Free Appleby's Answer by Michael Innes Page A

psychopathology, of Captain Bulkington was coming, indeed, alarmingly clear. He seemed not to be a mercenary man. It was true that his devotion to the cause of higher education could be felt as rather a bread-and-butter affair. But every man, after all, has to find a livelihood, and coaching youths and boys was a perfectly honourable means to that end. And his original suggestion to Miss Pringle, although cock-eyed, had not been economically motivated; indeed, he had rather suggested that he was prepared to pay £500 for the fun of having a go at a mystery story and seeing his name in print. But the obverse of all this was disturbing. What compelled the fancy of the Captain on its more morbid side was not any sort of crime that came along; it was decidedly what the law calls crime against the person. The image of Sir Ambrose Pinkerton – surely a blameless enough landed proprietor – howling amid the flames of his collapsing mansion was a shade daunting to one of Miss Pringle’s natural refinement of mind. Collaboration with Captain Bulkington, even although she was proposing to construe ‘collaboration’ in a private and somewhat Pickwickian sense, would require a good deal of finesse. In particular, it would require delicate timing in the final phase of the affair.
    â€˜Captain Bulkington,’ Miss Pringle asked with some formality, ‘have you considered what means we might take to launch this joint enterprise?’
    â€˜Suggest you move in here.’ The Captain’s reply was prompt and confident. ‘Free bed and board, eh?’ He laughed robustly, apparently unaware that his collaborator had judged his form of words to verge on the indelicate. ‘And I dare say you wouldn’t mind lending a hand with some of the men? Jenkins and Waterbird, for instance. Good for them to have a mature woman about the place. Take their minds off the village girls.’
    â€˜Initially, at least, I judge that it would be best to proceed differently.’ Miss Pringle was not sure how she regarded being described as a mature woman, nor whether she altogether relished being envisaged as a socially elevating factor in the libidinous fantasies of Captain Bulkington’s young men. But she was quite clear that she was not prepared to suffer domestication in ‘Kandahar’. ‘I suggest that we correspond. That seems to me the best means of discovering whether something can be worked out.’ Miss Pringle rose on this vague note. ‘And it has been so kind of you to ask me to stay to lunch. Unfortunately I have an engagement with a clerical cousin who lives near Lechlade.’ Like all novelists, Miss Pringle believed in making her lies circumstantial. ‘A Rural Dean. A most charming man.’
    â€˜Aha! Out for a bit of copy, eh? Death at the Deanery . Only, do Rural Deans have Deaneries? I don’t believe they do.’ To Miss Pringle’s surprise, Captain Bulkington appeared unoffended by her abrupt intimation of departure. He led her to the door of the sanctum. ‘Write each other letters, you mean, about whatever dodges we either of us think up?’
    â€˜It is something of that sort that is in my mind.’
    â€˜Capital! Bound to say I hadn’t thought of it. But it might fit very well.’ Captain Bulkington paused to rub his hands – a gesture which Miss Pringle had not observed him to perform before. ‘The very thing, my dear. Deuced clever suggestion.’ There was something like a new glint in the Captain’s eye. ‘And the sooner we begin the better.’
    â€˜No doubt. But there is one condition which, I suggest, must be observed.’ Miss Pringle glanced a shade warily at her private madman (for it was thus that she was coming to think of the Captain). ‘The postal service – particularly in country areas such as we both live in – is not always reliable. In point of confidentiality, I