Free The Bloody Wood by Michael Innes Page A

river, just beyond the park. He hoped that Mrs Gillingham would take a stroll with him in that direction, one day.
    Appleby, although the Woundworts scarcely constituted one of his passions, had listened to this exchange with interest. It was his impression that Martineau was without any inner disposition to give Mrs Gillingham a serious thought, one way or another. From this there appeared to follow the conclusion that if Grace Martineau really nourished the strange design which Martine imputed to her she had not yet offered any hint of it to her husband. It was not a consciousness of that design, therefore, that could be the occasion in Martineau of some new species of anxiety which was to be sensed in him.
    Appleby’s feeling here seemed at first to make no sense. A dreadful cloud hung over Martineau’s every hour, and if his sky now seemed even darker the explanation must surely lie in a further lowering in the same direction. Yet this seemed not quite to fit. Martineau was much like a man freshly conscious of some lesser evil treading hard upon the heels of a greater. And Bobby Angrave was somehow involved in this; there had been an edge to that odd and inconsequent question about Fell that pointed to something of the sort. It was conceivable that Martineau had fallen into some sudden and morbid anxiety about his nephew’s health – an attempted displacement of stress which would puzzle no psychologist. Certainly anything of the sort must surely be fanciful. Bobby, although he had the appearance of a sedentary creature, more at home with Greek participles than tennis balls, obviously enjoyed the rude and regardless health of his years.
    You could look at Charles Martineau twice, Appleby reflected, without concluding yourself to be in the presence of anything out of the way; a standard sort of breeding and a standard sort of reticence appeared to sum him up. But his gentleness was a product of real sensibility. He was of a type to suffer acutely in and for others. It is something in which there is a kind of softness, Appleby told himself; a stoical man can be too little resistant to pain and unhappiness in those he loves – and the result is a personality not well tempered against some of the common exigencies of life.
    ‘I wonder whether the nightingales will sing again tonight?’ Martine asked. She turned to Mrs Gillingham. ‘I am sure you will be interested in our nightingales, as well as in our toadstools.’
    ‘Toadstools?’ It was naturally not without surprise that Mrs Gillingham repeated the word.
    ‘Weren’t you speaking to Uncle Charles about toadstools? And so learnedly, we all thought.’
    This had the appearance of a declaration of war. Mrs Gillingham didn’t seem other than merely puzzled by it. But Charles Martineau was sufficiently attentive to be displeased – and this he expressed with a kind of gentle severity.
    ‘Martine, dear, if you can’t distinguish between flora and fungi it will really be best that you don’t embark upon botanical discussion.’
    ‘I’m so sorry.’ Martine was immediately graceful. ‘But what I meant to embark upon was ornithology – the nightingales. Or is it just one nightingale? Again, I’m shockingly ignorant. Is the nightingale a solitary bird?’
    ‘The poets–’ Bobby began.
    ‘Not the poets again, for goodness sake!’ It was, of course, Diana who broke in with this.
    ‘It’s my impression,’ Charles Martineau said, ‘that at present there are two male birds, although last night we heard only one. Perhaps we’ll hear both tonight.’ He turned politely to Irene Pendleton. ‘But if you would like to hear a chorus of them, we could all drive over to Proby Copse. They haven’t yet begun to be driven from there.’
    ‘That would be most delightful. Only this evening, Charles, let us be loyal to your own diminished band, whether solo or duet.’
    ‘Yes, indeed,’ Mrs Gillingham corroborated. ‘Grace would like that best too. At lunch time