There Came Both Mist and Snow (23 page)

‘Of course,’ said Appleby mildly, ‘not as a police officer. As an acquaintance merely.’ He looked at his watch. ‘And our meeting had better adjourn.’

A light wind blew little flecks of soot across the surface of the snow. From behind a broken wall a piece of waxed paper fluttered; a hand followed, grabbed, crumpled it tidily, withdrew. I rounded the corner and came upon John Appleby. He was seated on a stone coffin eating a ham sandwich. Beside him on the ground was one of those flat bottles commonly used to carry spirits. It contained milk.

‘I am glad to see,’ I said, ‘that you have had the grace to make yourself scarce. But perhaps you have merely come to gloat on the scene of your exploit.’

Appleby merely took a large bite from his sandwich.

‘I am inclined to think that you must be mad. Mad’ – I added – ‘as the mist and snow.’

‘My dear Ferryman, we have found that you are inclined to think all sorts of improbable things. But, as you say: mist and snow.’ Appleby looked at the remains of his sandwich for a moment with a quite troubled face. ‘So much ingenious talk! If only’ – he spoke in a sort of ingenuous reverie – ‘I could find the truth.’ Suddenly he looked at me sharply. ‘The truth,’ he repeated almost appealingly.

I said nothing. He unscrewed the top of his bottle and drank. ‘Yes, so much ingenious talk: it convinces me more than ever of that something which is altogether missing from our affair… You think me mad? What about Sir Basil – is he annoyed?’

‘You might rather ask if he is furious. But he is not. I remarked to him that you might surely have asked him about his heart in a confidential way. He said that he could conceive reasons for your not doing so. Incidentally, he ate a normal luncheon and seems virtually recovered.’

‘Recovered! Of course he is. One has to learn to do these things efficiently.’ Appleby finished his milk. ‘And I certainly had my reasons. For one thing I wanted to get you all going. You helped me there, I think, by retailing our proceedings of last night: that rattled them a bit in itself.’ He chuckled shamelessly. ‘But an additional jolt was all to the good. Not that the main point lay in that.’

‘I should hope it lay in nothing so wanton.’

‘Ah. Well, you see, it was like this. The dextrocardiac idea struck me quite early on.’

‘Indeed.’ I spoke rather coldly. ‘I don’t remember your men-tioning it.’

Appleby chuckled again. ‘Some ideas are so extravagant that one does best to keep them quiet. Still, it had to be tested. Wilfred Foxcroft hadn’t a heart of that sort: we should have heard of it from the hospital. But perhaps Sir Basil had, and Wilfred had been shot in the right side by someone thinking he was getting Sir Basil’s heart: your theory, in short. But then again perhaps
someone else
had. Perhaps Wilfred was mistaken for
someone else
with a dextrocardiac condition. In that case it would be conceivable that Sir Basil was the assailant. Because of that possibility I didn’t want to give away my awareness of the dextrocardiac notion to him or to anyone else. Hence the method I employed. Of course when you aired the notion yourself concealment was no longer useful.’ Appleby suddenly sighed. ‘Incidentally, I made a mistake – a thing which in my profession one just can’t afford to do. Sir Basil’s shirt and waistcoat.’

‘His shirt and waistcoat?’

‘I left them unbuttoned after feeling his heart. A small thing, Ferryman, but a mistake nevertheless.’ He screwed up the bottle and slipped it in his pocket. ‘Something missing.’ He pronounced this refrain flatly. ‘If I may say so, I am never more aware of it than when talking to you.’

I was startled. ‘You have a weakness for enigmas, Appleby. I fail to follow you.’

‘I can’t retort the charge. Your exposition of the case against Cambrell was most lucid. But I don’t know that you at all believed in it.’

I was silent.

‘Or that you mightn’t usefully have given us a little less theory and a little more fact… I was interested in the moment you chose to break out.’

From beyond the boundary wall of Belrive came the advancing clatter and clang of a decrepit tram. The uproar grew, passed, diminished, and faded; it was a quiet hour on the main road. The unusual silence had the effect of making me feel it necessary to say something. ‘I was impressed by Cudbird’s performance. He has an inborn rhetorical skill that I envy. Once he starts you can’t get your attention away. It’s like being buttonholed by the Ancient Mariner.’

‘Yes.’ Appleby’s eyes had rounded slightly. He transferred their gaze to a cranny at his feet where the sun had begun to melt the sullied snow. ‘There was a moment when I felt almost persuaded that I had lost five shillings… By the way, why did you come out to hunt for me in this way? Just to tell me that I am mad?’

