“It was the day they collected their holiday photographs from the place in Brighton where they were being developed. They had dinner in Brighton and didn’t get home until quite late. Then they sat in Maurice’s study and had a nightcap, looking through the pictures to see how they’d come out—you know how one does. And then Maurice put the photographs and the negatives away in the drawer where he kept the frontispiece, and took that out so that they could admire it for a few minutes. Then he put it back in the drawer with the photographs. So you see, there’s no chance that he’s made a mistake about when he last saw it.
“Well, next morning they had breakfast together and after that Derek left to go back to London. Half an hour or so later Maurice went into his study, to fetch the notes for his sermon, and noticed that the drawer with the frontispiece in it was slightly open. And then he saw that it was empty—everything gone, the photographs as well as the frontispiece. And there’d been no one else in the house the whole time, apart from Derek and himself.
“So you see, it must have been Derek who took it. He doesn’t seem to have cared that Maurice was bound to find out—I suppose he knew that Maurice wouldn’t dream of going to the police.”
I could understand his not going to the police; but I thought that in Maurice’s position I would have made some attempt to trace the young man or at least communicate with him.
“He wrote to him at an address that Derek had once given him, of a friend who he said would pass on letters, but he never tried to find out whether it was a genuine address or whether Derek ever got the letter. We haven’t seen Derek here since, but he’d obviously decided when he took the frontispiece that he wasn’t coming back. And Maurice, I’m afraid, has never really got over it.”
This morning she suggested that if I felt like going out I might call in at the Vicarage and see how he was. “And do see,” she said, “if you can persuade him out for a walk—it isn’t very cold and it can’t really be good for him to stay cooped up indoors all day.”
My ring at the Vicarage doorbell took so long to be answered that I began to think he was not receiving visitors. When the door at last opened, I was shocked to see how changed he was. He has become as thin as a skeleton, and similarly pale: if one met him walking in the churchyard of an evening one could all too readily mistake him for one of the permanent residents.
He seemed pleased to see me, however, and asked if it were too early to offer me a gin and tonic. On the point of accepting, I remembered my aunt’s concluding instructions.
“In view,” I said, “of the excesses I seem likely to commit during the next week in the way of eating and drinking, I had intended that my first gin and tonic of the day should be the reward for a health-giving walk as far as the George and Dragon. Can I persuade you to join me?” Rather to my surprise, he said that I could.
Few people would accuse me, I think, of any excessive enthusiasm for strenuous outdoor exercise in adverse weather conditions; but I found the walk rather enjoyable. The George and Dragon is in Little Haver on the other side of the river, only about a mile away, and the cold was brisk rather than biting. It seemed to me that Maurice also enjoyed it: it gave him, at any rate, sufficient appetite to order bacon and eggs, and eat them with more relish than one expects of a skeleton.
It had not occurred to me that we might be at a loss for a subject of conversation. Maurice, I assumed, would share my indignation at the outrageous cluing of 18 across in the Times this morning and this and related topics would take us companionably through most of the morning. He told me, however, that he had hardly looked at the crossword yet and that nowadays he seldom bothers to finish it. When I tried to think of some more fruitful topic, I realised that all the news I had had of him during the past few months had been in some way concerned with Derek Arkwright: this did not seem to be a subject likely to raise his spirits.
He suddenly began to apologise, however, for having neglected to thank me for my helpful advice—that is to say, the advice I gave my aunt on the capital gains tax position of her investment syndicate. Disclaiming, of course, any need for thanks or apology, I added some comment or other on the success of their investment policy.
“Yes,” he said, but with a heavy sigh, as if taking no satisfaction from the thought. “Yes, we were successful, weren’t we? Remarkably so. I’m glad it turned out well for Reg and Griselda, of course. But I can’t say it turned out well for me—it ended in my losing something I valued very much, I think more than anything in the world. I suppose some people would think it a suitable punishment.”
“For what offence?” I asked, worried by his desolate tone and uncertain whether he wished to be questioned further.
“Oh, I suppose for allowing oneself to be blinded by greed. I always knew, you see, that it couldn’t be quite right—so much money so easily. Reg says you thought straightaway that there was something wrong about it.”
And then he began to tell me, having evidently forgotten or perhaps never known that I had already heard about them from my aunt, of the visits made to Isabella by the man in the black Mercedes. He had reached the same conclusion that we had—that is to say, that the visitor was the source of her information about probable takeovers.
But Maurice, of course, knew nothing about the connection with Renfrews’ Bank. This made the conversation slightly difficult: on the one hand, I was delighted to have come across a subject which seemed to stimulate his interest; on the other, I was rather worried that I might inadvertently mention something that I had learnt in confidence from Selena. In these circumstances I may not have reflected sufficiently on why the subject should be of such particular interest to him.
What he seemed to want to know was whether, in my opinion, the man in the Mercedes was guilty of any criminal offence and, if so, whether it was a serious crime or of a merely technical nature.
I told him that the question was outside the area in which I could claim any particular expertise; but from what I knew of the facts and understood of the law it seemed likely that Isabella’s visitor, in disclosing to her confidential information about prospective takeovers, was guilty of the offence of insider dealing.
