Appleby Talks Again Read online

  He had paused in a large and gloomy chamber which had been converted at some period to the uses of a library. There were handsome shelves for many thousands of books, but they now harboured nothing but dust. Dust was thick on them, and thick on the floor. The sight was melancholy – but for Appleby it was finally and definitively informative. He stirred the dust with his toe. It was the first thick dust upon which he had come. One can’t, in a hurry, do anything much with an enormous empty library. So it had been left out. It had been left out of the joke. But the hall and one or two rooms around it had been dusted. They had been needed for the fun.

  The joke…the fun. Appleby prowled on, dissatisfied. There was one very simple and very obvious explanation of Mr Buttery’s vision. Water Poole had been used for a fancy-dress ball. Or better perhaps, for a sort of theatrical party or green-room rag. The owner, young Richard Poole, was an actor. It seemed very probable that the old legend connected with his house had prompted him to organise what he conceived to be an appropriate entertainment there for his friends. This was at least a more tenable theory than Mr Buttery’s of a kink in time.

  As for goblins – Appleby thought – they don’t drop cigarette ash. They don’t leave candle-wax on mantelpieces. They don’t – he had moved once more into the open air – presumably leave a lawn something the worse for wear. When Judith had imagined herself to be obscurely sensing presences in the house, she had merely been letting these and other prosaic evidences of the late party filter unnoticed into her imagination. A perfectly commonplace if rather elaborate joke…

  But goblins disappear at dawn, and nobody sees them go. The cock crows, whereupon they fade and vanish. And something very like this had happened. Any sort of large party creates a good deal of litter; but the litter left by this party was so inconsiderable that a trained eye was required to perceive it. There had been a deliberate care taken to obliterate all traces of whatever proceedings had been going forward. The probability appeared to be that, but for the curious nocturnal habits of the local rector, nobody except the actual participants would have had any knowledge of the affair.

  This was queer. It suggested that perhaps Richard Poole bore no responsibility in the matter. It was a joke unobtrusively perpetrated, followed by a careful – and astonishingly rapid – tidy-up. Why? Appleby shook his head as he found himself confronted with this tiresome little, yet perpetually fascinating, key-word of his profession. Why? There must be a reason. Probably it was a harmless reason. Perhaps it was a quite stupid and uninteresting reason, and any beguilement an explanation seemed to promise was no more than an effect of the romantic associations of this lonely and mouldering house. Still, explanation must be possible. There was a reason, if it could be found.

  He had strolled down to the river again. It must, after all, be termed something more than a stream – for although narrow, it was quite deep and decidedly navigable. One could bring up a motor-boat – say one of those substantially powered house-boat affairs that were now so popular on the Thames itself… It struck him that he had seen no boathouse. Yet this was something which Water Poole must surely possess. The absence of anything of the sort intrigued him. He began to poke about.

  There was certainly no boathouse on the bank – but the reason, when after some minutes’ search he found it, was interesting. An arm of the river – it was in fact a cut, but of evident antiquity and perhaps indeed as old as the mansion itself – passed clean under one wing of the house. Each end was secured by an iron grille which extended perhaps a couple of feet below the level of the water. That by which the cut emerged had quite clearly been undisturbed for generations. But at the entrance the state of affairs was different. The grille was rusty and bore every appearance of disuse – yet as Appleby peered at it he had his doubts. It was secured by an enormous padlock, plainly manufactured in early Victorian times – and on this too the rust was thick. Appleby however found it of considerable interest, and performed some complicated gymnastic manoeuvres in order to get a hand on it. When he rose and walked away he was softly whistling a melancholy little stave of his own composition. Judith would have marked the sign. His spirits were rising.

  And then he found the motor cars. They had not exactly been concealed; they were simply parked on the farther side of an out-building which only one rather pertinaciously interested in Water Poole would have been likely to visit. Both were large cars, but one was a good deal more resplendent than the other. Perhaps it would presently be necessary to examine them with some care, but for the moment Appleby contented himself with feeling the radiators. That of the resplendent car was quite cold. The other was warm.

