The Sirens Sang of Murder ht-3

by Sarah Caudwell

  “I wonder,” said Gabrielle as we were finishing our champagne, “how Mr. Wellieboots managed to steal my pen, and why he wanted it.”

  “Carissima,” said her husband, “please do not start worrying again about this pen. I do not believe that anyone has stolen it — you have put it down somewhere and forgotten it. Such things happen.”

  “No, Giovanni, I have told you — I am always very careful with it, and I am sure that I could not have done that.” She turned towards Cantrip and myself. “You see, I had a rather pretty gold fountain pen, with my initials on it, which Giovanni gave me for a present — I think you have seen it, Michel. And the other evening, when we were dining in Dourdan, I found that it was missing.”

  “Look,” said Cantrip, “have you tried to remember when you last used it?”

  “Of course I have, Michel, but I simply cannot. I know I must have been using it on Monday afternoon, when we were signing the company documents — I have grown up in an old-fashioned Swiss bank, you know, I would not have used a ballpoint for that. But I can’t be sure that was the last time,”

  “Try looking in your handbag again,” said Cantrip, no doubt recalling occasions when a fifth or sixth excavation of the multitudinous contents of Julia’s handbag had at last brought to light some object long lamented as lost. When Gabrielle opened hers, however, we saw at once that it contained only an elegant minimum of necessary items — diary, chequebook, comb, scent spray, and so forth. There were two ballpoint pens and a pencil, but no gold fountain pen was lurking in its depths.

  “Is it possible,” I said, “that you lent it to someone? To one of your colleagues, perhaps?”

  “Oh, no, I would not dream of it, Hilary — it would ruin the nib, you know, if someone else used it.”

  So much then for Patrick Ardmore’s explanation. I could of course have reassured her that the pen was safe; but I had no wish to disclose my knowledge of the matter, nor did I think that it would ease her mind to learn of the circumstances in which it had been found. No doubt she would be hearing soon enough from Ardmore.

  “I was sure it had been stolen. And I was sure it had been taken by the person who was following me — not because it was pretty and quite valuable, but for some different reason — perhaps to compromise me in some way, because my initials were on it. But I do not see what chance Mr. Wellieboots would have had to take it, so perhaps after all I am mistaken.” The thought seemed to cause her disproportionate uneasiness.

  “Carissima,” said her husband, “you have worried too much about this pen. Am I the kind of husband who is angry with you, and says you do not love me because you have lost my present, or is jealous and says that you have given it away to someone else? You know I am not. I will buy you another one and we will not think of it anymore. But all the same I wish that you would give up this Daffodil business. You do not take me seriously when I say there is something dangerous about it, but two people have been killed — isn’t that enough to make you think it is serious?”

  Gabrielle looked at me apologetically, as if she were at fault in allowing the evening to end on so sombre a note.

  “I had some bad news when I returned to my office, Hilary — I told Michel of it earlier — a colleague of ours, our Jersey advocate, died in an accident on the day we left Sark. Well, of course I am very sad about it. But if I had heard the news yesterday, I would have thought dreadful things, and now at least I know that it really was — only an accident.”

  * * *

  Cantrip, on the following morning, displayed no such confidence.

  Rising rather late, I had found myself impeding the duties of the gipsy-eyed chambermaid who arrived to clean my room, and had accordingly joined Cantrip for breakfast on the balcony of his. We looked out, as we drank our coffee and ate our croissants, at the neat rectangular harbour, glittering in the sunlight and crowded with the yachts of those too rich to afford to live elsewhere.

  “I didn’t say anything last night,” said Cantrip, “because I didn’t want to upset Gabrielle, but the way I see it is that if old Wellieboots is loopy enough to lock me in a cellar, then he’s loopy enough to have pushed poor old Malvoisin off the cliff. And if he did, he’s a pretty dangerous customer.”

