The Open House (6 page)

‘He’s not quite on time,’ Professor Snodgrass said. He had adopted a casual air which carried no conviction at all. It was plain that, whether fondly or not, he believed that his great moment had come. He had kept his promise by Adrian: the candle in the window, and much other welcoming ritual besides. And now, after many years, Adrian was keeping his promise by him.

Appleby’s only impulse was to get out. If the car didn’t herald the owner of Ledward at all – if it contained, for instance, a conscientious local policeman doing his best to keep an eye on what must by now be a notorious folly – then Professor Snodgrass’ disillusion would be an uncomfortable thing to witness. If, on the other hand, Adrian Snodgrass had really and truly turned up, the resulting family occasion would equally not be an affair for a stranger to assist at. Adrian after ten years or more would not be quite the Adrian his uncle remembered, and the encounter might not, for one reason or another, run on the kind of lines the old gentleman had been envisaging. Appleby somehow couldn’t believe in an agreeable Adrian Snodgrass. In a sense, no doubt, the Professor had enjoyed his long wardenship of Ledward Park, but he would surely have enjoyed it more if he had continued to receive, from time to time, some token of thanks or interest from its wandering heir. Moreover, unless he had been treating himself to the perverse enjoyment of putting on a dotard’s turn, it seemed likely that the Adrian who now chiefly existed in his memory was a very early Adrian indeed: perhaps even the small boy who had been photographed in soldier’s uniform long ago.

Having decided so much, Appleby got to his feet. Discounting as much as possible the mere oddity of proposing to walk out into the night, he would take a firm conventional farewell of Professor Beddoes Snodgrass (not forgetting a further word of praise for the port) and depart resolutely from the house. And he decided to leave by the french window he had lately investigated. It would be more awkward still to run into the returning Adrian (if, again, conceivably it
was
he) before his own open front door.

‘Not yet, my dear Appleby.’ The Professor had made a gesture which invited his guest to resume his seat. ‘I know you must be as eager to greet Adrian as I am. But it won’t be proper quite yet.’

‘Not proper?’ Appleby was so astonished that he did actually sit down again. ‘If it’s really your nephew who is arriving, surely you are going straight out to welcome him?’

‘Certainly not. You forget that this is his own house. He enters and takes possession of it. He enjoys, if he cares to, the refreshment laid out for him. It will then be for us to present ourselves. In a sense we shall be welcoming him. But it will be, on my part, as a kinsman who is a neighbour, and, on your part, as that kinsman’s guest. Listen! The car must be a hired car. It’s driving away again.’

This was true, and it was a circumstance that seemed to Appleby to negative the notion of an expostulating policeman. Whoever had simply been dropped at the front door of Ledward at such an hour plainly proposed to spend the rest of the night there. For the first time, Appleby found himself positively inclining to the view that Beddoes Snodgrass’ dream was about to realize itself. But this only strengthened his own resolution to depart. So he once more rose, and this time advanced upon Professor Snodgrass with an outstretched hand.

‘It has been a great pleasure to call upon you,’ he said in what he hoped was a virtually hypnotic tone. ‘But I must not intrude upon your family occasion. In fact, I will leave by the terrace. What a splendid port that is! Good night.’

‘My dear fellow, must you go?’ The Professor, to Appleby’s relief, appeared to be politely masking surprise, and had even extended his own hand. ‘Do drop in on me at my own place at any time. No point in standing on ceremony with a new neighbour, eh?’

‘I shall be delighted,’ Appleby said mendaciously, and made for the french window. It was perhaps because he was so decidedly not standing upon the order of his going – because, to put it crudely, he was in flight – that a second later he failed to pull up in time. He had opened the window, stepped briskly into the night, and collided violently with a more or less solid object. But it was not, in fact, an object so solid as to be immovable. It was now, indeed, supine on the terrace. And it was undoubtedly a man.

Appleby took no time at all to decide that here was one prowler too many. He pounced on the intruder not with any intention of assisting him to rise but in a determination to pin him to the ground. This resolution was only enhanced when he remarked, in the abundant light from within, that the lurking individual had chosen to attire himself in the garb of a clergyman. It was a form of disguise on the part of the criminal classes which he had always strongly reprobated.

