The Sibyl in Her Grave

by Sarah Caudwell

  He was rather cagey about the provisions of the will, but Maurice thought it sounded as if Daphne didn’t have much to worry about financially—it sets up some kind of trust and she’ll get the income from the whole estate. She doesn’t have much for immediate living expenses—just sixty pounds or so that Isabella had in her handbag—but Maurice has had a word with Mr. Iqbal at the supermarket, and she can go on using Isabella’s account there for the next three or four weeks, until it’s all sorted out.

  There didn’t seem to be anyone else to be personally notified of Isabella’s death—she’d apparently never been married, though the name she was born with turns out to have been Isabel Cummings. Her only sister died a year or two ago. But Daphne was very anxious to have it announced in all the newspapers, national as well as local, and wanted Maurice to help her with getting the wording right.

  So he told her to write out what she wanted to say and said he’d come back later and look it over. I settled her down in the garden, with a notepad and a couple of ballpoint pens, and left her to work on it.

  After three hours or so she came back into the house, with ink all over her face from chewing on the ballpoint, and showed me what she’d written. It ran to about a dozen foolscap pages—at a guess, roughly twice what the Times would allow for a senior statesman or Nobel Prize winner. There wasn’t much in the way of factual detail—when Isabella was born, or where she’d lived, or what she’d actually done that was at all remarkable—but a great deal about what a wonderful, caring person she’d been, and a wide selection of her views on life, death, and the nature of the universe.

  I felt I had to say that it was on the long side.

  Tears of indignation. Daphne said that Aunt Isabella had been a wonderful person, and she ought to have a proper obituary—meaning, I gather, a full page in the Times. Aunt Isabella would have wanted a proper obituary, not a stupid little two-line notice, as if she were just anybody, and if she couldn’t have one it wasn’t fair.

  At this stage, luckily, Maurice came back. I must say, he coped splendidly. Truly gifted and remarkable people, he said, very seldom get the recognition they deserve in their own time. Some of the greatest thinkers and prophets, including Socrates and the founder of the Christian Church, would quite possibly not have been given a full-page obituary in the Times. The Times—and all the other newspapers, even the Guardian—were essentially Establishment minded and conservative in their thinking, and couldn’t be expected to appreciate someone whose ideas leapt over the traditional boundaries. After about an hour of this, Daphne agreed to cut down what she’d written to a length which could be inserted at reasonable cost in the deaths column.

  She stayed here all day and Griselda joined us for supper and to offer condolences. I’m afraid that by the time we’d finished I was rather longing to have the house to myself again, but it seemed wretched for Daphne to have to go back and spend the night on her own at the Rectory. The undertakers had removed the body, of course, but even so—I felt I had to ask if she’d like to sleep in the spare bedroom.

  “Oh no,” she said, “I have to stay at the Rectory. If Aunt Isabella’s dead, I’m the Custodian.”

  “You could go and put out food for the birds,” I said, “and then come back here.”

  “Not of the birds,” she said, looking very anxious and solemn. “Of the Book. I’m the Custodian of the Book.”

  So I didn’t feel I had to argue any more about it. Griselda very kindly walked back to the Rectory with her, and I went off to bed expecting to go straight to sleep.

  But as you know I didn’t, and instead sat up writing you a ridiculous letter all about dirty glasses—please take no notice, it was simply because I was tired.

  I woke up next morning worrying about something completely different—who was going to give the eulogy at Isabella’s funeral? You know the kind of thing I mean—a little speech about nice things she’d done and how everyone would miss her.

  What really worried me was that if there was no one else Daphne might expect me to do it, and I’d have to say no. It’s all very well for Maurice—clergymen have to get used to saying things they don’t mean, just like lawyers—but I simply didn’t think I could do it.

  And then I thought of Ricky. It seemed like rather a brain wave, because he’d known her longer than anyone else in Haver and was actually a friend of hers. So I rang Maurice and asked him to sound out Ricky to make sure he’d say yes if Daphne asked him to do it. Maurice said it would be better if I did the sounding out—he’d already talked to Ricky and felt that he’d like it if I got in touch.

  So I rang Ricky and explained that I was helping Daphne with the funeral arrangements and there were one or two things it would be nice to discuss with him. I was really rather glad to have a reason for ringing him—I thought he might be feeling upset about Isabella and want someone to talk to, and I wouldn’t have liked him to feel he couldn’t come round and see me just because I’d been a bit cross with him. On the other hand, not being sure exactly what terms he’d been on with her, I couldn’t very well offer anything like formal condolences.

  He came round bringing a bottle of Sancerre, and we sat out in the garden drinking it. I still didn’t quite know what to say about Isabella. In the end, I thought that the best thing was simply to begin by talking about the funeral arrangements, and leave it to him to say how sad he was she was dead, or whatever he wanted to say. Instead of that, he suddenly interrupted me, and said, “Reg—about those shares you thought I told her about.”

  Of course I told him not to be silly—it was all water under the bridge and there was no need to mention it.

  “No,” he said. “No, I want to explain—I didn’t tell Isabella about those shares.”

  “Now really, Ricky,” I said, almost beginning to feel a bit impatient, because after all no one else could have done.

