Free Sheiks and Adders by Michael Innes Page A

evidently a profound Shakespearian. ‘Do you think we shall soon fall into all sorts of confusion?’
    ‘I think it unlikely. This entertainment will no doubt have its muddled moments. But I doubt whether we shall fall into any mystifications ourselves.’
    But in this opinion – if, indeed, he held it – Sir John Appleby was to turn out wrong.

 
     
7
    There was nothing particularly surprising in the fact that neither Mark nor Cherry Chitfield had reappeared before the curtain went up on the Ancient Britons and their bear. They had dumped Appleby with a vague suggestion that their father was to be located and introduced to him. But they had plenty of other things in their heads. And so, certainly, had Richard Chitfield himself.
    The Britons and their bear were quite funny in a knockabout way. Mrs Plenderleith, with her mind running on Shakespeare, might have remarked that the creature had been borrowed from The Winter’s Tale – with the difference that whereas in the play the bear chases Antigonus, here the high-spirited young people in woad chased the bear. Shakespeare moreover is said to have borrowed an authentic quadruped from the neighbouring bear garden, while this one would prove in real life to have only two feet. In fact he was first cousin to the Teddy bears that had been engaging in archery, and might even be described as second cousin to the missing textile tycoon alias Nick Bottom the weaver.
    When the curtain came down on the bear-hunt a good many of the spectators got up and moved around. Experienced in such amateur entertainments, they knew that some little time would elapse before anything further happened. Appleby followed their example – cautiously, since his prime object was to distance himself unobtrusively from the loquacious Mrs Plenderleith. Ill met – he might have been murmuring – by moonlight, proud Titania . Only it was, of course, by sunlight still – although for that matter it did look as if night might fall before this over-abundant theatrical banquet was over. So Appleby discreetly faded away. He may have been not wholly without thought of that licensed bar, since a mild depression had settled upon him. It was the consequence of a sense that he had set himself a fool’s errand. Even if the Chitfield fête did harbour some sort of conundrum, it was no business of his. But now something incipiently enlivening happened. Appleby ran into his fourth sheik.
    Not that this was exactly the way of it, for on the present occasion it was definitely a matter of the sheik seeking him out. The sheik, in fact, came up in a hurry, and addressed him without ceremony.
    ‘I say,’ the sheik said, ‘are you the right Robin Hood?’
    ‘That’s hard to know.’ Appleby saw instantly that here at last was Tibby Fancroft: an agitated English boy whose pink-and-white complexion was absurdly emphasized by a little black beard stuck slightly aslant on his chin. ‘There’s certainly another one around, and there may be several. There are undoubtedly a surprising number of sheiks.’
    ‘Yes, it’s very puzzling. But what I mean is, are you the Robin Hood who knows Cherry Chitfield? Sir John Somebody.’
    ‘Appleby. Yes, I am. How do you do, Mr Fancroft?’
    ‘Bloody badly. We’re fearfully bothered. Or rather Cherry is. So of course I am too.’
    ‘Of course.’
    ‘She told me to find you, and I hope it isn’t cheek. You see, Mr Chitfield has disappeared. He’s nowhere around the theatre at all.’
    ‘Is that so very alarming? He may simply have been called away about something. I’m told he’s very much a man of affairs.’
    ‘Yes, I know. But it’s – well, it’s unexampled. Cherry says just nothing – or nothing at all normal – would drag him away from this show. Not once it had started, that is. It’s so absolutely his thing.’
    ‘So I gather.’
    ‘What I myself think is that he’s terribly offended. With Cherry and me, I mean. He has seen me in this beastly tablecloth