The Weight of the Evidence (11 page)

‘Very pleasant indeed.’ Unlike the unfortunate Marlow, Lasscock’s origins were plainly not low; his accent was at once aristocratic and about a century out of date, an interesting field of study for his philologically-minded colleagues. ‘Beautifully mild for the time of year. But don’t you think it a great pity that there’s such a lot of noise?’

‘Noise?’ Mr Lasscock faintly frowned, as if stretching his sensory awareness to the full. ‘Well, I suppose there is. I rather think I can hear a bull. But bulls will be bulls, after all.’ He chuckled with a sort of rich and sleepy tolerance. ‘What I’ve never liked about this place is the mice. Hijjus noise they make in the wainscots – quite hijjus.’

‘If there are a lot of mice perhaps that’s why Miss Dearlove keeps so many cats.’

Mr Lasscock shook his head slightly, as one who would politely indicate a disinclination to intellectual discussion. ‘Come to stop here?’ he asked. ‘Have a peg. Kettle here because I’ve got a bit of a chill.’ Mr Lasscock tightened the yellow muffler about his neck and passed a large silk handkerchief in a ritual way across his nostrils. ‘But hot rum and water capital at any time. Insijjus, in a way.’

‘No thank you. And I haven’t come to stop. Appleby is my name and I am a police officer come to enquire into the death of Mr Pluckrose.’

Mr Lasscock opened his eyes a little wider. ‘Lunnon?’ he asked.

‘I beg your pardon?’

‘Lunnon man?’

‘Oh – yes. New Scotland Yard.’

‘Come down by train? What djew think of the breakfast they give you now?’

‘The breakfast? It seems all right.’

Mr Lasscock nodded gravely. ‘Better than the luncheon. The luncheon is very bad, if you ask me. Death of whom?’

‘Pluckrose.’

‘There used to be a buffet-car where you could get quite a decent grill. Much better arrangement, I always think.’ And Mr Lasscock again lightly closed his eyes. He was as one who, having fully and faithfully coped with the narrow world of here and now, gratefully retires to the inner contemplation of more spacious scenes. For what, Appleby wondered, had this placid historian exchanged the clamour of Miss Dearlove’s orchard? For the comparative peace of the field of Waterloo? Or was he running a calculating inward eye down the ranks of the barons at Rummymede? Was he taking a peep at the great Marlborough closeted with his duchess? Had an impalpable St Stephen’s Hall sprung up around him, and was he watching the expression of Miss Frances Burney as she listened to that terrible indictment being piled up by Edmund Burke? Or – as the tenor of Mr Lasscock’s talk so far might hint – was he merely engaged upon some retrospective review of that morning’s breakfast – that or an anticipatory consideration of his coming luncheon? Appleby sat down on a rustic bench and let these idle speculations float through his mind. For there was something infectious and hypnoidal in Mr Lasscock’s massive repose, much as there must have been in the expugnable somnolence of Mr Wardle’s Fat Boy… ‘Disturbin’,’ said Mr Lasscock, his eyes still closed.

The word had coincided with a sudden excruciating jabber of starlings in a corner of the orchard, and Appleby looked that way. When he looked back it was to find Mr Lasscock’s eyes open – open but narrowed in a disconcertingly keen and appraising glance. But this was gone in an instant and Mr Lasscock was gazing blandly out across the orchard. ‘Disturbin’,’ he repeated. ‘Poppin’ off in that ojus, messy way. Sound point about Pluckrose when alive was that you didn’t need to think of him. Requires quite an effort to stick to that good habit now. Would lie on the mind, if one weren’t careful, a horrid end like that. Wool Court, too. Place I often sit in myself.’ Mr Lasscock’s eyes were fixed idly upon a wren which had appeared on one of the nearer apple trees. The wren, being a Dearlove wren, was making as much noise as it possibly could; its whole body could be seen shaking and pulsing with the effort. And, oddly enough, Mr Lasscock’s body too suggested considerable tension; to Appleby’s acute sense in such matters it was as if these vague and unfeeling remarks to which he was listening somehow required in the uttering as much nervous energy as the bird was putting into its shrill and innocent uproar… ‘Tiresome,’ said Mr Lasscock. ‘Irritatin’.’

‘Irritating? But all mysteries are that.’ Appleby spoke with brisk friendliness. ‘They give you a feeling that there is a place you simply must scratch. Don’t you feel like that about this Pluckrose business – that you simply must get at the true facts? Rather as one might feel about an historical problem, or something of that sort.’

