The Sirens Sang of Murder

CHAPTER 2

Ragwort feared the worst.

On the evening of Cantrip’s departure I once more found myself sitting with Julia in the Corkscrew, at the same candlelit table and in the same convivial shadows. The absence from our table of Cantrip was made good by the presence there of Selena and Ragwort. Selena, who had spent the previous few days sailing in the Solent, was in blithe and springlike spirits — the sparkle of seafaring was still in her eyes, and the sunlight still gleamed in her hair. Ragwort, on the other hand, had composed his features in an expression of such marmoreal gravity as one might see in the monument to some young man of saintly character martyred in the reign of Domitian.

Despite every effort to attribute the desire of Miss Derwent for Cantrip’s presence in Jersey to some proper and decorous motive, Ragwort had been unable to think of any. He was compelled, with the utmost reluctance and distaste, to conclude that her motives were improper. He did not think it right to specify further.

“I thought,” said Selena, “that Clementine Derwent was engaged. To another solicitor.”

“So I believe,” said Ragwort, “and would naturally wish to draw the inference you suggest. I understand, however, that her fiancé is at present on six months’ secondment in Hong Kong, and she does not strike one as a young woman of ascetic temperament.”

“No,” said Julia, “she doesn’t, does she? The impression she gives is of robust health and vigorous appetite, like an advertisement for cornflakes. One doesn’t feel that she would take kindly to six months’ deprivation of the pleasures of the flesh.”

“You confirm my fears,” said Ragwort.

“A girl in Clementine’s position,” continued Julia, “would no doubt reflect that there are two kinds of young men. On the one hand, there are those, such as yourself, my dear Ragwort, to whom the least one could offer would be the devotion of a lifetime and a profoundly spiritual regard almost untainted by the gross-ness of carnality. From the pursuit of young men of that kind Clementine is plainly debarred by her existing obligations. On the other hand, there are young men who might be persuaded to settle for something less. Young men — how shall I put it? — young men of obliging disposition. It is pretty generally known, I believe, that Cantrip is one of the latter sort.”

“It is distasteful to think,” said Ragwort, “that a fellow member of Chambers is regarded as available on demand to gratify the baser appetites of any woman who happens to be temporarily short of a husband or fiancé. Knowing, however, that that is the case, I fear there is little doubt that Miss Derwent has resolved to take advantage of the position.”

Selena was unpersuaded. Though aware that a number of intelligent and otherwise discerning women had from time to time considered Cantrip attractive — at this point she looked rather severely at Julia — she saw no reason to suppose him an object of universal desire or, in particular, of Clementine Derwent’s desire.

Ragwort, happy as he would have been to do so, was unable to share this sanguine opinion. Selena, he supposed, must have forgotten the sordid episode which had occurred some eighteen months before, when Cantrip had escorted Miss Derwent home from a party given by a mutual friend.

Having heard nothing of the incident, I sought particulars.

“Alarmed,” said Selena, “by the increase in crimes of violence in central London, Clementine had very sensibly undertaken a course of lessons in the art of self-defence and was anxious to put her training to some form of practical test. She accordingly made a bet with Cantrip that she could successfully defend her virtue against the most vigorous and determined attack on it.”

“That,” said Ragwort, “was the ostensible contract. In substance, I fear, it was neither more nor less than a sordid and degrading bargain for the provision of services of a most personal nature for the sum of five pounds — a sum, I should have thought, which even Cantrip would consider humiliatingly modest.”

“But if that was indeed the contract,” said Julia, “then Clementine must have underestimated the effectiveness of her newly acquired skills. She laid poor Cantrip out cold, and when he came to he had lost all enthusiasm for the intended ravishment. It is fair to say, however, that Clementine behaved much better than solicitors usually do in their financial dealings with the Bar — she applied her winnings in taking him out to lunch.”

“And if,” said Selena, “she does have designs on Cantrip’s virtue, and he finds them unwelcome, he can always say no.” An upward movement of Julia’s eyebrows, a downward movement of Ragwort’s lips, signified disbelief in Cantrip’s ability to pronounce the word. “Oh well, perhaps not. But even if he can’t, it still seems to me to be of no undue concern.”

