Appleby Talks Again (10 page)

“Ah!” Our hostess was delighted. “You mean–?”

“Just what you may guess. This is a ghost-story, you know – an orthodox Christmas ghost-story. Only the ghost in it is just a little out of the ordinary.” Appleby paused and looked at us gravely. “As being a
ghost’s
ghost, you know.”

From Lady Appleby, who was sitting beside me, I thought I heard a resigned sigh. But when she spoke it was briefly enough. “I’m afraid there is nothing for it but to hear John through.”

“But, my dear, we are dying to!” Our hostess had every appearance of being enchanted still. And she nodded to Appleby, who resumed his tale.

“You will see that losing Black put the eminent Hugo Grey in rather an awkward position. If he was to continue publishing novels he must either find another ghost-writer or go right back to his own monolithic rural stuff. Very sensibly, he decided to retire. It is not a thing that elderly writers often do – commonly they just can’t afford to – but those who manage it sometimes find that its result is greatly to enhance their reputation. They become, so to speak, honorary Grand Old Men, and are generously praised by those with whom they have ceased to compete.

“This happened to Grey. He became almost at once a venerable leader of the profession of letters, and all sorts of honours were showered upon him. It was on one of those occasions that the trouble began.

“He was being given an honorary degree at one of the provincial universities – Nesfield, I think it was. Just what happened is a bit obscure, largely because there is a tradition up there that the students should create a certain amount of liveliness during the proceedings. But the main fact is clear enough. While one of the big-wigs involved was making old Grey a pompous speech, telling him what a large whack of our glorious cultural heritage he was, Grey gave a sudden nasty sort of howl and bolted from the hall.

“Well, even in a Grand Old Man that sort of thing takes a bit of living down, and it seems that thereafter the unfortunate novelist thought it wise to lie rather low. It is true that some months later he did attend an authors’ international congress and make a speech. But halfway through he was unfortunately and unaccountably taken ill, and was obliged to spend a week or two in a nursing home. There was a bulletin, I seem to remember, saying that he required rest. People naturally said that the old boy was breaking up.

“And now I can tell you his own story – for the simple reason that it ended in a small abortive police-investigation which came to my notice. What Grey conceived to have happened upon both the occasions I have mentioned was a horrid supernatural visitation. The phantasm of Black had appeared apparently from nowhere, advanced upon him through the assembled company in a threatening manner, and then disappeared. And Grey – like Macbeth confronted by the ghost of Banquo – had been unable to take it.

“That was bad enough – but there was a second phase to the haunting that was much worse. Black’s ghost settled in with Grey at home. This was naturally unnerving, and its calamitous effect upon its victim was the greater upon several accounts. Grey, you remember, had that strong streak of primitive superstition in him. Moreover he had retired to his native fells, and was living in some isolation about a mile from the nearest village, alone except for two or three elderly female servants. And – yet again – the uncanny visitation took place during a particularly hard winter, while Grey was totally without visitors from week’s end to week’s end.

“At first the ghost’s behaviour was rather colourless. It just came and went, without seeming to be aware of Grey, and without any suggestion of intent. Well, that is how ghosts
do
behave. I mean, of course,
real
ghosts as distinct from story-book ones. And Grey, who was quite well up in psychical research, became convinced that he was dealing with what the textbooks call a veridical phantasm of the dead. That, in a way, ought to have eased his mind, since there is abundant evidence that real ghosts are almost pathetically harmless. But it is plain that, in point of fact, the thing steadily wore him down. And then Black’s ghost
did
begin attending to him, and
did
seem to be cherishing some design. Grey would wake up to find the phantom glaring at him over its great beard – and it would then raise an arm, point, and glide from the room. On one occasion he plucked up courage to get out of bed and follow it – only to have the embarrassment of finding himself tumbling into the arms of his cook. As he was dressed only in pyjamas, and as she was a comparatively new employee, this upset him very much. Apparently – quite without knowing it – he had taken to giving a bit of a yelp as soon as the apparition showed up, and on this occasion the woman had heard him and come to investigate.

