Read Thus Was Adonis Murdered Online
Authors: Sarah Caudwell
Thus Was Adonis Murdered (10 page)
“But if they were married,” said Cantrip, “why were they pretending they’d only just met?”
“I don’t think they were,” said Selena. “Julia assumed they didn’t know each other because they weren’t sitting together on the plane. Everything after that suggests at least an acquaintance. A marriage, if one of mere fiscal convenience, they might well choose not to publicize; but that’s another matter.”
“Even if you were right,” said Timothy, “would it get us anywhere?”
“No,” said Selena, absentmindedly, “no, I suppose not. But one can’t help thinking, can one, about that conversation between Kenneth and Eleanor, when he seems to have been insisting on carrying on with some plan or other against her wishes. Some plan involving a friend of his. And at the Lido, Ned says that Kenneth has plans to make both their fortunes. It rather sounds, doesn’t it, as if Kenneth were engaged in some kind of commercial enterprise which he expected to be profitable—and in which, for some reason, Ned was an essential participant. Of course,” said Selena, in a manner so casual as to suggest that she had almost lost interest in the subject, “if Eleanor had married Kenneth for reasons of fiscal advantage and he were then, after all, to earn a large sum of money, the effect on her tax position would be quite catastrophic.”
The suggestion that Eleanor Frostfield had done away with Ned to safeguard the marginal tax advantage of a hypothetical marriage to Kenneth Dunfermline may seem to my readers, seeing it in the coldness of print, too fanciful to be entertained for a moment. My readers, however, have not been exposed to the oblique seductiveness of Selena’s advocacy.
“My dear Selena,” said Timothy, “it is a most attractive and ingenious hypothesis. It might even, I suppose, be right. But would you care to estimate my chances of persuading the Italian police that it is probable? No, Selena, it won’t do. Remember, we don’t have to find out who did the murder—all that matters as far as we’re concerned is satisfying the police that Julia didn’t. But if I do have to start suggesting alternative suspects, I’d rather it was someone reasonably obvious.”
“By all means,” said Selena. “But there isn’t anyone obvious.”
“Oh surely,” said Timothy. “Statistics show, I gather, that if one is going to be murdered it will probably be by one’s spouse or lover. Presumably there’s no doubt, in Ned’s case, that that means Kenneth Dunfermline? It’s difficult to imagine any other reason why two such dissimilar young men should be travelling together.”
The possibility that Kenneth had committed the crime had long since occurred to me. But I had misgivings: Venice is a sophisticated and cosmopolitan city—her police force, I felt, would not take a less than worldly view of Ned’s connection with Kenneth, nor would they be unfamiliar with the criminal statistics. I feared, if they did not regard Kenneth as the obvious suspect, that they must have some excellent reason not to suspect him at all.
The public address system announced the arrival of the flight from Venice. We began to give closer attention to the stream of returning passengers.
“They won’t be out for ages,” said Cantrip. “They’ll have to hang about for their luggage to come through on that turntable thing.”
But it was only a few minutes later that we caught sight of a rather subdued little group which seemed to correspond to Julia’s description of the Art Lovers: a handsome, middle-aged woman, whose figure had that unyielding symmetry achieved only by a substantial corset; a muscular young man, sombre of feature; a pretty girl with pale blonde hair; and, close beside her, another young man, square-shouldered, who gave the impression of a certain aggressiveness towards the world.
“I say,” asked Cantrip, “do you think that’s them?”
“Certainly,” said Selena. “Those labels on their hand luggage—they’re the same kind as the travel agents gave Julia. But where’s the Major?”
“I think,” said Timothy, “that the Major must have undertaken to act as porter. If he’s collecting all their suitcases from the conveyor belt, that would explain how the rest of them have got through Customs so quickly. It looks as if they’re coming up here to wait for him.”
