It was not until the others had left us and Timothy was settling our account that I mentioned my need to borrow a rather substantial sum of money: the holiday season being at its height, I feared that it would only be by tendering the first-class fare that I could persuade any airline to convey me to Corfu by the following morning. Unfortunately, since the rewards of Scholarship are not of a material nature…
“Yes,” said Timothy, seeming perplexed, “yes, Hilary, I know about the indifference of the Scholar to worldly wealth, you’ve told me about it before. But why have you suddenly decided that you want to be in Corfu by tomorrow morning?”
“Because tomorrow is the day of the cricket match between the Writers and the Artists, and Sebastian is not a young man to default on such an obligation. He and Selena will therefore return to Corfu tomorrow. There is little doubt that they will receive an invitation to spend tomorrow night at the Villa Miranda; and I am concerned for their safety.”
“My dear Hilary,” said Timothy, “you can’t possibly be serious.” It took me several minutes to persuade him that I was in earnest.
“Well,” he said at last, “if you really think there’s going to be some sort of unpleasantness, I suppose it would be better if I went. God knows what Henry will say.”
“There is no need,” I said, “to disrupt your professional engagements. My dear Timothy, you cannot imagine that I propose to engage in any adventure of a physical nature — it is simply a matter of persuading Selena and Sebastian not to return to the Villa Miranda.”
Eventually, though not without doubtful looks and anxious murmurs, he agreed that it was I who should go — only, perhaps, because he still did not altogether believe that the matter was a serious one.
“I can understand,” he said, “that Camilla might be in danger. But what earthly reason could anyone have for doing any harm to Sebastian and Selena?”
“I think,” I said, “because Sebastian talked too much about Book XI of the Odyssey and the transmission of the texts of Euripides.”
The Esplanade at Corfu, if considered as a public park, is not particularly extensive. The Corfiots, however, do not choose so to regard it, but boast instead that it is the largest public square in Europe. An elliptical space of ground lying between the town and the Citadel, encircled and traversed by avenues of chestnut and acacia, it beguiles the memory into recalling it as green — a varied and luxuriant green; though the truth is that the grass does not flourish there, and much of its area is a bare and sunburnt brown. From a table on the pavement in the Liston, the arcade of shops and cafes which occupies the north-western quarter of its circumference, I sat looking across at the more westerly of the two peaks of rock on which the Citadel is built, trying in vain — so precipitous is the rock and so massive its fortification — to distinguish the work of Nature from the work of man. The eastern summit, though hardly less formidable, is hidden by its companion from the view of spectators in the Liston.
Corfu has the charm of a place which reminds one of other places — which and for what reason one is not altogether certain. The deviousness of the narrow streets, winding in and out of small, unexpected squares; the elaborate little balconies tête-à-tête above long flights of marble steps; the bazaar-like profusion of merchandise outside obscure shopfronts; the noises of seafaring; the occasional smell of drains mingling with the scent of flowers — these things, I suppose, remind one chiefly of Venice, especially of those things in Venice which remind one of Istanbul. The Liston, however, has a certain Parisian flavor; and there is something about the Esplanade — the neo-Classical architecture and the circular bandstand — which irresistibly recalls Cheltenham or Bath. A town, one can hardly deny it, in every sense provincial; but with the faded, rather sluttish elegance of a provincial beauty who a long time ago spent a season in the capital.
I had lunched at the Aiglou restaurant, thinking it the probable rendezvous for those engaged to play cricket on the Esplanade in the afternoon. Two or three of those who passed by were known to me from previous visits, and paused to exchange greetings; but of those concerned in the matter which brought me there there was no sign.
I removed, having eaten, to the adjoining cafe, where the purchase of a small black coffee and a Metaxa would secure me the undisturbed occupation of a table for the rest of the afternoon. I chose a position from which I could observe both ends of the Liston and the far side of the Esplanade, supposing that if anyone approached it would be from one of those directions. I had forgotten that the shops and cafes of the Liston have entrances also on Capodistria Street, and that a new arrival at the table behind me might escape my notice.
“If I see an Oxford don being ravished by my sister,” said a cheerful English voice, “is it my duty to interpose myself between them?”
