A Night of Errors (27 page)

‘If you really must–’ Hyland stopped abruptly. ‘Hullo,’ he said, ‘what’s that?’

A shout had been raised by the group of men working by the crane. Appleby looked across at them sharply. ‘Have they got at the bodies in the study?’ he asked.

Hyland shook his head. ‘I don’t think so. They’ve had to give over that for a bit. Still too hot. But of course the site of the study is under observation all the time. No more possible substitutions now.’

A constable came hurrying up. ‘They believe they’ve got down to it, sir.’

‘Got down to it! Got down to what, man?’

‘The butler’s room, sir. It’s a bit cooler there, and they’re through the charred beams to the joists and the ceiling.’

‘I’d clean forgotten him.’ Hyland turned to Appleby. ‘One more body, heaven help us. You’d better have a look before you go.’

‘Very well.’ And Appleby moved towards the house. ‘Perhaps you’d better have that dentist.’

‘Dentist? Oh, I see. As a matter of fact Sir Oliver’s dentist is on his way here now. But I don’t see what he has to do with Swindle.’

‘But we’re not going to find Swindle – or not for certain. We’re going to find a charred body in Swindle’s room – just as presently you are going to find two more charred bodies in Sir Oliver’s study. So it won’t do to take anything for granted. Sir Oliver’s dentist should be let loose on the body in Swindle’s room too – if there is a body, that is to say.’

‘If there is a body!’ Hyland was taken aback. ‘Surely you haven’t any reason to suppose that Swindle escaped?’

Appleby shook his head. ‘I’m not suggesting that he’s alive. But since Sherris has seen a veritable corpses’ ballet in the last twelve hours it seems almost unreasonable to expect any one body to be in its right place. Didn’t I assure the vicar there would be no body at Mrs Marple’s? And wasn’t there?’

For the first time for a good many hours Hyland laughed. ‘I wish I’d been there when you were confounded in the matter – by way, you know, of learning how to carry such a situation off. But here we are. And if there’s a body we shall certainly bring in the dentist. And if there isn’t – well, we’ll hunt for the old man elsewhere. But all the evidence suggests that he was trapped here in his room… How is it going there?’

A grimy fireman paused in heaving back a blackened beam. ‘Just coming on it, sir. Fire swept right over these basement rooms and must have made a pretty oven of them. Some nasty gases there now, I should say. But there would have been air of sorts for a longish time. It was slow roasting for the poor old chap if he was down there. Run round trapped and frantic, he would, until his toes began to go.’

Mr Greengrave, who had come up in time to hear this unpleasant reconstruction of Swindle’s end, exclaimed in horror, ‘This crime,’ he said, ‘would appear to have qualities of imagination. And yet it is hard to conceive of any but the most brutalized mind contriving such abominations.’

Appleby nodded. ‘It certainly is a grim business enough. But at least we don’t know that anyone actually designed Swindle’s slow roasting… They’ve got through the ceiling. Look out!’

With dramatic suddenness a confused structure of charred wood and broken plaster had given way at their feet, and from below a blast of hot air blew over them. The fireman plied an axe and the aperture widened. Bright sunlight from above penetrated the slowly settling dust and they found that they were indeed peering down and into what had been Swindle’s sanctum. It was curiously intact, like some unrifled, immemorial tomb – and, as with such a tomb, everything in it seemed ready to shrivel to a brown dust. The heat was still unbearable. On a shelf above the fireplace a row of pewter jugs had melted and spread themselves in a mess of fused metal on the floor. The curtains and carpet were seared and blackened rags. But on an intact chair in the middle of the room, and directly facing them as they gazed down, was slumped the figure of a man. A small table stood beside him, and on the table lay the remains of a decanter, split and fragmented by the heat. The man’s fingers had closed round the stem of a wine glass – and the bowl of this too the heat had destroyed. His eyes were closed.

‘Well, I’m blessed!’ Hyland’s voice was at once horrified and relieved. ‘He’s perfectly recognizable, praise be. It’s the butler’s body, all right.’ And Hyland turned to Appleby with no more than decently restrained glee. ‘So there
is
a corpse – just as there was at Mrs Marple’s. And we don’t need the dentist.’

‘I rather think we need the doctor. Look at him.’

The figure in the chair had moved oddly – and as they gazed he lifted the stem of the wine-glass to his lips, attempted to drink from the vanished bowl, opened one sleepy and indignant eye… ‘Urrr!’ Swindle said.
‘Urrr
!’

