Appleby's End (14 page)

“That's Mary all right.” Colonel Pike seemed much impressed by the power of this image as now explained. “Still, it hardly seems a reason for all those rum goings-on. You haven't heard all of it yet. After the dog-business – But here we are. And – good Lord! – look at that.”

The car, which had been sweeping up a long curved avenue, had now rounded a final arc and was approaching a broad balustraded terrace behind which stood a solid seventeenth-century mansion, admirably reposeful in its ordered infinity of square mullioned and transomed windows. At intervals the long line of the balustrade was strengthened by massive vacant pedestals. And upon one of these an elderly man, orthodoxly attired after the manner of the country gentry, stood posed in the dramatic attitude of the Marsyas of Myron.

“Yes,” said Colonel Pike in answer to Appleby's enquiring glance. “That's Mulberry. As you see, the business is rather weighing on his mind.”

 

 

Sir Mulberry Farmer's greetings were entirely without embarrassment. “Queer thing,” he said when he had ascertained that his guests would stop to luncheon. “To start with, I was filled with apprehension. There's no accounting for that.”

“I can imagine that it is a very disconcerting experience.” In talking to a country gentleman who stood under threat of petrifaction, Appleby supposed that it was desirable to be soothing. “There's nothing out of the way in your coming to feel some sinister design in it, and being worried.”

“Is that so?” Sir Mulberry looked at Appleby with discernible irony. “Perhaps the quiet sort of life we bumpkins lead counts. Unprepared for anything which might be fancied to have a hazardous side. Now come and look at the pig.”

Colonel Pike snorted. “In Sir Mulberry's last eight years in India,” he said, “he was shot at twenty-seven times. Other means of assassination were also tried. When he says it's queer that he's been rattled, he means what he says.”

They had turned a corner of the terrace and were heading for the back of the house. Appleby refused to be disconcerted. “It doesn't necessarily follow,” he said. “Presumably those people in India didn't start turning things to stone. And something utterly fantastic may disturb a man who takes shooting as all part of the day's work.”

“Quite right.” Sir Mulberry nodded emphatically. “Do you know, anything having to do with stone or statues fascinates me now? What you might call an
idée fixe
.” He chuckled. “Decidedly
fixe
, Mr Appleby. Did you ever read of the Stone Men of Malekula? Identify themselves with their own statuary. Something of the sort was in my head when you arrived.”

“So we noticed,” Appleby said.

Colonel Pike frowned, as if disapproving of this manner of speech to a Lord Lieutenant. But Sir Mulberry nodded amiably. “It doesn't at all surprise me that I should respond eccentrically to the affair. As a family we are a bit like that, particularly in our later years. And, of course, I'm getting on. But what does surprise me is that I was scared. You understand?”

“Yes,” Appleby said.

“Well, that's a start. And seeing the pig will be another. There's just time. Don't attend to the stable clock – hasn't gone for years. These are my wife's guinea-fowl. I was scared, and there was a reason, and I couldn't put a finger on it. You understand
that
?”

“Yes.”

“Then you're ahead of the Chief Constable.” Sir Mulberry vigorously laughed. “And here we are. This first freak was, of course, months ago. But I haven't let it be touched.”

They were surveying a handsome brick building which it seemed invidious to think of as a sty. It had plainly been designed by a previous owner of Tiffin Place when much under the influence of the late Mr Ruskin, and in detail it was not unreminiscent of a villa in the northern suburbs of Oxford. The only living occupant at present was a vast and lethargic sow; three Gothic courts were hers; and this spacious solitude she shared only with a large, lugubrious and indefinably inept white marble boar. Appleby took one glance and had no doubts left. The monumental creature had Theodore written all over it.

“Anybody could drive a cart in during the night and simply slide the tiresome thing down a plank.” Colonel Pike was apparently explaining the hopelessness of arriving at any substantial clue to the mystery. “I wonder if it might have been stolen from a museum? It has the letters
T R
carved on the back.”

“Has it, indeed?” said Appleby. “You know, it might be taken simply for a sculptural embellishment planned by Sir Mulberry – particularly in view of the somewhat ornate character of the surroundings.”

