Appleby's Answer Read online

  ‘Confound you,’ this person said without ceremony. ‘Motorists ought to be forbidden to charge irresponsibly around these roads. Happened to me only a few weeks ago.’

  ‘The mare may have gone lame.’ Judith Appleby had climbed briskly from the car. ‘But that’s no reason why you shouldn’t have got it on to the verge.’

  ‘I shall complain to the police.’

  ‘You’d do better to complain to your RDC.’ Judith stirred the surface of the road with a toe. ‘They call the stuff loose chippings. Disgusting flint. Disgraceful where there are horses around.’

  ‘You’re absolutely right. But our RDC are a pack of red-hot socialists. Waste of time to address them. If you ask me, some of them are at the bottom of the deuced odd things that have been happening round here lately.’

  ‘Deuced odd things?’ Appleby asked automatically. Deuced odd things, after all, were his line.

  ‘A great deal of annoyance and impertinence offered to my husband.’ As Lady Pinkerton said this, she suddenly struck Judith as being in a state of barely concealed nervous agitation. Conceivably the near-collision had really upset her quite a lot.

  ‘Perhaps,’ Judith said politely, ‘we could take a message for you. You might care to send for a groom? We’re lunching at a place called Hinton House.’

  ‘Thank you, I can manage very well.’ The weatherbeaten woman now comprehended both Applebys in her stare. ‘Haven’t we’ – she demanded on a note less social than threatening – ‘met somewhere?’

  ‘Perhaps at the Parolles in Dorset,’ Appleby suggested.

  ‘Very possibly.’ It was immediately apparent that this foolish joke, designed as intelligible only to Judith and prompted by hunger and impatience alike, had quite misfired. Momentarily, the weatherbeaten woman was almost civil. ‘My husband and I have visited there, and so, I believe, has Miss Anketel. You had better drive on to Hinton now, or you will be late for lunch. Be so good as to go past well on the other side of the road.’ The weatherbeaten woman was resuming normal form. ‘Kate Anketel,’ she said, ‘has some uncommonly odd friends.’

  ‘Indeed?’ Judith had raised her eyebrows in a manner suggesting to her husband the urgent desirability of getting these two ladies out of earshot of each other.

  ‘For example, the woman staying with her now. She had an absurd name. My name is Pinkerton.’

  ‘Our name is Appleby.’ (Lady Pinkerton – for it was of course she – and Lady Appleby eyed one another without cordiality.) ‘And what is the absurd name?’

  ‘Vanderpump. Was ever anything so grotesque?’

  ‘Barbara Vanderpump?’

  ‘How in heaven should I know? Kate introduced the woman to me. But I don’t keep useless information in my head.’

  ‘I think it must be Barbara. I was at school with her – and with Kate Anketel too.’

  ‘Indeed? Then you are going to have a reunion, no doubt. I am inclined to think that the Vanderpump woman is presuming upon just such a slight and distant acquaintance with Miss Anketel for some impertinent purpose of her own. It happens.’

  ‘Really?’ Judith said. (Appleby, opening the door of the car, endeavoured – but in vain – to motion his wife within.)

  ‘She noses around. She tries to engage our village people in gossip. Some time ago, we had another woman of the same sort – who even had the insolence to come to church. But this woman, Miss Vanderpump, has the appearance of positively trying to unearth something.’

  ‘I think I have heard that she writes novels, and perhaps that explains the matter. Historical novels, I believe. So if she comes nosing around – as you express it – after you, you must be charitable, and bear with her.’ And now Lady Appleby did climb into her car and switch on the engine. ‘Since she has, you see, a professional interest in quaint survivals.’ She let in the clutch. ‘And in outmoded manners,’ she added – and steered the Rover carefully past Lady Pinkerton’s patient quadruped.

  ‘That was very rude of you,’ Appleby said. He appeared to derive a good deal of amusement from the circumstance for the remainder of their drive.

  He was not particularly surprised to find that he did, after all, remember Miss Anketel (and that she, indeed, even called up in him a dim recollection of the Dorset Parolles). The lesson of the great Vidocq, who transformed the efficiency of the Paris Sûreté by the simple means of insisting that his detectives should never forget a face, had not been lost upon the Scotland Yard where Appleby had been trained. So of course he recalled Judith’s school friend as soon as he set eyes on her. (He even, he imagined, recalled her smell, which was of what he supposed to be called a saddle-room.) It was a surprise, however, to find that he also recognised that other school friend of Judith’s, Miss Anketel’s house-guest, Barbara Vanderpump.

