The Sirens Sang of Murder

by Sarah Caudwell

  I know what Ragwort says you ought to do when your instructing solicitor makes a pass at you – adopt an attitude of dignified remonstrance is what he says, viz make a long speech about the traditions of the English Bar and tell her there’s nothing doing. Well, it’s all very well him saying that. If a bird makes a pass at you and you turn it down, either she takes it personally and gets miffed or she doesn’t take it personally and thinks you’re a dead loss, and either way it doesn’t do a lot for the chances of her sending you another brief.

  Another thing that cramped my style for remonstering was that she kept shushing me, because Gabrielle was in the room next door and Clemmie didn’t want her to hear us. It’s jolly difficult to make a speech about the dignity of the English Bar if you’ve got to do it in a whisper.

  And then all the lights went out. I suppose we were on course for putting the light out anyway, but it’s one thing putting it out on purpose and knowing you can put it on again and another suddenly finding it’s pitch dark and knowing you can’t.

  It looked as if all the lights in the cottage had gone, and I didn’t think it would be much fun for Gabrielle to be all on her own in the dark, worrying about the Revenue chaps prowling round in the garden. So I whispered a few soothing things to Clemmie and pootled out on to the landing in my pyjamas to do the heroic and chivalrous bit, viz call out to Gabrielle to sit tight and not worry while I went and looked for the fuse box.

  I don’t actually know why I’m supposed to be any better at finding the fuse box than anyone else, but most birds seem to think nowadays that there are two things chaps are useful for and the other one’s mending the electricity. Which just goes to show that Gabrielle isn’t like most birds nowadays, because she said I mustn’t bother about it and she’d be all right until morning, and I said was she sure and she said absolutely.

  So I pootled back, bumping into a lot of furniture that hadn’t been there when the lights were on, and by the time I got to my bed again Clemmie’d sort of settled down in it. After that she wouldn’t let me say anything, not even in a whisper, and I couldn’t remonster any more at all.

  I think Clemmie’s one of those birds that get more enthusiastic in bad weather, because the weather outside got worse and worse, with the wind howling round the chimney as if it was trying to get a part in a horror picture, and the worse it got, the more enthusiastic she was.

  It was quite lucky really that she wouldn’t let me say anything. She was wearing one of those rather nice kinds of scent that smell like cinnamon toast, and what with that and all the enthusiasm, I started feeling like saying things I’d have felt a frightful ass about afterwards, specially with a sensible sort of bird like Clemmie that I’ve been mates with for years.

  When the racket started outside I didn’t really feel much like going to investigate. It’s a bit difficult to explain what kind of racket it was – it was like all the kinds of racket you can think of, all happening at the same time. There was a noise like horses galloping and a noise like roofs falling in and a noise like a lot of people yelling at each other, and the wind decided to put in an extra effort in the special effects department.

  The first thing I thought was that the Third World War had broken out and there wasn’t a lot I could do about it. The second thing I thought was that the Alexandra wasn’t a terribly likely place for anyone to start a world war, but it was a jolly likely place for the Revenue to make a raid on – you know, the way they did on those Rossminster chaps a few years ago. I know they’re not supposed to go around making raids on people outside the jurisdiction, but after what Clemmie and Gabrielle had been telling me I didn’t think they’d worry about a little technicality like that.

  I still didn’t feel much like getting out of bed, but I couldn’t help feeling that Clemmie and me were going to look pretty silly if we were just lying there being cosy while our clients were being rounded up and interrogated in their nightclothes and having their documents seized. I got this across to her as well as I could in whispers and got up and strode out into the night.

  Well, I didn’t stride exactly, because I couldn’t find the bottom bit of my pyjamas and I’d had to wrap myself up in a blanket, and when you’re trying to get down the stairs in the pitch dark with a blanket wrapped round you in a cottage you haven’t been in before you don’t exactly stride, but in the end I made it to the front door.

