Albert was thrown out into the road, but not badly hurt, and he managed to pick himself up and get the horse free of its harness without too much trouble. Then something made him look round, and he saw the woman in white standing there a few yards away from him.
It seems that women in white are pretty bad news in the Channel Islands. I can’t make out exactly what they’re meant to be, or what they’re meant to do if they catch you, but the general idea is that you don’t want to see them at all, and if you do you get out fast.
So Albert didn’t stop to say “Good evening” or anything, he just scrambled up on the horse and headed full tilt for the Alexandra, not daring to look behind him in case he saw the woman again.
He was too scared to ride all the way round to the stables. He just headed straight for the wall and jumped it, landing on sundry potting sheds and hen coops, etc, — jolly lucky the horse didn’t hurt itself. Philip Alexandre came out and started yelling at him, but he didn’t much mind about that as long as he’d got away from the woman in white.
Then the moon came out and he saw her again, standing there in her white robes in the doorway of the Witch’s Cottage and calling out to him in a hollow voice.
Well, what I said was that even if he didn’t have the sense to tell the difference between a ghost and a Chancery junior wrapped in a blanket, he might at least have had the sense to know that if I was a ghost, chucking bricks at me wouldn’t have done him any good, because they’d just have gone straight through.
Albert said he knew that really, but he’d lived a sinful life and couldn’t remember any prayers, so bricks were the best he could do. He’s not going to be sinful any more, he says — he’s going to give up booze and go to church every Sunday, so that the woman in white won’t come after him again.
Serves him right, because the upshot of all these shenanigans is that the Coupee’s blocked at this end. I went to have a look first thing this morning and there’s no way you can get round the carriage or over it without risking breaking your neck. Philip Alexandre reckons it’ll take a couple of hours to move it, and until then Little Sark’s completely cut off from everywhere else.
Clemmie’d gone back to her room by the time I got to bed again, and I haven’t seen her yet this morning. I haven’t seen any of the rest of the gang either. There’s no way we’re going to get the first boat over to Guernsey, so I suppose they’ve all decided they might as well stay in bed.
We still ought to catch the evening plane all right, but life among the tax planners being what it is, don’t let Henry count any chickens.
Over and out — Cantrip
The news that Cantrip had survived Walpurgis Night, gratifying as it was, caused us no great astonishment: we did not know how grave had been his danger, or that not all his companions had been so fortunate.
“Toadsbreath, my good man,” said Cecilia Mainwaring, raising her superbly groomed eyebrows, “I have already told you that I know no more than you do of the present whereabouts of my learned friend Mr. Carruthers, and it becomes you very ill, Toadsbreath, to doubt my word on the matter. I go so far as to say that it is the height of impertinence.”
“Beg pardon, Miss Mainwaring,” mumbled Toadsbreath, respectfully tugging his forelock. “I didn’t mean no harm.”
Cantrip, on the following morning, was still absent from the customary gathering in the coffeehouse. He had not returned to Chambers, nor had any further communication been received from him. Suspecting Julia, as his co- author and habitual confidante, of knowing more of the matter than she chose to admit, Henry had interrogated her (said Julia) in a manner somewhat less deferential than could properly have been adopted by an infant-school teacher towards a delinquent six-year-old.
Save in that respect, however, the boy’s continued absence occasioned no anxiety among his friends. The Channel Islands are a delightful place to be during the first week in May, and a more conscientious young man than Cantrip might have yielded to the temptation to extend his visit.
It was judged imprudent, in view of the circumstances — that is to say, the uncertain state of Henry’s temper — for Ragwort and Selena to linger over coffee. Arranging to meet again in the Corkscrew for lunch, we all walked together to New Square. I had already said my farewells and turned on my way towards the Public Record Office, eager to devote myself once more to the gentle service of Scholarship, when Lilian came running down the steps of 62, calling out to me to wait for a moment.
“Oh, Professor Tamar,” she said, rather charmingly breathless, “Miss Derwent was on the telephone. She rang to ask if Mr. Cantrip was back in Chambers yet. And when I said he wasn’t, she asked about you — if I happened to know if you were in London at the moment. So of course I said you were and you’d probably be looking into Chambers sometime this morning. And she said, if I saw you, would I please ask you to ring her as soon as possible.”
The message perplexed me. I had no personal acquaintance with Clementine Derwent and could imagine no reason why she should wish to speak to me.
The telephone call which I made from Selena’s room a few minutes later afforded but little enlightenment. The matter, it seemed, was of some complexity, and could not satisfactorily be explained at a distance. Clementine’s office was in the Gray’s Inn Road, no more than five minutes’ walk away. If in the course of the day I could find time to visit her there, she would be most grateful.
Those who believe, as most members of Lincoln’s Inn are inclined to do, that any serious study of the law requires an atmosphere of dust and antiquity would have been unfavourably impressed by the offices of Messrs. Stingham and Grynne. The thickness of the carpets, the subtlety of the lighting, the freshness of the flowers arranged in cut-glass bowls — all these would have caused them grave doubts of the soundness of the advice provided there. On the other hand, these features did seem to indicate that a passable number of reasonably prosperous clients were not dissatisfied.
The room occupied by Clementine Derwent on the third floor of the building, though presumably not so large as those allotted to full partners in the firm, was nonetheless sufficiently spacious and well appointed, with a view eastwards to the domes and spires of the City, to be suggestive of rapid advancement. She rose to greet me, leaning across her desk to offer me her hand.
Her full-skirted cotton dress was drawn neatly in at the waist, and her glossy black hair was cut, I daresay at great expense, in a style of becoming softness. Neither of these measures could quite disguise her resemblance in face and figure — the former round, snub-nosed, good-humouredly pugnacious, the latter trim and muscular — to an engaging but undisciplined schoolboy. It would have seemed inapt to call her pretty — the epithets she brought to mind were those descriptive of a crisp eating apple.
A sensible, well-balanced young woman, one would have said at first sight, who would not readily allow any personal or professional difficulty to weigh so excessively on her mind as to interfere with sound sleep and healthy appetite. I was surprised, therefore, as she resumed her place at her desk, to observe in her unmistakable signs of tension and anxiety.
’Professor Tamar,” she said, with a nervous abruptness which I could not think characteristic of her, “I hope you don’t think it’s awfully peculiar of me to ask you round here. I’m a friend of Michael Cantrip, you see, and he’s talked a bit about you. I’ve got a problem that I hoped you might be willing to help with.”
My perplexity deepened, and did not diminish when she began to tell me of the existence and provisions of the Daffodil Settlement. It seemed tactless to mention, since she repeatedly stressed the confidentiality of the matter, that I was already aware of them. I would not have wished her to form an unfavourable view of Can-trip’s capacity for discretion.
“So you see,” she concluded, “if the worst comes to the worst — I mean if we can’t find the letter of wishes and can’t find out who the real settlor was — then we’re going to have to give the whole fund to the descendants of Sir Walter Palgrave. It’s idiotic, of course, because no one ever meant them to get a penny of it, but it looks as if we’ll have no choice. And we’ve been advised by Chancery Counsel — well, by Canters, actually — that we’d better
