Haver who was silly. Apart from Maurice, who was a brilliant scholar and a true priest and could have been one of the great princes of the Church if he hadn’t buried himself in a silly little tinpot village where no one could appreciate him. (No need to ask where she got that idea from.) And it was typical of us that we could just sit there doing our silly crossword and not caring where he was or what had happened to him. All this with floods of tears.
Ricky, having started it, simply walked out, saying he couldn’t stand any more, leaving Griselda and me to mop up Daphne. I’m really feeling quite cross with Ricky — he’s invited me to go to the races with him next week, but I’m feeling so cross that I’ve a good mind to say no.
We bought her a couple of ham sandwiches and another glass of wine and tried to explain about crosswords, and eventually she stopped crying. She was sorry, she said, she hadn’t meant to be rude or upset anyone, it was just that she was so worried about Maurice. He’d told her he was going to be at home this morning, working on his sermon, and then come over to the Newt, but he hadn’t been at home when she rang on his doorbell and he wasn’t in the Newt, and she didn’t know what could have happened to him.
We pointed out to her that he was a grown man in possession of all his faculties, and if he decided to go for a walk on a sunny Saturday morning he probably wouldn’t feel that he had to notify all his friends in advance. But it was no use — she kept saying she was sure that he was in some kind of danger — in a dangerous place, or with a dangerous person, and she didn’t know what to do.
When we asked what made her think so, she said that she’d read it in the Book. She’d seen his name there and it had a shadow over it.
Of course, I know really that it’s all complete nonsense. But it’s after six o’clock and he still isn’t back, and I can’t help feeling slightly anxious.
There were several further pages of the letter. My perusal of them, however, was delayed: Cantrip arrived, carrying a pair of guns.
8
IT WAS, AS I have mentioned, the second week of August: that season of the year when the warm days of summer draw luxuriantly towards their fruitful and abundant climax and there is an almost universal impulse to give thanks in some way for the richness and generosity of the earth; that is to say, in the case of an upper-class Englishman, to go out and kill something. Cantrip was on his way to the grouse moors of Perthshire, and had looked in to say good-bye to Julia.
“Cantrip,” said Julia, looking nervously at the guns, “did you have to bring those horrible things in with you?”
“They’re not horrible things, they’re beautiful. They were a present for my twenty-first from my uncle Hereward. That reminds me, he sends you his love. He’s always saying what a good sport you are.”
For reasons of which some of my readers will be aware, the mention of the distinguished old soldier caused Julia to turn slightly pale; but she bravely instructed Cantrip to give his uncle her warm regards.
“Now, listen, Hilary,” said Cantrip in a tone of accusation, “how are you getting on with the Isabella case?”
“My dear Cantrip,” I said, perhaps a trifle defensively, “I am not getting on at all with the Isabella case, since I remain of the view that no such case exists.”
“Come off it,” said Cantrip. “The chap in the Mercedes was the chap she was blackmailing — Albany or Bolton, whichever of them it was. And he was the last person to see her alive. What more do you want — jam and custard on top?”
“The evidence is still entirely consistent with her having died of natural causes. And even if she did not, I hardly see why it should fall to me to investigate the matter further — it does not appear to be one on which the methods of Scholarship could shed particular light. There are other claims on my time and energies. I have responsibilities — to my pupils, to my College, to the whole University of Oxford. One is not appointed a Fellow of St. George’s merely in order to enjoy oneself, as the Bursar constantly reminds me.”
“Oh well,” said Cantrip, “if all you’re interested in these days is cosying up to the Bursar—”
I shuddered at the thought.
“Moreover,” I said, yielding to the impulse to justify my inaction, “I think that if there were anything sinister about Isabella’s death we would by now have heard something more of the man in the black Mercedes. If he had had any hand in it, he would surely be desperately anxious to learn what had happened since — he would have made efforts to find out whether anyone suspected anything, whether the police were pursuing any enquiries, whether he had left any incriminating evidence. There has been no sign, so far as I am aware, of his having done so.”
“Look here, Hilary,” said Cantrip, “you can’t expect him to go bowling into Parsons Haver in the Mercedes and ask the local fuzz if they happen to want him for murder. What he’d do is send a henchman.”
“A henchman?” said Julia, as if unfamiliar with the word.
“A chap to do the dirty work,” said Cantrip. “Like your aunt said about the glasses, if you’re rich enough to have a Mercedes you get someone else to do it. So I expect that’s what he’s done — there’s probably been a man in dark glasses and a false moustache snooping round Parsons Haver for weeks, pretending to read gas meters.”
I perceived that Julia, for what reason I could not imagine, found this remark disturbing.
“Anyway, Hilary, if you’re not in the mood for doing your Sherlock Holmes bit, that’s all right with me, but you’re going to feel pretty silly when I crack the case single-handed.”
“I shall be happy, if you do so, to sit in admiration at your feet. What method of investigation are you proposing to adopt?”
“I’m going to interrogate Edgar Albany — he’s one of the chaps I’m going shooting with this weekend. Which is what I was just going to tell you, but then you said you weren’t interested in the Isabella case, so I thought I wouldn’t bother.”
“Cantrip,” I said with some alarm, for with all his faults I am fond of the boy, “please do nothing rash. Are you sure that the best time to question a murder suspect is when he has a gun in his hand?”
“I’ll probably do it over dinner. Anyway, don’t worry, I’m going to be tremendously subtle about it. You can’t just go up to a chap you’re shooting with and ask if he’s poisoned any fortune-tellers lately, it would be bad form. I’ve worked out how I’m going to do it. What I’m going to do, first chance I get, is bring the conversation round to a point where I can just sort of casually mention Parsons Haver. And then I
Only after Cantrip had left us, when I resumed my reading of her aunt’s letters, did I begin to understand why Julia had seemed troubled by his reference to a mysterious stranger appearing in Parsons Haver.
Thursday, 12th August
Having left this unfinished and unposted in my bureau for nearly a week, I’m in two minds now about posting it at all. You’ll probably say that I’m turning into a silly old woman, and I don’t like to think of you being so impertinent — you used to be such a nice child.
Maurice came back, of course, perfectly safe and well, on Saturday evening. It was ridiculous to have thought of him as having disappeared — he’d simply been out for a drive.
I mentioned, didn’t I, the young man called Derek Arkwright, who came to Isabella’s funeral by mistake and showed such an interest in our stained-glass windows? Maurice invited him then to come down again and be given a proper tour of St. Ethel’s and some of the other Sussex churches, and he said he’d love to — well, people have to say that, of course, and one doesn’t expect them to mean it. But on Saturday morning there he was on the doorstep of the Vicarage, saying that he’d driven down from London on the spur of the moment and wondered if Maurice might happen to be free.
So they spent the day driving all over West Sussex, looking at stained-glass windows and Norman fonts and mediaeval misericords. They arrived back in Haver at about seven and stopped here so that Derek and I could be properly introduced — we’d hardly spoken at the funeral. Maurice was in such high spirits that at first I thought he