“No undue — My dear Selena,” said Ragwort, “reflect on what you are saying. Of no undue concern? Any attempt by a member of the Bar to ingratiate himself with a solicitor, whether by gifts or by offers of hospitality or by favours of any other kind, is grave professional misconduct. And even if the matter can be kept from the Conduct Committee of the Bar Council, it can hardly be hoped, though of course none of us here would dream of mentioning it to anyone except in the strictest confidence, that it can be kept entirely secret — people in Lincoln’s Inn are such dreadful gossips. If poor Cantrip should happen in future years to achieve any measure of professional success, malicious tongues will all too readily attribute it to his willingness to oblige his instructing solicitors in a manner unbecoming to Counsel.”

Selena remained unmoved. If we were to worry about anything, she said, it should be the possibility, unlikely as it was, that Clementine required Cantrip’s presence in Jersey in the misguided confidence that he was versed in fiscal matters. What was he to do if someone asked him to advise on Section 478 of the Taxes Act or construe a double tax treaty?

“For that,” said Julia, “we have a contingency arrangement. He’s meeting the lay clients tomorrow to hear what their problem is and he’s expected to give them the answer on Monday. If there turn out to be any fiscal implications, he’ll send me a telex on Saturday and I’ll telex back the best answer I can think of.”

“Tell me,” said Selena, for the first time looking a little anxious, “do you think that Cantrip will be able to obtain ready access to a telex machine?”

“Good heavens, yes,” said Julia. “Any offshore financial centre, such as Jersey, is always amply equipped with such things. I told him to explain to his hotel that he might have to send urgent telex messages at some time when their operator was not on duty — I’m sure they won’t object to him sending them himself.”

“Oh dear,” said Selena. “You do know, don’t you, Julia, what Cantrip’s like about telex machines?”

The proposal to instal a telex machine at 62 New Square had been thought, after long months of debate, negotiation, and intrigue on the part of its supporters and opponents, to have been finally disposed of at a Chambers meeting which had taken place in the preceding January. Greatly assisted, no doubt, by the always persuasive advocacy of Selena, who was one of its most resolute adherents, the pro-telex party had appeared to be gaining the day until Basil Ptarmigan, the senior, most eloquent, and most expensive Silk in Chambers, began — not precisely to address the meeting, but rather to muse mellifluously aloud that change was not always for the better.

It was frequently said (Basil had reflected) that one must move with the times. Might it not be prudent, before doing so, to ascertain the direction in which the times were moving — whether towards triumph or disaster? He had been told that the telex machine was the latest thing in modern technology; but they would not, he supposed, be so childishly excited by mere innovation as to purchase it on that account. He had been told that “everyone else” had a telex machine — an expression apparently denoting in this context the Revenue Chambers next door; but he believed that he himself might claim to enjoy, without the benefit of such an appliance, as extensive an international practise as any of the members of 63 New Square. He had been told that clients expected telex facilities: a time would come perhaps when clients would expect to find Coca-Cola dispensers and computer games placed in the waiting room for their refreshment and recreation, and it might well be that Chambers would have to bow to their wishes, but he could not help hoping that that day would be deferred to some time beyond his own retirement.

The pro-telex party sighed and mutely conceded defeat, agreeing that a final decision on the project should be postponed to some future, uncertain, and, it was assumed, infinitely distant date.

In the following month Basil received several telephone calls in the early hours of the morning from an eminent American attorney, associated with him in a case of some magnitude, who appeared unable to understand the nature of the time difference between London and New York and evidently believed that in the absence of telex facilities this was the only reliable means of communicating with him. (Selena, my principal informant on these matters, had heard of this not from Basil but from the New York attorney — who happened, she said, with the expression of a Persian cat disclaiming all knowledge of the cream, to be an old friend of hers.)

At the Chambers meeting in February, Basil began again to muse gently aloud. It was extraordinary (he reflected) that they always seemed to have such difficulty in Chambers in reaching any positive decision about anything: one almost felt that there was some truth in the accusation, so often levelled at the Chancery Bar, that they were slow, reactionary, and out of touch with the modern world. Take, for example, the proposal to acquire a telex machine: it was now several months since the matter had first been raised; many valuable hours had been spent in discussion and investigation; the few trifling difficulties had been shown to be easily resolved, and it was surely beyond dispute that such a machine was nowadays indispensable to successful practise at the Bar. Yet still they had taken no active steps to acquire one — why ever not?

