The Bloody Wood Read Online Free PDF

find Bobby Angrave, Appleby recalled, that he had separated himself from the party in the loggia and strolled out into the grounds. Or rather he had made that an excuse for wandering away. And it suddenly came to him now, with an odd effect of belated discovery, that he had really been prompted to seek solitude by something quite different. Something – and he had wanted to find out what – had been twitching at his mind.
    It was long professional habit that made him attentive to these obscure intimations of subliminal uneasiness. The detection of crime is a scientific process; he had watched it becoming progressively more so throughout his own professional career. But, like mathematics or modern physics, it is surprisingly dependent on intuitive factors, all the same. There are times at which the solution of a mystery can simply start up in the mind like a creation. Or it may lurk in the obscurer regions of the psyche and teasingly refuse to appear – or it may do no more than flash a fin, so to speak, above the surface of consciousness. It was second nature to Appleby to be sensitive to these tiny signals – so much so that he could not do other than attend to them when they came, even when it was in a context quite aside from his official life. Nowadays his crime-solving days were really over; he had to sit back and watch others at the job. But he still treated with unfailing respect these faint, momentary intimations that in this or that insignificant appearance lay something that ought to be attended to, that ought to be coaxed into revealing itself. The sense that there had been something , but that only deep down in his head did he know what , was still the keenest challenge that he knew. And he would attend to it in or out of season: it might be while reading a memorandum at his desk; it might be while taking tea with one of Judith’s aunts. This was what had really brought him out of the loggia this evening. Here he was at Charne, miles away from any possibility of crime. But there had been something . Something that somebody had said had given that small familiar twitch to his mind, and he had left the party in the loggia – this itself by an almost unconscious process – in order to give it an opportunity less uncertainly to declare itself.
    Well, it hadn’t worked – perhaps because of the sudden manner in which Bobby Angrave had appeared on the scene. This was of no more importance than a failure to solve a chess problem or to find a clue in a crossword puzzle. Still, he didn’t like being baffled. So now he gave his mind one last chance. Instead of simply walking down the terrace and back, he walked right round the house.
     
    The door most frequently used for familiar comings and goings at Charne was in the west front. It lay in shadow at the moment, as did a diagonal slice of the broad paved yard separating it from a sprawl of stables and offices in part concealed behind a high stone wall. But as Appleby approached a light went on, the door opened, and Friary could be seen and heard bidding goodnight to a briskly moving man who carried a small bag. This was Dr Fell. He almost collided with Appleby as he made for his car, and then started back in an agitation that seemed to suggest either a sick or a very tired man. The two men exchanged greetings – perhaps with a slight awkwardness, since Appleby felt that he should scarcely inquire as to how the doctor had found his patient.
    ‘It’s wonderful how Friary gets back on the job,’ he said, by way of finding some casual remark.
    ‘Back on the job?’ Dr Fell had a brusque manner. ‘I don’t understand you.’
    ‘Oh, merely that he takes a little constitutional to the village every evening.’
    ‘Does he, indeed? It might be better if he didn’t.’
    ‘You confirm my worst suspicions. At least, I suppose you do. Is Friary the local Lothario?’
    ‘I wouldn’t give it so romantic a name.’ Fell opened the door of his car, and shoved in his