I shook my head. ‘Perhaps a growing morbid interest. You lounge about disclaiming anything in the nature of action only a few minutes after hitting Basil hard on the head.’

Appleby stood up. ‘I promise to do no more lounging about. We must be getting back. All those people are due to meet again at half past two. And then I shall finish this thing off.’

‘Finish it off!’ I cried. ‘You are in a position to do that?’

‘Most decidedly.’ Appleby hesitated, and it struck me that he was about to make an important decision. ‘I know who fired that shot. I know whom it was fired at.’ He began to walk rapidly towards the house. ‘Geoffrey Roper spoke of a big black van. Well – it will be here in half an hour.’

We walked for a time without speaking. Only a few minutes before Appleby had been confessing that the truth eluded him. How he could have received sudden illumination in the interval I found myself unable to imagine. But he had spoken with the greatest confidence and finality; indeed there had been something quietly ruthless in his manner of announcing that he was in a position to bring a criminal to book.

Despite myself, I felt extremely agitated. ‘You know,’ I said presently, ‘the prospect of a scandalous exposure in our family distresses me very much. That one of us should actually attempt the murder of a kinsman, perhaps of a near relation–’

‘Quite so. Your attempt to present an academic case against Cambrell showed how you feel. But don’t worry.’

I stopped in my tracks. ‘I don’t understand–’

‘I said not to worry.’ Appleby spoke a shade shortly. ‘This is not a family affair.’

‘You mean that no member of our family is responsible?’

‘Just that.’

I stared at him, completely puzzled. I had never expected the problem to take this turn.

‘So you see,’ he said dryly, ‘you may feel relieved.’

The police sergeant was poking about the terrace; he hailed Appleby with something like urgency. I lingered while they talked briefly together, and presently Appleby came back to me with a grave face. ‘I wonder,’ he said, ‘if you would go to the library and tell them I shall be a little late? I have some telephoning to do.’

I looked at him curiously. His manner was almost normal; nevertheless it was just possible to perceive that he was concealing a good deal of distress. ‘Is it anything serious?’ I asked.

He hesitated. Then he spoke abruptly. ‘Yes – serious and curiously unpleasant.’ He turned away.

I went into the house. It was a quarter past two and for some minutes I wandered uneasily about. In the dining-room I came upon Hubert who had lingered behind the rest and now appeared lost in the gloomy contemplation of a Stilton cheese. He looked up moodily. ‘That fellow Cudbird,’ he said. ‘A smart little tyke. Gave me a bit of a jolt.’

‘I can well believe it.’

Hubert’s glance returned to the cheese; it was faintly puzzled. ‘Arthur–’ he began, and paused. When he went on it was to say: ‘And now he offers me a commission: what do you think of that?’

‘I think it in very poor taste.’

Hubert ceased to look puzzled and looked very surprised instead. ‘What an extraordinary notion! I shall never begin to understand you literary people. I think it’s grand. I’m to paint every slum in the town, brick by brick. Years of real work. No more of those bottoms masquerading as–’

‘Well,’ I said, ‘if you think it grand I shall not dispute the point. But the police haven’t taken to Cudbird’s idea of the shooting. At least you’ve had a narrow escape and may be thankful.’

‘Oh, come.’ Hubert was beginning to show that boredom which anything like sustained conversation always induced in him. ‘It would have fallen to the ground sooner or later, whatever the tiresome bobbies chose to take to. A rigmarole like that.’

‘You never know. Further evidence might emerge.’

Hubert pushed the cheese away as if it were important that he should be able to study the tablecloth beneath. ‘Do you know,’ he said slowly, ‘I believe I know who fired that shot?’

I must have given a startled exclamation, for Hubert shook his head almost reassuringly.

‘No – I’m not going to air yet another theory to the world at large. Like you, I don’t think any good would come of it. So far, all that talk has got the inquiry nowhere. Which is just as it should be. Let it remain so and presently the police will drift away and the thing will be forgotten about. As far as I can see’ – and Hubert looked as if he were making an unusual effort at logical thought – ‘there will be no occasion for another attack. The motive has evaporated.’

We looked at one another in silence. ‘Yes,’ I said presently. ‘That is what I have been thinking. Only there has been a fresh development. Appleby has announced that the mystery is solved. In a few minutes we are going to gather to hear the solution. What does that mean?’