  Reluctant as I was to encourage his suspicions — for I had no doubt that the more serious the danger, the more difficult it would be to persuade him to leave Monte Carlo — I could not in fairness and friendship withhold from him the information I had gathered in the previous two days. I did not mention, however, the possibility that Gabrielle was Welladay’s daughter and thus herself a beneficiary of the Daffodil Settlement. I saw all too well that to breathe the faintest suspicion of her would result at best in our ceasing to be on speaking terms.

  As I had feared, he concluded instantly that the case was proved against Mr. Justice Welladay.

  “Mind you, I reckon he’s probably loopy as well — I expect he thinks that bumping off tax planners just doesn’t count as murder. But that doesn’t make him any safer to have around.” He began to canvass my views on a variety of schemes to frustrate the judge’s supposedly homicidal intentions, all characterized by a certain alarming robustness.

  “My dear Cantrip,” I said, “I do beg you to do nothing precipitate. I will reflect on the problem in the hope of devising some less hazardous solution than those you have so far proposed. I suggest that we meet again after your lunch with Gabrielle.”

  “All right,” said Cantrip. “How about four o’clock in the Casino?”

  “By all means,” I said, “if it is open at that hour and does not require evening dress or anything of that sort.”

  Hearing noises within of domestic activity, Cantrip went indoors to seek guidance from the chambermaid on the opening hours of the Casino and the degree of formality in dress expected of its customers. I heard her assure him, with a certain amount of flirtatious giggling, that it would indeed be open and would be content with any costume satisfying the ordinary standards of decorum.

  “It is good,” she said, “that you are going to the Casino. You will win much money.”

  “Or lose it,” said Cantrip, with uncharacteristic realism.

  “Ah no, monsieur, I am sure that you will win. I see it in your face, I have the gift from my grandmother. Trust me — I am as sure that you will be lucky at the Casino as I am that you are lucky in love.”

  “Oh,” said Cantrip, in a tone which Ragwort would have thought altogether too forward and encouraging, “what makes you think that, mam’ selle?”

  “Ah, monsieur, I have told you, I have the gift. You love a lady with auburn hair, and her perfume is Raffiné by Houbigant — and she is very fond of you, I think. Ah, it’s true, isn’t it? You see, you cannot deceive me.”

  She was still laughing when Cantrip returned to the balcony.

  “Dear me,” I said, “what a remarkably perceptive young woman. I wonder how she knew that?”

  “What do you mean?” said Cantrip, blushing.

  “Gabrielle has auburn hair, and she uses Raffiné—I noticed the scent spray in her handbag last night.”

  “Oh rot,” said Cantrip; but continued to blush.

  CHAPTER 14

  At about midday I began the steep but relatively brief ascent of the steps which lead up from the northwestern corner of the harbour, through shrubberies of cacti and bougainvillea, to the summit of the Rock. Upon reaching the plateau, I averted my eyes, in accordance with the advice of one of the more austere contributors to the Guide, from the Disney-esque grandeurs of the Palace and turned somewhat at random into the network of narrow streets which constitutes the old town of Monaco.

  The area is not a large one, and although almost every establishment that was not a souvenir shop seemed to be an eating place of some kind, I had little difficulty in identifying the restaurant where Cantrip and Gabrielle were to meet. Some twenty yards down the street, and on the opposite side, was a pleasant-looking bistro. I entered and chose a table close to the window.


  Gabrielle was the first to arrive, coming from the direction of the Cathedral several minutes before the appointed hour, wearing a black-and-white dress and a hat of glossy black straw. She sat down at one of the tables on the pavement outside the restaurant.

  Soon afterwards I saw approaching from the same direction the tall figure of Mr. Justice Welladay. Though he was dressed in the flannel trousers and cotton shirt which are the customary apparel of the Englishman seeking pleasure abroad, they seemed in the nature of a disguise: there was little in his bearing to suggest the holiday spirit. After an unconvincing pretence of contemplating the purchase of a garment bearing the motto “Kisses from Monte Carlo,” he entered the bistro and sat down a few feet away from me.

