The Sirens Sang of Murder (3 page)

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.