed a spirited reply to this. ‘If he doesn’t’, he said, ‘he damned well ought to.’

Denouements at Night and in the Morning

Pleasure and action make the hours seem short

— Othello

When Appleby got back to Urchins he was shown to his room by the maid who answered the door. His suitcase had been unpacked and his bed turned down; it continued to be evident that the place had a smooth domestic routine which hadn’t been disturbed by the untoward events recently taking place in it. The night was mild, and Appleby spent a few minutes by the open window, smoking a cigarette and staring out into the darkness. The ground must fall away here, for there were a few sleepy yellow lights low down in the middle distance. It suddenly seemed a very short time ago since he had been gazing into quite a different darkness, with Lewis Packford beside him and the waters of Garda invisible below. There hadn’t been any mystery then. Or rather – Appleby thought – there had been, but he had lacked the alertness to mark the fact. It was deplorably true that, as a detective, he had a certain leeway to make up.

Which was a good reason, he told himself, for getting on with the job now. He put out his cigarette and left the bedroom. It was almost at the end of a long corridor – one corresponding, he supposed, to the downstairs corridor along which he had been conducted that morning. He was stepping into this when he became aware of another door opening a little farther down. It was the manner in which this was happening that arrested him. For the door was being opened from within, and inch by inch. He was in the presence of extreme nervousness and caution – and of these qualities exercising themselves in a manner not very effectively controlled by intelligence. If one wants to reconnoitre the outer world from inside a room, one’s best plan is to act swiftly. A door briskly opened and briskly shut again attracts little attention. A door opening in very slow motion is something that most people become aware of at once.

Appleby stepped back into the darkness of his room, leaving his own door a little ajar. Probably what he was witnessing was something of no great significance. There are people for whom other people’s rooms hold a compulsive fascination, and the phenomenon known as ‘just taking a peep’ is of not uncommon occurrence in miscellaneous house-parties. Still, he had better make sure. He had better both mark who this was emerging, and then discover whose room was being emerged from.

It was Mrs Husbands. For a moment Appleby was disposed to conclude that this was very much a mare’s nest. Nobody at Urchins, presumably, had a better title to move from room to room than the housekeeper. And if there was something a little odd in her manner of performing this commonplace task, that might simply be because recent events had badly shaken her nerve. She might, for instance, have become subject to irrational fears, and have taken her preliminary survey of the corridor in order to reassure herself that she wasn’t being stalked by somebody with a gun.

Only it wasn’t like that. Appleby had to take only a glance at the woman as she now stood revealed to realize that any such explanation of her conduct and condition was totally inadequate. The corridor was brightly lit, and her features as well as her posture were clearly distinguishable. Mrs Husbands was breathing fast; she was as pale as the wall behind her; and her eyes glittered with what might have been either excitement or fear. Even when one remembered that she rather went in for putting on emotional turns, her present bearing in the apparent solitude of this corridor was sufficiently striking. But now she seemed to brace herself, and Appleby heard her taking a single deep breath. Then she looked quickly in either direction, walked quickly but rather unsteadily to a staircase, and disappeared.

Appleby stepped back into the corridor and moved towards the room from which Mrs Husbands had appeared. It wasn’t necessary to suppose that it was empty; what Mrs Husbands had emerged from might be some harrowing or alarming interview. She might even have found another dead body, complete with a valedictory message still wet upon a postcard… Appleby checked himself before this irresponsible fancy. He would knock at the door. If there was a summons to enter, he would stick his head in, identify the occupant, and excuse himself on the score of unfamiliarity with the house. If there was no reply, he would simply walk in and look around.

But this plan didn’t come off. His hand was raised to knock, when a voice spoke reproachfully behind him. ‘Oh, hullo! Why didn’t you come in to dinner?’

He turned round. It was Alice who had somehow appeared just behind him, and she was now looking at him with frank curiosity. ‘I went out to the local,’ he said.

‘I can’t say I blame you.’ Alice gave a large unashamed yawn. Then, seeming to remember that this was somewhat unrefined, she gave another, imitation, one with a rosy hand elegantly raised to her lips. ‘Oh, my,’ she said, ‘wouldn’t it be lovely to go to bed!’

‘Well – why not?’ Appleby wasn’t sure, as he heard himself say this, that it didn’t contain an undesirable ambiguity. ‘Why don’t you?’ he amended.

‘It wouldn’t be polite – not before a quarter past ten.’ Alice spoke with confidence; this must be something that she had read in a manual of such matters. ‘But – I say – I know where we can get a drink. And without anybody knowing.’

Appleby wasn’t convinced that this was polite either. But he allowed himself to be led downstairs and into what proved to be the library. The little mystery of Mrs Husbands, he had decided, could wait. A private word with Alice mightn’t be without its usefulness.

