Carson's Conspiracy by Michael Innes

still.’
    â€˜As you say, but still.’ Lady Appleby was always amused by her husband’s sense of the social punctilios. ‘One must be civil to one’s neighbours.’
    â€˜Do you know, Judith, that I don’t think I’d call the Carsons neighbours – simply because I can’t see their chimneys from the top of the house? What constitutes one’s neighbourhood is an expansible and contractible concept.’
    â€˜What a very philosophical idea! As a matter of fact, I encountered Mrs Carson yesterday. It was in Busby’s shop in Linger. She was trying to buy linen sheets, and rather creating because they hadn’t any.’
    â€˜Quite right. Surely a linen-draper ought to have no end of linen sheets in his shop.’
    â€˜Busby’s shop – linen ?’
    â€˜Well, yes. We sleep between linen sheets, don’t we?’
    â€˜Certainly we do. But they’re as old as the hills. I cherish them as I cherish the Sèvres. Incidentally, I had the feeling I mentioned to you after the Carsons’ party. That the woman is a bit off her head. She had quite a lot to say to me, as well as to Mr Busby, about needing new sheets for her blue room. She kept on about her blue room, and eventually she explained that she was getting it ready for her son.’
    â€˜Robin Carson. I remember about him. They go over and visit him at sweet little Key Biscayne.’
    â€˜That’s right – but now Robin has arrived in England. Mum had a telephone call from him at Heathrow a few evenings previously, to say he was hiring a car and would be on his way to Garford. But he didn’t turn up, and hadn’t turned up yesterday. I suppose his courage had failed him before the prospect of the family hearth. The poor lady was relieved in a way – about the delay, I mean. It gave her an opportunity to go after sheets and things. But she was beginning to be anxious as well. And she said her husband had gone quite tense and jumpy.’
    â€˜Then perhaps we’d better hold our hand about inviting them until the dilatory Robin has been restored to their bosom. Of course we’ll have to ask him as well.’ Appleby paused on this. ‘I remember her as being quite sensible about their son. But definitely a bit dotty in some other regions of discourse.’
    â€˜You sometimes sound a bit dotty yourself, John. Regions of discourse, indeed! The Carsons struck me as not having a single general idea between them. It would have been a frightfully boring occasion if Humphry and that nice wife of his hadn’t been there.’
    â€˜The Lelys undoubtedly saved us. Which reminds me that I saw Humphry the other day, and he said he’d been painting Carson’s portrait. What about your getting a commission to do Mrs C in bronze?’
    â€˜It’s a thought.’ Judith Appleby, who was a sculptor (or sculptress) seemed unenthusiastic before this idea. ‘Have you discovered anything much about Carson himself?’
    â€˜No – and I can’t say I’ve tried. Arthur Watling – who’s Carson’s neighbour in my modest sense of the term – has mentioned him to me once or twice. Arthur called him a clever little city chap. For Arthur “clever” is quite as dismissive a word as “little”, don’t you think? It’s my impression that Carson is pretty prosperous in what’s possibly a ramshackle way. Share-pushing type. Promotes things.’
    â€˜He belongs, in fact, to the great entrepreneurial class. I wonder whether Robin follows in his footsteps.’
    â€˜You can ask the young man himself, when he finally turns up and is introduced to us.’
    â€˜I suppose he will turn up?’
    Lady Appleby had produced this question abruptly and as if it rather surprised her. Sir John Appleby, who was about to enter upon his daily half-hour with The Times, put the paper down again on the