“And did this produce any reaction from Albany?”
“Oh, absolutely. He gave a sort of yell and jumped about three feet in the air, as if he was practising for some kind of Highland war dance.”
“Dear me,” I said, “that does certainly sound as if the name had some significance for him.”
“Yes,” said Cantrip, “that’s what I thought. But it turned out he’d just been stung by a bee, so I suppose it’s a bit inconclusive.”
10
THERE APPEARED IN the doorway of the Corkscrew the dishevelled figure of a woman, that is to say Julia, who stumbled towards our table displaying various signs of agitation.
Her researches in the Probate Registry had not proved reassuring: the grant of representation to the estate of Jeremiah Arkwright showed that he had died intestate and a bachelor, leaving his sister as his only next of kin. It seemed unlikely, in these circumstances, that the young man who called himself Derek Arkwright was his great-grandson, or indeed that his name was Derek Arkwright.
“There are many persons,” said Ragwort, “of the highest respectability, whose names are not Derek Arkwright.”
“Absolutely,” said Cantrip. “And the interesting thing is that most of them don’t go round saying ‘My name is Derek Arkwright.’ ”
I felt obliged to agree that the motives of those who seek to conceal their identities are not usually of the highest.
“You bet they’re not,” said Cantrip. “Jolly sinister is what they usually are. I’ll tell you who this chap is who isn’t Arkwright—he’s the henchman—Bolton’s or Albany’s, whichever of them did in Isabella. And they sent him down to the funeral to nose around and see if there were any loose ends, just like you said they would, Hilary. And he’s found out that the Reverend is the only person who could recognise the chap in the black Mercedes, so now he’s lured him off somewhere to do him in as well.”
Observing the effect of these remarks on Julia, who succumbs easily to panic, I endeavoured to persuade her that this was not the most probable explanation of the evidence before us: a man may be of dubious character without being a hired assassin. Though it did indeed appear that the Reverend Maurice might have been unwise or unfortunate in his choice of travelling companion, I thought it likely that his danger was financial rather than physical.
Selena, when she joined us, was in no mood to feel concern on behalf of those who went away on holiday. At a stage when the plumber claimed he could make no progress without the electrician, the electrician had been on holiday; by the time the electrician returned, the plumber was on holiday; by the time the plumber returned and agreed with the electrician that nothing more should be done without consulting the carpenter, the carpenter was on holiday. The only person, so far as Selena could see, who was not permitted to go on holiday, but was expected to remain in Lincoln’s Inn throughout the Long Vacation and worry about the building works, was herself.
If, therefore, the Reverend Maurice had also chosen to go on holiday, neglecting, very probably, his duty to care for the souls of his parishioners, and if the project turned out badly for him, it was not to Selena that he should look for sympathy.
Having reported in the least alarming terms she could the result of her researches at the Probate Registry, Julia received her aunt’s reply two or three days later.
24 High Street
Parsons Haver
West Sussex
Saturday, 11th September
Dear Julia,
Thank you for looking up Jeremiah Arkwright for me, even if I do now rather wish I hadn’t asked you. I suppose, as you say, that there may be some quite innocent explanation, but it isn’t likely, is it? The most likely explanation is that Derek’s some kind of crook. I keep wondering how I’m going to tell Maurice, or whether I should tell him at all.
Well, one thing I’m not going to do is try to get in touch with him about it while he’s on holiday. He did leave me a number to ring if there was an emergency—they’re supposed to be staying at a place in the south of France that belongs to a friend of Derek’s. If I rang it and found it didn’t exist, or the person who answered had never heard of either of them, I’d be worried for the next fortnight without being able to do anything about it. And if I did manage to talk to Maurice, how could I possibly explain something like this over the telephone?
Daphne goes on being in her Cassandra mood, even though she doesn’t know that he and Derek are together—Maurice’s name in the Book still has a shadow over it, and she thinks it’s getting darker. I don’t take it seriously, of course, but it doesn’t help to make me feel any happier about the situation.
Well, I suppose the worst that can happen is that he comes back minus his chequebook and credit cards—it won’t be the end of the world.
Yours with much love,
Reg
“Which is no doubt true,” said Julia, continuing to look anxious, “if that really is the worst that can happen. But if Cantrip’s henchman theory is right—”
“Julia,” said Selena firmly, “Cantrip’s henchman theory is complete moonshine. Albany and Bolton may have their faults, but they’re not the sort of people who hire professional assassins to dispose of witnesses. Anyway, the henchman theory depends on the idea that one of them poisoned Isabella, which in my view is also moonshine.”
“She was blackmailing one of them and he was there when she died—don’t you find that a little worrying? Or are you saying that the man in the black Mercedes wasn’t Albany or Bolton after all?”
“No, I don’t say that, but I do say that the man in the Mercedes wasn’t the only person she was blackmailing. What about Ricky Farnham, for example? We know she was blackmailing him—not for money, but into doing favours for her and spending time with her that he’d obviously much rather have spent with your aunt. By his own admission, she’d been making his life hell for two years.”
“Yes, but Ricky wasn’t there when she died.”
