Appleby and the Ospreys Read Free Page A

police. An officer of your experience, Mr Ringwood’ – Appleby had decided that Ringwood was probably a decent copper but a little confused as well – ‘must have come across that sort of thing often enough.’
    ‘I don’t know that I have, sir. But if you don’t feel you have any concern in the matter, I must just apologize for troubling you.’
    ‘There’s no occasion for an apology, Mr Ringwood. What has actually happened?’
    ‘Stabbed in the throat, Sir John. And killed outright. It’s the way you might treat a pig, if you ask me.’
    ‘I keep a few pigs, Mr Ringwood, to beguile the tedium of old age. But I haven’t, as it happens, had to do my own slaughtering of them.’
    ‘Of course not, Sir John. But it’s right to tell you that Lady Osprey is much overwrought.’
    ‘Naturally. But are you telling me merely that something horrible has occurred, or is it that an element of mystery is involved?’
    ‘Definitely a mystery. The perpetrator must be said to have left no clue.’
    ‘Can you mean more, Mr Ringwood, than that, so far, you haven’t found one?’ This was an ungracious question, and Appleby repented of it at once. ‘And Lady Osprey,’ he continued, ‘wants you – well, to consult with me in the matter?’
    ‘It appears to be what is in her mind, Sir John. And I would, of course, be very grateful–’
    ‘I simply can’t do anything of the kind. You know that as well as I do. It’s no less impossible than if I happened still to be Commissioner of Metropolitan Police.’
    ‘Quite so, sir. I fully realize that. But the lady also thinks of you as a personal friend of the deceased, as I’ve said.’
    ‘I tell you I am nothing of the kind. Just something more than a nodding acquaintance. My wife and I, as it happens, lunched with those people about a fortnight ago. That kind of thing.’
    ‘Am I to communicate to Lady Osprey that you see it in that way, Sir John?’
    ‘Certainly not.’ Appleby thought for a moment. ‘It’s a fair cop,’ he said – and this time it was aloud.
    ‘Sir?’
    ‘I mean that it will be only the decent thing to turn up. To condole with Lady Osprey, that is. Are you yourself, Mr Ringwood, at Clusters now?’
    ‘Yes, I am – and the police surgeon too. We are in Lord Osprey’s library, where the body was found.’
    ‘The venue must be said to be a little lacking in originality, Mr Ringwood.’
    ‘And, of course, there are those house-party people milling around.’
    ‘Those what ?’
    ‘It’s Lady Osprey’s name for them. Weekend guests. There are half-a-dozen of them.’
    ‘And the wretched people haven’t had the decency to pack up and leave quietly?’
    ‘I thought it best, Sir John, to ask them to stay on for a bit. They haven’t all been too pleased. One of them – some sort of a high-up lawyer, he seems to be – asked me in a dry way whether he was supposed to be helping the police with their inquiries. I said it was just that, and he was quite amused by my reply. Amusement didn’t seem to me altogether right in the circumstances–’
    ‘No more it was, Mr Ringwood. But go on.’
    ‘Quickfall, his name is. Outlandish, it seems to me.’
    ‘Rupert Quickfall, would it be?’
    ‘Quite right, Sir John. You’d be knowing him, would you?’
    ‘Only by reputation. I’ve never met him. But he’s a QC flourishing at the criminal bar.’
    ‘Well, Sir John, Mr Quickfall may find himself in a novel part of the court. But so may any of the others. So far, I must say I’m obliged to him. As things stand, I have no right to ask any of them to stay put for as much as half an hour. But Quickfall went round and persuaded them – or all except a brother of Lady Osprey’s.’
    ‘And you say Lord Osprey’s body is staying put too?’
    ‘Certainly, Sir John. Our doctor and the local GP have stirred it around a bit – but that’s only to be expected. As I said, it’s here in the library, which is where the thing seems to have happened.