What one so much admires in Selena is her instinct for what the moment requires: she went straight to the bar and came back with three large Scotches.
Ragwort, returning to us at a more prudent pace than he had left, was unable to explain the incident. Cantrip, it seemed, observing his presence, had turned away from the window, put his hands behind his back and pointed both thumbs upwards: this had been construed by Ragwort as meaning that all was well. He had then spread his palms and made a pushing gesture: Ragwort had taken this to indicate a desire to continue undisturbed his tête-à-tête with the Major.
We continued to watch the window of the antique shop. Cantrip and the Major had both sat down again and were engaged in apparently amiable conversation. We saw the Major open another bottle.
After two hours or so Cantrip came out. He turned left as arranged. His step, I thought, was rather less brisk than usual. We waited, as we had promised, for two minutes to make sure that he was not being followed. Satisfied that he was not, we rose and went back to the car. Cantrip was leaning wearily against it, pitifully pale, poor boy.
‘Cantrip,’ said Selena, ‘are you all right?’
‘No,’ said Cantrip, ‘actually, I think I’m dying. But if we can go and have some coffee at Ragwort’s, I suppose I’ll probably survive.’
I was at a loss to account for the poor boy’s condition. He had drunk, certainly, a rather large quantity of whisky, unaccompanied by any solid food; but I would not have thought, on the basis of my knowledge of him, that this alone would have had so marked an effect. The incident which had alarmed us had apparently left him unmoved, and the rest of his interview with the Major had seemed to pass off peacefully enough; yet we saw that it had left him exhausted in mind and body.
‘Cantrip,’ said Selena, ‘what was all that business with the gun?’
‘What gun?’ said Cantrip.
I reminded him gently – for he seemed to be suffering from some kind of amnesia – that at an early stage in the interview the Major had evidently been threatening him with a firearm.
‘Oh,’ said Cantrip, ‘that wasn’t a gun exactly. That was a Baker flintlock rifle – one of the ones they issued to the Corps of Riflemen in 1800. Jolly interesting – I saw it hanging on the wall and asked if I could have a look at it. I say, you didn’t really think he was threatening to shoot me with it, did you?’
‘Yes,’ said Selena. ‘Anxiety was entertained.’
‘Oh, come off it,’ said Cantrip. ‘You’d have to be a complete lunatic to try and shoot anyone with a flintlock rifle in this day and age.’
‘We didn’t know that, Cantrip,’ said Selena.
‘Oh,’ said Cantrip. ‘Frightfully sorry.’
‘Did you manage,’ I asked, ‘to tell him about the picture?’
‘Oh yes,’ said Cantrip. ‘I told him all about my Uncle Hereward being frightfully keen on forgeries and things and specially this February chap.’
‘Fabbro,’ I said.
‘Right,’ said Cantrip. ‘Well, I told him all about that and about that painting that got stolen in Verona. And he’s promised to ask around a bit among one or two pals of his – mum’s the word, he said, no names, no pack drill – to see if he can find out anything about it. And if he does, he’ll let me know about it right away, so that I can tell my Uncle Hereward and get in good with him. Oh yes, that bit all went all right – I got it all in quite quickly, actually.’
‘In that case,’ asked Ragwort, ‘what were you talking about for the remaining two hours?’
‘Women,’ said Cantrip.
‘Cantrip,’ said Selena, ‘if you’re going to tell me that while we were sitting outside that beastly pub eating beastly sausage rolls and worrying about whether the Major was going to try to shoot you, you were simply engaged in an exchange of schoolboy scurrilities— ’ but the look of exhaustion returning to Cantrip’s eyes silenced her reproaches.
‘Was it really only two hours?’ he said. ‘It seemed longer than that. Much longer. Much, much longer. The Major’s known a lot of women. English women, Italian women, Arab women, Serbo-Croatian women. The right sort of women, the wrong sort of women. Women who would, women who wouldn’t, women who might have. He told me about them all. Are you sure it was only two hours?’
‘Couldn’t you make him stop?’ said Ragwort.
‘No,’ said Cantrip.