  And Miss Vanderpump certainly recognised him – although it seemed not a circumstance which afforded her particular pleasure. For a moment, indeed, she had even appeared rather confused. An animated demeanour and much silvery laughter quite failed to obscure this odd fact to Appleby’s professional eye.

  ‘But how very delightful!’ Miss Vanderpump exclaimed, exuber-antly and hazardously waving one of her hostess’ oversize sherry glasses in the air. ‘Your husband charmed us, Judith. He held us spell-bound, I can truthfully say. And I was extremely lucky in being introduced to him. It was at the last Diner Dupin.’

  ‘Yes, of course,’ Judith said. ‘And John came home saying it had been the most marvellous occasion.’

  ‘So it was,’ Appleby agreed, with decent conjugal loyalty. ‘Only you and I didn’t have the chance of much conversation.’

  ‘We must make up for that now!’ Miss Vanderpump said – perhaps with more gaiety and emphasis than conviction. ‘I’ve been so looking forward to meeting you again.’ She waved her glass anew, to an effect of sending a fine spray of sherry over Appleby’s waistcoat.

  ‘The Diner Dupin?’ Miss Anketel asked briskly. ‘Whatever is that?’

  ‘A gathering of people who write detective stories,’ Judith said. ‘So of course John adored it.’

  ‘Good Lord! A kind of trade-union bean-feast?’ Miss Anketel appeared much struck by this idea. ‘I didn’t know, Barbara, that you went over the sticks under those colours.’

  ‘Only as what may be called an honorary member.’ Miss Vanderpump produced this rapidly and on her emphatic note. ‘But it was all the greatest fun.’

  ‘You were with a friend to whom I was introduced too,’ Appleby said.

  ‘Ah – that I don’t remember.’

  ‘In what I’d inexpertly call a pink gown. She was going to tell me a story, I think about a railway journey.’

  ‘How very odd!’

  ‘Or rather you yourself were trying to persuade her to embark on it, but she turned the conversation. Perhaps she thought it would take too long. It was to be about a man who discovered she wrote detective stories, and tried to exact tips from her in the general area of criminal enterprise.’

  ‘What sort of man?’ Miss Anketel asked.

  ‘A retired army man, who had turned coach or crammer somewhere in the country. But that was as far as the story got.’

  ‘It sounds to me,’ Miss Anketel said briskly, ‘uncommonly like Captain Bulkington.’

  ‘What lovely roses!’ Miss Vanderpump exclaimed. ‘Do tell me, Kate dear, what they are called.’

  ‘Captain Bulkington,’ Miss Anketel reiterated firmly, ‘whom you have been so uncommonly curious about, Barbara. It seems to me – I’m bound to say it has already seemed to me – that there’s something going on. Out with it, woman. I don’t care for mysteries about my neighbours.’

  ‘Oh, dear!’ Before this sudden devastating acuteness Miss Vanderpump appeared to flounder badly. ‘It’s true I am curious about Priscilla and her Captain. Priscilla Pringle, Sir John. You know her tremendously clever books.’

  ‘Priscilla Pringle? I’ve never heard of her.’

  ‘You said you had.’

  ‘Did I, in
deed.’ Detected in social prevarication upon the occasion of that absurd dinner, Appleby avoided his wife’s amused eye. ‘Has Miss Pringle encountered this enquiring soldier again?’

  ‘Yes, indeed.’ Miss Vanderpump had cast a despairing glance around the room, as if seeking distraction in vain. Now she took a gulp of sherry and plunged. ‘Priscilla has written to me about him. And I detect a romance. It is terribly frivolous of me, I know. But the occasion of my curiosity is just that. You see, we writers–’

  ‘Good God!’ It would have been hard to tell whether Miss Anketel was indignant or entertained. ‘Am I to understand, Barbara, that you have come to stay with me simply for the purpose of fishing out such absolute nonsense? It’s more than time that we went in to lunch.’

  This was self-evidently true – and at table the awkward little contretemps ought to have been dropped. It was Miss Vanderpump herself who refused to drop it.

  ‘But I must defend myself,’ she said. ‘Even if it makes me appear absurd.’

