A Connoisseur's Case Read Free Page A

whether you’d be up to your waist in the canal as it is now. Of course, there would be bats.’
    â€˜I’m not afraid of bats.’
    â€˜Of course not – or not in the open air. But you must remember them as rather uncomfortable companions in a dark room. A three-mile tunnel might be worse. Statistically, I’d say it was almost certain that one of them would get tangled in your hair.’
    â€˜Very well.’ Judith turned away, admitting defeat. ‘I shan’t go – ever.’
    Appleby laughed as they moved off in search of the pub.
    â€˜I’m sure you won’t,’ he said. ‘Nor shall I.’

 
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2
    Although the last of the leggers must have found rest from his topsy-turvy labours many generations ago, the hostelry in which they had recruited themselves was still a going concern. The Applebys established themselves on a bench in the open air and unwrapped their sandwiches. Appleby went inside and returned with beer.
    â€˜Did you ask about Scroop House?’ Judith said.
    â€˜Yes, I did.’ Appleby knew very well that, had he failed to do so, he would have been sent back to make good the omission. ‘But the chap seems to know nothing about it. New to the place, he said. And he’s not the old sort of innkeeper. RAF type, with a handlebar moustache specially grown to tell you so. Put in by the brewery company, I suppose, and not very pleased that he hasn’t been given a superior little riverside hotel on the lower Thames.’
    â€˜I could have told you that without going inside.’
    â€˜Could you, indeed?’ Appleby thought for a moment and then turned to glance at the door of the pub. There, as the law required, was a legend informing the world that David Channing-Kennedy was licensed to sell spirits, wines and tobacco. ‘You’re quite right, of course. Truly rural innkeepers don’t run to double-barrelled names any more than to that sort of whisker. I always said you ought to be a detective.’
    â€˜Elementary, my dear–’ Judith broke off and lowered her voice. ‘Look,’ she said. ‘Here’s somebody much more hopeful.’
    This was certainly true. An old man had emerged from the door of the public bar, and was looking around him as if in search of a bench on which to sit. In one hand he was carrying something with care. His clothes, which were threadbare but decent, were not particularly rural. Indeed, there was something faintly foreign about them. But it was otherwise with his features. Browned and wizened, these were English and of the folk. But they had a certain fineness, too, and they had not lost sensitiveness in what now appeared to be almost extreme old age.
    â€˜Good morning, sir. Good morning, madam.’ The old man had touched a rather battered hat as he spoke. His speech, like his clothes, was distinguishably tinged with strangeness. And now, with his freehand, he made a slight gesture towards a bench a little way from that on which the Applebys sat. He was asking permission to sit down. But this was courtesy and not servility. It gave him, somehow, the air of stepping out of a past age – an age of gentle and simple, master and man.
    â€˜Good morning,’ Appleby said. ‘There’s some real warmth in this sun.’
    â€˜But you won’t have found it too hot for walking. The season’s yet a kindly one for that, sir.’ The old man sat down, and set his burden carefully beside him. It revealed itself as a beautifully fashioned model of a canal barge – but battered and dusty, as if it had ceased to give anybody pleasure long ago. Judith got up and walked over to it. She had known at once that this was something that would give pleasure now.
    â€˜What a lovely thing!’ she said. ‘A barge seems rather common-place, when just glanced at. But your model isn’t like that. Is it very old?’
    â€˜Not older than myself, madam. For