A week later the machine had been installed in the Clerks’ Room. (The advantages of this location were considered to outweigh the minor inconvenience of incoming messages sometimes being read by casual visitors to Chambers before being seen by the intended recipient.)

The members of Chambers had for the most part treated it with circumspect awe, as an object whose arcane mysteries were known only to the temporary typist. They would no more have thought of transmitting a message themselves than a suppliant at Delphi of consulting the oracle without the intervention of the priestess.

With Cantrip, however, it was otherwise. He had watched its installation with keen interest and had succeeded in obtaining from the engineer in charge some elementary guidance as to its use. Permitted to run his fingers over its chaste ivory keyboard and to discover with what exquisite sensitivity it responded to his lightest touch — deleting here, inserting there, amending elsewhere — the poor boy fell victim to as fatal a fascination as that exerted by Isolde over Tristan or Lesbia over Catullus.

He had spent the next three days in a delirium of telex-sending. The medium seemed to have a strangely liberating effect on his creative powers, enabling him to express his thoughts and feelings with a freedom and fluency which he had never before experienced. His messages, covering a wide range of topics and sometimes employing various ingenious noms de telex, were addressed not merely to his friends, acquaintances, and enemies in every corner of the world but often to total strangers whose telex number happened to become known to him. Could he have contented himself with mere composition, no harm would have come of it, but seldom if ever was he able to deny himself the ultimate rapture of pressing the key marked “Enter” to transmit the message to its destination.

It could not continue. After a perplexed inquiry from the Lord Chancellor’s Office about a message purporting to be from 10 Downing Street, but readily traceable to 62 New Square, and consisting of the peremptory command “Give Cantrip Silk,” strict instructions were given to the temporary typist to permit none of the members of Chambers to have direct access to the telex machine: from these, despite all Cantrip’s blandishments and the regard in which she held him, Lilian had conscientiously refused to depart.

On the morning following the day on which Cantrip left for the Channel Islands I found in Timothy’s letter box a communication of apparent urgency from the London Electricity Board, and knowing that he had made some arrangement with Henry for dealing with such matters, I turned aside on my way to the Public Record Office to deliver it at 62 New Square.

Though Henry himself had not yet arrived, the Clerks’ Room was uncustomarily crowded. Interest appeared to centre on the telex machine, round which were gathered several members of Chambers, the senior partner in a leading firm of solicitors, three or four articled clerks in a state of high amusement, and a slender, fair-haired girl whom I took to be Lilian, the new temporary typist. The message which engaged their attention had evidently been transmitted in Jersey earlier that morning.

TO THE SENIOR CLERK 62 NEW SQUARE ABSOLUTELY PRIVATE AND TREMENDOUSLY CONFIDENTIAL

Dear Henry,

As per your esteemed instructions I have started negotiating with your deserted wife re her claim for increased maintenance. She says with five children fifty pence a week is not enough. Have pointed out that as you never divorced your first wife in Singapore or the one in Buenos Aires she has no legal rights and is lucky to get anything, but she seems to know about the money in your Swiss bank account and how you got it, so you may want me to offer a bit more to keep her quiet. The children do look rather hungry. Awaiting your instructions

Your sincere friend and well-wisher,

Titus A. Newt

The pseudonym deceived no one. The question whether it would be proper, as it would plainly be politic, to remove and destroy the message before it was seen by Henry was still under discussion when his arrival rendered it academic. Thinking the moment un-propitious to my errand, I joined Selena and Ragwort in seeking shelter from his rage in Basil Ptarmigan’s room — a room of such serene and elegant distinction, its walls lined with centuries of legal learning, that Henry would not venture, it was felt, to give rein there to his indignation.

We found Basil in consultation with Julia, who had persuaded her instructing solicitors that for the purpose of the appeal from Mr. Justice Welladay’s recent decision it was essential to engage the services of leading Counsel: she and Basil were now deliberating the grounds of the appeal. The eminent Silk accepted our apologies for the interruption, courteously implying that company so agreeable and distinguished could never be considered intrusive. Selena explained why we were obliged to seek refuge.

“As you know,” said Basil, “I have always had grave doubts of the wisdom of installing a telex machine. Technology is responsible for much that is wrong with the modern world — now we are going to have Henry in one of his difficult moods, and we all know how tiresome that is for everyone.”