The fireman gave an incredulous gasp. ‘Gawd!’ he whispered, ‘–if the old barstard isn’t alive. It oughtn’t to be possible – not even if he had an out-size in asbestos suits.’

Mr Greengrave murmured what was presumably a pious ejaculation. Then he shook his head. ‘Alive? The place must have been as a fiery furnace. It would appear to be almost–’

‘Alive?’ Hyland was blankly incredulous. ‘The thing’s impossible. It’s just some queer trick of the muscles.’

‘He’s alive, all right,’ said Appleby. ‘Miss Dromio got it quite wrong. Far from having a dangerously low flash-point and being ripe for spontaneous combustion, he was such a withered and leathery old person as to have virtually the immunities of a salamander. I suppose we ought to rejoice.’

‘Of course we ought to rejoice,’ said Mr Greengrave. ‘Whatever the moral shortcomings of this old man, and indeed all the more if sin lies heavy upon him–’

‘I don’t mean quite that.’ And Appleby shook his head. ‘But if ‘Swindle is alive – well, I think it means that Geoffrey Gollifer is dead. Of course it is possible that we ought to rejoice over that too.’

‘Geoffrey Gollifer dead!’ Mr Greengrave was bewildered. ‘But what possible connection–’

‘It’s rubbish!’ Hyland’s voice rose in exasperation. ‘Some mere hallucination. Look, he’s quite still again.’

But, even as he spoke, Swindle rose to his feet and spoke. ‘Robert!’ he croaked. ‘Robert…’ He hunched his shoulders in what appeared to be a shivering-fit. ‘Drat the good-for-nothing rascal. He’s done it again.’ And Swindle shuffled towards a non-existent door. ‘Let my fire out…’

It was seven o’clock by the time that Appleby got back from town. The Bentley’s bright yellow was dulled beneath a film of dust. Appleby felt that his mind was in much the same case. What chiefly occupied it was the fact that he had not shaved that day. This trivial if displeasing fact kept pushing the Dromios and their queer affairs out of consciousness. He was very tired.

The drive forked, and only just in time did he remember to swing the wheel so as to avoid the track that had led him earlier that day – for such, oddly, was the actual chronology of this interminable-seeming affair – to the slumbering Grubb and his luckless decanter. Appleby gave the accelerator a final thrust, swept rather too quickly round a curve and had the house before him.

The ruins of the house. It stood gaunt and roofless against the clear evening sky, and might to all appearance have been standing so for years. Almost one might have imagined wildflowers and grasses growing high up in the crevassed stone. During the fire the place had seemed alive with dogs; now the dogs were gone and there were cats instead – innumerable cats prowling with the automatism of displaced persons returning from desolation to desolation. At first no human being could be seen. The wide trampled lawn was untenanted. Hyland’s little table was gone and in its place – product of some desperate act of salvage – stood a grand piano, a ’cello and an unstrung harp. This mute concert gave a touch of lunacy to the scene. It was as if the President of the Immortals had turned surrealist and was rummaging in His own subconscious mind…

Appleby climbed from the car, and as he did so became aware of Hyland’s Sergeant Morris broodingly on guard over the rubble. He had allowed himself a pipe, and the smoke from this rose straight in air like a tiny memorial of the morning’s inferno among those blackened walls. Seeing Appleby he stuffed the pipe away and came forward. He saluted – with a sinister deference, Appleby suddenly thought.

‘Good evening, sir. Glad to see you back again. And very glad that this is all over.’

Appleby took out his handkerchief and wearily endeavoured to rub the sensation of dust from his stubble-covered face. ‘Good evening, sergeant. So it’s over, is it?’

‘Yes, sir. But very perplexing it was for a while.’

‘Ah. Well, I’m sorry I wasn’t in at the death…I suppose there was another death?’

‘Well, yes, sir – there was. Very shocking death-roll the crime has brought about. Not that the butler wasn’t lucky. Although they do say his mind is gone. The heat sort of seethed it, I dare say.’

‘I dare say it did. Well, it’s nice to know that others have remained clear-headed. And so there was another death? Well, well.’

‘The Inspector, sir, has gone over to dine at the vicarage. And Mr Greengrave asked me to say he would be very glad if you could join them.’

Appleby looked at his watch. ‘I’ll go over straight away. Hullo, who’s that?’

Another figure had appeared, striding with a gloomy purposefulness among the ruins, and occasionally turning to stare resentfully towards the west.

‘Press-photographer, sir. No harm in it, I understand – not now that the story has broken, as you might say.’

