The Sirens Sang of Murder ht-3 Read online

  “Mostly,” said Julia after some reflection, “of the effect of tax legislation on investment policies, that being a subject of mutual interest. And he always asked how my case was going and seemed to like hearing about it. The trouble was, you see, that quite apart from the feelings I have mentioned, I found him — I found him very amusing.”

  “You mean,” said Selena, “that he laughed at your jokes.”

  “Yes,” said Julia.

  “I am afraid,” said Selena, “that very few women can resist a man who laughs at their jokes, and a man such as Patrick Ardmore would all too easily have realized that you are not one of them. Oh, poor Julia, it’s too heartless.”

  Ragwort, however, was unwilling to admit that laughing at Julia’s jokes, in whatever climatic conditions, was sufficient to constitute a campaign of seduction and demanded further particulars in support of the charge.

  “Did he pay you compliments? Did he say, for example, that you had nice eyes or pretty hair or anything of that kind?”

  “Good heavens, no,” said Julia, apparently slightly shocked by the suggestion.

  “We are speaking,” said Selena, “of an experienced and sophisticated man, well practised in the arts of persuasion. He is, after all, a banker — that is to say, he spends his life persuading people to pay for the privilege of lending him money and again for the privilege of borrowing some of it back. He would have realised at once, I daresay, that Julia likes being the one who says silly things about people’s eyes and hair and would be rather resentful of someone stealing her lines.”

  “Did he deceive you,” continued Ragwort, “as to his matrimonial standing or suggest that his present arrangements were in any way unsatisfactory?”

  “Oh no,” said Julia. “He spoke frequently of his wife, and always in terms of the highest regard and affection. So I was encouraged to think that he was well disposed towards women.”

  “As he no doubt intended that you should be,” said Selena, “since everyone knows that a man who is ill-natured even towards his wife is hardly likely to behave well towards any other woman. But you must remember, Julia, that men are very deceitful about such things, and it’s quite possible that he didn’t really behave nearly as well towards his wife as he would have wished you to believe.”

  “Did he,” said Ragwort, “attempt any form of physical familiarity, as by holding your hand, patting your shoulder, or anything of that sort?”

  “No,” said Julia, “nothing like that at all.”

  “It would not take much sophistication,” said Selena, “to realize how much Julia dislikes men who are physically aggressive.”

  “In short,” said Ragwort, “did this man do or say anything which he might not have done or said if you had been a young man introduced to him in similar circumstances and whose company he found agreeable?”

  “No,” said Julia pitifully, “absolutely nothing.”

  It was infamous: Casanova would have blushed; Don Juan would have raised an eyebrow and murmured “Cad.” It was inconceivable (said Selena) that a man of mature years and wide experience of life should without design have adopted a course of conduct so precisely calculated to reduce Julia to a state of hopeless infatuation. He had done it all on purpose; and Julia, unversed in the ways of men and the world, had not suspected him of any ulterior motive.

  “I don’t think,” said Julia, “that one can quite say that. My Aunt Regina has often warned me that when men make themselves agreeable they generally have some ulterior motive, and I was not so naive as to think Patrick an exception.”

  “You suspected him,” said Ragwort, “of having designs on your person?”

  “Oh no,” said Julia. “I thought he wanted free tax advice.”

  Patrick Ardmore’s tax problem — although he had expressed it in hypothetical terms and made no mention of names, Julia had no doubt of the identity of those concerned — related to the Daffodil Settlement. It arose from the fact that whenever Gabrielle recommended buying any shares in the United Kingdom the arrangements for the purchase were dealt with by Gideon Dark-side.

  “As I have mentioned,” said Julia, “shares in United Kingdom companies were supposed to be registered in the name of the Sark company. But Darkside noticed one day that registering them in the name of a nonresident company tended to involve a certain amount of extra time and paperwork, adding perhaps as much as twenty-five pounds to the cost of each transaction. So in order to save, as he put it, ‘a lot of unnecessary fuss and bother,’ he decided to register them instead in the joint names of the two directors resident in this country — that is to say, of himself and Oliver Grynne.”

