The Long Farewell by Michael Innes Page B

with only a slight delay occasioned by his again dropping his books and glasses, toddled obediently off. Appleby wondered why Edward Packford, who could briskly dismiss a guest this way, should have continued to entertain at Urchins a number of his brother’s acquaintances who might much more properly have taken themselves off.
    But an answer to this, as it happened, turned up at once. ‘You will find everybody here,’ Edward said, ‘who was staying with Lewis when he died. I persuaded them to stay on for a little, even after the police and so forth appeared to have lost interest in us. I had a notion, you see, that the interest might revive again. And I was right – for here you are.’
    ‘Here I am – if you will bear with me.’ As Appleby expressed himself in this amiably unofficial way he continued to size Edward up. He was a man entirely composed and sure of himself; and if his manner was somewhat sombre and reserved, that was natural enough in one who had just lost a brother in circumstances such as the present. Certainly he had every appearance of owning both the will and ability to go straight to the point; and after the maunderings of Professor Prodger this came to Appleby as something of a relief. ‘Mr Packford,’ he said, ‘may I ask you at once why you are not satisfied with what are at least the surface indications in this sad business?’
    ‘It wasn’t like Lewis.’ Edward waved Appleby into a chair, sat down himself, and then leant forward in an attitude that emphasised the forthright quality of his words. ‘It was damned unlike him. I can’t see him blowing his own brains out, even if things were going dead against him. And they weren’t. On the contrary, everything was coming his way.’
    ‘I seem to have gathered that it was two wives that were coming his way. Wouldn’t you be inclined to admit that as a somewhat adverse circumstance, Mr Packford?’
    ‘It was a thoroughly queer one, anyway. And of course Lewis had been almost unbelievably foolish. But the thing isn’t utterly out of character, as taking his own life because of such a scrape would be.’
    ‘Were you yourself aware that he had committed bigamy?’
    ‘Yes and no, Sir John. That’s to say, Lewis had told me about the situation, but I hadn’t quite managed to believe it. That sounds silly. But I really had a vague feeling that he was exaggerating. He was given to exaggeration.’
    ‘You mean that you doubted whether he had really gone through what purported to be a legal form of marriage with this person called Alice, and thus brought himself within the reach of the law?’
    ‘Just that. I suspected some freakish and – no doubt – highly reprehensible joke or mummery by which this girl had been taken in after a fashion he honestly hadn’t intended her to be. Something like that. I saw the situation vaguely as a scrape. And I strongly advised him to take discreet legal advice. Whether he did or not, I don’t know. The next thing was that each of these women was tipped off about the situation.’
    Appleby nodded. ‘So I’ve gathered. They received anonymous letters, and down they both came to Urchins?’
    ‘Just that. And then my brother was found dead, with this note beside him. It all looks like cause and effect, but I’m not happy about it.’
    ‘I think I can understand that.’ Appleby was silent for a moment. ‘Do I understand that you were at Urchins yourself when your brother died?’
    ‘I wish I had been. I might have been quite good at summary justice.’ Edward flashed this out with a sudden odd fire that set Appleby wondering. ‘But in point of fact I was in Paris on business, and had to fly back as soon as I got the news. No – there were only his housekeeper and servants, the two ladies who had arrived so disconcertingly, and this queer collection of Lewis’ precious cronies.’
    ‘I see.’ Appleby smiled. ‘Would I be right in guessing that you didn’t much share your brother’s