“So I hauled him off to the nearest hostelry,” continued Cantrip, “and poured booze down him until he was feeling pretty genial, and then I told him about my hopeless passion for Camilla.”
“My dear Cantrip,” said Julia with some alarm, “I do hope the attachment is fictitious?”
“Oh, absolutely, but I had to think of some reason for wanting to see her again, didn’t I? Anyway, it was all dead easy, because it turned out old Grockles was teaching Camilla Equity and Succession as well. And he was having a breakfast party on Sunday morning, so he said he’d invite her along and I could try my luck. He didn’t fancy my chances much—he reckoned there’d been a lot of chaps trying to chat her up since she came to Cambridge, and none of them had got anywhere. I said they were probably all callow undergraduates and it would be a bit different if the chap doing the chatting up was a smooth and sophisticated man of the world.”
“I dare say it would,” said Ragwort. “But what exactly is the relevance of that to—? Oh, I see—my dear Cantrip, do forgive me for being so obtuse.”
I asked if the heiress had accepted Professor Grocklehurst’s invitation.
“Oh, like a shot—chuffed as chocolate about it. Grockles’s breakfast parties are rather a big deal socialwise—I mean, getting asked to them means you’re part of a sort of intellectual élite.”
“Cantrip,” I said, “were you, when at Cambridge, a frequent guest at these gatherings?”
“Oh, rather,” said Cantrip.
My heart bled for Grocklehurst.
“And is Camilla,” I asked “a member of this élite?”
“Well, not really. Bright but not brilliant, you know—that’s what Grockles thinks, anyway. But she wants to come to the Bar, and she’s frightfully keen and hardworking—always asking for extra reading lists and spent the last summer Vac working in a lawyer’s office to get experience. You wouldn’t catch me doing that sort of thing if I was due to get my paws on five million quid—but there’s no accounting for tastes. She’s one of those all round birds, though—plays tennis for her College and might get her blue for swimming.”
“A paragon,” said Selena, “of the Victorian virtues. Mens sana in corpore sano and no sex life. I wonder if she takes cold baths.”
“We may be about to learn,” said Ragwort, “that under the influence of Cantrip’s sophisticated charm her coldness melted like the snow in summer. I assume, Cantrip, that at this breakfast party you maintained the appearance of amorous pursuit?”
“Well, I had to, hadn’t I? Mind you, I don’t say I mightn’t have chatted her up a bit even if I hadn’t had to—she was looking quite fanciable. Anyway, I shovelled scrambled eggs down her in a worldly and sophisticated sort of way and it all went like a breeze. There was some fairly stiff competition from a chap from Trinity—fancied himself on account of being a baronet or something—but he never had a chance, because what she wanted to hear about was the inside story of life at the Bar. So in the end I took her off to lunch, leaving the Trinity chap standing at the post.”
“That,” I said, “was no doubt most gratifying. Did you manage to persuade her to talk about Deirdre at all?”
“Of course I did, or I wouldn’t be telling you about it, would I? I gave her a couple of martinis to soften her up, and then I said what rotten luck it was about Deirdre falling off the roof—you know, the manly sympathy bit. And she said pretty much the same as your Greek kid—you know, about Deirdre being a bit of pain and not much loss to anyone. Well, she didn’t put it like that—but the general picture was that Deirdre falling off the roof hadn’t exactly left an aching void in her life and she thought it’d be hypocritical to say it had. The way she saw it was that Deirdre’d always been miffed about not being the one who was going to get the loot, and the only way she could get her own back was by being fairly bloody-minded all the time—always whining and telling tales and so on. Well, that’s the way Camilla saw it. But then she went all stiff upper lip and said that Latin thing about mortuaries.”
“The phrase you have in mind,” said Ragwort, “is ‘de mortuis nil nisi bonum’—that of the dead one should say only what is good.”
