The Weight of the Evidence (16 page)

‘Say rather with ale,’ said Prisk vigorously. ‘Ale for an Englishman is a natural drink, so that it be neither ropy nor smoky, nor have no weft or tail. But beer is a natural drink for a Dutchman.’ He held up a dart in air, much as if gesturing at a blackboard. ‘I cite no less an authority than Dr Andrew Borde’s
Regiment of Health
, a pioneer work in dietetics, published in 1557. Dr Borde, who was in holy orders, died in prison shortly after being arrested by his bishop on a charge of keeping three punks or croshabells in his rooms at Winchester.’ Having delivered himself of this piece of musty bawdry Prisk turned back – rather vaguely, it suddenly seemed to Appleby – to the game. In fact Prisk was slightly drunk – or what Dr Borde might have called disguised in liquor. And the liquor was the Duke’s. Perhaps the object of the present party could he glimpsed here. Perhaps the Duke was employing the mellowing resources of the Nesfield Court cellars to worm his way a little further into the Pluckrose affair. But Marlow was unkindled by wine; indeed he had the appearance of being carefully sober. And he was looking at Prisk now with a certain calculating malice.

‘Borde?’ said Marlow; ‘I think Prisk would find sounder advice in Platt. Sir Hugh Platt’s
Jewell House of Art and Nature
. He recommends salad oil. A good swig of salad oil will float upon the wine which you shall drink, and suppress the spirits from ascending to the brain.’

‘Oh, most barbarous!’ Prisk flung a dart – so inaccurately that Appleby trembled for Hobhouse’s other ear. The result appeared to discourage him; he turned away, lowered himself carefully into a chair, and began solemnly to recite:

Who ever casts to compass weighty prize,

And thinks to throw out thundering words of threat:

Let pour in lavish cups and thrifty bits of meat,

For Bacchus fruit is friend to Phoebus wise.

And when with Wine the brain begins to sweat,

The numbers flow as fast as spring doth rise.

He paused and frowned, as if he had lost the thread of this paean. ‘Duke,’ he said heavily, ‘if only our dear Gerald were here the reunion would be complete.’

‘Very true, professor.’ The Duke too had sat down and was taking the band from a cigar. ‘But Gerald is safe at Cambridge, thanks to your good offices.’

So that was it. Prisk had been the second of the tutors employed to cram dear Gerald. Prisk and Marlow. And here, after Pluckrose’s death, was the Duke conducting a little veiled investigation. Not veiled from Marlow; there was a wariness about that young man that showed he suspected how the land lay. But – unless the man was an incomparable actor – veiled from the more aggressive and less apprehensive Prisk… And now Prisk had raised his song and his glass together:

O if my temples were distained with wine,

And girt in garlands of wild ivy twine…

Again he paused. ‘An epiphonematical passage,’ he said carefully.

For Hobhouse this looked like being too much. He opened his mouth as if to announce that it was not the Muses but a meteorite that he had come to seek. Appleby contrived unobtrusively to restrain him. The meteorite – or rather the absence of the meteorite – could wait. There was matter of much more immediate interest going forward. The Duke of Nesfield had embarked on what Edwardian ladies would have called a smoking-room story.

Perhaps there was nothing so very odd about that. Sir Robert Walpole, a contemporary of the Duke who built Nesfield Court, encouraged dirty conversation on the ground that it was the only sort of talk enjoyed by everybody. And at the moment the Duke had rather an ill-assorted company to entertain. But with Hobhouse, at least, he was not being successful. That self-conscious representative of the higher constabulary, who had so recently been entertaining Appleby with certain of the more startling findings of his professional experience, was sitting frozen with horror. Other times, other manners. This was not at all the way the twentieth century expected its noblemen to behave.

But if Hobhouse contracted into an image of respectful disapproval Prisk expanded like a flower. It was soon evident that he carried not one but two invisible bags: a word-hoard and what might perhaps be called a love-hoard. And they had this in common: that their contents were curious, far-fetched, and made smooth with handling. Nor did Prisk appear to be a mere passive collector of anecdotes of Cyprian experience. Much of what he had to say took the form of personal reminiscence. In fact, thought Appleby, a thoroughly dirty old man. It was a new light on Romance Philology.