“The climax came on Christmas Eve. Hitherto the ghost had only appeared to Grey when he was in his bedroom. He was quite unprepared, therefore, for the experience that befell him shortly after dinner. He commonly finished the day, it seems, in his study – a long, low, book-lined room on the ground floor. Although he had given up writing in any large way he still produced an occasional Grand Old Man’s review, and for this purpose he kept a typewriter on a table at the far end of the room.

“He was surprised, as he entered, to hear the sound of this machine in operation. He was more surprised still when, by the light of a small lamp standing on the table, he saw nothing but an empty chair – and the typewriter at work under the plain impulsion of a supernatural agency. For there could be no doubt of it: the keys were flicking up and down, the carriage moving to and fro, and the little bell going
ping
, although there wasn’t a soul in the room but himself.

“Grey had just grasped the full horror of this when the machine stopped, and at the same time he heard a low laugh behind him. He swung round – and there was Black’s ghost practically at his elbow. The ghost pointed down the room towards the typewriter, paused for a moment, and then vanished behind a window-curtain.

“It seems that Grey was almost hypnotised. He moved dully down the room, took the paper from the machine, and read it. Of what he read, all I need give you is the heading. ‘A full and free confession by me, Hugo Grey, of my evil profiting by the genius and labour of Walter Black.’ There followed a detailed statement and a space for a signature. The phantasm, it appeared, had a thoroughly businesslike side.

“Grey felt his reason deserting him, and he dragged himself off to his bedroom with some notion of lying down and composing himself. I needn’t tell you that the spectre was waiting for him. But this time there was a difference. Hitherto its appearances had been fleeting, and had always obeyed whatever normal optical conditions the actual lighting of the room might be expected to impose. This time it remained steadily in evidence, but in a fluctuating light which Grey felt to be quite unnatural. And now as he stared at the apparition something unprecedented happened. The form and features of the ferociously bearded Black melted, faded, and re-formed – re-formed themselves into the very figure and lineaments of Grey himself. He was confronting his own image – confronting a hideously ingenious commentary, one might say, upon his own ambiguous relationship to another man. Once more – does it not? – the wheel comes full circle. We began with the proposition that Grey’s ghost was Black. And here, finally, Black’s ghost is Grey.”

Appleby paused on this – as well he might. The Bishop – and it was with an air of finality at last – put down his cup. “A pretty tableau, Sir John. But one seeming to require for its resolution a decided
coup de théâtre
.”

“And that is precisely what turned up. You remember it was Christmas Eve? Well at this identical agonising moment there came a burst of singing from outside the house. It was a group of carol singers who had made their way with some pertinacity to Grey’s remote dwelling. Theirs was the first incursion of an outer world there for weeks – and it broke a spell. Grey found himself reaching for the first object he could lay his hand on – I believe it was a hair-brush – and hurling it with all his might at that spine-chilling simulacrum of himself. There was a crash of glass and the image vanished. And at that Grey fainted away.

“He came to in the presence of his housekeeper and his cook – and plainly delirious. They sent for a doctor. And the housekeeper, who appears to have been a shrewd woman, sent also for the police. When they arrived they found the cook rather hastily packing her trunk. Or rather – need I say it? –
his
trunk.”

“Black – the living Black!” Our hostess, having achieved this powerful feat of mind, delightedly clapped her hands.

“Precisely. Black’s supposed death had been the beginning of an ingenious plot which he was peculiarly well-fitted to carry out. You will remember that beneath his great beard he was an effeminate little man, and his early training had made impersonation easy. Moreover that obscure theatrical start had, it seems, been as a magician, and the trick typewriter had been one of his most successful properties.”

“But the business of the dissolving ghosts?” Our hostess was all acuteness.

“It required nothing more elaborate than a couple of lamps, a dimmer controlling them, and the large mirror on Grey’s own wardrobe.”

“And so the truth came out?”

“Dear me, no. An
éclairissement
would still have been to the advantage of nobody, and so the whole odd business was hushed up. That is how I came into it myself. My opinion was asked about whether the local police might reasonably drop their inquiries.”

“And poor Black remained entirely obscure?”

“Entirely.” Appleby smiled blandly. “That is apparent from the fact that none of you has ever heard of him.”