‘I see. Well, I think I’ll have a word with him.’

The man looked up as Appleby approached. ‘Evening,’ he said perfunctorily. He was about to turn away, but paused. ‘You work here?’ he asked with sudden interest. ‘Know the family?’

Appleby looked down at his crumpled clothes and felt his prickly jaw. He remembered Swindle’s favourite ejaculation. ‘Urrr,’ he said firmly.

‘Out-door servant?’

‘Urrr.’

The press-photographer glanced cautiously across at Sergeant Morris, put his hand in his trousers-pocket and contrived a loud chinking noise. ‘Tell me anything interesting about the family?’ he asked. ‘Worth ten bob if it’s something not generally known.’

‘Urrr,’ said Appleby – this time on an irresolute note.

‘About the girl who was mixed up in it – she’s the interesting angle. Bit of all right, eh? Had a lover, would you say?’

‘Urr.’ The sound had the quality of a regretful and slightly salacious negative.

The press-photographer looked disappointed. ‘Probably you know more about the servants. Now, what about this fellow Grubb?’

Appleby considered. ‘Old Grubb,’ he said.

‘Yes, that’s right. What sort of a fellow was he?’

‘Old Grubb.’

The press-photographer swore in sudden exasperation. ‘Come down here for damn-all,’ he said. ‘That’s about it – damn-all.’

‘What do you mean – damn-all?’ Sergeant Morris had come up and was highly indignant. ‘You’ve photographed the scene of the crime, haven’t you?’

The man swore more vigorously. ‘Photographed it? Just look at the sun! Couldn’t have got itself into a more idiotic place.’ He made an extremely hostile gesture at the luminary. ‘And do you know I found a top-hole place not fifteen miles out of town?’

‘Top-hole place for what?’

‘For a scene of the crime, of course! A thoroughly sinister old house, beautifully blitzed and in a lovely light. I called up the paper at once. But news-editors have no imagination these days. They insisted on my coming right down here, all the same. And all I find is a ghastly western glare and an idiot yokel.’

‘If you call me an idiot yokel, young man, I’ll run you in for insulting the police. I’m on duty here, I’ll have you remember, and bad language to such a one is something our magistrates won’t a-hear of.’

‘Good heavens, man, this is the yokel – not you.’ And the press-photographer jerked an irritated finger at Appleby.

‘And bad language to the gentry ain’t no better. Now, just you clear out.’

‘I certainly will clear out. And blast your rotten crime.’

‘Don’t you dare to call it a rotten crime.’ Sergeant Morris was suddenly very angry indeed. ‘It’s a much better crime, young man, than you’re ever likely to have your sticky nose in again.’

‘Do you hear that?’ The man turned to Appleby. ‘Who’s using insulting language now? And you’re a witness to it – whoever you are. Good evening.’ And the man marched off.

But Appleby followed him. ‘This whole story is going to break?’ he asked.

‘It certainly is – right across the front page tomorrow morning.’

‘Sinister crime and swift, brilliant solution?’

‘That sort of thing.’ The man was momentarily confidential. ‘Of course it’s
not
a rotten crime. There’s been nothing like it for years.’

‘That is certainly true.’

‘And our man has had the whole story from the big noise down here – fellow called Hyland.’

‘I see. Well, get your paper on the phone and tell them to hold their horses.’

‘What the deuce do you mean? And who do you think is going to attend to you? The story will hit the headlines all right, you may take it from me.’

‘Very well. But don’t blame me if a number of you hit the pavement next day – that uncomfortably hard Fleet Street pavement, my dear man. Nothing worse for shoe-leather in the world.’

‘I think you’re crazy. Who are you, anyway?’

‘Appleby’s my name.’

‘Appleby? Never heard of you.’ The press-photographer halted and stared. ‘Not
John
Appleby?’

‘John Appleby.’

‘Heavens above!’ The press-photographer looked first at his watch and then wildly round about him. ‘And I was going to give you ten bob for a good, dirty line on the affair.’

‘I believe there’s a telephone at Hodsoll’s farm. Good night.’

And Appleby climbed wearily into the Bentley. Scenes like this depressed him very much. He let in the clutch, reflected, stopped again. ‘Morris,’ he called, ‘May I have a word with you?’

Sergeant Morris came to the side of the car. And again he saluted with that unnecessary deference – a well-satisfied, slightly smug, definitely irritating man. He knew all the answers. Indeed, he had discovered them himself. And now he was being polite to the old dug-out from Scotland Yard.