The Open House (3 page)

Newspapers and magazines, of course, were another matter. There would be no great disaster in some dishonest person’s making off with the
Times
, the
Field
, or
Country Life…
Appleby found that he had paused before a neatly ordered pile of these. He picked up a daily paper. It bore the date of the previous day.

And now a satisfactory idea came to Appleby at last. There was nothing unique about this place. Several score of such lay scattered about England. Unlived in, but given a contrary appearance for the better satisfaction of the curious, they were open daily to anybody who cared to pay half-a-crown at the door. There wouldn’t even be a former owner lurking in a private wing, as was the case in many houses of the kind. Ownership was vested in some trust or society dedicated to thus preserving the tokens of what was popularly (and erroneously) regarded as a vanished way of life. It would all be very well done. Fresh flowers would appear daily, there would be linen on the beds, the dining-room would be set out as for a modest banquet for some thirty persons.

But here, of course, was only the first part of the explanation Appleby had hit upon. Yet the rest was easy. There had been a failure in the electrical system; it was being repaired and tested overnight so as not to interfere with the normal museum-like routine of the mansion; and the workmen engaged on the job were being disgracefully regardless of the elementary considerations of security.

Appleby was much astonished that all this hadn’t come to him at once. But he had to decide what to do in the light of his discovery. His own position was more than a little odd. A landed proprietor was one thing; he would recognize, so to speak, the smell of Appleby’s tweeds. But a crowd of electricians might well take him for a cunning crook talking posh. It would be prudent not to give the appearance of having been detected by them, but rather himself to act in a decisive way at the start. Having formed this wise resolve, Appleby returned to the hall, and this time addressed the empty air from fully expanded lungs. ‘Is there anybody around?’ he shouted – and was astonished and gratified by the racket he thus produced. The sound-waves positively bounced about the marble walls and alabaster columns like a ball on a pin-table. But the uproar died away without effect. None replied. Only Appleby had the impression that one of the staring gentlemen in wigs had assumed a stony expression (in every sense), as if deprecating so vulgar and gross an outcry.

He had, of course, misjudged the dimensions of the place. That was it. The workmen were in some corner of it too remote for hearing. Indeed, supplying the load of electricity which might be consumed by so large a house probably needed an installation so substantial as to occupy a small building of its own. His only course was to explore further. This time, he left the hall on the side opposite the drawing-room, and found himself confronted by the principal staircase of the house. It was a wooden staircase, light and graceful except for stout newels, and with consoled step-ends delicately carved. Robert Adam’s own, Appleby told himself – and reflected, fleetingly and learnedly, that he would bet a dozen bottles of claret on the house-architects having been the elder Brettingham and the younger Paine. But for this kind of leisured connoisseurship (for which he had rather a weakness) the time was not apposite. He skirted the staircase, which there seemed no call to ascend, and tried another door. It took him into a large bedroom.

There was nothing surprising in this. It had been a Georgian habit to have a single master-bedroom, together with certain ancillary chambers, on the principal floor. And here they were. As he had foretold, there was a fully made-up bed on view. It was even turned down, and a pair of men’s silk pyjamas were laid out upon it. Appleby felt this to be going a bit far. The effect was as of the service of the dead as it is found in certain Egyptian tombs. Less exotically, it was rather as Queen Victoria had insisted on things being ordered and disposed for the personal comfort of her deceased Consort. Only for Prince Albert, Appleby supposed, it would have been not pyjamas but a night-gown and nightcap… Appleby found that he was looking no longer at the pyjamas but at the centre of the lower half of the bed. Surely that small hump just distinguishable beneath the eiderdown quilt could speak of only one thing? Swiftly – but not without a childishly apprehensive glance over his shoulder – Appleby thrust a hand within the sheets. There was not a doubt about what it encountered. It was a hot-water bottle. And the hot-water bottle was
hot
.

