whereabouts by some system of telepathy. It was, she said, lighting a Gauloise, very kind of us all to come and find her: it had not been her intention to put us to so much trouble.
“And what, pray,” said Ragwort sternly, “did you expect us to be put to, when you disappeared in dubious company without a word to anyone and having as your destination the abode of a man of unsavory proclivities connected with at least two violent deaths? We have all been much inconvenienced and extremely worried. Really, Julia, what were you thinking of?”
“I acted,” said Julia, “for the best.” She paused to allow us to admire the excellence of her motives. “I was sitting in Guido’s, remembering how I’d taken Deirdre there and feeling rather troubled in my conscience. I couldn’t help thinking — if you will forgive my saying so, Hilary — that our investigation had been less than energetic. So when Rowena came in, whom we knew to be on intimate terms with Rupert, it seemed little short of providential. You will agree, Ragwort, that to forgo so remarkable an opportunity would have savored of the impious.”
“Hm,” said Ragwort.
“She greeted me like a long-lost friend, so there was no difficulty in engaging her in conversation, and since Rupert was our only mutual acquaintance it seemed natural to ask for news of him. She told me that she was at present living here in his flat, during his absence on holiday — he doesn’t like leaving it unoccupied. You will be interested, perhaps, to know that he is spending his holiday in Corfu.”
“Not, surely,” said Selena, “with the Demetriou family? Not after what passed between him and Constantine on Boat Race Day?”
“No, not exactly. He travelled out there with his mother-in-law, the formidable Jocasta, and she’s staying with the rest of the family in the villa at Casiope. But Rupert is at some hotel or other. His object is to spend some time with his daughter — he complains that now she’s at Cambridge he hardly sees her. Rowena is skeptical about his motives: she believes them financial rather than sentimental. Rupert, it seems, is in rather urgent need of money — his company needs an injection of capital, as he calls it, of the order of fifty thousand pounds before the middle of July. Failing this restorative treatment, there is likely to be unpleasantness from the Department of Trade — embarrassing questions, you know, and murmurs of fraud.”
“That,” said Selena, “does not surprise me. But how does he expect Camilla to help? She won’t have any capital until her grandmother dies.”
“The notion is that the trustees of the settlement should invest part of the trust fund in Galloway Opportunities. Rupert seems to believe that if Camilla and her grandmother both agreed to it, Tancred as his co- trustee would be obliged to cooperate.”
“Well,” said Selena, wrinkling her nose, “he wouldn’t have to — Camilla’s interest is contingent, after all, on surviving her grandmother. But if the life tenant and the probable remainderman both say that that’s what they want, it might be embarrassing for him to refuse.”
“So Rupert thinks; and thinking so has set out for the Ionian Islands to persuade his daughter of the inestimable benefits of such an investment. That, at any rate, is the construction placed by Rowena on his actions. She told me all this within minutes of our meeting, and since it seemed that reticence was not her watchword, I felt the acquaintance was worth pursuing.”
“My dear Julia,” said Ragwort, “are you quite sure that you were the one pursuing it?”
“It is true,” said Julia, looking rather pleased with herself, “that Rowena showed a flattering willingness to remain in my company. She seemed to feel there was some sort of bond between us — in addition, that is, to the bond which must naturally exist between any two women who have shared the same balcony disguised respectively as a parlormaid and a schoolgirl while the premises within were raided by the police. In the matter of erotic preference, you see, she regards herself as inclining rather towards her own sex than the other — in her dealings with men, she likes to see her role as that of courtesan. She is,” added Julia in an explanatory tone, “a rather old- fashioned and romantic girl.”
“Oh quite,” said Ragwort. “And she is under the impression that you share her preference?”
“There was, you may remember, a misunderstanding on Rupert’s part — and also, in consequence, on Rowena’s — as to the nature of the friendship between Selena and myself. It seemed sensible, in the circumstances, not to correct it — I do hope, Selena, that you don’t mind?”
“I am resigned,” said Selena, “to its being an impression widely held in south-west London.”