‘You’d better not struggle,’ he said. ‘I have a pretty good hold on you.’

‘My dear Beddoes, you are being somewhat impetuous, are you not?’

Appleby let go hastily. The clergyman – who now quite plainly
was
a clergyman – sat up. And, at the same moment, Professor Snodgrass emerged on the terrace.

‘That isn’t Beddoes,’ the Professor said prosaically. ‘It’s Sir John Appleby, my dear William. He’s our new neighbour. At least I take it he’s that. I suspect he has a notion there may be thieves around. I suppose him to imagine that he has apprehended one in your person. Appleby, this is our vicar, Dr Absolon. Shall we all go inside? William, you need a clothes-brush. Leonidas must find you one. He’s coming over to the Park presently. Your visit is at a surprising hour – but timely, as a matter of fact. I’ll tell you why, as soon as you’ve had a drink.’

‘I don’t know what you mean by a surprising hour.’ Dr Absolon had risen and was dusting himself down. He was also regarding Appleby (whom he might reasonably have considered to be little better than a mad dog) with perfect charity. ‘It’s the hour you asked me to turn up at, after all.’

‘Dear me!’ The Professor appeared slightly disconcerted. ‘Are you sure, my dear fellow?’

‘Of course I’m sure. You said there was a strong probability of your nephew arriving, and that I ought to be here to welcome him on behalf of the parish.’

‘Did I? In any case, it’s very jolly of you, William, to have come across. And Adrian is certainly back at Ledward, I’m delighted to say. So come inside, both of you.’

Although conscious of thereby indicting himself of some infirmity of purpose, Appleby submitted, along with the new arrival, to this injunction. The odd posture of affairs at Ledward was really too seducing to abandon. Had Professor Snodgrass, or had Professor Snodgrass not, really invited Dr Absolon to turn up at this unearthly hour? If he had, the manner in which he had now received the vicar suggested that he had forgotten all about it. Had Absolon (like other problematical persons earlier that night) been for some reason lurking outside the library when Appleby tumbled out on him? Or did that particular terrace constitute his normal route from his vicarage to the Park? As he framed these silent questions, Appleby found himself in possession of another glass of port. He regarded it without enthusiasm. He was again feeling hungry, and what he would chiefly have liked would have been to return to the dining-room, and there – whether in the company of Adrian Snodgrass or not – recruit himself from the collation provided. But it was clear that Adrian’s uncle attached an almost sacramental significance to the returned wanderer’s supping in august solitude. And probably he would regard the inside of an hour as the minimum time requisite for this refection. Appleby would have to put up with satisfying a purely intellectual appetite.

Resigned to this, he took a good look at Dr Absolon. He was a middle-aged man, and plainly in the enjoyment of a robust constitution and benign temperament. This latter endowment, indeed, he had decidedly required to carry him unperturbed through his recent upsetting experience. He seemed to bear Appleby no ill-will, but he was certainly eyeing him with some curiosity. Considering that this stranger had been abruptly presented to him as a new neighbour with a more or less obsessive interest in thieves, this was natural enough. Appleby decided further to expand his claim to the role.

‘On this occasion last year,’ he said firmly, ‘the Professor had some reason to suppose that there might be thieves around. And this year – although I haven’t so far alarmed him with the mention of it – I have had some reason to feel the same thing myself. I wonder, sir, whether you have seen or heard anything as you walked over to the Park?’

‘Too dark to see even the nose on one’s face. I simply aimed at the Professor’s illuminations, and walked straight ahead. Lead, kindly Light, to Ledward, so to speak.’ Absolon appeared to find this turn of phrase amusing rather than profane, for he laughed cheerfully. ‘But I did hear something, as a matter of fact. Voices somewhere in the dark, and close to where my path joins the drive.’

‘Do people normally move through that part of the park?’

‘Oh, certainly. There are several paths that people in the local hamlets are let use quite freely. It was uncommonly late for anything of the kind. But I imagined there had been some junketing somewhere in the neighbourhood.’

‘Ah – then they were rustic voices?’

‘No, I don’t think they were. No, decidedly they were not.’

‘Cultivated voices, in fact?’

‘I wouldn’t say they were that, either.’ Justifiably, the vicar seemed a little surprised at this inquisition. ‘Come to think of it, I’d say they might be described as lower-class urban voices.’