  “I didn’t tell her about them,” said Ricky. “She told me.”

  Not long after she moved here, and she and Ricky renewed their acquaintance, she’d said that she’d like to give him a present—he was a friend, and she liked to give presents to her friends. The present was simply a free prediction—the shareholders in a particular company were going to have something to celebrate within the next month—he could make as much or as little of it as he liked.

  Well, Ricky couldn’t see any reason for the shares to go up, but so that she wouldn’t be offended he bought a few. A couple of weeks later there was a takeover bid, and they doubled in value almost overnight. By the time Maurice and Griselda and I asked him for his advice, this had happened three or four times and he thought that the best thing he could do for us was to give us the benefit of Isabella’s predictions.

  “But look here,” I said. “You don’t actually believe that Isabella could foretell the future?” From the way he’d told me the story, it seemed to be the only explanation.

  “Oh,” said Ricky, “anyone can foretell the future, if their information’s good enough.”

  According to Ricky, Isabella hadn’t always been a fortune-teller. In her younger days, she was a hostess at a London nightclub which was popular at that time with businessmen and stockbrokers and so on. In the course of her conversations with customers—well yes, Julia, I think that probably is a slightly expurgated version—she learnt a great deal about what was going on in financial circles, including a lot of things that no one was supposed to know were going on and some things that weren’t supposed to be going on at all. That, in Ricky’s view, was the basis of her success as a fortuneteller.

  I was surprised, if her information was as reliable as that, that she hadn’t simply used it to make money on the stock market, instead of bothering with the fortune-telling business. But she seems to have had some kind of superstition about that—she thought it would be unlucky for her to invest in shares herself, and she never did.

  “But Ricky,” I said, “all this must have been at least twenty or thirty years ago. How could she still go on getting inform
ation?”

  “Information’s like money,” said Ricky. “Once you’ve got it, you can use it to get more. You can buy one secret by keeping another. ‘I’m keeping your secret because you’re my friend—prove you’re my friend by telling me—’ Well, whatever it is you want.”

  I thought this was all beginning to sound rather unpleasant—almost as if Isabella had been a professional blackmailer.

  “Yes,” said Ricky. “That’s right. That’s what she was. There must be quite a number of people who aren’t sorry she’s dead—as a matter of fact, I’m one of them. I’ve had a pretty rotten two years of it, Reg.”

  I didn’t really feel, after this, that I could ask him to deliver the eulogy.

  Selena had allowed her first cup of coffee to grow cold. She ordered another and sat gazing at it with a look of judicial severity, as if it were a witness she suspected of being evasive.

  “According to Madame Louisa,” said Julia, “this ought to be a good day for me to solve problems. But she doesn’t seem to mean that I can be any help with yours—knowing that Ricky Farnham’s information came from Isabella doesn’t really take you any further.”

  “Oh,” said Selena, “I wouldn’t say that exactly. At least it means I know what question I’m trying to answer. I thought what I had to guess was which of the directors wanted money enough to take the risk of insider dealing. Whereas what I actually have to guess is which of them was being blackmailed by Isabella into giving her confidential information.”

  “You sound quite sure that that’s what was happening.”

  “How else could she have known about the shares? Unless she really did have prophetic powers, of course—but it would be rather odd, wouldn’t it, if they only applied to takeovers involving one particular investment bank?”

  “But how could she make use of the information if she never invested in the stock market?”

  “Oh, by selling it—that’s to say, by passing it on to one or two favoured clients in the form of a psychic prediction. But the fee, I imagine, would have been considerably larger than people usually get for crystal gazing or reading tea leaves. It’s really rather clever—it would be almost impossible to prove that any offence had been committed.”

  “Well,” said Julia, “if you’d like to tell your client about Isabella, I don’t see any reason why you shouldn’t—it can’t cause any embarrassment to my aunt.”

  “No,” said Selena, frowning slightly. “No, I suppose not, but—all the same, I don’t think I’ll tell him. What he knows at present is that one of his codirectors is guilty of insider dealing. He doesn’t know which and it’s making him very unhappy. If I tell him about Isabella, he’ll know that one or the other of them must also be guilty of something else—something serious enough to be blackmailed for—and he still won’t know which. I don’t think that’s going to make him feel any happier. And since it’s the duty of Counsel, so far as humanly possible, to keep the client happy, I’m not going to tell him.”

  Her decision was taken, as my readers will have observed, with full and proper regard to the interests of her client. If I say that it might have been better had she decided otherwise, I speak with the benefit of hindsight.

  Anyway, as it turned out, I needn’t have worried at all about the eulogy—Daphne wants to do it herself. There’s no reason why she shouldn’t, of course—we all just assumed that she’d be too upset, and nervous of speaking in public.

  The only problem now is making her look presentable—we really can’t let her go to the funeral looking like some sort of vagrant, especially if all Isabella’s friends from London are going to be there. So I’m giving her my grey silk Chanel dress, with the little jacket—I’d have to lose half a stone to wear it again and I’m quite resigned to never doing that.