“That’s the one,” said Cantrip, impressed by his friend’s erudition. “She didn’t actually seem to be able to think of anything good to say about Deirdre, but she obviously thought it was a bit off to go on saying what a ghastly brat she’d been. So I kept on with the manly sympathy bit, but laying off the personal tragedy angle and putting more emphasis on the frightful shock aspect—you know, grimness of having to cope with the fuzz and the newspaper chaps and the Coroner and all that. And she went all stiff upper lip again, and said yes, it had been pretty grim, but specially grim for Aunt Dolly—that’s Dorothea.”
“Presumably,” I said, “because Dorothea was the last person to talk to Deirdre before she died.”
“Well, partly that. But mostly because of her husband—that’s the poet chap. The poet chap thought it was all his fault.”
Someone judged this a suitable moment to remind Cantrip of our empty cups and that it was his turn to buy coffee. I waited with some impatience to learn why Constantine Demetriou considered himself responsible for Deirdre’s death.
“Because of having this bust-up with Rupert. They were going on at each other all through lunch, the same as the Greek kid told you they were, and everyone else getting jolly fed up with them. But Camilla reckoned it was all the poet chap’s fault. The poet chap’s some kind of lefty, and Rupert can’t stand lefties at any price. So the poet chap shouldn’t have stirred things by talking about politics. That’s the way Camilla sees it.”
Leonidas blamed Camilla’s father, she blamed his—it was a pleasing instance of filial piety.
“So everyone else was trying to take no notice and concentrate on the Boat Race. But just as it got to the exciting bit and the boats came in sight from the balcony the poet chap suddenly went all huffy about something Rupert said, and said he was leaving at once and where was Dolly. So Cindy—that’s the ginger-haired bird—had to go and call Dolly down from the roof and Dolly came down and left Deirdre on her own there. So when Deirdre started leaning over to see the boats going under Barnes Bridge there wasn’t anyone there to hold on to her ankles. And that’s why the poet chap reckoned it was all his fault, because if he hadn’t lost his temper and insisted on leaving, Dolly would still have been up there to act as ankle-gripper.”
I reflected with admiration on the tormented subtleties of the artistic conscience. I was surprised, however, that the boy Leonidas had given me no hint of his father’s feelings.
“Shouldn’t think he knew about them,” said Cantrip. “I don’t mean the poet chap did the conscience-stricken bit there and then. But next day, when Camilla went round to Hampstead, she found Dolly all weepy and upset, and that’s when Dolly told her that the poet chap thought it was all his fault and she couldn’t persuade him it wasn’t and she didn’t know what to do. So I don’t suppose he’d done the conscience-stricken bit to anyone except Dolly.” Cantrip, who had contrived to combine his narrative with the consumption of a doughnut, now licked his fingers and looked regretfully at his empty plate. “Well, that’s as far as I got, really. I thought Camilla would think it a bit funny if I asked her exactly where everyone was standing and whether anyone happened to slope off to the loo—it’s not the sort of thing birds expect to be asked about when they’re being chatted up over lunch.”
Cantrip had done well, and I thought it right to say so. If he had failed, as it afterwards proved he had, to ask Camilla the one question which might even then have given me an inkling of the truth, he is hardly to be blamed: I freely confess that I myself might not have thought to ask it.
“Were arrangements made,” inquired Ragwort, “for a further meeting?”
“I said if she gave me a buzz next time she was in London I’d feed her the odd chip or two, and she seemed quite chuffed at the prospect. But it won’t be for two or three months—she’s going str
aight out to Corfu to stay with Dolly as soon as term’s over. She’s got a boat of her own out there, so she’s reckoning to spend most of her time sailing. That’s when she’s not swotting up on Equity and Succession and all that.”
A digression ensued: Selena was reminded that in some three weeks’ time she herself would be sailing in the same waters. She spoke a trifle defensively of the enterprise, for the courts would still be sitting: but Henry, it seemed, had so arranged her professional obligations over the past year as to disrupt at short notice her plans for Christmas, Easter and the present short Whitsun vacation, and she had at last rebelled. She had told Henry, kindly but firmly, that during the second fortnight in June the wheels of justice must roll on as best they could without her assistance: she would be sailing a small boat round the Ionian Islands in the company of her friend Sebastian Verity, out of reach of any form of long-distance communication which might demand her return to Lincoln’s Inn.
