Hare Sitting Up by Michael Innes Read Free Book Online Page B

of your late friend’s estate, and that after the funeral you may be detained by business for some days.’
    Juniper frowned. ‘I suppose,’ he asked, ‘there must be a funeral?’
    And Appleby caught his meaning. ‘ Absit omen ,’ he said.

 
     
2
    Three days later Dr Herbert Clandon came to see Appleby. He was a large comfortable rumbling man, but his comfortableness didn’t prevent his being at present heavy-eyed and anxious.
    ‘No news?’ he said, when he had shaken hands.
    ‘Not a glimmer.’ Appleby was far from looking carefree himself.
    ‘Nice view you have here.’ Clandon, who wasn’t the sort of person that one bothered to ask to sit down, had strolled over to the window and was looking over the Thames. ‘Top man gets choice of room – eh?’
    ‘Just that.’
    ‘Never happen to me.’ Clandon rumbled contentedly. He was aristocratic, wealthy, and an FRS ‘Back room boy’. He accepted a cigarette from the box held out to him. ‘Not a glimmer, you say? Now, that would be significant of what?’
    ‘Certainly not of Professor Juniper’s wandering around, harmlessly mad. We’d have picked him up by now. If that was the initial situation, it’s over.’
    Clandon nodded. ‘So I’d have supposed, Appleby. Let’s face it.’
    ‘Let’s face it, by all means. Of course, it mayn’t have been the initial situation at all. He may have walked out, as sane as you are, to a prepared hide-out where he can be snug till the Greek Kalends.’
    ‘Or till Kingdom Come – which is better English, my boy.’ Clandon had enjoyed a nodding acquaintance with Appleby for a long time.
    ‘Alternatively, he may have had an equally well-prepared plan to leave the country. No highly intelligent man would find difficulty in evolving one.’
    ‘Clearly not. Nor is it difficult to drown oneself with a millstone round one’s neck – if one’s intent on leaving behind one as much mystery and anxiety as possible.’ Clandon rumbled again – but gloomily this time. ‘I don’t think, by the way, that you’ve mentioned what must be the commonest occasion of a fellow’s cutting the painter.’
    ‘Something about a woman?’ Appleby shook his head. ‘My sense of the matter is all against that, somehow.’
    ‘And I think you’re right. Howard never had any interest in women, as far as I could see. Or in sex in general. Which doesn’t mean, mark you, that he was extravagantly out of the way. Plenty of busy men just never bother. They don’t, somehow, get into novels and plays and suchlike trash. But they exist. This brother’s rather the same, I’d say.’ Clandon came lumbering over to Appleby’s desk. He was dressed in tweeds so hairy as to suggest some sort of cave man. ‘You’ve landed me, by the way, with the hell of an assignment there.’ Clandon rumbled more than ever. ‘I admit it has been a good idea. But it’s a headache, I don’t mind telling you. Bloody bad actor, Howard’s brother the usher. Even now that he’s calmed down a bit.’
    ‘Bad, is he?’ Appleby was rather surprised. ‘Tell me all about it. You don’t think anybody has guessed?’
    ‘Lord, no. Our crowd has no eyes for anything outside a test-tube, thank goodness. Getting the deception going was perfectly easy. As soon as brother Miles arrived I whisked him into Howard’s private lab, dressed him up in a white coat, and had in a couple of junior people just to get a word from myself. So it went round at once that the Head Man was back. Lucky that brother Miles didn’t have to put up more of a show at the start. He was in a poor way.’
    ‘He was sufficiently strung up when I saw him at his school and gave him the news. But I’m rather surprised by what you say. Miles struck me as quite tough, down below. And the brothers used to play ball with each other’s identities long ago. So the job oughtn’t to have been too disconcerting. Although it’s Howard, it seems, who has been a bit of an actor since.’
    ‘Certainly