This time Sir John Appleby (JP, and lately retired from the position of Commissioner of Metropolitan Police) was really shaken. What could have persuaded him – just because he had fondly supposed there to be something
odd
about this house – thus to barge in upon the bed-chamber of what appeared to be a single gentleman obviously moving in the upper reaches of society? Appleby felt rather like Goldilocks when she began to apprehend the possible arrival of the Three Bears.

He retreated hastily, and with a distinct sense that he had better begin to
think
. Ever since his car came unstuck, he had been doing little more than doze comfortably along. There is something relaxing in a crisis that one knows perfectly well to be no crisis at all; in a minute disturbance of expectation or routine which will certainly do no more than keep one an unwonted two or three hours out of bed. But he wasn’t too sure now that he hadn’t stumbled upon something of a different order. And he didn’t really and truly believe that it was either a bears’ den or a mare’s nest.

Next to the big bedroom was the dining-room – although some small connecting apartment had been converted into a bathroom and corridor in recent years. Here, too, was a very rational eighteenth-century disposition of things. The footmen, one supposed, had only this short distance to transport their master at the conclusion of the evening’s convivialities. Equally, the transit would be feasible, in a hobbling way, during an otherwise incapacitating attack of gout. But Appleby was less struck by these considerations than by the spectacle the room presented to his view. The dining-table, although it had been abbreviated to its minimum number of leaves, was still very large and long. And – again as he had predicted – it had been set out for a meal. Only – and quite contrary to his expectation – it was a meal for a single person. And a
real
meal.

Quite a simple real meal. The silver and the crystal were there, but it was their quality and not their quantity that might impress. Six candles – and they hadn’t been burning long. A decanter of what might be madeira, with an appropriate glass. One other glass, for champagne. And – iced in a bucket – a bottle of champagne. There was cold food on a side-table. There were covered dishes on an electric hotplate. Momentarily, Appleby had to resist the conclusion that this feast had been set out for
him
. Then he remembered how Goldilocks had sat down to the porridge.

But
somebody
was expected. Of this there could be no doubt at all. And – once more – it might all be very simple. The person entitled to sup in this way was expected to arrive very late, or rather very early. The servants had been instructed not to wait up. They had simply retired to bed in some distant region appropriate to their quality.

This all made sense – if somewhat eccentric sense. But not that open front door. The Claude, and much else, might by now have been fifty miles away in a burglarious van or pantechnicon. Even if an employer had given so absurd an instruction, no responsible servant in such an establishment would have done more than pretend to concur with it, and somebody would have been set to keep an eye on things in a quiet way. Already, in fact, Appleby would have been embarrassingly apprehended. The whole thing remained an enigma still.

Appleby considered finding a telephone and calling the local police. They would at least tell him where he was. But then – having received so strange a report or enquiry – they would themselves arrive in no time, and the resulting situation would be awkward and absurd. Perhaps he could ring the telephone exchange, announce that he had suddenly lost his memory, and demand to know not only
where
he was but
who
he was. But this idea was merely frivolous. He dismissed, at least for the time being, any notion of having recourse to the telephone.

But there must be other means of discovering at least some relevant information about this dispeopled, yet mysteriously waiting and expectant house. He remembered the library he had seen through French windows from the drive, and it struck him as a likely source of knowledge. That had been in one of the wings – the one on the drawing-room side. He would find, and make his way down, the quadrant corridor leading to it. In a house like this it would probably be known as the private wing, and that on the dining-room side would be the kitchen wing, which was quite likely to contain servants’ quarters also. It might be as well to make his way there first, and do a little more shouting.

The first of these expeditions – kitchenwards – was entirely negative in its results – except, indeed, that a large number of small empty rooms on an upper storey presented a puzzling suggestion of the present non-existence of any domestic staff at all. But the library was more interesting. It proved to be a room of moderate size, furnished for comfort rather than ostentation. The impression was enhanced by the fact that, behind a large glass screen, a bright wood fire was burning on the hearth.