  Of the three of us Gabrielle was the first to see Cantrip, who must have been approaching from the direction of the Palace. She stood up and called out to him, waving her straw hat, and he went quickly towards her, manoeuvring his way adroitly through a group of jostling sightseers.

  The judge, on observing this, half rose from his chair, his expression one of surprise, anxiety, and something like anger — he seemed almost to be considering some physical intervention in the encounter. Evidently perceiving, however, the absurdity of such a course of action, he sank back into his chair. I rose and went across to his table.

  “Sir Arthur,” I said, “may I join you? You will perhaps not remember me — we met a few months ago when you were dining on High Table in St. George’s, where I am a Fellow. My name is Hilary Tamar — Professor Hilary Tamar.”

  “I’m afraid,” he said, “that I don’t remember the occasion.” I saw that he thought it tasteless of me to presume on so slender an acquaintance, but the civility usually practised between members of the legal and academic professions permitted nothing closer to an outright rebuff.

  “I fear that I am contributing,” I said, with a smile which I hoped was disarming, “to one of the hazards of judicial office. It must be difficult for you to take a private holiday without meeting someone who knows you in your public capacity.”

  “It does seem,” said the judge, “to be becoming increasingly so.”

  “Here you are, for example, in a little back street in Monaco, thousands of miles from Lincoln’s Inn, and you find yourself within a stone’s throw of at least two people who can claim a professional acquaintance with you.”

  “Two?” said the judge. “I have seen no one but yourself, Professor Tamar.”

  “The dark-haired young man at the table over there is at the Chancery Bar — his name is Michael Cantrip. He is in Basil Ptarmigan’s Chambers in 62 New Square. I don’t suppose that he has appeared before you sufficiently often for you to recognise him, especially without a wig and gown. But he, of course, would recognise you.”

  Welladay drew back a little from the window, as if realising that any more than a casual glance from Cantrip might reveal his presence; but he continued to stare intently at the boy, apparently trying to verify what I had said.

  “Now that you say it — yes, I believe I may have seen him in Lincoln’s Inn. Are you quite sure, Professor Tamar, that he is who you say he is? It is a matter, as it happens, of some interest to me.”

  “Quite sure,” I said. “He is well known to me.”

  He sat in frowning silence, evidently weighing up the significance of what I had told him, but showing no disposition to discuss it further.

  “But I do not think,” I said after a few moments, “that there is any danger of his seeking to engage you in conversation — he seems very well content with his present company. Understandably so — a most charming and attractive woman. Would you say, Sir Arthur, that she much resembles her mother?”

  He made no sudden movement or exclamation of surprise; but he betrayed his astonishment by that instant of perfect immobility which is the one undisguisable sign of emotion in those accustomed to conceal it.

  “What an extraordinary question, Professor Tamar — how on earth should I know?”

  “I cannot imagine,” I said, “that you will disclaim the acquaintance of Rachel Alexandre.”

  “I find you, if I may say so, Professor Tamar,” he said, with a certain grimness, “excessively well informed on matters which seem to me to be no concern of yours.”

  “To an historian, Sir Arthur, that can hardly be a reproach.”

  “May I know, if you please, for what purpose you have engineered this meeting? After what you have said, you cannot expect me to believe that it is accidental.”

  “I will not attempt to persuade you that it is — it was, I readily admit, in the hope of having some conversation with you that I came here this morning. My knowledge of your friendship with Rachel Alexandre is indeed accidental. I learnt of it by chance in the course of some research I was engaged in relating to the last year of the Second World War.” I hoped that he would not remember that I was a mediaevalist. “I believe, however, that the accident may prove to have been a fortunate one. Cantrip, you see, has been telling me a rather extraordinary story, to the effect that during the past three days you have been following the Contessa di Silvabianca across France and that during that time you caused him to be locked up in a wine cellar.” The judge said nothing, but his heavy eyebrows gathered themselves together in a manner which Julia would have found extremely alarming. “He has drawn the conclusion,” I continued, “that you intend some harm towards her.”

