Appleby and the Ospreys (8 page)

‘That’s much my own present position, Mr Bagot. But I’d like to hear what your ideas are about this murder.’

‘Are you not at once taking something for granted, Sir John? It’s my principal idea that there was no murder.’

‘You interest me very much. Do you feel, perhaps, that Lord Osprey committed a suicide?’

‘Not that either.’

‘Dear me!’ Appleby was momentarily nonplussed by this. ‘I’m not at all clear what is left.’

‘Accident. Pure accident. And no discredit reflected on anyone. Which is extremely important, is it not?’

‘The truth’s what is extremely important. We mustn’t think to scramble away from it. But go on.’

‘It appears that when his lordship’s body was discovered by a housemaid early this morning, it was clad in pyjamas and a dressing-gown. He had gone to bed, one must suppose, but had continued to be worried about the intruder earlier in the evening. Lord Osprey was a nervous man – Very nervous, indeed.’

‘I’d hardly have suspected it.’ Appleby looked curiously at Bagot. ‘But continue.’

‘He may have gone to sleep, and come awake, believing he had heard some disturbance in the house. But he was also, you must understand, a man of considerable courage. He at once made his way to the library, the focus of the earlier alarm. He may have believed that somebody was attempting to break in through the French window. So he armed himself.’

‘Armed himself! However could he do that?’

‘With some sort of dagger, Sir John, from those abundant trophies on the wall.’

‘You have a point there, Mr Bagot.’

‘Have you noticed the floor, Sir John?’

‘Yes, I have. Noticing things is a habit of mine.’

‘Parquetry, Sir John. And with a number of doubtless very valuable oriental rugs. The footing is treacherous, sir.’

‘Is it, indeed? People have been known to tumble about on it?’

‘His lordship, at least, must have tumbled. And to tragic effect, Sir John. His slip, unhappily, was fatal to him.’

‘But, Mr Bagot, if all this were true, surely the weapon would have been found beside the body?’

‘It would have occurred to his lordship that as things stood – or rather, lay – there must have been a danger of his being thought to have committed suicide. And that, in an English nobleman, would be widely regarded as disgraceful.’

‘It’s disgraceful to make away with oneself?’

‘In the circle in which his lordship moved, decidedly so. So he managed to stagger to the wall and replace the weapon.’

‘So that it would be supposed he had been murdered – and there’s nothing disgraceful about that?’

‘Precisely so, Sir John.’

‘But, Mr Bagot, if – following this line of yours – somebody had the misfortune to be charged with the murder, and convicted, would there be anything unfortunate and disgraceful about that?’

‘The question is hypothetical, Sir John. But I think a coroner’s jury will bring in what is called an open verdict. Many of its members, after all, will be tenants or employees about the estate.’

It had by this time become clear to Appleby that Bagot was unlikely to be of much help on what might be called the speculative side of the Clusters affair. Decorum was the man’s touchstone, and as neither murder nor suicide was a decorous activity for Lord Osprey to have been involved with, his death had to be accidental and the last seconds of his life positively edifying. But it would be injudicious to tell Bagot that he had been talking nonsense, since on the level of plain fact he might have something valuable to impart.

‘I believe,’ Appleby said, ‘that a blood-stained weapon may be discovered very much as you suppose, and I have little doubt that Detective-Inspector Ringwood is having the point investigated at this moment. I shall, of course, tell him about your ideas. All communications in this matter are valuable and will be carefully considered. But may I pass on to a few quite routine questions?’

‘Certainly, Sir John. I am at your disposal.’

‘How many people dined here last night?’

‘Ten.’

‘Lord and Lady Osprey, Mr Adrian Osprey, Miss Minnychip, Mr Broadwater, and a Mr Quickfall. That’s six. Who else?’

‘Mr and Mrs Purvis. They are from London. I believe that Mr Purvis had business connections with his lordship.’

‘Eight. And the other two?’

‘Lady Wimpole and Miss Honoria Wimpole. I understand that Admiral Wimpole is at sea.’

‘We must hope we don’t remain there long ourselves. The party gathered, I understand, in the library before dinner?’

‘They did, Sir John.’

‘That’s the custom with you here?’

‘Except when there is a larger weekend house-party, when the drawing-room is used before dinner as well as after it. On this occasion, of course, the house-party was exceptionally small.’

