Though there might have been other ways of learning who owned the Mercedes, the Scholar in pursuit of knowledge is impatient of any delay. Bidding a hasty good-bye to Julia, I set off at a similar pace in the same direction.
The young woman went through the gateway and was hidden from my view, but came in sight again when I reached the Fields—a tall, slim figure in a beige raincoat, her fair hair drawn back to the nape of her neck in some kind of knot or chignon. The athletic vigour of her stride began to suggest to me that she intended to walk some distance, perhaps, after all, despite the threatening sky, only for the sake of exercise. It was with some relief that I saw her enter the small Museum on the north side of the Fields founded by the late Sir John Soane.
There is a book, in the entrance hall of the Museum, in which visitors are invited to inscribe their names. I noticed, as I signed, that the name above mine, neatly written, with a fountain pen rather than a ballpoint, was Katharine Tavistock, with an address in Islington.
Not seeing her in any of the ground-floor rooms, I climbed the winding staircase to the first floor, my progress a little impeded by enthusiastic groups of tourists and schoolchildren. I eventually caught up with her in the Picture Room, where she appeared absorbed in the series of paintings by Hogarth known collectively as the Rake’s Progress. Concealing myself behind a conveniently placed statue of Apollo, I was able to study her unobserved while considering how I should approach her.
She was older than I had at first imagined—not less, though perhaps not much more than forty—and too large boned and large featured to be, or ever have been considered, beautiful. She was wearing a severely tailored trouser suit—no doubt expensive, but seeming designed to convey competence and professional standing rather than any interest in allurement. Some quality about her made me dismiss the idea of a matrimonial connection with any of her former passengers; and yet she did not quite look like a person employed solely as a driver. I decided that she must be the personal assistant of whom Selena had spoken and in whom Sir Robert had expressed such absolute trust.
When finally she turned away from the misadventures of Tom Rakewell, I stepped forward, so that for the first time we were face to face. “Miss Tavistock,” I cried. “What an unexpected pleasure—are you playing truant from your office?”
Few people have the self-possession, when warmly greeted by name, to disclaim all acquaintance with the person addressing them: Miss Tavistock did not prove to be one of them. To have forgotten merely my name would have been enough to embarrass her; to have forgotten me entirely, when I so clearly remembered her, was a discourtesy unthinkable to admit. With a blush and an anxious smile, she entered on an explanation for her presence in the Museum.
“Oh no, not really—I had to bring Sir Robert to a meeting in Lincoln’s Inn, and two of the directors, and of course I have to pick them up again afterwards, so I thought I’d look in here and see how poor Tom Rakewell was getting on. I usually do that when we’re in this part of the world.”
“Are you hoping for a happy ending? One day you’ll come in and find a picture showing him reformed, and married to Sarah, and living comfortably and respectably ever after?”
“Well, not quite that. Though as a matter of fact, you know, I think it would be a more realistic ending. Tom’s quite an ordinary sort of person—he’s not really wicked, not wicked on principle like Lovelace or the Vicomte de Valmont. He’s just selfish and greedy and—well, not terribly bright. I’ve never actually met anyone like the Vicomte de Valmont,” she said, sounding as if it were something she rather regretted, “but of course I’ve met lots of people like Tom. And they usually end up being respectable, unless they’re very unlucky.”
Though she seemed to accept it as natural that I should remain in her company, I judged it prudent to approach the subject I wished to speak of by a slightly circuitous route. I began, since it was clearly an interest of hers, by talking of the eighteenth-century novel; from there it was an easy step to the drama of the same period; this allowed me to refer to the celebrated performance of David Garrick in the role of King Lear; having mentioned Lear, I felt able to enquire, as I hoped apparently en passant, whether Sir Robert had said anything further of his plans for retirement.
She smiled, evidently not doubting that my question showed merely a friendly interest in a subject of which she had spoken to me in some previous conversation, now unaccountably forgotten.