“We adjourned after dinner, at Rowena’s suggestion, to a sort of nightclub she knows in Chelsea — a place, I need hardly say, with an exclusively female clientele. I rather enjoyed myself there. But I must have done the wrong thing somehow, because they asked us to leave.” Julia looked puzzled and a little hurt at the recollection. “So we came back here and drank brandy and talked about men. Rowena is inclined to regard them as an overrated sex. My own view, as you know, is that their many failings should all be forgiven them for the sake of the incomparable pleasure which they are sometimes capable of giving. To say so, however, would have been inconsistent with the impression I was seeking to give to my own tastes — I was rather at a loss, therefore, for any persuasive argument in their defense.”
“Is Rupert,” asked Selena, “exempt from her disapproval?”
“Oh, by no means — he was cited as the chief example of every defect to which the unfair sex is subject. I don’t think Rowena really likes him much — she seems to be wearying of the schoolgirl’s uniform routine. So I managed to learn a good deal to his discredit, though nothing, unfortunately, with any direct bearing on Deirdre’s death: he hadn’t talked to her about that, beyond telling her it had happened. I did try to look round the flat for clues, but I didn’t find any.” Julia looked crestfallen.
“And how,” inquired Ragwort, “did the evening conclude?”
“As to that,” said Julia, “I have no very clear recollection — I had drunk a good deal of wine and a certain amount of brandy, and that may well account for it. In due course, no doubt, I must have gone to bed.”
“And the Rowena person,” said Ragwort, with inquisitorial sternness, “must also have gone to bed. To, we are compelled to suppose, the same bed.”
“No doubt, my dear Ragwort, since there is only one. Considering, however, the lateness of the hour and the amount we had drunk, I cannot think it likely that anything of an improper nature occurred.”
“Hm,” said Ragwort. It was not an expression designed to convey unqualified belief.
“So the next thing you remember,” said Selena, “is waking up and finding us here?”
“Oh no,” said Julia, a little surprised. “Rowena woke me up at about ten o’clock, when she had to go to her agency, and gave me a cup of coffee. But I found, in spite of the coffee, that I was in that state of health in which one cannot usefully give one’s mind to the Taxes Acts. The sensible thing seemed to be to take one or two Alka- Seltzers and go to sleep again. But I knew, of course, that I mustn’t sleep too long, because of my conference this afternoon. So that’s when I rang and left my message for you.”
“What message?” asked Selena, puzzled.
“Saying where I was, and asking you to ring me at midday or so to make sure I was awake.”
“Julia,” said Selena, “with whom did you leave this message?”
“With your temporary typist, of course. And she must have given it to you,” added Julia, with the first dawning of anxiety, “or you wouldn’t be here.”
“Something,” said Ragwort wearily, “will have to be done about that girl.”
The cries, wails, protests and lamentations with which Julia received the news that it was now half past three and that she had irretrievably missed her conference, the clutchings of the forehead, the tearings of the hair, the knockings over of bedside tables, the rushings about wrapped only in a sheet — all these would be too pitiful to recount, and were so indeed to observe. I withdrew to the drawing-room.
The opportunity could not be disregarded to examine the scene of the supposed crime which I had undertaken to investigate. Going through the door at the far end of the drawing-room from that which led to the bedroom, I found myself at the foot of a wooden stairway. I ascended; but the door to the roof terrace was locked, and there was no key to be found in its immediate vicinity. Disappointed, I descended again. The door at the foot of the staircase opened without resistance into a room furnished as an office: a person trained in accountancy and having leisure to peruse the contents of the filing cabinets would perhaps have learned much of Rupert’s business dealings; but to me the room disclosed no secrets.
I returned to the drawing-room. A glance through the archway on my left persuaded me that the kitchen area held nothing of interest to the investigator. I went out on to the balcony: below me, beyond the road and the now deserted towpath, the Thames wound peacefully under the Victorian ironwork of Barnes railway bridge, the afternoon sunlight dancing on its mud-colored surface; on the other side of the river the willow trees at the edge of
