Ampersand Papers (9 page)

Appleby walked away from the cliff and along the shore until the upper ranges of the tower came into full view again. If it wasn’t exactly a ruin, it was getting on that way. It ended off in crumbling crenellations behind which presumably lay a flat roof; there were bricked-up windows or apertures most of the way up; only the topmost range showed glass and appeared to be in reasonable repair. Not much more of the castle was visible from where he stood, and in what he could see there was no sign of life. He was probably too far off to hear anything in the nature of commotion. But commotion there must surely be. If there had been anybody at all even in the recesses of the ramifying building, that resounding crash must have made itself heard. And one almost had to suppose that Dr Sutch had ended his life screaming. It was a disquieting thought, and prompted Appleby to take another look at the dead man. On the late Dr Sutch’s feet a weight of something like twenty stones had habitually reposed. That might be a factor in what happened.

From the castle to the spot on which Appleby stood there appeared to be no direct descent. But by whatever route was practicable somebody could come down as quickly as Cave could go up – supposing it to be to the castle that Cave had betaken himself. So it was beginning to be a little odd that nobody had appeared. For an alarm there must have been, and one would expect rapid investigation to follow.

But now, in fact, somebody was approaching, and not from the direction in which Cave had gone off. It was a man in evening dress – a circumstance of which, at eleven o’clock in the morning, there could be only one explanation. The owner of the castle must hold somewhat outmoded views on how it was proper for upper servants to attire themselves right round the clock. The outfit plainly included shoes not well adapted to moving over rock, and this was perhaps why the newcomer was visibly in a bad temper as he came up.

‘Good morning,’ Appleby said. ‘Are you from the castle?’

‘Yes, I am. There’s been an accident, and his lordship saw it happen. He has told me to come down and take a look. Oh, my God!’ The man had seen Dr Sutch.

‘Yes,’ Appleby said. ‘He’s dead. It was a tremendous drop.’ He was reflecting that if his lordship (whoever he might turn out to be) had actually seen Dr Sutch fall in ruin (as the poem says) to the gulfs below, he had given a rather casual instruction to his butler. But in such exigencies as the present the aristocracy no doubt have their own manner of address. ‘What castle is this?’ he asked briskly. ‘And who is your employer?’

‘This is Treskinnick Castle, and it’s the seat of the Marquess of Ampersand.’ The butler paused. ‘And my name,’ he added with dignity, ‘is Ludlow.’

‘Well, Mr Ludlow, this is a sad business, as you can see, and I fear there is nothing we can do. You had better go back and tell Lord Ampersand that Dr Sutch is undoubtedly dead. Tell him, too, that I am awaiting the arrival of the police to deal with the matter. Lord Ampersand won’t have heard of me. But tell him that my name is Sir John Appleby.’

‘You’re right that he’ll never have heard of it,’ Ludlow said. ‘But I have. It comes of reading
The Times
.’ He paused after making this surprising remark. ‘And very proper it is,’ he added more surprisingly still, ‘that inquiries are being made by Scotland Yard.’

‘My dear Mr Ludlow, you are getting this wrong. I’ve had nothing to do with Scotland Yard for several years. I am here simply by chance, and am a complete stranger to your situation, as you might have gathered from the inquiries I had to make about my whereabouts. It is the local police who will deal with this fatality.’ On this Appleby nodded dismissively. But then (and fatally) a start of professional curiosity possessed him. ‘Only,’ he said, ‘just be so good as to tell me why, in your opinion, it is proper that inquiries should be made. Are you suggesting that there is some situation at Treskinnick which might lead you to suppose that Dr Sutch has been the victim of foul play? It is a very serious thing, you must be aware, even to hint at anything of that kind.’

‘I wouldn’t say that, Sir John.’ Ludlow seemed unperturbed by the severity of Appleby’s admonition. ‘But queer things have been happening. There’s no doubt about that.’

‘I see. Well, just who was this Dr Sutch? I know his name, by the way, because a certain Mr Cave knows it; Mr Cave was here when the thing happened, and has gone for help. Are you acquainted with Mr Cave?’

‘I never heard of him. He wouldn’t be a man who goes wandering along the beach in a thing like a miner’s hat?’

‘Yes, that is Mr Cave, all right.’