“You mean,” said Maurice, “that if he were found out he would be sent to prison?”
I said that theoretically he could be sent to prison for a period of up to seven years; but that in practice convictions for insider dealing seldom led to imprisonment. The most serious consequence, for the sort of person that he seemed likely to be, would be the possibility of being disqualified from engaging in any investment business: a sentence of professional ruin might seem to such a man at least as bad as one of imprisonment.
Maurice at first appeared to think these penalties unduly harsh: it seemed to him that the man in the black Mercedes had not in fact done anyone any harm. I did my best to persuade him, however, that the severity of the law did no more than reflect the moral gravity of the offence. Though conceding that insider dealing was sometimes spoken of as a crime without a victim, I said that it almost inevitably involved a betrayal of trust; and usually of the trust which had been placed by simple, inexperienced people, investing their hard-earned savings in the equity market, in those with greater knowledge and financial sophistication. In short, while not actually asserting that insider dealing was a worse crime than child abuse, I described it in terms which might reasonably have been seen as pointing to that conclusion.
I put the case, as you may think, rather high, not really because I have any strong views on the matter, but in the hope of lending a little colour and excitement to the subject and so distracting Maurice from whatever was depressing him. I now fear that this may have been a mistake; but I thought at the time that I was doing rather well and was pleased that he seemed impressed by the argument.
“And I suppose also,” said Maurice, “that committing such a crime might make someone readier to commit another, perhaps far worse. Facilis, it is said, descensus Averni. One step on the road to hell leads almost inev
itably to the next, or so people seem to think.”
“I was under the impression,” I said, “that the Church nowadays no longer believed in hell.”
“We no longer believe in it as a geographical place, like Paris or Los Angeles. Not, of course, that one ever thought that it would be anything like Paris. But I think we still believe in it as a condition of the soul—something that follows from what I suppose one calls sin. Not a punishment, just an inevitable consequence, like darkness when you put the light out.”
He spoke with great despondency: I saw that I had been unduly optimistic in thinking that I had raised his spirits.
“But I assume,” I said, “that that is subject to the possibility of redemption?”
“Redemption? Oh yes, of course, one’s supposed to believe in that.” He did not say it, however, with the degree of conviction which I had thought might be expected from a man of his profession.
I must ask you to excuse me for a few moments: a warm and seductive smell of cinnamon and cloves has somehow found its way upstairs to my sitting room, and has inspired in me an irresistible impulse to neglect for a little while the duties previously mentioned and follow it back to the place from which it came.
Up to this point, the handwriting of the letter had been, by Julia’s standards, passably legible. The more erratic style of the succeeding paragraph would have led a graphologist to infer some change in circumstances—that the writer, perhaps, had consumed some quantity of wine, or instead of writing at a desk had adopted a semirecumbent posture on a sofa or chaise longue.
That is to say, the kitchen, where I found my aunt doing interesting and complicated things to various kinds of pastry. Though rigorously forbidden to assist directly in these activities, I was entrusted with a plateful of hot mince pies to take into the drawing room, where Griselda and Mrs. Tyrrell were putting up the Christmas decorations, and told to make sure that they had enough wine to sustain them in their labours. I performed these tasks without misadventure, and lingered for a while to share the wine and mince pies and to exchange gossip.
Having no hope of equalling Mrs. Tyrrell’s dexterity with silver paper and drawing pins, or her agility on a stepladder, I did not offer to help with putting up the decorations: decorations which I put up never seem to hang with much symmetry or elegance, or indeed for very long at all. I did suggest that I could stand beside the stepladder and catch her if she happened to fall; but Griselda claimed that responsibility as hers, and would not by any means relinquish it. (I should mention that Mrs. Tyrrell is rather attractive and has very prettily shaped legs.)
When I mentioned having seen Maurice, they both expressed anxiety about him. They seemed to think that he has financial problems, and that it is these that are affecting his health. I found this a rather surprising idea; but apparently Daphne made some remark to Mrs. Tyrrell a few months ago about Maurice being very short of money and terribly worried about it. Then she realised she was being rather indiscreet, and asked Mrs. Tyrrell not to repeat it to anyone; but if it’s what’s making him ill, Mrs. Tyrrell feels it isn’t right to keep it a secret from his friends.
I also told them, of course, about the appalling scene with Daphne, which I have already—or, no, I see that I haven’t yet told you about it, and shall therefore proceed to do so forthwith.
By the time Maurice and I walked back from the George and Dragon, it was almost midday, and I was beginning to feel slightly hungry. Having told Reg that I would fend for myself as far as lunch was concerned, I decided that the time was ripe for a glass of wine and a toasted sandwich in the Newt and Ninepence. Maurice declined to join me, saying he must return to the Vicarage and deal with a number of things which he had neglected.
