Lunch was preceded by what were termed cocktails. I contrived when these were served to be within a few paces of the accountant and to receive my glass of sherry at the same time that he accepted a grapefruit juice. I had thought that some trifling accident with my glass, not involving the sacrifice of an excessive amount of sherry, would provide a natural pretext to engage him in conversation; but before I could execute such a manoeuvre he moved briskly away, with the object, as it proved, of talking to Patrick Ardmore. The Irishman greeted him with what looked more like resignation than enthusiasm.
“Glad you’re here,” said the accountant. “Wanted a word with you.”
“Of course, Gideon, by all means,” said the Irishman rather wearily.
The two men found seats at a small occasional table some distance removed from the general throng. Though they somewhat lowered their voices, I was able, by appearing engrossed in my lecture notes, to remain within earshot of their conversation.
“Look, Patrick, I want you to tell me what’s been going on.”
“Certainly, Gideon, by all means. In what connection, precisely?”
“This business of Edward Malvoisin of course. What’s happening about the inquest?”
“The inquest is on Saturday, but I understand that the Guernsey CID have already made their report to the Seneschal. They see no reason to doubt that his death was accidental.”
“And doesn’t anyone want to know what he was doing wandering about on the Coupee in the middle of the night?”
“The notion seems to have got about,” said Ardmore with pellucid innocence, “that he probably had a business appointment of some kind — something he didn’t want the rest of us to know about.”
“A business meeting? At midnight? How did anyone get a damn-fool idea like that?”
“Advisers on financial planning are in a fiercely competitive business these days, as of course you know, Gideon. If a high-net-worth individual wants advice on his tax affairs in the middle of a rainy night on Sark, then you have to be there, don’t you, or risk losing the client?”
“I never heard such a load of poppycock.”
“Or her tax affairs,” added Ardmore, with a sidelong glance and a world of innuendo.
“Oh, I see, they think he was off to see some woman. Well, that makes more sense, I suppose, specially in Malvoisin’s case. And how do they think he came to go over the edge?”
“The CID don’t think there’s any great mystery about that after all. At about midnight on Monday poor old Albert was driving his horse and carriage along the Coupee, drunk as a lord and with some idea that the Devil was after him, and you’ve seen for yourself that there’s not much leeway. If Edward was there and trying to get out of the way…” The Irishman spread his hands in a gesture designed to convey the sequel.
“Is that what the authorities think?”
“It’s the obvious explanation. There’s no question of Albert being charged with anything, of course — he’s a Sark man and very well liked, and he didn’t mean to do any harm to anyone. Well, Gideon, I think that’s all I can tell you.”
Ardmore looked at his watch, drained his glass, and began to rise, but the accountant stretched out a hand as if to restrain him.
“Just a minute, Patrick — what have you done about the pen?”
“The pen?” said Patrick Ardmore, with almost convincing perplexity, and then, at an exclamation of impatience from Darkside, “Oh — that pen. I’ll be returning it, of course, as soon as I’ve got someone going over to Monte Carlo — I wouldn’t like to trust it to the post. My dear man, you weren’t thinking I was going to steal it, were you?”
“Of course not — stop pretending to misunderstand me. I think you ought to have told someone about it — someone in authority.”
“You mean the Seneschal? My dear Gideon, the Seneschal’s a busy man with many responsibilities — why would I go troubling him about a little item of lost property that I can return to the owner myself without any difficulty?”
“I’d like to know how she came to drop it there,” said Darkside, with a sort of sullen malice.
“Would you? What a thirst you must have, to be sure, for useless information.”
“And when.”
“On the way across or on the way back, if she went back before us. I don’t understand you, Gideon. What is it you want? To make people think there’s something to investigate when they’re satisfied there isn’t? Policemen seconded from London and crime reporters from the national press, all wanting the exact details of why we were on Sark and what we were talking about? I’d have thought you’d be the last person to want that, in view of what we were discussing the other evening.”
“Well,” said the accountant sulkily, “if you’re not going to say anything, then I won’t either. But it’s your decision, and I accept no responsibility for it.”
“Oh, I quite understand that,” said the Irishman. “You really must excuse me, Gideon. There are some people I’ve promised to see at lunch.”
I had been invited to lunch with the chairman and speakers, at a table where both wine and conversation were expected to flow more freely than among the paying participants. I fear, however, that I repaid the courtesy but poorly, for my mind was too much preoccupied with the conversation I had just heard to allow me to contribute much by way of gossip or argument.
Julia, I noticed, seemed now in more cheerful spirits. Either the pleasure of the encounter with Ardmore or the satisfaction of having safely delivered her lecture had evidently erased from her mind the possible necessity of emigrating to the British Virgin Islands. As we were finishing our main course, however, one of the waiters approached her and murmured something which seemed to cause her anxiety. With a rather confused apology to the chairman, she rose and left us.
A few minutes later, while we were still eating a most excellent pudding, I observed the entry to the dining room of a uniformed page boy. He approached the table where Patrick Ardmore was sitting and handed him a note. Ardmore, having read it, also rose and left. The page boy continued on his way to Darkside’s table, and a similar procedure followed, though Darkside’s response seemed somewhat more hesitant. Seeing that the page boy was now moving in my direction, I made haste to finish my pudding.
CHAPTER 9
Amateurs of military anecdote will no doubt be better versed than I in the history of the Remnant Club, founded in the early nineteenth century by a group of officers, survivors of the Peninsular campaign, whose conduct had to their astonishment proved insufficiently sedate for other gentlemen’s clubs in the neighbourhood of St. James’s. Occupying as its premises an agreeable Regency town house just off Piccadilly, it has a relatively small membership, distinguished rather for gallantry than prudence, and is not much used for the entertainment of outside guests. Curiosity, if nothing else, would have compelled me to accept Colonel Cantrip’s invitation to join him there after lunch.
It was no more than five minutes’ walk from the Godolphin Hotel. A club servant of extreme antiquity, whose hobbling progress seemed to bear witness to ancient and honourable wounds, conducted me to the library — a long, oak-panelled room, smelling of leather and tobacco smoke, with shelves full of military histories and little-known memoirs.
The Colonel was sitting in a deep leather armchair looking rather pleased with himself, the demonic brightness of the eyes beneath the snow-white eyebrows undimmed by any remorse for the events of the previous evening. Facing him, at opposite ends of a long low sofa, sat Patrick Ardmore and Gideon Dark-side — the former, brandy glass in hand, giving every sign of ease and contentment, the latter with his legs stretched stiffly out in front of him in an attitude which looked to be as lacking in comfort as it was in aesthetic charm. The Colonel effected introductions and asked me what I would drink.