Appleby at Allington Read online

  ‘It’s devilish good of you to keep me company,’ Allington said, with his odd effect of divining thought. ‘This time tomorrow, I’ll have more of it than I require. The fête will be over, but the family’s coming down. In time for all the mild fun, I suppose. As a matter of fact, I rather expected an advance-guard this evening.’

  ‘A fairly large house-party?’ Appleby asked. He hadn’t known that Allington possessed anything that could be called a family.

  ‘Nieces and nephews, you know – nieces and nephews. An elderly bachelor – have you noticed? – is invariably furnished with these. As I say, I thought my nephew Martin Allington might turn up on us after dinner. But he’s an unaccountable chap. My heir, I may mention. And don’t the others know it.’

  ‘Other nephews?’ It didn’t seem to Appleby that a man ought to talk about family expectations in this way to a mere acquaintance. But civility required that some question be put.

  ‘As a matter of fact, no. I was speaking loosely. What else I run to is three nieces, two of them married. Faith, Hope, and Charity.’

  ‘They’re not really – ?’ Appleby checked himself.

  ‘Indeed they are.’ Allington laughed a shade maliciously. ‘My poor sister-in-law was very devout. It’s Faith and Charity who are married – and will be bringing down their kids. Hope’s hoping still.’

  ‘I see.’ Appleby noticed with satisfaction that his cigar could now be called finished, and he could make a definite move to depart. That had been a cheap sort of joke about Hope. Appleby frowned at Rasselas, still deep within some dream-world of his own. He was reflecting that he seemed to become more, not less, censorious as he grew older. The elderly should be tolerant, surely, and not go about raising their eyebrows at small breaches of taste. He was also reflecting that some name had touched off a fugitive association in his mind. Perhaps it had been Rasselas’ name. Why should a distinguished scientist, now grooming himself so wholeheartedly as a country gentleman, give a respectable-looking dog an outré name like that? Of course, if one imported a dog from Abyssinia it would be another matter. Perhaps there was something lurkingly freakish about Owain Allington.

  But the name that had rung a bell – he suddenly realized – was simply that of Allington’s nephew.

  ‘I think I’ve met Martin Allington,’ he said. ‘Unless it’s another man of the same name.’

  ‘Most interesting,’ Allington said. ‘How does the one you met make his living?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  A moment’s silence followed this brief reply. Then, as if some penny had dropped in his mind, Allington made a small, humorous gesture, and laughed softly.

  ‘Of course not,’ he said. ‘It wouldn’t have been before you retired, Appleby, and on one of the fringes of your own concerns? Some other association, no doubt.’

  Appleby made no answer. It was true he had retired – but one keeps to the rules, all the same. Leaning forward, he tossed the butt-end of his cigar into the fire.

  Every country has its own means of recruiting personnel for its security services. In Great Britain much reliance is placed upon a wide education – width being defined by what one gains in passing rather rapidly through a succession of public schools each a little more tolerant than the last. Of course, not every sort of intrepid individualist will do. Some foibles are frowned on. But the main theory is, no doubt, sound enough. The world’s stock of strict moral probity is not high. It is uneconomic to employ it in an area more congenial to those for whom, as a matter of second nature, few holds are barred.

  And that – Appleby thought, preparing to take his leave – is why spy stories, unless recklessly romanticized, are necessarily so disagreeable. His own had been quite another world. Still, you cannot have been Chief Commissioner of Metropolitan Police without running into a certain amount of that sort of thing. And that was how he had run into Martin Allington.

  ‘You must tidy this up, Appleby,’ the Minister had said. Appleby remembered judging it to have been a surprising command, and not really appropriately addressed to him. But that had been because of the overturned furniture and the pool of blood. No doubt (Appleby told himself now) he had a deplorably literal mind, so that it was a second before he grasped that the Minister was speaking in a metaphorical sense. The real mess was the prospect of publicity, and towards that Appleby’s damned dicks (it was thus that the Minister robustly expressed himself) appeared determined to pound their way as fast as their flat feet would carry them.

