“Half past seven,” said Mutlow. “You’ll be glad to get back to a bit of dinner and the young lady, I don’t doubt.”
“Decidedly,” said Appleby.
“And, however it may be about Heyhoe” – Mutlow was encouraging – “I shouldn’t be surprised if you get the whole business finally sorted out in the morning. For you must be called a fast worker, Mr Appleby, if we may judge by the speed with which you’ve hitched yourself up.”
“Miss Raven has had her part.”
“Of course she has.” Mutlow, whose feelings were now evidently of the friendliest, switched from jocoseness to tactful understanding. “I quite well remember how it is. Would you have any idea when you would be getting married?”
“I haven’t discussed the point. But if required to guess, I should say Thursday or Friday.”
“Is that so, now?” Mutlow seemed somewhat awed. “It shows that as often as you step on a train or a bus you just don’t know. In the midst of life–”
“I hope it won’t be as bad as that. By the way, it looks rather as if Dream is on fire.”
“Good heavens!” Mutlow stared ahead and pressed his foot on the accelerator. “I believe you’re right, Mr Appleby. And here’s the avenue.”
The car swung off the road and now straight ahead of them a bright glow lit the sky. From somewhere ahead, too, came the roar of a powerful engine and the raucous hoot of a siren. Appleby leant forward, frowning. “Odd,” he said.
“Odd? It’s that blasted Hoobin boy again, take my word for it. You ought to have let me clap him in gaol, Mr Appleby, indeed you ought. But that engine’s coming this way… Look out!”
A powerful car, with blazing headlights and screaming siren, had hurtled round a curve of the drive and shaved past them, making for the high road. Mutlow swore and pressed the accelerator again. But Appleby sat back. “It’s not a fire,” he said. “Whatever it is, it’s not a fire. The light’s too steady and too yellow. Here comes a motorbike. And a second one following. Is he coming through our windscreen? No, he’s just got past… Good Lord!”
They had swung round a final bend and now the ancient manor house of the Ravens lay sprawled in front of them. And on a broad, snow-covered lawn before the house a circle of cars was parked, each with its headlights blazing. In the pool of light thus created something like a random camp had been pitched. Folding chairs and tables lay about singly and in groups; at these men sat scribbling in notebooks or tapping at typewriters; at a larger table near the centre there was something like a buffet or bar. Hard by this, too, a species of scaffolding was being erected, while two men from amid a huddle of movie cameras shouted directions to the workmen. Engines roared, typewriters clattered, men shouted – and now there was a rush of the particularly quick-witted towards Mutlow’s car. The doors were flung open; flashlights spluttered and flared; camera shutters clicked.
“It’s not Dream that’s being set on fire,” Appleby said. “It’s the Thames.”
Robert Raven stood in the hall, outglowering the Tartars and the Kurds. Scattered about the floor lay a litter of evening papers, and these the manservant Rainbird was endeavouring to clear up. Whereupon Robert Raven would repossess himself of each in turn, briefly scan its front page, toss the paper in air, dust his fingers lightly against each other, and wait for the next. “Billy Bidewell is drunk,” he said. “Peggy Pitches has been given eighteen pairs of silk stockings and had her head turned into the bargain. Mark knocked down a man who had got into Judith’s studio with a camera – with rather too vigorous a punch, apparently, so that he’s lucky not to be in gaol. Judith has announced that she’s going to be married to you on Wednesday. Everard approves, but Clarissa says that we must insist on the Archbishop of Canterbury’s imposing a decent delay.” Robert advanced upon Appleby as if meditating some sudden privy injury to his person. “I congratulate you most heartily and hope you will be very happy. Tomorrow morning I’ll start working you a firescreen. Unless you’d prefer a couple of water-colours of the west wing? I’m rather pleased with the way I get the ivy sometimes. It’s stuff with a texture much easier to handle in oil.” Inconsequently, Robert snatched another paper from Rainbird. “folklorist tells,” he read.
“I beg your pardon?”
“It means Billy Bidewell. body in snow. folklorist tells. Some rubbishing story of its once having been quite the thing to bury people in that way. Listen to this. ‘The victim once chosen,’ said Mr Bidewell, ‘it was only a question of waiting for a heavy fall of snow. Then they would set ’un.’ Mr Bidewell added that his late grandmother, also a well-known folklorist, had frequently told him of an incident which has come to be traditionally known as ‘The Tale of the Fearful Maid’. Unfortunately, before being able to recount this anecdote, Mr Bidewell, who is a thoughtful young man with something of a scholar’s stoop and evidently of a delicate physique, was taken ill and had to retire to his room.’” Robert Raven broke off. “Means dead drunk. ‘It is hoped, however, that Mr Bidewell, whose antiquarian knowledge should be of considerable assistance to the police in their investigations, will be well enough to be further interviewed tomorrow.’”
Appleby divested himself of Luke Raven’s inky cloak. “Stinkweed was rife in the ditches,” he said, “and ruddocks were like little leaping flames in every hedge. Once Billy gets going on Gammer Bidewell’s story he will leave our rural novelists standing. Did you ever hear of the howling and hollering head?”
