Appleby's End (28 page)

Appleby turned to Mutlow. “What do you think?”

“There's not a doubt of it!” Mutlow, now conscientiously relieved from the unnatural necessity of hounding the local gentry, was suddenly expansive. “And it shows how careful one should be about – about testing one's hypotheses. And I'm not sure it wasn't you yourself, Mr Appleby, who was a bit hasty there.”

“Undoubtedly it was.”

“Now, what I've always said–” Mutlow sat down again and his eye seemed to go in quest of the brandy bottle. “What I've always saidis–”

From somewhere out in the darkness first a long, low howl and then a series of rising and bloodcurdling screams nipped Mutlow's discourse in the bud. Everybody sat up or leant forward, startled and listening. Again the same sounds were heard, and this time was added to them a vast and hideous yowling as of some gigantic, demented and supernatural cat. Mr Smith, who had a few moments before strolled over to a window, came back to the fireside and placidly stroked Hodge. “Dear me,” he said, “what an extraordinary din.”

“It's the witches!” Mutlow had sprung up in great agitation. “And they're not a quarter of a mile off. I–”

“The witches?” Everard Raven looked even more bewildered than usual. “It sounds to me the sort of noise young men make at night in the streets of Oxford when they're celebrating having been out with the drag.”

“There it is again!” Mutlow was looking round hurriedly for his hat. “And – good heavens! – listen to that.”

The uncanny sounds had been repeated, though now a little farther away. And this time they were followed by other sounds unmistakably human – the angry shouts, cries and halloos of a pursuing mob. And Mark Raven was following Mutlow to the door. “Won't you stop for another brandy? How sorry we are! Put a few cigars in your pocket instead… Dear me, the man's gone!”

Appleby had crossed over to Mr Smith. “You don't think,” he said in a low voice, “that there's any danger if they catch up with them? It sounds a pretty angry crowd.”

Mr Smith chuckled comfortably and gave Hodge's whiskers a friendly pull. “My dear sir, the witches are no more than two lads in flannel trousers and tweed jackets, perfectly well known in the district, who are taking an evening stroll in the snow. They can change from hunted to hunters instantly at need. In addition to which, Charles is a Rugger Blue and Arthur is likely to be amateur middleweight champion of England.” Mr Smith rose to his feet again, with the air of surveying his own gigantic person from his white hair to his cracked and ancient shoes. “We are an old-fashioned family, Mr Appleby, and muscular Christianity is our
métier
.” Mr Smith tickled Hodge on the ear and his expression grew serious. “I fear that you have unpleasant news for our friends, and that I myself bring the confirmation of it. But at least we have avoided the catastrophe which their levity has nearly brought upon them.”

 

 

“Of course,” said Appleby, “Heyhoe never conceived or carried out such a series of bizarre incidents as have occurred, nor was Spot in any way responsible for burying him in the snow. It is only the motive with which Mutlow has departed – satisfied, as it seems – that bears some approximation to the truth. For – as Liddell discerned – publicity for Ranulph Raven and his works was what you were after. It was simply the cannibal instinct of the Ravens that was at work once more. But you had no idea of the noose into which you were doing your best to run your necks.”

Rather nervously, Luke Raven inserted a finger under his collar. “O what a tangled web we weave–” he began.

“Quite so. And which of you began the weaving I have no idea. Clearly the inspiration came from the odd encounter with the blind man that befell Mark and Judith years ago. Apparently you didn't interpret it aright, but it did suggest to you the unusual way that Ranulph went to work and recalled the old legend of some sort of prophetic element in his writing and its curious relationship to reality. That was a sort of seed that lay in one of your minds – I suspect Judith's, I may say – and germinated not very long ago when the family realised that it was more than usually hard up. Could you turn Theodore into bathroom tiles or sell a little more Gawain or Mordred? And, if not, was it conceivable that the long-since defunct reputation of Ranulph could be profitably revived? He would be copyright still for a few years and there was even a certain amount of unpublished material. Surely there was some promise in that?

