The Sirens Sang of Murder

by Sarah Caudwell

  ‘I don’t suppose,’ said Cantrip, ‘that they actually wanted it for themselves. But let’s face it, if you appoint a snooty firm like Stingham’s to be your executors and then go and die leaving an estate worth twelve hundred quid, they’re not exactly going to give you top priority. If they get round to applying for probate by the turn of the century, you can think yourself jolly lucky.’

  ‘The poor girl first sought advice from Henry, who told her that the matter wasn’t worth fussing about. He would naturally be reluctant to antagonize a leading firm of solicitors. In her despair, she turned to Cantrip.’

  ‘Well, not in despair exactly,’ said Cantrip, ‘but jolly miffed. She hadn’t actually seen this uncle of hers since she was a kid – he was one of those chaps who are always going off to make their fortune and turn up once in ten years or so to borrow a fiver – but she thought it was frightfully nice of him to have wanted to leave her these books and pretty rotten that she wasn’t getting them after all. It made a sort of bond between us, because that’s how I felt about the air gun my Uncle Hereward gave me on my fourteenth birthday, and it got taken away from me just because I broke a few windows.’

  ‘And were you,’ I asked, ‘able to assist her?’

  ‘Oh, rather,’ said Cantrip. ‘There’s a bird at Stingham’s called Clemmie Derwent who’s an old mate of mine – we were at Cambridge together. So I rang her and told her to get a move on, as a favour under the Old Pals Act, and they’re going to hand these books over any day now. So Lilian thinks I’m the greyhound’s galoshes, and Henry’s as miffed as maggots.’

  ‘That,’ I said, ‘must be extremely gratifying.’

  ‘Well, in a way,’ said Cantrip, with a look of sudden doubt. ‘The trouble is, though, that when Henry’s miffed he can make life a bit difficult. You suddenly find you haven’t got any fees coming in and the only work you’re getting is Legal Aid cases in Scunthorpe. What he’s done this time is put the kybosh on a rather jolly little spot of holiday I thought I’d got fixed up in Jersey. Clemmie Derwent wants me there on the Friday after Easter to advise the trustees of some settlement thing, and she wants me to stay over until the Monday, so I thought it would be a sound scheme to stop on for the rest of the week and sit on the beach and build sand castles. But Henry’s gone and accepted a brief in West London County Court on Tuesday afternoon, and he says he can’t give it to anyone else, so I’ve got to come back. I bet you anything he did it on purpose.’

  ‘Are you saying,’ said Julia in a curious tone, ‘that Clementine Derwent has instructed you in connection with a case in Jersey?’

  ‘That’s right,’ said Cantrip. ‘I haven’t the foggiest what it’s about.’

  ‘I see – how nice,’ said Julia, imparting to these words a degree of coldness which one might have supposed sustainable only by some more polysyllabic observation.

  I was perplexed. Unless she had decided in the cause of Art to rehearse in propria persona the icy disdain which characterized her heroine, I could think of nothing to account for her sudden change of manner. Her tone had unmistakably been that used by a well-bred Englishwoman to indicate that if she were not well bred, or not English, she would be making a scene. Had I not known how long it was since she and Cantrip had been on the terms sometimes productive of such a sentiment, I would almost have suspected her of jealousy.

  ‘I say,’ said Cantrip, ‘are you miffed about something?’

  ‘No,’ said Julia. ‘Of course not.’

  ‘Yes, you are,’ said Cantrip. ‘What are you miffed about?’

  ‘My dear Cantrip,’ said Julia, ‘I have already said that I am not miffed about anything.’

  ‘All right then, what aren’t you miffed about in particular?’

  ‘Since you ask, I am in particular not miffed about Clementine Derwent sending you instructions in connection with a case in Jersey. Clementine is entitled to send instructions to anyone she pleases, and I hope her clients will be as impressed as I am by the originality of her choice of Counsel.’

  ‘Look here, Larwood,’ said Cantrip, ‘what’s that supposed to mean?’

  ‘You will forgive my saying, I hope, in view of our longstanding friendship, that you are not universally regarded as an expert in Revenue matters.’