  I’ve told her to come round here to change into it, in good time for me to see that it fits properly—it needed a bit of taking in—so I’ll be able to make sure she’s properly washed and brushed and doesn’t have a chance to get it dirty before the funeral.

  She had some idea at first that this wasn’t a suitable time to be worrying about her appearance, but I told her that it would be disrespectful to Isabella not to try to look her best. I said that if my niece didn’t wash her hair and wear a nice dress for my funeral I’d be so cross I’d jump out of my coffin—and I would, so don’t dare forget it when the time comes. Anyway, Maurice said he agreed with me and since, in Daphne’s eyes, he is now the fount of all wisdom, there was no further argument.

  We’ve also persuaded her to invite people here, rather than the Rectory, for something to eat and drink afterwards. The only room for entertaining guests at the Rectory is the drawing room, where Isabella died—it really would be too macabre. It’s absolutely typical of Isabella—oh dear, I know the poor woman didn’t do it on purpose, but it’s quite the most inconvenient room for anyone to die in.

  I’ve no idea how many there’ll be. Daphne seems to be expecting hundreds—”all the people Aunt Isabella helped so much”—though after what Ricky’s told me I’m not at all sure how many that means. I’m simply going to assume that I’m catering for about three dozen—if it’s a hopeless underestimate, she’ll just have to be selective about who she asks back.

  Anyway, I’m not doing anything elaborate—mostly sandwiches, with a choice between ham and chicken and prawns and so on. And some stuffed eggs and some cheese puffs and odds and ends like that. And some little éclairs, in case they want something sweet. And Daphne says she’s bringing some sponge cakes, made from a recipe Isabella taught her.

  Mrs. Tyrrell’s coming in to help, though it isn’t one of her mornings, and won’t let me pay her for it—something to do with Daphne being an orphan. And Griselda’s doing all the flowers, of course.

  I must admit, I’m very curious to see all these friends of Isabella’s. I’ll let you know in due course how it all goes.

  Yours with much love,

  Reg

  “I remember your aunt’s little éclairs,” said Selena dreamily. “Do you think we could get ourselves invited?”

  “Too late,” said Julia. “The service starts at twelve and it’s already twenty past eleven. Even if you drove—”

  “Twenty past—? Oh Lord,” said Selena, and left in haste for her conference.

  Julia and I finished our coffee and returned to Lincoln’s Inn at a more leisurely pace. We were in time to see a large black Mercedes motorcar draw up opposite the entrance to 62 New Square.

  6

  IT LOOKED LIKE a funeral procession: four dark-suited men emerged from the long black motorcar and walked silently, in single file, towards the steps leading up to the main doorway.

  From the doorway of 63 New Square, Julia and I had no difficulty in observing them. They were led by an elderly gentleman, whom I recognised as the senior partner in a firm of City solicitors—his name, as I recalled, was Mr. Vavasour—and who was, I assumed, the solicitor instructing Selena on behalf of Sir Robert Renfrew. He was followed by Sir Robert Renfrew himself. I concluded that the other two were Sir Robert’s codirectors and potential successors—Edgar Albany and Geoffrey Bolton.

  They might have been chosen to illustrate the characteristic differences between those of Saxon and those of Celtic descent. The one I thought of as Saxon was a little over six feet in height, heavily built and of florid complexion, his face egg shaped under thinning fair hair, with blue eyes as round as marbles and a small rosebud mouth curiously inappropriate in the face of a middle-aged man. He walked rather stiffly, always looking straight ahead, as if not wishing to appear in any way impressed by his surroundings. Sir Robert, turning at the top of the steps to make some remark to him, addressed him as Edgar.

  By a process of elimination, then, the other must be Geoffrey Bolton. He was several inches shorter than his rival and lighter boned, but giving the impression of a certain muscularity. His complexion was rather pale, his hair and eyebrows very black by contrast. Though I had read in the Scuttle
that he was only five years younger than Albany, the resilience of his step and the alertness of his expression made the difference appear greater—at a distance one might almost have taken him for an undergraduate, still eager and curious.

  And yet, despite these differences, either of them might reasonably have been described as “a middle-aged man in a City suit”; neither had any physical characteristic so remarkable that some reference to it would necessarily be added to that description; either, in short, might be the man whom the Reverend Maurice had seen emerging from the black Mercedes on its visits to Isabella.

  That the mysterious visitor had been one or the other of them I already had little doubt. One of the directors of Renfrews’ had been supplying Isabella with confidential information: he must therefore have been in some form of regular communication with her. If one of them owned or habitually drove a black Mercedes, it would be perverse to imagine that her only regular visitor from outside Parsons Haver had been someone entirely different, driving by pure coincidence a black motorcar of the same expensive and accordingly unusual make.

  I had only to discover which of the directors was the owner of the car and I would at once know the answer to the problem which was so much troubling Selena.

  There was one obstacle, however, to my reaching an immediate solution: neither Albany nor Bolton had on this occasion actually been driving the car. The driver was a young woman, who remained in the driving seat while the four men descended. Having set down her passengers, she manoeuvred the car into a parking space in the middle of Old Square and set off on foot in the direction of the gateway to Lincoln’s Inn Fields. She walked briskly, as if with some definite objective.