A Connoisseur's Case (11 page)

‘Shut up,' Peter said. This time, he didn't say it particularly fiercely. It was almost as if he found mildly gratifying the light in which he had just been exhibited.

‘And as a kid I gather he became quite a crony of this man Crabtree. Crabtree showed him all sorts of things.'

‘Now,
will
you shut up, you ghastly little bitch?'

This time, the Applebys had difficulty in not stopping dead in their tracks. For Daphne had somehow contrived, with this last remark, to whip her brother into sudden fury. And into panic as well, Appleby thought, as he glanced at the young man. It was as if Daphne had made some treacherous move towards revealing a secret – and a secret so shabby, or so dirty, or even so criminal, that any approach to it scared Peter stiff. Yet that Peter had been no more than eight or nine at the time of Crabtree's departure was a fact which had just been agreed upon. What could Crabtree have shown such a child that should, in the retrospect, have such an effect on the grown man – if Peter Binns could be called a grown man – now? There were various unbeautiful possibilities, no doubt. And Appleby was far too case-hardened to have any difficulty in turning them over in his mind. But he was left with a feeling that his guesses were bad ones. Perhaps, with tact, a little genuine information could be got out of Peter himself.

‘I see your sister somehow wants to make fun of you.' Appleby tried to speak with reassuring vagueness. ‘But it's something that, as responsible men, we have to be serious about, don't you think? I know you lived here for many years, Mr Binns, and that you must have quite a position in the district. Many of the people round about here must still regard you as the young squire.'

‘Quite right. Of course they do. Particularly as the Coulsons haven't an heir.' Peter Binns was much mollified.

‘So when an affair like this turns up, people will naturally look to you to give a bit of a lead. In fact, you owe it to yourself to help the law in any way you can.'

‘I suppose that's so.' Peter shot a far from trustful glance at Appleby. ‘But it has nothing to do with me, all the same. I know nothing about Crabtree. Although naturally I do have a few memories of him from when I was a boy. Nothing much. But Daphne makes everything sound so damned silly.'

‘We needn't bother about that.' Appleby continued to be soothing. ‘I know that when your father became tenant here at Scroop, this man Crabtree stayed on. Would you say that it was in just the same capacity as in old Mrs Coulson's time?'

‘How could I know anything about that?' Peter was definitely defensive again. ‘I know nothing about that at all.'

‘You see, I've picked up an impression – I don't quite know how – that Crabtree had some special position in old Mrs Coulson's scheme of things. Perhaps, even, he had some ascendancy over her.'

Judith interrupted here.

‘I don't think that likely, at all. Mrs Coulson was clearly a person of very strong character, accustomed to boss rather a glittering scene. It isn't likely that a servant would gain an ascendancy over her.'

‘It happened with Queen Victoria.' Daphne Binns offered this – to the general surprise. ‘And Crabtree may have had a lot of charm, or something.'

‘I know nothing about him,' Peter reiterated obstinately. ‘But I dare say he got in a lot of places where he shouldn't.'

Daphne Binns swung round on her brother.

‘And just what do you mean by that, Peter?'

‘I don't mean anything.'

‘You don't mean anything. You don't know anything. And you don't signify anything, either. You're a mess. Signed–'

‘But I think, Mr Binns, you did say you had a few memories of Crabtree.' Appleby had interrupted these unseemly children at their exchanges rather brusquely. ‘Are you sure they are entirely irrelevant to the puzzle of his death?'

‘Of course they are. I remember that he made me a sledge. I suppose my father told him to.'

‘Perhaps he did. Or perhaps Crabtree just happened to like making a sledge for a boy. Did he take you poaching?'

‘Why should he take me poaching? My father had the sporting rights of the whole place.'

‘Well, there was Colonel Raven's estate next door. A boy might find it fun to be taken over there on a dark night.'

‘I don't expect that, as a boy, Peter was much of an outdoor type.' Daphne had interrupted. ‘He had a splendid collection of birds' eggs. He still has them, because he hates letting anything go. But – do you know? – he bought them all out of a catalogue from some shop in London. He had a whole museum which impressed me very much – until I found out he'd bought everything in it. I can't think where he got the money from.'