  The damned dicks had included – in addition to several bewildered constables and an ambulance team – two very senior Detective-Inspectors from the CID. These hadn’t appreciated being so described at all, and one of them had said roundly to the Minister that when attempted murder, followed by attempted suicide, stared him in the face he hoped he knew where his duty lay. The Minister took this quite well. Although alarmed, he was also rather pleased with himself; that he should himself have come on location, so to speak, immediately an agitated subordinate had brought him the story, showed a vigorous attitude to Departmental detail. The dying man (for Martin Allington was still thought to be that) was a Departmental detail. So, really and truly, would be the whole scandal – whatever it was – if it got into some magistrate’s court and so beyond smothering. Smothering was what Sir John Appleby had been got out of bed for. And what tidying up meant was simply hushing up. The Minister made no bones about that. This particular little bit of detail was bloody well going to be buried.

  Also present (Appleby recalled) had been a man named Colonel Carruthers. It probably wasn’t his real name. He ran the particular side of our national life that had got into trouble that evening. He was in a terrible rage – not so much, it seemed, with young Allington for making a muck of something as with the Minister for butting in. He was accountable only to the PM, he said, and his job would become impossible if any piddling little Cabinet Minister felt entitled to busy around. Appleby had kept out of this piece of protocol. He had quite enough on his hands with the modest demand that he and his officers should compound a felony.

  In the spy stories there are favoured persons who hold licences (granted presumably by the Sovereign in Council) to kill anybody who gets too awkwardly in the way. But in real life (if so fantastic a scene of things can be called that) neat dispositions of this sort do not obtain. There is just a vague recognition that incidents do occasionally happen which have to be kept quiet about, and that as a consequence somebody is usually left at risk – whether in point of his own conscience or of the law. This seemed to be Appleby’s position – or what the Minister proposed as Appleby’s position – now. It had to be coped with. For a start, Appleby tried to collect the facts.

  There was nothing to be got from the wounded man. It was true that, when doctored in some way by the police surgeon, he had swum briefly into consciousness. Unfortunately he had devoted this interval to no better purpose than a certain amount of feeble but venomous cursing. In this, the word which it seemed to give him most satisfaction to articulate was ‘bitch’ – from which it was at least possible to conjecture that there had been a lady in the case. Colonel Carruthers was not communicative. Allington, he remarked grimly, appeared to have been doing a little on the side, and to have bit off more than he could chew. No doubt there had been a lady, but it looked as if there had been rather a tough gentleman as well.

  This was a proposition in which it didn’t take Appleby and his assistants long to concur. Whether accompanied by the bitch or not, the tough gentleman had forced his way into Allington’s flat. There had been a rough house, including a certain amount of shooting. The intruding force had then departed – perhaps in triumph or perhaps in defeat. Allington had then tried to shoot himself, and had made rather a mess of the job. He had been in a panic, one had to suppose.

  At this point the police surgeon had announced, with no particular satisfaction, that the wounded man was going to survive, after all. It was a simplification, and a further simplificatio
n followed. Allington appeared to have fired three shots – the last of them being into his own person. Appleby started a hunt for the other two bullets. They were found almost at once, embedded rather high up in one of the walls of the room. It was extremely improbable that they could have done any mischief on their way there, so one didn’t have to worry about the possibility of another wounded man somewhere around London in consequence of this fracas. As a Secret Agent (if that was the formal way to describe him) Martin Allington appeared to be a singularly poor buy.

  And the affair had ended there – shockingly in hugger-mugger, as such things may do. Nobody was brought before a magistrate, and the security of the realm was no doubt vastly fortified as a result. Appleby was not at all pleased with having had anything to do with it, and no further information ever came to him. It seemed natural to suppose that it had ended with young Allington out of a job. He had mixed up his professional affairs – it was the only possible interpretation – with some shady project of his own; had made a mess of this; and had been so convinced that the consequences were going to be disastrous to him that he had shot himself in a blind funk. The probability was that he deserved to be in gaol at this moment. Yet he might simply have ended up with promotion. At this very moment, he might positively be Colonel Carruthers’ white-headed boy. The Carruthers world was quite as crazy as that.

