Free The Bloody Wood by Michael Innes

never enter one room or another for weeks on end. The Martineaus, however, led an almost nomadic existence at Charne, so that if one visited there for only a short time one was apt to carry away the impression that one had seldom encountered one’s hosts twice in the same spot. Judith Appleby had a theory – probably a perfectly valid one – that this slightly restless habit had been formed out of consideration for the servants, who might have considered it discouraging continually to dust, polish and burnish spaces and objects upon which their employers’ glances or persons seldom reposed. Thus tomorrow at this hour Friary might be rounding people up with the murmured information that tea was being served in the Old Orangery. Appleby found himself already wondering whether the former Mrs Gillingham would continue this odd expression of a social conscience.
    Mrs Gillingham was being attended to mainly by Bobby – Bobby’s uncle appearing to be in no particular hurry to single her out for any more distinction than she might properly expect. Perhaps Bobby would really be indifferent to the bizarre plan conjectured to be getting under way at Charne. Perhaps he judged that an appearance of indifference would be politic. Perhaps he would fall for Mrs Gillingham himself; she would make a very suitable maternal mistress – at least a dream one – for a young man of Bobby Angrave’s mingled cleverness and emotional immaturity. Or yet again – and this was how one would develop the situation if one were writing a novel – Bobby would conduct an actual whirlwind courtship of the lady, and marry her while Grace Martineau’s funeral baked meats were still on the board – thus thwarting his deceased aunt’s shade. Having arrived at this not altogether agreeable fantasy, Appleby decided that he had better turn to thinking about something else.
    ‘Bobby – do you see much of Dr Fell?’
    This sharp and sudden question from Charles Martineau diverted Appleby’s mind effectively enough. It had occurred during a lull in conversation, and against a background only of the drinking of tea and the eating of tomato sandwiches – activities in themselves almost noiseless in polite society. Bobby Angrave appeared to find it surprising.
    ‘Fell, Uncle Charles? I don’t see him at all, except to pass the time of day when he visits here. Except once, that is, when I was staying with you last vac. I went over and consulted him about writer’s cramp.’
    ‘Writer’s cramp? Bobby would suffer from that!’ Diana Page broke in with this; to scoff at Bobby was becoming rather compulsive with her. ‘I suppose it’s what they call an occupational disease. You can’t imagine Bobby catching a useful one – say, housemaid’s knee.’
    ‘I’d read somewhere that writer’s cramp is terribly psychosomatic, like stammering and bed-wetting.’ Bobby seemed to say this out of a sudden impulse to give wild offence. ‘So I went and saw Fell. He treated my sufferings lightly, I’m sorry to say. But why do you ask, Uncle Charles?’
    Charles Martineau made no reply; instead, he preoccupied himself with picking up the plate of sandwiches and offering it somewhat at random to Mrs Gillingham. Mrs Gillingham, although she had moved on to a cake and was making little headway with it, accepted a sandwich at once. She was a tactful woman. She even shifted a little on her sofa, so that Martineau was constrained to sit down beside her.
    ‘After lunch,’ she said, ‘I took a walk in the wood. It is most delightful, a great joy. And I found some Alpine Woundwort. I am sure you will have noticed it. Isn’t it very rare – except perhaps in Denbighshire? At first, of course, one may mistake it for Wood Woundwort, which is common enough. But not at a second glance, because the bracteoles exceed the pedicels.’
    Charles Martineau received this with grave attention. He even found something to say about Field Woundwort, which was to be found near the