Free Appleby And Honeybath by Michael Innes Page B

quickly at Appleby; he probably felt that he had got his man. ‘It takes some accounting for, if you ask me.’
    ‘Are you suggesting, Inspector, that this room harbours a dark secret, which an intruder might stumble upon? A mad relation, perhaps, dressed chiefly in rags and cobwebs?’
    ‘Not quite that, Sir John.’ Denver was again unruffled in the face of this mockery. ‘But, well – something.’
    ‘Then why doesn’t Grinton simply keep the room locked up?’
    ‘That would perhaps be a little too obtrusive to be prudent.’
    ‘If he said his library happens to contain items of great value, turning a key on it might seem quite natural. But I don’t say you’re not on to something, Denver. Well within a target area. We have to keep thinking about this room.’ Appleby was aware that he had employed a possibly disastrous pronoun. ‘Whenever you think about that dead body, think about this room as well. And now I’d better make way for your next suspect.’
    ‘There’s one thing Grinton can’t be suspected of.’ Denver gave no sign he felt this interview to be over. ‘Shunting the body – always supposing it was a body, of which I’m not quite convinced – through that dummy door. He was in the drawing-room as that was happening.’
    ‘So it would seem. But that sort of alibi, you know, can turn out to be unexpectedly tricky.’ Appleby was now the man of experience, uttering cautionary words. ‘Have an incident re-enacted as closely as may be, keep a stopwatch in your hand, and surprising results sometimes appear.’
    ‘Of course that’s so. And it would be absurd to speak of Mr Grinton as a suspect, anyway.’ Denver somehow didn’t say this very convincingly. ‘Far too many unknown quantities still. For the sheer devil of the thing, give me what they call a house party every time.’
    ‘Well, yes. But it isn’t a big house party, you know. And it’s not really a very big house either. Think if this was happening at Blenheim or Knole or Castle Howard.’
    ‘Or Scamnum Court,’ Denver said – thus showing a surprising acquaintance with Appleby’s early career. ‘But you know, sir, there is one promising factor in this affair. It’s rum. It’s uncommonly rum – and that’s something. Because, you know, it’s when one has an absolutely colourless crime–’
    ‘There’s been a crime?’ Appleby interrupted. ‘Apart from that absurd talk you put up about burglared furniture?’
    ‘I think there’s been a crime.’ Denver said this with a very proper gravity. ‘But what I was suggesting is this: it’s the colourless crime that can be the devil to get any grip on. As soon as the quirky comes in, there’s likely to be something to get hold of.’
    ‘That’s very true.’ Appleby contrived to receive with admiring surprise this commonplace of criminological lore. ‘So concentrate on the very odd business of a dead man being spirited away. Tabulate all rational motives for such an act that you can think of, and then weigh each in turn.’
    ‘But are there any rational motives? Can you come up with one for a start, Sir John?’ Denver seemed to feel that this had been venturesome. ‘For I don’t know that I can,’ he added.
    ‘Well now, what about it’s being a matter of taste?’
    ‘Taste, Sir John?’
    ‘There’s a certain suggestion that a dead body had been perched or posed in that chair to create a macabre effect upon discovery. The perpetrator may have decided, upon reflection, that it was a somewhat unbecoming joke. Not on, as they say. So he picked up the corpse again and moved elsewhere.’
    Inspector Denver – as well he might – didn’t at once know how to take this.
    ‘Would you really think–’ he began.
    ‘I’m not being entirely frivolous. In cases of murder – and we keep an open mind about this being one – the murderer often turns curiously confused. He may go in for compunctions before the deed, but something like mere bewilderment after it. The