While Selena spoke joyfully of the prospect of sailing on the wide, blue, Henryless Ionian, I reflected on what we had learnt from Leonidas and Camilla. Could murder still be thought of as even a remote possibility? The timing was very fine: the dispute between Constantine Demetriou and Rupert Galloway had reached its climax at the moment when the boats came into view from the balcony; assuming that this was when they passed Chiswick Steps, we had calculated that four minutes would have been available before the moment at which Deirdre was known to have fallen; but this was now reduced by the time taken for the poet to announce his departure, for Lucinda to be sent to call her mother, and for Dorothea herself to come downstairs from the roof. Both accounts, moreover, had given the impression that all the members of the family were present in the drawing-room—or at least on the balcony or in the adjoining kitchen—when Dorothea returned to it. The only person whose presence there had not been expressly mentioned was—
“Ah, Mr. Tancred,” said Selena, anticipating my words, though in a tone more cordial than any I had thought to employ. Turning my head, I saw approaching our table the substantial figure of the Remington-Fiske family solicitor. He returned Selena’s greeting with equal warmth.
“Ah, Miss Jardine—this is an unexpected pleasure. May I join you? Unless,” he added, observing how many members of 62 New Square were gathered round our table, “I am intruding on a Chambers meeting?”
“Nothing like that,” said Selena. “A purely informal gathering. Do join us—you know Professor Tamar, don’t you?”
“Ah yes, I do, of course—how are you, Professor Tamar?” said the solicitor, disguising with a rather excessive enthusiasm for our present meeting his inability to recall our last. I thought it kind, when he had settled himself beside Selena, to remind him that it had been on the occasion of the proceedings under the Variation of Trusts Act, when I had chanced to be visiting Chambers.
“Ah yes, of course.” The syllables rolled mellow and rounded from his tongue. “How long ago it seems—extraordinary to think it was only in February.”
“I was sorry to read,” I said, “of the tragic sequel.”
“The death of poor Miss Robinson? Ah yes, a very sad business. A dreadful ordeal for Miss Galloway, of course—indeed, for the whole family.”
“I believe,” I said, “that you yourself were present when the accident occurred? It seems fortunate—if anything can be so described in such a connection—that the family should have been able to turn to you immediately for your advice and support.”
“I did what I could, naturally. I can hardly claim, however, that such events are within my normal professional experience.” His enthusiasm for me seemed to be cooling.
“Of course not. Nonetheless, one cannot doubt that your presence at such a time would have been of the greatest assistance. In dealing with the police, for example—a lay person without the benefit of professional advice might say all manner of things to the police which prudent reflection would have left unsaid.”
“There was no question of that, Professor Tamar. None of the family had any reason to be anything but entirely candid with the police.”
“Oh,” I said rather quickly, for his tone suggested a desire to treat the subject as closed, “I did not intend to suggest that they had. But the fact that you yourself were a witness—”
“Do let us talk,” said Selena “of something more cheerful.”
My readers will be surprised, perhaps, at this intervention in my questioning of a witness so providentially met with and so material to the subject-matter of my investigation—an investigation, as my readers will recall, undertaken at the particular request of the members of 62 New Square, who might thus have been expected to support me in my inquiries. But no such matter: they had observed my questioning of Tancred with every sign of increasing apprehension; and Selena, as I have said, now chose to change the subject.
Success at the Bar, my readers should further recall, is seldom achieved by offending solicitors.
The conversation consisted thereafter of innocuous legal gossip. It was not until Tancred’s departure—an appointment at his offices in Lincoln’s Inn Fields prevented him from lingering—that the subject of my inquiry was touched on again.
“By the way, Miss Larwood,” he said as he rose to leave us, “talking of the Remington-Fiske application, I don’t suppose—I believe I did mention to your Clerk some weeks ago that the probate seemed to have gone astray somehow—I don’t suppose you happened to come across it at all?”
