Appleby at Allington by Michael Innes

Author:Michael Innes
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Appleby at Allington
ISBN: 9780755120772
Publisher: House of Stratus
Published: 2012-05-17T04:00:00+00:00

Part Two

Twelve o’clock and Two o’clock

1

Martin Allington seemed not to have changed much – except that, this time, there was to be no struggle back to life again. Resuscitation had been attempted – it always is with the drowned – but from the first it was clear that he had been dead for some time. Probably – or so the police surgeon now declared – he had been dead for many hours.

He hadn’t changed. He was the same young man – or almost young man – who had nearly died as the sequel to some discreditable and bungled exploit a few years ago. This time he had died. And Appleby, as he glanced at the body for the last time before they finally drew a sheet over it and shoved it in the ambulance, supposed there must have been something discreditable in this exploit too. Nothing criminally so – except, indeed, that it is highly criminal to be driving a powerful car when drunk. And drunk he must have been. No man, when sober, could have produced a miscalculation that would so send his vehicle and himself like a projectile into the lake.

It was true that the steering might have failed at a critical moment. The accident could certainly have been produced by that. Or conceivably a sudden failure of the brakes might have had the same effect, although this seemed less likely. All that would have to be investigated. They had managed to hoist the car out of the lake now, and it was lying on the other side of the drive, with a constable standing guard over it. It was covered in mud and its own oil; it was festooned with duckweed. Otherwise, there didn’t seem to be much wrong with it. After it had been poked about in for the coroner’s benefit, it might well run again. It was a smart as well as powerful affair: a coupé (which was why the man inside hadn’t had a chance) that would look well in a second-hand saleroom. Another proud owner might take that wheel – and never know anything about this small, unfortunate occasion.

Martin Allington would also be poked about in for the coroner’s benefit. It happens to anybody who isn’t careful to die in a totally explicable manner in his bed. His breath – Appleby told himself – had been challenged for the last time: down there, and as he struggled to free himself beneath six feet of water. But there were other tests. Alcohol would have stopped oxidizing more or less at the moment of death. Or it would break down in a different way and at a different tempo. The coroner would sagely listen to scientific evidence on this. And if anything proved to turn on it – which seemed unlikely – one expert would testify against another. Nothing of which would help the poor devil who had come to this nasty end.

Two deaths by misadventure… Appleby walked slowly up the drive to Allington Park again.

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