Appleby's End by Michael Innes

Author:Michael Innes
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Appleby’s End
ISBN: 9780755120840
Publisher: House of Stratus
Published: 2012-05-17T04:00:00+00:00

12

William was now returning through the snow; in one hand he dangled his catapult and in the other – mysteriously – the carcase of a domestic fowl. The old man with the beard, having knocked out his pipe and deposited it unexpectedly in the band of his hat, was placidly consulting a large silver watch. Gregory Grope himself seemed perfectly agreeable to conversation both indefinitely prolonged and enigmatical in intention – but Appleby felt that the time had come to set the local railway system in operation once more. Reiterating, therefore, his lively expectation of pleasure from the snowplough come Wednesday, he climbed down from the cab, with Mutlow following. William, having deposited his fowl in a box labelled First Aid, fell to raking cinders and shovelling coal, and Gregory, by dint of much tugging at a lanyard above his head, produced a very creditable whistle as the engine got slowly under way. Gregory waved and William waved; the old man with the beard raised his hand in a gesture at once economical of effort and expressive of the most patriarchal benignity; the sheep bleated and the cattle lowed. And so Gregory Grope’s care and pride steamed away – incidentally, in the direction whence it had come, so that it had to be presumed that the matter of Murcott’s milk was in abeyance once more. It steamed away most purposefully, nevertheless. Were the paint only a little brighter, Appleby thought, and the impression of speed more convincing, the whole would have been virtually indistinguishable from the more moderately priced sort of Hornby Train. Almost one expected a vast but juvenile Hand to descend from the heavens and transfer the complete outfit to a neatly compartmented cardboard box.

Appleby turned round and tramped towards Mutlow’s car. “Well,” he said, “what do you make of it all?”

“Very much what I was beginning to make of it before.” Mutlow’s response was prompt and decided. “This business of the old man Heyhoe at Dream links up with the queer doings at Tiffin Place. At Sir Mulberry’s the boy Hoobin disappears and there’s a waxwork left instead. That’s strange enough. At Mr Raven’s Heyhoe gets buried alive in snow. That’s strange enough too – and uncommon nasty as well. And now it seems the boy we’ve called Hoobin may be the old fellow Heyhoe’s son. Mark my word, Mr Appleby, there’s a tie-up between them somewhere.”

They climbed into the car. “If I may say so,” said Appleby, “your district seems to be a hotbed of sexual immorality. The people are as promiscuous as old Amos Sturrock’s goats.”

“Amos Sturrock’s goats are not promiscuous.” Mutlow was suddenly indignant. “They’re uncommonly carefully bred.”

“No doubt. And so, perhaps, are Kerrisk’s cows and Major Molsher’s colts.” Appleby was feeling cold, slightly hungry, and definitely depressed. “So let’s say rabbits. Round about here you behave like rabbits, and the fact that one man is reputed another man’s illegitimate son is scarcely a tie-up at all.”

“Old Mrs Grope fell down a well – which is what you might call a fatality, Mr Appleby.

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