Sir Mulberry Farmer had provided himself with a stick and was scratching the recumbent sow in a routine manner. “Just what we hoped,” he said. “There was a fuss among the men when the creature was discovered – and no doubt some talk since. We just kept quiet. And, as a matter of fact, we've managed to be pretty mum about the whole affair. Of course, the old lady who went demented proved rather a difficulty, and the disappearance of the half-witted boy has been more awkward still. However, we've contrived to avoid any damned publicity.” Sir Mulberry's eye, which had been fixed on his sow with an expression of affectionate regard, turned to the stone intruder and hardened in distaste. “Ghastly,” he said. “Thoroughly coarse in the bone. Hindquarters high and narrow. To think of wasting all that marble on perpetuating a lard-hog.” He shook his head gloomily. “Spot of luncheon won't be amiss. Then we can look at the dog, and that great staring waxwork, and the cow.”

“The cow!” exclaimed Appleby, dismayed. This nonsense was altogether inordinately piling up.

Sir Mulberry looked at him in mild surprise. “It was the cow that turned that wretched old woman from Drool demented, wasn't it?” he asked. “Has Pike not told you–”

Appleby sighed – and remembered about the lady who no longer let a room in that hamlet. “Ah,” he said. “Old Mrs Ulstrup. Of course.”

They walked away. Colonel Pike covertly nudged his host. “Deuced queer his knowing about the woman at Drool. Other things, too. Young, of course. But great confidence. Think a world of him.”

Lady Farmer was a lean woman with features so extremely like a hare's that to the urban mind she would have appeared natural only if hung upside down with her nose in a little silver can. And, as if to lend piquancy to this resemblance, she entered her dining-room surrounded by a small pack of beagles – creatures, Appleby supposed, not commonly admitted to such domesticities by the gross – and for a time seemed disposed to pay more attention to these than to her guests. Sir Mulberry did the talking, though with increasing absence of mind. And the cause of his distraction – Appleby suspected – was the salt. As Sherlock Holmes, noting Dr Watson's eye travel to the portrait of the American general, and seeing his hands clench in a martial ardour, was able brilliantly to deduce that his medical friend was meditating upon the battles of the Civil War, so Appleby, observing Sir Mulberry toy absorbedly with the contents of a silver salt-cellar, inferred that here was a man vividly envisaging the fate of Lot's wife. The truth, no doubt, was this: that deep in his unconscious mind Sir Mulberry longed for the stony change. It was a notion holding all those charms of security and convenience that psychologists associate with a return to the womb, while at the same time having the advantage of being altogether more dignified.

Appleby became aware that Lady Farmer had fixed him with a steely stare, much as if she had an insight into the fatuous nature of his present reflections. Being aware of a steely stare in a hare, as well as being suggestive of nonsense verses, was disconcerting in itself. Appleby was trying to think of an intelligent remark when Lady Farmer spoke.

“This is an extremely disagreeable business,” she said. “It brings such extremely disagreeable people about the place.”

“Ah,” said Appleby.

“There was a journalist. The very morning after the pig. A most impertinent man. Fortunately I discovered he was from the
Banner
–”

“The
Banner
?” said Appleby curiously.

“He had come straight down from Town. The
Banner
happens to be owned by my brother.” Lady Farmer paused grimly. “So the fellow went away.”

“Extremely fortunate,” said Appleby.

“Extremely disagreeable altogether,” said Lady Farmer. “It brings a rag, tag and bobtail about the place. Mulberry, I don't remember that we have ever had to receive the police before.”

“Come, come, Mary.” Colonel Pike glanced in cautious apology at Appleby. “Policeman myself, after all.”

“After the Hoobin boy, too” – Lady Farmer ignored the interjection – “after the waxwork affair a reporter came down. From the
Blare
. But as it happened the
Blare
had been bought the week before by Lord Sparshott, one of my dear father's closest friends.”

“So the
Blare
fellow went away too?” Appleby asked this question absently. He was frowning as if at some problem laid out on the table before him. “But tell me about the boy Hoobin, Lady Farmer. He was employed here?”

“Quite recently my husband agreed to his being engaged to help the stable boys. They objected to his odd ways and he was quartered by himself. Then one morning this” – Lady Farmer paused, as if in search of a perfectly accurate expression – “this extremely disagreeable joke repeated itself. The boy was gone and there was a waxwork there instead.”