The Duke plied the whisky and listened attentively – so attentively that Appleby presently decided that Prisk was not the real object of interest at all. The Duke scarcely glanced at Marlow – but it was on Marlow that some obscure experiment was being conducted nevertheless. How, then, did Marlow feel about it? He was not, like Hobhouse, shocked. He was angry. Or – to put it more adequately – Prisk’s reminiscences pricked him to a cold fury which not all his wariness was able to suppress. And it was in the gauging of this that the Duke was interested. Marlow, in fact, was to be goaded to the point of some outburst. That was the plan, and it was a plan which the Duke had no intention of seeing upset by the arrival of a couple of policemen. And what was it about? Why was the Duke thus exercising himself? Because these two men had been his guests – or employees. Because at the university which was one of his hobbies a scholar had – most shockingly – been murdered. Because of some piece of knowledge or train of speculation which had prompted him the day before to waylay the police and murmur, ‘I suppose it
is
– ah – Pluckrose?’ Yes, because of that.

And now here was the young man Marlow – pale and gripping the arms of his chair. Why this fury? Young men, unless much inhibited by religious or other influences, are naturally given to Rabelaisian conversation among themselves. On the other hand, they are commonly a good deal embarrassed and displeased upon encountering the same thing in markedly older men. An odd but incontestable fact of psychology, this. But did it account for the present situation? Appleby thought not. Marlow’s reactions, stifled though they were, showed as being in excess of anything that could be covered by such an explanation. In fact there was only one reasonable hypothesis… Appleby frowned. No, there were two hypotheses. Consider, for instance, the fact that the undergraduate Gerald would have to be present were the ‘reunion’ to be complete…

And there was the point that the Duke of Nesfield was far from pleased with the whole affair. Upon his face there was something drawn and strained which had been absent the day before. He was going to get at the truth, but he was far from liking it. And perhaps he was going to get at the truth privately; had decided that his cryptic hint to the police was a mistake. Certainly he showed small disposition to acknowledge the professional existence of Hobhouse and Appleby here and now.

The Duke disliked the affair. He disliked Prisk. One could discern this in the way he said ‘professor’; in the ever so slightly gingerly way he handed the man a glass. And, equally, it was possible to feel that Marlow he sympathized with. Which would fit in well enough…

Only – thought Appleby looking at his untouched glass – there was so much to fit in. Sir David Evans’ bust and Timmy Church’s bigamy – how, for instance, could those be made to cohere with what was going obscurely forward now? And the meteorite: where did that have its place? Again, there was the lackadaisical Lasscock, whose frequent habit it was to sun himself in the Wool Court. And there was Miss Godkin of St Cecilia’s – that latter-day Lady Politick could-be – murmuring mysteriously of the Foreign Office. There was all this and there was the as yet unexplored mechanics of the case. A not inconsiderable jigsaw – and one still perhaps without a focal point round which to build.

Appleby took a conventional sip at his whisky and looked at Marlow again. He was a young man who created a displeasing impression at first. One would probably write him down as flippant, hard, contemptuous, shallow – and inconsiderable. But perhaps all this was a disguise to hide strong and what he feared were unsophisticated and therefore disgraceful impulses. Actually, it might be, a markedly idealistic young man – and of course a tolerably able one. His wits were getting the better of his emotions now. Although evidently extremely allergic to Prisk in his present vein, he had caught at the essential fact of something artificial and contrived in the whole affair. And he was not going to he drawn. One could feel the tension slowly relaxing in him. Perhaps like Dr Johnson on an altogether dissimilar occasion he had succeeded in removing his mind and thinking of Tom Thumb. If the Duke had planned that Marlow should clarify the situation by jumping up and pelting Prisk with billiard balls, his little piece of stage managing had failed.

In fact the party, thus obscurely at an
impasse
, was hanging fire. Prisk had passed suddenly from a state of bawdy volubility to one of moroseness and suspicion. Hobhouse was fidgeting. It might be as well to bring forward the matter of the meteorite at last. ‘This affair that was dropped on Pluckrose,’ said Appleby into the next silence; ‘it appears it came from Nesfield Court. That’s why Hobhouse and I have ventured to come out and see you.’ He looked innocently at the Duke. ‘And perhaps that’s why you took such a friendly interest in us yesterday, sir?’

The Duke appeared to be studying a large and dreary Canaletto which hung above the fireplace; without taking his gaze from its green waters he slightly shook his head. ‘No,’ he said; ‘you are mistaken in that. I knew nothing of it until this evening. And I haven’t heard properly about it yet; they just sent me across a message when your people rang up.’

