A Connoisseur's Case Read Online Free Page A

harmless sight. Yet something about it made her draw back.
    â€˜He looks rather helpless,’ she said. Or unsuspecting. But what could there really be that he ought to be suspicious of? You’re making me imagine things. Let’s go back and talk to him. And then go back along the canal, cross it at the first lock, and walk up to the big house.’
    They returned to the front of the inn. Judith sat down beside the old man, and for some time watched him at work in silence.
    â€˜Perhaps,’ she said casually, ‘you know Colonel Raven of Pryde Park?’
    â€˜Yes, madam. He has been a prominent man in these parts these many years. And a famous fisherman.’
    â€˜We have walked over from Pryde Park. Colonel Raven is my uncle. I want you to tell me more about Scroop House.’
    For a moment the old man ignored this. He had ducked his head in the rural equivalent of a polite bow.
    â€˜It wouldn’t by any chance,’ he said, ‘be Miss Judith Raven I’m speaking to – the lady that married the great policeman?’
    Judith was startled. When young she had frequently visited her Uncle Julius. But to be enshrined in local memory in a countryside not her own was altogether surprising.
    â€˜Yes,’ she said. ‘My name is Appleby now. And this is my husband, Sir John. But I don’t think many people round about here would recall me.’
    â€˜Happen not, my lady. But I’m a remembering man. I remember much about Scroop House in the old days, and a little about Pryde Park too. But the Park, asking your pardon, was of little mark compared with the House. Ravens, I know well, have never been common folk, but their uncommonness has been most by way of strangeness, more often than not.’
    â€˜Quite true,’ Appleby broke in with some emphasis. ‘My wife’s people are an eccentric crowd. But in rather a distinguished way. Scroop House must have been quite a place in those old days, if it cast the Colonel and his remarkable activities into the shade. What was so striking about it?’
    â€˜Mrs Coulson herself, sir.’ The old man’s voice had turned oddly vibrant, as if years had dropped from him as he spoke. ‘There are few fine ladies like her nowadays. And in the big house, my lady, everything from cellar to attic of a fineness that answered to her. And the house parties, my lady! They were no matter merely of county folk. No – there was far more than mere gentry eager to gather round Mrs Coulson. Great men from Parliament came. And others above them, again. Poets, my lady, and great artists and deep philosophers. They called Mrs Coulson – her friends did – the Grand Collector. And it was a joke that was meant all in an admiring way. For Mrs Coulson had nowise to go out and gather people in. Thronging they came to her, the most brilliant in the land. Beautiful women, my lady, and handsome men – and all in a setting she had made worthy of them. Perhaps there were many other such houses in England then, such as a poor man like myself had no knowledge of. But Scroop House was enough for me, and proud I was to serve it.’
    â€˜It does sound very splendid.’ Judith spoke gently after a pause. She knew that there must be some exaggeration in the old man’s picture, since otherwise she would have heard of these neighbouring glories at some time from her uncle. But of the genuineness of the enthusiasm behind the description there could be no doubt. The finely carved little barge now lay neglected on the bench. The old man was sitting with kindled face and idle hands.
    â€˜But at Mrs Coulson’s death’ – Appleby asked – ‘all the glory departed? And you departed too?’
    â€˜That is true, sir. Scroop went to a distant cousin of the mistress – a stranger who never so much as came to look at it, but instantly rented it out, all fine as it was, to a mere moneyed man from London, a Mr