The urgency of Timothy’s invitation might have justified a taxi; but I was content, on a gentle May evening, to travel by Underground from Paddington to Charing Cross and from there walk at leisure to my destination, observing the streams of office-workers bound eagerly homewards from Kingsway and High Holborn. It was that season of the year when London is at her most hopeful and adventurous: her citizens go lightly clad, without raincoats or umbrellas; they plant geraniums on the window-sills of gray commercial buildings; they buy strawberries from men at street corners; they talk optimistically of British chances at Wimbledon.
Only the deepening blue of the sky suggested the approach of evening, and the sun still shone brightly on High Holborn. Little of it, however, was allowed to penetrate the interior of the Corkscrew, whose habitues are more at ease in a conspiratorial dimness. Timothy was waiting for me at one of the round oak tables, a bottle of Niersteiner already open.
“Timothy,” I said, “will you please now abandon these childish devices to excite my curiosity, and tell me, simply and straightforwardly, which poor girl is dead and why Julia thinks it’s murder?”
“Have you really heard nothing about it? I thought you’d have seen it in the newspapers — it was quite widely reported.”
“Recently?” I asked, puzzled, for I thought that a mention in the press of the Remington-Fiske family would have attracted my attention.
“About two months ago. On the day, to be precise, of the Oxford and Cambridge Boat Race.”
My ignorance was explained: I had spent the Easter vacation in the United States of America, dependent for English news on the New York Times. I had formed the impression that April had been a quiet month in England.
Timothy took from his briefcase a thin cardboard folder, from which he drew a newspaper cutting.
“This is the report of the inquest which was in the Scuttle. The reports in the other newspapers are much the same, but this is the fullest.” He pushed the cutting towards me across the polished oak table, and I leant forward to study it by the flickering candlelight. It was illustrated by a photograph of Camilla Galloway.
HEIRESS’S COUSIN IN DEATH FALL AT CHAMPAGNE “PICNIC”
A champagne and caviar lunch at the Mortlake home of Rupert Galloway, company director father of property heiress Camilla Fiske-Galloway, ended in tragedy when the heiress’s eighteen-year-old cousin Deirdre Robinson fell to her death from the rooftop patio, a South London Coroner was told today.
Miss Robinson was alone on the patio and no one saw her fall. The other guests, watching the race from the windows of the room below, were unaware of the tragedy until alerted by screams from passers-by.
Raven-haired Miss Galloway, twenty-two, heiress to the multi-million estates in Wiltshire of the Remington-Fiske family, told the Coroner that her cousin had no reason to be depressed and had seemed to be enjoying herself. “She was looking forward to watching the race,” said Miss Galloway. “I suppose she must have leant over to get a better view and lost her balance. It’s a terrible thing to have happened.” Mrs. Dorothea Demetriou, an aunt of the dead girl, who was with her on the roof only a few minutes before she fell, confirmed that she seemed in good spirits.
Mrs. Elizabeth Brown, thirty-two, a housewife, who was among the crowds gathered on the towpath, became the first person to be aware of the tragedy. “I didn’t see her fall,” Mrs. Brown told the Coroner. “I was watching the race. The boats were just going under Barnes Bridge and still quite close together, so it was rather an exciting moment. I heard a sort of thudding sound behind me, and looked round and saw her lying there on the pavement in front of the flats. I could see at once she was dead. I began screaming and a policeman came.”
The Coroner said there was nothing to suggest that Miss Robinson had taken her life deliberately. It would have been natural for her to lean over the balcony for a better view of the race and the evidence all pointed to her having accidentally overbalanced. Her balance might have been affected by the wine she had drunk at lunch: it was not excessive, but perhaps more than she was used to.
The jury returned a verdict of misadventure.
“I see,” I said. “Poor Deirdre.”
“And Julia thinks it’s murder,” said Timothy. “She’s really very worried. She seems to feel, you see — there are Cantrip and Ragwort. I’d better get another bottle.”
Resigned to the obligations consequent on three years’ seniority, Timothy rose and moved towards the bar. Cantrip and Ragwort joined me in the circle of candlelight: I admired, as always when I see them together, the pleasing contrast between Cantrip’s black hair and black eyes and the demure autumnal coloring of Ragwort.