  ‘I’m sure it won’t do that,’ Appleby said blandly. ‘And what you have said is most interesting. I hope you’ll go on.’

  It was with detectable resignation that Judith Appleby picked up her knife and fork. Here – in the heart, surely, of a large rural innocence – her husband had come upon the tip of a mystery. The wretched Miss Vanderpump’s chances of not going on were nil.

  11

  ‘I said that I detected a romance,’ Miss Vanderpump began. ‘And that is quite true. But there is something more. I find something disingenuous in dear Priscilla’s account of this – this developing relationship.’

  ‘If Sir John is interested,’ Miss Anketel said dryly, ‘I suppose we must hear you out. But it is an odd sort of report to offer upon the private correspondence of one’s friends. Jefferson’ – she had turned to her parlour-maid – ‘you may put the wine on the table and withdraw.’ She paused while these instructions were obeyed. ‘Now,’ she said grimly, ‘let this scandalous talk proceed.’

  ‘There is nothing scandalous about it.’ Miss Vanderpump was disposed to show a flash of spirit. ‘I simply suspect something not merely distressing, but possibly dangerous as well. What if this man has turned poor Priscilla’s head?’

  ‘That may be your business,’ Miss Anketel said, ‘but I’m not at all clear that it is ours.’

  ‘Romance is one thing, Miss Anketel.’ Appleby spoke with a new briskness. ‘But danger is another. No harm in putting our heads together, if you ask me.’

  ‘Then Barbara must certainly continue.’ Something in the formidable Miss Anketel’s tradition, it had to be supposed, produced this prompt submission to mature male authority. ‘Even,’ she added, ‘if it means no more than knocking our united heads against a post.’

  ‘Of course Priscilla Pringle hasn’t anything one could call money, any more than I have.’ Miss Vanderpump ventured a deferential glance round the large solidities of Hinton House. ‘But at least she is now making a comfortable income. And this Captain Bulkington sounds to be the very type of the unsuccessful man. I’ve found out a little about his coaching establishment. He might be described as within two or three pupils of mere bankruptcy. And he can’t really believe that Priscilla could teach him to make a fresh livelihood out of writing crime fiction.’

  ‘Is that the idea?’ Judith asked. ‘It hasn’t been explained to us.’

  ‘That, and some nonsense about collaboration. Priscilla seems to have fallen for the nonsense, which she could scarcely have done if she were in her right mind. And she has written about Captain Bulkington, and Captain Bulkington’s pupils, and Captain Bulkington’s neighbours (including yourself, Kate) in the most sugary way. Only infatuation can explain such stuff.’

  ‘Possibly so.’ It was plain that being written about in a sugary way didn’t please Miss Anketel at all. ‘And this is all very regrettable, no doubt. But I don’t see how your friend has been made a dupe, or where what you call danger comes in.’

  ‘I don’t quite see it myself.’ Miss Vanderpump was suddenly helpless. ‘But I do feel it – very strongly. “Kandahar” – which is the name, Sir John, of Captain Bulkington’s house – sounds such a sinister place. Somebody was murdered there – only Priscilla now says it was an accident. And now there is the wicked idea of murdering somebody called Sir Ambrose.’

  ‘Sir Ambrose!’ Miss Anketel was startled. ‘Sir Ambrose Pinkerton?’

  ‘Yes, indeed – although Priscilla says he is a quiet man with a pleasant voice. It is extremely shocking.’

  ‘Is Sir Ambrose Pinkerton the chief local notability?’ Judith asked. ‘If so, I believe John and I have encountered his wife.’

  ‘Certainly he is.’ Miss Anketel said. ‘Rather a tiresome man. But it does seem extravagant to propose to murder him.’

  ‘Only in a book, of course. In this collaborated book.’ Miss Vanderpump, by nature so sprightly, again had her helpless look. ‘It does seem in very bad taste.’

  ‘May I get this quite clear?’ Appleby asked. ‘In this proposed joint effort that we are hearing about, a figure more or less identifiable as Sir Ambrose is to be the victim?’

  ‘Yes, indeed.’

  ‘Do you think it is your friend who has thought up this aspect of the thing – or is it Captain Bulkington?’

  ‘Priscilla writes as if it were her idea. But I believe it is Captain Bulkington who has put it in her head.’