Looking round in some alarm, I saw that the occupants of the table were the copper-haired Fairfax twins. Their attention, however, not being directed towards me, I concluded that I was not the imagined victim of the hypothetical outrage.
“Chance,” said Lucinda, “would be a fine thing. I do think it’s mean of Selena to keep Sebastian away until the last moment — she might at least have brought him back to Corfu in time to have lunch with us. Didn’t anyone ever tell her that she ought to let other little girls play with her nice toys?”
“The toy doesn’t want to be played with,” said Lucian. “Take the advice of a brother who has your best interests at heart — forget this man and stick to Greek fishermen. Sebastian doesn’t fancy anyone but Selena.”
“I don’t see why,” said his sister plaintively. “What’s she got that I haven’t got?”
“Absolutely nothing, sweetheart, lots less of practically everything. But that’s how it is—le coeur a ses raisins, as the French say, which the raisins know nothing about. You might as well ask why men go overboard about Mama.”
“I’ve given up trying to explain that,” said his sister. “I just watch out for the signs and stand by to help with the debris.”
They both sighed, overtaken by that indulgent despair so often induced in children by reflecting on the conduct of their parents — closely resembling that induced in parents by reflecting on the conduct of their children.
The news that Sebastian and Selena were not as yet in the company of the Demetriou family filled me with a relief little short of euphoria. Moreover, it occurred to me that the circumstances afforded a happy opportunity to verify my opinion concerning a particular aspect of the matter under investigation.
I had still in my possession the photographs which Julia had found in the pocket of Deirdre’s coat. I took them out and put them down on my table, in the manner, as I hoped, of the conscientious tourist preparing to write postcards to family and friends. When next the waiter came hurrying past me I contrived a slight collision between us, in apparent consequence of which the photographs went flying in a colorful cascade across the space of ground between myself and the Fairfax twins. The two young people jumped up in good-natured haste to set about retrieving them.
“Thank you,” I said extending my hand, “that is most kind.” They made no attempt, however, to restore my property to me, but stood as if rooted to the pavement under the sunlit arcade, staring at the photographs, then at each other, then at me, then again at the photographs.
“Where—?” said Lucinda.
“How—?” said Lucian.
“I must apologize,” I said, “for their rather indelicate nature. They were not intended for public display.”
“It’s not that,” said Lucian. “It’s just — it’s just that we’d awfully like to know where you got them.”
“Yes,” said his sister. “Yes, we would. Can we offer you a Metaxa or anything?”
I accepted the invitation and joined them at their table.
“It would be indiscreet of me,” I said, “to explain exactly how the photographs which engage your interest come to be in my hands. I may say, however, that they were formerly in the possession of a young woman — now, sadly, no longer living — who had acquired them by rather dubious means from two cousins of hers. I believe, not to put too fine a point on it, that she had stolen them.”
“It was Deirdre,” exclaimed Lucinda. “I always said it was Deirdre — the little beast. Oh dear,” she added, biting her knuckles, “I shouldn’t say that now she’s dead. Oh dear, poor Deirdre.” The difficulty seemed almost universal of remembering, in relation to Deirdre, the maxim de mortuis nil nisi bonum.
“I perceive,” I said, “that you have some knowledge of the matter.”
“It’s an extraordinary coincidence,” said Lucian, “but we think that this girl’s cousins are people who are friends of ours. Quite close friends, actually.”
“So you see,” said Lucinda, “if we keep the photographs and promise to give them back to these friends of ours, it will all be all right, won’t it?” She made this suggestion with such lively enthusiasm that I hardly had the heart to disappoint her.
“I am afraid,” I said, “that that will not quite serve. Your friends, you see, had also acquired them by means not entirely orthodox — their title to them is by no means clear. Your friends, as you may know, have a relative whom they rather dislike — I will call him their uncle, though that is not the precise relationship. In recent years they have had few personal dealings with him; but there are certain points of contact between the circles in which they move. Their uncle has seen fit to interest himself in their activities and to inform their father of matters which he thought to merit disapproval. What especially infuriates your friends — a young man and a young woman, I believe, of similar age to yourselves — what especially infuriates them is that their uncle, in his own private life — but perhaps they have told you all this, and I trespass on your patience by repeating it?”
