A Connoisseur's Case by Michael Innes

changes since the days we used to talk about.’
    Appleby, who found these absurd cross-purposes sufficiently entertaining, wondered whether they might not conceivably be instructive as well.
    â€˜Do you often,’ he asked, ‘revisit your old haunts in this part of the country?’
    â€˜No – and it’s not what I’m doing now.’ Binns again spoke with a shade more abruptness than was to be expected in one making a social call. At the same time he gave Appleby a sharp considering glance. It was evident that he hadn’t at all placed Colonel Raven’s guest. ‘Driving rather rapidly through,’ he went on. ‘But I didn’t feel I should simply pass the Colonel by.’
    â€˜Quite right, Binns. I take it very kindly in you.’ The Colonel was all hospitality. ‘But have you dined, my dear fellow? My donkeys can dish you up a meal of sorts in a jiffy.’
    â€˜Thank you. But I had dinner fifty miles away. And how is the great work going forward, Raven?’
    This very proper inquiry about the Atlas and Entomology of the Dry-Fly Streams of England was made by Binns with every appearance of interest and cordiality, and it set the Colonel talking at once. Appleby sat back and listened. And it was presently clear to him that Alfred Binns, whatever might have been his past activities in the Caribbean, retained very little genuine piscatory concern. Moreover he continued to suggest a man in some way obscurely perturbed. Unless – Appleby thought – he had turned in to Pryde Park on a momentary impulse which he was now regretting, and unless he was simply preoccupied with some entirely extraneous business or personal concern, it looked as if some ulterior purpose in his visit must soon discover itself. He was drinking a stiff whisky, and no doubt he had drunk an earlier one while the Colonel and the Applebys were finishing dinner, But Tarbox’s diagnosis remained a faulty one. Any fair-minded police surgeon would have judged Binns sober.
    â€˜And how are your children?’ Colonel Raven asked. ‘Not that “children” is at all the proper word for them now, I suppose.’
    â€˜Peter and Daphne?’ Binns, who had been feigning interest in the Colonel’s fish, now seemed to Appleby to be equally feigning absence of interest in his own progeny. ‘What do I ever know of Peter and Daphne? They roam about, you know. I can’t get Peter interested in the business – and as for Daphne, I can’t even get her interested in a young man. Seen anything of them lately, yourself? Or heard anything?’
    For a moment Colonel Raven was surprised. Then he remembered.
    â€˜But of course. They stay at Scroop from time to time. I was mentioning it to Appleby. But, if either of them is there now, I haven’t heard of it. I doubt whether I should. They mightn’t look in on me, as you have so very decently done, my dear chap.’
    Binns nodded absently, as one dismissing the most casual of subjects.
    â€˜I had an idea,’ he said, ‘of looking up Bertram Coulson as well. We were very good friends at one time. There was a little awkwardness when he ended my tenancy so abruptly, but that belongs to the past. I’m glad my children keep up a link. How does he get along?’
    â€˜Coulson? Well enough, I think. I was giving Appleby a fair account of him as a good neighbour earlier this evening. But we don’t run into each other a great deal.’
    Binns nodded – again absently, as if this too were a matter only of casual interest. Then he rose.
    â€˜I must be getting along,’ he said. ‘And a call on Bertram must keep for another time. I’ve still got a hundred miles to put on the clock. Just shooting through, as I said.’
    â€˜But can’t I persuade you to stay the night?’ Colonel Raven was hospitably distressed. ‘Absolutely delighted if you could.’
    Binns shook his head.