  He turned and walked back thoughtfully in the direction of the house. He had almost reached it when he heard the sound of an engine behind him. He glanced back over his shoulder. An open car with a single occupant was approaching. He had just time to distinguish the figure as that of a young man when the car turned off the track and vanished round the outbuildings which Appleby had just left. He heard the engine stop. The suddenly restored silence brought him a curious sense of impending drama. The situation upon which he and Judith had stumbled had so far presented rather a meagre cast. It was possible, he thought, that the principal characters were now beginning to drop in.

  Perhaps he should go back and welcome this particular accession. He hesitated, and then his eye fell upon one part of Water Poole which he had not yet explored. It was the totally ruined part, where something like a whole wing had come down. If, as seemed very probable, one of the new arrivals was the owner or some other accredited person, he himself had perhaps only a few minutes left for further investigation before receiving a stiff request to make himself scarce. This persuaded him to press forward, even at the expense of an uncomfortably dusty scramble. In a moment he was climbing over the mountain of rubble with which this part of the forecourt was filled.

  As he progressed, he saw that even more of the house than he supposed had been gashed open when the end pavilion fell. A staircase, intact to the second storey and there breaking off in air, had the appearance of a hazardous fire-escape; below it was a tumble of stone, brick and splintered beams. Appleby surveyed this, stopped for a moment, and then quickened his forward scramble. An onlooker would have seen him vanish among the debris – and might have reflected that he remained invisible for rather a long time.

  The principal characters were beginning to drop in. The phrase reiterated itself rather grimly in Appleby’s mind as he made his way back to the great hall. It was perhaps because he was walking in marked abstraction that, turning a corner of the building, he bumped straight into somebody approaching from the opposite direction. It was a lady. Fortunately she was substantially – indeed powerfully – built, and took the shock well. Appleby steadied her and apologised. “I am extremely sorry. It was careless of me. One doesn’t expect much traffic just here.”

  “Pardon me.” The lady spoke with an accent that was unmistakably transatlantic. She was alarmed – but this by no means prevented her from being alarming. She was formidable – it might have been ventured almost professionally formidable, as if her everyday business was that of dominating large public meetings. And now she gave Appleby and Appleby’s clothes a rapidly appraising glance. “Would you,” she asked, “be the owner of this wonderful spot?”

  “No, madam. I am not the owner.” Appleby’s glance was certainly not less searching than the American lady’s. “May I ask if you have just arrived here?”

  “Just arrived?” It was discernible that the lady regarded this question as needing care. She eyed Appleby for a moment as if she were an accomplished chairman debating how to deal with a troublesome questioner in the body of the hall. “I guess so. Isn’t it just the most romantic house you could imagine?”

  “It has considerable picturesque appeal, no doubt.”

  The lady appeared to find this disconcerting. It was as if the body of the hall had produced something really awkward. “Why – I’d say it’s just out of thi
s world.”

  “I fear not.”

  This was evidently more disconcerting still – the more so as Appleby’s tone might fairly have been described as sombre. The lady looked at him in some alarm. “And you say you’re not the owner? If that isn’t too bad.”

  “Possibly so. My name is Appleby – Sir John Appleby.” He looked at the lady steadily. “I am an Assistant Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police.”

  The lady gave what in a less massively built person would have been a jump. “Does that mean–?”

  “It means Scotland Yard.” Appleby remarked with interest that at this information the lady turned quite pale. “May I ask your name?”

  “Jones.” The lady made this announcement with large conviction. “Miss Jones.”

  “And the name of this house?”

  “Say?” The formidable Miss Jones was confused.

  “Do you know it, or don’t you?”

  “Why, it’s–” Miss Jones lamentably hesitated. “Of course I don’t.”

