Appleby's Other Story by Michael Innes Read Free Book Online Page B

arrangement. Butlers are phlegmatic. They preserve an impassive demeanour in midst of the most trying circumstances. However, it was not as bad as it might have been. For I can perceive, Miss Kentwell, that you are a strong-minded woman. I believe you may even be possessed of what is called an iron nerve.’
    â€˜Really, Sir John, I would hardly claim–’
    â€˜Think if it had been, say, the depressed widow of a higher clergyman who discovered Mr Tytherton’s corpse. The poor soul would have had hysterics on the spot.’ Appleby pulled himself up. Being an amateur was going to his head, as these irresponsible and scandalous witticisms showed. And he mustn’t let a rash frivolity offend Miss Kentwell. ‘And were you by yourself,’ he asked, ‘when you made the discovery?’
    â€˜Not exactly. I was with Mr Ramsden. But, naturally, he had opened the door for me, and allowed me to pass in first.’
    â€˜In fact, you were ushered in on the corpse?’
    â€˜That is an odd way of expressing it, Sir John. But perfectly accurate.’
    â€˜Then, I take it–’ Appleby broke off, his eye having been caught by a small stir of activity in front of the house. The ambulance was driving up to the foot of the steps leading to the front door. It was doing this at a crawl, as if the driver was conscious of being involved in what was in fact the first stage of a funeral. Several people had emerged from the house, and were standing awkwardly in a line, as if for some muted formal occasion. Appleby recognized only Pride, Mark Tytherton, and Catmull the butler – a circumstance persuading him that, if he was really going to be involved in the affair, the time had come to stop wandering round its periphery. And now the body had appeared, swathed and on a stretcher. There was a pause for some sort of consultation about getting it down to ground level.
    Appleby had sat down beside Miss Kentwell, and he now felt something uncomfortable about this species of spectatorship from a middle distance. Maurice Tytherton was leaving home. Appleby, after a fashion, was his guest. It would be only decent to participate in this leave-taking.
    â€˜I think I’ll walk over,’ he said.
    â€˜Then let me not detain you, Sir John. I shall remain here – but with the serious thoughts such an occasion suggests.’ And Miss Kentwell offered Appleby a composed bow.
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    The stretcher and its burden were already being got into the ambulance when he reached the near side of the gravel sweep. So he simply stood and watched the doors being closed on it. He rather supposed he had no wish himself to view the body, although no doubt it would be available for the purpose in some proper place. And there would be plenty of photographs – the grim sort of photographs that are never seen except by policemen and lawyers and the unfortunate members of juries. Perhaps among the group of people who had come indecisively down the steps and were now standing pointlessly at the foot of them there was somebody who was going to study the faces of a jury from the dock. Perhaps it was all as good as determined already; just what had happened was by now known to every policeman in the house; tomorrow’s newspapers would inform a not very curious world that this or that individual at Elvedon was ‘assisting the police in their inquiries’.
    The very phrase, Appleby told himself, had been invented since his time – which was why he didn’t like it. And now he watched the ambulance drive away, and the knot of mourners or spectators or whatever they were to be called begin to climb the steps again. He noticed the absurd circumstance that Catmull was carrying a neatly folded travelling-rug. It had been part of the regular ritual of seeing his employer off the premises, no doubt, and he had automatically gone through with it on the present occasion.
    Only Tommy Pride was left – and Tommy was