“Poor Sir Robert, I suppose he does feel rather like that about it—having to give up his kingdom and not knowing which of his daughters deserves to get it. But it wouldn’t really be fair, you know, to think of Mr. Albany and Mr. Bolton as anything like Goneril and Regan.”
I had no difficulty, after this, in encouraging her to go on talking about them—more freely, perhaps, than she would have done if she had not still felt embarrassed by her inability to remember who I was.
It appeared that Edgar Albany was related to Sir Robert both by blood and by marriage. His great-grandmother had been a Renfrew who had married an Albany: I gathered from Miss Tavistock’s discreet summary of the circumstances that she had done so to improve her social position. His aunt, the Chairman’s wife, was an Albany who had married a Renfrew: I gathered from an even more discreet summary that she had done so to improve her financial position.
Geoffrey Bolton’s background was less distinguished—indeed, Edgar Albany sometimes said that he had no background. He had been born, as one could tell from his accent, in Lancashire, and his parents had not been the sort of people that one expected to have heard of.
“Which of course,” said Miss Tavistock with sudden asperity, “may reflect rather well on them, because the things one hears of people for aren’t always things to be proud of, are they?”
Albany had been educated at Eton and Cambridge, where he had obtained a third-class degree in History. Bolton had not enjoyed the same educational advantages: he had attended a state school and then, Miss Tavistock thought, some kind of adult education college—he never said much about his time there and she was uncertain about the details.
“So it’s all the more to his credit, of course, that since then he’s done so well.”
Albany had been with Renfrews’ since leaving Cambridge. Bolton, for much of his life, had worked abroad. Sir Robert had met him about five years before in the course of some negotiations with an investment bank in New York and been so impressed by his abilities that he at once offered him a senior position.
Their talents were also entirely different. It was universally agreed that Bolton was brilliant at the technicalities of investment management. Albany specialised more in interpersonal skills, which of course were also very important in investment banking.
“I don’t mean,” said Miss Tavistock, “that Mr. Bolton doesn’t get on well with people. Sir Robert says that he’s a bit of a rough diamond, and he speaks his mind, of course—Northcountrymen do, don’t they?—but almost everyone likes him.”
Though she disparaged neither, I observed when she spoke of Albany that almost imperceptible tightening of the facial muscles and vocal cords which indicates dislike, or at best irritation: I suspected that she thought him an example of the failings that she had attributed to Tom Rakewell. When she mentioned Bolton, on the other hand, her voice softened and she smiled slightly; but it seemed fanciful to infer that the blunt Lancastrian had any quality which she found reminiscent of the subtle and sophisticated Vicomte de Valmont.
None of this, however, shed any light on which of them owned the black Mercedes. I cautiously ventured to enquire further about their personal circumstances.
It appeared that Albany had been married to a very charming woman, entirely suitable in every way, and had two children, but to Sir Robert’s great disappointment the marriage had ended in divorce. His wife and children now occupied the house in Norfolk which he had inherited from his grandmother, while he himself lived in a flat in central London.
Bolton had a wife, to whom he was st
ill married, but whether she was charming or not neither Miss Tavistock nor anyone else at Renfrews’ was in any position to say. He insisted on keeping his personal and his professional life entirely separate and accordingly had never introduced her to any of his colleagues, not even to Sir Robert. Though he had a flat close to the City, where he lived during the week, his wife, so far as Miss Tavistock knew, spent all her time at their house in Buckinghamshire, which no one from Renfrews’ had ever been invited to visit. It was rather a pity, because it made people think that there must be something odd about her, something socially unacceptable.
“But probably she’s just very shy and doesn’t like meeting strangers, in which case it’s really rather nice of Mr. Bolton not to try to make her.”