“But on their own merits Ranulph's books would never rise again; they were as defunct as Grandfather Herbert's madrigals. It was a sensation that was wanted – something that would be written up lavishly in popular papers and create an interest in this forgotten writer that clever editors and publishers could exploit. There would be money in that; big money, even. When I first met Everard we were sitting amid a litter of newsprint that showed what big business a current sensation can be. Set going and keep up only for a few weeks the notion that the forgotten writings of a Victorian novelist were beginning to come true and your fortune would be made. What with cheap editions, serials and cinema rights the bag could be reckoned in tens of thousands of pounds. And eventually, you supposed, when the mystery proved insoluble, interest would subside and the whole thing be let die. I don't doubt that you made a miscalculation there, and that so oddly profitable a piece of mystification would eventually have been exposed.”

Mark Raven, standing before the fireplace, took a swig of brandy almost as undiscriminatingly as Mutlow had recently done. “It must be admitted,” he said, “that you know all about us. May we ask just how you tumbled to it?”

“I had two immense advantages – and the first was distinctly unfair. Judith, who began by pitching up the Ranulph legend hot and strong, presently ceased to be altogether uninterested in me – and as a result ceased to be sufficiently wholehearted in her fibs. Having marked me down, it seems, with breathtaking speed, she came to feel that piling on the Ranulph deception was a bit thick – as later you were good enough to do yourself. But the second advantage came before that. As soon as I saw that board at the station telling me that I had been neatly derailed at a place called Appleby's End I knew that something was up – and that Everard was at the bottom of it. He knew my name – and perhaps my profession, since an old photograph of myself was lying about the compartment throughout our journey. The coincidence was much too striking to be true – and in fact, of course, Everard was brilliantly improvising – as he was to do again, all too brilliantly, a few hours later. Appleby's End was a local name that had caught Ranulph's eye, and he had given it to a story. And here was an Appleby looking for a night's lodging! Surely something could be made of this in the grand plot that was going forward. Anyway, Everard picked me up on spec. And it made me suspicious of him from the first.

“And now go back to the way your plans developed. First there was the little affair of
The Coach of Cacus
– a mere trial run, which came to nothing, and was merely by way of seeing what you could do. Then you started on
Paxton's Destined Hour
and were all set for real publicity. That a dead novelist's son should be served with a tombstone just as a character in one of his books had been would be sensation enough. But you had bad luck. Your family solicitor – whom Everard was so anxious to call in this evening to protect him from Mutlow – happened to be down here at the time. And with the wise discretion of his kind he insisted that so odd a matter be kept quiet. So presently you turned to
The Medusa Head
. Here was all this marble of Theodore's lying about, and nobody so much as willing to make a tile out of it. And here on the shelf was a yarn of Ranulph's in which all sorts of creatures were mysteriously turned to stone. The combination of circumstances was irresistible! And so the campaign against the Farmers was launched – with Spot and a farm-cart, no doubt, to do the carrying. It was well organised this time, and was going to be the big thing. You even had matters so arranged that reporters were on the scene in no time. But again you had ill luck – on this occasion the most wretched luck. The Farmers were strongly opposed to publicity, and as it happened they had a pull both with the
Banner
and the
Blare
. Whereupon you went so far as to persuade the Hoobins, who are both a shade simple, to get their boy away from Tiffin Place and hide him. And you replaced him with one of Adolphus' waxworks. But again nothing much happened, for the local police didn't make quite the stir they ought, and so the Medusa mystery hung fire. And this was the state of affairs when I had the good fortune to meet Everard on the train. He was feeling rather blue – was not
Patagonia to Potato
almost out, and
Religion
barely on the stocks, and the
Revised and Enlarged Resurrection
looming ahead as soon as the
New Millennium
should be finished? And was not the whole great Ranulph plot horribly indecisive? So that when he realised that here was an Appleby who had small chance of a room for the night he snapped him up at once and with alacrity as a fresh possibility. And – once more – the surprise and consternation of the rest of you when I was introduced was demonstrably greater than could be caused by a mere coincidence of names. Everard, you felt, had taken the bit between his teeth and was proposing some new and precipitate move.”

