Free Appleby and the Ospreys by Michael Innes Page B

employed some quite different firm. But he did have a chat with me about his affairs now and then. Making a joke of it, he said it came less expensive.’
    ‘I see. Was he hard-up?’
    ‘It rather depends on what you mean, Sir John. People of this sort’ – and Mr Purvis contrived a gesture designed to take in the whole of Clusters – ‘can’t very well be hard-up in the sense of being uncertain about tomorrow’s dinner. Not that you and I mayn’t live to see that sort of situation. But, beyond that, it’s anybody’s guess, I’d say. And I’ve known Osprey to be quietly fishing around, more than once.’
    ‘I’d rather suppose it to be his brother-in-law who goes in for that.’
    Mr Purvis took a moment or two to get hold of this, and then laughed obligingly.
    ‘Damned good!’ he said. ‘Poor old Marcus. Yes, indeed. But I mean that I’ve had Oliver asking me a thing or two that he might have hesitated to put to his regular accountant. Wondering, you know, on how he could put his hand on fifty thousand or so. To make things a bit easier all round. At least for a time. Yes. At least for a time.’
    ‘Did it ever occur to you that he might flog that collection?’
    ‘Collection, Sir John?’
    ‘The coins. The Osprey Collection of ancient coins.’
    ‘Oh, that . Does it really exist? I, for one, have never had a sight of it.’
    ‘Lord Osprey certainly appears to have kept it tucked away. But he and Marcus Broadwater seem to have mulled over it together. Moreover – but it must have been a good long time ago – he and Miss Minnychip’s father were by way of confabulating as fellow-collectors. Or so the lady tells me.’
    ‘I’ll believe in it when I see it, Sir John. When I have sight of it. Yes.’
    ‘Well, just grant it provisional existence for a moment, Mr Purvis. And suppose it to be a major hoard of the stuff. It could be parted with piecemeal and unobtrusively over a comparatively short period of time, wouldn’t you say? And the total might come well into the hundreds of thousands bracket, I’d suppose. Not that I know much about such things.’
    ‘True enough, Sir John. Decidedly true enough. And, viewed in that light, it might be a considerable temptation to a thief.’
    ‘Exactly so, Mr Purvis. And it may explain why not many people know where he kept his doubloons or pistoles or whatever. Broadwater tells me he didn’t. He tells me that when the two of them had occasion to mull over the collection together, Lord Osprey simply wheeled it in on a glorified trolley.’
    ‘In which case Oliver wasn’t trusting his own brother-in-law? I’ll give it to you that he wasn’t a very trusting person.’
    ‘Have you ever been aware of him – on previous occasions, I mean – as apprehensive about burglars, or thieves of any sort? He certainly seems to have been quickly alarmed by the intruder at the window last night.’
    ‘Nothing of the sort is within my recollection, Sir John. And I don’t know that you and I appear to have been getting anywhere.’
    ‘Patience,’ Appleby said. ‘Patience, and shuffle the cards.’
     
    Ringwood was not in the Music Saloon. Appleby ran him to earth – a rather broad strip of earth – on the causeway leading up to the main portal of Clusters. He was staring moodily along the line of the moat. But as Appleby came up he turned and transferred his gaze to the massive building itself.
    ‘What might be called rather a daunting pile – wouldn’t you say, Sir John?’
    ‘Certainly a very considerable woodpile in which to be hunting for a nigger, Mr Ringwood. But – do you know? – I notched up one of my earliest small successes in rather the same sort of place. Or, rather, the same size of place. It belonged not to a baron but a duke.’
    ‘Scamnum Court. I read about it in the papers as a kid, sir, and I’m not sure it wasn’t what first prompted me to become a copper.’
    ‘Do you regret that?’
    ‘I think, now, that I’d rather have run