A Connoisseur's Case Read online

  ‘Thank you, sir. And the farm is now in front of you.’

  Hollywood gave his little bow. The effect was rather as of a refrigerator taking a sudden kink in the middle. He turned and walked away.

  It proved unnecessary to explore the farmyard. Bertram Coulson and Judith emerged from it just as Appleby approached.

  ‘I’m so sorry that my wife has had to go and lie down,’ Coulson said. ‘She suffers from a slight migraine from time to time, but fortunately it never stays for long. She was most anxious that you should stay to lunch. I hope you will. Daphne will preside, if Edith is still on the sick list.’

  The Applebys excused themselves in proper form.

  ‘Then you must come another day. And I hope Lady Appleby has enjoyed looking over the old place as much as I have enjoyed showing it to her. She will have seen that I am absurdly fond of Scroop. It must be partly because it came to me so unexpectedly.’

  ‘You weren’t the evident heir?’ Appleby looked curiously at his host. Coulson was speaking not quite spontaneously. It was as if he has resolved upon steering the remainder of the conversation upon a determined course. He could be felt as a man anxious to get something off his chest.

  ‘There was no very evident heir. And Sara Coulson – although, of course, not herself a Coulson – had the entire property at her disposal. It was a slightly unusual situation, in the case of a place like this – wouldn’t you say? I think the county felt it to be so. Yes, I think they did.’

  Appleby found himself doubting whether the county had much bothered in the matter. But it was evident that, from the first, Bertram Coulson had seen himself as very much in the eye of the gentry to whom he had been recruited.

  ‘Was there anybody else who might have inherited?’ Judith asked.

  ‘Yes, indeed. There was my cousin Miles. A younger man – and, of course, one of the English Coulsons. Old Sara was thought to be very fond of him. But her choice fell on me.’

  ‘And what happened to Miles?’ Judith asked. ‘Is he still alive?’

  ‘Alive?’ Bertram Coulson seemed startled. ‘Dear me, yes. A younger man, as I said.’

  ‘He used to come and stay here in the old lady’s time?’

  ‘Indeed he did. So what actually happened was a disappointment to him, I’m afraid.’

  ‘Did he survive it?’ Judith continued to speak rather lightly. ‘I mean, has he got on all right in the world, in spite of not having become a landowner?’

  ‘I’m afraid not.’ Bertram Coulson now spoke slowly and as if with reluctance. ‘Miles hasn’t, I’m afraid, made much of a job of life.’

  Appleby took this up.

  ‘Which probably means, doesn’t it, that he wouldn’t have made much of a job of Scroop? I suspect that old Mrs Coulson was chiefly anxious about the future of the place, and made her choice in the light of that anxiety. She looked round among the surviving Coulsons in search of the competent man for the job.’

  ‘I’ve certainly never managed to think of it in that light.’ Bertram Coulson had flushed faintly. ‘And she knew me merely by repute. But at least I’ve tried not to let the place down.’

  For some paces the Applebys walked with their host in silence.

  ‘I ought to tell you,’ Appleby said suddenly, ‘that I’ve had some rather curious talk with your butler. As a policeman, you understand, and not as your guest. Once more, you must forgive the awkwardness.’

  ‘Not a bit. You know I’m only anxious to see that sad business cleared up. If any of my people can help you, they must.’

  ‘Thank you. Hollywood’s story is a very odd one. And it convicts him of having been disingenuous when he declared that old Mrs Coulson prized Crabtree simply because he had some taste in gardens. The story is that Crabtree was a good enough carpenter to contrive various hiding places about Scroop and that in these Mrs Coulson secreted things in some more or less pathological way.’

  ‘Hollywood came out with that?’ Coulson was clearly startled. ‘How extremely odd!’

  ‘It’s entirely news to you?’

  Coulson made no immediate reply – perhaps because, with no great appropriateness to the moment, he had been suddenly prompted to offer Judith a cigarette.

  ‘Hollywood,’ Appleby went on, ‘has no positive evidence of his own to offer. He speaks simply of gossip in Mrs Coulson’s last years. Perhaps it had died away before you came to live here?’

  ‘Yes – no.’ Coulson was perplexed and almost confused. ‘Gossip – perhaps. Of the old lady’s secreting things. But not this of Crabtree’s helping. That, no.’