‘Over on that table, they are.’ Alice sat down with aplomb. She knew when it was the business of a gentleman to dispense refreshment. ‘I’m leaving,’ she said suddenly. ‘Tomorrow, first thing. And they won’t find me in a hurry, either.’

Appleby poured drinks. ‘You’ve had enough?’

‘More than enough. I can’t understand what they talk about, and I don’t want to. Tonight was the worst of the lot. I’m going after breakfast, I am. And please don’t come after me.’

Appleby laughed. ‘The police, you mean? I don’t expect they’ll want to.’

‘And not the lawyers either. That Mr Rood, for instance. I don’t like him. I don’t like him at all. And I don’t want his money.’

Appleby was startled. ‘Rood’s been offering you money?’

‘Well, Loo’s money. Loo had written something extra, saying that I was to have £5,000. And I won’t take it. It makes me angry to think about it.’

‘It’s certainly not very much.’ Appleby thought he ought to be soothing and persuasive. ‘But perhaps, when you consider that his affairs haven’t been going well–’

Alice nodded vigorously. ‘That’s just it. Mr Rood has explained about the will. Edward was to have this house, and the rents from the farms and places. But it won’t be enough – not to keep a gentleman’s place the way it ought to be. And everything else goes to Ruth. But that won’t be much, either.’

‘I see.’ Alice’s processes of mind, Appleby thought, were never predictable. ‘But you know, if that’s how it is, Ruth’s share is bound to be very much more than £5,000. Besides, she earns money from her job.’

‘They
pay
her?’ Alice was astonished. ‘For talking all that stuff about who Thomas Horscroft was?’

‘Certainly.’

‘I call that queer – I do. But I won’t have that £5,000, all the same. I oughtn’t ever to have been more than a bit of fun – not to Loo. I must have got ideas – don’t you think – for poor Loo almost to have married me, and then to have written in about all that money. But they can’t make me take it – can they? – if they don’t even know where I am.’

‘Obviously not, Alice. But you can’t refuse the money without disappearing, you know. And I think you really want to disappear for quite a different reason. This sort of place, and these sort of people bore you stiff. Don’t they, now?’

‘Of course they do.’ There was a hint of a tear on Alice’s exquisite cheek. ‘I’d give my eyes to be back in a nice superior corner of the trade at this minute.’

‘Then back you go.’

Alice looked at Appleby round-eyed. ‘I really can?’

‘There’s nothing in the world to prevent you. If we
do
want you, we’ll find you, all right. You know that as well as I do. Meanwhile, if you cut out of it, my dear, you’ll be doing a very sensible thing. By the way, didn’t you try to cut out of it before? And with – um – Loo?’

‘Cut out of it with Loo?’ She looked at him in perplexity. ‘What do you mean?’

‘On that very first night? Be honest, Alice. Didn’t you try to persuade him to make a run for it with you?’

‘Of course not!’ Alice was indignant. ‘I was much too cross with him. I don’t know what I wanted – or what I did, or what I said. I just don’t remember. But of course I didn’t try to take him away. This was his own house, wasn’t it?’

‘Have you lost anything since you came to Urchins, Alice?’

‘Only my temper once or twice. And who wouldn’t do that, among such a lot? I ask you!’

‘I rather agree. But you’re sure you haven’t missed anything? Nothing in the way of personal property?’

Alice looked suddenly rather frightened. ‘I don’t know what you mean,’ she said.

Appleby shook his head. ‘When somebody uses those words, my child, it’s ten to one that he or she means just the opposite. You have missed something, haven’t you?’

‘Well, yes. But nothing important. It’s just something that that cook, or one of the girls, has taken, I suppose. You can’t expect everybody to be honest all the time, can you? It just isn’t life, that isn’t.’

‘Perhaps, it’s not. But you haven’t mentioned this loss to anyone?’

‘Certainly not!’ Alice was again indignant. ‘That wouldn’t be refined. Not when you’re a guest in a gentleman’s private residence. It would be different in a hotel. But I never like hearing of that sort of thing – complaints of pilfering, I mean. There’s nothing gives licensed premises a worse name. And it would be dead common to complain about such a thing, when you’re in a country seat.’

Appleby chuckled. ‘I’d have missed some rather interesting inquiries in my time, Alice, if that particular rule of good society had been observed. But let’s not bother more about it now. You get off to bed – and pack as soon as you get up in the morning. Now I must go and see Edward.’

‘You’ll find him in that funny little room of his, I think. But I can really go in the morning? I shan’t be wanted for more of the – mystery?’

Appleby shook his head – seriously, this time. ‘The morning is still quite a long time off,’ he said. ‘And I’m beginning to hope the mystery won’t last far into it.’