The Art Lovers came up the staircase and through the door of the bar. At our first unobstructed view of the American girl, Ragwort gave what sounded almost like a whistle. We regarded him with surprise: Ragwort is notoriously unsusceptible.
“The dress,” said Ragwort, “is Yves St. Laurent. The shoes and handbag are Gucci. The scarf is Hermès. And if that young woman,” said Ragwort, admiration for her elegance contending with puritan disapproval of its cost, “is wearing a penny less than six hundred pounds on her back, I’ll be—I shall be very much surprised.”
The Art Lovers sat down several tables away, too far for us to hear any conversation between them. Not that it would have been informative: apart from telling Stanford what they would like from the bar—at any rate, he went off there and returned with a tray of drinks—they hardly exchanged a word: it was plainly not a festive gathering.
Better placed than they for this purpose, we perceived before they did the arrival in the area below of a tall man pushing a loaded baggage trolley: he was deeply suntanned; he had a white moustache; he was wearing Bermuda shorts.
“Ah,” said Cantrip, “there’s the Major.”
The scholar must miss no occasion for acquiring knowledge, no matter how suddenly and briefly it arises. “Quick, Cantrip,” I said, “get down before them and see if you can get their addresses from the luggage labels. Pretend you think your suitcase might be on the Major’s trolley.”
For any enterprise savouring of the illicit, Cantrip is the man. He did not pause to argue the proprieties. By the time the Major’s waving hand had attracted the attention of his fellow Art Lovers, Cantrip, slipping like a needle through the crowd, was already crouched beside the trolley.
The Major said something. Cantrip said something. Watching, we followed without difficulty the gist of their remarks: the Major was telling Cantrip that his suitcase was not on the trolley; Cantrip, with a nicely judged impression of imperfect sobriety, was insisting on making sure.
The first of the Art Lovers to join them was Kenneth Dunfermline, who showed a perfect indifference to their argument. He took the suitcase offered him by the Major and walked rather slowly away. He was a powerfully built young man, and the suitcase not unduly large: the weight of it, I thought, unless filled with granite, could not alone account for his dragging step and the weariness of his movements. But whether it was grief alone or some yet greater burden that weighed so heavily on the sculptor’s muscular shoulders—that was a question beyond Scholarship to determine.
The next to reach the trolley was Eleanor Frostfield. Again, though we could not hear what was said, Eleanor’s opinion of drunken young men who had mislaid their luggage, and apparently could not even remember whether it was a pigskin suitcase or a canvas holdall, was entirely clear to us. Cantrip, looking apologetic, persisted in his search.
Eventually, though glancing back suspiciously, the Major lifted two suitcases from the trolley and escorted Eleanor towards the taxi rank. Cantrip, completing his researches, sensibly continued to wander in apparent search for his luggage. He was scribbling surreptitiously on the cuff of his shirt—a sacrifice on the part of the
homme bien soigné
which might not, I think, have been made by Ragwort.
The return of the Major from the taxi rank coincided with the Americans’ arrival beside the trolley. Stanford was already carrying a valise, presumably containing his wife’s Venetian acquisitions; but he lifted, without apparent difficulty, two large pigskin cases and carried them towards the exit. Marylou lingered to say something, no doubt a few words of thanks and farewell, to the Major. Then she followed her husband. The only luggage remaining on the trolley was a large, rather battered suitcase and a small canvas holdall: the Major, after a few moments, picked them up and walked briskly away. Cantrip returned to the bar.
“Did you get all the addresses?” I asked anxiously. “Yes,” said Cantrip. “And I saw something jolly funny, too. Bet you can’t guess.”
“Don’t let us guess,” said Selena. “Tell us.”
“You know that holdall thing the Major went off with? Well, it’s not his. It belongs to the Revenue chap.”
“How very odd,” said Selena. “Are you sure?”
“Of course I’m sure. It had his name on the label. Edward Watson, with the same address as the sculptor chap. And what I think is,” said Cantrip, striking an uncharacteristic note of high morality, “when a chap’s been done in, it’s a bit off for some other chap to start nicking his luggage.”