Having browsed for a few minutes in the High Street bookshop, I was soon afterwards comfortably settled in the saloon bar of the Newt and Ninepence with all that a reasonable woman could require for absolute contentment—that is to say, a glass of wine, a toasted sandwich, and a detective story I had never read before. This happy state continued for about ten minutes, at the end of which I suddenly realized that a small, indignant-looking person was leaning over me and accusing me of being Reg’s niece, Julia.
Resisting a natural impulse to denial, I admitted that I was. “And I think,” I said, “that you must be Daphne?”
I recognised her without difficulty from the description my aunt had given, though the expression “not at all a pretty girl” was something of an understatement: she was one of the most unattractive girls I have ever met, and I felt it optimistic to hope that lipstick or mascara could make a significant difference. Nor did it seem to me that what she lacked was animation, precisely, though what she was chiefly animated by was rage towards myself.
She stood with both hands planted firmly on my table, barring any possible escape route, and said that she wanted to talk to me.
“I just want you to know,” she said, “that I’ve spent the whole morning looking for Maurice and not finding him and going simply frantic with worry about him. I rang and rang at his door and he didn’t answer, and then I went round the back and looked through all the windows and I still couldn’t see him, and I thought he must have been taken ill and be just lying there helpless. And he keeps forgetting to get a key made for me, so I couldn’t get in to find out. I was nearly out of my mind with worry. And now he says he was just out for a walk. With you.”
“I’m sorry,” I said. “He didn’t say anything about having an appointment.”
“It wasn’t an appointment, we don’t need stupid appointments, he knew I’d be coming, I go round every morning to put his rubbish out for him and see if he wants any shopping done before I give him his lunch. He said you walked to the George and Dragon—is that true?”
“Yes,” I said.
“To the George and Dragon?” she said again, with apparent incredulity.
“Yes,” I said.
“You walked? To the George and Dragon?”
Her incredulity appeared to increase.
“Yes,” I said.
“To the George and Dragon? You walked?”
“Yes,” I said again, wondering whether there was any limit to the number of times she could ask the question. “Do you have something against the George and Dragon? I’ve always thought it a rather agreeable place.”
This answer seemed to enrage her further.
“Don’t you know how far it is? Don’t you know we’re in the middle of winter? Don’t you know how old Maurice is?”
“Well, not exactly,” I said, “but—”
“Can’t you see he’s not a well person? Don’t you care at all what happens to him? Don’t you care if he gets pneumonia? No, I don’t suppose you do, it won’t be you who has to nurse him, you’re much too clever and successful for anything like that—I’ve heard all about how clever and successful you are. Well, don’t worry, I’ll nurse him, he’s a wonderful person and I’ll be proud and honoured to nurse him, I’ll stay with him day and night if he needs me. And you can just go on drinking wine and reading trashy paperbacks.”
At this point she burst into tears and walked out of the pub, to the accompaniment of a certain amount of applause from several interested spectators, grateful for something to enliven what otherwise might have been an uneventful lunch hour. Shortly afterwards, finding myself now unable to give my detective story the attention it deserved, I also left, and returned to my aunt’s house.
I feel that I must somehow have managed things extremely badly. It seems remarkably careless of me to have upset poor Daphne before even meeting her and at such an early stage in the season of peace and goodwill: we are bound to keep running into each other over the next ten days or so and not being on speaking terms is likely to prove a considerable embarrassment.
And I suppose she was right about my being irresponsible to have persuaded Maurice to walk so far; having always known him as notably fit and active, I never considered the possibility that in his present state of health a two-
mile walk might be more than was good for him. I do hope that it hasn’t really done him any harm.
What worries me most, however, is what I said to him about insider dealing. Can it be, do you think, that he regards himself, having profited by Isabella’s predictions, as sharing in the guilt of the man in the black Mercedes? Does he believe that his subsequent misfortunes are a punishment for it? Is that why he wanted to know whether the crime was a serious one? If so, I have given him the worst possible answer.
I know nothing of the complexities of the clerical conscience—is there anything I can do to repair the damage? Would it be possible to persuade him that insider dealing, having been a criminal offence only since 1980, cannot in fact be a sin? Or, if it is, venial rather than mortal? Or, if mortal, still not beyond redemption?
In the hope of receiving your advice as soon as possible, I shall conclude and post this immediately. I am instructed by my aunt to add her Christmas greetings to my own. Please also give mine to Benjamin, and to the enchanting Terry.
I remain, as always, my dear Ragwort,
Your respectfully devoted
Julia
12
Résidence Belplaisir
Cannes
20th December
Dear Julia,
Painful as it is to be obliged to say such a thing, particularly to a dear and valued friend, I can see nothing at all to censure in your behaviour, either towards the Reverend Maurice or towards the girl Daphne.
Unless there is some very material omission in the account you have given me, you did not, when you called on the Vicar, take a pistol with you; or, if you did, you did not threaten to shoot him with it if he declined to accompany you to the hostelry of your choice. In short, his decision to do so was an exercise of what theologians call free will: the consequences are his responsibility, not yours. Moreover, it is not for you to advise him on whether insider dealing is a mortal or a venial sin: if he is troubled about the question, he should speak to his Bishop.
The Sibyl in Her Grave Page 14