  ‘No, of course I’m not. Whenever I try to read a Finance Act I come over all wobbly and have to lie down, like you with a first-aid manual. What’s that got to do with me going to Jersey? No one’s said there’s a tax angle.’

  ‘My dear Cantrip, in Jersey there’s always a tax angle. It’s the whole raison d’être of the place.’

  ‘Just because it happens to be a tax haven – ’

  ‘“Offshore financial centre” is the expression generally preferred in polite circles.’

  ‘Just because it’s an offshore what’s-it that doesn’t mean they can’t have cases about anything else. They have cows there, don’t they? It’s probably a claim for possession of a cow shed.’

  ‘That would be governed by the law of Jersey, that is to say by the ancient customary law of the Duchy of Normandy, and would be dealt with by Jersey advocates. The services of English solicitors or Counsel are required in Jersey only in those cases where fiscal considerations are of major importance. That is why it is usual, you see, to instruct in such matters Counsel believed to have at least a nodding acquaintance with the Taxes Acts. Miss Derwent, in her less original moods, would normally instruct . . . myself, for example.’

  My perplexity vanished. The chagrin of a woman displaced in her lover’s affections is as nothing compared with that of a barrister superseded in the favour of a leading firm of solicitors. Cantrip, now likewise perceiving what was amiss, made haste to soothe Julia’s wounded feelings with all the eloquence of which he was capable.

  ‘Look here, Larwood, I’ve heard you talk a lot of bilge in my time, but the bilge you’re talking now just about takes the biscuit. Have a bit of sense, for heaven’s sake – even if Clemmie’d gone off you for her tax stuff, you don’t honestly think she’d send it to me, do you? Clemmie’s not an idiot – she’d go to someone else at the Tax Bar.’

  ‘I suppose,’ said Julia, beginning to be mollified, ‘that there is something in what you say.’

  ‘What I think is that Clemmie’s going to land me with something so frantically boring, she can’t get anyone else to do it – going through two hundred files of correspondence in somebody’s beastly office or something like that. Let’s face it, I owe her a favour on account of her helping over Lilian, and when a solicitor you owe a favour to sends you to Jersey for four days, there’s got to be a snag somewhere. I mean, there’s nothing wrong with the place itself, is there? I don’t have to learn that funny Frogspeak they talk there?’

  Julia confirmed that it would be unnecessary for him to master the local patois and that there was no other feature of the island which might be regarded as a drawback. She spoke, indeed, with such enthusiasm of its golden beaches and picturesque valleys, its imposing castles and charming manor houses, its abundant dairy products and tax-free wines and tobaccos as to present a picture of something little short of an earthly paradise.

  ‘Unless,’ she added, apparently as an afterthought, ‘you happen to be frightened of witches.’

  ‘I say,’ said Cantrip, ‘do they really have witches?’

  ‘Oh, certainly. I speak, I may say, with some authority on the subject, having once been fogbound for four hours at Jersey airport with nothing to read but a book about witchcraft in the Channel Islands. In ancient times, we are reliably informed, Jersey was the centre of certain mysteries in honour of Demeter and Persephone similar to those practised on the island of Samothrace in the Aegean. We may assume, of course, that they were also in honour of Hecate, Queen of the Witches, who is invariably associated with those two goddesses as the third member of the celebrated triad of maiden, mature woman, and crone. The priestesses of the cult were believed to have power by their singing to control the winds and sea, so that i
t was prudent for seafarers to the harbour of Le Rocq to pay them their required tribute, and similar powers were imputed in later folklore to the Jersey witches.’

  ‘I’m going by plane,’ said Cantrip.

  ‘There are one or two stories, however, which suggest that the witches do not always confine their attentions to those travelling by sea. You would do well, perhaps, to avoid wandering after dark anywhere near Roqueberg Point in the parish of St Clement, at the south-eastern tip of the island. That, according to tradition, is where they gather to sing and dance in the moonlight and lure young men to their doom.’

  ‘What kind of doom?’ said Cantrip.

  ‘The authorities are not entirely clear about that, but you would be unwise to assume that it was very agreeable. You should also remember that the witches have the ability, like the goddess Demeter herself, to transform themselves at will into beautiful young girls or hideous old hags. I would not wish, my dear Cantrip, in any way to inhibit your enjoyment of your time in Jersey, but I think I must advise you, just to be on the safe side, to steer clear of young girls, mature women, and crones.’

