The notion drifted idly across my mind that it is not unheard of for a solicitor to embezzle funds of which he is trustee; and it seemed, from what Timothy had said, that a solicitor who had done so might find it convenient to lose the probate.
It was perhaps unwise to voice these thoughts aloud, for they were immediately received by my companions as asserted and established fact. It seemed to them the most natural and probable thing in the world that Mr. Tancred should behave in such a manner as I had surmised. He was, after all, a solicitor: a member, that was to say, of a profession noted for its lack of financial scruple, owing its entire prosperity to delay in paying Counsel’s fees, and whose invariable practice it was, when the affairs of a client had been mishandled, to put the blame for it on some poor, innocent, hardworking member of the Bar. Only Timothy expressed doubt, and that on merely practical grounds.
“It wouldn’t be quite as easy as you seem to think,” he said. “The tenant for life would have to be a party to the sale, remember, and the purchase money would be paid into a joint account in the names of both the trustees.”
“Hilary is about to remind us,” said Selena, “that the tenant for life is an elderly lady, not, alas, in the best of health, who probably signs anything that her solicitor puts in front of her.”
“And that the co-trustee,” said Ragwort, “is Rupert Galloway—a disreputable financier hoping to benefit from his daughter’s generosity when her inheritance falls into possession. Hilary would suggest, no doubt, that the more flexible sort of conscience might see little harm in anticipating that generosity.”
“So the way you see it, Hilary,” said Cantrip blithely, “is that Tancred and Rupert were in cahoots to trouser some of the trust fund? And Deirdre found out about it somehow, so Tancred did her in to stop her spilling the beans. Do you reckon Rupert was in on that as well?”
I was obliged to disclaim so adventurous a flight of reasoning. I had merely been speculating on the possible explanations for the loss of the probate: I had not suggested for a moment that the solicitor had any responsibility for Deirdre’s death.
“Yes, you did,” said Cantrip. “You were just going to anyway, when he came creeping up on us all suddenly like that. Jolly sinister, if you ask me—probably trying to slip arsenic in our coffee, to stop us exposing him.”
“Oh, I hardly think so, Cantrip,” I said, I fear a little acidly. “He must surely be aware that he is in no danger of exposure from any of the members of 62 New Square. It was clear from your attitude, when I attempted to question him, that none of you would do anything to embarrass a solicitor, however homicidal, from whom your Chambers so regularly receive instructions.”
They were apologetic. It was true, they said, that they had been a little embarrassed at my persisting in a topic of conversation so plainly distasteful to Mr. Tancred. If, however, he was a murderer, then I might rest assured that they would decline all further work from him, whatever the brief fee and however cross Henry might be about it: no Barristers’ Clerk could expect his principals to receive instructions from hands steeped in the blood of innocent beneficiaries, and they would tell Henry so in no uncertain manner.
I advised them not to be premature in making such a sacrifice, for there was at present no reason to believe Mr. Tancred guilty of any crime. He was the only one of the available suspects whose presence in the drawing-room at the material time had not been specifically remarked on by either of our witnesses; but it was possible that they had merely thought it of insufficient interest to be mentioned; conversely, if one of the others had left the drawing-room on some natural and trivial pretext, one would not expect their absence to have been expressly alluded to.
“You mean,” said Cantrip, “if one of them nipped off to the loo, Camilla wouldn’t have bothered telling me about it?”
“Precisely so,” I said. “Nor Leonidas to tell me.”
“It would be an unconvincing pretext,” said Selena, “for someone really meaning to go up to the roof terrace. The door leading to the bathroom and the one leading to the staircase are at opposite ends of the drawing-room. I think the excuse would have had to be that they wanted something from the room at the foot of the staircase—the one Rupert calls his study.”
Julia now asked me what arrangements I intended to make to interview Rupert Galloway.
