Ampersand Papers by Michael Innes

only on some entirely extravagant hypothesis. But I think she feels some member of her family – or at least of the household – may be suspected, and that the situation ought to be cleared up so as to obviate anything of the sort. I think she may talk about it to you as she won’t do to me.’
    ‘I can’t think why.’
    ‘Reputation, Sir John. Simply reputation.’ Craig presented this explanation with amused assurance, and as a man who knows he occasions no umbrage. Quite a good chap to work with, Appleby thought.
    ‘Have you a ghost of a notion, Craig, why anybody should want to kill Sutch? He sounds like some perfectly harmless drudge.’
    ‘All I seem to gather is that his work involved issues that might lead to family friction, even animosity. That certainly seems to be at the back of Lady Grace’s mind. And even Lord Ampersand can be felt to have a dim sense of it.’
    ‘What about Lady Ampersand? What sort of woman is she?’
    ‘I don’t think she could be called very well-informed or intelligent. But she strikes me as a sensible woman – these limitations allowed for.’
    ‘You know about the man called Cave?’
    ‘He’s on the record, of course.’ Craig tapped his notebook, which he hadn’t yet ventured to open. ‘He was your other contact, in a way, was he not?’ Craig looked shrewdly at Appleby. ‘The Chief Constable said you had some small thing on your mind, sir. It wouldn’t have been about this Cave?’
    ‘There in one, Inspector.’ Appleby nodded a very senior man’s approval. ‘Cave didn’t say much to me, and I wasn’t thinking of him as more than on the fringe of the affair. But what he did say included a lie. He said he’d talked to Sutch only once – some weeks before, and when they’d run up against each other by chance, and dined together. But the butler, Ludlow, says he saw them confabulating – apparently in the open air – a long time after that.’
    ‘It couldn’t be Ludlow who was telling the lie?’
    ‘Certainly it might.’ Appleby’s approval was again evident. ‘Ludlow might conceivably have some motive of his own for suggesting that those two were in some sort of conspiracy. But it’s very conjectural, Inspector.’
    ‘So it is.’
    ‘And what I caught Cave out in may be quite without significance. He was suddenly in the presence of violent death – and of a policeman. I could see that it all frightened him very much. He’d have an irrational impulse to dissociate himself from the dead man in every way. You know the strange and irresponsible fashion in which people do behave in that sort of crisis. Our work would be very much easier if they didn’t.’
    ‘A true word, sir. I think we ought to get on to Cave again.’
    ‘Yes, I think you ought.’
    ‘He was in the cave at the bottom of the cliff, I gather, and came out immediately the thing happened?’
    ‘Well, yes. I supposed him to have heard the crash. But he might have emerged a minute or two before I became aware of him. You’ve been in the cave?’
    ‘Of course, Sir John.’ Inspector Craig said this a shade stiffly.
    ‘That rope and cord were still there?’
    ‘Yes.’
    ‘Notice anything about them?’
    ‘They hadn’t been thrown down in a hurry.’
    ‘Exactly. It was an almost finical chap who disposed them the way they were. A fisherman would wind them into a coil, no doubt – but not quite like that. Or so it struck me, Craig.’
    ‘Would you call this Cave finical?’
    ‘Good question. Yes. A sort of lightweight scientific mind. Leave things tidy in the lab.’
    ‘Cave might have been depositing the stuff there.’
    ‘Certainly he might. Or have gone in to retrieve it – and bolted out when the staircase tumbled. If he’d just been up to something shady, it would account for his funk.’
    ‘It seems, Sir John, that he departed from that pub almost as soon as he’d got back to it. We’d taken his statement, of course, for what it seemed worth. But we’ll put him on