expected to attend, and it includes Gideon Dark-side. I thought you might welcome an opportunity to meet him.”
“From all I have heard of him,” I said, “that seems most improbable. You mean, I take it, that you think I ought to meet him. Have you any reason to think that he knows anything about the descendants of Sir Walter Palgrave?”
“None at all,” said Julia. “But your enquiry, as I understand it, is not merely genealogical — you are hoping to discover who, if anyone, is responsible for the alarmingly high mortality rate among the advisers to the Daffodil Settlement. It would be rather premature, don’t you think, to exempt from suspicion all those who do not happen to be descended from Sir Walter Palgrave? You haven’t forgotten, I suppose, that Oliver Grynne’s death occurred at a most convenient moment from the point of view of Gideon Darkside.”
We were all at least agreed that Cantrip could be in no danger — his acquaintance with the Daffodil Settlement was plainly too recent and too slight to present a threat. We must nonetheless, I fancy, have begun to feel a faint stirring of uneasiness about him. In the hope of now finding him safely at his desk, we rose from lunch rather earlier than usual and walked back to 62 New Square with uncustomary briskness.
On ascending the bare stone staircase to the first floor, we were encouraged to think these hopes well founded, for the door to the room occupied by Cantrip and Ragwort was standing slightly ajar.
“Oh, he must be back,” said Ragwort. “I left the door shut when I went to lunch.” In his eagerness to greet his friend’s return, he entered the room with perhaps un-circumspect haste.
It was the opinion of the philosopher Parmenides that change is impossible: the state of affairs which exists at any given moment must be identical with that which existed at the immediately preceding moment, there being ex hypothesi no intervening moment in which any alteration could take place. What now occurred was a striking demonstration that this view is in practise mistaken. There existed at one moment a serene and elegant Ragwort, immaculate in pinstripes — above all, a perfectly dry Ragwort, his person free from any drop of extraneous moisture; at the next succeeding moment, with no intermediate process of development, there existed an entirely different Ragwort, with water cascading in abundance from every stitch and seam and an orange plastic bucket over his head.
From the interior of the room came a triumphant cry of “Gotcher,” seeming at first to confirm that Cantrip had returned.
We soon perceived, however, that the only occupant was one who should, to judge by appearances, have reached the years of restraint — a well-preserved septuagenarian, one would have guessed, probably of military antecedents, with neatly trimmed white hair and moustache and the clear suntanned complexion which ought to be the reward of healthy living and an easy conscience. This reassuring first impression was contradicted only by a certain black demonic brightness, which we could not fail to recognise, in the eyes beneath the snow-white eyebrows. It appeared that Cantrip’s Uncle Hereward had arrived in London.
It was perhaps fortunate, though it seemed at the time regrettable, that Ragwort was for some minutes unable to remove the bucket from his head. This was due, as we afterwards discovered, to its having once contained some kind of glutinous substance, the adhesive properties of which were revived by contact with water. Though it is inconceivable that any words of a blasphemous or indecorous nature would in any circumstances pass Ragwort’s chaste and beautiful lips, yet it is possible that in the first few moments of outrage he expressed himself with greater frankness than would have been seemly towards a man so much his senior. In the circumstances I have mentioned, however, his words were inaudible.
His feelings cannot have been soothed, I suppose, by the fact that Colonel Cantrip, plainly still under the impression that it was his nephew who stood dripping and indignant in the doorway — one young Chancery junior with a plastic bucket over his head is not easily distinguished from another — continued to dance gleefully round him with whoops and cries of triumph.
When at last apprised of his error, the old soldier apologised with every proper sign of penitence. He had been subjected, it seemed, to overwhelming temptation. Sitting waiting quietly for his nephew, he had happened to observe that the ledge over the door was of a kind peculiarly suitable for balancing a bucket of water; upon visiting the cloakroom a few minutes later, he had chanced to find there just such a bucket as he had had in mind.
