Appleby at Allington (16 page)

‘And the others,’ Judith went on, ‘are about as concerned as if Martin had been a poorly trained dog. Yet the household appears to think it would be indecorous to sit down to an ordinary square meal.’

‘So Enzo,’ Appleby said, ‘is furiously cutting scores of sandwiches.’

‘Well, not actually Enzo. He’s superintending. There are plenty more servants, as you might guess, tucked away behind the scenes. Mostly Italian, too. But they all live out.’

‘Judith,’ Appleby said to Osborne, ‘is tireless in her investigations into how other households run. I can’t think why. It’s a topic on which she has nothing to learn.’

‘The slightest acquaintance with Dream tells one that,’ Osborne said. ‘So it must be a pure and disinterested desire for knowledge. But, Judith, how have you been coming by it?’

‘Oh, I’ve been talking to Enzo in the butler’s pantry. He’s on his promotion there since Mr Allington sacked his English butler. He enjoyed talking.’

‘Enzo did?’ Appleby asked. ‘He seemed to me rather taciturn.’

‘The poor lad has hardly any English. He welcomed a little Italian conversation. I don’t think he would get much of it, somehow, from the Lethbridges and the Barfords.’

‘I’d suppose not,’ Appleby said dryly. ‘Did you gather where he comes from?’

‘A place called Pescocalascio on the edge of the Abruzzi. It’s rather an awful place. Enzo was quite touched when he discovered I knew it fairly well.’

‘He would be. And I suppose you fixed up with him to come and sit for you?’

‘Oh, yes – of course. He has promised to come over on his first afternoon off, if I want him.’

‘I see.’ Appleby, with his hand on the door of the car, stared at Judith. ‘Had he anything interesting to say?’

‘Moderately, I always like listening to Italians. But I won’t bore you with it now.’

Appleby said no more, and they climbed into the car. Judith’s last remark had been straight family code. She had something to say that she didn’t want even Wilfred Osborne to hear.

This time, Appleby took the wheel, and Osborne sat beside him. On their left, the lake looked particularly harmless in the evening light.

‘Do you notice,’ Osborne said, ‘that this drive looks longer when viewed from this end?’ He spoke as if casting about for some neutral topic. ‘In Repton’s time, people liked what they called consequence. It meant, among other things, trying to make all your possessions look a little larger than they really were. It’s not actually all that distance from here to the gate. Shouting distance, you might say.’

‘A little more than that,’ Judith said from the back.

‘Perhaps so. But it looks farther, because of a trick of perspective. As your eye follows the line of the drive, it follows the line of the lake as well. And as the lake is narrower up there than down here, you get an effect of increased distance. It gave Repton the notion of playing a trick with the drive itself, as well. It’s a full yard narrower at the other end.’

‘Very clever,’ Appleby said. ‘But one result, I suppose, is the rather tight turn-in by the gate. And it’s curious to think what that means. If Repton had been less clever, Martin Allington might be less dead.’

‘I wish all roads didn’t lead to Martin Allington,’ Judith said.

‘So do I.’ Appleby sounded almost irritated. ‘I’ve had enough of that young man’s death as a mystery. And I have a very odd feeling that it’s not a mystery and that I
know
it’s not a mystery.’

‘How very odd!’ Osborne said. ‘And I’m not sure what you mean. What seems mysterious is the young man’s having miscalculated quite as badly as he must have done up there in order to land himself in the water. They talk about his driving when tight. But he’d made a long trip safely enough. The thing happened in the last few hundred yards.’

‘Exactly so. And I have an infuriating notion that at the back of my head I know why. And it’s a why that would cut out Owain Allington’s talk about murder, and Lord knows what. It has something to do with–’ Appleby broke off. ‘They’re having a field-day,’ he said.

Two police cars were parked at the foot of the drive. They had disgorged half a dozen officers in uniform or plain clothes, and a good deal of paraphernalia as well. Out in the road there was a third car, and beside it a couple of men with cameras appeared to be waiting impatiently.

‘The press,’ Appleby said. ‘But they have to hold off until our friend Pride’s men have finished their own photographic job. And measuring, of course. That’s a good deal more important, and it’s what they’re up to now. Distances and directions are something. But after all that traffic, the state of the ground’s going to tell them nothing at all.’

