Thus Was Adonis Murdered

“Right. And I’ll go on to say that my uncle is specially interested in forgeries, like things by this Van Megawatt chap. I’ll tell the Major that if he ever comes across anything in that line I’d be jolly grateful if he’d let me know about it, because if I can put my uncle on to it it’ll put me in good with him.”

“You will imply, I suppose,” said Ragwort, “that you have expectations?”

“Yes. Subtly, though. It’d sound a bit off to say outright that I thought the old boy was going to leave me a packet. Not that he is, of course, because he thinks I’m the generation that’s betrayed his ideals — but the Major’s not to know that.”

“Cantrip,” I said, “about the picture—”

“Don’t flap, Hilary. What I’ll say is that last week my uncle was frightfully miffed because he read in The Times that someone had swiped a picture he’d specially have liked to get his hands on himself. I’ll say he was in Verona on holiday last year and identified this painting as something by this February chap.”

“Fabbro,” I said anxiously.

“Don’t worry, Hilary — it’ll be all right on the night. And the thing that miffs him most, I’ll say, is that if he’d realized they didn’t know its value and hadn’t got it wired up to alarm bells and things, he’d have swiped the thing himself. Jolly subtle, don’t you think?”

“You mean,” said Selena, “that this will indicate to the Major, should the picture in fact be in his possession, that your uncle would have no moral objection to acquiring stolen property?”

“That’s right,” said Cantrip. “Of course, if he actually knows anything about my uncle, he’ll know that anyway. But I suppose there must be people in the Army who’ve managed never to hear of the old boy.”

Selena remained uneasy about allowing Cantrip to go alone. Eventually we reached a compromise. We would all go together to Fulham. When prudence required, the rest of us would separate from Cantrip, but only to the extent of walking on the other side of the road. We would find a vantage point opposite the Major’s antique shop and keep Cantrip under careful observation. Cantrip for his part undertook that he would avoid, if at all possible, being lured from the front of the shop into any rearward den in which a murderous attack upon him might pass unobserved.

“The only thing is,” said Cantrip, “it may take me a bit of time to get the Major to break down and confess everything and if the solicitors for the Duke of Whatsitsname or someone like that suddenly need the services of a Chancery Junior, it won’t do them much good asking at 62 New Square. Henry’s not going to like it.”

“My dear Cantrip,” said Selena, “if you are prepared to engage in a solitary interview with a possible murderer, it will be a poor thing indeed if Ragwort and I lack the courage to tell Henry that we are all going to a most important lunch and may be gone some little time.”

“Quite so,” said Ragwort. “Besides, with any luck, Henry will leave for lunch before we do and we can leave a message with the temporary typist.”

Remembering the tedious complexities of reaching the New King’s Road by public transport, Selena, that morning, had prudently brought her motor-car to Lincoln’s Inn. At the hour when the members of 62 New Square would usually have gone to lunch, we set out in it for Fulham. Having negotiated, with that brisk insouciance on which I have previously commented, the complexities of the one-way system between Lincoln’s Inn and the Thames Embankment, she drove westwards through Chelsea.

Ragwort, because he has a house there, contends that Fulham is going up in the world. I do not quite like to argue with him about it. I must confess, however, that the New King’s Road, at any rate, always gives me the impression of moving in the reverse direction. Those substantial terraced houses can never, I suppose, have been intended for occupation by the indigent; but the state of their paintwork and pointing suggests that they were acquired some years ago in a period of actual or expected affluence which afterwards proved short-lived or illusory.

There are, in this part of London, numerous establishments dealing in second-hand merchandise, declining, with more or less regularity as one proceeds westward, from antiques to bric-a-brac to junk. The premises occupied by Major Linnaker were in the doubtful no-man’s-land between the first and the second. We observed with satisfaction that his shop was situated almost directly opposite a public house whose landlord had had sufficient confidence in the warmth of the September weather to place outside on the pavement a wrought-iron table and chairs.

Selena drove past the shop. Turning right, some hundred yards beyond it, she brought her motorcar to a halt in a quiet side-street.

“On leaving,” she said, as she locked the vehicle, “I think, Cantrip, that it might be prudent—”

“I am not,” said Cantrip, “a complete imbecile. If a chap’s going east and stops casually to look in an antique shop, it’s definitely fishy if he turns west again when he comes out of it. I’ll turn left, left and left again and rendezvous here. When I leave—”

“We’ll give you two minutes’ start,” said Selena, “to make sure you’re not being followed.”

“Roger,” said Cantrip. “Over and out. See you all later.”

“Cantrip,” said Selena, “you will be careful?”

“Absolutely,” said Cantrip.

He left us and began to stroll back along the New King’s Road. Crossing to the other side, the rest of us maintained an even pace with him and, as we hoped, an equal appearance of nonchaleur. Reaching the public house, we sat down at the wrought-iron table and watched him. As if his eye had been caught by some object of interest in the window, he paused outside the Major’s antique shop.

The Major, in displaying his wares, had made no attempt at uncluttered elegance. He had evidently been happy to surround a Jacobean sideboard with a set of Sheraton chairs — I supposed, in the light of what Benjamin had said, that they were all faked; but close beside them there was a china umbrella-stand in a sort of willow pattern, which I thought must be genuine — it seemed too hideous for anyone to have wished to copy it.

“Our presence here,” said Ragwort, “would appear more natural if we were drinking something. Shall I get some beer?”

“Excellent,” said Selena. “And some sandwiches. It may be all we’ll get for lunch.”

Ragwort went indoors in search of food and drink. Selena and I, remaining seated in our chairs on the pavement, saw Cantrip enter the antique shop and begin to pootle. There emerged in due course from the interior a figure whom we readily identified, even with the width of the road between us, as the Major: his bristling white moustache and bronzed complexion were easily recognized. We saw him approach Cantrip, asking him, presumably, whether he was more particularly interested in the Sheraton chairs or the china umbrella-stand. Cantrip looked up.

“Ah,” said Selena, “that’s Cantrip’s start of surprise.”

Ragwort returned, carrying three pints of beer and a plate of sausage rolls: the barman had greeted with derision his request for sandwiches, reminding him, in a manner which Ragwort had found offensive, that the bread delivery men were on strike. Sipping the beer and nibbling cautiously at the sausage rolls, we continued to observe the forefront of the antique shop.

“Agreement has now been reached,” said Ragwort, “on the question whether Cantrip is a frightful ass.”

The sausage rolls were even nastier than the sandwiches would probably have been. I began to wish that the sausage roll deliverers had also been on strike.

“I think,” said Selena, “that the moment has now been reached at which the Major metaphorically falls on Cantrip’s neck in a metaphorical embrace.” I agreed that this seemed a reasonable conclusion — the Major had produced from some cupboard or other a bottle and two glasses.

“I suppose,” said Ragwort, “that there’s no danger of him trying to poison Cantrip?”

“I hardly think,” I said, “that Cantrip can have said anything so far to provoke him to such extremities. Besides, he is drinking from the same bottle.” The relaxed and convivial attitude of those in the antique shop suggested that their conversation was concerned rather with military anecdote than with any overtures for the purchase of stolen property. We could not in fairness blame Cantrip for taking his time — we had warned him to be slow and subtle. I confess, however, that I began to feel that he was taking longer than was altogether necessary: comfortably ensconced and drinking at the Major’s expense, he had become, it seemed to me, a little forgetful of the tedium and discomfort endured by those watching over him.

On account of the bread strike it was the time, as my readers may remember, when the exchange of recipes for baking at home had displaced the Economy as the chief topic of light conversation. Ragwort had a recipe,