The Long Farewell by Michael Innes

he was able to leave that behind him in England – at least to some extent. It may even have been his motive for spending the summer in Italy – rather unobtrusively, as I gather it was. His rapturous experiences were over, and he was only anxious that neither of the ladies should come up with him.’
    Appleby shrugged his shoulders. ‘I can only say, Cavill, that I’ve seen some queer things in my time. But this is about the queerest.’
    ‘Well, now, that was my feeling about Urchins.’
    ‘Urchins?’
    ‘Packford’s house in the country. I suppose it belongs to his brother now.’
    ‘Packford had a brother?’
    ‘A younger brother called Edward. A bit of an eccentric, too, it seems to me. Insisting, for instance, that all those professors and so forth should stop on. Scarcely decent, after such a death. Particularly with the two wives having turned up. Craziest place in England at the moment, I say. But you can take it from me, sir, that there hasn’t been a murder.’
    ‘That’s not this fellow Rood’s opinion. He has a story about Packford having acquired something important from an impoverished nobleman of Ver–’
    ‘Yes, sir, I know all about that.’ Cavill’s interruption was at once highly improper and an indication that he was now viewing Appleby from a mood of sunny tolerance. ‘I think, perhaps, you ought to look at page two.’
     
    Appleby picked up the file again and looked at page two. There was rather a long silence. Page two recorded that Lewis Packford had left a written paper which had been found beside his body. It had been scrawled on a postcard, and read simply:
     
    Farewell, a long farewell!
     
    Appleby stared at this. ‘You know that it’s a quotation?’ he asked.
    ‘Yes, sir. I looked it up.’
    ‘Farewell, a long farewell, to all my greatness . It’s rather a magniloquent last message to be left even by quite a well-known scholar, isn’t it? But he was always quoting Shakespeare, and in a hit-or-miss way.’ Appleby looked up at Cavill, frowning. ‘It’s his writing? I’d have said it was – so far as my memory goes.’
    Cavill nodded. ‘It’s his writing, all right. We’ve had two experts on it. Only your friend Rood, sir, declares it to be a forgery. Quite nasty about it, he was. Dignity injured. A touchy type. Claims to be a bit of an expert himself.’
    ‘And when you disregarded him, he tackled me. But he didn’t tell me about all this.’ Appleby pointed to the file again. ‘You say the scrawl reproduced here was lying beside the body?’
    ‘Just that.’
    ‘Do you see any significance in the fact that it was written on a postcard?’
    ‘Well, sir, it’s certainly a point worth pausing over. But I simply take it that a postcard was the first thing that came handy on his desk.’
    ‘There was other stationery there too?’
    ‘Certainly there was. Packford shot himself in his library, just like one of those baronets in a novel. And this postcard, and his fountain-pen, were lying on the desk.’
    Appleby got up, walked to a window, and stared out at the London dusk. ‘Farewell, a long farewell ,’ he murmured. ‘Farewell, a long farewell , to all my greatness .’ He turned and looked sharply at Cavill. ‘Has it occurred to you that what Packford wrote on that postcard was no more than a flowery way of saying any sort of goodbye? He was always – as I say – spouting Shakespeare. He may well have had the trick of regularly scribbling him too. Has it occurred to you that what we have here is something he might conceivably scrawl on some perfectly trivial and entirely innocent occasion?’
    ‘As far as an intention to commit suicide goes, the words are certainly not very explicit.’ Cavill’s body had stiffened in his chair as he gave this evasive answer, and Appleby realized that he was angry again. ‘They might, of course, be about something quite different. By jove, sir, what a subtle thought.’
    ‘Sorry,’ Appleby said. ‘Idiotic of