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rigours of his journey, took this for a merely random remark.
    â€œJust like cousin Robert, isn’t he? And most of the servants are legacies like that, I believe. And the only legacies Ranulph left. You’d expect all these novels to have turned into a little capital, wouldn’t you? Not like madrigals and triolets. Naturally there wasn’t any cash in them . And we all seem to take to activities of that sort. Sculpture, for instance; there isn’t a bean in that. Which is why we all sponge on cousin Everard and his encyclopaedias and things.”
    Appleby felt mildly uncomfortable – partly because he turned out to be sitting on a broken spring, and partly because he was learning rather more about the Ravens than was necessary. “I think,” he said, “that you are a distinctly bald young woman.”
    Judith gave a startling yelp of laughter. “Judith Raven,” she said. “The Venus calva .”
    â€œI merely mean that you give a markedly unvarnished picture of your family.”
    â€œAnd why not? Pictures should be unvarnished. You can go on touching them up until you varnish them: didn’t you know? Not that the Ravens need touching up; we’re a classical group already. And I might as well tell you what you’re bound to find out, anyway, seeing that you’ve decided to come snooping round.”
    â€œSnooping round!” Appleby was horrified. “My dear Miss Raven, I assure you that only the merest accident–”
    â€œNonsense. It’s perfectly clear that you put yourself cunningly in Everard’s way.” Judith Raven again paused for what seemed to be rapid calculation. “And a good thing too. I’ve felt for a long time that the whole business ought to be cleared up.”
    â€œThe whole business?” Appleby felt slightly dazed. “Do I understand that you suppose me to have come down to clear up some family mystery?”
    â€œIt’s as plain as a pikestaff. Only you’ll have the devil of a business. You see, it’s not so much a matter of clearing up the present as the past. Or so it seems to me. And at Long Dream there’s a lot of the past lying about. There must be something like eighty tons of it in my studio alone.”
    â€œLong Dream?”
    â€œThat’s the name of our place. The village has disappeared long ago. Generations of Ravens picked it bare. And Ranulph polished off the skeleton.” Judith paused on this dark saying. “We’re Long Dream Manor.”
    â€œI see. And are you the lady of the manor?”
    â€œNo. Aunt Clarissa is that – Ranulph’s half-brother’s daughter.”
    The carriage was now moving more slowly and with a jarring motion, as if Spot were being cautiously edged downhill. Appleby contrived to get one arm round a sack of potatoes and to ease himself a little off the broken spring. It was because she had herself become aware of this discomfort, it occurred to him, that Judith had decided on and achieved that nightmarish change of places. “I’m afraid,” he said, “that I find your family very confusing. And I have every intention that it shall remain so. My business is in a place called Snarl. In Long Dream Manor and its inhabitants I take no interest whatever.”
    â€œOh, you’ll soon find your way about. There’s a very helpful family tree in the hall. With Ravens legitimate and illegitimate perched all over it. And, mind you, they can be dangerous birds.” Judith paused. From outside there came a sinister murmur, as if Heyhoe were quarrelling with one of his employers on the box. “And isn’t it strange,” Judith said, “about our station being called Appleby’s End?”
    â€œA curious coincidence.”
    â€œJust that.”
    Appleby peered into the darkness, obscurely disturbed. Had there been some odd shade of compunction in this mysteriously attractive young