“My dear Julia,” I said, “to interview Rupert at this stage would be either premature or pointless. The only person I could usefully talk to would be Dorothea—her evidence is crucial, but she is in Corfu. Well, it is possible that something can be arranged. I have had it in mind to spend a little time in Corfu—I have friends there who have kindly said I am welcome at any time—but not until September.”
“You’re not suggesting,” said Julia, “that we do nothing until September?”
“There is nothing we can do,” I answered.
I perceived from her reproachful gaze that she felt her confidence in me to have been misplaced. She did not know exactly what Sir Thomas More would have done; but she plainly thought that he would have done it before September.
CHAPTER 8
To keep Julia confined permanently in her room at 63 New Square, however ample the arrangements for her comfort and well-being, would provoke some objection, I suppose, from one of the humanitarian societies: misguided in my view—Julia, if allowed to wander unrestrained about London, can only come to harm, and it is no kindness to permit her to do so. A truth sufficiently demonstrated by the events which occurred on my next visit.
It was the day, some three weeks later, on which Selena was to leave for the Ionian Islands. At midday, however, I found her still at her desk, looking rather pink and shiny-nosed, her fair hair rumpled and the sleeves of her white shirt pushed back to the elbow, as if she expected by merely physical effort to dispose of the pile of papers which surrounded her.
“It isn’t really as bad as it looks,” she said, leaning back and drawing a deep breath. “I’ve only two Opinions and a Statement of Claim to do, and Sebastian isn’t collecting me until five o’clock. I ought to have finished them by then—in manuscript, that is. Having them typed depends on the temporary typist.” Her optimism seemed to fade a little. “Still, if the worse comes to the worst, they can be typed next week, and Julia can sign them off for me.”
I inquired if Julia was any better than she had been when I last saw her—that is to say, whether she had recovered at all from her anxiety about Deirdre and the traditions of the English Bar and so forth.
“No,” said Selena, after a moment’s reflection “No, I don’t think one could say she was better. It would be more accurate to say”—she paused in apparent search for the mot juste—“that she’s worse. Yes, considerably worse. It’s all Cantrip’s fault. His friend on the Scuttle reminded him that Rupert Galloway was one of the people involved in that unpleasant business at Rustington a few years ago. Do you remember anything about it?”
The Rustington affair had been one of the more colorful scandals of its day; but though at the time I had followed it with interest I did not now recall the details. A number of moderately celebrated persons—bankers, politicians, television panellists and so forth—had enjoyed the hospitality of a well-known businessman at his house on the Sussex coast; the festivities had been of an unconventional and boisterous nature; and a girl had died, apparently by drowning. Some rather unsavory suggestions had been made as to the cause of death, though none, if my memory served me, of deliberate murder. I did not, however, remember any mention of Rupert in connection with the affair.
“I don’t imagine,” said Selena, “that he was distinguished enough to attract much notice in the newspapers, but he was certainly among the guests. Well, Cantrip told Julia, and Julia thinks it’s significant—she won’t believe that Rupert’s presence on two occasions when young women have met with unnatural deaths is merely an unfortunate coincidence. And she feels that something should be done.”
I said that I was sorry to hear it: I ha
d rather hoped that Julia would by this time have forgotten about the whole matter.
“By no means,” said Selena. “So it’s very fortunate, Hilary, that you’re in London again: you can reassure her that you’re still investigating and all the resources of scholarship will be devoted to discovering the truth. I think you should go straight round to 63 and tell her so—it will be a great comfort to her, and leave me free to get on with my paperwork.”
In 63 New Square, however, I was told by Julia’s Clerk that she had as yet made no appearance there: in the afternoon, he added with touching confidence, I could be sure of finding her, since she had an important conference at half past two; but of her present whereabouts he had no idea.
Selena, when I returned with these tidings, was too much preoccupied to express any great curiosity. She was correcting the most recent product of the skills of the temporary typist—an Opinion on the title to certain freehold land comprised in the estate of an ancient and noble family—and the task seemed to be distressing her. She took particular exception, as I recall, to the description of the fifth Earl as the sun and air of the fourth.
