So please stop worrying about the Reverend Maurice and give me your undivided attention—I have things to tell you which I think you will find of interest, relating, as it happens, to Selena’s merchant bankers.
I have been here for two days and extremely busy, having promised Benjamin that I would arrive early and make sure everything was properly organised: it is several months since he was last here himself and, in spite of being a brilliant economist, he has no more idea of practical housekeeping than—well, than you have, if you will forgive my so expressing it. He seemed to have only a vague idea of how many people he had invited, when they were likely to get here and where they were all going to sleep: he said oh, that things would sort themselves out. Which things, in my experience, very seldom do without active encouragement from someone.
Still, I have now got the flat in reasonable order and feel entitled to relax a little. I am at present sitting on the drawing-room balcony, which has an exceptionally fine view across the bay. Immediately below there is a small place, with shops which include a good bakery, a passable delicatessen, and a disgracefully overpriced greengrocer, as well as two pleasant cafés and a slightly disreputable bar.
Beyond that, I can see the upper portion of a large and very grand-looking villa, built, I imagine, towards the end of the last century, in what would then have seemed an idyllically tranquil and private position. Its tranquillity must now be as sadly impaired by the noise of the traffic along the Corniche as its privacy has been by the subsequent building of residential blocks of flats, such as this one, on the hillside above.
For example, I have from here a clear view of the whole of the extensive roof terrace. And sitting on the roof terrace, even as I write, is Sir Robert Renfrew—I recognised him at once, having seen him several times on his visits to Chambers for conferences with Selena. Though I knew, of course, when she described his villa to us, that it must be in the same general area as Benjamin’s flat, I had no idea that they were in such immediate proximity.
Sir Robert, I suspect, does not fully realise how open the terrace is to observation and regards himself as enjoying there the same degree of privacy as if he were indoors. I first saw him two days ago, the morning after I arrived here, when I was having my coffee and croissant on the balcony and he was performing his exercises, dressed only in shorts and a vest—an activity, I think, which an elderly gentleman with a tendency to plumpness would normally wish to engage in, if at all, without an audience.
He seems to spend a good deal of time on the terrace, not only doing exercises but also apparently working. He is from time to time attended on by three ladies, none, I am relieved to say, of scandalously youthful or seductive appearance: one in a black dress and apron, presumably the housekeeper, who brings him occasional refreshments; one in a well-tailored linen trouser suit, obviously Miss Tavistock, whom he summons by means of an old-fashioned handbell to take dictation; one of fairly advanced years and a somewhat equine countenance, no doubt his wife, who favours him with her company for the customary aperitif before dinner.
Today, however, there has been an interruption in this tranquil mode of existence.
The first sign of it was just after midday, when the post and the English newspapers arrive here. I had collected your letter and a copy of today’s Times from the concierge and settled down out here on the balcony to read them. Glancing at the terrace, I saw Sir Robert sitting peacefully in his chair and apparently similarly occupied. Your letter, I need hardly say, engaged my entire attention for several minutes, after which I again looked across at the terrace, just in time to observe a remarkable transformation in his demeanour. I thought at first that something in his newspaper or his correspondence had provoked him to a sudden rage, but decided after a few moments that his mood was one of excitement rather than anger.
He had leapt up from his chair and was brandishing his handbell with such vigour that I almost expected to hear the sound of it all the way across the place. Miss Tavistock came running and seemed to receive instructions, of a brisk and urgent nature, after which she disappeared again. Sir Robert did a few exercises, as if suddenly needing to work off surplus energy, and then also left the terrace.
I too went indoors, with the intention of making myself lunch—a task more difficult than I had envisaged. All the cooking appliances in the flat depend for their operation on a supply of gas, not from the mains but from a replaceable cylinder: I was halfway through cooking myself what might have been a rather delicious omelette with fines herbes when I discovered that the cylinder was empty, and must indeed have been nearly so when I arrived.
