A Connoisseur's Case by Michael Innes Page B

his head.’ Peter Binns broke in with this roughly. ‘But the police are making a stink about it. Earn their keep that way, I suppose.’
    â€˜And how do you earn your keep, Mr Binns?’ Appleby asked this question in a tone sufficiently whimsical to make it inoffensive enough. But it put Peter Binns on his dignity.
    â€˜I have a position in my father’s firm, sir,’ he said.
    â€˜Gained,’ Daphne Binns put in, ‘by native merit and honest application. Signed, Daphne Binns.’
    â€˜You shut up,’ Peter Binns said.
    The Applebys, had they been the sort of people provided with eyebrows for such occasions, would no doubt have raised them. The manners of the young Binnses were unpolished. It was impossible to feel that the Grand Collector would have approved of them.
    â€˜Aren’t you from the police?’ Peter Binns suddenly demanded.
    Appleby glanced at the young man in amusement. It was a fair enough question, although the manner of its being put was again not engaging. But Peter Binns was nervous as well as truculent. He was glancing sidelong at Appleby in a curiously uncertain way.
    â€˜Yes, I suppose I am – after a fashion, Mr Binns. But how did you know?’
    â€˜Oh, just the skivvies.’
    â€˜I beg your pardon?’ It was so long since Appleby had heard this displeasing term used that he had actually failed to get hold of it.
    â€˜The servants, up at the house. Kitchen gossip. It’s said that you’re some sort of police inspector from London, and that just by chance you found this body. Have a nose for that sort of thing, I suppose.’
    The Applebys could receive this only in silence. But Daphne Binns spoke up.
    â€˜The shocking thing is,’ she said, ‘that Peter doesn’t mean to be offensive. I mean, not more than usual. He’s been to a public school, he’s been to Cambridge, he held a commission during his National Service, and yet he’s like this.’
    â€˜At least I’m not pert ,’ Peter said. ‘And that’s how I overheard the vicar describing you to Dr West. A pert girl. So there. Signed, Peter Binns.’
    After these exchanges, the party proceeded along the canal bank in silence. Appleby was wondering how it came about that Bertram Coulson, if indeed a romantic idealist as Colonel Raven had declared, came to have these young people apparently as frequent guests. But he abandoned this speculation when he found himself on the small wharf which he had noticed earlier on the map.
    â€˜This is where Scroop House originally got its supplies,’ he said to Judith. Then he turned to Peter Binns. ‘Do you ever try the canal?’ he asked. ‘There seems to be a foot or so of water in this stretch. Do you keep any sort of craft in that boathouse?’ And he nodded towards a small structure at the farther end of the wharf.
    â€˜Go on the canal?’ Peter was surprised. ‘The rotten old thing stinks, doesn’t it? Even without having corpses dumped in it. As to whether there’s anything in the boathouse, snoop for yourself. I never have.’
    â€˜I’ve peered in.’ Daphne volunteered this in an almost conciliatory tone. ‘There seems to be a big old punt, and I believe it’s floating. But Mr Coulson or somebody keeps the place locked. Peter’ – Daphne turned to challenge her brother – ‘why do you keep on in that filthy way about the corpse? After all, you must remember the old man. I don’t.’
    â€˜Your brother must certainly remember Crabtree.’ Appleby interposed with this gravely. ‘He would have been about nine when Crabtree went to America. Which means that you, Miss Binns, would have been three or four. Some people have quite a number of memories from that age. But you don’t remember Seth Crabtree at all?’
    â€˜I certainly don’t. I remember my nurse at that time. But this man was only