“I could understand it,” she said in the tone of one trying hard to be reasonable, “if I had been dictating. Muriel has been typing for us, after all, for only six months, and cannot be expected to be familiar with technical terms. But how does she manage to do it when she’s simply copying from manuscript? ”
It was, I explained, an instance of the phenomenon known to students of textual criticism as dictation interne—the copyist, mentally repeating the words of the original, copies them not as he sees them but as he imagines hearing them—it is a fruitful source of error.
“Most interesting,” said Selena. “Some da y, Hilary, you must tell me all about it. Some day, that is, when I don’t have a plane to catch and three sets of papers to finish.”
I sought in vain to persuade her that she should pause from her labors for a light but nourishing lunch in the Corkscrew: she had brought sandwiches, and proposed to eat them at her desk. The other members of the Nursery being all engaged in court, I resigned myself to lunching alone.
On my way down the steps of 62 New Square, however, I encountered Ragwort, returning from the Law Courts in triumph: he had been applying, I gathered, for something called a Mareva injunction, and despite the perjured evidence and meretricious argument deployed against him, had succeeded in obtaining it. He was sufficiently elated to be prevailed on to join me in the Corkscrew.
I listened with attentive admiration to the full details of his victory; but towards the end of the meal I made some passing reference to Julia’s absence from Chambers. Ragwort frowned.
“One would not wish,” he said, “to speak critically of one’s friends. It has to be admitted, however, that Julia is not wholly free of the sin of sloth. If she woke up this morning and found herself with no immediate engagements, it is quite possible that she simply went back to sleep again. And she is capable, in that case, of failing to wake up again in time for her conference at two-thirty, which I understand to be rather important. Shall we stroll along to Bloomsbury and make sure she’s up and about?”
“By all means,” I said. “It will be an opportunity to see Carlotta, which is always delightful.”
Julia occupies as her residence the top story of a dilapidated Victorian house near the British Museum, owned by the celebrated historical novelist Carlotta Benares—my readers will doubtless be familiar with her work, though a tendency to emphasize the more sentimental aspects of history has prevented her enjoying the critical esteem which would be the just reward for her painstaking research. I am always pleased to see her, for we have several enemies in common.
She greeted us in her customary splendor of black lace and topaz, and offered us madeira and macaroons. Ragwort is a favorite in her affections, for she regards him as being “the right man for Julia”: she does not know, I think, that he has rejected Julia’s matrimonial proposals with as much firmness as those of a less honorable nature. Myself also she greeted with great goodwill, being eager to know my opinion of a colleague in the world of Scholarship who had written unfavorably, in a review of her most recent novel, of her understanding of military tactics in the reign of Richard III. The same man, as it happened, had once published an impertinent comment in one of the learned journals on a little article of my own concerning the statute De Donis: I was happy to assure Carlotta that he was a person of no intellectual consequence, and reported by a reliable source to change his underwear only once a year.
Of Julia, however, there was no sign. At about half past eight on the previous evening she had triumphantly announced that she had at last finished her Opinion on Part XV of the Taxes Act and intended to reward herself with dinner at Guido’s: Carlotta had not seen her since and was beginning to be anxious.
Returning once more to 62 New Square, we found Selena in not wholly amicable discussion with the temporary typist, who seemed to feel that she was being unduly critical of a newly typed Statement of Claim.
“You did say,” said the temporary typist, in a tone of accusation, “that you wanted it in a hurry.”
“Yes,” said Selena. “Yes, Muriel, it’s quite true I said that. But I didn’t actually mean that I wanted you to leave bits out.”
“It’s only one paragraph, Miss Jardine. I don’t suppose anyone’ll notice.”
“I know it’s only one paragraph, Muriel, but it does contain allegations which are essential to my client’s case. I really can’t just leave it out.”
“Well,” said the temporary typist, “you could write it in in handwriting, couldn’t you?”
“I suppose I shall have to,” said Selena with a small sigh, “but it’s going to look very messy. It hardly seems worth typing it at all if half of it is going to be in manuscript. It’s quite a long paragraph—I don’t understand how you came to miss it out.”
