The Shortest Way to Hades

“My dear Selena, it is extremely common — it is the form of error known to students of textual criticism as haplography. So that when Camilla, succumbing to temptation, searches in the Probate for the magic words which make her an heiress — which make her interesting and desirable, which make her an object of envy, admiration and love, which make her the person she is and has always been — when she looks for them, they simply aren’t there. It is Deirdre who is the heiress.”

About us there was still the convivial hum of journalists and lawyers exchanging secrets and scandal; but those with whom I shared a table gazed at me in unaccustomed silence. Timothy refilled my glass.

“She would have known, of course, that the Probate copy was not the original. Her first step would have been to bespeak a photocopy of the original from the Probate Registry, in the hope that it was there that the error had occurred, rather than in the making of the Will. That failing, she instigated the application under the Variation of Trusts Act. No doubt she was genuinely concerned about the tax liability; but she would not solely on that account have taken the appalling risk that the judge might actually read the Probate copy. The chief purpose was to seize the opportunity offered by her position as temporary typist — she wanted a pretext for bringing into existence a number of neatly typed copies of the Will, remedying the unfortunate omission, whose authenticity would never afterwards be questioned. At the same time, she intended to contrive an occasion on which the Probate might appear accidentally to have gone astray.”

“Do you mean,” said Julia, with astonishment, “that it really wasn’t my fault?”

“Of course it wasn’t, Julia,” said Selena, “we always said it wasn’t.”

“It might all have turned out as she hoped if Deirdre had not been the kind of girl she was — an inquisitive and rather malicious girl, who found things out that she wasn’t supposed to know. Somehow or other — perhaps out of mere curiosity she applied to the Probate Registry for a copy of the Will — she discovered the truth. I wronged her in thinking that her letter to you, Julia, was a prelude to blackmail: she wanted your professional advice on establishing her claim. But the secret was too much for her to keep: on the day of the Boat Race she told Camilla what she had learnt, you know with what consequences.”

“So the way you see it,” said Cantrip, “Camilla didn’t start off meaning to do in the whole family?”

“No, I think not — I think that Deirdre’s murder was, as she said, a matter of impulse. But people who have found murder a convenient solution to their difficulties have a tendency to make a habit of it. And what had happened with Deirdre made her realize, I dare say, the precariousness of her position — it entirely depended on no one asking the right question at the Probate Registry. She would be secure in her inheritance only if all her cousins were to die without attaining a vested interest — that is to say, in the lifetime of her great-grandmother. In that event, as you will remember, there was an ultimate remainder to the estate of her deceased uncle, of whom she was the sole heir.”

“It would have been a matter then,” said Selena, “of some urgency — Lady Remington-Fiske is always referred to as being in her eighties and not, alas, in the best of health, though she seems to have a remarkable capacity for surviving her descendants. But I still don’t see how Camilla got the idea that Sebastian and I were going to blackmail.”

“Don’t you? You arrived at the Villa Miranda, and on your first day there Sebastian talked about his article on the transmission of the texts of Euripides. The central argument, as I believed I mentioned once before, turns on a rather striking instance in the text of the Helena of the mistake of haplography. So Sebastian sits in the garden of the Villa Miranda, earnestly addressing Camilla on that subject. He smiles, no doubt, as he does so, his usual engaging smile — or so you or I would think it; but would it seem so to a person whose most carefully guarded secret was the existence in a particular document of precisely such an error?”

“You mean,” said Selena, “that she thought he was telling her that we knew about the Will? Oh really, didn’t it occur to the silly woman that it might be a coincidence?”

“It would have seemed from her point of view an improbable one. She had met you, after all, because you were instructed on the variation: she would not think of you as a person unconnected with the matter of her inheritance, but on the contrary as someone who had been closely concerned with it. If she had any doubts, they would have been resolved when Sebastian began talking, a few minutes later, about Book XI of the Odyssey: describing vividly, I expect, how the ghosts of the young who have died by violence or treachery gather on the banks of the Acheron to cry out for vengeance. My dear Selena, what would you have thought?”

In a work of fiction it would be customary and elegant to conclude the narrative with a brief summary of the subsequent lives and fortunes of those who had figured in it. The historian of Truth is, alas, denied this attractive expedient: the events which I have described are too recent for those concerned to have progressed much further in their careers; and, if they had, I am not so well acquainted with the family as to make it certain that I would know of it.

I did read in The Times some weeks ago of the death of Lady Remington-Fiske: it was mentioned that Lucian would inherit the family estates. I have also seen a moderately favorable review of his first novel, and his sister’s marriage to a Greek fisherman has attracted some attention in the gossip column of the Scuttle.

Following an investigation by the Department of Trade into the affairs of Galloway Opportunities Limited, there was talk of a prosecution; but it was decided, I am told, that in view of his tragic bereavement Rupert should be treated with lenience.

It proved unnecessary for Sebastian or myself to put ourselves to any trouble on behalf of Leonidas: he submitted excellent papers in the entrance examinations and is now reading Law at Balliol. I do my best, when he comes to me for tutorials in legal history, to forget how close he came to cutting my throat. He intends, when he is qualified, to accept Julia’s offer of a pupillage: it is to be hoped that by then the passage of time will have qualified the beauty of his profile or the warmth of Julia’s ardor, but at present I am bound to say that there is no sign of it.

Sebastian is working with enthusiasm on his translation of the work of Constantine Demetriou, and they correspond a good deal. He seems to think, however, that it will be some time before they meet again: Selena prefers to sail in other waters than the Ionian Sea.