  Leaning back in her chair in the manner of a woman who has made a shocking and sensational disclosure, Julia was rewarded by Selena and Ragwort with the gasps and cries of horrified astonishment which she evidently considered appropriate. I gathered that the consequences of Darkside’s action might not be altogether satisfactory from the point of view of taxation.

  “They vary,” said Julia, “as Oliver Grynne pointed out to Darkside when he found out what had happened, from the inconvenient to the catastrophic, depending on the precise circumstances. When Darkside was eventually persuaded of this he suggested what seemed to him a simple and obvious remedy: he and Grynne would transfer the investments into the name of the company which ought to have held them in the first place and there would be no harm done.”

  “Provided,” said Selena, wrinkling her nose, “that the matter never came to the attention of the Revenue.”

  “Quite so,” said Julia. “If, however, one of Her Majesty’s Inspectors of Taxes happened to be looking through the register of shareholders of some major company or other and noticed a substantial holding in the joint names of a United Kingdom solicitor and accountant, he might begin to wonder in what capacity they held it and whether they’d included it in their tax returns. And if they hadn’t, he might ask them why not.”

  “I suppose they would say,” said Selena, “that they had been holding as bare nominees for a nonresident company not liable to file returns of income in this country.”

  “Yes,” said Julia. “But if the man from the Revenue were in one of his suspicious moods, as men from the Revenue so often are, he might insist on verifying that statement by reference to their internal records. And since Darkside regarded the distinction between the trust and the company as a mere legal technicality and of no practical significance, his internal records clearly indicated that the shares were held by himself and Grynne on the trusts of the Daffodil Settlement,”

  “Dear me,” said Selena, “how very embarrassing.”

  “It is not unknown,” said Ragwort, “for embarrassing internal records to be by some sad mischance accidentally lost or destroyed and replaced by others nearer to the heart’s desire.”

  “The same thought,” said Julia, ’had of course occurred to Gideon Darkside. He could do nothing, however, without the cooperation of Oliver Grynne, who naturally declined to assist in any course of action which might culminate in a fraud on the Revenue. So the shares remained in their joint names, and there was a stalemate.”

  “It is not entirely clear to me,” I said, “why Patrick Ardmore should be in need of advice on the position. As I understand it, no action was required on his part-it was a matter for Darkside and Grynne.”

  “Theoretically, yes, but Darkside thought that if the other Daffodil directors could be persuaded to share his view, Oliver Grynne might be brought under sufficient pressure to concur in a transfer of the shares. By this time, you see, he had begun to realise that his little economy might prove to be rather expensive, and he was becoming concerned about his own position.”

  “As one does,” said Selena, “when facing the prospect of a claim for professional negligence. The potential liability in damages would presumably be substantial?”

  “In view,” said Julia, “of the total value of the fund, one would certainly imagine so. Darkside, of course, didn’t feel that h
e was in any way to blame for the problem. He thought that it was all the fault of the lawyers — lawyers in general, because they’d invented this silly technical distinction between trusts and companies, and Oliver Grynne in particular, because he unreasonably refused to cooperate in an innocent little deception of the Revenue. The fact that Grynne was being vigorously supported by Edward Malvoisin served only to confirm his feeling that he was the victim of a conspiracy on the part of the legal profession. He felt very bitter about the whole thing, and by the end of a week he and Grynne were barely on speaking terms.”

  “In these circumstances,” said Selena, “the atmosphere at meetings of the Daffodil directors must have been…?”

  “Distinctly fraught. So Patrick was quite pleased to be able to discuss the problem with someone who knew something about the relevant tax law but wasn’t otherwise involved. And he was kind enough to say,” said Julia, blushing, “that he found my comments extremely helpful, and to express his gratitude by inviting me to dinner on my last evening in the Cayman Islands.”

