Thus Was Adonis Murdered

now added the tyranny of secret law-making — as it is, when one cannot advise one’s clients without ferreting through correspondence columns for proclamations of Revenue policy.”

My indignation almost caused me to forget the business in hand; but Ned brought back my attention to it by repeating, rather crossly, that the day-off-abroad provision was not embodied in a Press release but in the Act itself.

“My dear Ned,” I replied, “I am prepared to bet you a bottle of wine that it isn’t.”

“By all means,” he said. “But I’ll have to wait for my wine until we get back to England. We can’t settle it without a Finance Act.”

“We can settle it right away,” I said. “I have the Finance Act in my room.”

And thus it was that the beautiful Ned returned with me across the bridge to the annexe.

It is a great advantage in an enterprise of this nature to know that one’s room will have been cleaned and tidied. How often has some promising pursuit been brought to a standstill by my recalling the chaos and squalor of my bedroom? I looked with gratitude, therefore, as we went through the entrance-way to the annexe, at the little group of chambermaids, as pretty as a flock of angels in some Renaissance painting, who gather there to rest in the afternoon. They smiled at me, I thought, with an eye of complicity, as if knowing and approving my purpose. We went up the staircase and came to my room.

“Sit down,” I said, “while I find my Finance Act.” There being nothing else to sit on — the chair by

the dressing table was occupied by a pile of clothes — he sat down on the bed, on the edge nearer to the door. I was careful, having found my Finance Act, to hand it to him from the other side of the bed, thus drawing him down from a perpendicular to a horizontal position — lying, that is to say, across the bed, rather than sitting on the edge of it. I sat down beside him on the edge further from the door.

“Show me,” I said, “this mythical amendment.”

It is hardly possible, when two people are sitting on the same bed and trying to read the same copy of the Finance Act, for all physical contact to be avoided. I, indeed, made no attempt to avoid it; but neither, it seemed to me, did Ned. This gave me some encouragement — one would not wish, as a woman of principle, to impose attentions actually distasteful.

The advice of yourself and my Aunt Regina, excellent as both had proved to be, could take me, I felt, no further — it was time to put complete reliance in that given by the dramatist Shakespeare. Leaning across Ned’s shoulders, I rested my hand on the area of the bed which lay on the further side of them. So that when, in due course, he looked up from the statute to say, with forgivable complacency, “Here you are, Julia — sub-paragraph (b) of paragraph 2 of the Schedule,” he found himself, as it were, encircled.

“Why, you are perfectly right,” I said, “and I owe you a bottle of wine. But I hope you are too kind to insist on immediate payment.”

“Oh, Julia,” he said, opening his eyes very wide with reproach, “how can you be so shameless?”

“Ah, Ned,” I answered, “because you are so beautiful.” And met with no further resistance.

“It just shows one,” said Ragwort sadly, “how dangerous it is to gamble. Even when one knows one is right.”

“Come off it,” said Cantrip. “Going off with Julia to her bedroom in the middle of the afternoon — you can’t tell me he didn’t think she’d make a pass.”

“Quite so,” said Selena. “But the charge is not one of ravishment.”

Delicacy precludes any more detailed account of the afternoon. This letter may be read in the presence of the virtuous and lovely Ragwort — one would not like to make him blush. That is to say, one would like very much to do so — nothing could be more delightful. But I shall resist the temptation. I shall merely say that the dramatist Shakespeare, in imputing to the forthright and vigorous approach a merely limited success, was shown to have been less than candid.

Afterwards, as is the way with beautiful young men when they wish to show in spite of the evidence that they are not creatures of easy virtue, the lovely Ned put on an expression of prim decorum, as one disapproving of all that has occurred and accepting no share of responsibility for it. Such a look, at such a time, inspires a particular tenderness; for after the horse has been persuaded to bolt, the careful locking of the stable door is extraordinarily endearing.

“Julia,” he said, “you will keep quiet about this, won’t you? I wouldn’t like Ken to know about it.”

I assured him that he might count on my discretion. I had already established, as you know, that it was logically impossible for Kenneth to be distressed by anything that might occur between Ned and myself; but Kenneth, being an artist, has perhaps not studied logic and is unaware of the impossibility.

The great danger of such an episode is the sense which it induces of benevolent euphoria, the consequences of which are almost always disastrous. After washing and changing for dinner, I had made my way to the bar of the Cytherea with a view to consuming a refreshing Campari soda and writing you a full account of my success. There, however, I found the Major, looking dejected and reading The Times.

My sympathies were aroused. The Major, after all, had no doubt come to Venice hoping, just like me, for a little innocent entertainment, but unlike me had failed to find it. I felt I should do what I could to raise his spirits. In a sense, it is true, it was his own fault: any hopes he might have had of success had been reduced, by his wearing of Bermuda shorts, from the small to the minuscule. On the other hand, I thought, it might be argued that it did him credit to wear a garment which so immediately revealed the frightfulness of his spider-like legs: an unscrupulous man would have tried to keep them concealed until the point at which a well-bred woman would feel embarrassment at withdrawing in revulsion.

“Cheer up, Bob,” I said briskly. “The news can’t be that bad.”

“Just looking at the jolly old investments,” said the Major. “I’ve saved a quid or two from time to time and a chap I know told me to buy some shares. Down again as per usual. Got to expect it, I suppose, with this Socialist shower running the show.”

“The Major,” said Selena, “must have been singularly unlucky in his choice of investments. The Stock Market is at its highest for five years.”

I pointed out that the decline in his investments would give him an excellent opportunity to establish a loss for capital gains tax purposes; but he seemed unwilling to perceive the advantages of this. Having undertaken, however, the task of cheering him up, I persisted with it until dinner, sparing only a moment to add a postscript to my letter to you and consign it to the evening post.

My efforts to improve the Major’s spirits were rewarded with such success that by the end of dinner he raised again the matter of the rug-cutting expedition. This put me in a dilemma. The only places I had seen where there might be dancing were nightclubs which looked to me formidably expensive; if I permitted the Major, in such an establishment, to bear the whole expense, it would be so enormous as to place me under obligations of an unmentionable nature. To avoid this, I should have to contribute equally; but to spend a large sum of money in order to shuffle round an over-crowded room in distasteful proximity to such a man — well, there were limits to my benevolence.

“Bob,” I said, “you can’t really want to spend the evening in a stuffy nightclub. I have noticed a most attractive little bar only a few minutes away, where we could sit out of doors and drink coffee and grappa—don’t you think that would be much more amusing?”

The bar to which I actually took the Major may not have been quite the bar to which I had intended to take him. Any route one follows in Venice is of necessity devious: alleyways which seem to lead in one direction, finding themselves interrupted by an unexpected canal, turn round and go somewhere entirely different; it is always possible — but never certain — that the bridge you are crossing is the same bridge that you crossed five minutes ago. Still, whether it was the right bar or the wrong bar, it was a perfectly good place to drink grappa and coffee.

Perceiving that we were close to the Teatro Fenice and somehow feeling that the responsibilities of guide still rested on my shoulders, I was anxious to tell the Major something of the building’s history and significance; but Ragwort’s guide book was unhelpful.

“You will observe,” I said, “that the date over the door is 1792. We may confidently assume, therefore, that the Theatre was the scene of very few of the comedies and musical entertainments for which Venice was celebrated in the eighteenth century. Beyond that, I can tell you nothing: the guide book refrains from any account of it.”

“Never mind, m’dear,” said the Major. “Can’t always rely on guide books, can you?” His tone was sombre, as