The indirectness of my approach had cost some little time: Miss Tavistock was looking at her watch. After all I had learnt about the two directors of Renfrews’, I still could not think of any natural way of asking what kind of cars they owned. Not being greatly interested in motor vehicles, I could imagine no convincing reason for wishing to know such a thing. I resigned myself to disappointment.
She was a pleasant sort of woman and it would have seemed unkind to leave her in perplexity: saying that if she were at any time in Oxford she must be sure to get in touch, I wrote down for her the telephone number of St. George’s on the back of an envelope bearing my name. Her relief was perceptible: I no longer represented a nightmare of embarrassment.
We left the Museum together and I walked back with her to Lincoln’s Inn. When we reached Old Square, where she had parked the car, I saw that I had been singularly obtuse.
“What a splendid car,” I said. “A Mercedes, I believe. Does it belong to Sir Robert or to one of his co-directors?”
“Oh no, Professor Tamar, it’s a company car. We have a fleet of four of them, actually—so even when one of them’s being serviced, there’s always one available for the Chairman and each of the directors.”
“But I suppose there are differences between them?” I said a little desperately, seeing that the solution was after all about to elude me. “Surely the Chairman’s car must be grander than the others?”
“Oh no, Professor Tamar,” she said, laughing, at ease with me now that she knew my name. “We’re a very democratic organisation—apart from the licence plates, they’re all identical.”
As is the way of the Scholar when Truth proves unexpectedly elusive, I was unable to dismiss from my mind the problem I had failed to solve. Finding no escape from it in my researches in the Public Record Office, I spent the afternoon walking restlessly in the gardens of the Inner Temple, pausing but seldom for refreshment or repose. I could hardly believe, having learnt so much, that I was no nearer to knowing whether it was Albany or Bolton whom Isabella had been blackmailing.
And yet it was so. Certainly, I had now no doubt that whichever one it was had been her visitor in the black Mercedes: with four Mercedes motorcars provided by Renfrews’ Bank, it would have been logically preposterous to invent a fifth. This information, however, now seemed to count for nothing: when it was put in the balance, the scales remained equally poised.
There was a further thought which I found slightly disturbing: the last visit of the Mercedes to Parsons Haver had been on the night of Isabella’s sudden and unexpected death. I had dismissed rather lightly, as my readers may recall, the suggestion that she had been poisoned; but I had not known then that she was a blackmailer, or that the man in the black Mercedes was one of her victims.
Selena seemed not altogether grateful for my efforts to find the solution to her problem. Remark was made, when I told her of them in the Corkscrew that evening, on the readiness of Oxford academics, too idle to pursue their proper researches, to meddle instead with things that were none of their business.
“My dear Selena,” I said, “do be careful—you’re beginning to sound like the Bursar. Tell me, what happened at your conference? What opinion did you form of the suspects? Did you reach any conclusion?”
“Hmm,” said Selena, with another of her sideways looks. She softened, however, under the benevolent influence of her wine. “Well, as a matter of fact, there isn’t much to tell. So far as the insider-dealing problem is concerned, it was a complete waste of time—I had none of the miraculous insights that Sir Robert was evidently hoping for. He rang me later and I had to tell him I still couldn’t help. Poor old chap, I’m afraid he was very disappointed.”
“Which of them do you think he’d prefer it to be—Albany or Bolton?”
“I don’t know. Albany’s a sort of cousin of his, and Lady Renfrew’s nephew into the bargain, so it would be fairly embarrassing if he turned out to be the insider dealer. On the other hand, recruiting Geoffrey Bolton was very much Sir Robert’s personal decision, and so far it’s been a great success and he’s very proud of it. It would be quite painful for him to find that it was a misjudgement.”
“Would it be unfair to suspect that Albany owes his position at Renfrews’ rather to his family connections than to his personal qualities?”
“Well,” said Selena, “I certainly wouldn’t suspect him of owing it to his intellectual abilities. But then, he doesn’t claim to be an expert on the technical side. They all agree that Bolton is the one with the technical expertise. Albany’s the one who talks to clients and so on.”