“How do you know? He was evidently quite a regular visitor—why shouldn’t he have looked in for a nightcap after the man in the Mercedes had left and Daphne had gone to bed? And washed up all the glasses afterwards, including the one left by the previous visitor?”
“Selena,” said Julia, disconcerted by this suggestion, “you don’t seriously think that Ricky Farnham poisoned Isabella?”
“No, of course I don’t. I think that she died of heart failure, just as the doctor said she did. But if anyone happened to dig her up and find she was full of arsenic, I’d expect the police to question Mr. Farnham at least as closely as either of the directors of Renfrews’.”
September is not the month for takeover bids: those whose profession it is to advise on such matters may safely withdraw from London to recoup their energies in the country or on the shores of the Mediterranean. A major client of Renfrews’ Bank, however, unaware of this convention or indifferent to it, had decided to proceed with an acquisition of sufficient magnitude to require the personal attention of the Chairman, who was spending the summer in his villa overlooking the Bay of Cannes, and of the two executive directors.
Sir Robert, it seemed, had not after all lost confidence in Selena’s advice. On the second Monday of the month she received urgent instructions to fly immediately to the south of France to draft the documents required for the transaction. Undeterred by pitiful cries of “What shall we do about the builders?” from her fellow members of Chambers, she accepted instantly.
It was thus that she happened to be present when Sir Robert Renfrew was poisoned.
Of this, however, we knew nothing until the following Monday, when she was once more among those gathered in the Corkscrew. Having returned by way of Paris and spent the weekend there in the company of Sebastian, she had paid a merely fleeting visit to Chambers to enquire if there were anything which urgently required her attention.
Though there was by now an autumnal sharpness in the evening air, she was still dressed in sandals and cotton, with a look about her o
f summer and southern warmth. Her mood, however, seemed thoughtful, one might almost have said subdued. When asked whether she had enjoyed herself in Cannes, she reflected for some moments and gave an equivocal answer.
Her first complaint was about the weather.
“I was in Cannes for five days, and the sun shone on every one of them, from dawn until dusk. The sky was blue and the sea was even bluer. There were boats bobbing round in the bay that I was longing to sail in and restaurants all round it that I was longing to eat in. And I was cooped up in the villa, drafting offer documents from eight in the morning until nearly midnight and eating sandwiches because we didn’t have time for proper meals. I admit that we were working outdoors, on a rather attractive roof terrace, and the sandwiches, as sandwiches go, were excellent. Even so—”
We agreed that in the circumstances it would have been more tactful of it to have rained continuously.
Her second complaint concerned what might be called the social aspect.
“If you’re with two men who both want the same job and a third who’s going to decide which gets it, the atmosphere tends to get rather strained. And you see, there wasn’t anyone else there to dilute the tension. My instructing solicitor was on holiday in Cornwall and thought that as I was there to deal with the legal side it was quite enough if he kept in touch by telephone. Lady Renfrew doesn’t enjoy business meetings and had gone to stay with friends in Switzerland until it was all over. Katharine Tavistock was there, of course, to deal with the word processing and communications and so forth—she’s the only one of them who actually understands how to operate their computer system—but she hardly counts as an outsider. The only other people at the villa were the housekeeper and her husband, who’s the chauffeur and general handyman.”
Her third complaint concerned the accommodation.
“It sounds ungrateful, but I found it a little awkward being a guest in my client’s villa. It was very luxurious, of course, but in that situation it’s difficult to tell where one’s professional responsibilities end and one’s social obligations begin. Sir Robert turned out to expect rather more of me than is generally required of Counsel in a professional capacity.”
“My dear Selena,” said Ragwort, preparing to be deeply shocked, “you surely don’t mean—”
“No, no, of course not, Ragwort, nothing of that kind at all. What I mean is that he wanted me to act as a spy.”
This was the first major takeover with which Renfrews’ had been concerned since Sir Robert had become aware of the insider-dealing problem: it would represent, he believed, an irresistible temptation to the insider dealer and thus an ideal opportunity to identify him. Neither Albany nor Bolton had known before arriving at the villa which company was the target of the proposed takeover; by the time they left, the information would be public knowledge: in order to profit by it, they would have to communicate with their brokers during the period of their stay there. Sir Robert was satisfied that any attempt to do so from the villa itself would be detected: Miss Tavistock was in charge of the communication systems and all telephone calls were automatically recorded.
“People have mobiles,” said Cantrip.
“Not the directors of Renfrews’—Sir Robert thinks they’re ungentlemanly.”
Sir Robert was satisfied that if either Bolton or Albany wished to instruct a broker he would go outside the villa and telephone from elsewhere. This, he accepted, he could not prevent them from doing: not even the most high-handed of chairmen could place his codirectors under house arrest. They were in Cannes, however, for work, not pleasure, and therefore unlikely to go out often. When they did, he was relying on Selena and Miss Tavistock—the only people, he said, whom he could completely trust—to ensure that they would be accompanied or discreetly followed.
“Some people have all the luck,” said Cantrip. “None of my clients ever ask me to spy on anyone.”