“Hello, Hilary,” said Cantrip, “we thought we’d find you here. Offer free grub and free booze, we said, and we’d have you here in two shakes of a mortarboard.”
“What Cantrip means is,” said Ragwort, “that we were confident that an appeal from Timothy for your assistance would not go unheeded.”
“I don’t yet know,” I said, “why my assistance should be required. All I have heard so far is that Deirdre Robinson fell from a roof on the afternoon of the Boat Race, and Julia thinks it’s murder.”
“Precisely so,” said Ragwort. “And is greatly troubled by it.”
“Flapping like a moonstruck moorhen,” said Cantrip, “and going on about Sir Thomas More and making everyone’s life a misery.”
That Julia in a state of agitation would resemble such a bird as Cantrip had mentioned I could readily believe; the relevance of Sir Thomas More I would, I suppose, in due course discover; but why, some two months after the event, there should suddenly be this anxiety as to the cause of Deirdre’s death—
“Because of the letter,” said Cantrip. “Hasn’t Timothy told you?”
There are days on which Julia does not open letters. She is overcome, as I understand it, by a sort of superstitious dread, in which she is persuaded that letters bode her no good: they will be from the Gas Board, and demand money; or from the Inland Revenue, and demand accounts; or from some much valued friend, and demand an answer. If a letter arrives on such a day as this, she does not open it but puts it carefully away, to be dealt with when she feels stronger. After that, I had always supposed, it is never seen again.
“That, certainly,” said Timothy, returning with the wine, “is the normal course of events. You will remember, however, that there are also periods of reform, during which we are promised a new, improved and more organized Julia. They generally don’t last long enough to matter much. But they always begin, of course, with a tidying of papers: that’s how she came across this.” He again opened his briefcase.
The letter was amateurishly typed, though on paper of excellent quality; the postmark on the envelope which had contained it was four days earlier than the date of the Boat Race.
Fiske House, Belgrave Place, Tuesday.
Dear Miss Larwood,
I have found out something interesting and I want you to tell me what to do about it. Can you meet me at seven on Saturday at that place we had dinner at? Ring me at home if you can’t make it, but don’t leave any messages with anyone.
Yours sincerely, Deirdre Robinson
Not the most graceful of letters, from a young woman asking a favor of a comparative stranger; but that might perhaps be shyness. I was not surprised by the letter’s effect on Julia. In the circumstances it had something of the quality of a deathbed request, and Julia would feel a sense of guilt that she had not complied with it — though, had she done so, she would have waited in vain for Deirdre, who by seven o’clock on the Saturday of the Boat Race had already the best of all excuses for failing to keep her engagements. She had wanted to tell Julia of something she had discovered; some childish and trivial secret, very probably, of no interest to anyone; but she had died without telling it. I could understand that Julia would feel troubled.
The letter lay mute and unhelpful in the candlelight, like the embodiment of some small, resentful ghost.
“I suppose,” I said, “that you could take it to the police.”
“Yes,” said Timothy, frowning slightly at his wineglass. “Yes, we did consider that. But it’s not really evidence of anything, is it? If the police did nothing, Julia would remain uneasy. On the other hand, if they did reopen the case, several perfectly innocent people might be quite unnecessarily upset.”
“So she got this idea,” said Cantrip, “that we ought to do it ourselves. Rootle about and look for clues, you know, but being all tactful and unobtrusive, so as not to upset anyone. Well, what I said was, if you get half the Chancery Bar crawling along the towpath with magnifying glasses looking for bloodstains, it might be a lot of things, but unobtrusive isn’t one of them. Apart from which, I said, I couldn’t see it was any of our business — after all, if the bird’s family aren’t fussed about her getting pushed off the roof, why should Julia worry about it?”
“That proved,” said Ragwort, “to be an ill-advised remark.”
“Too right,” said Cantrip. “It was when I said that that she got all miffed and started talking about Sir Thomas More and the traditions of the English Bar. This Thomas More chap was something in history — you ought to have heard of him, Hilary.” His tone implied, however, that he did not suppose I had. “Julia thinks he’s hot stuff, and she reckons that if someone had bumped off one of his clients he’d have done something about it. She went on about him for ages.”