“I suppose,” asked Appleby mildly, “that it would be rather an exotic-looking waxwork? Swarthy with suggestions of yellow, altogether ferocious in expression, and recalling the Orient or the inner reaches of Asia?”

Lady Farmer looked uncommonly startled – which was the last touch in the hare-like effect. Sir Mulberry, who had been puffing out his cheeks as if meditating the possibilities of a Della Robbia
bambino
in nicely glazed terracotta, deflated them rapidly and looked at Appleby open-mouthed. Colonel Pike laid down a knife and fork with a clatter. “Precisely so!” he said. “But how–”

“It is what we commonly find,” said Appleby solemnly, “in cases of this sort. The Oriental or Eurasian waxwork.”

“By Jove!” said Colonel Pike. “Is that so?” He turned to Sir Mulberry. “Man has great experience,” he murmured. “Took to him at once. Have everything explained in a jiffy. You'll see.”

Perhaps it was so; perhaps everything could be explained in a jiffy. Appleby found himself looking more distastedly than was civil at Lady Farmer's beagles. They lay about, mildly salivating, and got in the way of the servants. As household pets, even Bishop Adolphus' Tartars and Kurds would be preferable… And there, of course, was the point. It was undoubtedly one of Adolphus Raven's waxworks that had taken the place of the Hoobin boy. The transmogrification of Sir Mulberry's prized Gloucester Old Spot into the ill-conceived marble lard-hog of Theodore Raven was equally beyond question. In fact, it had not been in vain that the road to Tiffin Place had lain through Dream Manor. The mystery of the one was the mystery of the other. And never surely had detective arrived upon a case to find himself in unexpected possession of so much relevant information. Had he not been apprised even of the dementia of Mrs Ulstrup, the pyromania of young Hoobin and the breed of pig purveyed to the squirearchy by Brettingham Scurl? The untoward end of Gregory Grope's grandmother, it seemed to Appleby, was his sole piece of local lore that had not yet entered the picture. The affair had all the promise of that extreme tidiness which marks a well-made play. The dénouement, therefore, must be as rapid and decisive as Colonel Pike could desire. He turned again to Lady Farmer. “I suppose,” he asked casually, “you knew Heyhoe?”

Lady Farmer stared. “Everard Raven's man? Yes, I know Heyhoe. An extremely disagreeable old person.”

“He's dead. They found him last night, buried in the snow.”

Sir Mulberry emerged momentarily from the abstraction into which he had sunk. “All frozen and stiff?” he asked.

“Decidedly so. As stiff as a statue, as they say.”

“No doubt he drank,” said Lady Farmer.

“I suppose he did.” Appleby paused. “Did you ever hear an odd story about him?”

Rather as one turns the knob on a refrigerator, Lady Farmer increased the chilliness of her stare. “I don't often hear odd stories about other people's servants.”

Colonel Pike coughed deprecatingly. “Come to think of it, there
was
something about the old fellow. But I'm dashed if I can remember what. Except that he was the only man who could handle a great horse they kept over there.”

“That's so.” Appleby nodded gravely. “Billy Bidewell seems to do not too badly, but I'm told that, with Billy, Spot may revolt at any moment. Which is awkward, as Spot seems to be the only means of locomotion about the place.”

“Ah,” said Colonel Pike respectfully. “Bit hard up at Dream, one can't help seeing.”

“I believe Ranulph Raven got through a lot of money. I wonder if any of you remember him?”

“Just remember seeing him about when I was a boy. Distinguished-looking old chap in an artistic way.” Colonel Pike shook his head. “Been told he was wild enough, early on. A bit of a byword about the county even. And that took some managing in those days. For instance, there was the old marquis at Linger Court. I remember my father telling me–” Colonel Pike caught the eye of Lady Farmer. “Or rather I don't.”

“Ranulph Raven was celebrated in his time,” Appleby said. “But I don't ever remember seeing a biography of him, or even a brief memoir. And I've rather come to feel that the family is glad to keep him quiet. Except as a legend, that is to say. Only a few of them seem really to know his books.”