“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 tell 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.”