  “That I…? Oh, that’s preposterous.”

  “Knowing what I do, I have no doubt that it is, but he is convinced of it. You, I suspect, entertain a similar notion with regard to him. If you continue in your mutual misapprehensions, I fear that the matter may end in a good deal of embarrassment to both of you, not to speak of the Contessa herself. Sir Arthur, I understand that the reasons for your conduct may well be of a personal and confidential nature and that you would not wish them to be disclosed to Cantrip. Since, however, I already know so much of the story, can there be any grave objection to telling me the rest — in, I need hardly say, the strictest confidence? If I were able to tell Cantrip that I knew your motives and that they were in no way inimical to the interests of the Contessa, I believe that he would accept my assurance.”

  The judge was silent, gazing down the sunlit street to where Cantrip and the Contessa were now engaged in a very animated and apparently entertaining conversation over a bottle of champagne. Neither of them looked, at present, to be much weighed down by anxiety. He was plainly inclined to tell me to go to the devil, but he was also reflecting, I suppose, that his conduct of the previous few days had been of equivocal propriety and that I might be a means of extrication from a potential embarrassment. Moreover, a man in his sixties does not easily decline an opportunity to speak of his youth.

  “It’s rather a long story,” he said at last, “though I gather that some of it is already familiar to you. We’d better order something to eat.”

  I had reason to be glad of the suggestion, for the story was indeed a long one. It began with an account, similar in substance to that I had heard from Colonel Cantrip, of the events which on that moonless night in 1944 had brought him, wet and shivering, to the cliff tops of Sark.

  “There’s nothing like cold seawater for washing the heroism out of you, Professor Tamar. By the time I got back to the guard hut I was cursing myself for a fool for having gone. I was pretty sure it was too late to be any use — after all the noise, I was expecting to find the place full of German soldiers. But there were no Germans — just a girl in a white dress kneeling by the dead man’s body, with her hair shining in the light from the oil lamp.”

  There was a warmth in his voice that I had not previously heard, and a note of remembered astonishment.

  “I must have been a grim enough sight, dripping wet and with my face blacked, but she didn’t show any sign of being frightened. She asked what I was doing there and I told her about the raid and why I’d had to come back. She said she’d help me, but it wasn’t enough simply to undo the
ropes — we had to dispose of the body altogether. She was worried about reprisals — if the Germans found one of their men shot dead they were likely to react fairly brutally against the civilian population. They might not even have believed there’d been a raid at all — the girl and her brother were the people living nearest the guard hut, and she thought they’d be the first to be suspected. He was a big man, the man I’d killed — it took the two of us to carry him. We threw him over the cliff at a point where we could be sure of him being washed out to sea — Rachel knew the currents and found the right place. In spite of everything, she was a good deal calmer than I was — she was a remarkable girl.”

  “And afterwards she kept you hidden from the Germans?”

  “For three months. Luckily for us, there was no great search made for the missing soldier. I suppose the Germans thought he’d deserted, stowed away perhaps in one of the fishing boats. Still, it was desperately dangerous for her — if they’d found out she was hiding me, they’d certainly have sent her to a concentration camp, if they hadn’t shot her outright. Her brother, too, I’m afraid, although he was only sixteen. Well, finally the news came through that St. Malo was in the hands of the Allies. As soon as we heard that, she set about finding someone to take the three of us across, and one night in July we were landed from a fishing boat on the coast of Brittany.”

  “And you, I suppose, fell in love with her?”

  “Oh of course — what else would a boy of nineteen do under such conditions? Head over heels in love with her, and making myself no end of a nuisance about it, I daresay. I must have pestered her almost to death trying to persuade her to marry me, but she wouldn’t have me.”