Appleby's End by Michael Innes Page B

were not of much interest to any present members of the family. It seemed a pity, therefore, to – ah – keep them idle.”
    Mark flung himself into an ancient sofa. “So we passed ’em through the larder. Mr Appleby is at present in process of digesting a volume of Dodsley’s Miscellany or a badly cropped copy of Dryden’s Fables .
    Everard Raven looked mildly pained. “Mark,” he said, “when I was a boy I was taught that gentlemen don’t talk money after dinner. And even if that good habit has fallen into desuetude–”
    The conversation of Mark Raven, it seemed to Appleby, was in even poorer taste than the marble statuary of his great-uncle Theodore. Perhaps the Heyhoe affair had got this odd young man badly rattled. Anyway, a change of subject would be all to the good. “I don’t suppose,” asked Appleby, “that any word has come in about the carriage yet?”
    Everard shook his head. “Nothing at all. And I am afraid that it will have gone over Tew Weir and that the battering will be the end of it.”
    â€œA great loss,” said Mark. “For Spot, that is to say.”
    â€œThe carriage was in very poor repair.” Robert Raven, whose features under the influence of warmth and cigar smoke were beginning to lose the extremity of ferocity which had hitherto distinguished them, seemed to put this as a comforting suggestion to Everard. “It would have fallen to pieces of its own accord, in time.”
    â€œWhich,” said Mark, “goes for Heyhoe too.”
    â€œTime?” Luke Raven, who had been leaning against the mantelpiece and gazing in a melancholy way at what was evidently Theodore’s idea of the Rape of the Sabines, came forward like an actor who has been presented with his cue. “Time with a Gift of Tears,” said Luke. “And Grief with a Glass that ran.”
    â€œThere were potatoes.” Everard’s voice held a harassed note. “And cake for the cow. Billy Bidewell must be asked how long cows will go without cake.”
    â€œPleasure, with Pain for leaven,” said Luke.
    â€œWhen one comes to think of it, of course, the carriage would be of little use without Heyhoe–”
    â€œSummer, with Flowers that fell.”
    â€œâ€“or Heyhoe without the carriage. But it is extremely distressing, all the same. I can see that Judith has had quite a shock–”
    â€œRemembrance, fallen from Heaven.”
    â€œâ€“and that Clarissa, too, is upset. The events of the evening have been–”
    â€œMadness risen from Hell.”
    Mark Raven gave a yell of laughter. “One to the poet!” he cried. “Luke has hit the nail on the head. Somebody grabs a half-witted old coachman, yanks him along to a snowdrift, buries him up to the neck and leaves him to the operation of the laws of thermodynamics. Everard says it is extremely distressing. Luke says–”
    â€œSwinburne,” said Luke with gloomy modesty.
    â€œSwinburne says it is Madness risen from Hell. Let Mr Appleby, who is entirely unprejudiced in the matter, decide which is right.”
    Appleby remained silent. It was clear that the Ravens enjoyed desultory conversation among themselves and were capable of keeping it up indefinitely. No need to interrupt. And there was – surely there was – much about them that required a little quiet thinking out. Were they really birds as queer as they now seemed to be to a strayed policeman at the end of a long day first of massive monotony and latterly of fantastic incident? And where had they all been between the serio-comic episode of the ford and the ghastly discovery of Heyhoe? Appleby frowned. Where had he himself been? Floating down the river in an ancient carriage and in the company of an unaccountable girl – a ludicrous performance which circumstances had decreed should now, in all probability, become a front-page story. Inspector