Silence Observed

It is extraordinary what many people judge to be 'quite up the street' of an about-to-retire Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police (New Scotland Yard). Sir John Appleby can't even escape into the peaceful surroundings of his club without a fellow member bending his ear.Charles Gribble usually corners Appleby and bores on about mediaeval English pottery, but this time he wants to gloat over a poetry manuscript he picked up for a song.Naturally this book being what it is, the manuscript is a forgery. In fact, it's a forgery of a forgery. Next, a Rembrandt that might or might not be authentic floats into London and vanishes just as mysteriously as it appeared. A collector buys what he supposes to be Toulouse-Lautrec's walking stick, as well as one of his paintings. Then an antiquarian bookseller is murdered. One of the Appleby's dinner guests fails to show up. The dealer who was asked to authenticate the Rembrandt is also killed.Appleby's missing dinner guest is found at the scene of both murders, and Sir John weighs into a case from the netherworld of faked art and forgeries. While the young art appraiser who is the chief murder suspect leads Sir John on a merry chase across England, the murderer strikes again, this time much closer to the Police Commissioner's home.If "Silence Observed" can be said to have a moral, it is be careful whom you invite to dinner. One thing this book has definitely got is the most sinister old woman in all of Innes. This author's characters are always vividly drawn, but this dweller in Rose Garden cottage reminded me of Shelob the spider in "The Return of the King." When Appleby finally arrives at her dwelling, the bell pull falls limp in his hand like "the limb of an infant corpse...before rigor mortis set in."Innes usually doesn't resort to such melodramatic phrases, but this book is one of his combination mystery-thrillers. It has a vigorous chase scene, a very unlikely love story, and of course Sir John in his erudite, crime-solving prime. Do not heed his complaints about feeling elderly. Innes's favorite serial detective ultimately appears in sixteen more finely-wrought novels and short-story collections that were published after "Silence Observed" (1961).