Free Appleby and the Ospreys by Michael Innes

Decorum was the man’s touchstone, and as neither murder nor suicide was a decorous activity for Lord Osprey to have been involved with, his death had to be accidental and the last seconds of his life positively edifying. But it would be injudicious to tell Bagot that he had been talking nonsense, since on the level of plain fact he might have something valuable to impart.
    ‘I believe,’ Appleby said, ‘that a blood-stained weapon may be discovered very much as you suppose, and I have little doubt that Detective-Inspector Ringwood is having the point investigated at this moment. I shall, of course, tell him about your ideas. All communications in this matter are valuable and will be carefully considered. But may I pass on to a few quite routine questions?’
    ‘Certainly, Sir John. I am at your disposal.’
    ‘How many people dined here last night?’
    ‘Ten.’
    ‘Lord and Lady Osprey, Mr Adrian Osprey, Miss Minnychip, Mr Broadwater, and a Mr Quickfall. That’s six. Who else?’
    ‘Mr and Mrs Purvis. They are from London. I believe that Mr Purvis had business connections with his lordship.’
    ‘Eight. And the other two?’
    ‘Lady Wimpole and Miss Honoria Wimpole. I understand that Admiral Wimpole is at sea.’
    ‘We must hope we don’t remain there long ourselves. The party gathered, I understand, in the library before dinner?’
    ‘They did, Sir John.’
    ‘That’s the custom with you here?’
    ‘Except when there is a larger weekend house-party, when the drawing-room is used before dinner as well as after it. On this occasion, of course, the house-party was exceptionally small.’
    ‘Small enough for you to be quite certainly aware whether everybody was present?’
    ‘Most decidedly, Sir John.’
    ‘They were all in the library as you were taking round sherry, and when this intruder made his momentary appearance?’
    ‘Most assuredly they were.’
    ‘So far, so good.’ Appleby considered for a little. When not lured into speculation, Bagot, he was coming to feel, was a clearheaded and presumably reliable witness. ‘And now,’ he went on, ‘I come to something else – and it’s something I don’t quite get the hang of. Lord Osprey sees this figure outside the French window, and he then rapidly closes the curtains and tells you to go and investigate. The most effective way for you to have done that, I’d have thought, was to have drawn back the curtains again, opened the French window, and stepped out to that little terrace or platform or whatever it’s to be called, and looked about you. Instead of which, you simply left the room.’
    ‘Certainly, Sir John. Not having been given any precise instructions by his lordship, I used my own discretion.’
    ‘Would it have been the kind of discretion, Mr Bagot, that is known as the better part of valour?’
    ‘There may have been a certain element of that.’ Bagot was by no means discomposed. ‘I recalled that the chauffeur, Robinson, was in the servants’ hall. I summoned him, and we went out of the front door together. The principal causeway to Clusters was thus directly in front of us, and to our right the moat came right up to the house, until interrupted by the small terrace in question. We thus had a very clear view of the only spot on which any intruder might still be lurking. Nobody was visible.’
    ‘The terrace, or platform, itself strikes me as rather an oddity. Has it always been there?’
    ‘It, and the French window giving on it, are comparatively recent in date. At about the turn of the century, I believe it was. His lordship’s grandfather, who was something of an eccentric with a taste for reading, took it into his head that it would be pleasant to step straight out of the library, and sit en plein air – surveying, no doubt, the beauties of nature. An eccentric person, as I have said. But in quite a refined way.’
    ‘Having been thus supported by the useful Robinson, you returned to the library, and told Lord Osprey