16
“I DON’T SUPPOSE,” said Selena wistfully, “that you felt able, at any stage of this conversation, to allude to the bookcase question?”
“Just sort of casually,” said Cantrip. “You know, like saying you couldn’t advise Terry about his case because you couldn’t find the right books and why you couldn’t find them was because all our books are in chaos and why they’re in chaos is that we haven’t got any bookcases to put them in.”
In the coffeehouse on the following morning, Ragwort’s account of our meeting with the young carpenter was proving something of a disappointment to an audience who had evidently had high hopes of it: there was in the air a sense of not quite unspoken reproach.
“One must remember,” said Julia, “that the making of bookcases is a creative process, similar to painting a picture or writing a poem. You can’t expect Terry to work on it when he’s still so upset about Maurice.”
“Quite so,” said Ragwort. “And I’m afraid the recovery of his usual spirits is being impeded by this unpleasantness about the will. Until it’s resolved, I doubt very much whether he will be able to concentrate properly on our bookcases.”
“But Ragwort,” said Selena, turning pale, “contested probate proceedings might take years.”
“He assured us,” said Ragwort, “that the will was not made in his presence and indeed that until about two weeks ago he had no idea of its provisions. I would hope to persuade the executors, in these circumstances, that any suggestion of undue influence is manifestly absurd and they can safely disregard it, without the expense and delay of a full-scale probate action.”
“Right,” said Cantrip. “And I suppose they’re professional executors, so before they decide if they can or not they’ll spend two years looking up their insurance policies and getting Counsel’s opinion from everyone in sight and in the meantime we still won’t have any bookcases. No, what we’ve got to do is shut up this Daphne bird. So what you’ve got to do, young Larwood, is write and tell her she’s talking codswallop and if she doesn’t stop she’ll get put in prison for slander.”
“I have a feeling,” said Julia apologetically, “that it might not be entirely proper for me to write to her in quite those terms. I’m proposing to tell her that Derek Arkwright turns out to be someone I know and that means I can’t advise on the matter, even on an informal basis. Moreover, I think that you underestimate the difficulty of making Daphne shut up about anything — she’s the sort of girl who tends, once started, to go on. And indeed on. I had a letter this morning from my aunt which you may all find instructive.”
24 High Street
Parsons Haver
West Sussex
Thursday, 3rd February
Dear Julia,
I do wish people wouldn’t die, it makes things so complicated. Poor Maurice was always such a considerate person, but his will is causing all sorts of trouble.
It leaves everything — well, not everything, because there are legacies and so on, but everything left over — to “the person whom I know by the name of Derek Arkwright”—so it looks as though he knew or suspected that that wasn’t Derek’s real name. Apparently he’s really called Terence Carver, and the solicitors in charge want me to go up to London to meet him at their offices and sign something confirming that he’s the right person. They’ve suggested the 17th or 18th of this month — I thought we could meet for lunch, so do let me know which would suit you better.
That’s not what I mean by trouble, of course — I’m rather looking forward to it. What I mean by trouble is the effect on Daphne, who’s worked herself into a quite appalling state about it. She disliked Derek enough, heaven knows, simply as Derek Arkwright — as Terence Carver she detests him even more, because he turns out to be her second cousin. I did once tell you, didn’t I, about Isabella having had a sister, whom she’d quarrelled with and never spoken to again? The sister died and Terence is her son, and Daphne seems determined to keep the quarrel going.
They hadn’t met since they were children, so it isn’t surprising that Daphne didn’t recognise him. Perhaps subconsciously she did — I suppose that might account for her taking such an instant dislike to him. Anyway, she’s now more convinced than ever that her dislike was justified — he was a horrible, sly, deceitful boy, she says, and it just shows how right she was when she said he was that kind of person.
And she simply won’t believe that Maurice meant to leave him everything he had. She’s got some idea in her head that Maurice was somehow tricked or hoodwinked into doing it and she keeps saying that we owe it to his memory to make sure Derek doesn’t get away with it. It’s all complete nonsense — the will was drawn up by Maurice’s solicitors in London and signed and witnessed in their office — but she’s quite beyond reasoning with on the subject. She’s already written the solicitors a very silly letter — she didn’t show it to me before she sent it — implying that she knows a lot of things they don’t about the background and telling them that they mustn’t apply for probate. I’m hoping that they’ll ignore it, but I suppose they’ll probably think they have to investigate.
