ascribed to X. Moreover, the one thing certain from the Reverend Maurice’s description was that the occupant of the black Mercedes was a man.
And yet I was troubled by a curious sense of having overlooked some vital point — a conviction that something I had learnt that day would be, if correctly interpreted, of crucial significance to the solution of the insider-dealing problem and that Miss Tavistock somehow held the key to it.
“And now I’ve made such a mess of things, Mr. Albany will become Chairman. And I suppose I’ll be disgraced and have to resign straightaway. And Sir Robert — oh dear, poor Sir Robert, is he very upset? About me, I mean?”
“When I left New Square, the idea that you might be the person responsible had not yet occurred to him. Though one might think it an obvious conclusion to draw from the fact that neither Albany nor Bolton could have done it, I am somehow inclined to think that he will regard you as above suspicion.”
“And Mr. Albany, I suppose, regards me as beneath it.”
She rose from her chair and stood gazing pensively out of the window at the picturesque ruins, absent- mindedly fingering the bronze statuette. There was no Museum official at hand to reprove her: the Crypt was as empty of staff as of tourists.
“So actually, Professor Tamar,” she said in a more cheerful tone, “you’re really the only person who knows it was me?”
I acknowledged that I was.
Now that she was standing I could see her more clearly — tall, athletically built, large featured, dressed as usual in a tailored trouser suit, her hair severely drawn back. I felt, for the first time in her presence, a qualm of apprehension. Seeing her across the street from the window of his study, by the light of the lamp over the front door of the Rectory, could the Reverend Maurice have made a mistake? Could she after all be the person whom he had described as “a middle-aged man in a City suit”? Had I perhaps been a trifle unwise to seek her out in such a secluded place?
But no — plausible as it might seem, I knew at once that there was something false about the idea, something indefinably wrong. My conviction nonetheless persisted that the solution to the insider-dealing mystery was almost within my grasp — that if only I knew the right question to ask she could give me the answer. On a sudden random impulse, I adopted what might be termed the Cantrip method of questioning.
“Miss Tavistock,” I said, “do you happen to know a place called Parsons Haver?”
“Well yes,” she said, with perfect composure. “As a matter of fact, until a few months ago I used to drive Sir Robert down there quite regularly. Why do you ask?”
“Sir Robert—?” I found that I was at a loss for words. A monstrous suspicion had all at once begun to form itself in my mind: a suspicion impossible to believe, and yet once thought of impossible to doubt.
The silence was broken by the sound of footsteps.
“Katharine? Katharine, are you there?” The rotund figure of Sir Robert Renfrew appeared in the doorway. “Ah, Katharine, my dear, I was hoping I might find you here — I know it’s one of your favourite places.”
“Sir Robert,” she said, turning towards him and blushing. “Sir Robert, I’m so sorry — I didn’t think you’d need me until at least half past three.”
“Neither did I, my dear, but our conference ended unexpectedly early, so I thought I’d come and look for you. Good heavens, isn’t that Professor Tamar? What an extraordinary coincidence — are you a friend of Katharine’s?”
“I hope,” I said, “that I may say so.”
“I am very pleased to have the opportunity of thanking you, Professor Tamar, for your timely intervention — you have saved me from committing a grave injustice. Katharine, my dear, you will be pleased to hear that Edgar Albany has been entirely exonerated — he has a problem with his back, poor fellow, and was receiving medical treatment throughout the morning when the call was made. And Bolton was with me, of course, so he can’t have made it either.”
“I’m so glad, Sir Robert.” Like almost all human skills, her lying had improved with practice.
“So the purchaser must have been someone who had nothing at all to do with Renfrews’. Miss Jardine has pointed out that by the time it was made our client had already placed several orders for the purchase of shares in the company — an alert stockbroker could well have read the signs and decided to back his judgement. I’m sure she’s right.”
“Oh, Sir Robert, this is good news.”
“And all thanks to your friend Professor Tamar here. Advice from a total stranger — really, quite remarkable. It troubles me to think, though, how nearly I came to making a terrible mistake. I sorely miss the guidance of — well, Katharine, you know the person I mean.”
“Yes, of course. Oddly enough, Professor Tamar asked me a few moments ago whether I knew Parsons Haver at all, and I was explaining — oh dear.” She blushed again. “Perhaps I shouldn’t have said anything about it.”
“Oh, I think we can trust Professor Tamar with our little secret. It wouldn’t do for it to be known in the City, of course, but — I’m sure, Professor Tamar, that you are not one of those people who deride as superstition everything that is beyond our limited human understanding. If you have friends in Parsons Haver, perhaps you had the privilege of knowing Signora del Comino?”
“No,” I said, perceiving that my appalling suspicion was about to be confirmed. “No, alas, I had not.”
“A woman of remarkable gifts, Professor Tamar, quite remarkable gifts. For some years I took no major step without her guidance. Katharine used to drive me down to Sussex almost every month to consult her. But she died last year. Since then — ah well. Katharine, my dear, I’m afraid that you and I must be getting back to Lombard Street.”
He turned, with the self-confidence natural in a man who controls the financial destinies of men and institutions, and led us out through the Museum into Lincoln’s Inn Fields. Miss Tavistock and I followed a few paces behind him.
“Professor Tamar,” said Miss Tavistock, “I ought to thank you for not mentioning — well, you know what I mean. I’d somehow assumed you wouldn’t, but I realise, when I think about it, that it was rather presumptuous of me.”
“My dear Miss Tavistock,” I said. “I should like to think that we are friends. You may count on me to conceal almost any crime you commit — short, that is to say, of murder.”
She smiled at the notion.
“But Hilary,” said Selena, looking at me reproachfully over her liqueur glass, “I’ve just begun to believe in X and I want to go on believing in him. This is no time to tell me that he does not exist.”
Having said my farewells to Miss Tavistock and Sir Robert, I had returned to the restaurant and found the lunch party still in progress. Understandably anxious, however, to witness the triumph of the horse recommended to her by the destitute Irishman, Julia had adjourned with Cantrip to a downstairs room containing a television set. They had been joined there by Selena, set free by the early conclusion of her conference for a leisurely liqueur. It was to this latter group that I announced my solution to the insider-dealing problem.
Selena, however, now seemed displeased by the nonexistence of X. I enquired why she had become attached to him.
“Because if X doesn’t exist he can’t have stolen the Virgil frontispiece, and if X didn’t steal it then it must have been Terry after all. And at this very moment Julia’s aunt is having a conversation with Terry which is designed to lure him into making a firm promise to install our bookcases on a specified date within the reasonably foreseeable future. And since she clearly has a lifetime’s experience of persuading men to do what she wants them to I have every confidence that she will succeed. And if she does, I don’t want to have to start worrying about what we have to lock up while Terry’s working in Chambers.”
“I’m afraid,” I said, “that there is nothing I can do. Now that we know that every important decision taken by Sir Robert Renfrew over the past two years was taken after consultation with Isabella, we can’t doubt that he was her source of information.”
“Look here,” said Cantrip, “are you saying no one’s been blackmailed and no one’s been murdered and nothing exciting’s been happening at all?”
I was obliged to admit that that was my conclusion.
