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‘He now knew it was Rupert – that capital fellow, as he liked to think. He knew
how
Rupert contrived it. But he had no notion
why
. It seemed utterly wanton. No wonder that he informed his cousin through Shoon’s precious press that he was a nuisance… And Eliot, having a distinctly juvenile and irresponsible strain, hit on a plan for what he called a big mop-up. He resolved to turn the tables on Rupert; to set the Spider, in fact, to scare him away. This was the secondary complication. He warned Rupert there would be trouble at nine. He hinted he had better take himself off to New Zealand on the ninth of December… And then he planned a really big scare.

‘He had noticed that in the Collection Rupert glued himself to the
curiosa
– the indecent books – in a steel bay at one end of the gallery. He rifled the cellarium – he was seen emerging by my sister – and stole a time bomb. He got into a discussion with Shoon over the plot of
Grand Tarantula
, and thus gained renewed access to the Collection: the point in dispute would have to be verified there. He hid the bomb near the letters – which he had come to regard as a good deal more indecent than the
curiosa
. Rupert, he reckoned, could not be much more than deadly scared; he would be safe behind that buttress of steel… And then on the pretext of getting his cousin to a safe refuge, he had him shut up in the Collection shortly before the inspection of the tower. It was all brilliant and crazy enough. In fact it was the author of the thirty-seven romances in his best form. Just consider the rapidity and skill with which he must have worked havoc among the Abbey cars and telephones.

‘Rupert, uncertain whether it was Shoon or Archie who was threatening him, still knew that he must get Shoon. He chose the moment when he seemed to have an alibi in the Collection, got to the roof and thence down a fake-ruined wall. He shot at Shoon; I scared him off by a volley of my own in air. And now he really was in some danger – an undesigned danger: he was making his way back to the Collection just on nine o’clock. And in fact the bomb, which was a good deal more powerful than Eliot doubtless thought, nearly got him… But all this, though distinctly uncomfortable for Rupert – and for a time for his cousin too – was mere embroidery on our main theme.’

Winter sighed. ‘And I thought’, he said, ‘of setting up in the detective line. Lord, lord,
lord
… By the way, what about that Renoir alibi?’

Appleby chuckled. ‘At least you have a nose for the loose threads. The answer to that one – and to the nonsense of the clarinet and the blind secretary’s stick – is the husband of our dear queen.’

‘Is
what
?’

‘Another irresponsible Eliot, with an uncertain sense of time. Mrs Timothy in the attics had been Rupert’s crony as a boy. They contrived jokes together in the distant past. Only Mrs Timothy is quite unaware that the distant past isn’t about her still. She is hearty, suffers from senile masculinism, and thoroughly enjoyed impersonating Rupert and scaring Mrs Moule in the dark… Her importance came to me when, on the way to the Abbey, Timmy inaccurately remarked that all the Eliots were
en route
.’

‘It is all over’, said Bussenschutt, ‘bar the camel.’

Appleby shook his head. ‘The camel is perhaps not so very interesting after all – or not from my point of view. The news that Eliot was wandering about the Abbey enquiring about the anatomy of the camel put Rupert in rather a striking stew, and I wondered just what was behind it. But my knowledge of the actual function of the beast is the product of confession – Rupert’s eventual confession – rather than of detection. What is interesting is where I went wrong.

‘I reckoned – not unnaturally – that Eliot, by design or inadvertence, must have put into
A Death in the Desert
something which had really happened within his actual experience. Not a bit of it. He put in a bit of sheer fantasy – what was, though he didn’t know it, one of those buried fantasies of boyhood which he had shared with Rupert. And it was this fantasy which, by an extraordinary paradox, was potentially dangerous to Rupert. For Rupert had once
actually
employed the same fantasy against Shoon. It was his instinct to actualize day-dreams.’

Appleby paused. ‘Dr Bussenschutt,’ he asked solemnly, ‘what does the camel keep in its hump?’

Bussenschutt opened his mouth to speak, checked himself, looked very wary. ‘I have never’, he pronounced, ‘made the subject a topic of investigation.’

‘It is commonly thought to be water. In point of fact it is chiefly fat. And Richard and Rupert as boys had hit on the weirdest and most unlikely technique for murder. Inject poison into the hump. Your enemy sets out on a desert journey alone; the camel, as it draws on its reserves, slowly absorbs the poison; dies; and there are two deaths in the desert.’

Mummery, whose habit of silence had been strong upon him, burst into laughter. ‘Of all the impossible–’

‘So Eliot believed. He is nervous about his books nowadays and pitches his crimes in the most unlikely places with the most fantastic plots. This plot came into his head – as he thought for the first time – not long ago. The result was
A Death in the Desert
.

‘But the thing happens to be feasible –
and Rupert nearly brought it off
. Years ago in the East Benton enlisted Rupert’s aid in planning the quiet murder of Shoon: they were all people of that sort. Rupert – who had, I gather, come into slight contact with Shoon already – poisoned the camel. The beast really did die in the desert – and Shoon nearly died too. He must have been left with a puzzled sense that a very extraordinary accident had befallen his beast – with that and a
faint
memory of Rupert having been about at the time. The attempt had failed, but everything was safe enough until the alarming news that Eliot’s new book had the title it had. The affair had been so out-of-the-way that Shoon would only have had to read the story to realize that it was not accident which nearly cost him his life.’

Bussenschutt appeared to be in the unusual condition of struggling for words. ‘Really…one can hardly–’

‘Oh, quite so,’ said Appleby. ‘Quite so. Quite.’

John Appleby first appears in
Death at the President’s Lodging
, by which time he has risen to the rank of Inspector in the police force. A cerebral detective, with ready wit, charm and good manners, he rose from humble origins to being educated at ‘St Anthony’s College’, Oxford, prior to joining the police as an ordinary constable.

Having decided to take early retirement just after World War II, he nonetheless continued his police career at a later stage and is subsequently appointed an Assistant Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police at Scotland Yard, where his crime solving talents are put to good use, despite the lofty administrative position. Final retirement from the police force (as Commissioner and Sir John Appleby) does not, however, diminish Appleby’s taste for solving crime and he continues to be active,
Appleby and the Ospreys
marking his final appearance in the late 1980’s.

In
Appleby’s End
he meets Judith Raven, whom he marries and who has an involvement in many subsequent cases, as does their son Bobby and other members of his family.

These titles can be read as a series, or randomly as standalone novels

These titles can be read as a series, or randomly as standalone novels

Published by House of Stratus

The Ampersand Papers While Appleby is strolling along a Cornish beach, he narrowly escapes being struck by a body falling down a cliff. The body is that of Dr Sutch, an archivist, and he has fallen from the North Tower of Treskinnick Castle, home of Lord Ampersand. Two possible motivations present themselves to Appleby – the Ampersand gold, treasure from an Armada galleon; and the Ampersand papers, valuable family documents that have associations with Wordsworth and Shelley.