Appleby at Allington Read Free Page A

still.’
    ‘I see.’ Appleby noticed with satisfaction that his cigar could now be called finished, and he could make a definite move to depart. That had been a cheap sort of joke about Hope. Appleby frowned at Rasselas, still deep within some dream-world of his own. He was reflecting that he seemed to become more, not less, censorious as he grew older. The elderly should be tolerant, surely, and not go about raising their eyebrows at small breaches of taste. He was also reflecting that some name had touched off a fugitive association in his mind. Perhaps it had been Rasselas’ name. Why should a distinguished scientist, now grooming himself so wholeheartedly as a country gentleman, give a respectable-looking dog an outré name like that? Of course, if one imported a dog from Abyssinia it would be another matter. Perhaps there was something lurkingly freakish about Owain Allington.
    But the name that had rung a bell – he suddenly realized – was simply that of Allington’s nephew.
    ‘I think I’ve met Martin Allington,’ he said. ‘Unless it’s another man of the same name.’
    ‘Most interesting,’ Allington said. ‘How does the one you met make his living?’
    ‘I don’t know.’
    A moment’s silence followed this brief reply. Then, as if some penny had dropped in his mind, Allington made a small, humorous gesture, and laughed softly.
    ‘Of course not,’ he said. ‘It wouldn’t have been before you retired, Appleby, and on one of the fringes of your own concerns? Some other association, no doubt.’
    Appleby made no answer. It was true he had retired – but one keeps to the rules, all the same. Leaning forward, he tossed the butt-end of his cigar into the fire.
    Every country has its own means of recruiting personnel for its security services. In Great Britain much reliance is placed upon a wide education – width being defined by what one gains in passing rather rapidly through a succession of public schools each a little more tolerant than the last. Of course, not every sort of intrepid individualist will do. Some foibles are frowned on. But the main theory is, no doubt, sound enough. The world’s stock of strict moral probity is not high. It is uneconomic to employ it in an area more congenial to those for whom, as a matter of second nature, few holds are barred.
    And that – Appleby thought, preparing to take his leave – is why spy stories, unless recklessly romanticized, are necessarily so disagreeable. His own had been quite another world. Still, you cannot have been Chief Commissioner of Metropolitan Police without running into a certain amount of that sort of thing. And that was how he had run into Martin Allington.
    ‘You must tidy this up, Appleby,’ the Minister had said. Appleby remembered judging it to have been a surprising command, and not really appropriately addressed to him. But that had been because of the overturned furniture and the pool of blood. No doubt (Appleby told himself now) he had a deplorably literal mind, so that it was a second before he grasped that the Minister was speaking in a metaphorical sense. The real mess was the prospect of publicity, and towards that Appleby’s damned dicks (it was thus that the Minister robustly expressed himself) appeared determined to pound their way as fast as their flat feet would carry them.
    The damned dicks had included – in addition to several bewildered constables and an ambulance team – two very senior Detective-Inspectors from the CID. These hadn’t appreciated being so described at all, and one of them had said roundly to the Minister that when attempted murder, followed by attempted suicide, stared him in the face he hoped he knew where his duty lay. The Minister took this quite well. Although alarmed, he was also rather pleased with himself; that he should himself have come on location, so to speak, immediately an agitated subordinate had brought him the story, showed a vigorous attitude to Departmental detail.