Shaking their coppery heads, they mutely reassured me that my narrative still held their interest.
“—that their uncle, in his own private life, is himself accustomed to indulge in practices which would cause a raised eyebrow among the strictly conventional. Last autumn, finding themselves in London, they saw an opportunity to be innocently revenged. Having learnt from some mutual acquaintance that their uncle had invited several of his friends to join him on a particular evening in certain idiosyncratic diversions, they intruded on the gathering in the guise of members of the police force, conducting what is known as a raid.”
“I say,” said Lucinda, resolutely ingenuous, “how awful of them. Weren’t they afraid they’d be recognized?”
“Evidently not. Their uncle had not seen them since they left school, and they made liberal use of wigs and false mustaches. You may perhaps think, knowing them as you do, that the girl would have had some difficulty in disguising her strikingly feminine appearance; but it is surprising — I have had a little experience with amateur theatricals — how easily a young woman of voluptuous figure may, with suitable padding, pass as a substantially built young man, provided that she does not open her mouth. Well, the enterprise succeeded beyond their expectations — not only did they embarrass their uncle, but they also secured possession of his camera, with which he and his friends had been photographing one another in various interesting poses. They developed the film, and the photographs which you are holding are the result. Your friends, I gather, made no immediate use of them, though they were comforted by the thought that if their uncle made any further attempt to interfere in their private lives material was at hand to discredit his opinion. Meanwhile, they kept the photographs in a place which they fondly imagined to be secure and private, taking them out from time to time merely for their personal amusement.”
“Deirdre didn’t know about all this,” said Lucian, “you can’t have heard about it from Deirdre.”
“No,” I said. “No, it wasn’t from Deirdre — though she evidently had a certain talent for knowing things she was not supposed to know and finding things she was not supposed to find. Certainly she found these photographs, on some occasion when she was visiting her cousins, and decided — I say nothing of her motives — to take possession of them. When her cousins discovered the loss they were, I rather think, more than a little perturbed: much as they disliked their uncle, they had never intended that such damaging photographs should pass into general circulation. Still, there was nothing to be done: they had almost forgotten the incident, until a few months later the photographs were scattered on the ground before them on the Esplanade at Corfu.”
“Oh,” said Lucinda despondently, “you know it’s us.”
They sat gazing at me with bewildered apprehension. Lucinda sought or offered reassurance by surreptitiously clasping her brother’s hand.
“I don’t understand how you know all this,” said Lucian. “You seem to know things that no one could know except us.”
“It’s as if you could see into people’s minds,” said his sister. “Who are you? How do you know all these things?”
“I am a scholar,” I said. “Few mysteries are impenetrable to the trained mind.”
They continued, however, to gaze at me with a sort of superstitious dread, as if supposing me studied in some darker and more secret learning than is to be found in the statutes of Edward I or the books of Glanvil and Bracton. My heart warmed to these delightful young people: it was such a different response from any I could have hoped for in Lincoln’s Inn, where my carefully reasoned deductions would have been described as mere guesswork, or else as so childishly simple that the members of the Nursery, had they not been occupied with more important matters, could have worked them out for themselves in half the time.
“There is no need,” I said kindly, “to look so anxious. Your conduct is quite understandable: the interference of your relative in your affairs must have been most irritating.”
“We wouldn’t have minded,” said Lucian, “but it’s so beastly for Mama. Rupert writes to Father saying we’re behaving badly and Father writes to Mama and says she can’t have brought us up properly and Mama gets all upset. It’s terribly unfair, because she has brought us up properly — well, she tried.”
“You may think,” said Lucinda, “that we’re not terribly well brought up. But it isn’t Mama’s fault.”
“I believe,” I said, “that you are very fond of your mother, and would go to great lengths to protect her from any distress?”
To this they both vigorously assented.
“And we didn’t keep the camera,” said Lucinda. “We gave it to Oxfam.”
