There Came Both Mist and Snow (12 page)

The direct appeal caught me. The young man was interesting and, though disconcerting, not unpleasant. The odd make-believe that we were colleagues – that my affiliations were here rather than in the library – held me for the moment. I talked – discreetly, but frankly on the whole. The substance I have already written down here. At least, I believe I saved the young man time. And I confess that I got some pleasure from the exercise.

From this point – and for the remainder of this brief narrative – the reader will have to accept me as a sort of Watson. During the subsequent investigations Appleby appeared positively unhappy if I was not standing by at his side. During the interviews which he conducted with various members of the household he contrived that I should be present as what he called a family friend. And, again maintaining that a person so deeply researched in human character as myself was invaluable, he held conferences with me and made me a number of confidences in between. I suppose I knew that he was really up to something. But it was mildly exciting and I fell in with the role prescribed for me.

The interview with Basil I felt must be basically awkward. To ask a new acquaintance to dinner for the purpose of amusing one’s sister and then to find him setting up as a detective officer in one’s study is a disconcerting experience. But Basil was not disconcerted. I think he summed Appleby up – and Basil could not have done what he had done were he not a sound judge of men – and liked him; continued to like him even when the interview became something of a duel and when it ended in the unaccountable way it did.

‘Sir Basil,’ Appleby began, ‘has it occurred to you that you may be in some danger?’

Basil raised his eyebrows. ‘You alarm us,’ he said dryly.

It was abundantly evident that Basil was not alarmed. But I admit that I had started at the suggestion, and his ironical glance was in my direction.

‘You were working here at your desk at half past seven; about fifteen minutes later somebody else sitting at the desk was sniped at through the curtains.’

‘Through the curtains?’ Basil looked at the window-recess and frowned.

‘The curtains were not just like that when you were in the room?’

‘They were not. When I returned to work here after changing I found that they had been drawn to. At this time of year the servants pile up huge fires. Before sitting down I opened the French window and left the curtains a foot or so apart.’

‘They are not more than a couple of inches apart now. Can you suggest how that came about?’

‘A few minutes after half past seven, as you know, I went into the library. I wanted to be there when people began to assemble for dinner. It seems that Wilfred – Mr Foxcroft, that is – then came in here to write a letter. It is likely that he would pull the curtains more or less to again.’

‘So that an assailant might have only an imperfect view of the person he was shooting at – a person sitting, notice, in his own light. Would you not agree than that you may be in some danger?’

Basil shook his head decisively. ‘No. I cannot conceive of anyone attempting a crime in such a haphazard way. If the shot was fired deliberately it is overwhelmingly probable that Wilfred was fired at. I am under no apprehension at all.’

‘Mr Ferryman,’ said Appleby rather enigmatically, ‘was persuaded to the contrary view.’ He paused. ‘Suppose, then, that Mr Foxcroft was indeed deliberately shot: can you suggest any reason for such a thing?’

‘It is conceivable that he came upon a thief, who fired in the course of making his escape.’

‘That is of course possible… I think you must have been alone in the library when the shot was fired?’

Basil looked up quickly. ‘I was certainly alone. The others were rather late in coming down.’

‘And you heard nothing? Mr Ferryman has suggested that there are so many traffic noises like the report of a revolver that a shot might pass unnoticed. But a shout or cry?’

‘I heard nothing until the girl Jane began to shout in the hall.’

Appleby paused again. Leader scribbled. ‘Sir Basil, can you think of anything in Mr Foxcroft’s circumstances which would make an attack of this sort likely? I am leaving out of account the notion of a burglar. It is improbable – if only because Mr Foxcroft seems to have been shot as he sat.’

‘I can think of nothing. I am not well acquainted with his affairs.’

‘He is your nephew?’

‘Yes.’

‘But you have never been closely associated?’

I began to wonder if I had done well in so obligingly sketching the family affairs. It was enabling Appleby fairly to gallop over the ground.

‘We saw much of each other many years ago. We both climbed. But this is Wilfred’s first visit to the Priory for a long time.’

‘There had been an estrangement?’

‘In better English,’ said Basil in his dryest manner, ‘there had been a quarrel.’

Appleby nodded – nodded with his rather alarming air of momentary absence of mind. ‘Tell me,’ he said suddenly, ‘was anyone else who has recently been at the Priory in on all that – the climbing, I mean?’

‘Only Ralph Cambrell, who was here at luncheon and with whom I had some business talk afterwards.’

‘Cambrell!’ I exclaimed in surprise. ‘This is news to me. And I shouldn’t have thought that he was at all that type.’

