longer than five seconds. It took no more than that, however, for Sebastian to rise from the darkness and leap for the embrasure.
The struggle might have been brief if both participants had been of equally murderous intention, each content to send the other on the swift and deadly journey from the edge of the embrasure to the jagged rocks below. It could not be expected, however, that Sebastian would so easily set aside the constraints of temperament, education and principle: he fought only for possession of the spear, and any advantage he may have had in strength was cancelled out by his care for the safety of his antagonist. She drew him, as they struggled in the confined space of the narrow aperture, ever closer to the edge; and it seemed to me that none of us who watched had any power to prevent her.
But the boy Leonidas stepped out of the shadows and called to her by name. When she saw him she released her grip on the spear; without resisting further, she allowed Sebastian to take it from her and step back to the safety of the chamber. If she had chosen to follow him, I scarcely know what we would have done: it would have been a hard thing, when it came to it, to consign so splendid a creature to long years of dark imprisonment.
She chose instead to retreat as she had come — by the rope hanging down the precipitous rockface: she was still confident, it seemed, that her athletic skills would assure her a safe descent; but on this occasion they failed her.
CHAPTER 17
Thinking it absurd after travelling so far to return immediately to the uncertain skies of London, I spent some further weeks on the shores of the Mediterranean in diversions not material to my present narrative. It was not until September that I again found myself at a candlelit table in the Corkscrew, in the company of those members of Lincoln’s Inn whom I accounted particular friends.
In view of the part I had played in penetrating the mystery of Deirdre’s death and in frustrating, at no small personal risk, a murderous attack on Selena and Sebastian, I rather expected my arrival at this first reunion to be greeted with a certain amount of congratulation and admiring comment, and was ready to answer a stream of eager questions as to the process of reasoning by which I had reached my conclusions. I should have remembered that the events which I have described, having occurred some weeks before, would by now have been displaced in the interest of my friends by matters of greater weight and consequence.
Timothy and Selena were attempting to negotiate an equitable compromise, on behalf of their respective clients, of a dispute concerning rights of drainage. Cantrip was complaining of a decision given against him that morning in a possession action in Little Piddlecombe County Court. Julia was relating to an unsympathetic Ragwort her disappointment in what she was pleased to term an affair of the heart: the rejection of her advances, now freely admitted to have been over-precipitate, by a graceful and elegant young man met on her recent holiday.
Eventually, however, I found an opportunity, while Timothy was acquiring another bottle, to remark to Selena that I hoped she was fully recovered from the disagreeable experience of a few weeks before. Remembering after scarcely a moment’s thought the events to which I referred, she assured me that she was.
“Though at the time, I must admit, I found it all most disconcerting. Especially since Camilla was the only member of the family I’d never suspected of any homicidal tendencies — I always thought of her as the prospective victim. I wish we knew,” she added absent-mindedly, “what she thought we were blackmailing her about.”
This observation surprised me. It was true that the circumstances in which we had last met had not seemed appropriate to a detailed explanation: I had judged it tactful, so soon as decorum permitted, to take an unobtrusive farewell, leaving Selena to devise with Sebastian and Leonidas such account of Camilla’s death as would cause least distress to the surviving members of the family. I had supposed, however, since she knew so much of the truth, that subsequent reflection would have made clear the remainder.
“I say, Hilary,” said Cantrip, “you don’t mean you know what it was?”
“My dear Cantrip,” I said, “how otherwise could I have foreseen her attempt on the lives of Selena and Sebastian?”
“Oh,” said Cantrip, looking mildly surprised. “We didn’t really think you expected anything like that — we thought it was just a coincidence. The way we saw it was that you’d got a bit fed up hanging around in London and wanted to touch Timothy for the first-class fare to Corfu.”
Waiting in vain for the others to disclaim this outrageous opinion, I was tempted to preserve a dignified silence and leave them to perplexity. They refilled my glass, however, and begged for enlightenment; and it is not in the nature of the Scholar to refuse Knowledge to those who seek it.
“I said at the outset,” I began, “that if a murder were to take place in the Remington-Fiske family it would be the heiress who was murdered. My view has been vindicated by events.”
They became, as sometimes happens, rather cross with me, accusing me of talking in riddles and paradoxes; but after a little while they allowed me to continue.
“I will begin,” I said, “with something that happened last summer, though the true starting-point of the story is much longer ago than that. In the summer of last year, as Cantrip discovered on his excursion to Cambridge, Camilla obtained employment in a lawyer’s office — not, of course, because she needed money, but to acquire practical experience of the English legal system. The services which she offered, since she had as yet no professional qualification, were presumably of a secretarial nature. We know that she had sometimes done work of that kind for her father — you mentioned it, Selena, in connection with your case about the lease of Rupert’s flat.”
“With all her faults,” said Selena with a sigh, “I can imagine that Camilla might have been a very competent typist — a good deal better than Muriel, I dare say. If you could see the Statement of Claim she did for me this morning — oh, I’m sorry, Hilary, do go on with your story.”
“How,” I asked, “would you expect a young woman in Camilla’s position to go about obtaining such employment as I have mentioned?”
“I suppose,” said Selena, “that if there were any solicitors whom she knew personally, she would ask them if they could find a place for her for a few weeks during the summer. I suppose she might have asked Tancred.”
“Quite so. In view of the long-established connection with her family it is probable that she would have asked him; and in view of his desire that the connection should continue, it is improbable that he would have refused. I was much at fault in overlooking the significance of Tancred’s addressing her as “Camilla, my dear,” though he punctiliously referred to Deirdre as “Miss Robinson”—I should have asked myself how he came to be on more familiar terms with the heiress than with her cousin. The explanation was simple: she had been his temporary typist. Once one knew that, the truth was not far to seek.”
“It is perhaps not quite proper,” said Ragwort, “for a person intending to practice at the Bar to accept employment with a solicitor. But in these permissive times, I would not regard it as the first step on a path leading inevitably to murder.”
“In the present case, my dear Ragwort, your tolerance is misplaced. Imagine yourself in Camilla’s position — working in the office of the solicitors who drew up her great-grandfather’s Will, the Will under which she is a great heiress, and who administer the estate which she is to inherit — what do you think you would do in such circumstances?”
“I think I might be tempted,” said Ragwort, frowning a little, “to neglect my proper duties for a minute or two and have a small peep at the Will.”
“And what you would want to look at would be not merely the draft, used for everyday reference purposes, but the Probate, kept carefully in the safe and never actually read by anyone. It is, you will remember, a long and rather tedious document. The late Sir James had six children, and his Will contained elaborate and repetitive dispositions in favor of each of them in turn and their respective issue. All this, when the Will was prepared, would have had to be copied from the draft in a fair copperplate by some unfortunate clerk in the solicitor’s office. How his eyes and wrist must have ached, poor fellow, by the time he reached the dispositions in favor of the fourth child — is it any wonder if he paused to rest for a moment, or allowed his attention to be briefly distracted? And when he went back to his task to copy yet again the words ‘and with remainders over,’ is it any wonder if he resumed his task at a point in the draft a few lines beyond the point at which he had broken off?”
“No,” said Selena, “it couldn’t really happen.”