I have a feeling, from one or two things she said, that she may try to persuade you to advise her about all this — if she does, do for heaven’s sake do your best to discourage her.
The fact is, when one tries to pin down exactly what it is that she’s accusing Derek of, that it comes down to nothing more than pretending to be nicer than he really is. I’ve told her that a great many people (including me and I dare say you as well) spend most of their time pretending to be nicer than they really are. A very good thing too — if they didn’t life would be quite impossible. Daphne seems to think this very cynical of me.
Poor Daphne, I suppose what’s really upsetting her is not being mentioned in the will. I don’t mean that she’s mercenary, just that it is rather wounding for her. It was made quite recently — last October, when she was spending a lot of time with Maurice and doing all his shopping and so on — and it does seem rather strange that he didn’t think of giving her anything. It almost looks like a deliberate unkindness — after all, he left legacies of two thousand pounds each to Griselda and Mrs. Tyrrell, and I’d have thought he’d have realised how hurt Daphne would be — but it would be so unlike him to be deliberately unkind to anyone.
Some people might also find it odd of him to leave everything to Derek just after that beastly business about the Virgil frontispiece, but as a matter of fact I don’t think it was. Maurice was an incurable romantic — even worse than you — and I can just imagine him wanting to make some sort of gesture to show that he cared more about Derek than anyone else, however badly he had behaved. After all, he didn’t really have anyone else to leave it to — his earlier will left everything to various charities — and it wasn’t an enormous amount, I think about twenty-five thousand pounds, mostly in building societies.
I suppose Derek really did take the frontispiece — I wish that I could think it was all some kind of mistake, but I don’t see how it can have been.
What I got under the will was Maurice’s personal chattels, as defined by Section whatever-it-is of some Act or other, and that’s another complication. You see, we had an arrangement. Maurice didn’t like the idea of a stranger going through his personal things after he was dead, and he asked me ages ago if he could leave them all to me, so that I could sort through them and do what I thought was best. I said yes, thinking it would all be quite straightforward. He gave me a list of things he wanted particular people to have, and from time to time he’d say, “I’d like so-and-so to have such and such when I die,” and I’d add it to the list. But I didn’t really expect it to happen, not for years — after all, Maurice wasn’t old, only a year or two older than me.
You wouldn’t believe how much trouble I’ve had over that wretched list. I thought it was all perfectly clear and businesslike, but when you start trying to work out whether “clock on the mantelpiece” means the one in the study or the one in the dining room, and exactly how many glasses Ricky’s supposed to get with the cut-glass decanter, it turns out not to be easy at all. Several people one would have expected to know better have really been quite unpleasant. Mr. Williams who plays the organ and Mrs. Jarvis from the library who helps with the flowers have practically come to blows over the record player and—
Well, I didn’t mean to bother you with all that. What I meant to tell you was that Maurice had a rather nice little rococo looking glass, not really valuable but very pretty, which he’d inherited from a great-aunt and wanted you to have. But then Daphne was looking so hurt and miserable about not being mentioned in the will that I just couldn’t bear to tell her that there wasn’t anything on the list for her either, so I told her he wanted her to have the rococo looking glass. I’m sorry, I should have asked you first, of course, but I had to say something right away or it would have seemed odd, and the looking glass was the only thing I could think of. I do hope you don’t mind too much — I’ll find something nice for you in the antique shop to make up for it.
Daphne seems to be here most of the time at the moment. She comes round in the morning and asks me if I want any shopping done and if I say yes she goes out and does it and brings it back and stays until lunchtime. And if I say no, she just stays until lunchtime. So, one way or the other, it always ends with my feeling that I have to offer her lunch, and she always accepts. Poor girl, I can’t really blame her — I know she can’t afford to feed herself properly — but the fact is, of course, that making a meal for someone else is always more trouble than making it just for oneself. And somehow or other, by the time we’ve finished, the best part of the day has gone and I haven’t really done anything with it — haven’t painted anything or read anything or even written any letters. And yet I feel quite tired.