‘Why did you let him start?’ said Selena.
‘Well,’ said Cantrip, ‘I thought if I got him talking about women he’d be bound to say something about Julia sooner or later. After all, it’s only a week since he asked her to marry him.’
‘And did he?’ I asked.
‘Yes,’ said Cantrip. ‘In the end, he did. Not by name – but he said he’d had an unhappy experience very recently when he thought he’d found the right woman at last and she turned out to be the wrong sort. Frightfully brainy girl, he said, who’d been to Oxford, so she could run rings round a simple soldier like him. She had him completely fooled, he said, and he only found out in the nick of time that she was a wrong ’un.’
‘Really,’ said Selena, ‘what frightful cheek. For a man who makes his living from selling stolen antiques to refer in those terms to a member of Lincoln’s Inn— ’
‘Yes, that’s what I thought,’ said Cantrip. ‘Anyway, I asked him how he’d found out about her being the wrong sort and he clammed up on me and said it was too painful to talk about. Well, I thought that was pretty suspicious, because up till then he’d been as unclamlike as you could get. So what I reckon is that he thought if he talked any more about it he’d give himself away – I mean, about having found out about Julia and the chap from the Revenue and done the chap in in a frenzy of jealous passion, like I’ve always said he did.’
‘I hope,’ I said, ‘that you have told him how to get in touch with you if he finds out anything about the painting?’
‘Yes, I gave him my phone number in Chambers. So the next time he wants to tell someone about some Outer Mongolian woman of the wrong sort who wouldn’t, I suppose he’ll ring me up.’
‘I suspect,’ I said, ‘that you may hear from him very soon. But I don’t think,’ I added, seeing the hunted look in the boy’s eyes, ‘that he’ll want to talk about women.’
16
I awoke on Thursday morning with an unshakeable conviction, not sufficiently accounted for by any knowledge of my conscious mind, that matters were moving towards a crisis – a conviction so powerful that I felt compelled yet again to disregard the call of Scholarship: delaying my departure from Islington to make one necessary telephone call, I made my way directly to 62 New Square.
Knocking on the door of the largest room of the Nursery and being invited to come in, I found Ragwort and Cantrip reading a letter, which I perceived to be in that clear, careful hand in which Timothy, when my pupil, had written his always conscientious essays. It was the letter which I have already set out in Chapter 12 of this volume. Ragwort handed it to me, saying, however, as he did so, that it added nothing to what we already knew. I settled down in the large leather armchair and began to read.
‘Hilary,’ asked Ragwort, ‘are you thinking of staying long?’
‘Am I,’ I asked, ‘unwelcome?’
‘My dear Hilary, of course not,’ said Ragwort. ‘But we’re having a certain amount of difficulty with Henry. He’s just a little put out that none of us returned to Chambers after lunch yesterday.’
‘Miffed as a mongoose,’ said Cantrip.
‘If I am right in assuming,’ said Ragwort, ‘that a mongoose is even more miffed than the maggots which are the usual standard of comparison, that is certainly the case. Your presence, Hilary, has been noted and is regarded as contributing to our delinquency. If Henry finds you here again this morning – ’
I assured them that my entry to 62 New Square had been unobtrusive and that if Henry’s footstep should be heard outside I would conceal myself, with all swiftness, behind a curtain.
Hoping to a
ppease Henry’s indignation, they had undertaken not to go out for coffee. Selena, however, foreseeing the need for such a gesture, had brought with her to Chambers a jar of instant coffee and her electric kettle.
She seemed downcast, a thing unusual with her. She felt that our enquiries had been ineffectual: they had established, she said, that I disliked Eleanor and that Cantrip was bored by the Major – neither of these facts, she felt, would be sufficient to persuade the Vice-Quaestor to transfer his suspicions from Julia.
‘More than that, surely,’ said Ragwort. ‘We know there’s a definite connection between Eleanor and Kenneth Dunfermline, and therefore between Eleanor and the dead man.’
‘Yes,’ said Cantrip. ‘And we know the Major deals in stolen goods. I mean, if the Italian fuzz think that’s respectable – ’
‘He hasn’t got a criminal conviction,’ said Selena. ‘The Vice-Quaestor is going to say it’s mere gossip.’