“Sir Thomas More, saint and martyr,” said Ragwort, “as of course you know, Hilary, was the only member of Lincoln’s Inn ever to be canonized: a very proper object of admiration for Julia, and indeed all of us. Were it possible, however, to dwell excessively upon so improving a topic, one might be tempted to say that Julia had done so.”
“You bet one might,” said Cantrip. “Anyway, if he was allowed to waste time playing detectives instead of getting on with his paperwork, he can’t have had a Clerk like Henry. The thing is, you see, we’re all frantically busy at the moment, and we just can’t spare the time. So what we thought we’d better do,” said Cantrip happily, “was get you to do it, Hilary. It’s just your sort of thing — digging up odds and ends of gossip and finding out things that aren’t your business.”
I remarked with some coldness that my own time was not so entirely undisposed of as my companions appeared to believe, and I doubted whether my academic responsibilities would allow me to undertake the task they envisaged for me. If they wished merely to prevent Julia from talking about Sir Thomas More, I supposed some simple but humane form of gag would sufficiently serve the purpose.
“What Cantrip means is,” said Ragwort, “that your flair for research and your training in the methods of Scholarship seemed to us to make you uniquely qualified to conduct the investigation. That is what you meant, isn’t it, Cantrip?”
“Oh rather,” said Cantrip.
“And we ventured to hope,” continued Ragwort, “that by this stage of the summer term the burden of your academic duties might be less onerous than at other times of the year.”
“I’m afraid,” said Timothy, “that Julia will be quite upset if you won’t do it. She has great faith in your detective powers, you know, since that trouble she had in Venice. She often says that if it weren’t for you she might still be languishing in a dungeon under the Doge’s Palace.”
In this, as it happens, she spoke no more than the truth. When she had been suspected by the Venetian police of responsibility for a crime of passion, it had been my own investigation which had established her innocence and secured her freedom: I have written elsewhere of these events.1 A recognition of my achievement was not, however, so widespread in Lincoln’s Inn that I could be unmoved by it. Besides, for all her failings, I am fond of poor Julia, and would not wish to think of her distressed. Upon the understanding that I might look towards New Square for such assistance as their professional engagements would allow, I consented to give my mind to the question of Deirdre’s death.
Cantrip was obliged to leave us. He attends on Friday evenings at the offices of the Daily Scuttle, where it is his function to peruse the items intended for the Saturday issue of that journal and to damn to deletion those likely, in his professional opinion, to expose its proprietors to civil or criminal proceedings. Some of my readers may think that his educational disadvantages — for which, I have always said, he is rather to be pitied than blamed — would render him unsuited to such a task; but the Scuttle is fortunately one of those periodicals which eschew, so far as possible, all words of more than two syllables, so that very little of it is incomprehensible to him.
“Cantrip,” I said, “while you’re there, could you see if you can discover from your Fleet Street colleagues any further details of the evidence given at the inquest?”
“I’ll have a bash,” said Cantrip. “With lots of subtlety and discretion, of course. Toodle-pip, all of you — I’ll see you later in Guido’s.”
His departure from the Corkscrew coincided with the arrival there of Julia and Selena, both looking rather at their best. Selena wore a round-necked dress of sky-blue cotton, most becoming to herself and to the season: I remembered, seeing her, that the Courts had risen for Whitsun, and a member of the Bar could be seen in bright colors without inviting the inference of a declining practice. Julia also wore something in holiday style, of a design sufficiently dégagé to suffer little from the loss of a button or two.
It occurred to me that Julia herself was the only one of us who had had any personal acquaintance with the dead girl. Deirdre Robinson had seemed to me, from the little I had seen of her, to be peculiarly lacking in any attractive qualities; but I supposed that Julia, on the evening they had spent together, might have perceived in her client some hidden charm or talent.
