Hare Sitting Up (11 page)

‘There certainly was.’ Appleby, for the first time, nodded in brisk approval. ‘Next?’

‘I thought of precisely the situation you mentioned, sir. The baffled enthusiast lurking in the nearest pub. And I sent a sergeant down by car straight away. There are a couple of hotels in Ailsworth itself, where he drew quite blank. But in an isolated hamlet called Nether Ailsworth, on the edge of Lord Ailsworth’s park, it was another matter. The people in the pub recognized a photograph of Professor Juniper at once. He’d stayed there for a couple of nights about six weeks ago. I’ve checked on the dates since. Juniper ought to have been in Edinburgh. He’d given it out that he was making a dash there to contact a biologist over on a short visit from Denmark. Of course it was nobody’s business to corroborate such an announcement by the boss of the Research Station.’

Appleby took a deep breath. ‘It’s a trail,’ he said.

‘Yes, sir – or something getting on that way. I must say that the first thing I thought of was the possibility of confusion with Professor Juniper’s brother.
He
might be keen on birds too. But the sergeant had covered the whole business. There had been no concealment. Howard Juniper’s name, in Howard Juniper’s writing, was there in the pub register. And even the Research Station as his address.’

‘But after that – nothing?’

‘Nothing. If our man has been back to Ailsworth, it hasn’t been to that pub.’

Appleby drove himself down to Ailsworth very early in the morning. Short of a Cabinet Minister, he was the only appropriate person for the job. For if Howard Juniper was really going to be run to earth while happily trespassing on the Earl of Ailsworth’s bird sanctuary, he would decidedly have to be put on the carpet. The metaphors were a bit mixed, Appleby thought, but they did cover the facts of the situation. Juniper was a very big man, and it wouldn’t do to preach to him or adopt a high moral tone. What such a man would be most likely to take in good part would be words spoken more in anger than in sorrow. And Appleby didn’t think he would find it difficult to be very genuinely angry. He would indeed be far less angry than relieved. But he needn’t show that.

Of course he could only take Howard Juniper that way if the chap was reasonably sane. If Juniper’s bolt had been the consequence of a bad breakdown, Appleby’s responsibility would obviously be confined to calling in the doctors. But supposing – what was much more probable – that Juniper wasn’t very definitely one thing or the other? What might become important then, surely, would be some ability to enter into his point of view.

Appleby wished he knew more about birds. If it had been proper to bring Judith – and why hadn’t he, since it had certainly not been particularly proper to send her to Splaine Croft? – she would have handled that side of the situation adequately. As a boy he had collected birds’ eggs – which was now just one more of the things you couldn’t legally do. Who would be a policeman – he asked himself irrelevantly, as he ran along the Suffolk coast – in an age in which small boys must be brought before magistrates and lectured on the wickedness of rifling hedgerows?

This birdwatching business clearly happened at a number of levels. At the lowest, the small boys, warned off their bird-nesting, made lists of birds seen, accompanied by appropriate smudgy drawings. That was rather like collecting the numbers of railway engines – although it was fair to admit that, humanly, it was rather more promising. Then there were all sorts of serious adults, with schoolmasters – one would say at a guess – heading the list. Miles Juniper, in fact, rather than Howard. But, beyond that, there were no doubt people of highly intellectual habit who found in crawling about with binoculars some sort of release from obsessional labour in the field of science. Howard Juniper came in there.

But why birds? What did the little blighters do that was so compelling? Appleby, although he had in fact some claim to be a countryman, asked himself this question in a conscientiously townee way. Clearly the answer was that birds have a life of their own which, although over large areas irrational and perplexing, isn’t quite so irrational and perplexing as the life that human beings have been contriving for themselves of late. Work hard on birds, and you may here and there make some sense of them. This scarcely holds of
homo sapiens.

The road swung west to skirt an estuary. He stopped the car and studied his map. Yes, there it was – on the other side of this broad empty stretch of water. Marshland, and then water meadow with pollarded trees marking the lines of ditches. Beyond that, on slightly higher ground, some areas of timber. Just visible behind the largest of these, a pediment and a cluster of chimneys. Ailsworth Court.

