know what he had to confide, since he had invited her here for that very purpose.
‘Mademoiselle Rossignol, it’s very kind of you to spare me a little of your time…’
‘Miss will do,’ said Charlotte helpfully. ‘I’m almost completely English, you know, apart from the name, although I’ve lived most of my life in France. My father walked out on my mother when I was seven, so the English influence came out on top from then on.’ Her mother, flighty as a butterfly, had heaved a sigh of relief at getting rid of a whole entrenched family along with Maitre Henri Rossignol, who still, perhaps, coloured Charlotte’s image of the law, and made Mr Stanforth incongruous, with his pricked ears and his mild, perilous, goatish hazel eyes.
‘That certainly makes things easier,’ he said heartily, and leaned across the monumental desk to offer her a cigarette and a light. He was just warming up; she knew the signs, knowing quite accurately the effect her looks had on most males of most ages. What she had was not beauty, and she had learned that early, and come to terms with it, being of a practical mind. But there was something more adventurous than beauty in her, a tendency to surge forward into situations somewhat risky in their ambiguity, a taste for accepting any challenge that offered, and a manner and a gait to match the proclivity. Angels might well have feared to tread where Charlotte habitually planted her size four sandals with zest and aplomb.
‘You must be wondering,’ said Mr Stanforth, approaching by inches, ‘why I asked you to come here like this. It was pure luck, my seeing that notice of your concert. There couldn’t be many Charlotte Rossignols who happen also to play the oboe. So I made enquiries at the hall. It was an opportunity for me. I hope you didn’t mind my asking you to come here. I would gladly have come to you, but I thought we could talk more freely here than in an hotel. Briefly, I need to ask you, my dear Miss Rossignol, if you have had any word within the last year from your great- uncle, Doctor Alan Morris.’
There was a moment of absolute silence and surprise. Her eyes had opened wide in wonder, and the light entered their long-lashed blackness and turned it to a dusky, flecked gold. Her small, delicate monkey-features quivered into childish candour, reassuring him that for all her formidable composure she was, indeed, no more than twenty-three. She had fine, white skin, not opaque and dull, but translucent and bright, with the vivid come-and-go of vibrant blood close beneath it; and she had beautiful hair, fine as an infant’s and black as jet, curving but not curling about a very shapely head, and cropped cunningly to underline the subtlety of the shaping. Oh, yes, there was a great deal of France there, whether she knew it or not. And her lips, opening to reply to his question, were long and mobile, eloquent even before she spoke, though she might sometimes go on to contradict what they had intimated.
‘Mr Stanforth,’ she said now, ‘I’ve never once in my life had any communication from my Great-Uncle Alan. I’ve never set eyes on him. I know quite a lot about his work and his reputation, and am quite proud of him, but I don’t expect ever to exchange one word with him. My mother was his niece, and the only daughter of his only sister, but she was as foot-loose as he, and when she married into France she never kept in touch with her English connections at all. I grew up detached. I’m sorry if it seems almost unnatural. It wasn’t out of any want of feeling. No, I’ve had no word ever from Doctor Morris. I should have been very astonished and concerned if I had. I should have taken it for granted there was something the matter.’
Mr Stanforth massaged his sharp jaw with one finger, and looked thoughtful.
‘
‘That’s exactly the trouble, we don’t really know. Naturally I hope not, and the probability is that we’re exercising ourselves over nothing. But the fact remains, we can’t be sure. I’m not surprised,’ he agreed, ‘that you’ve received no word from him, but it was just a chance.’
‘I’m sorry to be a disappointment. Was that the only reason you asked me to come?’ She was reasonably certain by then that it was merely a necessary preliminary to the real business he had with her.
‘Hardly, or I could have asked it over the telephone, and avoided imposing upon you. No, circumstances make it very desirable that we should have this talk, and continue in close touch afterwards, if you’re agreeable. I had better,’ said Mr Stanforth, philosophically accepting the fact of her total ignorance, ‘tell you exactly what the position is. I have acted for your great-uncle for more than twenty years now, and have often been left in charge of his affairs during his long absences abroad, on digs all over Europe and North Africa and the Middle East, everywhere that the Roman and Graeco-Roman power extended. You’re familiar with his subject, you know he is an authority, internationally known and universally respected. So naturally he travels a great deal, and is in demand as a consultant wherever Roman sites are being excavated. A year ago last October he planned a year’s tour in Turkey. It was approaching the end of the season, of course, but he intended to make a first flying visit to Aphrodisias, where some old friends of his were at work, and then to spend the winter on research in libraries and museums, and have the whole of the following summer for field work. He let his house in Chelsea furnished for the year, with the usual proviso that his own staff should remain to run it—he has a housekeeper who has been with him for years, and one daily maid. All quite in order, of course, he has done the same thing at least twice before. And of course no one expected to hear much from him during his sabbatical year, unless, as you say, something was wrong. But the trouble is that no one has heard anything from him even now that the year is over.’
‘Nearly six months over,’ Charlotte pointed out. ‘Quite an edgy matter for his tenants.’
‘Precisely! Finding accommodation in London is difficult in any circumstances, and this couple happen to be Australians who don’t intend to stay permanently, but are anxious to see their daughter through her physiotherapy training here, and take her back with them afterwards. It would suit them very well to have the tenancy of the house for at least another year. But without any instructions from Doctor Morris it’s difficult to know what to do.’
‘And what,’ she asked practically, ‘have you done about them so far?’
‘In the absence of any word from my client, I took the responsibility of renewing the tenancy for six months. They could hardly be expected to agree to less, and they’re excellent tenants.’
‘And now the six months is nearly up. And still no word! Yes, I see why I represented a last hope,’ she said. ‘Is this very unlike him?’
‘Very. He is a man who has deliberately avoided certain responsibilities in his life, and certain involvements, but those business obligations which do unavoidably devolve upon him he has always observed punctiliously. There are money matters, investments, tax affairs to be considered. It is, one might say, a conscious part of his policy of personal detachment to have all his affairs in scrupulous order, and so obviate pursuit and inconvenience of any kind. To be slipshod is to be hounded, which is the last thing he wants. No, I must say that things have now gone so far as to justify me in feeling considerable uneasiness about his continued absence.’
She gazed back at him in thoughtful silence for a moment, and shook her head doubtfully. ‘I don’t know… he’s a free agent, and he has confidence in you. At a pinch, he might very well feel safe enough in going ahead with what he’s doing, and leaving all the rest to you. Supposing he got excited about some new discoveries, for instance…’
