The Daffodil Affair (7 page)

Bodfish raised his hat.

‘It appears that in the present posture of our affairs–’

‘In wartime,’ said Miss Appleby inoffensively.

‘Thank you, my dear. It appears that, at present, moving a horse clandestinely about the country is a matter of substantial difficulty. This has made it possible to trace Daffodil at least some little way. And much expense seems to have been involved. Conveyances were bought and abandoned as part of a carefully contrived scheme. That sort of thing. I am informed that at least a hundred and eighty-one pounds was spent in this way before Daffodil reached Bradford.’ Lady Caroline looked suspiciously at Appleby. ‘But this is information which the police already possess.’

‘I haven’t seen the local men yet; I determined to see
you
first, Lady Caroline.’ Appleby, thinking this rather a happy stroke, allowed himself the ghost of a wink at his aunt. ‘But I am surprised the animal was taken to Bradford. I knew for certain that he turned up later at York – which is pretty well in the opposite direction.’

‘Daffodil was traced to Bradford, and from there some way on the road to Keighley.’

‘Keighley?’ said Miss Appleby suddenly. ‘There is something rather interesting in that. John, you are no doubt aware of it.’

Appleby looked at his aunt with suspicion; there was that in her tone which recalled to him searching investigations into his historical and geographical knowledge long ago. ‘I’m afraid,’ he said, ‘I can’t think of anything particularly significant about Keighley.’

‘No more there is. What is significant is that Daffodil should last be heard of going from Bradford
towards
Keighley. Because that, you know, would take him uncommonly near Haworth.’

‘Haworth!’ Appleby sat back so abruptly that his elbow almost dug Miss Maidment in the ribs.

‘Exactly so. I am glad you see my point.’ And Appleby’s aunt turned to Lady Caroline. ‘John is, of course, accustomed to putting two and two together. It is his profession. And when he brings his mind to bear upon our unfortunate loss – Bodfish’s unfortunate loss–’

Bodfish raised his hat.

‘–he at once asks himself what is
peculiar
about Daffodil. And the answer is this: that Daffodil is a
peculiar
horse. A
gifted
horse. In fact, a
queer
horse.’

‘I cannot agree, dear Miss Appleby,’ said Lady Caroline with dignity, ‘that Daffodil is a
queer
horse. But
gifted
, certainly.’

‘We will say, then, that Daffodil has unusual powers. And Daffodil disappears. Observe what John does. He will put two and two together if he can. He turns to his files – Scotland Yard, as your dear brother will have told you, is full of files – and seeks for any
context
in which this disappearance of Daffodil may be placed. In other words: have there been any similar disappearances of queer or gifted horses recently? And if not of horses, then of queer and gifted creatures of any other kind? He makes one significant discovery. Recently, and in this district, a young girl has suddenly and unaccountably disappeared from her home – we all read of it, you know, in the local papers. A gifted and decidedly queer girl. In fact, a witch.’

Lady Caroline blew. Miss Maidment made a noise as of muted alarm. Appleby merely gaped.

‘And this young female of unusual powers lived near Haworth. How impressed, then, was John when he heard that Daffodil had last been seen moving that way!’

Lady Caroline frowned. ‘This is most peculiar. And certainly above Bodfish’s head.’

Miss Maidment turned round. ‘Bodfish,’ she said judicially, ‘we do not require your attention longer.’

Bodfish raised his hat.

‘But this,’ continued Miss Appleby placidly, ‘is only the first stage of John’s inquiries. He has consulted his colleagues; assistants have been turning over press cuttings’ – suddenly Miss Appleby opened her bag – ‘as I may say I have been doing myself.’ She paused, and Appleby was momentarily aware of an infinitely ironical glance. ‘John has been particularly struck by the case of Lucy Rideout, a young girl who recently disappeared – having been, as it would seem, procured for immoral purposes.’

‘Maidment,’ said Lady Caroline, ‘such things ought not to afford embarrassment at your mature years.’