‘Then I saw him talking to this Sutch a couple of days ago, not far from the castle. It was when I had to take the dogs out, his lordship having had his touch of gout. As for Sutch, he has been around for some time, looking over family papers and the like for his lordship. Yes, he’s been at it for months. A peering-around sort of man. And he’d come into my quarters and be too familiar to be quite comfortable, if you know what I mean. Come in and chat as if he was the family.’

‘So he has been living in the castle?’

‘His lordship wouldn’t have him, and we put him up at the Ampersand Arms. Supposed just to work up there in the North Tower, he was – which is where the papers are, and where he has fallen from. But he was going all over the castle, all the same – and in a very presuming way, to my mind. Measuring and tapping and all that.’

‘
Tapping
, Mr Ludlow?’

‘The panelling and the like. Looking for secret chambers, he told me. What do you make of that?’

‘I’m not in a position to make anything of it at all, Mr Ludlow. I suppose confidential papers might be stowed away in such a place. But it’s no business of mine.’ Appleby thought that this might sound unnecessarily snubbing. ‘It’s different with yourself, no doubt. You must carry a great deal of responsibility at Treskinnick.’

‘That I do.’ The Marquess of Ampersand’s butler, who had been disposed to treat Appleby (doubtless a mere knight bachelor) with a just reserve, was clearly gratified by this last remark, and showed signs of becoming conversable. And although extended chat would have been unseemly when conducted more or less across a dead body, Appleby couldn’t resist one further question. ‘Those queer things that have been happening,’ he said. ‘How would you describe them?’

‘Well, there’s been more coming and going on that crazy staircase than seems reasonable to me. And the key to what they call the muniment room – up there at the top of it – disappearing and reappearing again. And lights up there in the small hours. Flickering lights – like it might have been with the old wreckers giving their evil signals.’

‘I see.’ Appleby was impressed by this unexpected start of historical imagination on the part of Lord Ampersand’s rather wooden butler. ‘Well, there won’t be anything more of that kind now. Except that surely the tower must have an internal staircase?’

‘Blocked up for centuries, that has been. That’s why the last marquess built the wooden affair. And he did it on the cheap, I’d imagine. If it was my place to imagine anything, that’s to say, Sir John. Near-going, all the Digitts have been, when not squandering their money on gambling and harlots.’

‘I’m sorry to hear it.’ Ludlow, it struck Appleby, must be distinctly upset – and presumably it was by the late fatality. He would scarcely otherwise have permitted himself so distinctly unfavourable a view of the Digitt
mores
. ‘But I’m detaining you, Mr Ludlow. You’d better be getting back to the castle. I shall stay here until the police arrive.’

Ludlow departed, and quite soon the police did turn up. They were accompanied by the local doctor, and they announced that an ambulance could be brought along the beach to within a hundred yards of the dead man. Appleby realized that, despite this take-over by authority, he couldn’t now himself simply make off. If one has the misfortune to be the first person to stumble upon a corpse, one can’t do that – not even if one is a retired Commissioner of Metropolitan Police. He’d have to stay put for a time, and have what he had to say got down in writing. But meantime, if he wanted to, he could talk to Mr Cave, since Mr Cave had returned to the scene of the accident. Perhaps the police had insisted on this. Or perhaps Mr Cave was just curious. Appleby went up to him.

‘I’m afraid you are missing your lunch,’ he said, ‘just as I’m going to do. Are you staying somewhere in the neighbourhood?’

‘I’m at the Ampersand Arms, about two miles away. It’s not much of a pub.’

‘I’ve gathered that the dead man had been living there, and not at the castle. I suppose that explains your knowing who he was.’

‘Yes, of course. That’s to say, Dr Sutch and I met by chance some weeks ago, when I was down here on a preliminary survey. We dined together, and had a little talk. I haven’t met him since, and I didn’t gather a great deal about him.’

‘Naturally not.’ Mr Cave, it seemed to Appleby, had put a certain effect of nervous disclaimer into this last remark. ‘You would each of you gather something of the other’s interests and present occasions: no more than that.’

‘Exactly. Sutch was engaged on some research into the Digitts’ family papers. And I was here because I am by profession a speleologist. We simply chatted about these things.’

‘It seems that he was expected to work in a room at the top of that tower, and to come and go by that remarkable staircase. Did he express any apprehensiveness about that?’

