Appleby File by Michael Innes Read Free Book Online Page A

would seem to be. But Mr Robert has another theory. You may judge it bizarre, but it fits the facts. Frape, do you remember saying something to me about a bet?’
    ‘Yes, sir. It was in a slightly different connection. But the point is a very relevant one.’
    ‘And I think you remarked that gentlemen have their peculiar ways?’
    ‘I did, sir. I trust the observation was not impertinent.’
    ‘According to Mr Robert, Mr Darien-Gore himself happened to recount at the dinner-table some legend or superstition about the well. It was to the effect that notable good luck will be won by any man who makes his way to the well at midnight, stands on its wall, and invocates the moon.’
    ‘Does what ?’ General Strickland exclaimed. ‘Some pagan nonsense, eh? God bless my soul!’
    ‘It’s perfectly true.’ Jasper spoke slowly. ‘I did spin that old yarn. And I can imagine some young man – a subaltern, or undergraduate, for instance – who might have received it as a dare. But not that fellow Jolly. He wasn’t the type. It doesn’t make sense.’
    ‘Unfortunately, something further happened.’ Appleby still stood in front of the fireplace; he might almost have been on guard before it. ‘Mr Robert – so he tells me – made some sort of wager with Jolly. Or perhaps he did no more than vaguely suggest a wager. He was trying, as I understand the matter, to entertain the man – who was not altogether in his element among us. Have I got it right?’
    Most of the company were standing or sitting in a wide circle round Appleby. But Robert had sat down a little apart. He might have been taking up, quite consciously, an isolated and alienated pose – rather suggestive of young Hamlet at the court of his uncle, Claudius. He had remained silent so far. But now he replied to Appleby’s challenge.
    ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Just that. I said something about a bottle of Jasper’s Margaux if Jolly could tell me in the morning that he had done this stupid and foolhardy thing. I repent it bitterly. In fact, I hold myself responsible for the man’s death.’
    ‘Come, come,’ General Strickland said kindly. ‘That’s a morbid view, my dear Robert. You were doing your best to entertain the fellow, and what has happened couldn’t be foreseen.’
    ‘It isn’t the truth! It can’t be!’ Prunella had sprung to her feet in some ungovernable agitation. ‘He still wasn’t that sort of man. He was calculating…cold. I hated him.’ She turned to her husband. ‘Robert – you’re not hiding something…shielding somebody?’
    ‘Prunella, for God’s sake control yourself.’ Robert made what was almost a weary gesture. ‘It’s a queer story, I know. But there it is.’
    ‘Which puts the matter in a nutshell.’ Appleby had taken a single step forward, and the effect was to make him oddly dominate the people in the long gallery. ‘It’s a queer story. But it’s conceivable. And there isn’t any other in the field. Not unless we have a few more facts. As it happens, we have more facts. The first of them is a bow-shot in the night. Strickland, would you mind stepping through that door at the end of the gallery, and bringing in anything you find hidden behind it?’
    General Strickland did as he was asked, and came back carrying a bow.
    ‘It’s a bow,’ he said – a shade obviously. ‘And there’s an arrow there too.’
    ‘Precisely. And somebody was concerned to return them to the ascham here within the last hour. Frape appears to be convinced that that person was Mr Trevor. So perhaps Mr Trevor somehow lured Jolly up on the lip of the well, and then – so to speak – shot him into it. One moment!’ Appleby stopped Trevor on the verge of some outburst. ‘Another fact is this: Jolly was, to my knowledge, a professional blackmailer. And his arrival here wasn’t fortuitous; it was designed. Moreover – but this is conjecture rather than fact – he and Mr Trevor were not entirely unknown to each other–’
    ‘