‘That long white gate’s still off its hinges,’ Osborne said, ‘and lying back there where people chucked it. They’re using it as a kind of hat-stand.’

This was true. The evening was still warm, and discarded hats, helmets and jackets had been slung on the gate. They were now being investigated by Rasselas. He seemed to disapprove of them.

‘Nice dog, that,’ Osborne said. ‘Well-bred creature. Notice the short, wide skull. Well-trained too. Must ask Allington where he got hold of him.’

The Applebys paid civil attention to these commendations. But Appleby, at least, was more interested in the professional work going forward. Perhaps it was because of this that he made a somewhat absent-minded turn into the road.

‘Right, John, you idiot – not left,’ Judith called from the back. But she was too late, and the car was already crossing the bridge over the stream by which the lake was fed.

‘Sorry,’ Appleby said. ‘But never mind. I expect I’ll be able – ’ His words died away, and in the same instant he brought the car abruptly to a halt. ‘So that’s it,’ he said. ‘What a ghastly idiot I am! Not just two unnatural deaths. Two white gates as well.’

The second white gate – which stood wide open – was on the same side of the road as the first, and only a few yards beyond the bridge. They climbed from the car and stared at it. And the gate stared back at them – like a yawning, self-evident truth. Standing within it, they were only a couple of dozen feet from the lake straight in front. The track – for it was no more than that – simply turned abruptly to the right and ran off towards a group of farm buildings a couple of hundred yards away.

‘I’ve driven past often enough,’ Appleby said. ‘No wonder the solution of the idiotic puzzle was somewhere in my head! Wilfred, why on earth didn’t you tell me?’

‘Tell you, my dear John? I have no idea what you’re talking about.’

‘Good Lord, man – don’t you see? Imagine yourself approaching Allington from the direction in which we came this afternoon. But in darkness. And it’s all tolerably familiar to you. You’re on the look out for the white gate that marks the drive. Unfortunately it isn’t there. It has been taken away.’

‘I don’t see–’

‘So the
first
white gate you come to is the
wrong
one. You swing in, quite fast, believing that in front of you is the straight drive up to the house. But what is actually in front of you is this – the lake at its full depth. And the one gate is so close to the other that a car going in head-on here would land in pretty well the same spot as a car going in slant-wise from the drive. It was all as simple as that. Add that Martin Allington may have been a bit fuddled, if you like. But it could have happened to him while as sober as a judge.’

There was a moment’s silence. Wilfred Osborne passed a hand over his forehead. He appeared almost dazed.

‘Yes,’ he said slowly. ‘A much likelier accident. It happened once before. Funny that I didn’t remember that.’

‘Just how did it happen before?’

‘It wasn’t exactly the same. There was no intention of going up the drive to the house. It was the end of a long day’s hay-making on the home farm. They were still bringing the hay by moonlight. And just as the fellow with the big wain turned in here he must have fallen fast asleep.’

‘Horses?’ Judith asked.

‘Yes, we still employed horses. Perhaps they were asleep too, for the whole thing went into the lake. There was no tragedy. The wain floated, and two splendid fellows I had then managed to cut the traces and save the horses. I had a bit of post-and-rail fence put up. But that was a long time ago. As you can see, it has vanished.’

‘Ought we to go up to the edge?’ Judith asked. ‘Because of tracks, I mean.’

‘I think you’re right.’ Appleby nodded. ‘But I much doubt whether there will be a sign that could be called evidence. The ground’s baked hard. You can see a bit of a crumble there on the brink. But it might have been caused by anything. It’s unlikely they’ll detect anything like the tread of the poor chap’s tyres.’

‘So it can’t be called more than a theory of the accident?’

‘Probably not – unless the direction in which the car was lying on the bottom has been precisely noted, and affords evidence.’ Appleby was looking at his wife in some surprise. ‘Call it, if you want to, the more likely of the two possible ways in which the accident came about. But I’d take some persuading that I’m not right.’ Appleby paused. ‘The question is, what do we do now?’

‘Go home to dinner,’ Judith said.

‘That’s the attractive answer, I agree. But I think we ought to go back to the house and explain.’

‘I’m against that. We’ve been back once already. It would be ridiculous. And Wilfred must be extremely tired after this perfectly ghastly day. Our first job is to take him to his house.’

