or other, and that’s another complication. You see, we had an arrangement. Maurice didn’t like the idea of a stranger going through his personal things after he was dead, and he asked me ages ago if he could leave them all to me, so that I could sort through them and do what I thought was best. I said yes, thinking it would all be quite straightforward. He gave me a list of things he wanted particular people to have, and from time to time he’d say, “I’d like so-and-so to have such and such when I die,” and I’d add it to the list. But I didn’t really expect it to happen, not for years — after all, Maurice wasn’t old, only a year or two older than me.
You wouldn’t believe how much trouble I’ve had over that wretched list. I thought it was all perfectly clear and businesslike, but when you start trying to work out whether “clock on the mantelpiece” means the one in the study or the one in the dining room, and exactly how many glasses Ricky’s supposed to get with the cut-glass decanter, it turns out not to be easy at all. Several people one would have expected to know better have really been quite unpleasant. Mr. Williams who plays the organ and Mrs. Jarvis from the library who helps with the flowers have practically come to blows over the record player and—
Well, I didn’t mean to bother you with all that. What I meant to tell you was that Maurice had a rather nice little rococo looking glass, not really valuable but very pretty, which he’d inherited from a great-aunt and wanted you to have. But then Daphne was looking so hurt and miserable about not being mentioned in the will that I just couldn’t bear to tell her that there wasn’t anything on the list for her either, so I told her he wanted her to have the rococo looking glass. I’m sorry, I should have asked you first, of course, but I had to say something right away or it would have seemed odd, and the looking glass was the only thing I could think of. I do hope you don’t mind too much — I’ll find something nice for you in the antique shop to make up for it.
Daphne seems to be here most of the time at the moment. She comes round in the morning and asks me if I want any shopping done and if I say yes she goes out and does it and brings it back and stays until lunchtime. And if I say no, she just stays until lunchtime. So, one way or the other, it always ends with my feeling that I have to offer her lunch, and she always accepts. Poor girl, I can’t really blame her — I know she can’t afford to feed herself properly — but the fact is, of course, that making a meal for someone else is always more trouble than making it just for oneself. And somehow or other, by the time we’ve finished, the best part of the day has gone and I haven’t really done anything with it — haven’t painted anything or read anything or even written any letters. And yet I feel quite tired.
I’ve once or twice tried hinting — rather more heavily in fact than I’d usually think polite — that there are things I’d like to be getting on with. She doesn’t seem to understand, though, that that means I’d like her to go. It’s odd, she’s not the sort of girl one would call sociable, but she doesn’t seem able to imagine that anyone could sometimes prefer solitude to company.
Even the most sparkling company, which, to be candid, Daphne’s isn’t. She just sits there looking mournful and talking endlessly about Maurice, as if he were some kind of saint — quite a different sort of person from the one I was friends with. She keeps saying that I’m the only person she can share her grief with. The trouble is — I dare say it’s very selfish of me — but I don’t want to share mine, I want it all to myself. After all, I was friends with Maurice long before Daphne even knew him.
When she isn’t talking about how wonderful Maurice was she’s talking about how wicked Derek is, and how she isn’t going to let him get away with it.
On the subject of Derek, she’s really not quite rational. She’s absolutely convinced that someone’s prowling round the Rectory at night and spying on her and either it’s Derek himself or he’s responsible for it. She’s even begun to suggest that he had something to do with the burglary last summer and the stone that was thrown at her through the kitchen window. Of course, it’s absolute nonsense — what earthly reason could he have? — but the poor girl does seem to be quite seriously frightened about it. She’s insisted on giving me a spare key to the Rectory, so that if she doesn’t come round here in the morning I can go and find out what’s wrong.
Again, I’m sorry about the rococo looking glass, but I knew you’d understand. Don’t forget to let me know which day would suit you for lunch.
Yours with much love,
Reg
“So you see,” said Julia with a sigh, as she finished reading the letter, “that when one’s dealing with Daphne one has to bear in mind that she is — how can one put it?”
“Not entirely well-balanced,” said Selena.
“Disposed to paranoia,” said Ragwort.
“Nutty as a fruitcake,” said Cantrip.
A certain despondency fell upon the gathering. If the revival of Terry’s enthusiasm for his work depended on Daphne’s ceasing to make trouble, it seemed likely to be long delayed. Moreover, tolerant as she hoped she was of other people’s little weaknesses, Selena had begun to reflect with some anxiety on the possible disadvantages of employing a carpenter with a tendency to steal antique manuscripts.
Though Ragwort and Julia both firmly maintained their belief in Terry’s innocence, it soon became apparent that their confidence was founded, in Ragwort’s case, on personal friendship and, in Julia’s, on length of eyelashes. Selena found these arguments unpersuasive.
I thought it right to say that I also, for less sentimental reasons, did not believe that Terry had stolen the frontispiece.
“If you can suggest any other explanation of the evidence,” said Selena, “then please do so, Hilary, and we shall all do our utmost to be convinced. Why don’t you believe that Terry stole the frontispiece?”
“Because I don’t believe,” I said, “that the frontispiece was stolen.”
“Hilary,” said Selena, “you’re making this rather difficult for us.”
“I believe that it was not the frontispiece that was stolen, but the photographs. That is to say, the photographs were the object of the theft — the frontispiece was taken only because it was in the same drawer and the thief had no time to sort out what he wanted from what he did not.”
“The photographs? Do you mean the photographs that the Reverend Maurice had taken on holiday in France? Why on earth should anyone want to steal those?”
“I rather think,” I said, “because they included one or more photographs of the man in the black Mercedes.”
They ordered further cups of coffee and indicated that I had their attention.
“I would invite you,” I said, “to consider a number of significant facts, and to do so with that scrupulous attention to the chronology of events which was always insisted on by the immortal Bentley.” The name of that great progenitor of the art or science of textual criticism carried, I fear, less weight with them than it deserved.
“The first significant fact is that the Reverend Maurice was the only person in Parsons Haver who had seen and could recognise the man in the black Mercedes — to whom, for the sake of brevity and in accordance with established convention, I shall refer to as X. We know, of course, that X was supplying Isabella with information known only to the directors of Renfrews’ Bank and that he must therefore be either Edgar Albany or Geoffrey Bolton. Remember, however, that the Reverend Maurice did not know that. All he knew about X was what he looked like — he did not know his name, address or profession or anything else which would have enabled him to find X if he wished to do so.”
“We know all that,” said Cantrip. “Come on, Hilary — how about cutting to the action?”
“By all means,” I said. “Forgive me if I have trespassed unduly on your patience. The position, then, was as I have described it until September of last year, when a very significant event occurred: the Reverend Maurice went to France on holiday and while there saw and recognised X.”
“Hang on a minute,” said Cantrip. “Is that just a guess, or have you found out something you haven’t told us about? Because if you have it’s cheating and you don’t get points for it in the ace detective stakes.”
“My dear Cantrip,” I said, “I assure you that I have no more information than you do on the subject. When I say, however, that while on holiday the Reverend Maurice saw and recognised X, that is so far from mere conjecture as to be a virtual certainty. We now know, which we did not at the time, that he was a guest at Benjamin Dobble’s flat in Cannes, where Ragwort stayed during Christmas. And unless, my dear Ragwort, I have much misunderstood your account of the place, anyone staying there would be likely to spend at least part of the day sitting on the drawing-room balcony?”
