Appleby Talks Again by Michael Innes Read Free Book Online Page A

same evening I had got together a sort of committee of my closest friends. What had come to me was that, just at this time of the year, we could manage a sort of lightning revivification of Water Poole without raising any awkward curiosity in the neighbourhood. Anything observed, and anything talked about, would be put down at once to the lingering superstition that attaches to the place.
    “Hiram, needless to say, knew the story of the first Naseby Ball, and I was sure that the notion of some species of commemoration would appeal to him. But I had an additional reason for making my party a costume affair. It was a matter of what you might call the psychology of successful illusion.
    “My friends and myself were going to create the appearance of a house-party here at Water Poole, in such a way that Hiram could be asked to drop in on it and get the impression of that going concern. But in reality we should be actors putting on a show in a decayed theatre with crumbling scenery and unreliable props. For example, the whole business of lighting was going to be uncommonly tricky – probably there would have to be nothing but candles – and the project only looked remotely feasible because of that crucial fact of Hiram’s temperament: his diffidence, and his unwillingness to treat himself to more than one entranced glimpse of the ancestral home. Even so, the project was technically daunting, and I soon saw that our only chance was this: that our illusion should be of an illusion . If we were all confessedly engaged in creating a fiction, then the basic fiction – or the fiction within the fiction, so to speak – might be something we could get away with.”
    “Your plan was undoubtedly a very clever one.” Appleby glanced at Richard Poole with what might have been reluctant admiration. “Did it occur to you that if your cousin detected the fraud it would be very much more painful for him than a frank statement of the truth?”
    “It certainly did – which is why I determined not to fail. And I don’t think I did fail.” Poole turned a thoughtful eye on Miss Jones. “At least, that’s what I’ve been imagining.”
    “It all went like clockwork?”
    “Yes. We moved in with several vans just after dark. The decor had been planned in minute detail beforehand, and there wasn’t a hitch. When my cousin Hiram arrived, driving his own car, I was on the lookout for him, and got him straight round to the presentable side of the house. It was clear almost at once – an actor has a sense of these things – that we were successfully putting our show across. Mr Poole of Water Poole was giving one of his accustomed house-parties, and his guests, with others invited in for the evening, were indulging in a historically appropriate costume ball. My only fear was that Hiram, in his unassuming way, would ask if he might quietly make a tour of the whole house. He knows its history well; and there must be various rooms – some of them perhaps now in ruins – with associations of great interest to him. But of course Hiram would never have dreamed of giving even that amount of trouble. He stayed just over an hour, moving about quietly with me among the guests, accepting a few introductions, drinking a glass of champagne, and so on. And then he took his leave. The whole thing, which had been so terrifying in the prospect, proved astoundingly easy. Long before dawn – the early June dawn – we had folded our tents like the Arabs and silently stolen away.”
    “But that wasn’t, in fact, all?” A sombre expression had returned to Appleby’s face. “And it would have been better if it had been?”
    “Precisely.” Poole hesitated. “When Hiram left me it was plain that he was very much moved. Our imposture had been only too effective. It had been one of the deepest experiences of his life.”
    “That must have been rather uncomfortable for you.”
    “It was. He apologised for not stopping longer. He confessed that it had been