‘And just engaged in careless nocturnal chat?’

‘That wasn’t my impression, at all. What I seem to recall is two or three men, talking in low tones or whispering, as if to avoid all possibility of being overheard, but swearing at each other, and therefore raising their voices a little from time to time. I think one of them may have had a bicycle, since there was a sudden metallic sound which might have been a pedal scraping a wall in the dark. But certainly there were at least two men on foot, because I heard them go off more or less at a run.’

‘You must be credited with a most discriminating ear, sir.’ Appleby looked thoughtfully at Dr Absolon. ‘Would you draw any conclusion from this encounter?’

‘Thieves again, eh?’ The Professor interrupted with this. ‘But retreating, baffled, because the house is so brightly lit. I believe, my dear Appleby, I put that point to you earlier.’

‘You did. But they mayn’t have been baffled this time. Certainly we’ve taken no hand at baffling them. They may have made off with the Lord knows what, and they may have sounded cross to Dr Absolon because they were starting to quarrel over the booty.’

‘This is very disturbing,’ Dr Absolon said. He sniffed comfortably at his port. ‘Anything of the sort would sadly mar the homecoming of your nephew, my dear Beddoes. Ought we, perhaps, to investigate?’ As he made this suggestion, Absolon settled himself more deeply into his chair. ‘A most vexatious thing!’ he added. ‘I appear not to have brought my pipe.’

‘Then you must have a cigar.’ Professor Snodgrass had risen hospitably to his feet. ‘As for investigating, there is much to be said for it. Appleby, would you agree?’

‘Most definitely. But it’s not quite my place to take the initiative.’

‘Quite so. Nor mine, either.’ Having found and offered a cigar-box, the Professor was settling down again as for leisured chat. ‘We must put the matter to Adrian, wouldn’t you say? Report to him the slight uneasiness we feel. But not, of course, until the dear fellow has supped comfortably.’

‘I hope he appears to be in good health?’ Absolon asked.

‘So do I. I haven’t yet seen him, you know. As I’ve explained to Appleby, I feel Adrian should begin by taking undisturbed possession of the house.’

‘I see.’ Absolon looked puzzled; it was apparent that he found this whimsy as odd as Appleby did. ‘In fact, it is not yet quite certain that your nephew
has
arrived? It may be somebody quite different?’

‘Stuff and nonsense, my dear William! This is Adrian’s birthday, and there is a compact between us. Of course it is he. He simply drove up, and dismissed his conveyance. Appleby and I heard it quite clearly. Adrian will by now be in the dining-room.’

‘But has he not always been something of a jester, Beddoes? What if he has sent some wholly unsuitable person to keep this tryst with you?’ Dr Absolon, who was beginning to strike Appleby as possessing as curious a turn of mind as the Professor himself, paused consideringly. ‘A mistress, for example? It has never been clear to me that your nephew’s morals were particularly good. What if it is some outrageous Paphian girl, my dear fellow, who is scoffing whatever is upon your outspread board?’

‘This is no occasion for foolery, William.’

‘Perfectly true.’ The vicar paused to draw appreciatively upon his cigar. ‘For let me mention another hazard. It is many years since you saw Adrian; and your faculties, you know, are not quite what they were. My own acquaintance with him was slight, and my memory of him is a very general one. And he can never have been known to your butler, Simonides.’

‘Leonidas.’

‘To be sure. But my point is that, in this queer business we are involved in, there exist almost ideal conditions for successful impersonation. This ritual return, with its extravagant build-up of expectation on your part, must have the effect of rendering you wholly uncritical. Credulous, in fact, and ready to swallow anything. Sir John, don’t you agree with me?’

‘There is some cogency in your line of thought. But I don’t think the Professor is very happy with it.’

This was an understatement. Absolon had certainly not paused to put much tact into the role of candid friend; and Professor Snodgrass was not taking kindly the suggestion that his wits were so decayed as to render him incapable of identifying his own nephew. That the vicar’s remarks were offered with perfect good humour and a kind of genial pastoral concern probably rendered them all the more annoying. Certainly the Professor retorted upon them with some heat.

‘William, the truth about you is that you spend too little time writing your sermons, and too much reading mystery stories. If you only came over to talk rubbish to me…’