Appleby's End by Michael Innes Page A

Appleby’s End.” Momentarily she clutched his hand. “What nonsense.”
    â€œListen.” Appleby was trudging ahead again. “What’s really ghastly is the night I’m having. Carriages float away beneath me. Girls conceal me in haystacks. The delusive hospitality of your cousin mocks me across vast frozen distances like the banquets of the Barmecide. The local peasantry are ridiculously hunting me with hurricane lanterns. And my only consolation–”
    â€œRubbish.”
    â€œâ€“one of my only consolations is the possibility of satisfying a little harmless intellectual curiosity. And perhaps you’re curious yourself. Well, feed the machine. Slip in a few more of the facts.”
    â€œLook here, it’s a bit thick.” The self-possessed Judith Raven was unaccountably confused. “I mean, it’s becoming a false position–”
    â€œJust what do you mean?”
    â€œThat it’s embarrassing talking this rot about Ranulph’s ghost. You’ll laugh at it.” Judith was assured again. “But the fact is this: that every now and then Ranulph’s ghost pops up and does something rather ineffective by way of vindicating Ranulph’s character as a seer.”
    â€œAm I laughing?”
    â€œApparently not. But I expect your intellectual curiosity has abruptly ceased.”
    â€œI don’t think it has. For instance, here’s a question. That blind-man business ten or twelve years ago: did you or your brother tell anybody about it?”
    They were skirting a plantation and the moonlight lay in chequered pools about them. Judith glanced doubtfully at Appleby. “We’re sure to have told everybody. Why?”
    â€œThat’s what we call a routine enquiry. Now tell me about the operations of Ranulph’s ghost.”
    â€œVery well. But the trouble is–” Judith broke off, halted and stared into the darkness of the plantation on their right hand. The little, cold wind had died. Everything was utterly still.
    â€œMr Appleby – John – didn’t you hear a shout – or a cry?”
    The tops of the pine-trees, snow powdered, faded uncertainly into the heavens. But each tree cast a dark cone of shadow across the path. And this – the fact that it was the shadow rather than the substance that had outline and definition – imparted something eerie and problematical to the scene.
    Appleby looked curiously at Judith. “A shout is likely enough. I thought I saw those moving lights again only a couple of minutes ago. How far are we from your home now?”
    â€œNot more than a mile. So if there are shouts and lights it may just be fuss over Heyhoe and Spot and the others. But I suppose they are quite likely to have got going a fuss about us. Luke would have all sorts of plans ready in no time for finding the bodies, and getting a cart to bring them in. All that’s just his line. All the same, what I thought I heard–” Judith listened again and then shook her head. “If they are hunting,” she said, “let’s dodge them. We’ll turn into the wood at the bottom of this hill and take the bridle-path. That brings us straight into the stables. What was I telling you?”
    â€œWhat the trouble was.”
    â€œYes, of course. The trouble about the doings of Ranulph’s ghost is this: they’re so ineffective that it would take an expert in Ranulph to know there were any doings at all.” Suddenly Judith’s accent had become wholehearted and decided. “That’s the bother. Ranulph’s ghost squeaks and gibbers for all it’s worth. But nobody hears, because the world is too much occupied with all sorts of loud noises of its own.” And Judith as she gave this obscure explanation kicked at the snow in front of her.
    â€œBut ghosts nearly always are ineffective. Not story-book ghosts, but scientific ghosts – the kind real people