‘Now, about this girl there is something very odd indeed.’ Miss Appleby consulted the first of her cuttings. ‘It appears, as the result of elaborate investigations carried out with great scientific skill by a Superintendent Hudspith, that Lucy Rideout represents a remarkable case of dissociation. She is not so much one person as two – or perhaps three – persons; and she must have been – um – correspondingly difficult to seduce. But seduced she was, having been led to believe, as it appears, that she was to be taken to Capri – a disagreeable resort, but one with romantic associations in the minds of the lower classes.’

Appleby was looking round-eyed at his aunt – much as Sherlock Holmes must have looked at his brother, the remote and quintessential detective. ‘Capri,’ he said, ‘–to be sure. And did you say dissociation?’

‘Yes. What is sometimes called multiple personality.’

‘Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde,’ said Lady Caroline. ‘Or consider Miss Maidment. Maidment, suppose yourself passionately to desire some unlawful delight.’

Miss Maidment wriggled on her seat – but not at all as if she were contriving to obey this injunction.

‘And consider yourself as having, at the same time, a conscience which forbids such indulgence. You are torn between conflicting forces. You are like the souls of the dead in the old stained-glass windows; the angels are tugging at your hair and the devils at your toes. You follow me, Maidment?’

Miss Maidment made an indecisive noise; it acknowledged the theological trend of her employer’s remarks by being faintly devotional in tone.

‘The strain is great, and you let go. You let yourself go in the middle; and where there was one Maidment there are now two.’ Lady Caroline frowned, apparently finding this a displeasing thought. ‘But of course you still have only one
body
. The two personalities share it, each taking sole possession for a time. In this way the licentious and the puritanical Maidment each gets her turn, and a certain degree of nervous conflict is thus eliminated. You see, Maidment?’

Miss Maidment again made a noise; then – unexpectedly – she contrived speech. ‘I don’t understand it at all. It sounds to me much more like being possessed by evil spirits.’

‘Lady Caroline’s description of the condition is excellent,’ said Miss Appleby. ‘But Miss Maidment too has made a significant observation. I have no doubt, John, that you will take account of it. Plainly, it has its place – as has another item on which you are certainly informed. I mean the Bloomsbury affair.’

‘Ah,’ said Appleby.

‘What the newspapers’ – Appleby’s aunt again consulted her cuttings – ‘have been calling the Mystery of the Absconding House.’

‘Miss Appleby,’ said Lady Caroline severely, ‘houses do not abscond. Dishonest servants abscond. You are confused.’

‘I do not think I am, dear Lady Caroline. This house has undoubtedly
made off
– and very possibly to Capri. Moreover, it is a haunted house. A most substantial eighteenth-century house in a Bloomsbury square. Dr Johnson once investigated a ghost there. And now it has been stolen.’

‘Houses may not be stolen, dear Miss Appleby. The proposition is absurd.’

‘In normal times it would no doubt be so. But at present it is quite feasible to steal a house. This house was stolen in stages. One night it was intact; the next morning the roof had disappeared. In London at present such things are not, it seems, at all out of the way. The next morning much of the upper story had disappeared. And so on. People remarked upon it as an uncommonly unlucky house – it was so regularly hit. But by the time the ground floor was vanishing the thing had begun to excite speculation. There was so remarkably little rubble. Then one night the basement went, and there was nothing but a hole. Inquiries were made and there emerged the indisputable fact that the house had been stolen. It appears that during air raids there is a good deal of noise and confusion. Buildings are falling and lorries are hurrying about and what are called demolition squads are at work. The opportunities for stealing a house are quite unusual. But it must be expensive. The theft of Daffodil becomes a small thing in comparison.’

‘Daffodil,’ said Lady Caroline, ‘is a
horse
.’

‘No doubt. But a queer horse. And Lucy Rideout is a queer girl. And this house of which I have been telling you is a queer house. And all of them have been stolen within a few days of each other.’ Miss Appleby put the cuttings away and shut her bag. ‘I am glad to think, John, that you have the matter in hand.’

‘Yes, aunt,’ said Appleby.

Whale Roads

The ocean was empty and unruffled; it was like the sky but emptier – for sometimes across the sky would pass a small high cloud. The ocean was always empty. Every twenty-four hours, and with startling abruptness, the ship emerged from the long black tunnel of the night into this other and cerulean void; every twenty-four hours, without a glimmer of protesting light, she disappeared again. Just such a monotonous voyaging Appleby remembered in a scenic waterway of his youth; so long in a winding papier mâché tunnel, so long floating beneath some dome-like structure garishly lit from below.