“Hardly that.” Everard Raven puffed at a cigar and seemed to feel that a modest disclaimer was due. “I had nothing clearly formulated in my mind. And subsequent events, my dear John, drove your possibilities quite out of my head.”

“No doubt. And it's to the subsequent events that we now come. When Judith and I were separated from the rest of you by the accident at the ford she was left with rather a pretty problem. I was an Appleby – and a Scotland Yard detective. How did I fit in? Was I spying upon the whole plan, or was I an innocent instrument of Everard's? She chose to pump me full of the Ranulph mystery – and so was more communicative about her family than such a well-bred young person would naturally be. It was odd.”

“I'm not a well-bred young person!” Judith was indignant. “You might be speaking of one of Lady Farmer's beastly dogs.”

“Judith,” said Clarissa severely, “if your manners made an adequate impression upon this young man, that is surely one satisfactory aspect of this deplorable affair. And never forget, child, that even an artist may be a gentlewoman.”

“And now for Heyhoe. The accident had given him a shock and he abandoned Spot – perhaps to Luke, but I am not sure – and wandered off with his bottle of gin in the snow. The rest of you spent some time hunting for the carriage and ourselves down the river and then, so as to have a better chance of contacting us, you separated and each made your way home independently. So the next adventure was Everard's alone. It was a shock to Judith – and later it shocked and puzzled Mark, who was plainly anxious as to what his sister made of it until he had an opportunity to slip out and discuss it with her. And I think, indeed, that Everard kept his own counsel for the rest of the night.

“He came upon Heyhoe, stone dead. And again he improvised. I would say at a guess that his action can best be explained by heredity – for might one not expect a macabre streak to emerge in Ranulph Raven's son? Anyway, here was Heyhoe's body, and a great deal of snow, and the sudden recollection of an unpublished tale of Ranulph's based on the story of a gentleman who used to take earth baths in his spinney.” Appleby paused. “It had been an exciting evening: first the acquiring of an Appleby and then the accident at the ford. It must have thrown Everard a bit off his balance, for this of Heyhoe was altogether an error of judgement – extremely dangerous, and almost certain to lead to trouble.”

“Oh dear, oh dear!” Everard Raven looked excessively dejected. “It was not very decent, either, I fear. Smith, you will not like this; you will not like it at all.”

Mr Smith said nothing, but exercised a friend's privilege to pick up the poker and stir the fire. Robert Raven came forward to help him. “Everard,” said Robert, “has always been of a sanguine disposition, some genius for making the best of things. He was proposing to make the best of poor old Heyhoe.”

“No doubt. And now your plan was fairly launched indeed. Within twelve hours it was showing every sign of presently becoming a national sensation. Unfortunately, this ghost of Ranulph's that you had summoned from the grave was likely to prove a very Frankenstein. And the reason for this lay in the family circumstances which Mutlow and I became possessed of this afternoon.”

With something of Everard's obstinate hopefulness, Clarissa peered into an empty coffee-pot. “This is most disturbing,” she said. “Let us hear the worst. What can these mysterious family circumstances be?”

“I can explain them in a very few words.” Appleby turned again to Everard. “This business of living off Ranulph apart, it is your family habit to speak or think little of him. He is not really among the more reputable of the Ravens, I fear it must be said. For one thing his writings are a little too crude and popular in manner for your rather sophisticated family taste. But also – and more importantly – he was a man of most irregular life. He had numerous illegitimate children. Heyhoe was your half-brother – just as he was a sort of half-uncle to Mark and Judith, and a cousin to Miss Clarissa. Now, early on, and when I was considering the possibilities of some such case as Mutlow eventually fell for, you may remember my asking if Heyhoe was older than the rest of you. And you declared that he was. The point of the question you will realise at once if I ask you another: are you really certain that Heyhoe
was
illegitimate?