A Comedy of Terrors by Michael Innes

Author:Michael Innes [Innes, Michael]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Mystery
ISBN: 9780140100907
Google: EbKrAAAACAAJ
Amazon: B000MVFNYU
Barnesnoble: B000MVFNYU
Goodreads: 2769387
Publisher: Penguin Books
Published: 1964-12-14T23:00:00+00:00

Chapter XIV

we were back in the study, Appleby had shown no disposition to pursue Wale for that interview in quest of which we had left Hubert’s attic. Nor had he shown any further interest in Cecil. Indeed his interest in the household seemed to have evaporated for the time; Leader had been to the library and announced that police enquiries were over for the night.

“They’re going to bed,” said Leader, returning to the room. “I suppose we’d better—”

“Leader”—Appleby looked up from the brown study—“did you make a note of that book?”

“Book?” Leader was bewildered.

Appleby turned to me, “The book Dr. Foxcroft has been reading. Didn’t you say it was Law’s Serious Call?”

“Yes. Cecil has mislaid it. But I don’t see—”

“That interview in the hall with Wale. Would you agree that Dr. Foxcroft was perturbed at the end of it?”

“Perturbed?” I said impatiently. “Cecil was terrified.”

Appleby nodded. “That is no doubt what Sir Basil calls the better English of it. Terrified. Did you form any notion of the cause?”

I hesitated. “It is a dreadful thing to say, but what seemed to scare Cecil was Wale’s announcement that Wilfred would probably recover.”

“That’s it.” Leader interrupted with more animation than he had yet shown. “And we must make what we can of it.”

“We must make what we can,” said Appleby, “of this,” He paused in some effort of recollection. “‘Hope? Of course there is. Serious, naturally. A close call. Deuced fortunate about Badger.’”

We stared at him.

“You see? Serious, naturally. A close call! Nothing could be plainer.”

“You mean”—I found I had to struggle for words—“that Wale was making some covert reference to Law’s book? It’s perfectly fantastic. And Cecil would never pick such a thing up. He hasn’t that sort of ear.”

Appleby shook his head. “Nothing of that kind. And I don’t suppose that Dr, Foxcroft consciously picked up anything. Wale used—quite by chance—the two elements in the title Serious Call. And that touched off some spring deep in Dr. Foxcroft’s mind. Wale and the Serious Call were brought fortuitously together. And for Dr. Foxcroft their union somehow meant danger. That is the way, you know, that the mind works.”

I was abundantly aware that the mind worked so. And though I considered Appleby’s line of thought fantastic I looked at him with a new respect. It was plain that of every word that eddied around him he missed just nothing at all. I looked at my watch, “Really,” I said, “that is a notion on Which it would be well to sleep.”

Appleby nodded. “Yes, and that is just what Leader here is going off to do. But I thought that you and I might take a stroll.”

I must have looked at him much as the rabbit looks at the snake. “A stroll?” I said.

“The nocturnal sort of which you are rather fond at the Priory. Leader, I shall be back in the morning. And I trust you to get me in on this officially. It interests me more and more.”

The door closed on the departing Inspector Leader.

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