“They all had lunch on the roof,” said Cantrip, his powers of communication still a little restricted by steak and mushrooms. “Then they sort of drifted down to the drawing-room to watch the start of the race on television. Deirdre was the last one left up there. But Dorothea went up to get some glasses or something, and stayed and chatted for a bit. Then she came back to the drawing-room, and a bit after that there was all this hullabaloo beside the towpath. They didn’t know at first it was anything to do with Deirdre — they thought it was just people getting stirred up about the race. But it wasn’t. That’s all there is to it, really.”
“The question appears to be, then,” I said, “whether any of the party could have returned to the roof unobserved in the interval between Dorothea’s descent to the drawing-room and Deirdre’s more precipitate departure. Is there anything to indicate how long that might have been?”
“The Fairfax twins were on the drawing-room balcony, and they say Dorothea came back just after they’d got their first sight of the boats. And the witnesses on the towpath are pretty definite about Deirdre having fallen just as the boats were going under Barnes Bridge. So it depends how far you can see down river from Rupert’s drawing-room balcony.”
“I’m not sure,” said Selena, gazing thoughtfully into her brandy glass. “It was fairly dark when Julia and I were there. There’s a bend in the river, isn’t there, at Chiswick Steps? I don’t think one could see further than that. Does anyone know how long it would take for the boats to cover the distance between Chiswick Steps and Barnes Bridge?” She looked hopefully at Cantrip, who can generally be counted on to be well-informed on matters of a sporting nature.
“The record’s 3 minutes 43 seconds for that stretch,” said Cantrip. “That was your lot in 1953—cheating, I expect. This year’s time must have been a bit longer — say 4 minutes, at the outside.” He devoured his last fried potato as ravenously as he had the first and looked sadly at his plate.
“It isn’t very long,” I said.
“We are led to believe,” said Julia, “that it is a sufficient time to enable us to make all necessary preparation in the event of a nuclear attack. It must surely be ample, therefore, for a straightforward little murder?”
I perceived that Julia was not readily to be dissuaded from her opinion. I myself, though I did not share it, felt a certain uneasiness: the question of the height of the parapet… it seemed an absurdly obvious point for the police to have overlooked.
“They didn’t,” said Cantrip. He sat back in his chair with his hands clasped behind his head and his elbows pointing upwards, like, sharp strenuous wings.
I raised an eyebrow.
“The highly-trained staff of the
“A reasonable view,” said Selena.
“This bird thinks there’s more to it than that. The way she sees it, it’s all due to money and influence. Money and influence being what the Remington-Fiske crowd have got bucketfuls of — you know, probably all went to school with the Home Secretary’s grandmother. So someone tipped the wink they weren’t to be embarrassed by anyone suggesting Deirdre did it on purpose. Well, that’s what this bird thinks. She was at the L.S.E.,” he added, as if in explanation.
“An opinion,” I said, “may be held by a graduate of the London School of Economics and nonetheless be true.”
“Anyway,” continued Cantrip, not looking convinced, “the fuzz didn’t say anything at the inquest about the wall round the roof being too high to fall off. And the Coroner didn’t ask. And all the family said how bright and breezy Deirdre had been that afternoon, which this bird says is what you’d expect them to say. So the verdict was misadventure and everything was tickety-boo. But what the fuzz really think is that Deirdre did it on purpose.”
Physically, no doubt, it was entirely possible: a girl five foot two in height does not lean over a parapet of five foot four; but if resolved to throw herself over, she may easily scramble on to it. As to her reasons — well, she did not seem to have been of a notably light-hearted disposition: comparing her own position with Camilla’s, it would not be surprising if she were discontented; and the young take desperate remedies for discontent. The police, with great experience in such matters, believed that she had done so: could we not with good conscience accept that they were right?
“No,” said Julia, “no, I don’t think we can. The police don’t know about the letter. Whatever suicidal inclinations she might have had at any other time, we know she didn’t intend to die on the Saturday of the Boat Race; she intended to come and have dinner here at Guido’s and tell me about some discovery she’d made. Something she thought was interesting.”
“No doubt when she wrote to you that was her intention. Suicide, however, is a matter of impulse: a degree of despair may be reached, my dear Julia, at which the prospect of having dinner with you in the evening is an insufficient inducement to survive the afternoon.”
It was in vain, however, that I sought to reason with her. Julia has moments of unforeseeable stubbornness: encouraged by more than her fair share of Frascati, she now showed a disposition to begin talking about Sir Thomas More again.
I inquired, with resignation, what arrangements could be made for me to meet further with the descendants of Sir James Remington-Fiske.
CHAPTER 6
Victoria — ah, Victoria, starting-point of all true journeys, all southward voyages of pleasure or exploration, all escapes, all elopements, all flights from financial and emotional creditors. At the thought of her infinite possibilities what pulse could fail to beat faster?
“My dear Hilary,” said Ragwort, “we are only going into Sussex.”
“You fail,” I answered, “to discourage me. It is a charming county for a visit.”
Under the grimy sunlight which filters through her vaults of corrugated glass there prevails an atmosphere of almost Continental exuberance — the bars and station cafes strive gallantly for a Parisian look, and it is possible, even on a Sunday morning, to purchase not only a newspaper but also a coffee and croissant: waiting for a train to take us to Godmansworth, Ragwort and I availed ourselves of this circumstance.
Godmansworth College, possibly known to my readers as a public school of sound if unflamboyant reputation, had the privilege at that time of including among its pupils Leonidas Demetriou and among its teaching staff, as junior classics master, a boyhood friend of Ragwort’s — a young man by the name of Peter Hayward. A telephone call on the previous day had conveyed to Ragwort’s friend my own passionate desire to visit the celebrated pleasure gardens, laid out in the eighteenth century by William Kent, which were not, however, open to the general public at any time convenient to me. The young schoolmaster had issued with a good grace the invitation which, had he wished to, he could scarcely have withheld. Ragwort had further mentioned, splendidly
“I didn’t speak,” said Ragwort, as our train clattered happily through the green countryside, “of your influence with the Admissions Board. I thought it would be wrong, since so far as I know you don’t have any. If Peter, however, should somehow have gained the impression that you do, it would be unkind to disabuse him.”
“He surely cannot imagine,” I said, a little shocked, “that the prospects of Leonidas securing admission to Oxford could be affected by any personal partiality which might be entertained by a senior member of the University?”
“He may,” said Ragwort, “have some such notion… no doubt it is quite misconceived.”
“My dear Ragwort,” I said with some severity, “certainly it is. Admission nowadays is based entirely on merit. The boy is the son of one of the greatest poets of our time: at Oxford, whatever may happen elsewhere, I hope that