There was a note pinned up on the wall beside the stove giving directions on where to find the replacement cylinder: having followed them, I discovered that there was no replacement cylinder. I reminded myself with some effort that Benjamin was my friend and host and it would be unseemly to think unkind thoughts of him.
He had advised me, if I should have any unexpected problems, to seek the assistance of his next-door neighbour—a physiotherapist of some sort, who studied art in her spare time and painted quite interesting watercolours. She was, he said, a very helpful and competent sort of person, and he was on friendly terms with her. Feeling that the difficulty with the gas cylinder was one of the unexpected problems which Benjamin had been expecting me to encounter, I went out and rang on her doorbell.
The appearance of the young woman who answered was something of a surprise to me. For some reason I had pictured Mademoiselle Natasha as middle-aged and rather plain, wearing a sensible suit and perhaps a crisp white overall. In fact she was in her twenties and strikingly handsome, tall, dark eyed, black haired, with a splendidly aquiline profile—the product, one would guess, of a series of exotic alliances between different races and nationalities. She was dressed—well, her clothing is difficult to describe: it consisted largely of items of cream-coloured leather, including a pair of knee-high boots, which somehow left a number of areas uncovered—not at all the sort of garment which one associates with the medical profession.
But when I asked her, rather apprehensively, whether she was Mademoiselle Natasha, she confirmed that she was, albeit in a tone which somewhat suggested that her name was none of my business. On hearing, however, that I was a friend and guest of Benjamin’s, she became quite cordial and proved extremely helpful in the matter of the cylinders. She was about to drive into town for lunch and intended to pass the garage from which replacements were obtained: she said that she would purchase two on my behalf and bring them back after lunch.
The least I could do was make sure of being at hand to unload them. I therefore decided to take lunch in the nearest café, which is only a few yards away from the entrance to our block of flats. Having consoled myself for my ruined omelette with a croque-monsieur and a chocolate ice cream, I remained there, reading my guidebook and glancing frequently out of the window to be sure of seeing her as soon as she returned.
And that was how I happened to see Miss Tavistock, driving through the place—a Bentley, as it happens, not a Mercedes—in the direction of Nice; she was alone in the car.
Natasha not only remembered to buy the cylinders but helped me to carry them up to the flat and to install one of them in its proper place beside the stove. After this, naturally, I offered her a drink, which she accepted, and we came and sat out here on the balcony.
Her English, like my French, is serviceable rather than fluent; but between the two we managed to have quite a pleasant and interesting conversation, mostly about painting. I did try asking her about her work as a physiotherapist—she tells me that she specialises in pains of the lower back; but she seemed to be far more interested in her artistic studies—she has promised to show me some of her watercolours. Her work has occasionally been exhibited in one of the small art galleries in the neighbourhood and sold sufficiently well to give her hopes of someday making her living by it.
As she was telling me this, she suddenly pointed towards the place and said, �
��Oh, there is one of my patrons. Madame Tavistock—she has bought several of my things. She is English, but very intelligent, very artistic—you should meet her, Desmond. Poor Madame Tavistock—she works for a bank and meets only imbeciles who talk about money and motorcars.”
I looked in the direction she was pointing and saw the Bentley on its way back towards the villa. Miss Tavistock was still at the wheel, but no longer alone—she had two passengers. Her journey had taken about the time one would expect if she had been collecting someone from Nice airport: although I was too far away to see them clearly, I somehow at once felt sure that I knew who they were.
Natasha left soon afterwards, saying unenthusiastically that she had a patient arriving for treatment: “Another imbecile, but one must live.”
Her treatments are evidently on the vigorous side—she said that her patients sometimes became rather noisy, and she hoped I would not be disturbed.
Having become rather curious about what was going on at the villa, and hoping to confirm my speculation as to the identity of the two passengers, I remained on the balcony.