  2

  Ragwort feared the worst.

  On the evening of Cantrip’s departure I once more found myself sitting with Julia in the Corkscrew, at the same candlelit table and in the same convivial shadows. The absence from our table of Cantrip was made good by the presence there of Selena and Ragwort. Selena, who had spent the previous few days sailing in the Solent, was in blithe and springlike spirits – the sparkle of seafaring was still in her eyes, and the sunlight still gleamed in her hair. Ragwort, on the other hand, had composed his features in an expression of such marmoreal gravity as one might see in the monument to some young man of saintly character martyred in the reign of Domitian.

  Despite every effort to attribute the desire of Miss Derwent for Cantrip’s presence in Jersey to some proper and decorous motive, Ragwort had been unable to think of any. He was compelled, with the utmost reluctance and distaste, to conclude that her motives were improper. He did not think it right to specify further.

  ‘I thought,’ said Selena, ‘that Clementine Derwent was engaged. To another solicitor.’

  ‘So I believe,’ said Ragwort, ‘and would naturally wish to draw the inference you suggest. I understand, however, that her fiancé is at present on six months’ secondment in Hong Kong, and she does not strike one as a young woman of ascetic temperament.’

  ‘No,’ said Julia, ‘she doesn’t, does she? The impression she gives is of robust health and vigorous appetite, like an advertisement for cornflakes. One doesn’t feel that she would take kindly to six months’ deprivation of the pleasures of the flesh.’

  ‘You confirm my fears,’ said Ragwort.

  ‘A girl in Clementine’s position,’ continued Julia, ‘would no doubt reflect that there are two kinds of young men. On the one hand, there are those, such as yourself, my dear Ragwort, to whom the least one could offer would be the devotion of a lifetime and a profoundly spiritual regard almost untainted by the grossness of carnality. From the pursuit of young men of that kind Clementine is plainly debarred by her existing obligations. On the other hand, there are young men who might be persuaded to settle for something less. Young men – how shall I put it? – young men of obliging disposition. It is pretty generally known, I believe, that Cantrip is one of the latter sort.’

  ‘It is distasteful to think,’ said Ragwort, ‘that a fellow member of Chambers is regarded as available on demand to gratify the baser appetites of any woman who happens to be temporarily short of a husband or fiancé. Knowing, however, that that is the case, I fear there is little doubt that Miss Derwent has resolved to take advantage of the position.’

  Selena was unpersuaded. Though aware that a number of intelligent and otherwise discerning women had from time to time considered Cantrip attractive – at this point she looked rather severely at Julia – she saw no reason to suppose him an object of universal desire or, in particular, of Clementine Derwent’s desire.

  Ragwort, happy as he would have been to do so, was unable to share this sanguine opinion. Selena, he supposed, must have forgotten the sordid episode which had occurred some eighteen months before, when Cantrip had escorted Miss Derwent home from a party given by a mutual friend.

  Having heard nothing of the incident, I sought particulars.

  ‘Alarmed,’ said Selena, ‘by the increase in crimes of violence in central London, Clementine had very sensibly undertaken a course of lessons in the art of self-defence and was anxious to put her training to some form of practical test. She accordingly made a bet with Cantrip that she could successfully defend her virtue against the most vigorous and determined attack on it.’

  ‘That,’ said Ragwort, ‘was the ostensible contract. In substance, I fear, it was neither more nor less than a sordid and degrading bargain for the provision of services of a most personal nature for the sum of five pounds – a sum, I should have thought, which even Cantrip would consider humiliatingly modest.’

  ‘But if that was indeed the contract,’ said Julia, ‘then Clementine must have underestimated the effectiveness of her newly acquired skills. She laid poor Cantrip out cold, and when he came to he had lost all enthusiasm for the intended ravishment. It is fair to say, however, that Clementine behaved much better than solicitors usually do in their financial dealings with the Bar – she applied her winnings in taking him out to lunch.’

