Read Online Death at the Chase by Michael Innes - Free Book Online

of thing in these parts’ – Pride innocently winked at Judith – ‘or didn’t until your husband came along. Mustn’t make a joke, though, of a bad affair like this.’
    ‘What we’re considering is that there may be a kind of joke at the heart of it,’ Appleby said. ‘A thoroughly evil joke. But you’re absolutely right about the criminal mind – or rather about any mind wrought to plan and perpetrate something like murder. Calculation and rationality can suddenly go by the board, and something quite unpremeditated, and even quite profitless and meaningless, take their place. That’s why detective stories are of no interest to policemen. Their villains remain far too consistently cerebral.’
    ‘ You wouldn’t have remained very cerebral, either – not if that hunk of roof had copped you.’ Even before he had concluded this reflection, Colonel Pride looked conscience-stricken. ‘Sorry, my dear,’ he said to Judith. ‘Rotten sort of crack, eh? Fact is – come to feel much at home here.’ The Chief Constable, if not embarrassed, was diffident. He turned to Appleby. ‘Been on my mind for some time. John and Tommy, perhaps? Seems reasonable sort of thing.’
    Appleby gravely agreed to this somewhat heavily promulgated advance in relations. It seemed, moreover, the moment at which to produce the sherry. He had just addressed himself to this task when there was a sudden roar from outside the house. Bobby Appleby had arrived.
    It seemed to Judith that the two men might well be left alone, so she followed her common habit when any of the children turned up and went hospitably out into the open air. The autumn dusk had already fallen, and mist was drifting up from the river and curling round the house; out of this Bobby’s car seemed to thrust a bonnet of disproportionate size, as in a badly focused photograph. Behind this two bear-like figures were in process of heaving themselves out of the front seats while simultaneously shedding shaggy outer integuments; the car was an open one, and both had been appropriately attired.
    ‘Hullo, Mum!’ Bobby called. ‘Here we are, unscratched but perished. This is Finn.’
    The appearance called Finn – he seemed quite as large as Bobby – advanced amid awkward contortions which stemmed from the difficulty of shaking hands while halfway out of a duffel-coat.
    ‘Oh, I say!’ Finn said. ‘How do you do? Frightfully kind of you Lady Appleby, to offer to put me up. Bobby’s always babbling about Dream. Wanted to see it for ages.’
    Lady Appleby – whose practised glance had already penetrated to the back of the car and distinguished not one suitcase but two – made a suitable reply. She couldn’t recall that she had ever heard her son speak of a friend called Finn. Perhaps they had been at school together – in which case Finn might be a surname. Or the young man might belong to Bobby’s Balliol period – and then he would be Finn plus some further appellation which the elder Applebys might or might not learn before he went away again. It at least seemed unlikely that Finn was part of Bobby’s new and literary life. At least he didn’t sound literary. Perhaps he too had achieved the distinction of a match against the All Blacks.
    ‘Funny that Finn’s never been down before,’ Bobby said, and tossed the suitcases out of the car as if they had been handbags or school satchels. ‘Where shall I put him, Mummy? In the haunted room?’
    ‘Well, it is the haunted room that I’ve prepared for him.’ Having managed this polite prevarication – which she could see that Bobby appreciated – Judith turned to her totally unexpected guest. ‘The haunted room is the one with a bathroom,’ she explained. ‘Most people feel it balances up.’
    ‘Oh, I say! Yes – what fun!’ Finn – or Mr Finn – appeared slightly at a loss. He scarcely seemed to be of what could be called an intellectual habit, or likely to be au fait with the nouveau roman world. Perhaps,