‘He was a different fellow before the mill caught him. Actually he and I climbed together only once. It was on Scafell and I took a horrid tumble on the ascent from Lords Rake.’

For the first time that evening John Appleby showed something like emotion. ‘You had a tumble on Lords Rake!’

Basil smiled. ‘Just that. Cambrell was barely past scrambling; he would have been safe enough on Broad Stand. Central Buttress was about my mark then; in rock climbs I really hadn’t so very much to learn. But tumble I did on Lords Rake and laid myself out. Cambrell had to stand by until I came to, and then we attracted the attention of some folk making for Pikes Crag. He behaved very properly and – I suppose because I don’t greatly care for him – I have felt slightly awkward about it ever since.’

‘Pikes Crag,’ said Leader, and licked the tip of his pencil. It was absurd and I wanted to laugh. Instead I looked at Appleby and saw Appleby looking at Basil. The camera, it occurred to me, had become momentarily an X-ray machine; I have seldom received a more powerful impression of what is called a penetrating eye.

Abruptly – almost as if he were shaking off some compelling thought – Appleby stood up. ‘Sir Basil,’ he said, ‘may I go over the house?’

If Basil was either surprised or annoyed he did not show it. ‘Certainly – anywhere you like. We are very lucky that this wretched business has found you here’ – he paused in a way that reminded me of Anne – ‘and so actively disposed.’

‘Thank you. And we must not keep you from your guests. Mr Ferryman will perhaps show us around.’

‘Arthur,’ said Basil, ‘is just the man.’

In the eighteenth century one expected to be able to see over any house when the family was not in residence; John Byng, in those Torrington Diaries which are favourites of mine, more than once expresses his indignation at being denied this prescriptive right of the gentleman traveller. I had often reflected that in the guise of an elderly housekeeper I would have made not a bad cicerone to Belrive. And now here I was landed with the job – and in circumstances which were odd and disturbing in an extreme. That I was just the man may have been true enough. But Appleby’s interests, I supposed, could hardly be antiquarian, and I was quite at a loss to account for his suddenly expressed wish except in terms of the merest whimsy. Was he proposing to search for the missing weapon? It was scarcely a task to undertake at ten o’clock at night, and with a number of people still presumably waiting to give an account of themselves.

We moved into the deserted hall and Appleby wandered about as if he were in a museum, talking easily the while. ‘This party,’ he said, ‘was the occasion of a reconciliation between Wilfred Foxcroft and Sir Basil. A genuine reconciliation, let us suppose.’ He stopped before the Guardi. ‘Is this the picture your cousin has sold to Cambrell?’

‘Yes.’

Appleby looked at it doubtfully. ‘Do you think, Mr Ferryman, that Guardi ever painted water with that square touch?’

I replied that I was without knowledge of Guardi’s technique, but that I would not be at all upset if the picture proved a fake.

‘In other words,’ said Appleby, ‘you dislike Cambrell too. Now, about that dispute which you say he had with your cousin. It is your impression that Sir Basil refused a favourable offer for his property. And that it was with reference to this refusal that Cambrell said–’

Leader flicked at his notebook. ‘
You damned fool, even your idiot paint-splashing brother would have more sense
,’ he read.

Appleby nodded. ‘And that would be Mr Hubert Roper, the heir to the estate?’

‘Yes.’

‘Those are interesting family portraits… Would you say that Cambrell’s remark was sound?’

I considered. ‘No. I think Hubert would be most reluctant to sell Belrive at all.’

‘I see. But Cambrell may well be convinced that it is otherwise… The Watts, I suppose, is of Sir Basil’s father?’

I found this shilly-shallying between detection and connoisseurship depressingly reminiscent of Lucy at her most characteristic. Nevertheless I continued to feel that Appleby knew what he was about. I replied that the portrait at which we were looking was indeed of Basil’s father.

‘There is a strong family resemblance,’ said Appleby. ‘And it is in the Foxcrofts too. Both Wilfred and Cecil have a look of Sir Basil. And, incidentally, Wilfred and Cecil are astonishingly alike. They might almost be twins.’

‘Wilfred is the elder by about five years,’ I replied. I saw that in Appleby’s observation – which was accurate enough – there might be found some food for thought. So presumably did Leader, for he made his inevitable note.

‘I don’t suppose,’ Appleby went on, ‘that there is a picture of Wilfred here? I have only seen him as a badly wounded man.’

