Free A Connoisseur's Case by Michael Innes Page A

unwonted clarity of perception were now failing him. ‘That sort of thing – yes.’
    â€˜You mean that he felt he couldn’t live up to the place? Then why did he shove in this Binns, who doesn’t sound to have been much of a catch?’
    â€˜Perhaps he was taken in by him.’ Colonel Raven made another big effort. ‘Bertram Coulson wouldn’t quite notice, you see, if a fellow was a bit of a phoney.’ The Colonel paused, and looked anxiously at his niece. ‘Would that be the expression, my dear? I had it from Tarbox, as a matter of fact.’
    â€˜Quite right, Uncle Julius. And is the reason that Bertram Coulson wouldn’t quite notice if a fellow was a bit of a phoney really that he’s a bit of a phoney himself?’
    â€˜I wouldn’t care to put it that way. He’s not at all a bad chap, as I said. But you couldn’t call him an easy man. Might have something in his past, you know. Or that inferiority business the psychologists talk about. Sometimes, I’ve thought him rather like an actor feeling his way into a what’s-it-called.’
    â€˜A role?’
    â€˜Just that, my dear. I expect those books were all about how to be an English landed gentleman, and that the sporting gear was all stuff he’d gathered from them he ought to possess.’
    â€˜He doesn’t sound a very sterling character, Uncle Julius.’
    â€˜But that’s just what I don’t want to say. Or at least what I don’t know .’ Colonel Raven sounded almost distressed. ‘He’s not unattractive. He has a kind of innocent joy in feeling that he’s begun to know the ropes.’
    â€˜Did he come, then,’ Judith asked, ‘from so very unpolished or unsophisticated an environment?’
    â€˜I believe he owned sheep or cattle in rather a big way in Australia. I’ve talked to him about the place, as a matter of fact. It seems that they have trout and they have fish. What isn’t a trout is a fish. Obviously an undeveloped place.’
    â€˜But, Uncle Julius, people who own sheep in rather a big way in Australian pastoral country could most of them step into the proprietorship of an English estate entirely in their stride.’
    â€˜That may be, my dear. But it’s my view of Bertram Coulson that he has some sort of’ – Colonel Raven searched the air – ‘some sort of thingummy built into him.’
    â€˜Diffidence?’
    â€˜That’s the word, mind you, he isn’t retiring. He’s eager to be on his game, and all that. But he has some picture of himself that he can’t feel certain he’s living up to. Tarbox’ – and the Colonel turned in appeal to his butler, who had returned to the dining-room accompanied by an alarmed assistant of tender years for the purpose of removing the tablecloth – ‘Tarbox, what am I talking about?’
    â€˜I believe the term to be persona , sir.’
    â€˜That’s it.’
    â€˜But there are other expressions. “Ego-ideal” might also be applicable.’ Tarbox turned to Appleby. ‘I think, sir,’ he murmured, ‘that you will elect to stay with the burgundy?’
    Appleby did elect to stay with the burgundy. He watched Colonel Raven moving to port and Judith to Sauternes. Tarbox, he reflected, was more than a mere philologist.
    â€˜What about Binns, the late tenant?’ he asked the Colonel. ‘Did you form any impression of him? But perhaps you didn’t much run into him.’
    â€˜Oh, dear me, yes.’ Colonel Raven spoke almost severely. ‘You must take one fellow with another, you know. And there was a lot that was sound about Alfred Binns. Particularly on the Caribbean. He’d fished some pretty monsters out of it. He used to drop in for a yarn. And he gave me a book to add to my collection. Rather well written thing. Called The Old Man and the Sea .’
    â€˜But you