He must go some miles west still to the first bridge across the estuary. On this side he skirted lazily lapping water which was a lovely summer blue. But on the other side were great stretches of reed which it would be hard to push a boat through. Straight opposite where he had stopped the car, he could see a high wire fence running down to the water and some way into it. Getting out his binoculars – which might be useful for spotting more than birds – and scanning the farther shore to the west of this, he could distinguish, more than a couple of miles away, the last hundred yards of a similar fence. They were fences of the formidable sort that incline outwards at the top at an angle of forty-five degrees. It was evident that Lord Ailsworth took the protecting of his birds very seriously.

Appleby drove on. Nether Ailsworth proved to be a dull little place, and its pub, the Bell, looked primitive and uninviting. It was inconceivable that Howard Juniper could ever have chosen it on its merits for a quiet holiday. Lord Ailsworth’s sanctuary emerged quite clearly as the only reason why he could have wished to come near the place. Appleby decided, provisionally, to come back to the Bell for lunch; it would certainly not be much of a meal, but he might pick up further information. At the moment, he would go straight on to Ailsworth Court, and see whether he had better luck with its owner than Colonel Pickering had reported.

Again he drove on – this time skirting a high stone wall uncompromisingly crowned with broken glass. The map showed only one drive of any consequence as leading to the mansion, and within a couple of minutes he had reached it. Flanked by symmetrical lodges which could never much have consulted the convenience of their occupants, and hung on massive stone pilasters crowned with prancing griffins, wrought-iron gates of great elaboration were inhospitably closed against the world. Appleby drew up with his bonnet facing them and sounded his horn. Childe Rowland, he said to himself, to the dark tower comes.

Nothing happened. The earl’s retainers – hurrying or loitering, scowling or bobbing, aged or juvenile – were not in evidence. Appleby got out and prospected. The lodges were deserted, and their windows were boarded up. The iron gates, which were rusty and uncared for, were secured by an equally rusty chain and padlock. Appleby peered through them and up the drive. It was, in fact, a long elm avenue, and in a state of utter neglect. It was deep in leaf mould, with here and there tussocks of bleached summer grass. A hundred yards or so ahead, a great elm had come down in a way that seemed to make wheeled traffic impossible. Ailsworth Court itself was invisible.

It was a set-up that took Appleby entirely by surprise. He hadn’t been able to find out a great deal about Lord Ailsworth, but at least he had sufficient information to be certain that he was far from belonging to the more picturesquely indigent of our ancient nobility. The Ailsworths weren’t at all ancient – except indeed as prosperous citizens, a station they had owned in the time of the first Elizabeth. The present Lord Ailsworth was the third earl. And it was the first earl who had made the family breweries the biggest concern of their kind in England. Lack of money certainly wasn’t the occasion of the forlorn face that the place chose to present to the world. And that left only one explanation. Lord Ailsworth must be a person of pronounced eccentricity. Appleby looked forward to meeting him.

This, however, didn’t seem too easy to achieve. There must, of course, be some other entrance to Ailsworth Court. Even if its owner were a recluse, a certain amount of coming and going was inevitable. Somewhere there must be at least a cart-track. And he was bound to find it if he nosed around. Or he could simply go back to the Bell and inquire.

But Appleby’s glance, as he made these reflections, was on the rusty iron gates. He found himself considering footholds and estimating distances. And he thought of Judith, storming that loft at Splaine Croft. Need he himself take up a more elderly attitude? He looked up and down the road. It was entirely deserted. He peered through the gates at the neglected avenue. It seemed entirely deserted too. And there was no physical impediment to his making the climb. He was as fit now as he had been twenty years ago. No, the only impediment was a matter of decorum and dignity. Top people don’t go over the top; they expect to be ceremoniously ushered through… Appleby began to climb.

It wasn’t easy. In fact he had seriously underestimated the task. The gates, after all, although elaborately got up with volutes and scrolls, had been designed in the first place just as
gates
. And they were doing their job tolerably well. They had already exacted from Appleby the forfeit of rather a large rent in a cherished piece of Lovat tweed. Still, he had got to the top. But the main difficulty was to get down again.