  “Then, madam, why and how did you come here?” And Appleby paused. “Perhaps you simply saw the house from the highroad and decided to turn aside and have a look?”

  “Just that.” Miss Jones, as if thus reminded that her business was with the visual scene, tilted her head and gave Water Poole a glance of unrestrained if somewhat hurried approval. “If it isn’t a sweet spot. Would it belong to a lord?” She transferred her gaze briskly to a wrist-watch and gave an exclamation of dismay. She might once more have been the busy committee-woman with a fresh engagement pressing. “But I must be getting along.”

  “I am afraid not. It is unfortunately essential that you should remain. You will be kind enough to accompany me into the house and answer certain further questions.”

  “Accompany a strange man into a lonely and deserted house!” Miss Jones’ tone spoke of the largest moral outrage. “I shall do nothing–”

  “Here is my authority.” Appleby fished in a pocket, produced what was in fact a driving-licence, and with shameless resource held it momentarily before Miss Jones’ startled gaze. “This way, madam, if you please.”

  “I call this outrageous.” Miss Jones delivered herself of her protest with energy. But she walked, nevertheless, in the direction which Appleby politely indicated.

  Mr Buttery had either concluded or broken off his contest with the goblins. He and Judith were standing on one side of the fireplace, as if they had formed for the moment a defensive alliance. On the other side was the young man whom Appleby had lately seen drive up to the house; it was apparent that he had been in the hall for only a couple of minutes, and that the entrance of Appleby and Miss Jones was a complicating factor in a situation of which he was trying to take the measure. It was to Appleby that he addressed himself now. “Really, sir, I don’t get the hang of this at all. Mr Buttery I’m more or less prepared to see – although I can’t make head or tail of his talk at the moment. I have gathered before that he has rather a fondness for the place. But why you and these ladies–”

  “We owe you a great many apologies.” Appleby was entirely bland. “May I take it that you are Mr Poole, and that my wife has made herself known to you? And may I now introduce you to Miss Jones, a lady who has performed the astonishing feat of noticing Water Poole from the highroad? We are all quite frankly trespassers, and of course we must take ourselves off. I have no doubt that you find our intrusion most vexatious.”

  “I don’t know that I want to say that.” Richard Poole was willing to be mollified. “Of course one doesn’t very much welcome trippers. But it would be churlish to cut up rough at the appearance of people with an informed interest in the place. Particularly” – and he glanced sharply at Miss Jones – “if they are American visitors.”

  “Miss Jones is certainly from the United States. She isn’t, by the way, already known to you?”

  “Known to me?” The owner of Water Poole was startled. “Certainly not.”

  “And you, madam?” Appleby turned and looked attentively at Miss Jones. “Do you know Mr Poole here by sight – or perhaps by name?”

  There was a moment’s silence while Miss Jones subjected this question to her customary wary analysis. “I’m quite sure I never got acquainted with Mr Poole before. I don’t know many folk in this country.”

  “That gets something clear.” Appleby indicated Mr Buttery. “And you don’t know this gentleman either?”

  “One moment.” Richard Poole had stepped forward – slightly impatient, slightly perplexed. “Is there really a question of getting things clear? I am, after all, the owner of this place, and I’m not aware of anything of the sort.”

  “I have no desire, I assure you, to express any impertinent curiosity.” Appleby’s mildness continued to be notable. “But it is true, you know, that Mr Buttery has had a most perplexing experience here.”

  “To be sure he has.” Poole’s tone was politely amused. “Goblins and fairies at midnight – and as a consequence of his encounter with them he has been trying out some sort of exorcism. It isn’t one of my own interests, I’m afraid. But I don’t in the least object to his going right ahead.”

  “You just can’t have been listening, Mr Poole, if you propose to treat the matter in that off-hand fashion.” Judith now took a hand in the conversation. “What Mr Buttery saw was a whole ball – call it the Naseby Ball.”