I’ve once or twice tried hinting — rather more heavily in fact than I’d usually think polite — that there are things I’d like to be getting on with. She doesn’t seem to understand, though, that that means I’d like her to go. It’s odd, she’s not the sort of girl one would call sociable, but she doesn’t seem able to imagine that anyone could sometimes prefer solitude to company.
Even the most sparkling company, which, to be candid, Daphne’s isn’t. She just sits there looking mournful and talking endlessly about Maurice, as if he were some kind of saint — quite a different sort of person from the one I was friends with. She keeps saying that I’m the only person she can share her grief with. The trouble is — I dare say it’s very selfish of me — but I don’t want to share mine, I want it all to myself. After all, I was friends with Maurice long before Daphne even knew him.
When she isn’t talking about how wonderful Maurice was she’s talking about how wicked Derek is, and how she isn’t going to let him get away with it.
On the subject of Derek, she’s really not quite rational. She’s absolutely convinced that someone’s prowling round the Rectory at night and spying on her and either it’s Derek himself or he’s responsible for it. She’s even begun to suggest that he had something to do with the burglary last summer and the stone that was thrown at her through the kitchen window. Of course, it’s absolute nonsense — what earthly reason could he have? — but the poor girl does seem to be quite seriously frightened about it. She’s insisted on giving me a spare key to the Rectory, so that if she doesn’t come round here in the morning I can go and find out what’s wrong.
Again, I’m sorry about the rococo looking glass, but I knew you’d understand. Don’t forget to let me know which day would suit you for lunch.
Yours with much love,
Reg
“So you see,” said Julia with a sigh, as she finished reading the letter, “that when one’s dealing with Daphne one has to bear in mind that she is — how can one put it?”
“Not entirely well-balanced,” said Selena.
“Disposed to paranoia,” said Ragwort.
“Nutty as a fruitcake,” said Cantrip.
A certain despondency fell upon the gathering. If the revival of Terry’s enthusiasm for his work depended on Daphne’s ceasing to make trouble, it seemed likely to be long delayed. Moreover, tolerant as she hoped she was of other people’s little weaknesses, Selena had begun to reflect with some anxiety on the possible disadvantages of employing a carpenter with a tendency to steal antique manuscripts.
Though Ragwort and Julia both firmly maintained their belief in Terry’s innocence, it soon became apparent that their confidence was founded, in Ragwort’s case, on personal friendship and, in Julia’s, on length of eyelashes. Selena found these arguments unpersuasive.
I thought it right to say that I also, for less sentimental reasons, did not believe that Terry had stolen the frontispiece.
“If you can suggest any other explanation of the evidence,” said Selena, “then please do so, Hilary, and we shall all do our utmost to be convinced. Why don’t you believe that Terry stole the frontispiece?”
“Because I don’t believe,” I said, “that the frontispiece was stolen.”
“Hilary,” said Selena, “you’re making this rather difficult for us.”
“I believe that it was not the frontispiece that was stolen, but the photographs. That is to say, the photographs were the object of the theft — the frontispiece was taken only because it was in the same drawer and the thief had no time to sort out what he wanted from what he did not.”
“The photographs? Do you mean the photographs that the Reverend Maurice had taken on holiday in France? Why on earth should anyone want to steal those?”
“I rather think,” I said, “because they included one or more photographs of the man in the black Mercedes.”
They ordered further cups of coffee and indicated that I had their attention.
“I would invite you,” I said, “to consider a number of significant facts, and to do so with that scrupulous attention to the chronology of events which was always insisted on by the immortal Bentley.” The name of that great progenitor of the art or science of textual criticism carried, I fear, less weight with them than it deserved.
“The first significant fact is that the Reverend Maurice was the only person in Parsons Haver who had seen and could recognise the man in the black Mercedes — to whom, for the sake of brevity and in accordance with established convention, I shall refer to as X. We know, of course, that X was supplying Isabella with information known only to the directors of Renfrews’ Bank and that he must therefore be either Edgar Albany or Geoffrey Bolton. Remember, however, that the Reverend Maurice did not know that. All he knew about X was what he looked like — he did not know his name, address or profession or anything else which would have enabled him to find X if he wished to do so.”
“We know all that,” said Cantrip. “Come on, Hilary — how about cutting to the action?”
