Appleby And Honeybath by Michael Innes Read Free Book Online Page B

these offices. The latter course would surely have been extremely hazardous, and is therefore much the less probable.’
    As brief exposition, Appleby thought rather well of this. He thought rather less well of himself, since he ought to have checked up on that presumed further entrance from the offices to the main building. The point was not perhaps other than a merely academic one, since Honeybath was undoubtedly right about the vast unlikelihood of the body’s having simply been smuggled into another part of the house. Still, he wasn’t what he once had been, Appleby thought. So he became a shade gloomy too.
    They passed through the bogus door, unlocked the proper door beyond it, and passed through that. Denver made a pause in the corridor thus revealed.
    ‘The squatter,’ he said. ‘Have I got this clear? We’re going to come on evidence of a person or persons actually living in a clandestine way on the premises? It’s a new one to me, I must say.’
    ‘Nevertheless, that’s it.’ Appleby threw open a door. ‘Here’s the first room – totally empty, as you see. And here’s what you may call the lodging house.’ He threw open the door of the second room.
    But the second room was now totally empty too.

 
     
4
    Naturally enough, Appleby wasn’t pleased. Probably Honeybath wasn’t pleased either, but with Honeybath nothing in the nature of professional prestige was involved. Appleby felt that he had put something almost approaching theatricality into ushering his provincial colleague into the presence of a camp bed, a cooking stove and whatever, and that there was something awkward in the fact that the designed effect had decidedly not come off.
    But if anybody actually showed embarrassment it was Detective Inspector Denver. Whether Denver really knew who Appleby was, or was as unknowing as he appeared to be, he was in the presence of two guests at Grinton who were both obviously of some standing in the world, and who had somehow involved themselves in what – at least at a first glance – looked like an episode of obscure farce.
    Three of the four men, then, were uncomfortably silent for several moments. Not so Terence Grinton. If anything had its funny side, it was in Grinton’s nature to seize upon it with acclaim. So Grinton now produced that roar. Here was the funniest thing that had happened for a long time. One mare’s nest, he was apparently feeling, had riotously succeeded upon another.
    It may be presumed that Denver, being a clear-headed man, was at once able to distinguish between one episode and the other. Honeybath and Appleby had entered this room together, and what they had found in it they had reported upon without any divergence of statement between them. It was true that one did occasionally come upon two – or even more – perfectly respectable witnesses swearing to an identical experience that in the issue had proved radically without status as objective fact. Of this there usually turned out to be now one explanation and now another. Human minds were uncommonly rum, and could run even to what psychologists called collective hallucination. Denver had more than once stood by and witnessed even judges of the High Court baffled by such situations. Denver, however, as a reasonable man, could come to only one conclusion here. Barring something in the nature of an irresponsible prank or scandalous wager – in which he didn’t for a moment believe – these two gentlemen had seen exactly what they said they saw. And this meant that in the space of what could be reckoned as well under an hour a person or persons unknown had entered this room and done a thorough clear up. This had been at least at appreciable risk of detection, since the yard – and presumably a vehicle in the yard – might well have been observed: this even taking account of the considerable seclusion of the entire area. Either, therefore, there had been something deadly serious about the exploit, or it exemplified