The Bloody Wood Read Free Page B

curiously withdrawn, plunged into the talk. It was reasonable that she should feel diversion to be required hard upon her aunt’s having relapsed upon so uncomfortably sombre a note. But she hadn’t, as it turned out, chosen too well.
    ‘It must be Fell.’ Charles Martineau’s voice was barely steady. ‘He has formed the habit of dropping in of an evening. It’s on his way home – after doing a late round.’
    Gregory Fell, Appleby remembered, was the Martineau’s family doctor. He was a comparative newcomer to the district, and said to be a man of great ability. It would have been surprising, perhaps, if he had really become an intimate at Charne in the way that Martineau’s words suggested. But nobody was deceived. There was too evident a reason why the doctor should pay this evening visit – and why he should frequently appear at other times as well. Appleby wondered whether it was Martineau or Martineau’s wife who insisted upon this paper-thin convention of reticence. If Grace Martineau was to have sleep – it was painfully clear – Dr Fell must bring it to her.
    And now, almost with haste, the little party in the loggia was breaking up. The nightingale, should it think to resume its entertainment, would pour out its incredible strains in vain. Nor would the owl be attended to.
    ‘I think I’ll take a stroll in search of Angrave,’ Appleby said. Almost as if he were as young as Diana Page, he was finding intolerable for a moment the simple fact that somebody was going to die. Or at least he supposed that this was what he was feeling. Certainly he wanted a short spell of solitude before the final ritual assembly in the music room prior to bed-time. ‘There’s sufficient light,’ he said, ‘to track the young man down.’
    ‘Yes – do go. See what Bobby’s up to.’ Martineau, already on his feet, produced this rather oddly. ‘But don’t, either of you, be long.’ He paused, and seemed conscious that this was a strange circumscription to lay upon a guest – or upon a guest of Appleby’s seniority. ‘It’s turning damp,’ he said. ‘It’s turning chilly.’
    ‘Charles, dear – shall we go in together?’ Grace Martineau had stood up unaided, but with effort. With an air of whimsical formality, she placed herself on her husband’s arm. But it was a support nobody could suppose her not to need. Together, husband and wife made their way slowly down the little colonnade joining the pavilion to the house. The others followed, trying to disguise the unnatural slowness of their progress by pausing to draw each other’s attention to this or that. Appleby caught his wife’s eye – and knew that Judith was asking herself, precisely as he was, whether all this ignoring of the spectre wasn’t a kind of madness that only the English can produce. Then he turned away, and walked across the terrace.
     
    It was a perfect night in early June. Dropping down from the level of the house, Appleby wandered for a time in the garden, or ghost of a garden, below. Bobby Angrave wasn’t at all on his mind, he found; indeed, he must have mentioned his name merely as an excuse for this quiet prowl. He even thought of making his way to the walled garden to the west of the house, and so ensure himself solitude – for Bobby had appeared to make his way into the wood on the east. But this might convict him of mild disingenuousness if he was questioned later, and for the time being he contented himself with lighting a cigar and strolling up and down where he was.
    Here, rather more clearly than in the loggia, one could hear the sound of running water. And here, too, that other and urban murmur from beyond the wood was indubitable. Marshalling yards and the clanking of heavy wagons over points, the miscellaneous traffic of city streets and suburban roads, sounds of industrial activity in factories where night shifts were working: all these went to produce this faint continuum that just touched the ear. Probably it