“By all means,” I said. “Forgive me if I have trespassed unduly on your patience. The position, then, was as I have described it until September of last year, when a very significant event occurred: the Reverend Maurice went to France on holiday and while there saw and recognised X.”
“Hang on a minute,” said Cantrip. “Is that just a guess, or have you found out something you haven’t told us about? Because if you have it’s cheating and you don’t get points for it in the ace detective stakes.”
“My dear Cantrip,” I said, “I assure you that I have no more information than you do on the subject. When I say, however, that while on holiday the Reverend Maurice saw and recognised X, that is so far from mere conjecture as to be a virtual certainty. We now know, which we did not at the time, that he was a guest at Benjamin Dobble’s flat in Cannes, where Ragwort stayed during Christmas. And unless, my dear Ragwort, I have much misunderstood your account of the place, anyone staying there would be likely to spend at least part of the day sitting on the drawing-room balcony?”
“Yes,” said Ragwort, “I suppose they would. It’s very comfortable and has a quite superb view of the Mediterranean.”
“And also of the roof terrace of Sir Robert Renfrew’s villa, where Selena and the directors of Renfrews’ Bank spent several days during the same period. And since we know that X must be either Albany or Bolton, it is almost inconceivable that the Reverend Maurice should not have seen him.”
From that point my reasoning became, of necessity, somewhat more speculative. I could not pretend to know precisely what thoughts had passed through the clergyman’s mind on seeing the man who a few months before had been the object of so much interest in Parsons Haver.
I imagined, however, that he had found himself in a dilemma. He realised, as we knew from his conversation with Julia at Christmas, that X’s connection with Isabella had in some way involved the crime of insider dealing; but he was uncertain of the moral gravity of the offence. To bring disgrace and punishment on someone he did not think guilty of any serious wrongdoing would have been repugnant to him. Ought he to take steps to identify X and expose him as a criminal, or should he take no action?
He would not have wanted to make an immediate decision — he needed time to reflect and perhaps seek the advice of others. Besides, he would have been reluctant to be distracted from his idyll with Terry. But he would have seen that X was merely a temporary visitor at the villa, as he himself was at Benjamin’s flat, and might leave at any moment. If he did nothing now, how would he find X again if he decided that he ought to do so? What would enable him to act later without committing him to act at once? He had his camera with him and he was an enthusiastic photographer. His solution would have been to take a photograph.
With a photograph, he could reasonably expect to have little difficulty in identifying X Once he showed it to someone familiar with people in financial circles — someone, for example, like Ricky Farnham — he had every chance of learning not only the man’s name, but enough about him to judge what action to take.
But before he could show the photographs to anyone—
“They were stolen,” said Julia.
“Crumbs,” said Cantrip, “you mean it was X who swiped them?”
“From the sequence of events that Hilary has described,” said Ragwort, “that certainly seems a reasonable conclusion.”
Selena gave a deep sigh.
“You all seem to have forgotten,” she said, “that the theft took place at night, when Terry and the Reverend Maurice were the only people in the house.”
“My dear Selena,” I said, “the security arrangements in a country Vicarage are unlikely to be comparable to those of the Bank of England. It would require, I imagine, very little skill in housebreaking to obtain entry by a downstairs window.”
“And to find what one wanted in a strange house, at night, without making a mess of anything or disturbing the occupants?”
“Maurice and Terry looked at the photographs in the study, which faces onto the street, and afterwards put them away in a drawer in the same room. Someone who had been watching through the window from the darkness outside would have had little difficulty in finding them.”
“And how would X even know that Maurice had taken his photograph or that it was anything for him to worry about?”
“A man with a crime to conceal notices when he is being watched, even more when he is being photographed. Once X discovered, as he could have done by a few very simple enquiries, that the person taking the photographs had an address in Parsons Haver, the danger would have been clear to him. You seem determined, if I may say so, to dislike my theory.”
“On the contrary,” said Selena, “I like it very much. I think it’s a perfectly charming theory. That’s why it seems such a pity that there isn’t any evidence for it.”
Selena is sometimes inclined to take a rather narrow view of what constitutes evidence: it was hardly reasonable to expect me, in all the circumstances, to provide bloodstains and fingerprints. I had not said that the matters I had referred to were conclusive; I had said merely that they were suggestive.
And, in addition, there was also the matter of Daphne’s burglary.