  It wasn’t as dark as it had been indoors – there was a light on in the farmhouse, and the moon came out just as I got outside. I still couldn’t make out what was going on, though – just that there seemed to be a lot of it, with more horsey noises and people shouting at each other in English and local Frogspeak. So I stood on the doorstep and called out, ‘I say, what’s going on here?’ trying to sound sort of dignified and masterful.

  Just after that there was the most ghastly scream I’d ever heard, partly a sort of shriek and partly a sort of groan, like someone waking up unexpectedly in a graveyard.

  Then something hardish and heavyish went whizzing past my ear and smashed against the wall behind me, and the message seemed to be that someone was trying to kill me.

  Well, what they said afterwards was that it was just a misunderstanding and they were frightfully sorry. What I said was that if Albert’s aim had been an inch or two better, they’d have been in a pretty permanent minus-Cantrip situation and sorry would have buttered jolly few parsnips, so the explanation had better be good.

  Albert’s story was that he’d stayed a bit longer than he ought to at the Bel Air Tavern. Well, I knew that, because that’s why we missed the 5:30 boat, but he seems to have thought that after that he might as well be hung for a sheep as a lamb and make an evening of it. So he’d stayed on there until nearly midnight, and by the time he started for home he wasn’t what you’d call sober – more what you’d call sloshed as a newt.

  The horse knew the way pretty well, though, and between the two of them they were getting on all right until they got to the Coupee. They’d just started across when Albert got a major attack of the heebiejeebies – he can’t describe it properly, he says, but he felt a sort of prickling at the back of his neck and remembered about all the ghosts and witches and decided that one way or another this was the place where he most didn’t want to be.

  Once you’ve started driving a carriage across the Coupee there’s no way you can turn round, so he thought the best idea was just to get to the other side as fast as possible. He says the horse felt the same way about it. Silly of them really, because in the dark and with a gale-force wind blowing, they’d have done better to take it slow and steady. But they didn’t see it that way at the time, and they hurtled across as if the Devil was after them, which actually Albert seems to have thought he was.

  You could say they were lucky in a way. They’d just about made it back to Little Sark when one of the wheels hit a stone and the carriage went over on its side – if it had happened ten yards sooner, they’d have gone over the cliff on one side or the other and that would have been curtains for both of them.

  Albert was thrown out into the road, but not badly hurt, and he managed to pick himself up and get the horse free of its harness without too much trouble. Then something made him look round, and he saw the woman in white standing there a few yards away from him.

  It seems that women in white are pretty bad news in the Channel Islands. I can’t make out exactly what they’re meant to be, or what they’re meant to do if they catch you, but the general idea is that you don’t want to see them at all, and if you do you get out fast.

  So Albert didn’t stop to say ‘Good evening’ or anything, he just scrambled up on the horse and headed full tilt for the Alexandra, not daring to look behind him in case he saw the woman again.

  He was too scared to ride all the way round to the stables. He just headed straight for the wall and jumped it, landing on sundry potting sheds and hen coops, etc. – jolly lucky the horse didn’t hurt itself. Philip Alexandre came out and started yelling at him, b
ut he didn’t much mind about that as long as he’d got away from the woman in white.

  Then the moon came out and he saw her again, standing there in her white robes in the doorway of the Witch’s Cottage and calling out to him in a hollow voice.

  Well, what I said was that even if he didn’t have the sense to tell the difference between a ghost and a Chancery junior wrapped in a blanket, he might at least have had the sense to know that if I was a ghost, chucking bricks at me wouldn’t have done him any good, because they’d just have gone straight through.

  Albert said he knew that really, but he’d lived a sinful life and couldn’t remember any prayers, so bricks were the best he could do. He’s not going to be sinful any more, he says – he’s going to give up booze and go to church every Sunday, so that the woman in white won’t come after him again.

  Serves him right, because the upshot of all these shenanigans is that the Coupee’s blocked at this end. I went to have a look first thing this morning and there’s no way you can get round the carriage or over it without risking breaking your neck. Philip Alexandre reckons it’ll take a couple of hours to move it, and until then Little Sark’s completely cut off from everywhere else.

