“I suppose,” I said eventually, “that you are — let me see, about five foot four, Selena?” She nodded. “The parapet then, if you could not see over it, must be of a similar height. And Deirdre — Deirdre, I seem to remember, was rather a small girl. Two or three inches shorter than you, I fancy?”
“At least that,” said Selena.
“And your suggestion is, I suppose, that a young woman who chooses to watch the Boat Race from a balcony some two inches higher than herself—”
“Must be singularly indifferent,” said Julia, “to the outcome of the contest.”
“While the notion of her leaning over it becomes, I agree, distinctly improbable. Are you quite sure, Selena, about the height of the parapet? It seems odd that it should be so high as to obstruct the view of the river.”
“Quite sure,” said Selena. “I thought at the time what a pity it was. It does, however, prevent the roof terrace from being overlooked from the other blocks of flats in the neighborhood: it seems that the designer preferred privacy to prospect. And it would be more sheltered, I suppose, if one were sitting out there with a breeze blowing.”
I asked Selena if it would be possible for her to draw for me a plan of Rupert’s flat. The product of her labors with ballpoint and table napkin, being possibly also of some interest to my readers, is reproduced below.
I was still studying it when Cantrip arrived, showing no signs of weariness from his labors in Fleet Street. The waiters of Guido’s gathered round him with affectionate solicitude: it is their desire to encourage all their clients to a comfortable and prosperous plumpness, and Cantrip is an enduring challenge to them. The slenderness of Ragwort may be attributed to restraint; but Cantrip’s look of artistic semi-starvation survives any quantity of pasta or profiteroles.
“They’ve kept you very late,” said Timothy. “Has the gossip columnist been sailing more than usually close to the wind?”
“No,” said Cantrip. “No, it’s not that — I’ve been chatting up this bird. Hang on a minute while I order some food, and I’ll tell you all about it.”
“No doubt,” said Ragwort, with weary distaste. “You generally do.”
“All right then, I won’t,” said Cantrip. “What I thought was, if you were still trying to find out about Deirdre, you might all be quite interested. But if you’re not, I won’t bother.” Turning a shoulder towards Ragwort in a manner indicative of pique, he addressed himself to the nearest and most attentive waiter. “I’ll have a steak, please. You needn’t cook it much, I’m practically dying of hunger.”
“Why?” said Selena. “Who was this girl, Cantrip?”
“Oh, no one special.” Cantrip was elaborately casual. “Just a bird on the staff of the
“Cantrip, don’t tease,” said Julia. “Tell us what she said.”
“Shan’t, so there,” said Cantrip with dignity. “Not until Ragwort takes back his malicious innuendo.”
“A malicious innuendo? On my part? My dear Cantrip,” said Ragwort, “what can you mean?”
“You know jolly well what I mean. What you innuended was that I kept boring you sick with unsavory stories about my success with birds, and I want a retraction and an apology. That means you’ve got to say it’s not true and you’re sorry you said it.”
“My dear Cantrip,” said Ragwort, “of course it’s not true that you bore me with unsavory stories of your success with women. I find them quite entertaining. And if I’ve said anything which could be construed as implying otherwise, then I am very sorry.”
Mollified by this graceful apology, Cantrip consented to tell us what he had learnt of the circumstances surrounding Deirdre’s death.
“The whole lot of them were there — you know, all the ones who turned up for the trust bust. It’s a sort of family tradition for Rupert to give them all lunch on Boat Race day. Looks as if he mostly does it to please Camilla — the word is it’s quite important for him to stay on the right side of her. He fancies himself as some kind of financial whiz kid, but everything he does seems to come unstuck — mention his name near our City Desk and they start talking about bargepoles. So he’s probably in a rather dodgy position moneywise, and people think he’s counting on Camilla to do the grateful daughter bit when she comes in for the loot.”
“There were no other guests,” I asked, “apart from members of the family?”
“Old Tancred was there — you remember, our instructing solicitor. Not in a professional capacity — as an old family friend. Well, that’s what he told the Coroner. I expect he just slid under the door when he heard there was free booze going — you know what solicitors are like.”
The attentive waiter now placed before Cantrip an enormous steak, surrounded by mushrooms and fried potatoes, murmuring as he did so a few coaxing words in Italian, as if fearing that without encouragement his customer would eat no more than a mouthful: Cantrip applied himself to dispelling these anxieties.
“I imagine,” said Selena, thoughtfully sipping her brandy, “that Mr. Tancred is another person whom Rupert might be anxious to keep on good terms with. Tancred’s may be a rather dozy sort of firm, but they’re very respectable. If I were engaged in dubious business ventures, I believe I might find it quite convenient to be able to say they were acting for me.”
“I’m surprised,” said Timothy, “if Rupert’s activities are as dubious as you seem to think, that Tancred does go on acting for him.”
“I suppose,” said Selena, “that if he refused to act for Rupert he’d risk losing the Remington-Fiske business altogether. He would be more inclined, I dare say, to give the benefit of the doubt to Camilla’s father than to many other clients.”
The presence of the solicitor at Rupert’s luncheon party could easily be attributed, it seemed to me, to no sordid motive on either side, but to a sociable desire on Rupert’s part to dilute the preponderance of femininity. Even with Tancred there, the men would have been outnumbered by five to four.
“No,” said Cantrip, looking up briefly from his steak, “it was an even number. Sorry, I forgot — Dorothea brought her husband. Her second husband, I mean, the Greek one. Constantine whatsisname. He’s a professor of something at Athens University, and this bird on the
I happened at this moment to be raising my coffee cup to my lips: I returned it carefully to its saucer, not trusting my hand, at such a moment, to retain its steadiness. “Cantrip,” I said, “you don’t mean that Dorothea’s husband is Constantine Demetriou the poet?”
“I don’t know,” said Cantrip. “That’s his name, and this bird says he writes poetry. Is it something to get steamed up about?”
The mention in connection with the case of a name so distinguished, so deservedly honored throughout the civilized world no less for political fortitude than for literary achievement, was, as my readers may easily imagine, a complete astonishment to me. I had known, of course, that Demetriou had spent the years of his exile in England — indeed, I had several colleagues who were friends of his from that time: I had even been vaguely aware, perhaps, that he had an English wife; but the notion of his being Dorothea’s husband had not crossed my mind for a moment. His full name had been mentioned, I dare say, in her affidavit; but it is a common one in Greece, and there had been no roll of drums or blare of trumpets to mark the greatness of the man referred to.
“Really, Cantrip,” I said, “I should have supposed that even in Cambridge—”
Yet even those who did not share Cantrip’s educational disadvantages were but dimly aware, it seemed, of Demetriou’s eminence: Julia had seen his name in an
“Very well,” I said at last, perceiving how useless were farther reproaches, “on the day of Deirdre’s death, ten people had gathered in Rupert’s flat to take lunch together and afterwards to watch the Boat Race. They happened to include one of the greatest European poets of the twentieth century, of whom none of you, apparently, has ever heard. Very well. Were you able, my dear Cantrip, to gather from your interesting friend any further details of what occurred?”