  Over dinner at the Grand Old House, warmly recommended by The Guide to Comfortable Tax Planning for the excellence of its cuisine and the romantic charm of its surroundings, Patrick Ardmore had continued relentlessly with his strategy of paying no compliments, refraining from physical contact, and making frequent references to his devotion to his wife. Poor Julia, naturally finding this irresistible, had not known what to do.

  “When afflicted by feelings of the sort I have described,” said Julia, “one would normally adopt the forthright and vigorous approach recommended by Shakespeare in his celebrated poem ‘Venus and Adonis.’ I don’t say that it’s invariably successful — on the contrary, I have often known it to end in the most wounding of rebuffs — but at least one has the consolation of knowing one has done the right thing and acted in accordance with the best possible precedent. When, however, the object of one’s desire is a man much older than oneself, who can’t sensibly be complimented on the perfection of his profile or the smoothness of his complexion, that approach doesn’t seem to be quite appropriate. I accordingly found myself at a loss. The trouble was, you see, that I didn’t want to do anything which might make Patrick feel embarrassed and want to avoid me. It was absurdly sentimental of me, because there was no particular likelihood of our meeting again anyway, but I couldn’t help it.”

  “She was at the mercy,” said Selena, “of feelings beyond her control.”

  “Yes,” said Julia. “And yet at the same time I thought how sad it would be to discover in thirty years’ time that after all he, too, would have liked to make an advance but had also refrained, perhaps for some motive similar to my own. So I felt confused and didn’t know what to do.”

  “Her mind,” said Selena, “was a whirl of conflicting emotions.”

  “Yes,” said Julia. “So the impasse — which I take to be the correct expression for a situation in which no one makes a pass at anyone — continued throughout my stay and until after dinner on my last evening. And might indeed not have ended then, except that or” the way back to our hotel I tripped over something, and Patrick took my arm to prevent me falling over. This had a very peculiar effect on me, even worse than the breathless-ness and indigestion which I have previously mentioned — I felt as I suppose an ice cream might feel when hot chocolate sauce is poured over it.”

  “Her senses reeled at his touch,” said Selena triumphantly, having evidently felt that without this phrase the story would be somehow incomplete.

  “Yes,” said Julia. “And it was at this point that I thought of Alcibiades. The distinguished general, as you may remember, found himself as a young man in a somewhat similar position with regard to the philosopher Socrates, and the tactics which he employed on that occasion are recorded in some detail in Plato’s Symposium. Although in that particular case they were unsuccessful, one somehow has the impression that Alcibiades was a young man of considerable expertise in such matters — I felt I could do no better than follow his example.”

  “You mean,” said Ragwort, looking puzzled, “that you invited Patrick Ardmore to a friendly wrestling match in the nearest gymnasium?”

  “No, no, Ragwort, of course not. I doubt very much if there is a gymnasium in Grand Cayman — there is certainly no mention of such a thing in The Guide to Comfortable Tax Planning—and even if there were, one could hardly expect it to be open at midnight. No, the essence of the Alcibiades strategy, as I understand it, is to make no advance oneself but to find ways to make it clear that one would be happy to receive one. So I invited Patrick to help me to finish off a bottle of wine which I had in my room and which would otherwise be wasted — and you will surely admit, Ragwort, that considering how late it was, he could without any incivility or embarrassment have said no.”

  “But,” said Selena, “he didn’t?”

  “No,” said Julia, looking pleased with herself. “No, he didn’t. So we went up to my room and after pouring the wine I disposed myself on the bed in what I hoped was a seductive attitude — that is to say, one which I thought might indicate to a man of experience and sophistication that if he made an advance it would not be rebuffed.”

  “But,” said Ragwort, “he didn’t?”

