felt it optimistic to hope that lipstick or mascara could make a significant difference. Nor did it seem to me that what she lacked was animation, precisely, though what she was chiefly animated by was rage towards myself.
She stood with both hands planted firmly on my table, barring any possible escape route, and said that she wanted to talk to me.
“I just want you to know,” she said, “that I’ve spent the whole morning looking for Maurice and not finding him and going simply frantic with worry about him. I rang and rang at his door and he didn’t answer, and then I went round the back and looked through all the windows and I still couldn’t see him, and I thought he must have been taken ill and be just lying there helpless. And he keeps forgetting to get a key made for me, so I couldn’t get in to find out. I was nearly out of my mind with worry. And now he says he was just out for a walk. With you.”
“I’m sorry,” I said. “He didn’t say anything about having an appointment.”
“It wasn’t an appointment, we don’t need stupid appointments, he knew I’d be coming, I go round every morning to put his rubbish out for him and see if he wants any shopping done before I give him his lunch. He said you walked to the George and Dragon — is that true?”
“Yes,” I said.
“To the George and Dragon?” she said again, with apparent incredulity.
“Yes,” I said.
“You walked? To the George and Dragon?”
Her incredulity appeared to increase.
“Yes,” I said.
“To the George and Dragon? You walked?”
“Yes,” I said again, wondering whether there was any limit to the number of times she could ask the question. “Do you have something against the George and Dragon? I’ve always thought it a rather agreeable place.”
This answer seemed to enrage her further.
“Don’t you know how far it is? Don’t you know we’re in the middle of winter? Don’t you know how old Maurice is?”
“Well, not exactly,” I said, “but—”
“Can’t you see he’s not a well person? Don’t you care at all what happens to him? Don’t you care if he gets pneumonia? No, I don’t suppose you do, it won’t be you who has to nurse him, you’re much too clever and successful for anything like that — I’ve heard all about how clever and successful you are. Well, don’t worry, I’ll nurse him, he’s a wonderful person and I’ll be proud and honoured to nurse him, I’ll stay with him day and night if he needs me. And you can just go on drinking wine and reading trashy paperbacks.”
At this point she burst into tears and walked out of the pub, to the accompaniment of a certain amount of applause from several interested spectators, grateful for something to enliven what otherwise might have been an uneventful lunch hour. Shortly afterwards, finding myself now unable to give my detective story the attention it deserved, I also left, and returned to my aunt’s house.
I feel that I must somehow have managed things extremely badly. It seems remarkably careless of me to have upset poor Daphne before even meeting her and at such an early stage in the season of peace and goodwill: we are bound to keep running into each other over the next ten days or so and not being on speaking terms is likely to prove a considerable embarrassment.
And I suppose she was right about my being irresponsible to have persuaded Maurice to walk so far; having always known him as notably fit and active, I never considered the possibility that in his present state of health a two-mile walk might be more than was good for him. I do hope that it hasn’t really done him any harm.
What worries me most, however, is what I said to him about insider dealing. Can it be, do you think, that he regards himself, having profited by Isabella’s predictions, as sharing in the guilt of the man in the black Mercedes? Does he believe that his subsequent misfortunes are a punishment for it? Is that why he wanted to know whether the crime was a serious one? If so, I have given him the worst possible answer.
I know nothing of the complexities of the clerical conscience — is there anything I can do to repair the damage? Would it be possible to persuade him that insider dealing, having been a criminal offence only since 1980, cannot in fact be a sin? Or, if it is, venial rather than mortal? Or, if mortal, still not beyond redemption?
In the hope of receiving your advice as soon as possible, I shall conclude and post this immediately. I am instructed by my aunt to add her Christmas greetings to my own. Please also give mine to Benjamin, and to the enchanting Terry.
I remain, as always, my dear Ragwort,
Your respectfully devoted
Julia
12
Residence Belplaisir
Cannes
20th December
Dear Julia,
Painful as it is to be obliged to say such a thing, particularly to a dear and valued friend, I can see nothing at all to censure in your behaviour, either towards the Reverend Maurice or towards the girl Daphne.
Unless there is some very material omission in the account you have given me, you did not, when you called on the Vicar, take a pistol with you; or, if you did, you did not threaten to shoot him with it if he declined to accompany you to the hostelry of your choice. In short, his decision to do so was an exercise of what theologians call free will: the consequences are his responsibility, not yours. Moreover, it is not for you to advise him on whether insider dealing is a mortal or a venial sin: if he is troubled about the question, he should speak to his Bishop.
So please stop worrying about the Reverend Maurice and give me your undivided attention — I have things to tell you which I think you will find of interest, relating, as it happens, to Selena’s merchant bankers.
I have been here for two days and extremely busy, having promised Benjamin that I would arrive early and make sure everything was properly organised: it is several months since he was last here himself and, in spite of being a brilliant economist, he has no more idea of practical housekeeping than — well, than you have, if you will forgive my so expressing it. He seemed to have only a vague idea of how many people he had invited, when they were likely to get here and where they were all going to sleep: he said oh, that things would sort themselves out. Which things, in my experience, very seldom do without active encouragement from someone.
Still, I have now got the flat in reasonable order and feel entitled to relax a little. I am at present sitting on the drawing-room balcony, which has an exceptionally fine view across the bay. Immediately below there is a small
Beyond that, I can see the upper portion of a large and very grand-looking villa, built, I imagine, towards the end of the last century, in what would then have seemed an idyllically tranquil and private position. Its tranquillity must now be as sadly impaired by the noise of the traffic along the Corniche as its privacy has been by the subsequent building of residential blocks of flats, such as this one, on the hillside above.
For example, I have from here a clear view of the whole of the extensive roof terrace. And sitting on the roof terrace, even as I write, is Sir Robert Renfrew — I recognised him at once, having seen him several times on his visits to Chambers for conferences with Selena. Though I knew, of course, when she described his villa to us, that it must be in the same general area as Benjamin’s flat, I had no idea that they were in such immediate proximity.
Sir Robert, I suspect, does not fully realise how open the terrace is to observation and regards himself as