Over Mr Lasscock’s placid features a new expression momentarily spread. It might have been the expression of an obstinately lethargic child seduced into contemplating a bribe. But quickly it died away again and he slowly shook his head. ‘Can’t say I feel like that about it. May hold in your line o’ business, no doubt. But I don’t intend to give Pluckrose a chance of lyin’ on the mind. Queer thing, the mind. Read those Viennese fellows and you’ll see one can’t be too careful with it. Early spring. Soon be seeing the first migratory birds.’

‘No doubt.’ Perhaps, Appleby thought, this elderly and comfortable person, with his rug and hassock and rum and half-term holiday, was really only judiciously concerned to insulate himself against the thousand natural shocks that flesh is heir to. A wise man, after all, will find much less of satisfaction in analysing a deed of violence than in contemplating the life of birds or the procession of the seasons. And if one believes oneself to have the sort of mind one can’t be too careful with – Still, lurking in Lasscock there was surely something more or other than this. Perhaps the unknown factor could be forced to declare itself. Appleby brought out a notebook – hastily, because Lasscock’s eyes seemed to be on the point of closing once more – and poised a pencil ominously in air. ‘And now,’ he said, ‘be so good as to tell me when you were at the university last.’

‘Certainly.’ Lasscock was perfectly amiable. ‘Anythin’ to oblige.’ He raised his right hand and began to twitch the fingers one by one. Then he frowned, as if this method of computation was either too laborious or confusing. ‘This nasty Pluckrose thing: what day did it happen?’

‘The day before yesterday, Mr Lasscock. Monday morning in fact.’

‘Then I wasn’t there. Not on Monday – and not since. Tiresome chill.’ Lasscock gave a twist to his muffler, made a pass with his handkerchief, and pointed to the table. ‘That’s the reason of the ruin. Most sovereign stuff, I think you’d find. But perhaps you haven’t got a chill?’

‘Thank you’ – Appleby spoke a shade austerely – ‘but I am perfectly well. We don’t have half-terms in the police force.’

Lasscock showed no sign of being stricken by this barb. He leant forward and applied himself to lighting the spirit-kettle. ‘Well,’ he said, ‘glad to know you’re all right. Treacherous time o’ year. But charmin’. Notice the boles of the elm trees?’

‘I must try to impress upon you that my business is to notice every circumstance which may be connected with the death of Professor Pluckrose. And you must have heard that it is almost certainly a matter of murder. So if you don’t mind we will defer comparing nature notes till another time. And now–’

‘Then I mustn’t detain you.’ Lasscock tipped sugar into a glass and reached for the rum; he poured out a small tot of it, added water, and settled himself comfortably back in his chair. A silver spoon clinked drowsily as he stirred. And slowly his eyes closed once more.

Appleby, momentarily baffled, stared at him in a kind of fascination. The endeavour to interrogate Lasscock was little more satisfactory than would be an attempt to cross-question a child in the womb. And indeed it was just such an environment that this elderly foetus carried about with him. Perhaps his tolerance of the hubbub of Miss Dearlove’s orchard lay in that: it was like the great pounding of a nearby heart…

But now Lasscock was speaking. Or rather, his voice was to be heard – for he was so lost in some drowsy other-world that one got the impression of a mere automatism in his speech. ‘Young man,’ said the voice of Lasscock, ‘Pluckrose is dead. Somebody dropped a horrid great rock on him from the tower. And I don’t know anything more about it.’ One eye opened, as if to take stock of the effect of this categorical announcement. It closed again. ‘Good day to you,’ said Mr Lasscock.

Appleby walked down the avenue. He observed the elm boles. He glanced behind him and saw that again there was an escort of cats. The sounds of the mill-wheel and the engine, the bull and the doves, and the hound and the cutlery and the vacuum-cleaner, still vibrated on his ear. He was out on the main road before he could hear what he wanted to hear: the ghost of his own voice reigning undisturbed in his own head and patiently setting about an analysis of the meagre gifts of the morning.
Miss Dearlove: sundry social pretences, several hints, no lies. Lasscock: nothing in the nature of a big put-up job, but rather a genuine revelation of a decidedly unathletic personality, plus one lie – possibly not a very important one
. Appleby shook his head as he trudged. It was scarcely encouraging. Still, the plot did a little begin to thicken. Certain aspects of the case were falling into at least an enigmatic relationship. For instance, the Duke of Nesfield had come – oddly – to Appleby and Hobhouse and, some time ago young Marlow had gone – not particularly oddly – to Nesfield Court.
By the way, I suppose it is – ah – Pluckrose?
Make it a hypothesis that this queer question of the Duke’s proceeded from a train of circumstances to which Marlow’s having gone to tutor the stupid Gerald stood in some causal relationship – Appleby frowned at this pedantic phraseology. Put it more simply.
Because
Marlow had stopped at Nesfield Court the Duke had been surprised that it was
Pluckrose
who was killed. That was it. And Appleby stared at it until he reached his bus.