‘It means’ – and Hubert smiled lazily – ‘that the guilty party had better go while the going is good. What does one get for attempted homicide? Something considerable.’

‘But that is not all. Appleby tells me that we need not concern ourselves. The family, I mean. It is not a family affair.’

Hubert looked at me rather blankly. ‘He must be barking after Cambrell still. Even though Basil’s heart is in the right place’ – Hubert chuckled – ‘as I’ve always been brotherly enough to believe. Plenty of evidence still, no doubt, to build up a case on. For instance, one might combine your idea about his motive with Geoffrey’s of firing backwards so as not to be recognized. Something of that sort. Poor old Cambrell.’ Hubert appeared vaguely amused.

Sudden extreme irritation possessed me. ‘I doubt,’ I said angrily, ‘if you even see the point.’

‘The point? My dear Arthur, I leave that to you.’

Hubert got up, stretched out a long arm for a crumb of cheese on the tablecloth, and moved towards the door. I remembered the message with which Appleby had charged me and followed him out of the room. The study door was open and as we passed we saw Appleby standing at the telephone. He gestured to us to wait and then spoke into the machine.

‘Disgraceful,’ he said coldly. ‘The man’s condition was known. You were told to follow him
closely
. And when the thing happens your fellow is twenty yards away. The result is this horrible business and an immensely more difficult case in court. I can’t congratulate you. Good morning.’

He put down the receiver sharply and came to the door. ‘I shall come along with you,’ he said sombrely. ‘I’m through with that.’

He strode down the corridor and we followed him wondering.

Neither Leader, the Voice, the sergeant, nor the constable was in evidence in the library; I had the impression that the whole local police force was in disgrace. And Appleby had quietly but firmly assumed complete authority over all of us in the room. The atmosphere was wholly different from that of the earlier meeting during which each of us had been so fully given his head.

‘Mr Foxcroft,’ said Appleby without preliminaries, ‘was shot with a cupro-nickel jacketed bullet of .35 calibre; it was almost certainly fired, therefore, from an automatic pistol. That pistol I want.’

Nobody spoke.

‘At least one of you here knows its whereabouts. I appeal to that person to produce it. And to tell what he or she knows. We may thereby be saved a laborious and unpleasant investigation.’

Again there was silence. Appleby was standing before a large window and we were seated in an irregular semicircle round him. He could not have placed himself in a more commanding position. Wale was directly before him, with Hubert on his right. I had myself taken a chair near the door.

‘I am sorry that there is no response.’ Appleby looked momentarily troubled, as if doubtful how best to proceed. ‘I had hoped to get the shooting elucidated before having to tell you of something which I fear will be a great shock to you all. It concerns Dr Cecil Foxcroft. I deeply regret to have to tell you that he is dead.’

There was a little gasp of horror; then a chilled silence; and then Lucy Chigwidden began to sob. Basil crossed the room and sat down beside her. Some of us murmured to one another the mechanical and inadequate phrases which such sudden intelligence as this evokes. And then Appleby spoke again.

‘Sir Mervyn’ – he had moved quite close to Wale – ‘had you reason to apprehend anything of the sort?’

Wale shook his head. He was perfectly impassive and composed. ‘Your question is an ambiguous one. But, however interpreted, the answer is no. Foxcroft’s physical condition was not such that I should have had any fear of his sudden death. And if you mean that he has taken his own life – again it is unexpected. His recent experiences had certainly upset his mental balance; as you know, I endeavoured to have him examined by a colleague this morning, and was prevented by his sudden departure. But I should certainly not have expected his distresses to take a suicidal turn. This is a great and unexpected misfortune.’ And Wale looked round at Cecil’s bereaved relatives in the most placid way. ‘A vigorous and useful life. It is very sad – very sad indeed.’ He settled back comfortably in his chair.

‘Dr Foxcroft,’ continued Appleby, ‘had a luncheon appointment with a Mr Podman, the father of one of his pupils. This appointment he kept. After leaving Belrive in the abrupt way he did he went, it appears, straight to Riverton and found Mr Podman in his office. It was too early for luncheon, and so Podman offered to show Dr Foxcroft over his works. It is a big concern, and given over chiefly to making motorcar bodies. It was while they were inspecting some process connected with this that the accident occurred. Dr Foxcroft must still have been in an exceedingly nervous condition, for it appears that for anyone exercising normal care the machinery is absolutely safe. Be that as it may, something happened to startle him, he stepped back hastily, tripped, and fell. The machinery was halted at once, but it was too late. He was killed instantaneously.’