‘Small enough for you to be quite certainly aware whether everybody was present?’

‘Most decidedly, Sir John.’

‘They were all in the library as you were taking round sherry, and when this intruder made his momentary appearance?’

‘Most assuredly they were.’

‘So far, so good.’ Appleby considered for a little. When not lured into speculation, Bagot, he was coming to feel, was a clearheaded and presumably reliable witness. ‘And now,’ he went on, ‘I come to something else – and it’s something I don’t quite get the hang of. Lord Osprey sees this figure outside the French window, and he then rapidly closes the curtains and tells you to go and investigate. The most effective way for you to have done that, I’d have thought, was to have drawn back the curtains again, opened the French window, and stepped out to that little terrace or platform or whatever it’s to be called, and looked about you. Instead of which, you simply left the room.’

‘Certainly, Sir John. Not having been given any precise instructions by his lordship, I used my own discretion.’

‘Would it have been the kind of discretion, Mr Bagot, that is known as the better part of valour?’

‘There may have been a certain element of that.’ Bagot was by no means discomposed. ‘I recalled that the chauffeur, Robinson, was in the servants’ hall. I summoned him, and we went out of the front door together. The principal causeway to Clusters was thus directly in front of us, and to our right the moat came right up to the house, until interrupted by the small terrace in question. We thus had a very clear view of the only spot on which any intruder might still be lurking. Nobody was visible.’

‘The terrace, or platform, itself strikes me as rather an oddity. Has it always been there?’

‘It, and the French window giving on it, are comparatively recent in date. At about the turn of the century, I believe it was. His lordship’s grandfather, who was something of an eccentric with a taste for reading, took it into his head that it would be pleasant to step straight out of the library, and sit
en plein air
– surveying, no doubt, the beauties of nature. An eccentric person, as I have said. But in quite a refined way.’

‘Having been thus supported by the useful Robinson, you returned to the library, and told Lord Osprey that nothing of an irregular kind was to be seen?’

‘Just so, Sir John.’

‘And then they all went in to dinner?’

‘Just so.’

‘The whole lot are here still?’

‘They have all concurred in a suggestion from Mr Quickfall that they should remain, as planned, at least until this afternoon – collecting their thoughts, as it were, and making any statement that Mr Ringwood thinks it expedient to require from them. Yes, everybody is still at Clusters.’

‘Except Mr Broadwater, who has gone off fishing.’

‘Precisely so, Sir John. Mr Broadwater is very much a devotee of the rod.’

‘That is something I am aware of.’ Appleby thought briefly. ‘To go back for a moment,’ he then said. ‘You are quite certain that neither you yourself, nor the chauffeur, was aware of any disturbance whatever, either in or over the moat?’

‘There was nothing at all. Except, of course, the bats.’

‘The bats!’ Appleby was startled. ‘What bats?’

‘They come, I believe, from a deserted barn at the home farm. And also, perhaps, from a neglected little boat-house on the farther side of the moat. Frequently at dusk they are darting here and there. I don’t, myself, much care for the bats.’

‘Like the children in Mr Brackley’s choir.’

‘I beg your pardon, sir?’

‘No matter, Mr Bagot. And now I must join Mr Ringwood. I am most grateful for your help.’

Ringwood, Appleby supposed would be in the Music Saloon, drawing what support he could from his assistants on their platform. But on his way – and at Clusters the route from any
A
to any
B
always seemed lengthy – Appleby was pounced on (for the effect was of just that) by a small elderly man of prosperous but otherwise nondescript appearance.

‘Sir John Appleby?’ this person said.

‘Yes.’

‘My name is Purvis. You won’t have heard of me.’

‘Well, Mr Purvis, not, so to speak, at large. But as a weekend guest here, accompanied by Mrs Purvis, you have been mentioned to me by the butler.’

‘Bagot. Yes, of course. You have been speaking to him because you are investigating this shocking affair?’

‘I suppose I must be said to be doing that. But unofficially, as it were, and at the instance of Lady Osprey, who is good enough to think of me as a family friend. As for Bagot, he came at me rather as you are doing now, Mr Purvis. I have just left him, as a matter of fact. A communicative man. I wonder whether that description fits you too.’

Mr Purvis, as was not surprising, seemed a little startled by this. But he replied at once.