‘There is none that I know of. Hubert is just beginning a portrait of Cecil – a fantastic affair viewed in a mirror and with some mildly improper emphasis on a woman’s slipper. But that is beside the point.’

Appleby looked at me doubtfully. ‘Yes,’ he said, ‘I suppose so.’ He appeared to reflect. ‘I wonder if we might see it? I believe Leader would be interested. He does a bit himself.’

I found it very hard to view this other than as a piece of the most unseasonable facetiousness. Nevertheless I led the way towards the attics. And Appleby continued to talk. ‘Dr Foxcroft’ – he was referring to Cecil – ‘is rather obviously a headmaster, is he not? I seem to remember him as a fellow of St Thomas’. Does he keep up his scholarship at all?’

‘I know nothing of his studies,’ I replied, ‘except that he reads Law’s
Serious Call to a Devout and Holy Life
.’

Even Leader made no note this time. The omission, curiously enough, was a mistake.

We had no business, I felt, in Hubert’s temporary studio. But Horace Cudbird had even less. Yet there was Cudbird standing in the middle of the floor – standing in a sort of dogged perplexity which was emphasized by being caught and caught again in the three mirrors which were still in position. He looked up as we entered and greeted Appleby. ‘So here you are, John. I was wondering how long it would take you to drift up here.’ He turned to me. ‘John has always been one for the arts,’ he said. ‘I’m keener on photos myself.’

‘Mr Appleby certainly appears to be an authority on Guardi’s brush-work.’ I was unable to resist this stroke. For Leader was looking about him in a way that was far from suggesting that he did a bit himself. We had come up here as the result of the merest levity or the most irrelevant curiosity. But even as I concluded this I looked at Appleby again and had my doubts. He was subjecting the room to the most serious scrutiny. ‘Photographs?’ he said absently to Cudbird.

‘Yes. And very instructive they can be.’ The brewer was looking at Appleby as one who sets a puzzle.

Appleby stopped looking about him. For the first time he looked as if he was really thinking hard.

‘Particularly if one plays about with negatives and scissors.’

‘Mr Cudbird,’ said Appleby slowly, ‘do I understand that you feel in on this investigation?’

‘You’ve got it, John. And if it weren’t something improper with Wilfred Foxcroft lying at death’s door, I’d put five shillings–’

‘Never mind the impropriety,’ said Appleby briskly. ‘Done.’

I looked at Leader. The disapproval on his face must have been a comical exaggeration of my own.

Of what had happened in Basil’s study there were eventually to be seven principal theories sponsored by seven different people – of whom one of the most emphatic was to be myself. But as I stood in Hubert’s studio this was hidden from me, and I felt that Cudbird’s proposal to import an amateur element into the investigation was in the most questionable taste.

‘I feel a little unhappy,’ I said, ‘about intruding on Hubert’s quarters in this way. So if Mr Leader’s artistic interests are satisfied–’

I broke off, compelled to silence by the extraordinary conduct of Appleby. He had been rummaging about among the sketches on the table in the most unblushing manner, and occasionally showing one to Cudbird as if he were setting a puzzle of his own. But now he had abandoned this and was delving into the painting materials near the easel. Among these were a number of bottles; each of these he picked up gingerly in turn, and sniffed at. It was just the way in which detectives are supposed to behave; the effect was enhanced when he produced a small magnifying glass and proceeded to scrutinize one largish bottle with the minutest care. ‘Of course,’ he said, ‘it depends on the powder and the weapon. But sometimes firing a single shot will get one’s hand into quite a smoky mess. Turpentine is then useful.’ He put down the bottle. ‘The incriminating fingerprint, however, is not to be observed.’

Somehow I felt suddenly depressed. The intellectual stimulation – the sense of a hunt going forward – had suddenly failed me. Instead, I saw an able and decently educated young man pursuing an undignified profession and proposing to involve Belrive in a great deal of scandal and embarrassment. At the same time I distinguished in myself a wholly irrational annoyance with Wilfred Foxcroft. It was callous; I wished him no ill; but I could not help feeling that it was just like him to plague us all by getting in the way of a mysterious bullet. I remembered his large confidence with the revolver as we drove up in the taxi; his informative prattle about safety catches and Verona drops. And even as I did so my mood changed. Suddenly I was thinking of Wilfred with a large benevolence and wishing for reassuring news from the hospital. As if to compensate for this again, the image of Cecil rose in my mind and I reflected what a very irritating and pompous creature Cecil was. I felt it rather a pity that it was not Cecil who had chosen to write a letter at Basil’s desk…