Hare Sitting Up by Michael Innes Read Free Book Online

the probabilities or possibilities of your brother’s situation now?’
    ‘Yet more false beards, and so forth, Sir John?’ Juniper seemed to intend to speak ironically, but to be veering towards anger again instead. ‘It’s certainly conceivable that Howard is play-acting. He may have disguised himself as a commercial traveller in order to seduce the wife of a greengrocer. Or a dozen other things – provided you’re willing to ignore plain common sense. If Howard is himself, he may be doing something slightly freakish, but not anything downright irresponsible. I’m certain of that. If he’s had this nervous breakdown, it’s at least my guess that any sort of deliberate disguising of himself is most unlikely. I mean, simply in the light of what sick men do and don’t do. But I’m not an expert. I may be wrong there.’
    Appleby nodded thoughtfully. ‘I imagine you have clinical experience on your side. But there’s an exception to every rule. And Professor Juniper, of course, must be an exceptional man to start with. Are you often anxious about him?’
    The sudden question took Juniper by surprise, as it was meant to do. But his answer seemed to come frankly enough. ‘Well, yes – I am. Ever since he has been on this secret work. We’ve already touched on that, haven’t we? The moral burden must be almost unbearably onerous. If I had to carry it, I think it would make me completely unscrupulous.’
    ‘Unscrupulous?’ Appleby took up the word curiously. ‘A strong sense of moral responsibility would make you unscrupulous?’
    Juniper was frowning, rather as if his perception was still obscure to him. ‘Yes – in a sense. I’d feel that I lived in a world of moral imbeciles, against whom I must defend myself by any means in my power – including, perhaps, just clearing out. Something like that.’
    ‘You have a strong sense of sympathy with your brother?’
    ‘Haven’t I made that clear?’ Juniper turned away impatiently.
    ‘Then you will come to the rescue in the way I’ve suggested?’
    ‘Yes, I will. If you can show me it isn’t nonsense, that is to say.’
    ‘Very well.’ Appleby turned away from the swimming pool and began to walk in the direction of the school. He seemed to be confident that the interview would now soon be over. ‘What I have to show you is that, if he is known to be wandering round in some more or less helpless state, your brother’s danger is acute. I can do that – although you may feel that what I have to tell you about foreign agents, and so forth, is like stuff out of a book. But there’s more of – well, more of the same order. Professor Juniper has vanished. That’s strange enough. But there’s something that takes a good deal more swallowing – and that makes the dangerousness of the situation extend far beyond your brother himself.’
    Juniper stopped in his tracks, and Appleby saw that he had quite suddenly gone deadly pale. ‘You can’t mean–’
    ‘Yes. You yourself came quite near to mentioning it, if only as a sort of joke. Your brother may have taken something with him. Something that ought never to have left a locked refrigerator in his laboratory.’
    ‘It can’t be true!’ Juniper’s voice had risen in pitch again. ‘Howard would never – Why, it’s madness!’
    Appleby turned and looked at him steadily. ‘Isn’t madness,’ he asked, ‘one of the possibilities we’ve been talking about?’
    The summer sun, low in a clear sky, was at play on the rambling red-tiled roof of Splaine Croft. It made the place blaze like fire. From the paddock on the other side of the house came the shouts of boys playing tip and run. Appleby, his bowler hat on his head, walked towards the building as if his next task was to check up on its sanitation.
    For some moments Juniper walked silently beside him. When he spoke, it was still incoherently. The man – Appleby saw – was really shaken.
    ‘I won’t believe it! You said something out of a book.