“I’m not sure,” said Julia, “that it’s the existence of telex machines that’s wrong with the modern world — I’m inclined to think it’s the existence of Cantrip. He’s sent me a telex as well, and its contents are rather disturbing. Perhaps the rest of you would care to read it while Basil and I finish drafting our notice of appeal.”

TELEX M. CANTRIP TO J. LARWOOD TRANSMITTED GRAND HOTEL ST. HELIER 9:00 A.M. FRIDAY 27TH APRIL

Yoo-hoo there, Larwood, me here. All right so far advicewise, but thought you ought to know about chap here called Edward Malvoisin casting vile aspidistras on fair name of J. Larwood. Don’t worry, I got him sorted out all right — jolly lucky I did, bet you’ll never guess who was listening.

This Malvoisin chap is the Jersey lawyer for these characters I’m meant to be advising. Seemed like a pretty good egg to start off with — met me at the airport yesterday P.M., whizzed me off to the Grand Hotel, and began pouring booze down me like there was no tomorrow, so I took a pretty genial view of him.

I suppose you know the Grand Hotel — all potted plants and wickerwork, with the waiters still getting over the excitement of Queen Victoria’s Jubilee. It’s the sort of place where you’d expect to find my Uncle Hereward, sitting on the veranda chatting with his ex-army cronies about the great days of Empire. That reminds me, I meant to tell you — the old boy’s been threatening to come up to London for a few days. If he turns up before I get back, don’t let him get into any trouble. He’s fairly harmless really if you know how to handle him.

Where was I? Oh yes — me and the Malvoisin chap in the bar of the Grand Hotel. It was fairly early still, and we had it pretty much to ourselves. No one else around except a chap reading The Times in one corner and an old biddy all wrapped up in black shawls doing her knitting in another — probably got lost on the way to the guillotine.

The way your name cropped up was because I was telling Malvoisin I was in 62 New Square and he said he knew a bird in 63, and I said I knew a bird in 63 as well and they both turned out to be you. So of course we wittered on about you for a bit and to start off with he seemed to have pretty sound views on the subject, viz that you were hot stuff on double tax treaties and fanciable with it.

Only then he gave me a funny sort of look and said something like what a pity it was about you being the way you are. At first I thought what he was talking about was just your general sort of goopiness, and I pointed out that one didn’t mind it once one got used to it and anyway it wasn’t your fault. Then he gave me another funny look and said something about people in London being very broad-minded, and it turned out that what he thought was that you were like those ancient Greek birds who fancied other birds instead of chaps.

I don’t know how he got the idea, I expect it’s because you’re always talking bits of Latin. Anyway, I told him he was talking codswallop and you were one of the keenest chap fanciers I knew. He wouldn’t believe it at first but I told him I was talking from firsthand experience, nothing hearsay about it. He still looked as if he didn’t a hundred percent believe me, so I told him all about what happened after you won that case about goldfish in front of the Special Commissioners. It’s not the sort of thing I’d usually go into a lot of detail about to a chap I’d only just met, but the way I see it is that if you find someone casting aspidistras at an old mate, you’ve jolly well got to spring to the defence — I mean, you’d do the same for me, wouldn’t you, if you came across some bird saying “Nice chap, old Cantrip, pity about his cootlike tendencies”?

You might think it doesn’t matter a lot what someone says about you in the bar of the Grand Hotel because of there being no one to listen, but that just shows how wrong you can be. I’d just finished putting Malvoisin straight when the chap who was reading The Times got up to go and I saw who it was. Bet you’ll never guess, not in a million years.

All right, I’ll tell you, it was old Wellieboots, large as life, teeth and eyebrows included. Gave me a nasty shock seeing him there, all unexpected. Don’t know what he was doing there or how much he heard, but the point is that if he heard what Malvoisin said about you, he heard what I said as well. So it’s jolly lucky I was there, because you wouldn’t want old Wellieboots getting funny ideas about you, would you?

Have just sent frightfully witty telex to Henry. Don’t let on it was me — bet he’s as miffed as maggots.

Must dash off now and advise these trustee bods.

Over and out — Cantrip

There was some curiosity about what had happened after the case about goldfish, but Julia, though willing to explain in some detail the interesting questions of law raised by the case itself, declined to give particulars of its sequel. The first significant victory of her forensic career, the goldfish case had occurred at the time when she and Cantrip were on those terms conventionally described as closer than mere friendship. She had celebrated her triumph in his company, and with an exuberance more unrestrained than it might have been, she said, had she known that in future years it would be made the subject of a public proclamation to the senior judiciary.