“Miss Tavistock said that he specialised in interpersonal skills. I understood her to mean that his chief asset was personal charm.”
“Yes,” said Selena, after some reflection. “Yes, I think that’s how he would understand it, too. He has a way of treating one just like his social equal which one would find very charming, I expect, if one happened to think of oneself as his social inferior. On the other hand, you might understand it to mean that he went to the same school as a number of people who have money to invest and who like the idea of its being looked after by someone from their old school.”
“While Bolton, having not been to a school of that kind, is considered to be something of a rough diamond?”
“That’s how Sir Robert sometimes puts it, but all he really means is that Bolton has a Lancashire accent. As a matter of fact, I’d say that Bolton has infinitely more personal charm than Albany.”
“Ah,” I said.
“Not at all,” said Selena, sounding a little vexed. “As you know, Hilary, I am devoted to Sebastian, and there can be no question of ‘ah.’ ”
I hastened to assure her that I had not used the word in any sense to which she could reasonably take objection.
“I was merely noting that you found Bolton a more attractive personality than Albany—it might follow that you thought Albany the more likely suspect. More likely, that is to say, to have done something sufficiently disgraceful to expose him to blackmail.”
“Only if I thought that an attractive personality could be relied on as evidence of good character. As you may perhaps have noticed, that isn’t always the case. No, I’m afraid I’d have to say that at the moment Geoffrey Bolton looks to me like the more likely suspect.”
“Merely because he’s the more attractive? My dear Selena, isn’t that a rather prejudiced attitude?”
“No,” said Selena, “not because of that. Because no one knows who he is.”
She rose and went to the bar to replenish our glasses, leaving me in some perplexity. I gently suggested, on her return, that her previous observation was palpably untrue.
“Well, it depends on what you mean by knowing who someone is. My client met Bolton about five years ago, when he was working for a bank in New York, and offered him a job straightaway, simply on the basis of personal impression. Exactly how long he’d been in New York and what he’d been doing before he got there Sir Robert has no idea—as far as I can see, he could have come from outer space.”
“But surely he made enquiries of some kind about him before offering him a senior position at Renfrews’?”
“What sort of enquiries would you expect? If you meet a man in h
is forties, occupying a senior position in a bank of international standing, you don’t ask him to prove that he’s qualified to do it—you just assume he is. You don’t mind if he started his career as an office boy—if he did, it’s a sign of his ability that he’s progressed so far. And you don’t want to ask his present employers too many questions about him, in case they guess that you’re trying to poach him.”
“Didn’t he even want to know about Bolton’s educational background?” The fervent pursuit by the young of certificates, diplomas and degrees, of impressive curricula and favourable references—was it all mere wasted effort?
“Well, it was clear from his accent that he hadn’t been to the kind of school Sir Robert had. He mentioned having been to a grammar school in Lancashire and then to some sort of college in some town in the Midlands. Sir Robert didn’t see any point in pressing him for details—he was happy to accept him as more or less self-educated and rather admired him for it.”
“But when he started work at Renfrews’, weren’t there forms to fill in? What about income tax and national insurance and pension schemes and all that sort of thing?”
“If he’d spent all his working life outside the United Kingdom, you wouldn’t expect him to have been paying tax or insurance. When you come down to it, the only document one needs to prove that one exists is one’s birth certificate. The bank’s personnel department has a copy of Geoffrey Bolton’s birth certificate and I dare say he was born when it says he was. But after that there’s a period of over forty years unaccounted for.”
He had been with Renfrews’, however, for over five years: it seemed to me inconceivable that none of his colleagues should in that time have learnt any more about his previous career than had been known when he was first appointed. In the course of his ordinary day-to-day conversations, he must surely sometimes have said something, however trivial, which would give some hint of what he had done, whom he had known, where he had lived, during his twenties and thirties.
The Sibyl in Her Grave Page 7