“Do explain, by all means, what Daphne’s burglary can possibly have to do with the matter.”
“We have been told by Terry that Isabella kept a filing cabinet, which she called her little box of secrets, containing documents which she used for the purposes of fortune-telling. And also, no doubt, for the purposes of blackmail. The filing cabinet is presumably in Daphne’s possession and still at the Rectory. If X was being blackmailed by Isabella, the filing cabinet almost certainly contains documentary evidence of whatever it was that she knew to his discredit. In short, it appears probable that the victims of the theft and of the attempted burglary both had something in their possession which X would have wished to destroy. Do you think it unduly fanciful to suggest a connection?”
“Well,” said Selena, sighing again, “if I say to myself every night before I go to sleep, ‘The frontispiece was not stolen by Terry, but by a man called X,’ I dare say I may come to believe it.”
The others, however, embraced my theory with more wholehearted enthusiasm, too pleased with it for exonerating Terry to observe that it might also have less agreeable consequences. I felt obliged to draw their attention to a further sequence of events, which if subjected to such reasoning would point to a similar but more sinister conclusion.
“We must remember,” I said, “that the loss of the photographs did not quite restore the position to what it had been before. The Reverend Maurice now knew something — that is to say, an address at which X had at least stayed for a few days — which would have given him, had he been determined to identify X, a possible avenue of enquiry. He might, for example, have written a discreetly phrased letter to the owner of the villa. In fact, however, his distress at the loss of the frontispiece drove the whole matter from his mind. We can safely assume that he took no further action until shortly before Christmas.”
“Why should we think that he did anything then?”
“A few days before Christmas he had a conversation with Julia, in which he seemed anxious to learn whether the man in the black Mercedes was guilty of a serious crime. Julia’s answers would evidently have confirmed that he was. On the following day, at the same time that Julia was posting a letter to Ragwort, the Reverend Maurice also posted a letter. On the morning that Ragwort received Julia’s letter, Sir Robert Renfrew, in the same postal area, apparently received a communication which caused him suddenly to summon his fellow directors to Cannes. I am suggesting that it was the letter posted by Maurice.”
“Oh nonsense,” said Selena. “He summoned his fellow directors because he’d decided that the time was ripe for the takeover of a company called Lupilux — as it happens, I’m working on the documents now. There’s nothing secret about that — the bid became public nearly a month ago, and has been widely commented on in the financial press.”
“I am suggesting that that was merely a pretext for the invitation. I cannot say, of course, exactly what the Reverend Maurice may have said in his letter, but it must have been enough to indicate to Sir Robert that one of his codirectors had been seen in Parsons Haver in circumstances which seemed suspicious. He naturally concluded that this had something to do with the insider-dealing business which had been worrying him for so long.”
“So he decided to get them both down to Cannes,” said Cantrip, “and then just sort of casually mention Parsons Haver and see how they reacted?”
“Something, no doubt, very much along those lines. It appears that he did not succeed in identifying the culprit — if he had, Selena would be aware of it. On the other hand, it is likely that whatever he said would have been enough to warn X of the danger. Albany and Bolton returned to England on 22nd December. On Christmas Eve the Reverend Maurice was taken ill. By the morning of Boxing Day he was dead.”
“But Maurice was at home by himself all day on Christmas Eve,” said Julia. “Hilary, you talk as if X could walk through locked doors, and come and go without anyone seeing him.”
Poor Julia is of an imaginative and superstitious disposition. I perceived that she was alarmed by the image of a nameless and faceless figure, gliding silent and unseen through the night, leaving death behind.
“My dear Julia,” I said. “I am not suggesting that X has any supernatural quality. He is invisible only in the same way as any other stranger whom you might pass in the street without taking any particular interest in. One must imagine him, of course, to be a man of some ability — not only physically agile, but quick-witted and decisive, always ready to calculate risk against opportunity.”
“It’s pure moonshine,” said Selena, with unusual asperity, “and high time that we went back to Chambers and did some work.” Of the two men who might be X, I had not described the one she liked least.
I myself would have preferred not to reach the conclusion I had; but two people who had known something that X would have wished to conceal had met unexpected deaths. I could no longer feel confident that Isabella and Maurice had died of natural causes; nor did I think it unreasonable for Daphne to be afraid.