  Clemmie’d gone back to her room by the time I got to bed again, and I haven’t seen her yet this morning. I haven’t seen any of the rest of the gang either. There’s no way we’re going to get the first boat over to Guernsey, so I suppose they’ve all decided they might as well stay in bed.

  We still ought to catch the evening plane all right, but life among the tax planners being what it is, don’t let Henry count any chickens.

  Over and out – Cantrip

  The news that Cantrip had survived Walpurgis Night, gratifying as it was, caused us no great astonishment: we did not know how grave had been his danger, or that not all his companions had been so fortunate.

  6

  ‘Toadsbreath, my good man,’ said Cecilia Mainwaring, raising her superbly groomed eyebrows, ‘I have already told you that I know no more than you do of the present whereabouts of my learned friend Mr Carruthers, and it becomes you very ill, Toadsbreath, to doubt my word on the matter. I go so far as to say that it is the height of impertinence.’

  ‘Beg pardon, Miss Mainwaring,’ mumbled Toadsbreath, respectfully tugging his forelock. ‘I didn’t mean no harm.’

  Cantrip, on the following morning, was still absent from the customary gathering in the coffeehouse. He had not returned to Chambers, nor had any further communication been received from him. Suspecting Julia, as his co-author and habitual confidante, of knowing more of the matter than she chose to admit, Henry had interrogated her (said Julia) in a manner somewhat less deferential than could properly have been adopted by an infant-school teacher towards a delinquent six-year-old.

  Save in that respect, however, the boy’s continued absence occasioned no anxiety among his friends. The Channel Islands are a delightful place to be during the first week in May, and a more conscientious young man than Cantrip might have yielded to the temptation to extend his visit.

  It was judged imprudent, in view of the circumstances – that is to say, the uncertain state of Henry’s temper – for Ragwort and Selena to linger over coffee. Arranging to meet again in the Corkscrew for lunch, we all walked together to New Square. I had already said my farewells and turned on my way towards the Public Record Office, eager to devote myself once more to the gentle service of Scholarship, when Lilian came running down the steps of 62, calling out to me to wait for a moment.

  ‘Oh, Professor Tamar,’ she said, rather charmingly breathless, ‘Miss Derwent was on the telephone. She rang to ask if Mr Cantrip was back in Chambers yet. And when I said he wasn’t, she asked about you – if I happened to know if you were in London at the moment. So of course I said you were and you’d probably be looking into Chambers sometime this morning. And she said, if I saw you, would I please ask you to ring her as soon as possible.’

  The message perplexed me. I had no personal acquaintance with Clementine Derwent and could imagine no reason why she should wish to speak to me.

  The telephone call which I made from Selena’s room a few minutes later afforded but little enlightenment. The matter, it seemed, was of some complexity, and could not satisfactorily be explained at a distance. Clementine’s office was in the Gray’s Inn Road, no more than five minutes’ walk away. If in the course of the day I could find time to visit her there, she would be most grateful.

  * * *

  Those who believe, as most members of Lincoln’s Inn are inclined to do, that any serious study of the law requires an atmosphere of dust and antiquity would have been unfavourably impressed by the offices of Messrs. Stingham and Grynne. The thickness of the carpets, the subtlety of the lighting, the freshness of the flowers arranged in cut-glass bowls – all these would have caused them grave doubts of the soundness of the advice provided there. On the other hand, these features did seem to indicate that a passable number of reasonably prosperous clients were not dissatisfied.

  The room occupied by Clementine Derwent on the third floor of the building, though presumably not so large as those allotted to full partners in the firm, was nonetheless sufficiently spacious and well appointed, with a view eastwards to the domes and spires of the City, to be suggestive of rapid advancement. She rose to greet me, leaning across her desk to offer me her hand.

  Her full-skirted cotton dress was drawn neatly in at the waist, and her glossy black hair was cut, I dare say at great expense, in a style of becoming softness. Neither of these measures could quite disguise her resemblance in face and figure – the former round, snub-nosed, good-humouredly pugnacious, the latter trim and muscular – to an engaging but undisciplined schoolboy. It would have seemed inapt to call her pretty – the epithets she brought to mind were those descriptive of a crisp eating apple.