‘Very well. But Pride’s men, there in the drive, must certainly be told at once. If any faint traces are to be found, they must start looking for them now. I’ll walk back and do the job.’

‘Very well. At least you’re somebody they’ll attend to. Wilfred and I will wait.’

‘Good. And I’ll lay money it’s the end of this Martin Allington nonsense.’

‘I hope so,’ Judith said.

Appleby put down the telephone receiver and returned to the breakfast table.

‘Smart workers in these parts,’ he said approvingly. ‘Some obliging forensic characters toiling through the night, if you ask me. And with instructions from Pride to let me have their results at once. Excellent man, Pride.’

‘I thought you’d come to approve of Tommy Pride, John. He’s awfully like you. I don’t mean between the ears.’

‘I noticed yesterday a certain similarity in our attire.’ Appleby refrained from looking amused. ‘Well, they’re quite confident. Death took place shortly after midnight the day before yesterday. Martin Allington’s, that is. But so, for that matter, they say did Knockdown’s.’

‘We knew Knockdown was dead before you yourself left the Park. You discovered him.’ Judith poured herself a second cup of coffee. ‘But now that seems to hold of young Mr Allington’s death too.’

‘Just so. If I’d left a little earlier, I might have run into him. But no. I came out, as I went in, by the other drive. Incidentally, he had been drinking. But they can’t say to what incapacitating extent.’

‘And Knockdown?’

‘Yes, he’d certainly had a drink or two as well.’

‘And so had you, and so had Owain Allington. At that hour, everybody has always been at the bottle.’

‘It’s deplorably true.’ Appleby resumed his breakfast. ‘Well,’ he resumed presently, ‘have you slept on it?’

‘Slept on it, John?’

‘Don’t be tiresome. You said there was something you weren’t going to make an ass of yourself about, and you’d chew on it until the morning. The morning has arrived.’

‘But, John, there’s nothing to discuss. The Martin Allington mystery is a mystery no longer. It has been exploded by Sir John Appleby, and reduced to an accident befalling two horses and a hay-wain.’

‘First, there was something about that Italian servant, Enzo. You wouldn’t out with it in front of Wilfred Osborne. What was it?’

‘The less poor Wilfred’s mind is cast into perplexity the better. It was just this. You happened to give me a fairly detailed account of your dinner with Mr Allington, and what followed it. It was difficult to get away. And when it came to final drinks, he fussed because there was no ice. Didn’t he pretend to ring for Enzo?’

‘He
did
ring for Enzo.’ Appleby stared at Judith. ‘But no Enzo appeared. We agreed he had gone to bed. And I didn’t blame him. It was the devil’s own hour.’

‘Enzo wasn’t in the house at all. Allington had told him that he could go out after serving coffee. And out he went. He’s found a girl. The sort you can whistle quietly out of her bedroom and into a field when you want to.’

‘Judith, what absolutely fantastic things you find out! And all in half an hour – and in a butler’s pantry in which you have absolutely no business to be. But at least we now know that Enzo is a dissolute character. I will not permit his nude presence in your studio.’

‘He won’t be nude, and if he does come to Dream he won’t get beyond the drawing-room. I’ve decided he’s much too good-looking to sculpt. He’d be fit only for Burlington House.’

‘Well, that’s that.’ Appleby paused with a due sobriety over this dire dismissal. ‘As for what happened that night, Allington must simply have forgotten he’d told Enzo he could clear out.’

‘I suppose so. Had Allington drunk a lot?’

‘Quite a lot. And I had drunk quite a lot. We were both entirely sober, all the same. Most elderly men dining together remain entirely sober. Except, conceivably, in the view of a policeman.’

‘It was your first visit to the Park, wasn’t it?’

‘Yes, of course. As you know, I’ve just met Owain Allington casually, here and there. When he rang up, he asked for you. I suppose he meant to ask both of us for some time ahead. When I said you were still away, he suggested I drop in to dinner by myself. Actually, when I got there he made rather a fuss about it. Hoping I’d forgive such a casual invitation, and saying how much he looked forward to entertaining us both later on. What is called being punctilious, I suppose. He does fuss.’

‘Did he give you directions for getting there?’

‘Yes, he did. It seemed a bit unnecessary. But it was all part of the anxious-courtesy act, I suppose.’

‘He told you to come by the old main avenue, and not by the lake?’