A Connoisseur's Case by Michael Innes

attitude was again approaching indifference as he moved towards the front door.
    â€˜As a matter of fact, there is one suggestion of robbery in the affair. Crabtree was in possession of something when I myself encountered him at the Jolly Leggers that had disappeared when we found the body. But it was of no conceivable value.’
    â€˜Is that so?’ West’s hand was on the door. ‘You’ll forgive me if I get off to bed. On my job, one has to go rather short of sleep from time to time.’
    â€˜I’d hate to cause you a single sleepless hour, Dr West. Good night.’

 
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7
    On the following morning the Applebys went walking again. This time their objective was avowedly Scroop House. Colonel Raven had rung up Bertram Coulson and announced the proposed call. That the Crabtree affair was, so to speak, in its hinterland had been left as well-understood.
    â€˜Do you think it may have been Uncle Julius?’ Judith asked, as they walked down the drive. She put the question with a great air of comfortable chat.
    â€˜It’s no doubt a possibility that should be inquired into,’ Appleby said a trifle shortly. ‘And Tarbox. And the cook. She must be severely questioned as soon as they’ve had her appendix out. And, for that matter, the whole blessed neighbourhood. The vicar. The vet. The district nurse. The delightful fellow who was anxious to deliver a piano. And Channing-Kennedy, who refused to have one.’
    â€˜Channing-Kennedy?’ Judith seemed to take this last suggestion seriously and almost hopefully. She must really have taken a most particular dislike to the landlord of the Jolly Leggers. ‘But surely Channing-Kennedy almost has an alibi provided by ourselves?’
    â€˜I think not. A bicycle along that secondary road, south of the canal, would have done the trick. The road, incidentally, which was being graced by the progress of Mr Alfred Binns’ Phantom V at an hour when Mr Binns would like it to be believed that he was a couple of counties away. There’s not going to be any shortage of suspects in this business. So you needn’t begin by talking nonsense about your uncle.’
    â€˜It isn’t nonsense.’ With some surprise, Appleby saw that Judith was speaking seriously now. ‘You know that all my family are mad.’
    â€˜That’s perfectly true – in a popular manner of speaking. My own experience of Ravens includes one or two bizarre episodes, I must confess.’
    â€˜Very well. And at least part of what Uncle Julius had to say about Seth Crabtree last night was pretty mad, wasn’t it? All that about poaching.’
    â€˜It certainly doesn’t quite knit with your uncle’s generally amiable character. He talks about poachers and so on rather like an eighteenth-century comic squire in a novel. But I take it to be some sort of private joke or affectation, like his calling all those old servants he dotes on dunderheads and rascals.’
    â€˜He did get out and about yesterday, although he wasn’t expected to. Suppose he met Crabtree by the lock, recognized him, said something like “You damned scoundrel!” and gave him a whack on the head. What then?’
    â€˜What then?’ Appleby considered this fantastic-seeming question soberly. ‘Well, your uncle would have walked back to Pryde and said something like “Tarbox, I’ve taken a crack at an atrocious ruffian and knocked him into the canal. He’s probably dead.”’ Appleby glanced at Judith. ‘Wouldn’t something like that be the way of it?’
    â€˜I don’t know.’
    â€˜Dash it all, girl, you can’t imagine your uncle embarking on an elaborate course of deceit, can you? We’re not in a whodunnit, you know, with everybody capable of anything.’
    â€˜But, John, Uncle Julius is rather mad. And don’t mad people do things and then just forget about them?’
    â€˜A