in the boy’s eyes, “that he’ll want to talk about women.”
CHAPTER 16
I awoke on Thursday morning with an unshakable 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 appease 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 ajar 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, traveling 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?”