  ‘It seems to be Hollywood’s view that Crabtree, when he turned up yesterday, was thinking to profit in some way from this ancient business of these hiding places.’

  ‘How extraordinary! How extraordinary that Hollywood should come out with such ideas!’ Whether it was precisely by this thought or not, Bertram Coulson was unmistakably upset. ‘It’s true, of course, that in her last years the old lady had her eccentric side. And there was the mystery of the money. That does look as if it might fit.’

  ‘The money?’ Appleby asked.

  ‘More than £2,000. It was a little awkward because of probate and death duties and so on. Of course this was a large household in those days. But it was a larger sum than one might have expected to disappear without record in so short a time.’

  ‘Just how did it disappear?’

  ‘I’m sorry. I’m not being at all lucid.’ Coulson was still disturbed. ‘During the last months of her life, Sara drew this large sum in cash from her bank. Not at one go, I believe, but in a number of smaller sums. And at her death there was no trace of it. Her solicitors, I gathered, were a good deal worried. They had a notion that it might in some way have been extorted from her – even, perhaps, by way of blackmail. That, of course, was absurd. She was a high-minded woman of the most unblemished character. But certainly touched, in those last months, by the beginnings of a senile dementia. She might have given the money away very irresponsibly. In the end it was decided that we had better be content with the supposition that she had managed to make some large charitable disbursements in cash. The sum was just not so big that it need really be a matter of large anxiety. But what if it ties up with this strange story of Hollywood’s? What if Sara had turned at the end into a real miser, and had Crabtree fix her up a cache for all that money?’ Coulson turned to Appleby. ‘Would that fit?’

  ‘It would fit better than some of Hollywood’s notions of what the old lady might have been concerned to conceal. But it doesn’t fit with the notion that, yesterday, Crabtree turned up here with something like blackmail in his head.’

  ‘But that’s nonsense, anyway!’ Coulson was impatient. ‘Whatever notion Hollywood may have formed, the old fellow wasn’t like that in the least. I’m not an idiot, Appleby. And I can’t be mistaken there.’

  ‘Very well. Suppose that Crabtree knew of £2,000 in cash hidden somewhere in your house. He might be proposing simply to tell you about it – with or without some notion of a reward. Alternatively, he might be proposing to gain access to Scroop and quietly make off with it. But, in that case, why didn’t he do so in the years that he was employed here after old Mrs Coulson’s death? Had he turned less honest in old age? Had his imagination – out there in America – played more and more upon this hidden hoard until he had resolved to go for it? It’s a possibility. But there’s a lot that it doesn’t explain.’

  ‘It doesn’t,’ Judith interposed, ‘explain his death. Or does it?’

  ‘Some additional facts might. Suppose that somebody else had known about the hiding place – and had rifled it already. And suppose Crabtree to know who that person must be. There might be a motive of sorts there for killing the old man. But we don’t really want suppositions. We want a few more hard facts.’

  ‘Quite so.’ Bertram Coulson nodded. ‘And I can’t help hoping – with all respect to you, Appleby – that by this time that excellent fellow Hilliard has found them. Simply
by following up whatever suspicious characters may have been wandering casually through this countryside yesterday.’

  ‘And with a disposition to take a swipe at a defenceless old stranger, on the off-chance of his having a few pounds in his pocket? Well, that’s been in our minds before.’ Appleby paused. ‘And I share your hope. It might save quite a lot of trouble.’ He smiled at Coulson. ‘Including hunting Scroop for those hiding places.’

  ‘I don’t think I’d mind that.’

  ‘Perhaps not. But I’ve been in this sort of business for a long time, Coulson. And I know that one hidden thing has a nasty trick of leading to another.’

  Having taken their leave, the Applebys walked for some way in silence across the park.

  ‘Wasn’t that,’ Judith asked, ‘rather a stiff crack you took at him at the end?’

  ‘I simply meant what I said. One digs up the relevant horror only by disinterring a lot of irrelevant ones as well. You know that. It’s something I assure you of to the point of boredom.’

  ‘All sorts of thronging horrors among the respectable landed gentry? Skeletons swinging on every family tree? You’ve been reading too much Ivy Compton-Burnett. Do you think, to begin with, that Bertram Coulson has some dark past?’