  A sensible, well-balanced young woman, one would have said at first sight, who would not readily allow any personal or professional difficulty to weigh so excessively on her mind as to interfere with sound sleep and healthy appetite. I was surprised, therefore, as she resumed her place at her desk, to observe in her unmistakable signs of tension and anxiety.

  ‘Professor Tamar,’ she said, with a nervous abruptness which I could not think characteristic of her, ‘I hope you don’t think it’s awfully peculiar of me to ask you round here. I’m a friend of Michael Cantrip, you see, and he’s talked a bit about you. I’ve got a problem that I hoped you might be willing to help with.’

  My perplexity deepened, and did not diminish when she began to tell me of the existence and provisions of the Daffodil Settlement. It seemed tactless to mention, since she repeatedly stressed the confidentiality of the matter, that I was already aware of them. I would not have wished her to form an unfavourable view of Cantrip’s capacity for discretion.

  ‘So you see,’ she concluded, ‘if the worst comes to the worst – I mean if we can’t find the letter of wishes and can’t find out who the real settlor was – then we’re going to have to give the whole fund to the descendants of Sir Walter Palgrave. It’s idiotic, of course, because no one ever meant them to get a penny of it, but it looks as if we’ll have no choice. And we’ve been advised by Chancery Counsel – well, by Canters, actually – that we’d better try and find out who they are. So I wondered if you’d be interested. I mean, you are a legal historian.’

  I could scarcely forbear to smile, for the notion was of course absurd. The tracing of missing relatives, with all respect to the no doubt very estimable persons accustomed to undertake such enquiries, can hardly be regarded as a branch of Scholarship. Recalling, however, that Clementine, like Cantrip, had spent her formative years at Cambridge, where such distinctions are perhaps but imperfectly understood, I sought some way to explain without wounding her that such an investigation would be inappropriate to my academic standing and qualifications.

  ‘I’m afraid,’ she continued, ‘that my clients will want the fee to be calculated on a time-c
osted basis. Would you consider doing it for sixty pounds an hour?’ I suppose that my expression indicated surprise. It had not occurred to me, such is my innocence in these matters, that she would offer any pecuniary inducement. She looked apologetic. ‘Plus expenses, of course. I’m sorry, I know it’s not terribly generous.’

  I found myself obliged to reconsider the matter. By the modest standards of the unworldly Scholar, the offer seemed not ungenerous; and yet, were I now to decline it, she could not but think that my reason was the inadequacy of the financial reward. I could not endure to be suspected of so grasping and sordid a motive: I indicated that I would undertake the investigation on the terms she had proposed.

  ‘Tell me,’ I said, ‘is there anything you already know about the descendants of Sir Walter Palgrave, or am I to begin, as it were, with a clean slate?’

  The question unaccountably caused her to blush.

  ‘Well, Sir Walter Palgrave himself was a judge, of course – end of the nineteenth century. I expect you know lots more than I do about him.’ As a student chiefly of the medieval period, I could not truthfully claim any extensive knowledge of the Victorian judiciary, but I realized why the name had seemed faintly familiar. ‘I got a copy of his will from the Probate Registry. It looks from that as if he left six daughters, so the people we’re looking for are probably their children or grandchildren. But the will only gives their Christian names, so I’m afraid it doesn’t get us very far.’

  ‘No matter,’ I said, ‘it provides a starting point. You know nothing else that might be relevant?’

  ‘Well’ – she blushed again – ‘not officially. I mean, I haven’t told anyone else about it.’ She hesitated. I adopted an expression, as I hoped, of sympathetic encouragement. ‘You see, a few months ago I got engaged. To a chap,’ she added helpfully, as if supposing me unaware that when a young woman becomes engaged it is customarily to a young man. ‘He’s a solicitor as well – his name’s Peter. Well, one evening we happened to start talking about the way the law seems to run in families. You know – the same names keeping on cropping up in the law reports over a couple of centuries. So I asked him if there were any other lawyers in his family. And he said there wasn’t anyone close, but his grandmother had been a daughter of Sir Walter Palgrave.’