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 had 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 Guido’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.”
Remembering her aeroplane and her paperwork, I did not suppose that any trifling danger to Julia’s merely moral welfare would persuade her to set forth so precipitately for Chelsea. I inquired what more there was to it.
“It seems,” said Selena, “that the name of her red-haired friend was Rowena. That was the name, you remember, of the girl at Rupert’s party — the one dressed as a parlormaid. It sounds as if Julia’s trying to investigate Rupert; and in view of the Rustington business and so forth, I’d really rather she didn’t.”
To a place of such ambiguous repute as Vashti’s my readers will wish no precise directions. Nor, indeed, am I in a position to give them: it is my custom, when being driven by Selena on any errand which she considers urgent, to keep my eyes firmly closed. When at last it seemed safe to open them, we were somewhere in that area of south-west London where the artistic overlaps the opulent, no doubt to their mutual advantage.
Having reflected during the journey on the best means of obtaining news of her missing friend, Selena had concluded that it was in the character of one who loved not wisely but too well that she was most likely to attract sympathetic assistance. She proposed, therefore, to enter the wine bar in that state of solitary dejection appropriate to one misused in an affair of the heart: Ragwort and I would appear to be strangers to her, but would endeavor to find a table in close proximity.
The interior decoration of Vashti’s House has a certain Moorish quality: arched recesses in whitewashed walls, a floor of terracotta tiles, many curls and arabesques of black wrought-ironwork. Our orders for lunch were taken by a tall, dark girl, short-haired and aquiline-nosed, dressed in a costume reminiscent of the bull-ring — very tight black trousers, white shirt and scarlet cummerbund.
It being now almost two hours since our lunch in the Corkscrew, neither Ragwort nor I found any difficulty in disposing of our slices of quiche lorraine and their accompanying salads. Selena, on the other hand, sitting alone at the next table, toyed listlessly with the contents of her plate; considering the frugality of her lunch, the performance did her credit. She drank her glass of wine, however, with unaccustomed rapidity, and forthwith asked for another.
“Are you all right, love?” inquired the girl in black trousers, as she brought the second glass.
“Yes, I’m fine, thank you,” said Selena, in a tone of wretchedness bravely dissimulated. “It’s only…” She concluded with a wan smile and a sad little shrug of the shoulders.
“If you’re fine,” said the dark girl, “why are you sitting there not eating anything and looking like a wet Sunday in Highgate Cemetery?” Selena repeated the wan smile and the sad little shrug, throwing in for good measure an understated but moving gesture of the hands. Construing this as an invitation to act as confidante, the girl sat down, facing her earnestly across the wrought-iron table.
“I wouldn’t like you to think,” said Selena, “that I’m jealous or possessive or anything.”
“Of course not, love,” said the girl in black trousers. “Just who is it you’re not jealous and possessive about?”
Sipping her second glass of wine, Selena explained that she had a friend of whom she was very fond; who was, she believed, fond of her; but who sometimes behaved unpredictably and as if indifferent to her feelings. On the previous evening, although aware that Selena could not accompany her, she had announced an intention to visit Vashti’s House; and she had not returned. “So you’d like to know who she came with?”
“I’d like to know who she left with,” said Selena, with some asperity.
The dark girl, it seemed, had been serving in the bar of the discotheque on the previous evening, and might be able to assist; Selena described Julia.
“Strewth,” said the girl, “you don’t mean the woman who dropped things?”
“Yes,” said Selena. “Yes, that sounds like Julia. What exactly did she drop last night?”
“Well, love, you might ask ‘What didn’t she?’” said the dark girl, looking at Selena with what seemed to be a mixture of pity and amazed admiration.
“Oh dear.” Selena’s anxiety, I thought, was only partly feigned. “She does sometimes tend to get a trifle exuberant.”
“Has exuberant got an ‘x’ in it?”
Selena admitted that it had.
“I think your friend’s the woman who put it there.”
The particulars of Julia’s exuberance were so deplorable, it seemed, as to require telling sotto voce, and Ragwort and I heard no more of the conversation. Save for occasional murmurs of apology and extenuation, Selena took little active part in it. Eventually she sighed, tendered payment for her lunch, and rose to leave.