Julia at this showed signs of agitation. She turned the color of a tomato with something on its conscience, and answered with quivering over-emphasis: “No, I haven’t, Mr. Tancred. I don’t have the probate. I never had the probate. There was never any reason for me to have the probate. So there’s no possibility of my now coming across the probate.”
“I really think,” said Selena, “that that must be right, Mr. Tancred. You wouldn’t have put it with Julia’s papers, would you? You’d have lodged it in Court. And when the hearing was over, the Judge’s Clerk would have handed it back to you.”
“Yes,” said the solicitor doubtfully. “Yes, that would be the usual thing, certainly. But I remembered that Miss Larwood had been kind enough to accept instructions at very short notice, and might not have had a complete set of papers. In which case, it occurred to me, the Judge might have handed her the probate for her assistance in the course of the hearing.”
“He didn’t,” said Julia. “I should certainly have remembered so signal a favor. It must have been lost in your office, Mr. Tancred—someone took it out, I expect, to check the investment powers or something of that nature, and forgot to put it back again.”
“That’s really most unlikely, you know, Miss Larwood. We wouldn’t keep an original probate with our ordinary working papers, you see. We would have a copy of the Will on our current file—the final draft, probably, or a copy taken from it—and that’s what we would use for ordinary reference purposes. We would keep the original probate safely in a strongbox, and only take it out when absolutely necessary.” He spoke benignly and a little complacently; for he perceived, I suppose, that Julia would not have thought of such a system, but would have been careful to keep any original document in a place where it could easily be referred to, and spilt coffee over, and mixed up with other papers having nothing to do with it.
“I know what must have happened,” said Selena with triumph, as if hitting on an explanation which when once thought of was manifestly true. “If the probate was with the papers when you left them with the Judge, Mr. Tancred, and you haven’t seen it since, the Judge must have it. He was looking at the affidavits, I dare say, and he put the probate on one side and misplaced it—used it to mark his place in a Law Report, I expect, and then forgot about it. I think your best course, Mr. Tancred, would be to have a tactful word with his Clerk.”
“Well, you may be right, Miss Jardine—I’ll do as you suggest, certainly. But if Miss Larwood would be so kind as to have another look for it…” With a tolerant
smile at Julia to show he meant no unkindness, the solicitor took his leave of us.
“It’s an extraordinary thing,” said Julia, “how every solicitor who loses a piece of paper anywhere in the area of Greater London always claims that it’s my fault. It seems to be an official policy of the Law Society.”
“The notion is certainly rather widespread,” said Ragwort, “that if any document goes missing in a case in which you have been concerned it’s probably somewhere on your desk.”
“And it usually is,” said Cantrip. “Are you taking the line this one isn’t?”
“Of course it isn’t,” said Julia. “Selena has just conclusively established that it can’t be.”
“No,” said Selena absent-mindedly. “No, of course it can’t. But it might be a good idea, perhaps, to have just one more look for it among your papers.”
I asked what exactly it was that Julia should not have had but had nonetheless managed to lose. If, as I vaguely imagined, it was the original Will of the late Sir James Remington-Fiske, the matter seemed to be serious: I wondered if its loss might give rise to difficulty when the time came for Camilla to enter upon her inheritance.
“Good heavens, no,” said Selena. “Nothing like that. The probate is the official grant of representation to the executors, with an office copy of the Will bound up inside it. The original Will is filed at the Probate Registry. So there’d never be any serious problem about finding out what it said, even if Tancred lost every single copy on his files.”
“You mean,” I said, “that the loss of the probate is of no consequence?”
“None whatever,” said Julia, her spirits evidently rising. “So even if I had lost it, which I haven’t, it wouldn’t matter in the least.”
“It could be rather a nuisance from the conveyancing point of view,” said Timothy. “You see, Hilary, whenever any of the land is sold a memorandum is supposed to be endorsed on the probate to prevent the same land being sold twice over. So a future purchaser might be rather cross if it couldn’t be produced.” Julia looked discouraged again.
The Shortest Way to Hades Page 9
