Spotted Hemlock

‘The young man, we may infer from the available evidence, cared little about the conspiracy, but took himself blithely off to Paris with a party of fellow-students. The girl (his wife, remember) went to a holiday camp so vastly and variously populated that she felt it unlikely she would be singled out for notice. She did not want to be noticed because she had gone there with a man whom we shall call X.’

‘How original of us!’

‘I know it isn’t, but who are we to dispute the mathematicians’ conception of what constitutes an unknown quantity? Now, then, this is where we enter the realm of guesswork. We know the marriage of this young Coles was not a love-match. We know that the young man expected it to advantage him financially. What we don’t really know, although we may hazard a conjecture, is what the girl got out of it.’

‘Conjecture away.’

‘At least she obtained the status of a married woman.’

‘So did I,’ grunted Laura, still rebellious, ‘but I don’t yet notice any particular advantage. All I’ve got is a husband who thinks I’m a moron and a baby who apparently lives to eat, sleep and provide other people with laundry-work.’

‘Besides being a considerable financial responsibility. I know. I sympathise with both his parents,’ said Dame Beatrice. ‘But, to return to the point at issue, I can imagine certain circumstances in which to be married is a distinct advantage. You, whose acquaintance with the English classics is wide, if not profound, should be able to furnish instances.’

‘Oh, that sort of thing!’ said Laura. ‘But that’s all outmoded and unnecessary nowadays. I mean, nobody expects that an unmarried girl will be chaperoned to a dance. Nobody even seems to care much if she has a baby or goes off with somebody else’s husband.’

‘It matters if the somebody else’s husband is in the kind of employment which the least breath of scandal would take from him,’ said Dame Beatrice, who had followed the last speech with critical attention. ‘If I understand our dear Robert’s train of thought, that is the line he is taking. To take a married woman to a holiday camp would not, perhaps, seem the same as taking her to an hotel.’

Laura looked puzzled.

‘Do you mean a parson?’ she asked. ‘I shouldn’t have thought it would make any difference at all. The scandal would ruin him in any case.’

‘I was not thinking of a parson. Perhaps I am a little too close to this particular case to be able to take a broad enough view of it. I had better return Mr Biancini’s photograph and then I have two telephone calls to make, so you two can count on a nice tete-a-tete if you wish. Lunch is at half-past two today because the butcher punctured a tyre. If you like, you can take over the other room and put on the electric fire, and then I shouldn’t need to disturb you when I’ve finished making my calls.’

‘What I should be doing at this hour,’ said Gavin, glancing at the clock, ‘is getting back to Town, I’m afraid. What about it, Laura? Like to drive up with me and come back tomorrow by train?’

‘Having achieved the status of wife,’ said Laura primly, ‘my first thought should be for my husband’s child. However, as the said child has no particular use for me—Celestine can dish him out his meals and see to his general needs—I will accompany you with pleasure, unless my services are required here.’

‘No, no,’ said Dame Beatrice. ‘You run along. I’ll see to Ian Alastair Hamish, bless his heart.’

‘Oh, well, he likes you ever so much better than he does me, so that’s all right. Where are you going to give me lunch?’ said Laura, addressing the statement to Dame Beatrice and the question to her husband.

Your favourite Helmsdale Arms, if we start at once. I need not phone them to keep a table. They’re not likely to be full up at this time of year.’

Dame Beatrice packed up the purloined photograph and returned it by registered post but without a covering letter. It was better, she decided, that Mrs Biancini should have her curiosity left unsatisfied rather than she should think that her husband had been suspected of deceiving her with her own daughter. On the ethics of the means she had used to obtain possession of the photograph she was too realistic and far too honest to dwell. She had needed the picture and the end—that of proving Mr Biancini’s innocence in respect of the matter under immediate review— appeared to have justified the means. The Jesuits, after all, had a word for it.

She telephoned Miss McKay.

‘I have some enquiries to make which cannot be made over the telephone. Where can I meet you, and when?’

Her second call was to the aunt who managed the small hotel at Harrafield.

‘Can you possibly give me the address of Mr Biancini’s relatives in Italy?—the people with whom he spent part of his summer holiday?’ The aunt could and did. ‘And do you know of the hotel to which, at Mrs Biancini’s request, they transferred themselves?’

‘I wouldn’t know what it’s like. It’s a place just outside Naples, on the road south. My sister didn’t care for the relations, so they went there. The Vittorio, it’s called, but I don’t at all know whether it would suit you. People have such different ideas.’

‘If it’s on the road to Pompeii, it will suit admirably, I’m sure.’

‘Of course, if you like those old ruins. Well, mind, I can’t recommend it. Of course, you get choosy when you’re like me and keep a nice place of your own, but my sister thought very well of it, although she said it was gloomy. One of Tony’s relations works there, I believe.’

Dame Beatrice rang up the travel agency and booked two seats on an aeroplane going to Rome. There was no need to rush to Naples. She had learned and disputatious friends in Rome who would expect her to visit them. She wondered whether Miss McKay could be suborned into taking the extra seat on the aeroplane, but that was but a secondary reason for her visit to the Principal of Calladale.

The first person she saw as the car turned in at the college gates was the girl who had informed her that the former Norah Palliser had become Norah Coles. Dame Beatrice stopped the car and got out.

‘Oh, good afternoon, Dame Beatrice. Did you want Mr Lestrange?’ asked the student.