Free Appleby Talks Again by Michael Innes Page B

he decidedly did. Dangerfield kept a scandalous and compromising diary.”
    I’m bound to say that at this the faded volume lying before me took on considerable interest. “It’s well known,” I said, “that Dangerfield’s morals weren’t good.”
    “That puts it mildly. He belonged to a fast and raffish set, and it seems that he had the thoroughly undesirable habit of writing up its intimate chronicles from day to day. There was a run of these diaries covering nearly twenty years.
    “On the day that Dangerfield died, his mother, Lady Julia, made her way into his chambers in Jermyn Street and burned the lot. It was high-handed, illegal and thoroughly sensible. Everybody approved – and no end of people breathed more freely, too. But one volume escaped, since Dangerfield happened to have lent it to a crony. It was for 1911.”
    I glanced at the diary again and wondered how it had come into my friend’s possession. “You say there is a queer yarn behind it,” I ventured. “Would there also be some queer yarns inside it?”
    “You’ll know quite soon.” Appleby was quizzical. “Did you ever have a chance of viewing the Cinzano Collection?”
    “Never. But I believe it was most remarkable.”
    “In its limited field it was unique. Just why Sir Adrian Cinzano took to collecting literary rarities and curiosities nobody ever quite made out. He had made humble beginnings at it quite early in his career – not long after setting up his first little business on these shores – and eventually it became something of considerable interest and importance to the learned.
    “Indeed it wasn’t merely the learned who were interested. To get the entrée to the Collection became rather fashionable. And Cinzano, who was immensely vain, exploited this quite a bit. He would give little dinner-parties, for instance, followed by a personally conducted tour. On one occasion – oddly enough – I was asked to one of these parties myself.”
    Appleby now picked up Ralph Dangerfield’s diary. “And eventually we were shown this. Cinzano did what one might call quite a build-up before handing it round. First we were shown all the regular things – the rare first editions, the collections of letters by famous authors and artists and so on. But the great event was to be this wretched curiosity. Just how it came into Cinzano’s possession I never discovered. Part of his success consisted in a flair for picking things up in unobtrusive ways.
    “Well, the big moment, such as it was, came. We were all, it seemed, to be allowed to edify ourselves by taking a quick peep at famous names in sundry intriguing and improper contexts. There was some to-do over impressing us with how very confidential it all was, and then Cinzano handed the diary to the lady of most consequence present.” Appleby paused. “Just as I now hand it to you.”
    It was, I confess, with some curiosity that I took Ralph Dangerfield’s record of the year 1911 in my hands and opened it.Then I gave an exclamation of surprise. “But my dear Appleby, it’s a complete blank!”
    “Not quite. Turn to the first of May.”
    I did so. “There’s a cross in red ink.”
    “Now try the first of June.”
    “The same thing.” Then I gave another exclamation. “But the inside isn’t for 1911 at all. It’s for 1952.”
    “Precisely. And it was in April 1952 that I attended Cinzano’s little party. It was all mildly alarming, was it not? The real diary had been filched from its covers. And what had been substituted appeared to be by way of a delicate intimation of certain dates on which there would be trouble brewing for somebody.”
    “Blackmail?” I asked.
    Appleby nodded. “There could be little doubt that the missing diary gave wonderful scope for just that. Our party broke up in some confusion, with Cinzano imploring everybody to keep mum. But of course the situation was altogether too interesting for that: and by the next day all London – by which I mean