This was unreasonable, for the error was a natural one. I saw, looking over Selena’s shoulder at her draft, that the missing paragraph had begun with the same half-dozen words as that which succeeded it: the typist, having copied them for the first time, would have looked back at the draft to see what followed; the same phrase, occurring again a few lines later, would have caught her eye; and she would have continued from that point, omitting what lay between.
“It is an instance,” I said, “of the mistake known as haplography—a fruitful source of error in ancient and medieval manuscripts. I cannot doubt, Selena, that you are familiar with it: just such a blunder in the P Codex of the Helena is central to the argument in Sebastian’s recent article on the texts of Euripides. You will remember, moreover, from your own studies of Roman Law that Professor Daube’s brilliant reconstruction of the celebrated crux in Celsus—”
“Hilary,” said Selena, “do you wish me to lie down on the floor and scream?” I recalled that she thought the day unseasonable for the discussion of textual criticism, and said no more on the subject.
The temporary typist having departed in dudgeon, we told Selena of our visit to Bloomsbury and of Julia’s failure to return there. Selena looked puzzled and frowned a little.
“Perhaps she spent the night somewhere and has gone straight back to Chambers. I’ll ring William and see if she’s there.”
But Julia’s Clerk was equally without news of his missing principal, and had begun to regard with some disquiet the approach of the hour appointed for her conference. Selena now looked perceptibly anxious.
“Did you say she was meaning to have dinner at Guido’s? Let’s see if they’ve any idea what’s happened to her.”
An eavesdropper on Selena’s conversation with Guido’s would have gathered that on the previous evening she had lent her umbrella—a rather pretty and distinctive umbrella, with an ivory handle carved in the shape of a horse’s head—to her friend Miss Larwood; that Miss Larwood, before departing for her morning’s engagements in the High Court, had confessed to having left it somewhere—she thought in Gu
ido’s; and that Selena would like it back. She would be most grateful if they could look and see—there was silence while search was made.
“She didn’t?… didn’t leave anything at all? How strange—unprecedented. Was there anyone with her to remind her not to forget things?… Ah… Ah, I see… I wonder if it’s anyone I know—did you happen to catch the name?… No, I don’t think so… Well, she must have gone on somewhere else and left my umbrella there. You wouldn’t know of course—oh really?… yes… thank you, that’s most kind… yes, I’ll try there.” Replacing the telephone receiver, she began to arrange her papers in separate bundles, each neatly tied up in pink tape.
“Selena,” said Ragwort severely, “very little of that was true.”
“Losing one’s umbrella,” said Selena, “seems less eccentric, somehow, than losing Julia.”
“I gather,” I said, “that she dined at Guido’s last night. Are we to understand that there was someone with her?”
“She arrived alone, but when she was about half way through her meal a red-haired signorina came in, who seemed to be a friend of hers—that is to say, Julia seemed pleased to see her and invited her to share her table. They drank much wine and were very happy. When they had finished their meal, the red-haired signorina asked the waiter to call a taxi for them—to go, it seems, to a place called Vashti’s House. It’s a sort of nightclub in Chelsea.”
“Vashti’s?” said Ragwort with austere disapproval. “Vashti’s has a most unsavory reputation. I have heard it spoken of as a place frequented by females of unnatural propensity, seeking companions in disgraceful conduct.”
“I have heard it spoken of,” said Selena, “as an agreeable little establishment where single women may enjoy one another’s company in relaxed and convivial surroundings. Still, we’re clearly thinking of the same place.” She now rolled down her sleeves and put on the black linen jacket which would have completed the suitability of her costume for an appearance in Court. “The discotheque in the basement will be closed, of course, in the daytime. I believe, however, that there is a wine bar on the ground floor under the same management. With reasonable expedition, we should be able to get there in time to present ourselves as customers for a late lunch.”
The Shortest Way to Hades Page 10