“Never.” Robert had snatched another paper. “Listen to this, Appleby. dream voyage’s grisly end. young sculptress’ ordeal.”
“Sculptress? A capital word, sure to be specially pleasing to Judith.” Appleby picked up a paper on his own account. “strange death in snow,” he read. “Rather tame, that one. Good Lord! haystack refugees find heyhoe rigid. There’s talent there.”
“There’s atrocious vulgarity, you mean.” Robert Raven spoke with mild heat. “I’m afraid all this will upset Everard very much. Ever since he started in on this popular work – cheap encyclopaedias and so forth – he’s been a bit touchy… Who was Gaffer Odgers?”
“Gaffer Odgers?” Appleby was dismayed.
“Listen. ‘An old friend of the Raven family, Detective Inspector John Appleby of Scotland Yard, a brilliant young officer frequently in the public eye since his association a number of years ago with the ghastly case of Gaffer Odgers’ oven.’… It sounds unpleasant.”
“And it was unpleasant. By the way, when I marry Judith I shall retire.”
“Is that so?” In his ferocious fashion, Robert looked more cheerful. “D’you do anything yourself?”
“Do anything? Oh, I see. Well, not water-colours, or anything like that. But I was going to be a farmer before I took to police work, and I expect I’ll go back to that.”
“Capital. See you keep Judith a big barn. I should divide it up, if I were you.” Robert was unexpectedly practical. “Two-thirds studio and one-third nursery, so that she can potter to and fro. As the family increases the proportions will be reversed. Of course, one day she’ll have Dream.”
“Surely Mark will have that.”
“Not a marrying sort – and certainly won’t want to live as the bachelor country squire. I’d advise you, by the way, to see to the drains. And talking of drains” – Robert picked up another paper – “can anything be done about all this?”
“I’m afraid not. You see, this is a mere mild beginning; just what rather conservative local journalists were able to get off this morning. The people camped outside now are the experts, and in the morning papers you’ll see them really begin to exploit the business.” Appleby glanced rapidly down another column. “So far, the really sensational element hasn’t been tapped. The local people haven’t got on to it. When the odd connections with your father’s stories begin to emerge the Dream affair will inevitably be raised to the rank of a first-class sensation. I’ve had some experience in these matters, and I’m afraid there’s no avoiding it. Not even if, like the Farmers over at Tiffin Place, you were pals with half the newspaper proprietors in England. And I suppose you’re not?”
“Newspaper people?” Robert was horrified. “Dear me, no. Everard’s publishing people are bad enough. Except for their cigars.”
“Cigars?” It was Everard Raven’s voice, and a moment later the harassed owner of Dream stepped from amid a congeries of Kurds at the foot of the Regency staircase. “Cigars?” Everard threaded his way forward, rather like somebody with a minor speaking part advancing through a crowd of supers. “My dear fellow – my dear John – I’m extremely glad to see you back. This is a very sudden decision of Judith’s, but I assure you we are all very pleased – though Clarissa may take a little humouring, I think I ought to say.” And Everard shook hands with evident warmth. “In addition to which, it has its providential aspect. I mean that you are just the person to advise us in this very embarrassing situation in which we find ourselves. Now, what was I saying?”
“You were saying ‘cigars’,” said Robert helpfully.
“That’s it! D’you know, one of these reporter fellows offered me a cigar? In my own house – and a person I’d never seen in my life before! It is very difficult to know what to do in such untoward situations.”
“And what, in fact, did you do?” Robert asked.
“I bowed formally, and rang for Rainbird. Unfortunately, Rainbird didn’t come. And the fellow didn’t in the least understand that I was displeased by his lack of breeding. So I took the cigar. It seemed the simplest thing to do.” Everard looked from Robert to Appleby, vaguely troubled. “An entirely trivial incident, of course. But this sort of thing takes one sadly out of one’s depth. And – do you know? – one of Adolphus’ waxworks is missing. Apparently it has been gone for quite a while. Rainbird says he thought it had gone to be repaired. Who ever heard of repairing a waxwork? Particularly one of Adolphus’.” Everard checked himself in this rambling and looked about him in a pathetically bemused way. “But I am altogether forgetting more important things. A suitcase has arrived for you, my dear fellow, and dinner is at half past eight. And, most important of all” – and Everard beamed with sudden and complete cheerfulness – “here is Mark, who will no doubt find Judith for you. Mark, my dear chap, here is your brother-in-law waiting for you to say the right thing.”
Mark Raven had appeared from somewhere beneath the staircase; his yellow locks were filmed with cobweb and he was clutching several dusty bottles. “I’ve found some of Herbert’s Mouton Rothschild,” he said, “and a stray case of Bristol Cream. So we can look on the bright side, after all.” He came forward, shook hands, and stood contemplating Appleby with a sort of malicious remorse. “At the best of times I should say there was only one tolerable way of looking at a projected marriage, and that’s through the virtual opacity of a glass of decent claret.” Mark glanced from Appleby to his cousins, tossed his head violently, and suddenly ferociously scowled. “Confound it all,” he said.. “It’s a bit thick.”