Just as I was beginning to write this letter, Sir Robert reappeared on the roof terrace, where he was joined soon afterwards by his wife and Miss Tavistock. And then, a few minutes ago, the party was further augmented by two men in City suits, as if they had come straight from their offices, who I have no doubt at all are Edgar Albany and Geoffrey Bolton. It’s true I’ve only seen them once before, when Sir Robert brought them to see Selena in Chambers, but I’m quite sure I’m not mistaken.
I’m equally sure that their visit was not planned in advance—that they were summoned here by Sir Robert only a few hours ago, as a result of something he received in the post or read in the newspaper this morning. I suppose there may have been something in the financial pages which would provide a reason to convene an urgent directors’ meeting. But is it the real reason or merely a pretext? I strongly suspect, given the similarity of the conditions, that he is trying again to set a trap for the insider dealer, in the same way that he did when Selena was here in the summer. I can’t help feeling that this may be rather dangerous—another attack of food poisoning might have serious consequences.
Well, I shall keep as close an eye on the situation as circumstances permit. I have already, I’m afraid, spent more time on observing what is happening at the villa than is entirely consistent with my other obligations: Terry has rung to say that he is arriving this evening, and I haven’t the faintest idea what to give him for supper—we shall probably have to go out somewhere. If he complains, I shall talk meaningfully of pots, kettles, and unfinished bookcases.
21st December
Do please forgive me if the rest of this letter is somewhat disjointed: there are some rather strange noises coming from the flat next door—if Natasha had not warned me, I should think them very strange indeed—which make it slightly difficult to concentrate.
Although it is after ten A.M., I have only just finished breakfast, having risen disgracefully late and with a slight hangover. For this I entirely blame Terry, of whose disgraceful behaviour I am about to give full particulars: really, I don’t know what carpenters are coming to nowadays.
He arrived yesterday evening at about seven and readily agreed to go out to dinner rather than eat at the flat. What I had envisaged was a modest meal at one of the cafés in the place; but he persuaded me that we should go instead to a Moroccan restaurant, known to him from previous visits.
It was in a narrow side street a few minutes’ walk away, behind the sort of unassuming frontage which in France so often conceals a restaurant of some distinction. Inside, it was quite luxuriously furnished and decorated, in a quasi-Moorish style: thick carpets and silky draperies; divans round low circular tables in alcoves divided by carved wooden screens; brass lamps of the kind one might rub if one hoped to be given three wishes. At the end of the room, a piano and a small dais suggested that later in the evening some form of musical entertainment might be provided.
Rather to my alarm, the waiters all greeted Terry like a long-lost brother or nephew: the thing most likely to inspire such fond and enduring memories seemed to me to be a habit of reckless overtipping, which I feared I would be expected to emulate.
It also occurred to me that this might well be the same restaurant in which Sir Robert was taken ill in the summer. I decided not to risk the moules marinières.
I refrained throughout the meal from any mention of bookcases. Terry was in an odd sort of mood, one moment excessively animated, the next despondent, so that I was reluctant to say anything which might depress his spirits. Besides, on the first evening of his holiday, I felt it would be unkind to reproach him. On the other hand, I thought it no more than polite to enquire about his plans for the refurbishment of Benjamin’s flat.
“Oh,” he said vaguely, “I’m thinking fin de siècle. Aubrey Beardsley and winters in Egypt and so on—you know the kind of thing.”
But I was dismayed to observe that he spoke listlessly, with none of the enthusiasm which he used to show for such matters. I began to wonder if there were such a thing as carpenters’ block, like writers’ block, causing carpenters to be incapable of getting on with any work, and, if so, how long it might last.
So preoccupied was I with this question that I almost failed to notice the entry into the restaurant of the very people in whom I was so deeply interested—that is to say, Sir Robert Renfrew and his two codirectors, accompanied, of course, by Miss Tavistock.