‘Can't you keep quiet?' Peter demanded. ‘Yes, when I come to think of it, Crabtree did show me how to snare rabbits, and things like that.'

Appleby had come to a halt – apparently to admire the south front of Scroop House, which was now in full view. He seemed even to have become more interested in this than in the conversation, so casually did his next question drop from him.

‘So did you look forward to seeing him again?'

‘Not in the–' Peter Binns checked himself. ‘What do you mean?' he demanded. ‘I knew nothing about him.'

‘But I understand that Mr Coulson ran into him yesterday morning, and that Crabtree gave an account of himself. Mr Coulson proposed to see him again, and perhaps find him work. Didn't this crop up – perhaps in talk before lunch, or round about then?'

There was a moment's silence. Peter and Daphne Binns – who, if conspirators, were unaccomplished ones – glanced at each other swiftly and blankly.

‘Oh, yes,' Peter said. His manner was at once careless and awkward. ‘Mr Coulson mentioned it when he came in from his morning prowl. We all heard it: Mrs Coulson, Hollywood, everybody.'

‘Hollywood knew already,' Appleby said. ‘Because Crabtree had called at the house earlier in the morning.'

‘You seem to know a damned lot about us.' Peter Binns scowled at Appleby.

‘Do you think so?' Appleby shook his head, and began moving again towards Scroop House. ‘To be quite frank with you, I feel I've a lot still to learn.'

‘But I don't see,' Daphne Binns said, ‘that you're going to learn much by coming to Scroop. I mean, about this dead man. Peter has these vague memories, I have none at all, and neither of the Coulsons can ever have set eyes on Crabtree. They didn't live here for ages, you know. First there was old Mrs Coulson, who employed the man. Then there was Daddy as Mr Coulson's tenant, and he employed the man too. But a few years after that, it seems that the man went to America or somewhere. It was only after that again that we left, and the Coulsons moved in. So there's no reason to suppose that the Coulsons had as much as heard of the man until he turned up yesterday. It doesn't look as if you'll get much out of
them
.'

‘Possibly not.' Appleby had listened patiently to Daphne's rather plodding speech. ‘But, you see, one never can be
sure
that one won't get something out of people. And it's possible I may get something more out of you.'

‘What do you mean?'

‘Even if it's only an opinion or a guess.' Daphne, Appleby thought, had the same liability as her brother towards sudden alarm and even panic. ‘What do you think would make an old man like this turn up again as Crabtree did yesterday?'

‘He'd come for what he could get.' Daphne's alarm had melted oddly into a sort of savage vehemence. ‘Or do you think that he just had nice feelings about a golden past, and was anxious to see how the roses were continuing to grow round the door – or if Peter had grown up into a fine upstanding English gentleman? I think not. He was a crook who thought he had a line on somebody.'

‘What awful rubbish!' Peter broke in with a savagery of his own, and with a glare at his sister as if she had committed some utterly crass blunder. ‘He was just some old peasant with a superstitious notion that he should die and be buried in his own village. And some tramp came along and obliged him – probably for the sake of robbing the corpse of a pocketful of small change. Why all this fuss over a common or garden squalid crime, with top coppers getting foot-loose from Scotland Yard, I just can't think.'

Appleby stopped in his tracks once more. But this time, he surveyed not the house but the young man who was conducting him to it.

‘Mr Binns,' he said, ‘I must confess that your manners are not agreeable to me. At the same time, you are talking tolerable sense. Undesigned homicide in the course of a too carelessly perpetrated robbery with violence is, statistically, far the most probable explanation of Crabtree's death. Your sister's notion, on the other hand, is an odd and quirky one.'

‘There!' Peter said, turning to Daphne. ‘Sucks to you!'

Appleby ignored this puerility.

‘But I ought to add that it is what your sister says that interests me, all the same.'