  ‘I’m not sure that Hollywood wasn’t going obliquely about putting something of the sort in my head. I suspect that he was providing what you might call the one two, knowing that I’d presently come upon the other two to put it together with. A deep one, is Hollywood.’

  ‘Aren’t you convinced that they’re all deep ones in this affair?’

  ‘Yes, I am – absolutely.’

  ‘Well, that’s candid, at least. But go back to this nice Bertram Coulson, who’s had all that difficulty in persuading himself that he’s adequate in the role of a perfectly ordinary country gentleman. Do you think he has some frightful past?’

  ‘I think he may have a frightful future.’

  ‘Don’t be tiresome, John.’

  ‘Well, at the lowest he’s a man beset by some very queer doubt. And it can’t simply be, “Am I really like the dear old squire?” There may be a small element in the man of something of that order. Because he isn’t one of the English Coulsons, and so forth. But he’s had the same sort of breeding as the folk he calls “the county” – or as near as makes no difference. So the thing doesn’t make sense. No – if he’s a man in some way undermined, it’s by a doubt of some quite different quality.’

  ‘Might it be a doubt about his wife? Remember Uncle Julius’ queer impression of her.’

  ‘I remember my own impression.’ Appleby spoke soberly. ‘A good sort of woman, I thought. But I did find myself thinking other things as well. What’s the house like, by the way? William Chambers going strong?’

  Judith nodded.

  ‘Rather lovely,’ she said. ‘The chinoiseries aren’t quite up to a tiptop place like Claydon, say. But they’re pretty good. And Bertram is terribly proud of everything. Yet it’s a mix-up, in a way, rather as he is. Half a dozen rather good eighteenth-century paintings and a really fine range of the watercolourists. But two or three modish modern things he’s obviously been told indicate enlightened patronage today. Some superb French pieces, but even more ultra-shiny, high-grade reproduction antique. A gunroom with far too many guns. The wrong sort of dogs–’ Judith broke off in high indignation as her husband suddenly shouted with laughter. ‘Of course if you won’t be serious–’ she began.

  ‘Perhaps it is impossible for a mere colonial gent to become an English one. Too many guns – what a solecism! Pug dogs–’

  ‘Of course they’re not–’

  ‘Or at least dogs that are almost human. How very shocking! Damme, sir, the fellow’s a mere counter-jumper. Cockney accent, too. Comes from Australia, they say. Calls himself a Coulson, and I suppose he was vetted by the old gel – Sara, did they call her? – who was straight out of the right stable, bless her. But there’s a touch of convict blood in this fellow, if you ask me.’

  ‘Don’t be a buffoon.’ Judith, with some satisfaction, continued to be furious. ‘You remind me of the odious Channing-Kennedy.’

  ‘Ah – Channing-Kennedy.’ Appleby was suddenly completely serious. ‘Judith – I wonder whether, perhaps, it’s rather useful to be reminded of him?’

  11

  ‘Of course, they’re a philistine crowd round here.’

  Colonel Julius Raven pronounced this judgement as he stood before his sideboard and carved, with a connoisseur’s care, a choice chunk of cold salmon for his niece. Although himself a soldier and of simple mind, he was the head of a family so prolific in poets, painters, sculptors, scholars and madmen generally that he was thus prompted at times to speak of his rural neighbours with this sort of benevolent condescension.

  ‘Even at Scroop?’ Judith asked.

  ‘Oh, dear me, yes. Bertram Coulson is all piety, as you’ve seen. But he wouldn’t have cut much of a figure among the Souls, and all that lot. Arthur Balfour, now. I never did much care for that fellow. All intellect and sensibility and amateur professor on the one hand. But look at his handling of Ireland on the other.’ Colonel Raven had one of his vague moments. ‘My dear, what am I talking about?’

  ‘The people at Scroop.’

  ‘Ah, yes. Bertram Coulson must be a man of ability, you know. Mayonnaise? I don’t recommend it. Tea-shop stuff at the best, if you ask me. Small drop of vinegar?’

  ‘Small drop of vinegar, Uncle Julius.’

