‘I thought it possible that he might have mentioned to you the name of a certain member of a noble family in Verona.’
‘We certainly had some talk about a lady living somewhere near Venice – and also, I think, about a foreigner of some distinction naturalized there. I don’t know about Verona. My memory’s rather vague. But I think it possible, as a matter of fact, that there was some mention of a couple of families in that city. And noble families, no doubt – although with domestic habits rather on the bourgeois side.’
For a moment Rood looked offended. This nonsense plainly disconcerted him and that was something he didn’t like. Then he produced a short mirthless laugh. ‘Montagues and Capulets,’ he said. ‘Very good…ha-ha! Poor Packford would certainly not keep away from Shakespeare for long. But my reference was to – um – a living gentleman of Verona. An impoverished aristocrat, Sir John, from whom Packford was in the expectation of buying something. But this, mark you, is only inference on my part. Packford was accustomed to being very close in matters of that sort. Or perhaps I ought to say that he was accustomed simultaneously to being very close and to dropping small tantalizing clues to his activities. Possibly “clues” is too technical a word, and trespasses on your own preserves. But, since you knew Packford, you will understand me.’
Appleby certainly did understand. It had been Packford’s habit to stimulate curiosity by carefully dropped hints of coming discoveries – hints which were vague at first and then gained in definition as the moment for actually springing his next surprise on the learned world grew imminent. ‘Did you discover,’ he asked, ‘just what it was that Packford hoped to get hold of on this occasion?’
‘Far from it. I might have known nothing at all about it, had not Packford been in need of money.’ Rood hesitated, as if conscious of the extreme gravity of thus beginning to divulge certain of his late client’s private affairs. ‘Not in the least a large sum of money, having regard to Packford’s ample means. The difficulty was simply over obtaining foreign exchange for a purpose which he wasn’t at all willing to declare. His banker had felt obliged to raise some objection to putting the matter through. He called upon me to arrange it, which I did. In a perfectly legal manner, I need hardly say.’
‘I wonder what you mean by “not in the least a large sum of money”? To a modest traveller like myself, such an expression would cover anything up to about fifty pounds.’
‘Quite so, Sir John. And it would be so with myself, precisely. In this instance, it was a thousand pounds. Packford required that, apart from the normal expenses of his summer’s sojourn in Italy.’
‘With which to buy something from an impoverished nobleman of Verona? I suppose there are such people?’
Rood laughed – this time with something like genuine enjoyment. ‘It is exactly the question I asked myself, my dear Sir John. He sounded uncommonly shadowy, not to say fictitious. And Packford was – um – nothing if not vague about the whole thing. In another man, his attitude might fairly have been called shifty. But in Packford one could not disapprove of it. His temperament is no doubt known to you. He took great joy in his manner of going to work so as to astonish the learned. He had an instinct, you might say, for concealment.’
Appleby nodded. ‘I think that’s true. I’ve even wondered whether he carried it into other aspects of his life.’
‘Um.’ Rood made his ejaculation sound extremely discreet. ‘At least I think we may say this. It was childish, perhaps. But endearing.’ He accompanied these words with a return to his rockiest manner, as if to make it quite apparent that endearment existed for him only as an abstraction. ‘The question is, did it all lead to his death.’
‘Well, that appears to be
your
question. But I can’t say, Mr Rood, that you’ve made out so much of a case, so far. If, that is to say, making out a case is what you’re about.’
Rood looked offended again; he was certainly touchy. ‘No doubt it sounds nebulous,’ he said stiffly. ‘But at least I believe that Packford acquired something of great interest and importance from this person in Verona’ – he gave his mirthless laugh – ‘whether noble or otherwise.’
‘And you think this occurred quite recently?’
‘I conclude, Sir John, that it occurred probably on the very night of your happening to visit him in July. He didn’t mention anybody of the sort, whether by name or otherwise?’
‘I’m certain he didn’t.’ Appleby was becoming rather impatient of Rood’s mystery-mongering. ‘Apart from his housekeeper and gardener – and, yes, my own wife – we didn’t talk about any living persons at all.’
‘But would you say that Packford was in any state of expectation?’
Appleby took a moment to consider this. ‘Well, yes,’ he said. ‘I did get some rather indefinite impression of that sort.’