There was a further question which I should have liked to ask them; but I thought, despite the impression I had made on them, that they would not have given me a truthful answer. With the photographs again in my possession, I left the Fairfax twins and made my way, by a discreetly circuitous route, to another cafe further down the Liston, where I sat at a table shaded from the sun by a wide blue canopy.
Men in white had begun to gather beside the Esplanade, some young, some middle-aged. The older men — these, presumably, were the Writers and Artists — were dressed in conventional white flannels; the younger ones — those qualified, I supposed, by ties of blood rather than personal accomplishment to play for one or other of the two sides — had preferred to wear shorts. They hoped, perhaps, to impress with the shapeliness of their legs those tourists of the female sex who were now beginning to take afternoon refreshments at the tables in the Liston; though Julia, most susceptible of tourists, has been heard to say that the traditional cricketing costume, if worn by a young man of graceful figure, is of all forms of masculine dress the one most conducive to desire. (But that, I seem to remember, was under the influence of some particular attachment.)
Looking across to the far side of the Esplanade, I observed a motor-car draw up there, of moderate size and rather shabby, and a tall, dark man emerge from the door nearest to the driving seat. Though I had not the privilege of any personal acquaintance with Constantine Demetriou, I thought that I would instantly have known him, even had he not been accompanied by Camilla and his wife and son. I would not have doubted, even at such a distance, that this was a man of no ordinary sort, but one marked out by some kind of greatness. I cannot say precisely what it was that produced this effect: though tall, he was not in truth so much above average height as to account for the impression he gave of Olympian stature: but he walked across the Esplanade like a man who treads an immortal path, in the footsteps of Homer and Aeschylus.
The Writers and Artists welcomed him with enthusiasm. With a certain air of ceremony, he settled Dolly at a table close by the edge of the cricket pitch, in the shade of a thick-leaved acacia tree, with Camilla and Leonidas on either side of her; the group was completed by the Fairfax twins, who strolled across from the Liston to join them. The poet himself continued to go to and fro among the players, no doubt with words of encouragement and exhortation for his team.
There was as yet no sign of Sebastian and Selena, and Constantine seemed once or twice to look anxiously at his watch.
At last, however, I saw them hurrying towards the cricket pitch from the southern end of the Esplanade, Selena every few yards or so giving a little skip to keep pace with Sebastian’s longer stride. She was wearing the dress of sky-blue cotton which I had admired on a previous occasion, and Sebastian had somehow provided himself with clothing of suitable whiteness for the activities of the afternoon. Constantine waved, and went a little way to meet them.
They joined the group at the edge of the cricket pitch, Leonidas yielding to Selena his place beside his mother. The reunion seemed an occasion for much laughter and many embraces: I could hardly think it a suitable moment to break in on the gathering with dark warnings of malice and danger. Which might, after all, be quite unfounded: the theory which in London I had held with such conviction had begun, in the sunlit warmth of Corfu, to seem like a morbid and improbable fancy. Moreover, I was persuaded that there was nothing to fear until they all returned to the Villa Miranda. I accordingly resolved to remain where I was, awaiting an opportunity to speak privately to Selena.
The twenty-three-yard strip of coconut matting which is the island’s substitute for the carefully tended green wickets of England was rolled out in the center of the pitch and secured to the bare brown earth. Though too far away to be certain which side had won the toss, I supposed that it must have been the Artists, since they went in to bat first: on the Corfu ground, I am told by those who understand such matters, this is almost always an advantage, obliging the other side to waste their energies in the field in the hotter part of the day and to face the bowling when the deceptive shadows of evening have begun to reach toward the wicket.
Constantine, however, gave no impression of feeling that luck was against him, but set his field in the bold and heroic style which shows confidence in the favor of the gods: the majority of his team were gathered closely round the batsman, hopeful of catches, and those left to wander in the outfield had an exiled, solitary look. I gathered that Constantine was not of that school of thought which holds that in limited over matches, such as are played in Corfu, the primary object of the fielding side should be to contain the scoring rate rather than to take wickets.
