Appleby Plays Chicken by Michael Innes Read Free Book Online Page B

said. ‘There’s nothing up here that could catch fire by any sort of accident. Somebody carried up the materials for a little fire.’
    ‘A signal, perhaps?’
    ‘A signal?’ For a moment the stranger looked quite blank. ‘Well, that’s an idea. I hadn’t thought of it.’ He smiled. ‘I see you have a romantic imagination.’
    ‘Isn’t it the significant point that a dead man can’t light a fire? And a tiny fire like that couldn’t keep going for very long.’
    The stranger made a gesture of agreement. ‘That’s no doubt true. But it’s again just a matter of timing. Neither you nor I had the approaches to the Tor very securely commanded for long before you got here. When you look out over the moor from this point, you get the impression that there’s no possible cover for miles. But that’s an exaggeration. If you gave me fifteen minutes, I could make myself invisible even to a fellow with binoculars. And I believe I could manage it either north, south, east, or west.’
    David thought that it was his turn to show a little impatience. ‘Look here,’ he said, ‘I’m not really sure we’re getting anywhere. Hadn’t we better decide what we’re going to do?’
    ‘Quite right. And the answer, of course, is get help – not that help means much to our friend here. One of us had better stay put, and the other make for the nearest village. I don’t think it matters which way we decide.’
    David was silent for a moment. Perhaps it was instructive that the stranger hadn’t simply given a brisk order. There seemed to be something like an admission in it. He was no longer quite confidently claiming to be simply a senior and authoritative person who had happened to come along. ‘I think it does matter,’ David said. ‘Or rather, I don’t think your suggestion will do at all. If a policeman dropped down on us this minute he’d be quite clear he mustn’t lose sight of either of us. Well, it’s the same just with ourselves. We must either stay here together until we can attract attention, or we must keep each other company to the nearest village.’
    The stranger was silent for a moment, as if considering these propositions impartially. Then he shook his head. ‘From my point of view,’ he said, ‘all this is nonsense. I know I didn’t shoot this poor devil, and I have a quite simple certainty that you didn’t either. It’s clear he blew his own brains out, and that’s the whole thing. But I don’t like the notion of our both abandoning his body. There’s something indecent in it. And simply waiting for somebody to turn up is out of the question. We might be here for hours – indeed for days.’
    ‘There’s no point in arguing,’ David said. ‘You may as well know that I don’t mean to lose sight of you until we’re both in the presence of the police.’

 
     
6
     
    It marked a stage. They looked at each other. David’s hands had been in his trouser pockets, but now he took them out. They were handier that way. He tried to remember such modest instruction in unarmed combat as the Army had seen fit to give him. He didn’t recall much more than that it was a nasty field of knowledge.
    Not that the stranger appeared dangerous. He turned away and took a little stroll towards the body and back, with an incongruous air of one merely concerned to enjoy the mild sunshine. ‘Aren’t we getting this a bit wrong?’ he presently asked. ‘Can’t we take it that we’ve both stumbled on this affair – and realize that there’s nothing at all we can do about it? The man’s dead. We can’t help him in any way. Getting involved in some elaborate police inquiry will be highly disagreeable and inconvenient. I don’t know who or what you are; but at a guess I’d say you are an undergraduate on vacation. Well, this business is likely to mess up things for you for weeks. And the same consideration applies to myself. So why not just walk off – you in one direction and myself in the other?