“No,” said Julia sadly. “No, not really. She was, as you say, very plain, and rather dull, and she didn’t seem to like anyone very much. But I still think it matters if someone pushed her off the roof.” Julia spoke as if expecting contradiction. “One’s protection from acts of violence doesn’t depend, in a civilized society, on being talented or attractive or making people like one. It depends on the law. That, as I understand it, is the distinguishing characteristic of civilization: to protect those one likes or loves is no more than the merest barbarian might do.”
“No doubt,” said Timothy. “But why should the whole burden of defending civilization and the rule of law fall on the members of New Square?”
“I would suggest,” said Julia, absent-mindedly flicking her cigarette ash into her wineglass, “that those of us who have made the law our study and our profession have a more than ordinary responsibility to uphold the principles upon which it rests. It is a responsibility acknowledged in the traditions of the English Bar and the rules which govern our conduct. One can’t refuse to act for someone, for example, because one dislikes or disapproves of them.”
“No,” said Timothy. “One can’t pick and choose one’s clients.”
“Because otherwise there would be people who could find no one to represent them, and would be prevented from defending or enforcing their rights: the law would be applied for the benefit of some and not of others, and this would be inconsistent with the principles on which it is based. If the law is personal and partial in its application; if it defends only strength and restrains only weakness; if it varies and veers and wavers to meet the demands of power or the expediency of the moment — then it no longer has the quality of law: our civilization is built on sand, and we slide back before we realize it into that state of Nature in which, as we are told, the life of man is solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short.”
“Yes, indeed,” said Selena. “These are very proper sentiments, Julia, and do you credit. Do you feel better now?”
Julia, however, continued for some time after this to discourse on the high principles and noble traditions for which Sir Thomas More had gone to the scaffold and Erskine May had resigned high office. I blame for this sort of thing the authors of the Guide to Professional Conduct which is handed out wholesale to all those called to membership of the English Bar: they have seen fit to include in it a number of sensational and romantic tales about barristers behaving well and acting on principle and so forth; and have too little considered, in my opinion, what effect these may have on impressionable persons such as Julia, who misunderstand things and take it all seriously.
“My dear Julia,” I said at last, “do not distress yourself further about these matters. I have consented to undertake the inquiry, and there is no need for you to worry any more about civilization or the rule of law or what Sir Thomas More would have done. Sir Thomas will understand that you have done your best, and when civilization crumbles it will not be your fault at all. It is only fair to tell you, however, that I shall engage in the investigation without sharing your belief that it is a case of murder.”
She gave me a look of polite but distrustful inquiry, as if suspecting me of a wish to evade my task or excuse in advance a lack of zeal in its performance.
“Don’t you see,” I said, “that it’s the wrong girl who’s dead?”
Murder is unusual. The irritations, disappointments, envies and desires of everyday life are generally resolved in some manner less extreme. When it occurs, then, or is thought to have occurred, there must be looked for to account for it some unusual feature in the surrounding circumstances — some unusual wrong to be avenged, some unusual passion to be assuaged, some unusual advantage to be obtained.
A personal fortune of five million pounds is unusual. To gain possession of it, it is conceivable that someone might behave in a manner quite contrary to custom and convention. At a gathering, therefore, of the descendants of Sir James Remington-Fiske a murder would be not wholly unaccountable.
But one would expect it to be the heiress who was murdered.
“Camilla, however, lives and flourishes, and the supposed victim of your imagined crime is the insignificant poor relation. The rich, my dear Julia, commit many wrongs against the poor; but they seldom murder them, and hardly ever for gain.”
Julia sat silent in the candlelight, perceiving the force of my argument but unpersuaded by it.
“Moreover,” I continued, “it cannot be said that Deirdre’s death is mysterious or unexplained. There has been an inquest and evidence has been given and the Coroner is satisfied that it was an accident. The probability surely is that he is right?”
“Oh, but he can’t be.” It was Selena who answered, surprising me by her firmness. “However Deirdre came to fall from the roof at Rupert’s flat, it can’t have happened in die way the Coroner thought. Julia and I have been there, you see, and we know it can’t. I think we had better tell you — if Timothy and Ragwort don’t mind hearing it again — the story of the Grateful Client.”
1 Thus Was Adonis Murdered