His strategy seemed at first to be vindicated by success, for the opening batsmen were swiftly and inexpensively dismissed. The Artists had scored fourteen runs for two wickets when their captain took his place at the crease — a bushy-bearded, barrel-shaped man, with whom I had a slight acquaintance. The vigor and panache of his painting had earned him, if not an international reputation, one which at any rate extended beyond the shores of his native island. He brought the same qualities to his batsmanship: if, as he notoriously believed, the true function of the brush was to transfer as large a quantity of paint as possible to the canvas, the function of the bat was by the same token to hit every ball bowled, of whatever speed or length, as hard as possible towards the boundary. This technique, if there were any justice in the game, would have cost him his wicket half a dozen times before he reached double figures; but there is none, and he survived.
Constantine began to look anxious. In spite of bowling changes and the reluctant withdrawal of fielders to the depopulated outfield, the painter could not be dislodged and continued to score freely. He did manage, in his eagerness to score at the end of each over the single run required to retain the bowling, to run out two of his partners; but it was plainly too much to hope that the whole team would be similarly disposed of. At the end of the seventeenth over, when the Artists’ score had reached the eighties, Constantine shrugged his shoulders, as if willing to try anything once, and threw the ball to his son.
Not following the fashion of his contemporaries, Leonidas was dressed in flannels, but with a shirt slashed like a tunic from arm to waist: a design intended, no doubt, to give greater ease of movement, but also affording to the onlookers, when he ran up to bowl, a tantalizing glimpse of bare brown flesh. I thought how fortunate it was that Julia was not with me.
The first ball he bowled was what an aficionado would have described, I believe, as being of a good length and pitching on the off stump: the painter hit it for four runs, finding a gap in what is termed the leg side field. Anticipating a similar stroke, Constantine moved a fieldsman ten yards to the right. The second ball was again of good length and pitching on the off stump: again the batsman hit it for four — through the space left vacant by the fieldsman. Looking dejected, the boy turned and went back to begin his run-up for a third time: once more he bowled a ball well pitched up on the off stump. The batsman, seeing how closely it resembled its predecessors, stepped forward to deal with it in a similar manner; but on this occasion it turned shyly, almost coquettishly, away, leaving the bat to pass through empty air; and then moved back again to continue on its way towards the off stump. The painter, as he walked back to the Liston, shook his head sadly at Leonidas, as if deploring that one so young should be capable of such duplicity.
The Artists were in due course dismissed for a total of a hundred and thirty-one runs — a respectable score for the ground, but by no means invincible, requiring the Writers to score at a rate of precisely four runs an over in order to secure victory. Leonidas had taken four wickets. Sebastian had done nothing in particular to distinguish himself or bring glory on the name of his College and University; on the other hand, he had done nothing to bring them into disrepute, which is more than can always be said of my colleagues travelling abroad.
Tea was taken. I use the expression in a conventional sense, to signify the interval between one innings and the next, since players and spectators alike preferred for the most part to refresh themselves with lager. I felt for a moment a certain uneasiness at the thought of Sebastian and Selena taking food or drink in the midst of the Demetriou family; but the waiter brought a number of bottles and glasses on the same tray, and there seemed no way of anyone foreseeing who would drink from which.
Whether from a fixed regard for the quality of English batsmanship or because he thought it an honor proper to be accorded to a guest, Constantine selected Sebastian to be one of the opening batsmen. His partner was a dark man of saturnine appearance, whom I recognized with a slight effort of memory as an amateur historian of the Byzantine era and the author of a despondent epic novel set in that period: he batted cautiously, guarding his wicket as carefully as his sister’s honor from the brutal onslaughts of the bowler, but betraying no consciousness that the game was one which involved the scoring of runs. In spite of his caution, however, he was caught at square leg off the first ball of the fifth over. The spectators observed his departure with not unmixed regret; and Sebastian was joined at the crease by his captain.
Though I profess no expertise in the subtleties of the game, I had sufficiently often been persuaded to lend the encouragement of my presence at College and University matches at once to recognize the high quality of Constantine’s batmanship. He played with a fluency and majestic elegance I had seldom seen equalled. His eye and speed, no doubt, were not what they had been in his youth; but I thought that in his prime he could hardly have found himself outclassed in any side he chose to play for.