‘Well,’ said Cantrip, ‘there’s always the holdall. We know he pinched that.’
I pointed out that if Cantrip had been listening to me on Monday evening he would have heard me mention that the Major had not stolen the dead man’s holdall.
‘I was listening, Hilary,’ said Cantrip. ‘But I thought you were just having a loopy spell, due to spending too much time in the Public Record Office or something, so I thought I’d do the tactful thing and not draw attention to it.’
‘The Major,’ I repeated, ‘did not steal the dead man’s holdall.’
‘He jolly well did,’ said Cantrip. ‘I saw him do it. You’ve got first-hand evidence from a member of the English Bar and if you’re going to start casting aspidistras on its reliability – ’
‘My dear Cantrip,’ I said soothingly – for one knows that he is inclined, when heated, to start throwing books at one – ‘my dear Cantrip, I am not for a moment doubting your word. I am saying merely that in interpreting the evidence you have considered it in part, rather than as a whole. It is a pitfall not easily avoided save by the trained scholar.’
‘Hilary,’ said Selena, handing me a cup of coffee, ‘we are supposed, as you are very well aware, to be working. You have now, however, aroused in us a curiosity which will prevent our doing so until you have explained your theory, whatever it may be, about the holdall. Please be kind enough to do so with all expedition.’
‘Do you remember,’ I asked, not resenting her asperity, for I knew her to be under strain, ‘Julia’s first letter?’ They nodded. ‘You will recall, then, that Julia identified the Art Lovers among her fellow passengers by looking at the labels on their hand luggage. Including – indeed, beginning with – the Major. From which we may conclude that on the journey out the Major had something with him which the airline was prepared to regard as hand luggage. It was not a day, as we know, on which a broad view was being taken – they had disallowed Julia’s suitcase. Now, when we saw them returning to Heathrow, the Major had two pieces of luggage: one was a large suitcase, which even the most permissive airline would not have permitted him to have in the passenger compartment; the other was the holdall believed by Cantrip to be the property of the murdered man.’
‘Well,’ said Cantrip, ‘if the Major had another case with him, he must have left it behind in Venice and taken the holdall instead.’
‘Why in the world should he do that?’ I asked.
‘Whatever you say, Hilary,’ said Cantrip, ‘it had the dead chap’s name on the label.’
‘From which we may conclude,’ I answered, ‘either that the Major had stolen the holdall; or that he had stolen the label.’
They sipped their coffee and looked thoughtful.
‘Why,’ asked Ragwort, ‘should he do that?’
‘Let us suppose, my dear Ragwort, that you have an object which you wish to take through Customs and the discovery of which will occasion a certain embarrassment. Would it not be prudent, in those circumstances, to ensure that if the case containing it happens to be opened by a Customs official the name on the label is that of someone other than yourself? Someone, naturally, travelling in the same group, so that it will remain with your own luggage and can easily be reclaimed at the end of the journey if nothing untoward has taken place.’
‘Yes,’ said Ragwort. ‘Yes, I can see that it might be. But why do you assume that the label is stolen, Hilary? Why not simply get a blank label and write someone else’s name on it?’
‘You would want to use one of the labels supplied by the travel agents, who generally give only two to each passenger. Yours, it is to be assumed, already have your own name on them. Besides, you would have the difficulty of forging the handwriting. No, I am fairly sure that you would want to steal the label. And that, I suggest, explains the Major’s surreptitious visit to Ned Watson’s room on Friday morning.’
‘It’s quite ingenious,’ said Selena. ‘And I’m perfectly prepared to believe that the Major had something he wanted to smuggle out of Italy. What I don’t understand, Hilary, is why you think it’s that painting that was stolen in Verona. When an antique dealer of dubious character has been rummaging round in Venice for a week, there are surely a great many other things— ’
The telephone on Ragwort’s desk emitted the bad-tempered buzz which indicates a desire to attract attention on the part of someone in the Clerks’ Room. Answering, he was told by Henry, in tones of the utmost gloom, that the young American lady was here again and on her way up to see him.
