Free Appleby's End by Michael Innes

And in a way it was the last – or the last for a long time. For though I discovered quite a lot more about it not much more happened while we were kids. It became a matter of historical investigation, you might say. Mark and I made a game of it. We discovered that the – the ramifications had been pretty extensive.
    â€œApparently that sort of thing does occur. Legends about literary folk and other queer fish often circulate in the districts where they’ve lived, and are even carried about the country. Tramps carry stories just as chapmen used to carry ballads and broadsheets. Everard says that Branwell Brontë is a legendary figure quite far west into Lancashire and north right up to Northumberland.”
    To Judith Raven’s voice, disembodied in the darkness, it was pleasant to listen. And if she were something kept in a glass case one would be willing to contemplate her almost indefinitely. Indeed, to all the senses, whether in isolation or combination, the reports she would yield could be nothing but satisfactory – in an extreme. “Northumberland?” said Appleby absently. “You surprise me. I never heard of that sort of folklore before.”
    â€œNot many policemen have – except, perhaps, the quite uncultivated and ordinary ones.” Judith laughed in the darkness. “It’s only among the simple that such stories run. And, of course, it is surprising. Particularly about Ranulph, because with him it’s really queer . You see, he had the reputation of being a sort of Sibyl.”
    â€œSibyls were girls.”
    â€œI know they were, silly. Do you know the Sistine Chapel? I like the Delphic Sibyl best. But not so much as Jonah. Jonah’s lovelier even than Adam, if you ask me.” Judith’s pleasant voice was suddenly grave and beautiful – and the effect of this was to suggest some increasing dissatisfaction with the mysterious narrative upon which she was engaged. “Why did Michelangelo make Jonah like that? I thought he was an old man with a beard.”
    The clouds were clearing rapidly and behind them was the cold glitter of Orion and the Bear. Now lies the Earth all Danae to the stars… “Judith,” Appleby said – for obscurely some decision had come to him – “Judith, if you must tell a story, tell it and don’t interrupt with a lot of culture-patter.”
    â€œThough fancy a sculptor wasting time on all that paint! But some of those nude youths–”
    â€œLook here, I’m the next thing to a nude youth myself and most horribly prickled. Whoever heard of talking about Michelangelo in a haystack? Get back to Ranulph.”
    â€œI don’t see that Ranulph is any more appropriate, for the matter of that. But, as I was saying, Ranulph had a reputation among the rude peasantry for having possessed prophetic powers. That’s what Mark and I found out. For instance, we found out from Everard’s old housekeeper – who’s dead now – that in Ranulph’s time people used to come and consult him about the future, just as if he were an old woman with earrings sitting in a tent.”
    â€œI see. And did he, in fact, make this special talent of his available to all comers?”
    â€œHe was affable and conversable – that’s what the housekeeper said. Actually I think he just supposed it a chance to suck up copy – or material, if that sounds less journalistic. You see, his method, as I’ve told you, was to worm people’s stories out of them and then splash them over with his own bright colours. It doesn’t really seem promising to me. So few people have stories worth speaking of, after all. I’m sure I haven’t. A woman without a past and without a future, whom no novelist could muscle in on.” Judith’s voice was muffled and Appleby had the impression that she was scrambling into a garment. “But perhaps people who are anxious enough