“But of course we have all heard of the eminent Grey.” It was Lady Appleby who delivered herself of this – and I fancied she gave her husband rather a grim look. “We have all – at least tacitly – acknowledged our familiarity with his works. My own favourite, I confess, is
Storied Urns
. Bishop, what is your favourite Grey?”

There was a second’s silence. It was brilliantly broken by our hostess. “My dears!” she cried – and once more clapped her hands. “My dears – just look at the clock!”

The Appleby children were playing Happy Families – and clamorously assuring their nurse that there was time for one more game – when we looked in to say goodnight. “Mr Bones the Butcher,” Appleby murmured as we came away. “It reminds me of Mr Green the Greengrocer. He was murdered, poor chap.”

I saw that there was a good chance of the story. “I don’t suppose it was among your more interesting cases,” I said. “Dead or alive, greengrocers must be rather dull.”

It was this deftly stupid remark – I flatter myself – that did the trick. “Dull?” Appleby repeated, as we returned to his study. “I don’t know that poor Green’s case was exactly that. It had its curious side.” He glanced at me and smiled good-humouredly, as if well aware of what I was up to. “All right,” he added. “Here goes.”

“Do you know Redchurch? It was no more than a hamlet until a few years ago, when some astute chap noticed something about roads and railways that made it, potentially, rather a good distribution centre. I think that’s the word. Anyway, the result was the establishing of a big mail-order concern, called Quickpak, complete with a new housing estate for the people employed in it. Mr Green, like most of the Redchurch shopkeepers, was delighted. With great enterprise he sold his horse and cart, bought a small green motor-van, and went round delivering his greengroceries in that.”

“Keenly progressive,” I said. “No green in his eye.”

“Quite so. But he got murdered, all the same. And there seemed to be absolutely no sense in it. A harmless petty tradesman.”

“Of blameless domestic life?”

Appleby nodded. “An acute question, my dear chap. But there was absolutely no betrayed female, jealous husband, or other by-product of moral obliquity in the background. There wasn’t even a dismissed shop-assistant or a disgruntled rival. Green’s murder seemed utterly without a motive.”

“Perhaps,” I hazarded, “he wasn’t what he seemed? The cabbages and cauliflowers were a blind, and Green was really a blackmailer or a fence or a spy?”

“Sailing under false colours, so to speak?” Appleby laughed. “It was certainly something I considered.”

“What about suicide?” This came to me as an inspiration. But Appleby shook his head. “Nobody slugs himself to death with a blunt instrument. And we had another very good reason for knowing this to be murder. There was a witness.”

Appleby paused in recollection. “The thing happened at about eight o’clock one autumn morning on a stretch of road between the housing estate and the Quickpak concern. On one side of the road there’s a canal, and on the other a high embankment with a railway line running along the top. It’s pretty unfrequented at that time of day, but there is one spot from which almost the whole length of it can be observed – a signal box, always manned, standing about midway on that particular stretch of line.

“The fellow on duty up there – he was called Dunne – happened to look out and saw the greengrocery van driving along towards Quickpak’s, where Green regularly delivered vegetables to the caretaker’s wife. When it was just passing from his field of vision, Dunne saw an indistinct male figure step out from the shadow of the embankment and wave it to a stop. He saw Green stick his head out inquiringly. And at that the man who had brought him to a halt raised some sort of weapon and gave him what was clearly a crushing blow on the head.

“Dunne acted with great promptitude. He grabbed his telephone and got on to the gatekeeper of Quickpak’s; and then he tumbled down the embankment to the road. If you recall the lie of the land, you’ll realise that the murderer was pretty well cornered.”

Appleby paused, and I nodded as appreciatively as I could. “Smart work,” I said. “But not really a difficult case.”

“We’re not quite at the end of it. Dunne was preparing to tackle a desperate man off his own bat when he received a welcome reinforcement – the driver of a mail-van coming along from behind him. The gatekeeper at Quickpak’s had also summoned help. It was just as well. The vital stretch of road proved to harbour not one man, but three. I’ll call them Brown, Black and Gray.”