  “No, he didn’t. He sat on a chair and talked about currency investment. I recalled, however, that Alcibiades had not allowed himself to be discouraged by Socrates continuing to talk about the nature of virtue and truth and so forth, but had decided, when all else failed, to express himself with perfect candour. So I said that I would not by any means wish him to feel obliged to make any advance to me if he were not inclined to do so, but that, if he were, then in view of the lateness of the hour, it would perhaps be a pity to delay further. Which left him quite free,” said Julia defensively, “to say no if he wanted to.”

  “But again,” said Selena, “he didn’t?”

  “No,” said Julia, again with a dreamy and distant look. “No, he didn’t — he asked me if I would like him to undress me.” She declined to say more. It was not going, she said, to be that sort of book.

  The question whether Patrick Ardmore was a heartless and cynical seducer or merely, as Ragwort still maintained, a good-natured man who had discovered too late that there is no such thing as free tax advice seemed still to be unresolved. Wondering what view the man himself might have taken of the matter, I enquired what his manner had been on the following morning.

  It appeared, however, that from his demeanour on that day no significant conclusions could be drawn, for it had not been a day like other days — it had been the day on which Oliver Grynne had died in a drowning accident.

  “And I suppose,” said Julia, frowning slightly into her wineglass, “that that’s what the Daffodil people don’t want to talk about.”

  “It must have been very distressing for them all,” said Ragwort. “It sounds from what you have said as if they would all have been old friends of his — apart from Darkside, of course.”

  “They were, and of course they were extremely upset — Gabrielle in particular, I think. Even so, it seems a little curious that six months later they still don’t even like to mention it. I wonder if it’s because…” She fell silent, still seeking enlightenment in her wineglass.

  “Julia,” I said, “what was there that was odd about it?”

  The body had been found quite early in the morning. The solicitor had been in the habit, while in the Cayman Islands, of rising early, drinking a large glass of orange juice on the terrace of his hotel, and taking a swim before breakfasting further. On the morning of his death he had evidently been swimming in an area of underwater rocks, had dived and struck his head, and thus been rendered unconscious. He had been taking his exercise in an area not much frequented at so early an hour, and there was no one at hand to assist him.

  The burden had fallen on Clementine of telephoning her firm’s office in London to tell them of the death of the senior partner. Her task had not been made easier by having also to t
ell them that a medical examination showed him to have consumed, shortly before his death, the equivalent of two double measures of vodka.

  “I don’t think I’d exactly call that odd,” said Selena. “I can imagine that Stingham’s wouldn’t want it generally known that one of their senior partners was in the habit of drinking vodka before breakfast. But it would explain how he came to have an accident.”

  “Except,” said Julia, “that he’d given up alcohol on health grounds several years before. He was a strict teetotaler.”

  The candlelit shadows of the Corkscrew seemed for a moment less companionable than usual, and I felt for the first time the curious sensation of coldness which I was afterwards to associate with the Daffodil affair.

  “But so far as I know,” continued Julia, “no one thought there was anything sinister about it. The obvious explanation was that someone else on the terrace had ordered a large vodka and orange juice — one does find people in the Cayman Islands who might think that a suitable breakfast beverage — and the waiter had confused the orders.”

  “But surely,” said Ragwort, “there must have been some kind of investigation to establish whether that had happened?”

  “Well no. As Selena has suggested, the chief concern of Stingham’s was to see, if at all possible, that there was no reference in the newspapers to the fact that Oliver Grynne had been drinking — you can imagine what the Scuttle would have made of it, for example. Well, Patrick had one or two quite influential friends in Georgetown, and he thought he could probably arrange for that aspect of the accident to be kept quiet. But that depended on the authorities assuming that it was quite normal for Grynne to have been drinking vodka. If they’d known that it wasn’t they’d have been bound to investigate, and it would have become public knowledge. So they all decided simply to say nothing about his being a teetotaller. Darkside, I need hardly say, was not involved in these discussions, but there didn’t seem much risk that he would think of volunteering that particular item of information to the authorities.”