‘I’d certainly like, Sir John, to communicate anything I have to communicate, relevant to this monstrous business. Did Bagot happen to mention me to you?’

‘Only very briefly. He said you had business connections with the dead man.’

‘True enough – although it might be a shade misleading. I am by profession an accountant. Purvis, Purvis and Purvis, Sir John.’

‘How do you do?’ It seemed to Appleby that, as an informal introduction had thus been performed, this reply was adequate for the moment.

‘Come into this little room.’ Mr Purvis made a gesture at a door behind him. ‘If any room can be called little in this overgrown warren of a building. I believe it’s called a writing-room. And as nobody ever writes anything worth speaking of at Clusters, it’s sure to be empty.’

So they went into the writing-room. It certainly contained an enormous desk, equipped with every conceivable aid to correspondence.

‘A mass of brass and glass.’ Mr Purvis made his principal vowels as flat as could be. ‘As Lord Curzon said when they took him into his room at the Foreign Office. Looking at the desk, you know, he said just that. “Take away that mass of brass and glass.” Ha ha.’

Appleby, although not much impressed by this decidedly ‘in’ note, smiled politely, and sat down.

‘You were, in fact, Lord Osprey’s accountant?’ he asked.

‘Precisely not. Osprey employed some quite different firm. But he did have a chat with me about his affairs now and then. Making a joke of it, he said it came less expensive.’

‘I see. Was he hard-up?’

‘It rather depends on what you mean, Sir John. People of this sort’ – and Mr Purvis contrived a gesture designed to take in the whole of Clusters – ‘can’t very well be hard-up in the sense of being uncertain about tomorrow’s dinner. Not that you and I mayn’t live to see that sort of situation. But, beyond that, it’s anybody’s guess, I’d say. And I’ve known Osprey to be quietly fishing around, more than once.’

‘I’d rather suppose it to be his brother-in-law who goes in for that.’

Mr Purvis took a moment or two to get hold of this, and then laughed obligingly.

‘Damned good!’ he said. ‘Poor old Marcus. Yes, indeed. But I mean that I’ve had Oliver asking me a thing or two that he might have hesitated to put to his regular accountant. Wondering, you know, on how he could put his hand on fifty thousand or so. To make things a bit easier all round. At least for a time. Yes. At least for a time.’

‘Did it ever occur to you that he might flog that collection?’

‘Collection, Sir John?’

‘The coins. The Osprey Collection of ancient coins.’

‘Oh,
that
. Does it really exist? I, for one, have never had a sight of it.’

‘Lord Osprey certainly appears to have kept it tucked away. But he and Marcus Broadwater seem to have mulled over it together. Moreover – but it must have been a good long time ago – he and Miss Minnychip’s father were by way of confabulating as fellow-collectors. Or so the lady tells me.’

‘I’ll believe in it when I see it, Sir John. When I have sight of it. Yes.’

‘Well, just grant it provisional existence for a moment, Mr Purvis. And suppose it to be a major hoard of the stuff. It could be parted with piecemeal and unobtrusively over a comparatively short period of time, wouldn’t you say? And the total might come well into the hundreds of thousands bracket, I’d suppose. Not that I know much about such things.’

‘True enough, Sir John. Decidedly true enough. And, viewed in that light, it might be a considerable temptation to a thief.’

‘Exactly so, Mr Purvis. And it may explain why not many people know where he kept his doubloons or pistoles or whatever. Broadwater tells me
he
didn’t. He tells me that when the two of them had occasion to mull over the collection together, Lord Osprey simply wheeled it in on a glorified trolley.’

‘In which case Oliver wasn’t trusting his own brother-in-law? I’ll give it to you that he wasn’t a very trusting person.’

‘Have you ever been aware of him – on previous occasions, I mean – as apprehensive about burglars, or thieves of any sort? He certainly seems to have been quickly alarmed by the intruder at the window last night.’

‘Nothing of the sort is within my recollection, Sir John. And I don’t know that you and I appear to have been getting anywhere.’

‘Patience,’ Appleby said. ‘Patience, and shuffle the cards.’

Ringwood was not in the Music Saloon. Appleby ran him to earth – a rather broad strip of earth – on the causeway leading up to the main portal of Clusters. He was staring moodily along the line of the moat. But as Appleby came up he turned and transferred his gaze to the massive building itself.