Everard was distressed. “Really, Mark, I’m sure we ought to be extremely pleased. The acquaintance may be short, but if Judith–”
“Don’t be silly.” Obscurely furious, Mark banged down the Mouton Rothschild in a spine-chilling way on a table. “I knew this was going to happen, the way she looked at him in that railway carriage.”
Appleby smiled. “But I felt,” he interrupted, “that I was being looked at rather like an unhewn block of soapstone.”
Precisely. That was exactly it.” Mark’s malicious grin momentarily returned; then he scowled again. “Let them marry, by all means. He seems quite a decent chap–”
Robert Raven, who had been peering at the claret, turned round again with the air of one who has a decisive card to play. “And he’s going to farm,” he announced.
“–quite a decent chap; and I should say that in Judith he gets a bargain as women go. So far, so good. But what I’m saying is–”
“And here is Luke.” Everard turned to where his melancholic brother, in a dinner jacket and a frayed boiled shirt obscured behind an enormous tie, was descending the staircase with a gloomy deliberation suggestive of a skeleton about to keep a date with a feast. “Luke, my dear fellow, you will be delighted to welcome John, I am sure. And, Mark, if there is to be claret – and I wholly approve – it ought to have been brought up hours ago. How upsetting a state of siege is! Do you know, those people were climbing in by the servants’ hall, so that I had to order that the shutters be put up? Now, what was I saying?”
“The claret,” said Robert.
“To be sure – the claret. Mark, take it to Rainbird and see what he can do.” He turned to Appleby. “And Robert will take you along to the studio. Judith has been working quite steadily all day.”
“Except” – Luke Raven spoke for the first time, and in sepulchral tones – “when being subjected to the indignity of interview by the police.”
“But it might have been very much worse.” Everard, harassed as he was, seemed determined to see the bright side of things. “This fantastic publicity” – he waved a hand as if to indicate the present strange assemblage on the lawns outside – “is very distressing, of course. But think how much more upsetting it would be for Clarissa and Judith if the first dreadful suspicions had proved true!” Everard turned to Appleby. “Perhaps you haven’t yet heard? The affair of Heyhoe has grown even more unaccountable, but at the same time rather less grim. We were much shocked by the tenor of the police enquiries this morning. There was minute questioning as to what had happened to each of us after the accident at the ford. As it chanced, we had all separated in quest of assistance, and finally made our journeys home independently. We could not, therefore, render any account of one another’s movements. Judge of our horror, then, when it began plainly to appear that some of us were being held suspect of a most atrocious crime!” Everard Raven paused, glanced about him, and shook his head in sudden vexation. “Mark has taken the claret,” he said, “but quite forgotten the sherry. And I do like to see sherry in a decanter. But – dear me! – I fear I have quite lost the thread of what I was saying.”
“Suspect of a most atrocious crime,” said Robert.
“Precisely! It was plainly in these people’s mind that some of us had wantonly seized upon this faithful old fellow and buried him in the snow, there to await–”
“But the doctors turned it down.” Robert Raven, hitherto extremely patient, seemed to feel that Heyhoe’s death was occasion for more matter and less words. “We got a couple of competent ones over later in the morning. And they’re quite sure for reasons of their own that the old man died first and was forced into the snowdrift afterwards. He had a bottle of gin, it seems; and he went wandering about in the snow, and the gin was too much for him. Then somebody found him, dead as a doornail, and played this queer trick. As Everard says, it makes the whole affair more unaccountable than ever.”
“I think not.” Appleby shook his head decidedly. “There are one or two rather puzzling elements in the whole matter, it can’t be denied. For instance, there is a little affair of a piece of cake which is at present worrying me a good deal. But if there was reason to suppose that Heyhoe had been murdered, I should be very puzzled and worried indeed.”
Everard Raven looked bewildered. “I’m afraid I don’t at all follow you. Can you tell us why?”
“Because Murder and the Fine Arts are never bedfellows – whatever De Quincey may say.”
But for once even a literary allusion appeared to give no pleasure to the editor of the New Millennium. He passed his hand over his brow. “How much I wish,” he exclaimed, “that this was all over! Coming upon the usual quiet tenor of our life at Dream, it is really very disturbing – very disturbing indeed.”
Luke Raven, who had been communing quietly with a Kurd in a corner, raised first his eyes and then his long and beautiful hands. Broodingly he gazed at these, as if taking satisfaction in penetrating to their enduring skeleton. “Disturbing?” he echoed. “Know that what disturbs our blood is but its longing for the tomb.” He took out his watch and gazed at it as one who knows that every second spans out man’s mortality. “I wonder,” he said, “if they managed to get any potatoes? There arc few things so good as a roast potato for allaying the fever of the bone.”