Reflecting on the curious conduct of the Major, justly condemned by Cantrip as unbecoming to an officer and gentleman, we made our way to the airport restaurant and there ordered lunch. Selena, as she had promised, read to us the most recent letter from Julia.
My room at the Cytherea.
Monday night.
Dearest Selena,
I do not for a moment question the excellence of your advice—it is as religion with me. I do rather wish, however, that I had asked you just how long one is supposed to keep up this hopes, dreams and aspirations business. You will recall that I have, effectively, only eight days in Venice, of which four have now elapsed. Should it turn out that the process of lulling into a false sense of security requires a minimum of a fortnight—but no, if it were so, you would have told me.
What I mean is that a point presumably arrives at which one stops admiring the young man’s fine soul and noble intellect—or rather, of course, still admires them tremendously, but admits that one’s admiration is tinged with just the faintest
soupçon
of carnality. And the question which perplexes me is how I am to know, in relation to the enchanting Ned, when that point has been reached.
The trouble is that in spite of my efforts I feel he may already have some suspicion of the nature of my interest in him. He will have become accustomed, in the course of his distasteful employment, to thinking the worst of everyone. It would, moreover, be typical of the practice of the Revenue to let me spend a great deal of time and effort admiring his soul and intellect without intending it to do me any ultimate good. If my fears on this point were to be well-founded, then, it seems to me, I might as well abandon subtlety altogether and adopt the more forthright and vigorous approach recommended by the dramatist Shakespeare. On the other hand, I would not wish to prejudice, by precipitate action, any good I may already have done myself by my restraint.
This morning I began to wonder if it might not be sensible, rather than spend a holiday altogether unenlivened by the pleasures of the flesh, to try my luck with the quite pretty waiter who brings my breakfast. There is something in his manner which suggests that his favours would be less hard to come by than those of the enchanting Ned: one would not, I think, have to talk much about his soul.
And yet afterwards, as we travelled peacefully along the Brenta towards Padua, with the wake of the boat tumbling the reeds at the waterside, I was so moved by the beauty of the surroundings and of Ned’s profile that I felt I would willingly devote the whole week, even if in vain, to undivided pursuit of him. Well, Selena, you will mock me again for being incurably sentimental.
The purpose of the excursion down the Brenta, from the point of view of the Art Lover, is to observe and appreciate the development of the Palladian villa. In the sixteenth century, it seems, all the Venetians decided to go and live in the country. This was due, I suppose, to the republication, as part of the Renaissance, of Horace’s Epistles, in which the poet speaks highly of the simple rustic life. Feeling that if they were going to live the simple life they ought to do the thing properly, the Venetians looked round for someone to build them villas as similar as possible to that occupied by Horace. Andrea Palladio, therefore, then a rising young architect, went out and bought a book by the Roman author Vitruvius, also republished as part of the Renaissance, and read the chapter on building villas. That, at least, is what he meant to read: as it happens, misled by the obscurity of the Latin, he actually read the chapter on building temples. This explains why the Veneto is full of villas looking more or less like the Parthenon, with the addition of the usual domestic offices.
From what one might call the social point of view, the day was not a success. Whenever I managed to draw Ned away from the main body of Art Lovers, with a view to admiring his soul and intellect, the Major would appear suddenly out of nowhere, crying “Jumping Jiminy, this place is quite something, isn’t it?” In the end I abandoned the unequal struggle.
Marylou’s husband still regards me with an unfriendly eye and seemed to be steering her away from me—I was hardly able to talk to her at all. I was obliged, on the other hand, to talk a great deal to Eleanor, who still has hopes of having a row with Graziella. She had two complaints about the excursion: first, that we had not visited enough villas; second, that we had arrived too late in Padua to appreciate the artistic glories of that city. I pointed out in vain that to remedy either of these shortcomings would of necessity aggravate the other. To distract her from any direct conflict with Graziella, I had to keep talking about the Trade Descriptions Act all the way back to Venice. This was rather wearing: it might have been less so if I actually knew anything about the Trade Descriptions Act.