Sebastian also, as if inspired by his example, began to play with a sparkle and stylishness I had not known him to possess. It commonly happens, I have seen it often, that two batsmen playing together for the first time are unable, whatever their individual talents, to score with much rapidity: one calls for a run; his partner hesitates; the first retreats; the second sets forth down the wicket; the first shouts “No”; the second, according to temperament, goes back cursing under his breath or forward cursing at the top of his voice; at best there is no run, at worst there is a run-out. With Constantine and Sebastian there was none of this: between them there seemed to be so perfect a sympathy as to preclude such misunderstandings; and despite a defensive field they maintained a scoring rate approaching six runs an over.
It may be that some of my readers would wish me to give a full description of this agreeable interlude, relating in detail the particular attributes of each ball bowled and each stroke played. Regretfully, I must disappoint them: such an account would not be germane to my narrative, nor is mine the pen to undertake such a task. The partnership ended in the nineteenth over, when Sebastian fell victim to an interesting and original interpretation of the leg before wicket rule on the part of one of the umpires — who was, I now remembered, a cousin of the barrel-chested painter. Sebastian, being a well-brought-up young man, walked back without argument or reproach to rejoin the group gathered round Dolly at the edge of the cricket pitch.
I had hoped that when his innings was concluded Selena might be tempted to pay less attention to the game — perhaps to wander about a little, looking at the shop windows of the Liston, and so providing me with an opportunity of private conversation with her. She chose, however — whether from motives of politeness, or because the game had reached a sufficiently dramatic stage to engage her interest — to remain in her place beside Dolly. I resigned myself to making, if I could not speak to her before the match was concluded, a less discreet approach than I had hoped.
Aristotle, I suppose, would have approved of cricket — a game which peculiarly demonstrates how a moment’s error may bring down the protagonist from the heights of prosperity to the depths of disaster. At ten minutes past six o’clock the Writers seemed in an enviable position: a mere forty runs needed for victory; thirteen overs in which to make them; eight wickets standing; and their captain still at the crease in apparently invincible form. By half past the hour matters were very different.
The two batsmen who succeeded Sebastian (a minor poet and the nephew, I believe, of the epic novelist) were out of form or out of luck; their wickets fell before the score reached a hundred. Leonidas played a charming little innings, giving signs of having inherited something of his father’s talents; but he played at a ball which his father would have left to its own devices, and was caught behind the wicket with only a dozen runs to his credit. Four further batsmen (of whose literary achievements or connections I am unable to give particulars) came and went without making much contribution to the total; and the Writers, at the fall of their penultimate wicket, still needed six runs to win.
The influential critic and belles-lettriste who occupied eleventh place in the batting order, though undoubtedly familiar with Aristotelian principles, had assumed at some much earlier stage that his services would not be called on and that there was no reason to reject the generous offers of lager made by those anxious for his goodwill. After an unsteady progress to the wicket he stood leaning heavily on his bat, evidently grateful for its support, and smiled with hazy benevolence at those about him. When the bowler began to hurl projectiles in his direction, he took no offense at this unfriendly conduct but gently waved his bat in the air in what seemed to be a gesture of forgiveness and good fellowship. By some dispensation of Providence his wicket survived the three balls which remained of the over.
It could not be supposed that such a miracle would be repeated. Unless Constantine were able to make the necessary runs during the next over, the Artists would be assured of victory: it was merely a question — since his partner was clearly in no condition to participate in any running between the wickets — of ensuring that the ball never reached the boundary. The Artists accordingly set a defensive field.
Constantine, with Homeric calm, prepared to receive the bowling, looking carefully about him for any vulnerable space between the fieldsmen. The first four deliveries, however, all rather wide outside the leg stump, gave him no opportunity for any scoring stroke. It seemed to me — I suppose this cannot actually have occurred — but it seemed to me that all those in the Liston held their breath as he waited for the fifth ball of the over. It was slightly short of a length, and he took two majestic paces down the wicket to meet it. The sunlight gleamed on his bat as he drove the ball high over deep mid-on.
I heard a cry and a crash of breaking glass; I felt rather than saw a massive figure hurtling towards me; and I was enveloped in darkness.