  And Appleby’s chief memory of the business was an uncomfortable one, which he would have wished to forget. He had disliked Martin Allington. Martin Allington had been merely a supine figure under a grey blanket, a blanched and bloodied face, a racked figure fighting for life. Appleby had been repelled by him, nevertheless. It was a nasty thought.

  ‘Martin is a delightful chap.’ It was with a start that Appleby recovered from his retrospection on hearing these words. Owain Allington was again looking expectantly at Rasselas, rather as if he wanted the sagacious creature to offer some remark supporting this solid family line. ‘And I’m sure he will enjoy meeting you again.’

  ‘I think I may have misled you,’ Appleby said. ‘I’ve met your nephew, after a fashion, but I’m not sure he can be said to have met me. He had – well, passed out.’

  ‘Dear me!’ If Allington was startled by this odd remark he didn’t show it. ‘Martin does drink a little too much at times, no doubt. And that reminds me–’ He broke off – perhaps because Appleby had shown signs of getting to his feet, or perhaps because Rasselas had actually done so. Rasselas must suddenly have decided it was time to speed the parting guest, for he was no sooner on his paws than he gave Appleby a challenging glance and moved rapidly to the door of the library. ‘I can see we have whisky,’ Allington went on, ‘but I’m sure you like ice.’ He leant forward and pressed an electric bell. ‘It’s something Enzo regularly forgets. Italians are pleasant enough in their way, but far from being as reliable as English servants in the old style.’

  ‘I’m quite sure I don’t want ice.’ Appleby, now unchallengeably on his feet, glanced towards a side-table. ‘But a very little whisky, and a splash of soda, will be just right. I’m afraid it’s shockingly late, and I hope you won’t blame Enzo if he’s already in bed.’ Allington, Appleby was reflecting, was rather more fussy about services than a man of presumably intellectual habit ought to be. ‘And Rasselas is ready for bed as well.’

  ‘He’s proposing to see you to your car.’ Allington poured whisky, and the two men drank. ‘You must be right about that lad who was supposed to wait up,’ Allington said, after some minutes passed. ‘He’s gone to bed. But I don’t expect it’s beyond me to find you your coat.’

  ‘I haven’t brought a coat,’ Appleby put down his glass. ‘Thank you for a very pleasant evening.’

  They left the house together and walked down a long terrace. Rasselas vanished into the soft darkness. The night was rather warm and completely still.

  ‘If we go down these steps,’ Allington said, ‘we’ll find your car just round a corner.’ He flashed a torch which he had picked up in the hall. ‘Can you see? The auditorium, as I suppose it should be called, is straight ahead. And over to the left is the control point for the whole show. I wonder whether the juice is still on? I could give you a private performance.’

  Appleby didn’t want a private performance; he wanted only to get home and go to sleep. But Owain Allington’s hospitable zeal had unfortunately renewed itself, and there was nothing to do except follow him across a broad expanse of turf. Presently what appeared to be an improbably vast wall rose up before them in uncertain silhouette against a sky dimly powdered with stars. It was tier upon tier of seats raised over scaffolding.

  ‘The house and the castle,’ Allington said, ‘and the end of the lake in between. You get all that from anywhere up there. But you get it from this affair too. Naturally, the chap who twiddles the knobs has to have his eye on the whole thing. Do you mind the short ladder? It’s quite safe.’

  Appleby didn’t mind a short ladder, and he put on a decent show of climbing with alacrity. There was a strain of naivety, he had decided, in this eminent retired scientist. Allington was as proud of his son et lumière as a small boy with a new model railway. And he was determined to show it off before letting his guest go.

  ‘You might call it a gazebo,’ Allington’s voice said from up above. He had climbed first. ‘Hold hard, and I’ll see if the electricity’s really on. No go if it isn’t. Ah!’

  There had been a faint click. Appleby emerged into a glass-sided chamber now faintly visible in a low amber light.