The Major’s conversation at dinner followed, to begin with, its usual pattern, save that his anecdotes tend now to be couched in the form of useful advice, designed to assist me in various difficult situations: “The thing to do, if you’re stranded on shore after hours in Valletta—” “What you want to remember, if you’re running low on water in the Western Desert and Johnny Arab’s getting a bit edgy—” I attended as little as possible, and went back to worrying about Desdemona. In certain predicaments, I may well regret this.
Towards the end of the meal, however, he raised an entirely different subject. Leaning towards me and shielding his mouth, as one wishing to speak in confidence, he asked me if I remembered the French chappie Graziella had been talking about. He proved to be alluding to the late King Henri III of France, mentioned by Graziella as having visited the Villa Malcontenta on his return from Poland in 1583. She had further mentioned that his reign had been of short duration, attributing this to the aversion felt by his subjects to his effeminate habits.
“Don’t know if you followed,” said the Major, “what she said about his effeminate habits?”
“I gathered,” I said, “that the practices which attracted an unfavourable press consisted of something more than an excessive use of eau de Cologne on the handkerchief.”
“Well—” the Major appeared embarrassed. “Word to the wise and so forth. Nod’s as good as a wink. No names, no pack drill.”
“Yes?” I said, trying to be helpful.
“Saw quite a lot of that sort of thing in the Army, I’m afraid. Courts Martial and so forth. Got to know the signs. Well—just between you and me and the gatepost, m’dear, I wouldn’t be surprised if young Ned over there was a bit that way. No names, no pack drill—don’t want to say anything against the lad. Just—not the sort of chap I’d want to share a tent with. Hope you don’t mind my mentioning it, m’dear.”
I was not unduly surprised by this suggestion: it is almost invariably the first thing said about men with profiles by men without profiles. Indeed, it is a benevolent dispensation of Providence that those who express most dread of an unorthodox advance are usually those whom Nature has most effectively protected from any risk of one. Still, the remark placed me in a dilemma. Principle required me to say that it was, if true, no matter for criticism; expediency, on the other hand, urged me to impress on the Major my invincible prudishness. Seeking an answer which should reconcile the two:
“Unless you suppose me,” I said coldly, “to have designs of some sort on the young man, I cannot imagine why you should think the question of any interest to me. I would very much prefer not to discuss the matter.”
“Sorry, m’dear,” said the Major. “Just thought—well, thought you might be getting a bit smitten with him. Wouldn’t like to see you pick a wrong ’un.”
“My dear Bob,” I said, raising a Ragwort-like eyebrow, “I am most obliged to you for your concern. But I am not a swooning adolescent—I am a grown-up woman in practice at the English Bar.”
I was rather pleased with this, since there is, after all, a sense in which it is actually true. The Major was abject in his apologies. Allowing myself to be only somewhat mollified, I excused myself from coffee and came back to my room, to enjoy in privacy the pleasures of writing to you. The others having already withdrawn, the Major was left to entertain Eleanor Frostfield. You may think this a bit hard on Eleanor; but if she ever finds herself running low on water in the Western Desert, at least it won’t be my fault if she doesn’t know what to do about it.
I shall not post this tomorrow morning but shall wait to see if anything of interest occurs during the excursion to Verona. We had the choice between the full day excursion tomorrow, which includes Asolo and Vicenza, and the afternoon excursion on Friday. Hearing Ned sign on for the longer one, I naturally did likewise. Unfortunately, the Major has done the same. Still, perhaps the Major will miss the coach somewhere and be left stranded. Or perhaps Ned and I will both miss the coach somewhere and be left stranded together—that would be even better.