Above the gates was more ironwork, pyramidal in structure, and supporting a large shield on which armorial bearings had at one time been enamelled. The Ailsworth hogsheads and firkins and tankards, he thought to himself with a certain ill temper. He was astride this final pompous if decayed affair, and conscious of the distinct possibility of a further laceration in the seat of his trousers, when he saw that he was being observed.

A young woman had appeared in the avenue. She was dressed in breeches and leggings, and she carried a pail. She was looking up at him with startled – almost, he thought, with haunted – eyes. But when she spoke, it was in a manner that was entirely self-possessed.

‘Are you coming, or going?’ the young woman asked.

Gowing is always Cumming, and Cumming is always Gowing
. For a moment it was only this ancient and idiotic joke that Appleby could think of by way of reply. And of course it would be rather too inconsequent to be satisfactory. So he just looked at the young woman, and the young woman looked at him. After all, he
was
elderly, or at least getting on that way. And dignity and decorum sat as naturally on him as did the excellent old Lovat. His hair was grey at the temples. He looked most natural in a black soft hat – and even tolerably natural in a bowler and a beard, like the late notable Mr Clwyd. If he were twenty-two, this would be fine. He would grin cheerfully at the young woman from his elevated perch, and probably all would be well. As it was, his was at the moment a demonstrably false position.

‘Coming,’ Appleby said.

‘Then why don’t you move
laterally
?’ the young woman said. ‘Like a crab. You can reach one of the stone pillars that way. And come down by the rustications.’

Appleby saw that this was a good suggestion. He saw, too, that the young woman was not a milkmaid, or person of similar rustic quality. Far from it. You have Lady Margaret Hall – he said to himself – written all over you. And probably you’re cracked on birds. Aloud, he said: ‘Thank you. I’ll take your advice. And then perhaps we can talk.’

The young woman made no reply to this. She watched his descent impassively. ‘You’ve ripped your jacket,’ she said, when he had come to earth. ‘And,’ she added with quiet satisfaction, ‘your trousers too.’ Her glance went to the leather binocular case slung over his shoulder. ‘I suppose,’ she asked coldly, ‘it’s the Perry River White-fronted Goose?’

‘No,’ Appleby said. ‘It’s not that. Definitely not that.’ He was still feeling rather foolish.

‘Then it must be the Fulvous Whistling Duck.’ The young woman announced this with quiet certainty. ‘Those are the two there has been talk about lately.’

‘Not that either. I’m not interested in birds.’

‘Are you not, indeed?’ The girl’s voice hardened. She was abruptly demoting Appleby from the status of impertinent enthusiast to that of plain thief, intent on walking out with a Fulvous Whistling Duck in his pocket. ‘I think you’d better explain that to the police.’

‘I
am
the police.’

‘Nonsense. You’re a gentleman.’ The girl flushed slightly, as if conscious of having unwarily said something idiotic. ‘I mean you’re a genteel crook. It’s written all over you.’

‘Don’t be absurd, child. It’s nothing of that sort.’ Appleby felt that only a certain heavy paternal quality could quite make up for the memory of him perched grotesquely at the apex of Lord Ailsworth’s gates. ‘My name is John Appleby. I’ll find you a card.’

‘My name is Jean Howe. And I don’t in the least want to see your card. I expect you have dozens of them.’

‘Then I won’t bother you with it.’ Appleby looked at Miss Howe with some amusement. ‘Why do you keep your garden gate padlocked in that curmudgeonly way?’

‘Our garden gate?’ She looked at him suspiciously, as if conscious of being made fun of. ‘I suppose we’re entitled to such privacy as we choose? After all, it’s our own land.’

‘But don’t you think it should all be nationalized, and so forth?’

Appleby realized that this random and absurd question was a great success. It involved the young woman, whose views were conscientiously advanced, in difficulty that was for the moment insuperable. However, she came back not badly. ‘Did you climb in,’ she asked, ‘and ruin that very decent suit, just for the luxury of debating socialism with the first person who detected you?’

‘I climbed in to see Lord Ailsworth. I think you are a relation of his? I remember the family name.’

‘I’m his granddaughter.’ As she took in more of the intruder, the young woman was growing visibly perplexed. ‘I don’t understand what you mean,’ she said, ‘by calling yourself the police. But I know that Colonel Pickering came to see my grandfather yesterday.’