Appleby at Allington (2 page)

Rasselas was a golden Labrador, and he now lay before the small summer fire on a black bearskin rug. He was a well-groomed dog; spun-gold might actually have been his outer integument; one had to suppose that his retrieving days were over, and that he now enjoyed retirement on somewhat the same terms of modest opulence as did his master. And his posture certainly suggested the largest capacity for repose. Contented immobility seemed very much his line. It was hard to believe that Rasselas had really been much disturbed by the entertainment which had lately been going on at Allington.

‘For how long did your show run?’ Appleby asked.

‘Three weeks. It’s the shortest time it’s economic to set it up for – or at least that’s what they put across on me. True enough, probably, since it’s a surprisingly elaborate affair. One isn’t, of course, bothered with actors and actresses. All that – and a lot of music and battles and bombardments and historical noises in general – comes down canned. It has all been pre-recorded on magnetic tapes, and you make your money simply by playing the blessed things over every night.’

‘It’s the lighting that’s rather a business?’

‘Lord, yes. Wires and cables all over the place. But interesting, really. It’s into the spectacle that most of the ingenuity goes – and the spectacle simply
is
the lighting. So they’ve developed no end of tricks. All controlled from one point, too. I’ll show you.’

‘You got good audiences?’

‘Capacity audiences, except on the two nights that it rained.
Chars-à-banc
full of tourists – what they call coaches nowadays. And mostly all fixed up in New York and Chicago. That side of the affair – would you believe it? – took over eighteen months to mount. There are all sorts of vexations you mightn’t think about. Insurance, for instance. Wherever all those damned people chose to wander, it seemed I was responsible for any harm that might come to them. Driving their cars into the lake, for instance, or encouraging chunks of the castle to fall on their heads. It cost the moon.’

‘I hope it made a profit, all the same?’

‘A profit?’ There was momentary suspicion in Allington’s quick glance. ‘Quite a good one, I think. But I didn’t do it for the mun. It goes to District Nurses, and Preservation Trusts, and homes for superannuated huntsmen: that sort of thing. I did it because it seemed expected of me. Not a good motive, I expect you’ll say. New-man stuff again.’

‘I’m very sorry not to have seen it.’ Appleby, who deprecated nocturnal entertainments in the open air, remembered that he had let most of the evening pass without producing this civility. ‘There must have been no end of historical associations to draw upon.’

‘The whole bag of tricks.’ Allington produced this humorously but with evident satisfaction. ‘Queen Elizabeth slept here, for instance. I went into that rather carefully – and in fact the old girl did. And as for this modern house – well, it seems Winston Churchill once came to lunch in it. Some young Osborne was a pal of his.’

‘So the house came in as well as the castle?’

‘Now one and now the other – although it was naturally the castle most of the time. They were never both lit up at once. We had the church tower, too, and the twelfth-century dovecot, and this and that in the nearer parts of the park. It wasn’t bad value for ten bob. Only I wish I’d had the wit to cut out the stuff about the treasure. It brought us some damned impertinence straight away, and will probably bring more.’ Allington paused. ‘Can you,’ he asked unexpectedly, ‘hear anything now?’

Appleby could certainly hear nothing. Even Rasselas seemed to have the art of slumbering without the slightest suggestion of a wheeze. Outside, the late summer night was extraordinarily still. The countryside was enfolded, one might have said, in a kind of soupy silence.

‘Nothing at all,’ Appleby said. ‘What am I expected to hear?’

‘Lord knows. Hoarse whispers, curses, heavy breathing, the thud of sods, the clink of mattocks and spades.’ Allington laughed as he offered this comical catalogue. ‘It’s true enough. You see, I had the script written by a young chap from Oxford, and he was quite sure that buried treasure would go down fearfully well. So there was a passage that was a kind of treasure hunt, with a spot-light prowling here and there in the park, probing into likely places. Coming to rest beneath a mighty oak, for instance, and voices whispering “Is it here, perhaps, that King Charles’ treasure lies?” Pretty silly, that one – for who’d try to bury anything sizeable bang under a great tree? Still, the idea seemed harmless, and the audience enjoyed it. But – believe it or not – we’ve already had people prowling in the small hours with fuddled notions of real treasure-trove. If it goes on, Appleby, I’ll set Rasselas to bite great collops out of them.’

‘An excellent plan.’ Appleby stooped down and stroked Rasselas’ ear. Rasselas failed to respond by so much as a twitch. It appeared very doubtful whether he would be much of a performer in the collop-biting line.

‘Of course, the local folk wouldn’t behave like that. They’re my own people, in a sense.’ It was quite unaffectedly that Allington produced this feudal reflection. ‘Townees from the audience – and I rather suspect some of the technical chaps who set up the show. But at least they clear out tomorrow. I’ve insisted that the whole affair be dismantled and out of the park by noon. That’s because of the fête, you know.’

‘I don’t know about the fête.’

‘You’ll think I make a circus of the place every day of the year. But tomorrow’s the prescriptive date for our church fête, and I felt they might as well come along and get it over. It’s a very modest affair. House and gardens open, a few stalls with old women selling jam, and the vicar running some sort of gambling hell in a tent. My job is to walk around in a grey bowler hat. Have you a grey bowler, Appleby? If so, do come across, and we’ll walk around together.’

‘I’m afraid I only have a grey topper, which wouldn’t be at all the same thing. And I might alarm your vicar, if he knew I was a policeman. But about that treasure, Allington. Do you really suppose there may be anything of the kind buried within or near the castle?’

‘Ah!’ For a moment Allington hesitated. He was looking at Rasselas attentively, rather as if expecting the creature to raise its head from the rug and offer an opinion. ‘Your guess is as good as mine. It’s a story told about a good many Cavalier strongholds. And, of course, plenty of people did bury their plate, and so on – if they hadn’t melted it down in their unfortunate monarch’s cause already. But it seems to stand to reason that what got buried was pretty soon dug up again. I certainly haven’t sufficient faith in the story to start hunting round myself.’

Appleby felt the topic of buried treasure to have exhausted itself. And the hour was growing very late. He had already made one move to depart, and been restrained by his host. He made a mental note to remember in future that Owain Allington was the type that expects conversation into the small hours.

‘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.