“Cantrip means,” said Ragwort, “that we all understand what an invidious and embarrassing position you were placed in.”
Selena had not felt it possible to refuse. Quite apart from the fact that Sir Robert was her most valued client, she had felt sorry for him. It was clear that he had been greatly distressed by the whole insider-dealing business, to an extent which she thought was even affecting his health: he seemed to her to be looking far less fit than he had done a few months before.
She had considered again whether she should mention to him the part we believed Isabella to have played in the affair: if our conclusions were right, it seemed likely that there would be no more incidents of insider dealing and the surveillance of Albany and Bolton was doomed to failure. She still believed, however, that to tell him about Isabella would aggravate rather than alleviate his distress.
“Besides, suppose we’d turned out to be completely wrong? Or suppose whichever one it was decided to do some insider-dealing for his own benefit, instead of Isabelle’s? If I’d told him there couldn’t be another insider-dealing incident, and then after all there had been, it would have been rather embarrassing. So I promised I’d do what I could to help with his surveillance plan.”
For the first three days she had not been called on to give effect to her promise. They had all been fully occupied with the preparation of the documents relating to the takeover and no one had left the villa.
“You see, all the drafting took about three times as long as it needed to, because Edgar was trying to score points. As Geoffrey is the technical expert and all the documents were fairly technical, we’d begin with Geoffrey explaining what they wanted to do and then I’d draft a document that did it. And then Edgar would suggest amendments, just to show Sir Robert that he understood the technicalities after all. Which in fact he didn’t, so then I had to explain tactfully why his amendments would make nonsense of the whole document. It was all rather time-consuming.”
On Wednesday evening, however, when they had finished their labours relatively early, Geoffrey Bolton had said that he felt like going for a stroll along the Croisette, which he referred to as the Crozzit.
“Edgar said it was called the Kwuzzit, which I didn’t think actually sounded much better, but Edgar was always trying to score points on the basis that he knew French and Geoffrey didn’t.”
Sir Robert had at once suggested that Selena should go too, saying that she had been shamefully overworked and he was sure she would enjoy a stroll around Cannes if she had someone to escort her. Even the bluntest of Lancastrians could hardly have said that he would prefer solitude; nor could Selena, under Sir Robert’s pleading eye and remembering her promise to him, decline Geoffrey Bolton’s invitation to keep him company. They had accordingly walked down towards the Casino and drunk liqueurs in a pavement café looking out across the bay.
“Right,” said Cantrip. “So did you manage to get the conversation round to where you could just sort of casually mention Parsons Haver?”
“No, I’m afraid not. I remembered the difficulty you had had in introducing the subject convincingly, and I didn’t feel that I would succeed any better. Besides, I wasn’t really trying to find out anything from him—I was more worried that I might tell him something that he wasn’t supposed to know. You see, he was obviously slightly puzzled about what had happened. He said—well, he said that Sir Robert had always been rather a Puritan and it wasn’t like him to send one of his directors for a walk in the moonlight with an attractive woman. Or words to that effect.”
By candlelight, it was difficult to be certain that she blushed; my impression was that she did.
“So he was wondering, he said, what the old boy was up to. I said that as Geoffrey was a simple innocent Lancastrian in a wicked foreign city Sir Robert probably thought he needed someone to keep him out of trouble. And he laughed. And then he said something about the Chairman being ‘proper mithered abaht summat’ and that he wished he knew what it was. I said that a man in Sir Robert’s position no doubt had a number of important matters to worry about. And he laughed again and sai
d, ‘Ah, well, lass, if tha knows nowt, tha knows nowt, and if tha knows owt, likely tha’ll tell nowt, so I’ll not vex thee wi’ asking.’ So we talked of other things.”
It would somehow have seemed indiscreet to seek particulars. Whatever the subject of the conversation, she had learnt nothing more of Geoffrey Bolton’s past or private life than she already knew. She could say with confidence, however, that while outside the villa he had made no attempt to communicate with his stockbroker.
In their absence, an unpleasant scene had taken place between the Chairman and Edgar Albany. Selena heard of it on the following day from Miss Tavistock, who was too angry with Edgar to be unduly discreet about it. Edgar, apparently, had tried to persuade Sir Robert that he ought not to delay any longer before announcing the date of his retirement and the appointment of his successor. It was bad for the bank, he said, for people not to know when the next Chairman was going to take office and whether he was going to be someone with a more or less suitable background or a jumped-up little bank clerk from nowhere. Sir Robert had replied that he was not yet ready to make a decision; Albany had lost his temper and become extremely offensive. His behaviour had so much distressed Sir Robert that he had become quite unwell.
None of the party left the villa again before midday on Friday, when the bid became public. There had been no significant alteration in the price of the shares. On Friday evening the Chairman took them all out to dinner to celebrate the successful completion of their task.
“We went to a Moroccan restaurant, quite near the villa. It was a very good restaurant—the moules marinières were simply delicious.” Selena spoke wistfully, as if the excellence of the mussel soup were somehow a matter for regret. I assumed that she was merely wishing that she could have eaten more of them.
The Sibyl in Her Grave Page 12