‘Exactly!’ Rood was once more cheerful. ‘If you ask me, Packford was then in the hourly expectation of doing a highly secret and confidential deal with this fellow from Verona. And he must actually have succeeded in doing so by the following day. The manner of his referring to you as having just missed a celebration admits, to my mind, of no other explanation.’
Appleby was silent for a moment. It had certainly been true that the thought of Verona had held some special significance for Packford on that not-far-distant July evening. So far, in fact, Rood’s speculations were not unpersuasive. But they seemed to have only the haziest connection with the suspicion which he had propounded. ‘And it’s your idea,’ Appleby asked, ‘that Packford, having made this important acquisition in Italy, brought it back to this country, and was then robbed of it by someone who killed him in the process?’
But at this moment the cab stopped. ‘Ah,’ Rood said. ‘My destination.’ He peered at the taximeter. ‘I shall give the man four shillings. If, that is to say, you judge such an arrangement to be equitable.’ And he made to open the door beside him.
Appleby was surprised. Rood, who had seemed so determined to press upon him an unsolicited and bizarre speculation, was frankly bolting. Perhaps he had remembered that Napoleon made some rapid retreats. Or perhaps, on second thoughts, his resolution had failed him. And now he was already out on the pavement. But he hesitated. ‘I ought to have arranged my thoughts,’ he said. ‘It is, after all, very unfamiliar ground. Perhaps, should I consider it justifiable to do so, I may communicate with you?’
‘Certainly.’ Appleby was definite but unenthusiastic. ‘Write or ring up. There will be no difficulty in getting through to me.’
Rood nodded, and closed the door. But he was still hesitating, and a moment later he opened it again. ‘Four-and-six,’ he said. ‘I decided to give four-and-six. I had omitted to consider the tip. Good afternoon.’
Rood banged the taxi door to again, turned, and hurried away. He had neglected to put up his umbrella. And Appleby’s inward ear heard the rain once more plonking on his silk hat, as it had plonked on the coffin of Lewis Packford.
Whether or not Mr Rood thought fit to come forward with more information or surmise, the matter couldn’t, it seemed to Appleby, be precisely dropped. Were he to take no action, and then some independent turn of affairs demonstrate that the solicitor hadn’t been talking nonsense, he would himself scarcely appear in the light of one who had set a very striking example of vigilance to his subordinates of the Metropolitan Police.
But, even apart from this, he felt prompted to do something. He hadn’t been a close friend of the dead man’s. But he had liked him, and had happened to seek him out not so very long before he died. To Appleby’s mind this meant that there would be a mild impiety in now continuing to take the manner of that death for granted. If a man is murdered, his shade is presumably grateful for being vindicted from the charge of suicide.
At the same time, Appleby felt another and simpler impulse – an impulse but for the constant strength of which within him he would probably be indifferently adorning quite another walk of life. He was curious about the business: curious about Packford; curious about Rood; and curious, above all, about that tenuous personal involvement in the supposed mystery constituted by his evening on Lake Garda not long ago. He spent the rest of his taxi journey trying to feel himself back more securely, more sensitively, into that. The result wasn’t very satisfactory.
There undoubtedly had been some sort of expectation or distraction present at that simple feast, and there had also been some personal preoccupation in a sphere where one wouldn’t have expected it. But Appleby found that his memory possessed no instrument with which to measure these things with any accuracy. Sharp but irrelevant sensuous impressions were what chiefly remained from that occasion: the brown torso of the boy Gino and his flashing smile; the fungi and the acid Tuscan wine; the lake turning to a long sheet of light as the sun sank. He had, after all, been very much on holiday. Perhaps he hadn’t at all noticed the right things.
When he got back to Scotland Yard his first inquiry produced a surprise. The death of Lewis Packford, although taking place in Dorset, had been investigated by Detective-Inspector Cavill. It wasn’t at once clear why it had been promoted to that busy officer’s regard, and Appleby sent down a message that he’d be glad to find out.
Charles Cavill was in the building and appeared at once. He didn’t look too pleased; he contrived to infuse a good deal of gloom into the simple business of handing Appleby a file; and he was unnecessarily formal and civil.