 

After this the party had walked for some minutes in silence. Scroop House was now directly in front of them. On their right it was almost impinged on by a beech copse. On their left there appeared to be a walled garden. But straight in front the park ran directly up to a low balustraded terrace before the house. The facade, as the Applebys had previously seen from a distance, was plain to the point of bleakness. But the proportions were good, and the total effect was impressive as well as pleasing. Old Mrs Coulson, who had, it seemed, gone in so uncompromisingly only for the best people and the best things, had possessed an admirable backdrop to her activities in Scroop House. Mr Arthur Balfour himself, in point of severe good taste, must often have compared the place favourably with a good many of the grand houses among which, with his fellow Cabinet Ministers, he was accustomed to revolve at weekends.

Judith was delighted. It was clear that Seth Crabtree – although she had been so disposed to make a pet of him – was banished for a time from her head, now that this not readily accessible masterpiece by William Chambers was actually before her.

A figure had appeared on the terrace: the figure of a woman holding a small watering can, with which she was tending a line of plants disposed along the balustrade. Here, plainly, was the lady of the house. And Appleby, although not much given to a sentimental regard for places of this kind, acknowledged something pleasing and obscurely moving in this modest domestic spectacle. Just so had the womenfolk of Scroop House been pottering around since Chambers rolled up his drawings, dismissed his workmen, and handed the place over to the first Coulson in 1786.

They had all come to a halt again – and Appleby realized that, this time, it was Daphne Binns who had brought this about.

‘It's Mrs Coulson,' Daphne said. Her voice had altered. ‘She's nice. In fact, you'll find her no end of a pleasant change. Peter, march!' And Daphne gave her brother a sharp nudge in the ribs. Then she looked straight at the Applebys. ‘Exeunt the bloody Binnses,' she said. ‘Signed, Daphne Binns.'

 

 

‘Would you call them
enfants terribles
?' Judith asked, as they watched the young Binnses make off towards a corner of the house.

‘I don't know.' Appleby shook his head. ‘But I do know I'm sorry I said something pompous to the boy about his manners. I'm not a damned adjutant or house master or moral tutor.'

‘You're a Commissioner of Police, John, and getting dangerously accustomed to deference. But you were quite right, all the same. He was unspeakable. And his sister wasn't much better.'

‘I don't know that I agree. The boy is certainly one of nature's Binnses, and Harrer an' Trinity College haven't much changed him.'

‘Whatever are you talking about?'

‘A poem of Kipling's. Don't forget your plain policeman's simple tastes. But what I'm saying is that the girl is a cut above the boy. I liked her.'

‘Yes, she's not bad looking, I agree.'

‘Idiot. Or – as Peter would say – shut up. There's more to Daphne than to her brother. And she's more dangerous.'

‘The female of the species is more deadly than the male. Your friend Kipling again. But go on.'

‘Peter is up against something rather small, and Daphne is up against something pretty big. Of course, small things, just as much as big ones, lead to rash acts from time to time. I wonder when their mother died.'

‘You know she's dead?'

‘Well, she vanished and didn't turn up again. And it's only the dead who don't, sooner or later, turn up. Anyway, Mrs Binns' virtual non-existence seems to be the explanation of the children's coming here from time to time. They've found a mother – don't you think? – in the lady of the watering can. Your uncle says she has a roving eye. But I suspect she had a maternal instinct as well. And she's coming down those steps to meet us now.'

 

There was no doubt that Colonel Raven's description of Bertram Coulson's wife, although it had been couched in somewhat Edwardian terms, fitted the lady very well. She was a devilish fine woman in a mature way. But if there was indeed a smothered fire in her, or at least a suggestion that she had difficulty in finding the life laid down for her adequate to her sense of what life should provide, this was less immediately striking than an entirely pleasing quickness of response and warmth of interest. She had still been carrying her watering can when she came down to greet her visitors. Now, back on the terrace, she walked them about for a few minutes, talking about her plants, before settling them in a sunny corner. This last action she performed competently, but with a certain vagueness as to the disposition of chairs and cushions which struck Appleby as a revealing characteristic at once. He doubted whether Mrs Coulson was much of a housewife, or managed any very effective contact with the inanimate world around her. She was a kind of
magna mater
whose true sphere was a teeming nursery with all its proper appendages of ponies, puppies, kittens and canaries. Lacking these, she might conceivably get wrong what it was she did lack. And a mistake of that sort might take her into difficult waters.