For some reason—perhaps Lady Renfrew had objected to spending an evening hearing them talk business—they had evidently decided, like ourselves, to eat out. It was clear that Sir Robert was a known and valued customer: the headwaiter greeted him by name and deferentially conducted him with his guests to the table in the alcove next to ours.
I now felt no doubt at all that this was indeed the restaurant where he had suffered his attack of food poisoning last summer. It seemed likely, however, from the fact of his returning there, that he did not hold the restaurant to blame for it—presumably he is well aware that on that occasion he had not actually eaten anything. I even began to wonder, indeed, whether he himself suspected that one of his codirectors had had some hand in the business and was staging one of those reenactments of the crime which I believe are popular in detective fiction. I thought that if so he was being extremely foolhardy.
The new arrivals took no particular notice of Terry and myself. There was no reason why they should—apart from Sir Robert’s unfortunate collision with Terry a few months ago, which we all hope he has entirely forgotten, none of them had met either of us before. And since Terry was gossiping away with one of the waiters in fluent though ungrammatical French, they probably did not even realise that we were English.
In these circumstances I found that I was able—as of course you know, I would not dream of deliberate eavesdropping, but these carved screens do give an illusion of privacy and they were making no effort to lower their voices—that I was unable to avoid hearing a substantial part of their conversation. Moreover, when we had finished our main course Terry went off to the kitchen to say hello to the chef, who he said was an old friend of his, leaving me with nothing to distract me from it.
I gathered that Sir Robert had suddenly decided that morning that the time was ripe to proceed with a major acquisition which the Bank had for some time been considering on behalf of a client; he had summoned his fellow directors to Cannes with a view to taking action before the Christmas holiday. If I had known which company they were talking about, I might have managed to persuade myself that there would be nothing improper in having a modest flutter on it: but they all discreetly referred to it as “the target company,” rather than by name. Indeed, it appeared that before their arrival here neither Albany nor Bolton had known which company was to be the subject of discussion.
“If you don’t mind my saying so, Chairman,” said Albany, sounding decidedly peevish, “it’s a pity you didn’t feel able to t
ell us before we left London which target you had in mind. We’d have found it helpful to check what we had on file about it—at least, I know I would.”
“Ah well,” said Bolton, in his pronounced Lancashire accent, “I dare say we’ve looked at this one often enough to know pretty well what’s what.”
“It’s a question of security,” said Sir Robert. “Once you start mentioning names on the telephone, you might as well make a public broadcast and have done with it.”
Still, it must have been a little disconcerting for them, like being at school and having an unexpected exam—particularly for Albany, who evidently remembered almost nothing about the company under discussion. His rival, on the other hand, despite the lack of preparation, seemed to have all the relevant details at his fingertips.
Becoming, as a result of this, increasingly illhumoured, Albany rather forgot himself. He began making remarks to Bolton which were close to being openly offensive, most inadequately disguised as the kind of jovial banter acceptable between friends and colleagues. For example, after Bolton had asked some question about the meaning of something on the menu: “I say, Bolton, old chap, don’t you find it a bit of a bore not knowing any French? Why don’t you go on one of those courses?
“Nowt wrong with plain, old-fashioned English, in my opinion. It were good enough for old Bill Shakespeare, weren’t it? And he were a great writer—or so they tell me.”
“So most educated people seem to think. But I suppose they didn’t go in for literature much at that college of yours at—where was it? Sorry, I always forget—Birmingham, was it?”
“It were Worcester—bit southwest of Birmingham. Oh aye, there were a few lads there that studied poetry and such, but I wanted summat that would help me make a bit of brass.”
Even without the possibility of anyone being poisoned, I could hardly imagine, in such an atmosphere, that any of them was having a very agreeable evening. It must have been rather a relief to them when the lights, already low, were dimmed still further, the pianist took his place at the piano and the patron stepped forward to tell us that we were to have the inestimable privilege of hearing la belle Zingara, who had just returned to Cannes after her acclaimed tour of European capitals.
The Sibyl in Her Grave Page 15