Appleby Talks Again Read Online Free PDF

open when the end pavilion fell. A staircase, intact to the second storey and there breaking off in air, had the appearance of a hazardous fire-escape; below it was a tumble of stone, brick and splintered beams. Appleby surveyed this, stopped for a moment, and then quickened his forward scramble. An onlooker would have seen him vanish among the debris – and might have reflected that he remained invisible for rather a long time.
    The principal characters were beginning to drop in. The phrase reiterated itself rather grimly in Appleby’s mind as he made his way back to the great hall. It was perhaps because he was walking in marked abstraction that, turning a corner of the building, he bumped straight into somebody approaching from the opposite direction. It was a lady. Fortunately she was substantially – indeed powerfully – built, and took the shock well. Appleby steadied her and apologised. “I am extremely sorry. It was careless of me. One doesn’t expect much traffic just here.”
    “Pardon me .” The lady spoke with an accent that was unmistakably transatlantic. She was alarmed – but this by no means prevented her from being alarming. She was formidable – it might have been ventured almost professionally formidable, as if her everyday business was that of dominating large public meetings. And now she gave Appleby and Appleby’s clothes a rapidly appraising glance. “Would you,” she asked, “be the owner of this wonderful spot?”
    “No, madam. I am not the owner.” Appleby’s glance was certainly not less searching than the American lady’s. “May I ask if you have just arrived here?”
    “Just arrived?” It was discernible that the lady regarded this question as needing care. She eyed Appleby for a moment as if she were an accomplished chairman debating how to deal with a troublesome questioner in the body of the hall. “I guess so. Isn’t it just the most romantic house you could imagine?”
    “It has considerable picturesque appeal, no doubt.”
    The lady appeared to find this disconcerting. It was as if the body of the hall had produced something really awkward. “Why – I’d say it’s just out of this world.”
    “I fear not.”
    This was evidently more disconcerting still – the more so as Appleby’s tone might fairly have been described as sombre. The lady looked at him in some alarm. “And you say you’re not the owner? If that isn’t too bad.”
    “Possibly so. My name is Appleby – Sir John Appleby.” He looked at the lady steadily. “I am an Assistant Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police.”
    The lady gave what in a less massively built person would have been a jump. “Does that mean–?”
    “It means Scotland Yard.” Appleby remarked with interest that at this information the lady turned quite pale. “May I ask your name?”
    “Jones.” The lady made this announcement with large conviction. “Miss Jones.”
    “And the name of this house?”
    “Say?” The formidable Miss Jones was confused.
    “Do you know it, or don’t you?”
    “Why, it’s–” Miss Jones lamentably hesitated. “Of course I don’t.”
    “Then, madam, why and how did you come here?” And Appleby paused. “Perhaps you simply saw the house from the highroad and decided to turn aside and have a look?”
    “Just that.” Miss Jones, as if thus reminded that her business was with the visual scene, tilted her head and gave Water Poole a glance of unrestrained if somewhat hurried approval. “If it isn’t a sweet spot. Would it belong to a lord?” She transferred her gaze briskly to a wrist-watch and gave an exclamation of dismay. She might once more have been the busy committee-woman with a fresh engagement pressing. “But I must be getting along.”
    “I am afraid not. It is unfortunately essential that you should remain. You will be kind enough to accompany me into the house and answer certain further questions.”
    “Accompany a strange man into a lonely and deserted house!”