can’t cause any embarrassment to my aunt.”
“No,” said Selena, frowning slightly. “No, I suppose not, but — all the same, I don’t think I’ll tell him. What he knows at present is that one of his codirectors is guilty of insider dealing. He doesn’t know which and it’s making him very unhappy. If I tell him about Isabella, he’ll know that one or the other of them must also be guilty of something else — something serious enough to be blackmailed for — and he still won’t know which. I don’t think that’s going to make him feel any happier. And since it’s the duty of Counsel, so far as humanly possible, to keep the client happy, I’m not going to tell him.”
Her decision was taken, as my readers will have observed, with full and proper regard to the interests of her client. If I say that it might have been better had she decided otherwise, I speak with the benefit of hindsight.
Anyway, as it turned out, I needn’t have worried at all about the eulogy — Daphne wants to do it herself. There’s no reason why she shouldn’t, of course — we all just assumed that she’d be too upset, and nervous of speaking in public.
The only problem now is making her look presentable — we really can’t let her go to the funeral looking like some sort of vagrant, especially if all Isabella’s friends from London are going to be there. So I’m giving her my grey silk Chanel dress, with the little jacket — I’d have to lose half a stone to wear it again and I’m quite resigned to never doing that.
I’ve told her to come round here to change into it, in good time for me to see that it fits properly — it needed a bit of taking in — so I’ll be able to make sure she’s properly washed and brushed and doesn’t have a chance to get it dirty before the funeral.
She had some idea at first that this wasn’t a suitable time to be worrying about her appearance, but I told her that it would be disrespectful to Isabella not to try to look her best. I said that if
We’ve also persuaded her to invite people here, rather than the Rectory, for something to eat and drink afterwards. The only room for entertaining guests at the Rectory is the drawing room, where Isabella died — it really would be too macabre. It’s absolutely typical of Isabella — oh dear, I know the poor woman didn’t do it on purpose, but it’s quite the most inconvenient room for anyone to die in.
I’ve no idea how many there’ll be. Daphne seems to be expecting hundreds—”all the people Aunt Isabella helped so much”—though after what Ricky’s told me I’m not at all sure how many that means. I’m simply going to assume that I’m catering for about three dozen — if it’s a hopeless underestimate, she’ll just have to be selective about who she asks back.
Anyway, I’m not doing anything elaborate — mostly sandwiches, with a choice between ham and chicken and prawns and so on. And some stuffed eggs and some cheese puffs and odds and ends like that. And some little eclairs, in case they want something sweet. And Daphne says she’s bringing some sponge cakes, made from a recipe Isabella taught her.
Mrs. Tyrrell’s coming in to help, though it isn’t one of her mornings, and won’t let me pay her for it — something to do with Daphne being an orphan. And Griselda’s doing all the flowers, of course.
I must admit, I’m very curious to see all these friends of Isabella’s. I’ll let you know in due course how it all goes.
Yours with much love,
Reg
“I remember your aunt’s little eclairs,” said Selena dreamily. “Do you think we could get ourselves invited?”
“Too late,” said Julia. “The service starts at twelve and it’s already twenty past eleven. Even if you drove —”
“Twenty past—? Oh Lord,” said Selena, and left in haste for her conference.
Julia and I finished our coffee and returned to Lincoln’s Inn at a more leisurely pace. We were in time to see a large black Mercedes motorcar draw up opposite the entrance to 62 New Square.
6
IT LOOKED LIKE a funeral procession: four dark-suited men emerged from the long black motorcar and walked silently, in single file, towards the steps leading up to the main doorway.
From the doorway of 63 New Square, Julia and I had no difficulty in observing them. They were led by an elderly gentleman, whom I recognised as the senior partner in a firm of City solicitors — his name, as I recalled, was Mr. Vavasour — and who was, I assumed, the solicitor instructing Selena on behalf of Sir Robert Renfrew. He was followed by Sir Robert Renfrew himself. I concluded that the other two were Sir Robert’s codirectors and potential successors — Edgar Albany and Geoffrey Bolton.
They might have been chosen to illustrate the characteristic differences between those of Saxon and those of Celtic descent. The one I thought of as Saxon was a little over six feet in height, heavily built and of florid complexion, his face egg shaped under thinning fair hair, with blue eyes as round as marbles and a small rosebud mouth curiously inappropriate in the face of a middle-aged man. He walked rather stiffly, always looking straight ahead, as if not wishing to appear in any way impressed by his surroundings. Sir Robert, turning at the top of the steps to make some remark to him, addressed him as Edgar.
By a process of elimination, then, the other must be Geoffrey Bolton. He was several inches shorter than his rival and lighter boned, but giving the impression of a certain muscularity. His complexion was rather pale, his hair and eyebrows very black by contrast. Though I had read in the
And yet, despite these differences, either of them might reasonably have been described as “a middle-aged man in a City suit”; neither had any physical characteristic so remarkable that some reference to it would necessarily be added to that description; either, in short, might be the man whom the Reverend Maurice had seen emerging from the black Mercedes on its visits to Isabella.
That the mysterious visitor had been one or the other of them I already had little doubt. One of the directors of Renfrews’ had been supplying Isabella with confidential information: he must therefore have been in some form of regular communication with her. If one of them owned or habitually drove a black Mercedes, it would be perverse to imagine that her only regular visitor from outside Parsons Haver had been someone entirely different, driving by pure coincidence a black motorcar of the same expensive and accordingly unusual make.
I had only to discover which of the directors was the owner of the car and I would at once know the answer to the problem which was so much troubling Selena.
There was one obstacle, however, to my reaching an immediate solution: neither Albany nor Bolton had on this occasion actually been driving the car. The driver was a young woman, who remained in the driving seat while the four men descended. Having set down her passengers, she manoeuvred the car into a parking space in the middle of Old Square and set off on foot in the direction of the gateway to Lincoln’s Inn Fields. She walked briskly, as if with some definite objective.
Though there might have been other ways of learning who owned the Mercedes, the Scholar in pursuit of knowledge is impatient of any delay. Bidding a hasty good-bye to Julia, I set off at a similar pace in the same direction.
The young woman went through the gateway and was hidden from my view, but came in sight again when I reached the Fields — a tall, slim figure in a beige raincoat, her fair hair drawn back to the nape of her neck in some kind of knot or chignon. The athletic vigour of her stride began to suggest to me that she intended to walk some distance, perhaps, after all, despite the threatening sky, only for the sake of exercise. It was with some relief that I saw her enter the small Museum on the north side of the Fields founded by the late Sir John Soane.
