Appleby and the Ospreys Read Online Free PDF Page B

furnished this more or less private boudoir as something snug and nostalgic to retire to when thinking of simpler times.
    ‘Dear Sir John, how kind of you to come. Do sit down.’ Lady Osprey waved in an indicative manner at several chairs in quick succession. ‘Poor Oliver – such a shocking thing! And quite unlooked for, too. I simply don’t know where to turn. My brother Marcus is still with us, and he might be expected to take matters in hand a little. But Marcus has simply gone out to shoot things.’
    ‘To fish things, Lady Osprey. I have just run into him fully equipped as a fisherman. But your son is at home, I take it, and must be a support to you in this very sad situation. May I say at once how much I feel for you. And my wife has asked me to say how grieved she is.’ Appleby, who was genuinely sorry for this – as he felt – wholly unremarkable woman, got through these formal expressions without difficulty. He remained a little wary of Lady Osprey, all the same. It seemed not improbable that she would expect him to whip out a magnifying-glass and fall at once to scrutinizing the carpet with it, or something like that. ‘But you have your son,’ he repeated a shade hastily. ‘He must be a great comfort to you.’
    ‘But Adrian knows so little. And that is true, too, of the people now visiting us at Clusters. There is almost a house-party at present. Oliver, you known, liked that sort of thing. He was brought up to it. But that’s true of Adrian too, I suppose. Yet Adrian doesn’t like it a bit, either. His friends are in quite a different set, he says. It’s an odd expression, and I think he must have picked it up from an old-fashioned novel. But I understand what it means. It means, among other things, that he will be barely civil to his parents’ guests.’ Lady Osprey managed a flash of spirit as she said this, but immediately afterwards her tone became plaintive again. ‘Of course there is always Bagot,’ she said. ‘Bagot is a man who can be useful in all sorts of ways. But I have to confess I am always a little uneasy with Bagot. So, Sir John, I do very much hope that you can help me.’
    ‘Anything I can appropriately do, I’ll certainly do,’ Appleby said – and at once felt that the speech had been unnecessarily wary: almost, indeed, ungracious. But at least it hadn’t been unnecessary. Lady Osprey, he supposed, was firmly convinced that he was a kind of superior bobby who was happily in the neighbourhood at the right time, and the misconception must be cleared up at the start. ‘Fortunately,’ he went on, ‘Detective-Inspector Ringwood appears to be a thoroughly able and conscientious–’
    ‘Furniture-removers,’ Lady Osprey interrupted. ‘I am sure, Sir John, that you can help me there. It won’t be a large undertaking, but some of the things are rather valuable, and a little fragile as well. And you know what most removal men are.’
    John Appleby, who is not on record as easily stupefied, came close to being so now.
    ‘Do you mean,’ he asked, ‘that hard upon Lord Osprey’s sudden death, you are giving thought to packing up and leaving Clusters?’
    ‘Yes, indeed, Sir John. I have never liked this overgrown place – nor a lot that goes with it. All those dinner-parties and luncheon-parties and long weekends! Chatter, chatter about anything one can think of. Bats in the belfry, and heaven knows what.’
    ‘And people bringing picnics into unsuitable parts of the park.’ Appleby had now recovered himself. ‘Do you intend to go far? It’s long-distance removals, I take it, that can be rather tricky.’
    ‘Only to the dower house.’ Lady Osprey said this with a touch of grandeur: there was something to be said for a dower house, just as there was for a moat. ‘The dower house, which is no more than a mile away, has of course been in the hands of tenants. But – most conveniently, isn’t it? – their lease has just run out. Bagot – I’ve discussed it with