Stately Homicide Read Online Free Page A

seven days, it looked as if Hungary had succeeded in throwing off the Soviet yoke, he was back there again – whether to celebrate the liberation of a country he loved as his own, or to investigate the possibility of salvaging some of the sequestrated family assets, was not made clear. Whichever it was, he was there in Budapest when the Russian tanks treacherously re-entered the city; when the Avo, the hated Secret Police, re-emerged from under their stones, and the price had to be paid in blood for the impertinence of preferring freedom to slavery.
    A hundred and seventeen people, Jurnet read – intellectuals, workers, army officers who had thrown in their lot with the insurgents – owed their lives to Laz Appleyard; one of them Mara Forro, the daughter of Prime Minister Nagy’s right-hand man, and the woman who eventually became his wife. Overtopping his actual achievements was a magnificent failure – his attempted rescue of Imre Nagy and his companions, kidnapped in a Budapest street by the Soviet MVD and carried off to imprisonment in the turreted country house, the former royal summer palace in Sinaia, Romania.
    Perversely refusing to go along with the Appleyard scenario, the Prime Minister had, in the event, rejected the chance of escape; but Pal Maleter, the military leader of the rising, and Janos Farro, the father of Mara, had got away, though only to be surprised and retaken within the week, sheltering in a so-called ‘safe’ house near the Yugoslav border. Their deaths had followed within days. Nothing but the chance that Laz Appleyard had been away from the house at the time, reconnoitring the last few kilometres to sanctuary, had saved him from suffering a similar fate.
    Better for him if he had, Jurnet decided. Nelson knew what he was about, putting on the flashy coat that made him such an easy mark at the Battle of Trafalgar. Heroes would never come back, if they knew what was good for them.
    The last photograph in the display showed Laz Appleyard with a laughing youngster, tow-headed as himself, perched on his shoulders; and, at his side, a pale, exquisite young woman who did not look happy.
    â€˜It is – Inspector Jurnet, is it not?’
    â€˜It is,’ Jurnet confirmed, wondering, who now? Someone who, despite the bumbling affability, the baggy flannels and the old safari shirt bulging with felt tip pens, must be more than met the eye. The man had come into the Appleyard Room by the door marked WAY OUT, and, in Jurnet’s experience, only members of the criminal classes and those in positions of authority possessed the nonchalance to enter through doors marked, as this one must surely be on the outside, NO ENTRY.
    â€˜You won’t remember me, of course,’ the other said comfortably, beaming through his thick-lensed glasses, as if to be utterly unmemorable were matter for self-congratulation. ‘Francis Coryton. It must be three years at least. I came into Angleby to find out whether we ought or ought not to install burglar alarms here at Bullen.’
    â€˜In that case, it couldn’t have been me, sir. You’d have seen our crime prevention officer.’
    â€˜Indeed I did! But only after your much appreciated intervention. For some reason I had a little difficulty in making clear to the young sergeant at the desk whom I wished to see and for what purpose. You happened to be standing close by and you were most kind. When I got home I particularly remember telling Jane, my wife, how very kind you’d been.’
    Jurnet, who had no recollection of having rendered any such service, murmured: ‘Happy to have been of assistance.’
    â€˜Most kind!’ the other repeated. ‘In fact, I was saying to Jane only a few days ago that I mustn’t forget to let Mr Shelden know that Inspector Jurnet’s the one to ask for at Angleby should the need ever arise.’
    â€˜Mr Shelden?’
    â€˜Our new curator. This is my last day