  ‘It might be the cockpit of an air-liner,’ Allington said. ‘Or the place from which they conduct the business of a battleship. Almost frightening, in a way. All in the interest of a ninety-minute divertissement. We live in a very artificial age.’

  3

  It was a surprisingly roomy place to be perched in air as it was, and in addition to the elaborate equipment for projecting the spectacle there seemed to be much miscellaneous lumber flung into corners and stuffed under benches. In the dim light Appleby could also just distinguish a small table with punctured beer cans, crumpled sandwich papers and empty cigarette cartons.

  ‘They seem to have made it a home from home,’ he said.

  ‘They certainly do. I had them put up in the local pub, which is said to be thoroughly comfortable. But they camped here most of the time. Rather a long-haired crowd, and I can’t say that I took to them. The top man gave himself artist’s airs in a big way. He might have been taking time off from producing grand opera at Covent Garden.’ Owain Allington laughed contemptuously in the near-darkness. ‘But he knew his stuff, all the same. Handled all these dials and switches in a genuinely sensitive and loving way. He reminded me of a cathedral organist, as a matter of fact. And – do you know? – the show improved night by night.’ Allington’s pride in the son et lumière was again peeping through. ‘As it was all prefabricated and sent down from London in boxes, you’d hardly suppose that to be possible. But, of course, there’s a certain scope for nuance in fading the different bits and pieces in and out. Have a go.’

  ‘Take a stab at all this stuff?’ Appleby was amused. ‘I hardly think so. The most dreadful things might happen.’

  ‘I can promise you nothing will blow up.’ Allington spoke lightly. He sounded rather offended, all the same. It was as if he had offered a treat to a small boy – to hold the wheel, to perch on the saddle – and had it turned down. Appleby felt that, at least for a minute or two, he must accept this absurd role. And Allington, who had been investigating, spoke again. ‘I’m afraid the sound is off. They’ve taken out the tapes.’ He was clearly disappointed. ‘But the lighting’s in order.’

  Appleby looked through the sheet of glass in front of him. To his left he could just distinguish the house, which was in darkness except for half a dozen outdoor lamps which he knew followed the curve of the terrace.

  ‘The switches are simple on-and-off affairs,’ Allington said encouragingly. ‘The knobs with the calibrations are rheostats. Did you ev
er hear of composing symphonies out of colours instead of musical notes? There was some aesthetic character who had the notion of it years ago. But he hadn’t the technical know-how. It could be done now, with a contraption rather like this. Let’s have at least a sonata, Appleby.’

  Appleby put out a hand and flicked a switch – a shade impatiently, since he was beginning to think all this pretty silly. All that happened was that the arc of lights on the terrace vanished.

  ‘Try again, my dear fellow.’ This effect of defeated expectation appeared to have amused Allington very much, for he was laughing loudly. ‘We’ll call that the tap of the conductor’s baton, calling the orchestra to order. And over the audience a hush descends. Now carry on.’

  ‘All right – and we’ll begin by having those back again.’ Appleby flicked the same switch, and the lights on the terrace reappeared. ‘Now we’ll try the one next door… How very odd!’ This time, instead of vanishing, the sickle of lights had played a sort of leapfrog over the arm of the lake which separated the house from the castle, so that they now appeared far to Appleby’s right.

  ‘Interesting,’ Allington said, ‘–although not one of the designed effects. Shove in that button just above.’

  Appleby shoved in the button, and at once the lights changed colour and form. They were now flickering and ruddy.

  ‘That’s it!’ Allington was delighted. ‘Torches, you know. A curved line of torches in front of the castle when there was a grand outdoor masque to amuse Queen Elizabeth. There was a complete sea-battle on the lake, culminating in the appearance of Neptune and a lot of tritons. Neptune made a speech in praise of Her Highness and in celebration of English valour. In 1589, that is. In 1967 we didn’t manage the ships or the mythology. But we had the gunfire, and the voices of both Neptune and the Queen. It was a great success.’