that there is a darker side of Arcadia: the gods who have their birthplace in that remote and mountainous region are not the good-natured and reasonable deities who have their home on Olympus, and their purposes are not always benign.
“I quite understand,” I said, “that your mother would not have cared for so an offensive a remark to be repeated in the newspapers. It seems surprisingly fortunate that nothing was asked which obliged her to mention it. I should have supposed — but I am very ignorant of such matters — that the Coroner would have inquired rather closely about the time immediately preceding your cousin’s death: to establish, for example, exactly how long she had been alone on the roof terrace.”
“He mostly wanted to know what sort of mood she was in — whether she seemed at all depressed, and so on. We were able to tell him, as it happened, that she had been in unusually good spirits.” There was again an ironical note in his voice, which I could not quite account for. “My mother noticed at lunch how pleased she seemed to be, and asked her if she had something special to be excited about.”
“And had she?”
“Yes, so she said. It was still a secret, she said, but when we knew about it it would be a great surprise for us. My mother of course assumed she was talking of some love-affair. But it wasn’t really quite like that. She had the sort of look she used to have when she’d found something out that she knew you didn’t want her to know — it was rather a habit of hers. You could tell, if you knew her, that she meant the surprise to be an unpleasant one for us — something that would make her the center of attention, and make us all wish we’d been nicer to her.”
“It sounds,” I said, “like a rather disagreeable form of high spirits. But at least you can be satisfied that her death was accidental.”
He had been lying on his side, looking towards me. He now made a quarter turn and lay on his back, his hands clasped behind his head. I could not tell, therefore, with what expression he said, “Oh no, Professor Tamar, it wasn’t an accident.” His tone, however, was one of detachment; of slight irony; and a certainty that sounded like knowledge.
The honey-scented air was almost unnaturally still. Leaves, flowers and shadows were as motionless as stone, and the birds were no longer singing. It is in such conditions, I have heard it said, that cattle and goats and certain other animals may behave wildly and unpredictably, as if in terror of some unseen presence.
“I understood,” I said, “that the verdict was accident.”
“It couldn’t have been an accident,” said the boy. “The wall around the terrace is too high to fall from by accident.”
“But you say that your cousin behaved as if she were in good spirits?”
“I say that she behaved, Professor Tamar, as if she expected to be the center of attention and make us all wish we’d have been nicer to her. Yes. How else could she have done that except by killing herself?” He turned towards me again, looking at me with his curious lapis lazuli eyes; and what he said seemed for a moment quite reasonable and persuasive.
I thought it idle to question him further: if he knew more of his cousin’s death than he had already told me, I could not doubt that the knowledge was very dark indeed. And yet it occurred to me — the young have such curious consciences — that it might be no more than remorse for some slight or unkindness to her which persuaded him to believe, with that certainty which sounded like knowledge, that she had committed suicide. Since the habit dies hard of discouraging the young from thoughts considered morbid—
“My dear boy,” I said, “that is altogether too fanciful, you know. People do not commit suicide in such a mood as you have described — I do not believe for a moment that your cousin killed herself.”
This afterwards proved to have been a most dangerous remark.
CHAPTER 7
Did you happen to notice,” inquired Selena, “if he had a cloven foot? Or do your suspicions rest entirely on his being olive-skinned and having blue eyes? No doubt it is a most sinister combination, almost conclusive of his guilt; but there are unimaginative persons — such as sit on juries, you know — who might regard it as a quite natural consequence of his having a Greek father and an English mother.”
In the coffee-house at the top of Chancery Lane which is, on weekday mornings, the customary meeting place of the junior members of 62 New Square, Ragwort and I had given our account of our expedition into Sussex. Selena was disposed, as my readers will have gathered, to regard with skepticism the uneasiness I had felt during my conversation with Leonidas Demetriou.
“Did you,” she continued, turning to Cantrip, “have a similar sort of time in Cambridge? Was the Black Mass being said in your College chapel? Were there witches weaving spells in the Senior Common Room? Were there warlocks waltzing in the quad?”
It had been arranged that Cantrip would make a weekend visit to his alma mater, where he would attempt to contrive some meeting with Camilla. I had not supposed that much would come of it; but had not wished — for the boy meant well — to wound his feelings by saying so.
“No,” said Cantrip, with regret. “No, nothing like that. I had quite a jolly time, all the same. I went along to my College and dug out my ex-tutor — decent old geezer by the name of Grocklehurst. Taught me all I know about Equity and Succession.”
I knew Professor Grocklehurst a little personally, and well by reputation. Though not entirely sound, in my view, on the development of the action of
“So I hauled him off to the nearest hostelry,” continued Cantrip, “and poured booze down him until he was feeling pretty genial, and then I told him about my hopeless passion for Camilla.”
“My dear Cantrip,” said Julia with some alarm, “I do hope the attachment is fictitious?”
“Oh, absolutely, but I had to think of some reason for wanting to see her again, didn’t I? Anyway, it was all dead easy, because it turned out old Grockles was teaching Camilla Equity and Succession as well. And he was having a breakfast party on Sunday morning, so he said he’d invite her along and I could try my luck. He didn’t fancy my chances much — he reckoned there’d been a lot of chaps trying to chat her up since she came to Cambridge, and none of them had got anywhere. I said they were probably all callow undergraduates and it would be a bit different if the chap doing the chatting up was a smooth and sophisticated man of the world.”
“I dare say it would,” said Ragwort. “But what exactly is the relevance of that to—? Oh, I see — my dear Cantrip, do forgive me for being so obtuse.”
I asked if the heiress had accepted Professor Grocklehurst’s invitation.
“Oh, like a shot — chuffed as chocolate about it. Grockles’s breakfast parties are rather a big deal socialwise — I mean, getting asked to them means you’re part of a sort of intellectual elite.”
“Cantrip,” I said, “were you, when at Cambridge, a frequent guest at these gatherings?”
“Oh, rather,” said Cantrip.
My heart bled for Grocklehurst.
“And is Camilla,” I asked “a member of this elite?”
“Well, not really. Bright but not brilliant, you know — that’s what Grockles thinks, anyway. But she wants to come to the Bar, and she’s frightfully keen and hardworking — always asking for extra reading lists and spent the last summer Vac working in a lawyer’s office to get experience. You wouldn’t catch me doing that sort of thing if I was due to get my paws on five million quid — but there’s no accounting for tastes. She’s one of those all round birds, though — plays tennis for her College and might get her blue for swimming.”
“A paragon,” said Selena, “of the Victorian virtues.
“We may be about to learn,” said Ragwort, “that under the influence of Cantrip’s sophisticated charm her coldness melted like the snow in summer. I assume, Cantrip, that at this breakfast party you maintained the appearance of amorous pursuit?”
“Well, I had to, hadn’t I? Mind you, I don’t say I mightn’t have chatted her up a bit even if I hadn’t had to — she was looking quite fanciable. Anyway, I shovelled scrambled eggs down her in a worldly and sophisticated sort of