“And you naturally felt,” said Ragwort, “that the door and the bucket were in some manner predestined for each other?”
“That’s it,” said the Colonel, impressed by Ragwort’s ready grasp of the position. “Thought I’d give young Michael a bit of a surprise, you see — liven him up a bit. Never thought of it being anyone else who came in. I say, lucky it was only you, isn’t it, not one of the top brass?”
“That is indeed,” said Ragwort, “one of the happiest aspects of the whole episode. If you will be good enough to excuse me, sir, I shall now go and see if I can find any clothes which drip rather less water on the carpet. Though, of course, another pleasing aspect of the matter is that I can drip almost any amount of water on the carpet without making it significantly wetter.”
Detecting perhaps that Ragwort’s manner towards him was courteous rather than cordial, Colonel Cantrip observed his departure with what seemed to be relief. “Bit peeved with me, do you think? Well, he’s got a point, I suppose. Never thought of it being anyone but young Michael coming through that door — knew this was his room, you see, didn’t realise he shared it with anyone. Where’s the young blighter got to?”
It was beginning to be an interesting question.
In obedience to my promise to Clementine, I spent the afternoon at St. Catherine’s House, searching the registers of marriage for entries relating to the daughters of Sir Walter Palgrave.
I approached my task in optimistic mood, thinking that the rarity of the name would make it a relatively easy one. Halfway through the afternoon, however, my spirits were somewhat dashed by the discovery that one of the ladies in question had inconsiderately allied herself in marriage to a man by the name of Smith. The prospect of attempting to identify the offspring of their union among the births registered in the subsequent three decades made me almost regret the quixotic impulse which had moved me to accept Clementine’s proposal. Moreover, I could not but reflect that if my whole investigation were to be conducted in St. Catherine’s House, barely five minutes walk away from Middle Temple Lane, the payment of my expenses would do little to enhance the attractiveness of the arrangement.
I began to wonder whether my approach to the task entrusted to me had not been unduly literal. While Clementine’s ostensible object in retaining my services was to trace the existing members of the Palgrave family, her real purpose, as I well knew, was to discover the truth concerning the deaths of Oliver Grynne and Edward Malvoisin. Could I, if I neglected the latter, properly claim credit, and indeed payment, for having pursued the former? It would be contemptible.
By now there might well be in existence as many as a hundred descendants of the late Sir Walter Palgrave. Even if I were eventually able, by my present methods, to identify them all, it would almost certainly be too late to investigate their whereabouts at the time of the two deaths. Nor could I disregard the possibility, already suggested by Julia, that if these deaths were not accidental, they had nonetheless been brought about for some other motive than that which Clementine supposed. A fund so substantial that a hundred thousand pounds or so could be abstracted from it almost unnoticed might offer enticing opportunities to those responsible for its administration — if any of these happened to have been taken, the threat of exposure might seem a more than adequate reason for murder.
By the time I returned to the Corkscrew that evening I had resolved on an entirely different approach to the matter. I had been at fault, I now saw, in indulging the natural preference of the Scholar for quiet, solitary research among the dusty documents of a bygone era. My attention should be concentrated not on a shadowy and hypothetical class of suspects of whom I knew nothing, but on those persons whom I already knew to exist and to be connected with the Daffodil settlement. I must not be deterred by the possibility that this might oblige me to travel to the Channel Islands, Monaco, or even, if necessary, the Cayman Islands.
Selena and Ragwort, sitting alone together at one of the round oak tables, shook their heads when I asked if there were any news of Cantrip.
“And now we know why not,” said Ragwort, suppressing a sneeze. “He must have known perfectly well that his uncle was arriving sometime this week, and he’s hoping to stay away until the coast’s clear, leaving the rest of us to cope with the old ruffian. I suggest that when he comes back we sue him for enormous damages.”
“Do you think,” said Selena, “that we have any cause of action?”