Hobhouse was not in his office; he had, a sergeant announced with some pride, gone out to trace the meteorite. No, it wasn’t a matter of information having come in. The inspector had just thought of where such a thing would come from, and he had inquired, and it seemed likely he was right – as the inspector often was. And he had left a message. It appeared probable that the meteorite would be traced to a very considerable eminence. Beyond this obscure joke the sergeant had – or feigned to have – nothing to report. Appleby arranged to call later and went out to get himself a meal.

The station buffet was the nearest place, and he strolled in there. One sat at a long, horseshoe-like counter; there were cauldrons of tripe and reservoirs of sausages; there was a brave clatter of pewter pots; there were barmaids to whom several gentlemen were usually offering jocose conversation at the same time. After Miss Dearlove’s retired manor it was all remarkably peaceful. Appleby, having contributed his conventional quota of badinage, applied himself to his victuals and to meditation.

Somewhere in this same vast building he had lunched the day before with a nobleman concerned to see that there should be no mistake about Pluckrose. The police must be sure of what really had been achieved by the murderer. Or – alternatively – they must be sure of what the murderer had really
intended
. Now, the Duke had two kinds of contact with the University of Nesfield: he was its Chancellor and concerned himself a good deal with its affairs in a general way; he was a grandfather and had engaged one or more members of its staff as a holiday tutor. That it was this second and more personal contact with which the Pluckrose affair was somehow tied up was, Appleby realized, only a guess. The Duke himself had refrained from any mention of the circumstance – but little could be read into that. Probably there had been, at most, only one more tutor; for to turn a whole team of such people upon Gerald would be absurd. Gerald was apparently a schoolboy, and the attempt was presumably to screw him up to whatever shadowy standard of learning an Oxford or Cambridge college required of young men of his sort. Marlow was a lecturer in English, which meant that he could probably stuff Gerald with a little Latin and French or German as well. What else would be required? Presumably some mathematics – and that might mean that the second tutor had been Timmy Church. But this was mere speculation.

And perhaps all speculation beginning with the curious irruption of the Duke of Nesfield was of secondary importance; perhaps it was only the magnetism of the strawberry leaves which suggested that here was really a profitable point of attack. Hobhouse was out after the meteorite – and surely the meteorite was the thing. Where had it come from? Was there anything in Sir David Evans’s extraordinary theory – or had Pluckrose known nothing of the meteorite until – ? Appleby put down his knife and fork. Until what? Until the thing had come crashing down and killed him? Appleby stared unseeingly at the row of persons opposite him. He remembered the displeasing Tavender…something Tavender had said about the meteorite… a tentative conclusion to which he had himself come in the night. But at least the meteorite must be weighed and manoeuvred; the windows of that store-room must be measured; the hoist must be examined; Galileo-like experiments, perhaps, made. All this was the direct line on the case, and it ought to precede any further exploration of all those personal relationships which might or might not be involved. Mrs Tavender’s tea-party, for instance – what, as a field of inquiry, could be vaguer and more nebulous than that? Something thrown out by an irresponsible young man, like the dragging of the river for Lasscock. And yet there had been something in that; it had been based on the observation, not perhaps irrelevant, that Lasscock had been apparently absent from the university on Monday and Tuesday – the days of the crime and of Applieby’s first investigations respectively. So perhaps there might be something in the tea-party too, and in some of the other suggestions Marlow and Pinnegar had made. For instance, there was that curious maze between the dark-room and Pluckrose’s private laboratory. Somebody had once hung a skeleton there. But was that why Marlow – no, Pinnegar, it had been – had directed Appleby’s attention to it? Appleby fished from his pocket the plan Hobhouse had sketched for him the previous day. Yes, undoubtedly there was something to look into there. Pluckrose’s laboratory, the maze, the dark-room, the hoist, the lowermost of the store-rooms – these, with Prisk on one side, Marlow on another, and the spot where the body had been found on a third: the whole thing was as compact and had as many possibilities as a well-set-up scene in an abstract theatre. Decidedly, thought Appleby, finishing his tripe, he must go for all that.