“Oh dear,” said Selena. “I hope that isn’t going to cause you any embarrassment.”

“I suppose,” said Julia, “that when I next appear before Mr. Justice Welladay, the thought of his having quite such a detailed knowledge of what I had previously regarded as my private life may indeed be a trifle disconcerting. That, however, isn’t actually what I’m worried about. The thing that’s worrying me—”

“How fortunate,” said Basil, “that the judge in question was Arthur Welladay. Other judges, perhaps, might be distracted by the idea of you engaged in youthful dalliance from the learning and gravity of your arguments, but since Arthur never in any case pays any attention to any argument addressed to him on behalf of the taxpayer, it will make no difference. I wonder what he’s doing in the Channel Islands. Making sure they exist, perhaps — on the last occasion that I appeared before him, he seemed to be accusing me of inventing them as part of a tax avoidance scheme. So I offered to put in evidence of their existence, and he became rather cross with me.”

“Basil,” said Selena with gentle severity, “you really ought not to tease him, you know.”

“My dear Selena, I’ve been teasing Arthur Welladay for twenty-five years, and it’s far too late to break myself of the habit. He was just the same at the Bar — wherever the Revenue position was most plainly indefensible, there was Arthur defending it. And he wouldn’t touch anything that looked like an artificial avoidance scheme — not even the innocent little discretionary settlements that the rest of us were earning our living from in those days. Poor Arthur, it’s really very sad — if it hadn’t been for that, he might have been quite a good lawyer. He is a member, as of course you know, of a distinguished legal family and has a by no means contemptible intellect, but I’m afraid this obsession with tax evasion has seriously impaired his judgment. He’s really hardly rational on the subject.”

“To return,” said Julia, “to the matter of Cantrip’s telex, the thing that’s worrying me—”

“Have you any idea,” said Ragwort, “why this Jersey advocate should suspect you of unorthodox tastes?”

“Possibly,” said Julia, “because I have been to some trouble to persuade him to. Edward Malvoisin is apparently under the impression that every woman he meets is secretly yearning for him to make advances to her. If his advances are rejected, he regards this as merely confirming that the yearning is indeed secret. So far as I’m concerned he is mistaken — if I’d known him when he was twenty-five or so, I daresay I might have thought him quite good-looking, but he has the kind of looks which tend to become rather fleshy and florid by the late thirties. Not my sort of thing at all. On the other hand…”

“Yes?” said Ragwort, raising an eyebrow.

“On the other hand, Stingham and Grynne use his firm for most of their work in Jersey, and quite often instruct me in connection with the same matters, so I was reluctant to express myself with the degree of rudeness which would evidently be required to persuade him of his error. I thought the tactful thing would be to give the impression that my repugnance was general rather than particular.”

“That was very sensible of you,” said Selena. “How thoughtless of Cantrip to spoil it.”

“Isn’t it?” said Julia. “But that isn’t what I’m worrying about, either. The thing about Cantrip’s telex that I find really disturbing is the threatened arrival of his Uncle Hereward.”

Colonel Hereward Cantrip had served his country with great distinction in the Second World War, having twice been awarded the DSO, and now lived in well-earned retirement on the South Coast. On those happily infrequent occasions, however, when the widowed sister who kept house for him decided for some reason of her own to dispatch him to London for a few days, he was considered by the rest of the family to become the responsibility of his nephew. Julia had once or twice at such times been prevailed on to assist in his entertainment, and would have been content to do so again. It was, she said, no more than one friend might reasonably ask of another. To undertake the task, alone and unaided and for some indefinite period, of keeping him out of trouble was quite another matter. Trouble, so far as Julia had been able to discover, was what Colonel Cantrip had spent a lifetime of more than seventy years getting into. To keep him out of it, she felt, would require a woman of sterner resolve than herself.

“I don’t think,” said Ragwort, “that you should allow yourself to become unduly anxious. After all, there’s no sign of the old gentleman so far, and we know that Cantrip is appearing in West London County Court on Tuesday afternoon. So he can’t be away for more than four days.”

Ragwort has a touching confidence that things will turn out as they ought.