“If you take my advice, love,” said the dark girl, handing her her change, “you’ll forget about her. All right, so she’s got curves. So’s a roller-coaster got curves — it doesn’t mean you can have a steady relationship with it.”
“You know how it is,” said Selena, “when you’re fond of someone.” With a final wistful smile she took her departure, leaving the dark girl to shake her head in resigned acknowledgment of the power of passion over judgment.
“We weren’t able to hear the whole of your conversation,” said Ragwort when we rejoined Selena in her motor-car. “You’d better tell us the worst.”
“It appears,” said Selena, “that Julia was thrown out. Her conduct fell short of the standards of decorum which Vashti’s expects of its clients.”
“It can’t have done,” said Ragwort. “There aren’t any.”
“There are and it did. The attitude of the management is that they want people to enjoy themselves but they have to draw the line somewhere. They drew it at Julia.” Selena inserted her vehicle into the stream of westbound traffic. “No doubt she was simply trying to enter into the spirit of things and do what was expected of her. But she does seem to have overdone it rather.”
“Did you discover,” I asked, “at what hour she was ejected? And in whose company?”
“At about two o’clock in the morning. And she was still with the parlormaid person — the girl called Rowena. It seems that Rowena was staying in the flat of a friend of hers — a friend of the masculine gender — while he was away on holiday. They apparently intended to go back there and console themselves by drinking his whiskey.”
“Selena,” said Ragwort, perceiving that we were now moving briskly westwards along the Embankment, “where are we going?”
“Mortlake, of course,” said Selena.
Among the amenities of the opulent block of flats in which Rupert Galloway resided was an entryphone device; but our arrival at the main entrance coincided with that of another visitor, who obligingly held the door open without inquiring our business. The lift conveyed us with unnatural smoothness to the top floor of the building.
Neither the first ring at Rupert’s doorbell nor the second caused the door of his flat to be opened to us.
“There’s no one there,” said Ragwort.
“No one who chooses to answer,” said Selena. “Fortunately, however, it seems to have the same kind of lock as the main door to the Nursery.” She began to search for something in her handbag.
“What exactly,” said Ragwort, with a certain apprehensiveness, “is the relevance of the door to the Nursery?”
“I know how to open it without a key. Cantrip very kindly showed me how, in case I accidentally locked myself out. Ah, here we are.” She took from her handbag a credit card widely publicized as ensuring entry to places from which the holder might without its aid be excluded.
“My dear Selena,” said Ragwort, “are you proposing to commit a burglary?”
“Certainly not,” said Selena, dexterously inserting the plastic rectangle between the door and the doorpost. “We don’t intend, do we, when we have entered the flat, to steal or maliciously damage any property, or ravish any woman therein or cause grievous bodily harm to any person?”
“No,” said Ragwort, “of course not.”
“In that case it isn’t burglary. The book about criminal law that I read for Bar exams was quite clear on the point. Ah, that’s it.” She regarded the open door with the satisfaction natural in one who successfully displays a little-used accomplishment.
Cautiously she led the way into the entrance-lobby, and from there, with even greater circumspection, into the drawing-room. The room was expensively furnished and of not unpleasing proportions, though curtains of woven hessian drawn across the full-length windows, shutting out the afternoon sunlight, gave it a slightly funereal look. Selena looked carefully about her, as if Julia might be hidden somewhere behind one of the vast leather sofas or the cocktail cabinet of chrome and tinted glass; but the room was plainly unoccupied.
“I think,” she said, after a pause, “that we ought to try the bedroom.”
The door on our right led to a short corridor, off which there opened the door to the bedroom. Selena tapped on it and received no answer. After a moment’s hesitation, she turned the knob and went in, closely followed by Ragwort. I heard her draw breath rather sharply.
“Oh, lord,” said Ragwort.
On the bed lay Julia, dressed in a small quantity of black underwear and only partly covered by the sheet flung carelessly over her. She lay at an awkward angle, her head thrown back, her dark hair spread in tangled disorder across the pillow, one bare arm trailing limply over the edge of the bed. She looked pale and curiously peaceful.