  “Then I think he was uncommonly lucky.” Poole glanced whimsically at the venerable clergyman, clearly determined not to budge from his airy attitude. “It’s a spectacle that seems commonly to be reserved for the very old. And also, I must add, for the simplest classes of society. Gaffer Odgers of Poole Parva is the last ancient I heard of as having been favoured in that way.”

  “You have never witnessed this legendary manifestation yourself?” Appleby had strolled to a window and now turned to study the young man in a full light.

  “Of course not.”

  “Nor taken any part in – well, occasioning it?”

  “No. I’m not a medium, or anything of that sort.”

  “You have never come and kept watch, even, at the appropriate season?”

  “Good lord, no.” Poole was again determinedly amused. “I tell you I don’t take any interest in spooks.”

  “Nor very much in Water Poole?” Appleby paused. “May I ask when you were here last?”

  The young man hesitated. “Can that really be any business of yours? But the answer, if it interests you, is about eighteen months ago.”

  “Why are you here today?”

  This time Poole flushed. “Dash it all, sir, this is a bit too much.”

  “On the contrary, it’s not nearly enough.” Quite suddenly, Appleby was no less grim than he had been with Miss Jones a little earlier. “Mr Buttery is an educated man in a responsible position. He gives a most circumstantial account of very odd goings-on here last night. And this morning you, sir, turn up for the first time in eighteen months. Do you ask me to believe that this is purely coincidental?”

  “I don’t ask you to believe anything. I simply tell you to clear–” Richard Poole’s glance fell on Judith and he checked himself. “I must ask you to be good enough to withdraw from my house and land at once.”

  “Possibly our introductions haven’t gone far enough.” Appleby produced a pocket-book. “May I give you my card?”

  There was a moment’s silence while Poole took the slip of pasteboard and glanced at it. His flush died away and his manner became uncertain. “I don’t know what to say about this. I must have a minute to think.”

  “By all means. And I feel bound to emphasise, Mr Poole, that – however it may be with your arrival here – mine is a matter of pure chance.”

  “I don’t think I want to say anything.”

  “As you please. But I think you have a story to tell, and that you had better tell it.” Appleby paused and looked at the young man gravely. “There is one circumstance, of which you may or may not be aware, which makes this queer bus
iness upon which my wife and I have stumbled extremely serious.”

  Poole frowned. “You speak in riddles, so far as I’m concerned. I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “That may be so. At present, I don’t intend to divulge the circumstance to which I refer. But I solemnly assure you that it is something which makes all concealment on your part dangerous and in all probability impossible.”

  The young man was impressed. “I still don’t know that I ought to say anything – without a solicitor and so forth. It occurs to me that I have been breaking the law. I hadn’t thought of it that way – and indeed the idea’s fantastic. Still, I may have been trying to get money by false pretences.” He looked at Appleby with a sudden odd naivety. “It’s devilish awkward.”

  “It does sound as if it might be a shade uncomfortable.” Appleby was mildly sardonic. “But I still advise you to speak out, Mr Poole.”

  “Very well. I will. You won’t believe a word of my story, I expect. But you shall have it.” Richard Poole glanced about him. “I don’t mind your wife – or, for that matter, Mr Buttery. But I really don’t see that this Miss – er – Jones–”

  “Sure.” Miss Jones took this broad hint with alacrity. “Mr Poole’s affairs are no business of mine. If you’ll pardon me, I’ll be getting along.”

  Appleby shook his head. “I’m afraid I can’t allow you to do that.” He turned to Poole. “Do you think Miss Jones has simply strayed in on the party? There isn’t likely to be any place for her in your story?”

  Poole stared. “I can’t think–” He stopped. “Unless–”

  “Perhaps we had better take things in order.” Appleby glanced around the empty hall. “It’s a pity there’s nothing to sit down on except Mr Buttery’s box.”

  “Dear me! I have been most remiss.” Mr Buttery pushed forward the box, and then found himself in some embarrassment as to which lady should have the offer of it.