  ‘Vinegar? A very good idea. Excellent. I’m delighted you thought of it, my dear. Now, what was I saying? Ah, yes. Young Coulson at Scroop. Able man. Stands to reason. Cattle in a big way in the colonies, and so forth. But only the local backwoodsmen visit at Scroop. Decent fellows and all that. But no brains, bless them. No taste, if the truth be told. Not as in the old girl’s time. Lion and the lizard, don’t you know. Haunting the courts where the other fellow had cut rather a figure. Good poem. Loaf of bread beneath the bough. Drop of hock? Only thing I ever touch in the middle of the day. Should be almost frozen, and then allowed to return to cellar temperature. Something that that dunderhead Tarbox discovered. Clever chap.’

  ‘Uncle Julius, do you know anything about Miles Coulson?’

  ‘Miles?’ Colonel Raven looked seriously at his niece and shook his head. ‘He used to be there quite a lot. Had an odd profession for a Coulson. Ominous, you might say, from the start. A mummer.’

  ‘Miles Coulson was an actor?’

  ‘Actor?’ Colonel Raven appeared to have difficulty in placing this word. ‘Quite correct, my dear. Stage player. Talented, I’ve been told. And, of course, old Sara had all sorts round the place. Hicks. And the fat fellow who was in Chu Chin Chow. Anyone at his own particular top. So Miles would usually have some of his own kidney.’

  ‘There was some idea that this Miles Coulson might inherit the place?’

  ‘Yes, I believe so. But it didn’t happen that way. Perhaps the old girl found out something to his discredit. Or perhaps she simply preferred the sound of Bertram Coulson, out in the Antipodes with all those wholesome sheep and cattle. And Miles may have taken it a little hard.’

  ‘What does Miles do now?’

  ‘I’ve no idea, my dear. I’ve never heard him mentioned for years. Went off the rails, they say. But I don’t know how badly. Sad thing, when a decent family produces a rotter. Came across it once or twice in the Regiment. Honoured name, you know. And then suddenly you have a boy forging a cheque or cheating at cards. Embarrassing.’ For a moment Colonel Raven looked extremely serious. Then he brightened. ‘But I see that Tarbox has let us have the Stilton,’ he said. ‘Dig into it, John. It’s really not bad – not as Stilton goes nowadays.’

  Appleby did as he was bidden.

  ‘No – no more hock, thank you,’ he said. ‘We had to drink a glass of Madeira with the Coulsons. Something Bertram Coulson had read about in a book, I felt. But I judged him an interesting chap. He took Judith over the house.’

&nbs
p; ‘And his wife?’

  ‘Well – an interesting woman.’ Appleby smiled. ‘But she went on sick parade halfway through our call.’

  ‘Did she, indeed?’ Colonel Raven sounded concerned. ‘Would you say, John, that she seemed to have had a shock?’

  ‘Well, yes. I think that the death of this old man so close by had affected her.’

  ‘The death of an old man?’ For a short but unmistakable moment, Colonel Raven was quite at sea. ‘Ah, Crabtree,’ he then said. ‘Yes, of course.’

  Appleby looked curiously at his host.

  ‘It was something else you had in mind?’

  ‘Oh, no. Oh, dear me, no. Stilton, Judith? Or there’s this Italian stuff, if your taste lies that way.’

  Judith took some of the Italian stuff. And at Colonel Raven’s board there was a silence of a totally unfamiliar sort. For – incredibly – Colonel Raven had somehow failed in candour. He had even given his niece and her husband what could only be called a furtive look. The thing was as astounding as if he had himself produced a pack of cards with six aces. Appleby knew that he had to speak. But he found himself taking a deep breath before doing so.

  ‘Colonel – you remember our talk about the Coulsons at dinner last night?’

  ‘About the Coulsons?’ Colonel Raven repeated the name with a vagueness that seemed in part genuine and in part an embarrassing continuation of his sudden odd behaviour. ‘Ah, yes – we talked about them, of course.’

  ‘You said something about Mrs Coulson that you were then reluctant to enlarge on or even to stand by. Not exactly about her moral character, but about – well, perhaps her disposition in that general area of conduct.’

  ‘Did I, my dear John? I’m sorry to hear it. Comes of neglecting the drill, wouldn’t you say? Never knew a decent Mess where a fellow was allowed to name a lady at dinner.’

  ‘No doubt.’ Appleby didn’t wholly manage to exclude a certain impatience from his reception of this. ‘But what I want to know, Colonel, is this: was there anything in the recent past that prompted you to that particular line of comment on Mrs Coulson?’