to me, when Patrick Ardmore came into the bar, that he was the person she had referred to. He had — I don’t quite know how to describe it — a slightly adventurous look, which one doesn’t usually associate with bankers.”
“I should hope not indeed,” said Ragwort.
“All the same, he was not at all the kind of man I usually find attractive. He had unquestionably entered on his fifth decade, and it did not seem to me that his profile, even in youth, would have had the classic perfection of — say, yours, my dear Ragwort. He had not, it is true, let himself go, as men so often do when they have found someone to marry them and think they don’t need to take any trouble with their appearance anymore — there was no blurring of the jawline or unsightly bulge over the waistband. Nonetheless, as he approached our table I was surprised to find myself thinking…” Julia paused and looked dreamily at the ceiling, drawing deeply on her Gauloise.
“Thinking,” said Ragwort, “if that is indeed the appropriate word for what we take to have been a not wholly cerebral activity — thinking what, precisely?”
“Thinking,” said Julia, “and I agree, of course, that it was not a process in which the intellect was predominant — thinking, as it were, ‘Dear me, what a remarkably stylish bit of goods.’ Or words to the like effect. What I chiefly experienced was a sudden shortness of breath and a peculiar queasiness in the pit of the stomach, similar to mild indigestion.”
“At her first sight of him,” said Selena firmly, “her pulse quickened, and she was stirred by a strange emotion which she could find no words to describe.”
By a fortunate or unfortunate coincidence, it had happened that Julia and Ardmore were staying at the same hotel, close to the midpoint of West Bay Beach, while the rest of the party were accommodated at another establishment on the same long stretch of golden sand but a mile or two further north of Georgetown. It was accordingly natural that they should form the habit of concluding the evening in each other’s company, drinking a last glass of wine together under the palm trees at the bar beside the swimming pool.
“And it was on these evenings,” said Selena, “amid the exotic scents of the Caribbean night, while the air throbbed with the intoxicating rhythms of the calypso and the waves foamed sensuously across the sand, that this man without pity or scruple undertook his conquest of a trusting and innocent heart. Under the tropic moon he murmured to her of — what precisely did he murmur of, Julia?”
“Mostly,” said Julia after some reflection, “of the effect of tax legislation on investment policies, that being a subject of mutual interest. And he always asked how my case was going and seemed to like hearing about it. The trouble was, you see, that quite apart from the feelings I have mentioned, I found him — I found him very amusing.”
“You mean,” said Selena, “that he laughed at your jokes.”
“Yes,” said Julia.
“I am afraid,” said Selena, “that very few women can resist a man who laughs at their jokes, and a man such as Patrick Ardmore would all too easily have realized that you are not one of them. Oh, poor Julia, it’s too heartless.”
Ragwort, however, was unwilling to admit that laughing at Julia’s jokes, in whatever climatic conditions, was sufficient to constitute a campaign of seduction and demanded further particulars in support of the charge.
“Did he pay you compliments? Did he say, for example, that you had nice eyes or pretty hair or anything of that kind?”
“Good heavens, no,” said Julia, apparently slightly shocked by the suggestion.
“We are speaking,” said Selena, “of an experienced and sophisticated man, well practised in the arts of persuasion. He is, after all, a banker — that is to say, he spends his life persuading people to pay for the privilege of lending him money and again for the privilege of borrowing some of it back. He would have realised at once, I daresay, that Julia likes being the one who says silly things about people’s eyes and hair and would be rather resentful of someone stealing her lines.”
“Did he deceive you,” continued Ragwort, “as to his matrimonial standing or suggest that his present arrangements were in any way unsatisfactory?”
“Oh no,” said Julia. “He spoke frequently of his wife, and always in terms of the highest regard and affection. So I was encouraged to think that he was well disposed towards women.”
“As he no doubt intended that you should be,” said Selena, “since everyone knows that a man who is ill- natured even towards his wife is hardly likely to behave well towards any other woman. But you must remember, Julia, that men are very deceitful about such things, and it’s quite possible that he didn’t really behave nearly as well towards his wife as he would have wished you to believe.”
“Did he,” said Ragwort, “attempt any form of physical familiarity, as by holding your hand, patting your shoulder, or anything of that sort?”
“No,” said Julia, “nothing like that at all.”
“It would not take much sophistication,” said Selena, “to realize how much Julia dislikes men who are physically aggressive.”
“In short,” said Ragwort, “did this man do or say anything which he might not have done or said if you had been a young man introduced to him in similar circumstances and whose company he found agreeable?”
“No,” said Julia pitifully, “absolutely nothing.”
It was infamous: Casanova would have blushed; Don Juan would have raised an eyebrow and murmured “Cad.” It was inconceivable (said Selena) that a man of mature years and wide experience of life should without design have adopted a course of conduct so precisely calculated to reduce Julia to a state of hopeless infatuation. He had done it all on purpose; and Julia, unversed in the ways of men and the world, had not suspected him of any ulterior motive.
“I don’t think,” said Julia, “that one can quite say that. My Aunt Regina has often warned me that when men make themselves agreeable they generally have some ulterior motive, and I was not so naive as to think Patrick an exception.”
“You suspected him,” said Ragwort, “of having designs on your person?”
“Oh no,” said Julia. “I thought he wanted free tax advice.”
Patrick Ardmore’s tax problem — although he had expressed it in hypothetical terms and made no mention of names, Julia had no doubt of the identity of those concerned — related to the Daffodil Settlement. It arose from the fact that whenever Gabrielle recommended buying any shares in the United Kingdom the arrangements for the purchase were dealt with by Gideon Dark-side.
“As I have mentioned,” said Julia, “shares in United Kingdom companies were supposed to be registered in the name of the Sark company. But Darkside noticed one day that registering them in the name of a nonresident company tended to involve a certain amount of extra time and paperwork, adding perhaps as much as twenty-five pounds to the cost of each transaction. So in order to save, as he put it, ‘a lot of unnecessary fuss and bother,’ he decided to register them instead in the joint names of the two directors resident in this country — that is to say, of himself and Oliver Grynne.”
Leaning back in her chair in the manner of a woman who has made a shocking and sensational disclosure, Julia was rewarded by Selena and Ragwort with the gasps and cries of horrified astonishment which she evidently considered appropriate. I gathered that the consequences of Darkside’s action might not be altogether satisfactory from the point of view of taxation.
“They vary,” said Julia, “as Oliver Grynne pointed out to Darkside when he found out what had happened, from the inconvenient to the catastrophic, depending on the precise circumstances. When Darkside was eventually persuaded of this he suggested what seemed to him a simple and obvious remedy: he and Grynne would transfer the investments into the name of the company which ought to have held them in the first place and there would be no harm done.”
“Provided,” said Selena, wrinkling her nose, “that the matter never came to the attention of the Revenue.”
“Quite so,” said Julia. “If, however, one of Her Majesty’s Inspectors of Taxes happened to be looking through the register of shareholders of some major company or other and noticed a substantial holding in the joint names of a United Kingdom solicitor and accountant, he might begin to wonder in what capacity they held it and whether they’d included it in their tax returns. And if they hadn’t, he might ask them why not.”
“I suppose they would say,” said Selena, “that they had been holding as bare nominees for a nonresident company not liable to file returns of income in this country.”