  ‘And if,’ said Selena, ‘she does have designs on Cantrip’s virtue, and he finds them unwelcome, he can always say no.’ An upward movement of Julia’s eyebrows, a downward movement of Ragwort’s lips, signified disbelief in Cantrip’s ability to pronounce the word. ‘Oh well, perhaps not. But even if he can’t, it still seems to me to be of no undue concern.’

  ‘No undue . . . My dear Selena,’ said Ragwort, ‘reflect on what you are saying. Of no undue concern? Any attempt by a member of the Bar to ingratiate himself with a solicitor, whether by gifts or by offers of hospitality or by favours of any other kind, is grave professional misconduct. And even if the matter can be kept from the Conduct Committee of the Bar Council, it can hardly be hoped, though of course none of us here would dream of mentioning it to anyone except in the strictest confidence, that it can be kept entirely secret – people in Lincoln’s Inn are such dreadful gossips. If poor Cantrip should happen in future years to achieve any measure of professional success, malicious tongues will all too readily attribute it to his willingness to oblige his instructing solicitors in a manner unbecoming to Counsel.’

  Selena remained unmoved. If we were to worry about anything, she said, it should be the possibility, unlikely as it was, that Clementine required Cantrip’s presence in Jersey in the misguided confidence that he was versed in fiscal matters. What was he to do if someone asked him to advise on Section 478 of the Taxes Act or construe a double tax treaty?

  ‘For that,’ said Julia, ‘we have a contingency arrangement. He’s meeting the lay clients tomorrow to hear what their problem is and he’s expected to give them the answer on Monday. If there turn out to be any fiscal implications, he’ll send me a telex on Saturday and I’ll telex back the best answer I can think of.’

  ‘Tell me,’ said Selena, for the first time looking a little anxious, ‘do you think that Cantrip will be able to obtain ready access to a telex machine?’

  ‘Good heavens, yes,’ said Julia. ‘Any offshore financial centre, such as Jersey, is always amply equipped with such things. I told him to explain to his hotel that he might have to send urgent telex messages at some time when their operator was not on duty – I’m sure they won’t object to him sending them himself.’

  ‘Oh dear,’ said Selena. ‘You do know, don’t you, Julia, what Cantrip’s like about telex machines?’

  The proposal to instal a telex machine at 62 New Square had been thought, after long months of debate, negotiation, and intrigue on the part of its supporters and opponents, to have been finally disposed of at a Chambers me
eting which had taken place in the preceding January. Greatly assisted, no doubt, by the always persuasive advocacy of Selena, who was one of its most resolute adherents, the pro-telex party had appeared to be gaining the day until Basil Ptarmigan, the senior, most eloquent, and most expensive Silk in Chambers, began – not precisely to address the meeting, but rather to muse mellifluously aloud that change was not always for the better.

  It was frequently said (Basil had reflected) that one must move with the times. Might it not be prudent, before doing so, to ascertain the direction in which the times were moving – whether towards triumph or disaster? He had been told that the telex machine was the latest thing in modern technology; but they would not, he supposed, be so childishly excited by mere innovation as to purchase it on that account. He had been told that ‘everyone else’ had a telex machine – an expression apparently denoting in this context the Revenue Chambers next door; but he believed that he himself might claim to enjoy, without the benefit of such an appliance, as extensive an international practice as any of the members of 63 New Square. He had been told that clients expected telex facilities: a time would come perhaps when clients would expect to find Coca-Cola dispensers and computer games placed in the waiting room for their refreshment and recreation, and it might well be that Chambers would have to bow to their wishes, but he could not help hoping that that day would be deferred to some time beyond his own retirement.

  The pro-telex party sighed and mutely conceded defeat, agreeing that a final decision on the project should be postponed to some future, uncertain, and, it was assumed, infinitely distant date.

  In the following month Basil received several telephone calls in the early hours of the morning from an eminent American attorney, associated with him in a case of some magnitude, who appeared unable to understand the nature of the time difference between London and New York and evidently believed that in the absence of telex facilities this was the only reliable means of communicating with him. (Selena, my principal informant on these matters, had heard of this not from Basil but from the New York attorney – who happened, she said, with the expression of a Persian cat disclaiming all knowledge of the cream, to be an old friend of hers.)