Thus Was Adonis Murdered

if the remark had some deeper, possibly metaphysical significance. “Still,” he added, “not your fault, m’dear.”

Among the many defects in the state of things which people have from time to time considered to be my fault — but which you have always kindly explained were not my fault at all — the inadequacy of guide books has not so far been included. Still, I answered that it was kind of him to say so.

He continued to speak of his financial position, giving me to understand that in spite of the decline in his investments he had done not too badly for himself and was quite comfortably fixed. 1 made congratulatory comment.

I would think it odd, he said, that he had never married. I did not in fact think it at all odd — the statistical chances against any woman being prepared to endure both the hairiness of his legs and the tedium of his conversation seemed to me to be negligible. 1 did not express this view, but said sympathetically that the military life must be difficult to combine with the domestic.

“That’s it, m’dear,” said the Major. “All right for the chap, but no life for the little woman. Ends in heartbreak — seen it often. And since I’ve been in Civvy Street — well, I’ve often thought I’d like to settle down. But it’s no good if it’s not the right woman.”

I agreed that it was undoubtedly better to be married to no one than to someone uncongenial.

“Well, m’dear,” said the Major, “how about it?”

I did my best to misunderstand. No use — it was a proposal of marriage.

If the survival of the human species were to depend on an act of physical conjunction between the Major and myself, then I suppose — while reserving the right, should the contingency actually arise, to consider the matter further — I suppose that in that event I should somehow bring myself to it. Once. Not twice. No, Selena, I am sorry, but even with the future of the species at stake, I really think not twice: you could not reasonably expect it of me. The institution of marriage, I have been led to believe, involves the occurrence of such acts on a regular and frequent basis. Marriage to the Major is a concept to make the blood run cold.

I had expected, at worst, some overture of a manifestly improper nature, such as might be rebuffed by adopting a Ragwort-like manner. For responding, however, to a proposal of marriage, the conduct of Ragwort affords no useful precedent. The ungoverned merriment with which he habitually receives such an offer is all very well with a friend and colleague, but would be excessively wounding in reply to a comparative stranger. I made some disjointed remarks to the effect that it was kind of him to ask me but marriage was not a habit of mine.

“Know I’m rushing my fences a bit, m’dear,” he said. “Don’t expect you to decide at once. But I’d better warn you, an old soldier doesn’t give up easily when he’s set his mind on something.”

The stars continued to shine in the velvet sky; but my spirits were enveloped in a cloud of sudden gloom.

The making of the proposal, albeit unaccepted, appeared in the Major’s opinion to entitle him, on wishing me good-night, to embrace me, though a well-judged movement of the head enabled me to reduce the unpleasantness of the whole thing to a rasping of my cheek. The emery-board texture of his chin put me in mind by contrast of the alabaster smoothness of Ned’s. I remain very worried about Desdemona.

“Why,” asked Ragwort, “couldn’t she just say ‘No’?”

“They told her at school,” said Selena, “that she must avoid hurting people’s feelings.”

“One sometimes feels,” said Ragwort, “that Julia took her education altogether too literally.”

Today, therefore, my principal objective has been to avoid the Major. I should have liked to have another disagreement with Ned about the Finance Act; but I think I can hope for no further success in that quarter. Seeing the lovely creature on the terrace this morning, I reminded him that I owed him a bottle of wine.

“It is an obligation,” he answered with great coldness, “that I shall be quite happy to forget.”

From which I concluded that he is still set on proving himself not to be a young man of easy virtue and that it would accordingly take a full week of admiring his soul to prevail on him again.

In case I have anything to add, I shall not post this until tomorrow evening; though I do not suppose, since tomorrow is our last day in Venice, that anything will happen of sufficient interest to deserve reporting to you.

“The remainder of the letter,” said Selena, “is written, therefore, on the day of the murder. Would this be a convenient moment to adjourn for coffee?”

CHAPTER 10

Cantrip appeared thoughtful: he had conceded without even formal argument that it was his turn to buy the coffee.

“I say,” he said, as he brought it back to our table, “you know this bird Desdemona that Julia keeps on about? She married this chap Othello and he got the idea she was having a bit on the side. So he did her in.”

“I think,” said Selena, “that we are all reasonably familiar with the unfortunate events described in the tragedy of Othello.”

“Well, I’m jolly familiar with them,” said Cantrip, “because Julia took me to see it once. And I said afterwards I thought it was pretty silly, because the Othello chap’s meant to have done frightfully well in the army and be a wiz at strategy and all that. And in that case, he wouldn’t be the sort of twit who thought his wife was having it off with someone else just because she lost her handkerchief. And Julia didn’t agree. Well, what she actually said was that I was a semi-educated flibbertigibbet whose powers of dramatic appreciation would be strained to the utmost by a Punch and Judy show on Brighton Pier in the off season. So I biffed her with my umbrella. And she tried to biff me with her handbag. But she missed, of course — you know what she’s like.”

Evidently lost in the tenderness of this recollection, Cantrip fell silent. The sweep of black hair across his pale forehead gave him a romantic look, as of some poet or artist dying young in the nineteenth century. The events described had taken place, I suppose, before the spider episode: after it Julia would not, I think, have sought to return his biff.

“Did this literary discussion,” asked Selena, “at any stage return to the merely verbal?”

“Oh, rather,” said Cantrip. “You see, the way Julia saw it was that a chap who’d spent all his life in the army was just the sort of chap to get a bee in his bonnet about pure womanhood and so on, because he wouldn’t get the chance to find out that women were more or less like anyone else and he’d start getting all idealistic about them. So as soon as he found out Desdemona wasn’t perfect — I mean, the first time she spilt coffee or dropped cigarette ash on the carpet — he’d start feeling all disillusioned and thinking she’d betrayed his ideals. And after that, making him think she was having it off with some other chap would be absolute child’s play.”

“It is, I suppose,” said Ragwort, “a not unconvincing view.”

“You bet it’s not unconvincing. Because when I started thinking about it I realized it was just what happened to my Uncle Hereward. My Uncle Hereward spent the best years of his life in the Army, serving Queen and Country in distant outposts of Empire, and when he came out he was so far round the twist he was practically invisible. With special reference to women. He’s got this idea that when he went into the Army women were all pure and unattainable and when he came out they weren’t. And instead of being pleased, he’s as miffed as a maggot about it.”

“My dear Cantrip,” said Selena, “are the psychological difficulties of your relative in any way material to our present problem?”

“Well, of course they are, or I wouldn’t be telling you about them, would I? The point is that this Major of Julia’s is the same type as Othello and my Uncle Hereward. And Julia, poor grummit, with a view to discouraging his advances, has been setting herself up as a leading contender in the pure womanhood stakes. As a result of which, the Major thinks she’s the woman he’s been looking for all these years and asks her to marry him.”

“Oh, dear,” said Selena.

“‘Oh, dear’ is right. And since Julia doesn’t want to hurt his feelings by saying no, she wouldn’t marry him if he was the last man on earth, he probably thinks she’s more or less engaged to him.”

“No one,” said Selena, “could be as idiotic as that”

“You haven’t met my Uncle Hereward. Well, if that’s how the Major sees things, and then he finds out about Julia and the chap from the Revenue, with particular reference to last Wednesday afternoon, what’s he going to do about it?”

“I suppose,” said Ragwort, “taking Othello as his model, that he would have murdered Julia.”