  ‘Then what he has put there is something highly injudicious. I’m not sure you don’t libel a man by murdering him in cold print.’ Appleby paused. ‘Miss Vanderpump, you don’t suppose that it is a real murder that is in prospect?’

  ‘Oh, dear – what a dreadful idea! But it is very strange. You see, if you had heard Priscilla’s story about the railway journey – from which all this started – you would get the impression that Captain Bulkington was some sort of maniac who did have some horrid actual crime in mind.’

  ‘I see.’ Appleby turned to his hostess. ‘Miss Anketel, you must know this man. Have you any reason to think him mad?’

  ‘I wouldn’t trust him an inch. But I’d call him cunning rather than mad. Just occasionally, one has heard of a pupil of his passing an examination. I recall one boy who gained entrance to St Edmund Hall, which I understand to be at Oxford.’

  ‘A college of the most respectable antiquity,’ Appleby said. ‘Its founder was canonised in the mid-thirteenth century.’

  ‘No doubt. But it is my point that the boy probably owed his success to his own exertions. I doubt whether Captain Bulkington knows Greek from Latin.’

  ‘Perhaps he has organising ability,’ Appleby suggested, ‘or is a good disciplinarian. Has he a large supporting staff?’

  ‘Nowadays, I believe he has nobody at all.’

  ‘In other words, the coaching establishment is pretty well on the rocks. In the circumstances, one might suspect Captain Bulkington, no doubt, of having formed some design upon the modestly prosperous Miss Pringle. A matrimonial design – lawful although not perhaps edifying. And all this business of looking around the local gentry for a good person to murder is nothing more than courtship behaviour of a slightly macabre sort, suggested by Miss Pringle’s professional interests. Mating birds – and even reptiles, I believe – go through motions that are quite as odd.’

  ‘That is probably the whole thing,’ Judith said. ‘John’s answers to such problems are invariably correct. It was a saying, as a matter of fact, at Scotland Yard.’ Outrageous invention was occasionally one of Judith’s amusements. ‘“Appleby’s Answer,” they used to say. It became proverbial. So now we can forget Miss Pringle and her gallant admirer, and talk about something else.’

  ‘An excellent suggestion,’ Appleby said blandly. ‘Melodrama just round the corner is always a beguiling possibility. And – seasoned though I am – I’ve almost yielded to it! But it’s nonsense, of course, in point of any sort of sober fact.’

  Judith said no more. Her husband, she thought, was a profoundly
disingenuous man. He had interested himself in these wretched people, without a doubt.

  ‘We have a backward son,’ Appleby said an hour later. They had climbed into their car, and were leaving Hinton House behind them. Not, however, in indecent haste, since Miss Anketel had caused sundry humps and hollows to be constructed across her drive with the aim of restricting mechanically propelled vehicles to a speed agreeable to the susceptibilities of resident dogs and horses. So Appleby was cautiously nosing his way towards freedom. ‘He shall be called Arthur,’ Appleby added. ‘Note the name please: Arthur Appleby.’

  ‘John, don’t be ridiculous.’ Judith had no illusions as to what was in her husband’s mind. ‘There’s a great deal to be done in the garden. The Bundlethorpes are coming to dinner tomorrow. We can’t possibly waste time on these absurd people.’

  ‘But the Bundlethorpes are absurd too – at least I’ve always felt so.’

  ‘They have some sort of claim to polite attention, which is more than can be said of Captain What’s-his-name.’

  ‘Bulkington. And I don’t think it will really take up much time. Mysteries don’t often take long to clear up.’

  ‘You’ll meet the insoluble one yet.’

  ‘No Appleby’s Answer?’

  ‘None.’ Judith, who had been restoring a handkerchief to her handbag, closed the receptacle with an expressive snap. She rather regretted having made that foolish crack. ‘Besides, there isn’t a mystery. It’s some mere fatuity.’

  ‘Hitherto, Arthur has been privately educated. He is a promising but delicate lad. It is our ambition that he should go to Oxford. New College has crossed our minds. But on the whole we should prefer Christ Church. Arthur’s great-great-grandfather, you will remember, was a Canon of Christ Church.’

  ‘And what is Arthur to read when he gets there? Theology?’

  ‘I think not. The boy’s own taste is for Military History.’

  ‘You can’t read Military History at Oxford – or only along with a lot of other kinds of History.’