These appearances were ceasing to be surprising, and Appleby merely reflected that here was the source of that column of smoke. What was much more significant for his present purpose was a large eighteenth-century topographical engraving hanging above the fireplace. It represented, without a doubt, the building in which he now stood. He walked over to it, and found that it bore an inscription in flowing and much-embellished copperplate. This read:

Ledward Park

The seat of Augustus Snodgrass Esquire

Although somewhat surprised, Appleby reflected that an Augustus Snodgrass had a perfect right to existence outside the covers of
Pickwick Papers
. Perhaps Dickens had borrowed the name from a family tomb in the neighbouring parish church. The name Snodgrass, indeed, suggested itself as having been that of a citizen rather than a member of the ancient nobility of the realm. But plenty of eighteenth-century city men had bought or built themselves houses quite as grand as Ledward Park. Appleby hoped that the family still flourished, and that he would make the acquaintance of some member of it soon. He was beginning to feel that he was spending altogether too lonely a night. But perhaps he could gather a little more information first.

There was a desk in one of the windows, but it was unpromisingly bare. Besides, he could hardly start rummaging in private papers. But works of reference were another matter.
Who’s Who
might turn up a relevant Snodgrass or two, and on Ledward as a property the invaluable
Landed
Gentry
ought to help. These should certainly be in this room. For that matter, there was still something relevant in his own pocket. He could take another look at his map.

He did so, spreading out the sheet on the desk beside him. And there, at least, Ledward Park was. The house, plus an actual park, was given some prominence, but the avenue was only faintly indicated, which must be why he had missed it in the first place. He looked at it now with a not very logical sense of its giving him some assurance that this entire adventure wasn’t a dream. And then he made a further inspection of the library. On three of its walls the books went up to the ceiling, so that the upper rows could be reached, or even identified, only from a library-ladder. There must be seven or eight thousand volumes, Appleby supposed, but he doubted whether the collection was particularly valuable. It looked like the typical country-house miscellaneous affair, with here and there coherent patches which suggested some vein of scholarship uncertainly surfacing in the family from time to time. There was a respectable assemblage of
Antarctica
, and one entire bay was devoted to the history and geography of South America. What was called standard literature wasn’t much in evidence, and Appleby didn’t notice a single work of fiction. It seemed almost possible to believe that the Snodgrasses of Ledward Park had remained ignorant of the existence of their poetically-disposed Dickensian namesake.

The fourth wall was given over – and perhaps it might be informatively – to family portraits of the minor order: oil sketches, pastels, miniatures, pencil drawings, and photographs both ancient and modern. There was a handsome Victorian gentleman drawn by Richmond – a distinguished performance contrasting oddly with the stiffly posed, although technically accomplished, ‘studies’ by Victorian and Edwardian cameras. In these, generously bosomed but decently swathed ladies inclined their noses demonstratively over vases of flowers; gentlemen eased the unwonted process of absorbing themselves in a book by leaning a thoughtful brow on a supporting hand; children strangled kittens, clasped hoops, or with outstretched battledore unconvincingly simulated the expectation of a shuttlecock’s arriving thereupon. One small boy attracted Appleby’s notice. He had ‘dressed up’ in military uniform – not the unassuming cardboard ‘outfit’ Appleby remembered from his own childhood, but in well-tailored garments suggestive of some foreign, rather than a British, regiment. The boy had been firmly positioned four-square before the camera – his left arm stiffly at attention; his right hand also at his side, resting in an officer-like fashion on the hilt of his miniature sword; his eyes steadily fixed upon the threatening lens. Thus dragooned, the small boy nevertheless contrived to intimate in some indefinable way the possession of an unruly spirit. Appleby wondered whether a real army had eventually claimed him; and, if so, what it had made of him. Perhaps a battlefield had claimed him – in Burma, the Western Desert, Normandy. At a guess, he had been of about the right age for that.