Hobhouse, with considerable hardihood, had produced a notebook. ‘Your Grace’, he said severely, ‘didn’t know this thing had been stolen?’

The Duke smiled charmingly. ‘I’m really afraid I didn’t, inspector. It wasn’t at all among my cherished possessions. Indeed, whether it can be called a possession of mine is a nice philosophical point. What do you say, professor? Can I be said to possess something the existence of which is unknown to me?’

Prisk shook his head. ‘In Nesfield Court’, he said ponderously, ‘there must be much, Duke, of which you are only unwittingly the impropriator.’

‘That’s just it.’ The Duke nodded as if something very sage had been said. ‘And it’s difficult to keep one’s hand on everything one
does
know about.’ He made a gesture, vague and apologetic, which seemed to comprehend the whole grotesque profusion of the building in which they sat. ‘However, I don’t doubt that there was a meteorite, and that it was stolen. Martin’ – he was addressing Marlow by his Christian name – ‘you used to mooch about the place a good deal; did you ever notice anything of the sort?’

Was there, Appleby wondered, an edge to this question? Or was it merely the Duke’s habit of politely bringing everyone into the conversation in turn? Marlow was shaking his head. ‘No, sir. But then there are at least three separate museums about the place. And any number of collections and oddities and curiosities scattered here and there.’

‘That’s very true.’ The Duke was still apologetic. ‘Members of the family take it into their heads to form collections from time to time. My grandfather collected carriages; there are about eighty in the old orangery. And my uncle Hubert collected stage scenery; I believe it’s still about somewhere. One hesitates to turn such things out. There’s plenty of room, after all.’ He got to his feet. ‘Shall we go and find out? Mr Collins may know, and I don’t think it’s too late to disturb him.’ The Duke rang a bell. ‘Thomas,’ he said carefully to the answering footman, ‘will you give my compliments to Mr Collins and ask him if I may bring in some friends?’ He sat down again. ‘We’ll give Thomas a good start.’ He looked at Appleby ironically and chuckled. ‘Say a hundred yards.’

‘Angelica Kauffmann,’ said the Duke of Nesfield. He took Hobhouse and Appleby each by an arm and drew them to a halt; then he cocked up his head until his commanding nose indicated the ceiling. ‘Woman must have been a sort of human fly. Not many places like this without some of her work. And she did the doors too. Come and look at this one. Wouldn’t you call it rather a delicate arabesque?’

Prisk and Marlow had gone ahead; now, as a result of the Duke’s zeal as a cicerone, they were out of sight in some farther corridor. Nor did their host appear anxious to overtake them in the course of this pilgrimage to Mr Collins; a few paces more and he had halted again before a portrait on the wall. ‘Lady Caroline Lamb,’ he said. ‘One of those portraits of her in page’s costume. She must have been what they call a transvestist nowadays. My great-grandfather was rather struck on her at one time. After Byron, that was. What do you think about Byron?’ The Duke had turned amiably to Hobhouse. ‘Myself, I don’t care for him at all.’

‘Do you care for Prisk?’ Appleby dropped the question casually, while politely studying Lady Caroline’s features.

The Duke looked mildly surprised. ‘Dear me,’ he said; ‘what can I have done to prompt such a question?’

‘Arranged matters so that he infuriates this young man Marlow, and then packed them off together down a lonely corridor. All this after having hinted more than a doubt as to whether Pluckrose was really the target designed for the meteorite. In fact, sir, it is quite clear that you are deliberately testing out the strength of Marlow’s animosity. Does it extend to the positively murderous? And the experiment seems to me rather a risky one.’

For some moments the Duke said nothing; they moved on down the corridor and passed into a dimly lit saloon hung with pale blue silk. ‘Inspector,’ he said at length, ‘what is this that you have been putting into your colleague’s head?’

Hobhouse, cautious and alarmed, made no reply. They had entered another corridor, white and cold, and were moving down an endless vista of bronzes set in alcoves on either side. ‘Yes,’ said the Duke slowly. ‘I don’t exactly expect murder and sudden death just ahead of us there; but in general you are right. If Martin Marlow is so unbalanced that he attempted to kill Prisk, then we might as well get at the truth. And it occurred to me that throwing them together again might bring the truth to the surface. Neither knew that I was asking the other this evening. But may I ask what you think it’s all about?’