With closed decks and sealed portholes the ship would nose through the night, a throb in the centre of her and a thud and a swish, a thud and a swish everlastingly at her side. And everlastingly by day the prow rose and fell, rose and fell across the horizon towards which she drove with an energy growing daily more mysterious in its evident transcendence of any merely human scale of effort. The prow rose and fell. And always there were two men watching, their immobile bodies thrown against a background now of sky and now of sea. They were looking for submarines. And now for long stretches of the day Hudspith was there beside them – Hudspith too watching, but with an eye that swept neither to port nor starboard, Hudspith looking straight ahead at the Lord knew what. Buenos Aires, Appleby thought, Rio de Janeiro, phoney social experiments vaguely reported from far up the Parana. Hudspith was one of those people upon whose nervous system the sea had a marked effect. Appleby would be glad to see him on dry land again. One does not want a loopy colleague when embarked upon so distinctly rummy an investigation as the present.

We have followed a Harrogate cab-horse across the equator, Appleby said to himself, and have no idea where it is leading us.
Wohin der Weg? Kein Weg! Ins Unhetretene
. That was Mephistopheles, and ought to appeal to Hudspith – before whom it was clear that the Devil might appear in visible shape… Appleby moved to the rail and looked down at the sea. The Whale Road, the Angles had called it. But the road was invisible; there was no road; the ship drove mysteriously towards a goal beyond the present reach of sense. And rather like that was the hue and cry after Daffodil.

Appleby thought of it chiefly as the Daffodil affair – no doubt because Hudspith so singly saw it as the affair of Hannah Metcalfe and Lucy Rideout. But actually, thought Appleby, it was the Affair of the Haunted House. In that lay the promise of future contact with a somewhat complex mind. For it was not as if the absconding house were a mere decorative flourish or grace note. Its theft must have cost incomparably more than the abductions of Hannah, Lucy and Daffodil put together. Not that it had been particularly difficult. Just expensive.

It sounded, said Appleby to himself as he paced the deck, like one of the impossible tasks imposed upon the heroes of fairy stories. Steal a large Bloomsbury house and walk out of England with it – this in time of war. But it had been war that made the stealing easy; when whole streets are vanishing, a single house is scarcely missed. And the walking out of the country with it depended on war too. What happens when an English port is blitzed? The rubble is promptly shipped to America as ballast and used there as the foundations of new docks and quays – a sober fact so fantastic that one would hesitate to put it in a magazine story. Your churches are bombed; whereupon they become the causeways across which AA guns are rolled aboard your waiting freighters. It is very odd; and makes it just possible for an ingenious person – or organization, surely – to make off with an edifice once critically inspected by Dr Johnson. But why steal a reputedly haunted house? Appleby could see only one reason. And it cohered with his present view of the matter – or ought he to say his aunt’s view? – no better than with Hudspith’s.

From somewhere aft a bugle sounded. Hudspith turned and strode across the fo’csle head. At least he still ate. Appleby stared again at the vacant horizon. One could easily lose one’s bearings. All at sea, as they say. Obscurely he wished for a familiar landfall – as if that would help. Table Mountain, hanging in the sky like Swift’s floating island. The litter of gigantic lettering on the quays of Manhattan; Brooklyn Bridge, Liverpool and its monster hotels. The low, dun, saurian ripple of land which Australia rolls into the Indian Ocean. If the ship could only raise one of these, he felt absurdly, then the unaccountable fragments of this business might come together in his mind. But what lay before the ship’s prow was South America, and of South America he knew nothing. Nor was he sure that it was in South America that this chase would end.

The saloon was empty; he sat down and let the weeks of tedious investigation trickle through his mind. The haunted house had gone to Boston and thence to Port of Spain; after that it had disappeared. Hannah Metcalfe and Daffodil had last been heard of in Montevideo. But Lucy Rideout had been reported – though uncertainly – in Valparaiso, and perhaps there was significance in that. He looked up as Hudspith slumped darkly down beside him. ‘What would you say,’ he asked, ‘to Robinson Crusoe’s island?’