The Long Farewell by Michael Innes Page B

among Cavill’s witnesses, so Appleby put her down as a secretary. She wasted no words, and they drove out of the little station yard in what looked like the beginnings of an oppressive silence. Although the young woman was, so to speak, at the receiving end of the encounter, and thus to be regarded as in possession of the initiative, Appleby thought that she was perhaps waiting until spoken to. Some secretaries were like that. Some were not.
    ‘A queer name,’ Appleby hazarded. ‘Deep Urchins, I mean.’
    ‘Poor Seth,’ the young woman said decisively.
    ‘I beg your pardon?’
    The young woman took her eye from the road for a moment – she appeared to be unfamiliar with the car, which felt as if it might be a little unreliable in point of steering mechanism – and looked at Appleby in sharp appraisal. ‘I suppose you know,’ she said, ‘that Deep Urchins is Thomas Horscroft’s Nether Ladds?’
    ‘No. I’m afraid I don’t. But the circumstance is, of course, extremely interesting.’ Appleby was doing his best. ‘And I think you said something about Seth?’
    ‘Poor Seth Cowmeadow, who drowned himself in the pond at Nether Ladds, after letting himself get drunk at the “Welcome Home” and so failing to prevent the boar from eating his grandchild in its cradle.’
    ‘The boar’s grandchild?’
    ‘Seth Cowmeadow’s grandchild. But I see you haven’t read the book.’ The young woman took another – and this time frankly disapproving – glance at Appleby.
    ‘I’m afraid I haven’t.’
    ‘Professor Quelch of Princeton has just published an absorbingly interesting study of Horscroft’s public-houses. Of their names, that is to say. They prove to be deeply meaningful. The “Welcome Home,” for example. The name harbours a profound irony.’
    ‘I’m sure it does,’ Appleby said. The young woman, he now supposed, must be one of the learned members of the late Lewis Packford’s still lingering house-party. Her interest appeared to lie not quite in the dead man’s period. But perhaps she ran Shakespeare as a second string.
    The car was now running through a hamlet which a signpost announced as Urchin Pydell. The young woman took a hand from the wheel and pointed at a displeasing hovel beyond a ditch. ‘The Hangman’s Cottage,’ she said. ‘You remember how–’
    ‘It ought to be condemned,’ Appleby said firmly. ‘A demolition order, or whatever it’s called, from the local authority. Either that, or a shilling charged to literary pilgrims at the door.’ He paused. ‘And we can’t be far from Gaffer’s Grave.’
    ‘Gaffer’s Grave?’
    ‘Poor Isaac,’ Appleby said.
    ‘I don’t think I know about that.’ The young woman gave Appleby a glance of some suspicion.
    ‘Ah.’ Appleby found his invention failing him. ‘Did you go up to Lewis Packford’s funeral?’ he asked rather abruptly.
    ‘I’m not quite clear why it was in London.’
    ‘Something about a family grave. And only his brother Edward went. I didn’t. It would have been awkward. If, I mean, we had both gone.’
    Appleby was puzzled. ‘You and his brother?’
    ‘No, no. Myself and this Alice woman. Of course, we could have tossed for it. But it didn’t seem quite reverent.’
    ‘I see.’ And Appleby did see. He realized, that is to say, that this was one of the two ladies with some claim to be called Mrs Packford. And the Alice woman must be the other. ‘Do I understand,’ he asked steadily, ‘that you and this Alice woman were both at Urchins when your – when Packford died?’
    The young woman nodded briskly over the wheel. ‘Yes. You see, we had both got wind of Lewis’ disgraceful behaviour simultaneously.’
    ‘Got wind of it? You mean, it wasn’t a matter of his confessing what he’d done? It had somehow leaked out?’
    ‘This woman and I received anonymous letters by the same post. And we both went straight to Urchins at once.’
    ‘I wonder if you realize,’ Appleby said, ‘what a lot of