Free Appleby Talks Again by Michael Innes Page A

sprang a bombshell. There was after all, it appeared, one highly personal relationship in his life. Shortly before that bombing trip he had met and become engaged to a young lady. He demanded to be confronted with her. And the young lady, when named, proved to be the only daughter of the occasion’s Grand Inquisitor.”
    I stared. “Firth?”
    Appleby nodded. “Just that. And that was where I came in. Miss Firth – at least according to her father’s idea of her – was a young person of an extremely delicate nervous constitution. And to be presented with a lover from the grave, and later see him unmasked as an impostor would be quite, quite fatal to her. So Firth came and besought me. Could I resolve the puzzle straight away or at least arrive at some confident opinion? I said I thought I could.”
    “And you did?”
    “Yes. Not in a fashion that would have had much value if presented as evidence in court. But at least it gave Firth confidence in choosing a line.
    “I did a quick rake round photographers who might have had dealings with young Morton just before the war – and then some equally quick work in our own laboratories and files. When I met the young man – whose face was certainly sadly disfigured – I had a batch of portraits, including the one that you see hanging here. I asked him to find his own portrait. And he chose this one. I wonder whether you can see what that enabled me to infer?”
    “I don’t know that I can.”
    “I was able to tell Firth that the claimant was certainly genuine, and that his daughter might be brought along.”
    This floored me completely. “My dear Appleby, I don’t see–”
    “I realise you don’t. Imagine you’re a tailor, and try again.”
    Inspiration came to me. “The button and buttonholes!”
    Appleby was delighted. “Splendid! What is to be said about them?”
    “They’re on the wrong side. The printing has been reversed.”
    “Exactly. I found a photograph of Morton and had this reverse print prepared. The two looked substantially different, because human features are never symmetrical, and his were more irregular than most. Both prints were given him in the batch he was to sort through to find himself. You see what was involved?”
    “I’m blessed if I do still.”
    “If he chose the positive print, he was choosing a Leonard Morton he recognised from life. If he chose the negative print, he was choosing a Leonard Morton he had never seen – except in a mirror . That, you see, was how I knew that here was the genuine Morton. And so – after months of investigation – we were able to prove with legal certainty. It was quite a puzzle. But – as I said – the answer was in the negative.”

 
     
DANGERFIELD’S DIARY
    “A criminological museum ,” Sir John Appleby said, “ought to consist for the most part of objects that are quite startlingly macabre. But my own exhibits, as you see, are quite uniformly dull. Look at that old diary, for instance. Nothing could appear dimmer – in the strictest sense. And yet there is a decidedly queer yarn behind it.”
    My eminent friend paused. “Now what – just at a glance – would you make of it?”
    It didn’t seem intended – for the moment, at least – that I should pick the thing up, so I simply gave the covers the most penetrating scrutiny I could manage. “It’s for 1911,” I said.
    Appleby laughed. “It certainly says that much in gold on the cover. So perhaps you’re right. Anything else?”
    “It doesn’t appear to me to be a specially bound or got-up affair. I’d say it’s the sort of ready-printed, one-page-to-a-day, diary that you get from a stationer. No doubt such things were already manufactured long before 1911. But it looks good and expensive of its kind. Bought in Bond Street, in fact, in the old opulent days.”
    “Just that.” And Appleby nodded. “Did you know that Ralph Dangerfield kept a diary?”
    “The Edwardian playwright? I had no idea of it.”
    “Well,