‘No, I don’t think so. No, I can’t recall that he did.’

Appleby glanced curiously at Mr Cave, not a reliable or even wholly veracious man. Perhaps he was too scared to be either. Certainly at what was, after all, no more than a hint of interrogation he was turning oddly agitated and wary. It was perhaps unfortunate that he was conscious of conversing with a policeman – and with a top policeman, at that. It was something – Appleby knew from long experience – calculated to render the most innocent persons uneasy.

‘That’s an interesting cave,’ he said, changing the subject. ‘I took a glance round it while you were away. It isn’t you who has stored that coil of rope in it, I suppose?’

‘Rope?’ For a moment Cave looked quite blank. ‘Ah, yes – I remember what you must be speaking of. I noticed it myself, that is to say. But, no – of course not. Why should it be?’

‘It occurred to me that it might be connected with climbing equipment, and that you might make use of it on the cliff-face here and there. No doubt it has something to do with the fisher-folk round about.’

‘That must be it. I wonder, Sir John, whether the police wish to detain me? To detain me further, I mean. After all, the accident was over and done with by the time I came on the scene, was it not.’

‘I suppose it might be expressed that way. You certainly emerged from the cave to find a dead man. And myself, of course. Incidentally, I rather want to get away fairly soon too. So I think I can promise, Mr Cave, that we shall both be allowed to go our ways within the next fifteen minutes.’

‘That will be rather a relief, I confess. I fear I am not habituated to this sort of thing. Not, of course, that I don’t wish to be other than helpful in any way I can.’

‘Of course not,’ Appleby said. ‘But unless you happen to know the people at the castle, and feel that you can be of use to them in any way…’

‘Oh, no. Nothing of the kind! I mean that Lord Ampersand and his family are quite unknown to me. Even by repute, I am ashamed to say.’

‘My dear Mr Cave, your position is precisely mine.’ Appleby offered this, rather vaguely, as a composing remark, since Mr Cave again appeared to be a little agitating himself. ‘I don’t think I’ve ever heard of them. They are probably prominent in these parts. But not, perhaps, in the public life of the country, shall we say. Ah! Here is the Inspector coming to speak to us. We’ll be off in no time now. I can assure you of that.’

Over the next few days the mysterious affair at Treskinnick Castle (for it did seem to hold an element of mystery, although a small one) intermittently troubled the conscience of Sir John Appleby. To be more precise, he was disturbed by the thought that nobody else was likely to suspect that the death of Dr Sutch had, so to speak, any inwardness to itself at all.

But in this he turned out to be wrong. On the day before he was due to make his homeward journey he received a telephone call from a man called Brunton, who had been a close colleague of his a good many years previously. Brunton had long ago departed from Scotland Yard, and was now a Chief Constable.

‘Appleby?’ Brunton said. ‘Sorry to run you to earth, but here’s an odd thing. I’ve been brought papers about some fellow who got himself killed at Treskinnick Castle the other day. And it seems you were on the spot. Odd coincidence.’

‘And sinister, no doubt.’

‘I don’t think I’d go as far as to say that – or not at this stage.’ Indications of amusement came over the line. ‘It looks like an open-and-shut affair – and vaguely Lord Ampersand’s fault for not keeping some crazy structure or other in reasonable repair. But they’re uneasy about it.’

‘What do you mean by “they”? Are you talking about your own people?’

‘Well, no – not exactly. A member of the family, as a matter of fact.’

‘One of the Dodg’ems, or whatever they’re called?’

‘That’s right – the Digitts. I expect you know some of them.’

‘Absolutely not.’

‘At least one of them knows you.’

‘Nonsense, Brunton.’

‘Call it by repute. And she wants you to look into the thing.’

‘My dear man, just because some member of the public…’

‘You mustn’t call a peer’s daughter just a member of the public. It’s disrespectful.’ The sound of mirth renewed itself.

‘Don’t be an ass, Brunton.’ Appleby was not amused. ‘It would be completely irregular for me to meddle with the thing. I no longer have so much as a warrant card.’

‘You can’t expect Lady Grace Digitt to be impressed by a technicality like that. She says she’s read your evidence before that blessed Commission, and been most impressed by it.’

‘I see. If not a member of the public, at least a public woman.’