‘I’m sorry to take up your time,’ Appleby said. There were always these difficulties in a place that was neither quite one thing nor yet quite another, in which the set-up might be called quasi-military. Appleby had had his stiff periods; had weathered, as he made his way up the ladder, phases of resentment quite as acute as if he had come in at a high level from elsewhere. There had been times when it would have been extremely rash to indulge in apologetic murmurs. But he took all that very easily now; he was almost through, after all; he’d say what came into his head – and let them react, bless them, any way they chose. ‘Yes,’ he repeated. ‘Terribly sorry, Cavill. But the fact is I knew this fellow Packford. It isn’t long since I visited him in Italy and had dinner with him.’
‘Indeed, sir.’ Cavill’s tone indicated that he didn’t himself belong to a class of society that went gallivanting about the continent.
‘And he seemed quite all right then. A great barrel of a man, but full of life, and with all sorts of forward-looking plans in his head. He was going to surprise people. Not a lot of people. Just a good many learned people. That was his line.’
‘Yes, sir. I did gather that he appeared pretty harmless.’ Cavill’s voice now had a hint of weariness which Appleby instantly told himself was not necessarily meant to be offensive. Nobody in the whole place worked harder than Charles Cavill. And if he had concluded that there was no reason to suppose anything particularly sinister about Packford’s death he now had a right to feel a little irritated, anyway.
‘So I was surprised,’ Appleby went on, ‘to learn that the poor chap had blown his brains out. It’s uncommon, you’ll agree, when a man’s looking actively ahead to this and that.’
‘That’s certainly true.’ Cavill now spoke with decent professional briskness. ‘But even a man who is absorbingly interested in life may make away with himself, provided that something bad enough turns up on him suddenly. The suddenness is important, I’ve often found. But perhaps I’m wrong. Of course you’ve had much more experience than I have, sir.’
Appleby sighed slightly. This unnecessary excursus hadn’t even the justification of truth. Cavill’s experience would fill whole filing-cabinets. Indeed, that was just what it did in a large unbeautiful fireproof room downstairs. ‘Well then,’ Appleby said with sudden sharp challenge, ‘what about Packford? Is there any sign of something pretty bad bobbing up on him? He blew his brains out. What was it in aid of, anyway?’
‘Page four,’ Cavill said.
Page four was the last in the file. Cavill hadn’t thought it necessary to compile extensive notes on Packford. Appleby glanced at the first sentence. ‘Married!’ he exclaimed. ‘He kept uncommonly dark about it, I must say.’
‘He had reason to,’ Cavill said grimly. ‘Read on.’
‘Married again!’ Appleby scanned the page for a moment and then put down the file. ‘Well, I’m damned,’ he said.
‘Quite so, sir. It must be surprising – about somebody you knew quite well.’
‘I didn’t say that, Cavill. I’ve never, for instance, been near the place I know Packford had in the country. I’ve dined with him from time to time in a London flat, where he certainly lived in a bachelor way. And I gave him lunch occasionally at my club. And he was in my own house once or twice, and entertained by my wife, without our ever having a glimmer that there was a Mrs Packford.’
‘Two Mrs Packfords, sir. That’s rather the point, isn’t it?’
‘No doubt.’ Appleby took another glance at the file. ‘The existence of the one easily accounts for his reticence about the other. And vice versa.’
‘Just so, sir.’
‘I did rather gather that there were ladies somewhere on his horizon, and that he was finding them perplexing. But there isn’t, after all, anything uncommon about that. I had a dim feeling that he might be a late beginner, and making heavy weather of it.’
Cavill nodded. ‘It’s my guess that that was the way of it, sir.’
‘But this story you have here’ – and Appleby tapped the file – ‘is another matter. Crude bigamy just isn’t an educated man’s crime. He knows it can’t be got away with. The thing’s nonsense.’ Appleby was conscious that his chief reaction to the queer information just presented to him was exasperation. But Packford, he reflected, although so largely sympathetic a character, had always possessed a certain flair for producing that. ‘It was when somebody revealed this awkward fact about the dead man,’ he went on, ‘that the local people asked us to take a look at the business?’
Cavil nodded – still rather wearily. ‘That was how it came about, sir.’
‘I must say you’ve lost no time in making up your mind what really happened.’ Appleby paused, seeing that Cavill was now smiling faintly. ‘But of course I’m still in the dark.’ He shook his head rather helplessly – being aware that the spectacle of his chief in some bewilderment would in all probability put Cavill into a better humour. ‘Apart from some obscure mutterings when I last ran into him. I’d never connected Packford with that sort of thing.’