‘It seems,’ said Ragwort, replacing the telephone, ‘that Marylou is paying us another visit. I wonder why.’
‘Possibly,’ I said, ‘because I asked her to.’
‘Hilary,’ said Ragwort, ‘that really is a bit much.’ But the girl’s arrival precluded further protest: he was obliged instead to express his pleasure at seeing her again; to offer her a chair; and to ask Cantrip to find another cup.
‘My dear Marylou,’ I said, ‘how kind of you to come so promptly.’
‘Please don’t mention it, Professor Tamar,’ she answered, with the charming deference which she had shown at our first meeting. ‘If there’s anything I can do to help Julia – have you any news of her?’
‘Not yet,’ I said, ‘but we are expecting further developments very shortly. Did you manage, I wonder, to find the book I spoke of?’
‘Why, certainly,’ said Marylou, taking from her large and expensive shoulder-bag a guide book to the city of Padua.
‘Oh,’ asked Ragwort, looking surprised, ‘did Julia lend you that as well?’
‘No,’ answered the girl. ‘It’s one we got on the visit to Padua. But Professor Tamar called and asked me – ’ she paused, looking at me as if seeking my permission to disclose what had been said.
‘I was anxious,’ I said, ‘to have a brief glance at the guide to Padua. It is almost impossible in London to obtain individual guide books to the smaller Italian cities, and your copy, Ragwort, so far as I know, is still with Julia. Since Marylou was the only other person I knew who had recently visited the city, I rang her to ask whether by any chance she had acquired a guide book. She told me that she had and has now very kindly brought it round.’
‘Hilary,’ said Cantrip, in a tone which he seemed to believe soothing, ‘you’re having another of your loopy spells. Nothing happened in Padua. Verona was the place where the picture got stolen.’
‘Thank you, Cantrip,’ I said, ‘I am well aware of that.’ I began to look through the index to the guide book.
There was another irritable buzz from the Clerks’ Room, answered again by Ragwort. ‘There’s a telephone call for you, Cantrip,’ he said. ‘I’ll say you’ll take it in Selena’s room, shall I?’
The index proving less informative than I had hoped, it took me some little time to find the passage I required and to confirm my expectation of its content. I had just done so when Cantrip returned.
‘That was the Major,’ he said. ‘He says he’s got the painting.’
Or something, at any rate, which seemed to the Major, fr
om the works of reference he had consulted, to be remarkably like it. As he had promised, he had asked around among his mates about the stolen picture; none of them knew anything about it; but one, by an extraordinary coincidence, had discovered a virtually identical painting while clearing out his attic the previous week. It was not for the Major to disbelieve his friend’s story. Still less was it for the Major to tell Cantrip that it was in fact the painting stolen in Verona – if that had been the case, and if the Major had known it to be the case, it would of course have been his duty to inform the police. On the other hand, strictly between Cantrip, himself and the gatepost, he thought, if Cantrip’s uncle were to come and have a look at it, that he might be very struck by the resemblance.
‘Congratulations, Hilary,’ said Selena. ‘You seem to have guessed right.’
‘My dear Selena,’ I said, ‘the careful process of reasoning by which the scholar advances from established premise to ineluctable conclusion is hardly to be described as guesswork.’
‘My dear Hilary,’ she said, ‘of course it was guesswork. The painting might have been stolen by anyone – well, anyone who was in Verona on that day.’
‘I do not dispute,’ I said, ‘that there would have been a large number of people in Verona on Tuesday of last week. Among them, however, I suspect there were only three who believed that the Church of Saint Nicholas there contained a Madonna by the younger Tiepolo. And two of them were talking about Catullus.’
I picked up again the guide book brought by Marylou and turned to the passage I had been reading when Cantrip returned from his telephone call. ‘It is a misapprehension, you see, likely to be entertained only by someone going round Verona with the assistance of a guide book to Padua.’
There was a brief silence, which ended with Selena saying, ‘Nonsense, Hilary. Julia did very well in Verona.’
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