“It’s rather a long story,” he said at last, “though I gather that some of it is already familiar to you. We’d better order something to eat.”
I had reason to be glad of the suggestion, for the story was indeed a long one. It began with an account, similar in substance to that I had heard from Colonel Cantrip, of the events which on that moonless night in 1944 had brought him, wet and shivering, to the cliff tops of Sark.
“There’s nothing like cold seawater for washing the heroism out of you, Professor Tamar. By the time I got back to the guard hut I was cursing myself for a fool for having gone. I was pretty sure it was too late to be any use — after all the noise, I was expecting to find the place full of German soldiers. But there were no Germans — just a girl in a white dress kneeling by the dead man’s body, with her hair shining in the light from the oil lamp.”
There was a warmth in his voice that I had not previously heard, and a note of remembered astonishment.
“I must have been a grim enough sight, dripping wet and with my face blacked, but she didn’t show any sign of being frightened. She asked what I was doing there and I told her about the raid and why I’d had to come back. She said she’d help me, but it wasn’t enough simply to undo the ropes — we had to dispose of the body altogether. She was worried about reprisals — if the Germans found one of their men shot dead they were likely to react fairly brutally against the civilian population. They might not even have believed there’d been a raid at all — the girl and her brother were the people living nearest the guard hut, and she thought they’d be the first to be suspected. He was a big man, the man I’d killed — it took the two of us to carry him. We threw him over the cliff at a point where we could be sure of him being washed out to sea — Rachel knew the currents and found the right place. In spite of everything, she was a good deal calmer than I was — she was a remarkable girl.”
“And afterwards she kept you hidden from the Germans?”
“For three months. Luckily for us, there was no great search made for the missing soldier. I suppose the Germans thought he’d deserted, stowed away perhaps in one of the fishing boats. Still, it was desperately dangerous for her — if they’d found out she was hiding me, they’d certainly have sent her to a concentration camp, if they hadn’t shot her outright. Her brother, too, I’m afraid, although he was only sixteen. Well, finally the news came through that St. Malo was in the hands of the Allies. As soon as we heard that, she set about finding someone to take the three of us across, and one night in July we were landed from a fishing boat on the coast of Brittany.”
“And you, I suppose, fell in love with her?”
“Oh of course — what else would a boy of nineteen do under such conditions? Head over heels in love with her, and making myself no end of a nuisance about it, I daresay. I must have pestered her almost to death trying to persuade her to marry me, but she wouldn’t have me.”
“Not even,” I said, having no choice but to venture the assumption, “when she knew she was going to have a child?”
“Not even then, though life wasn’t easy in those days for a woman with a child and no husband — it wouldn’t have occurred to her to marry for the sake of convenience. But things turned out well for her, I’m glad to say — she married a Breton businessman, and he made her very happy, I believe, until his death a few years ago. He brought Gabrielle up as his daughter.”
“But you have never met her?”
“No. Rachel thought that it would be disturbing for her to meet me, even when she grew older — it would hardly have been possible, even if it had been right, to prevent her finding out who I was. But Rachel and I kept in touch — chiefly by letter, though we met from time to time. So although Gabrielle knew nothing about me, I knew a great deal about her. Rachel’s letters were of almost nothing else — how pretty she was, how clever she was, how well she was doing in her studies, how successful she was in her profession. Her husband wasn’t good enough for her, of course, but then no one could have been. And then, a few months ago, there was something quite different — a letter suggesting disquiet.”
Gabrielle’s mother, it seemed, no less than her husband and Clementine Derwent, had noted the lowering effect on her spirits of events at recent Daffodil meetings and had eventually confided her anxieties to the judge.
“Did you,” I asked, “regard the notion that the Contessa was being followed as one to be taken seriously? Did you not think it more likely that she was simply imagining things? Her work is demanding, and she may be subject to considerable stress.”
“I could not be sure, Professor Tamar. I certainly did not think that our own Department of Inland Revenue would go to such lengths as she appeared to believe — or even the French Revenue authorities, though their methods of investigation are perhaps more vigorous than our own. I thought it not impossible, however, that her profession might have brought her into contact, and potentially into conflict, with persons very much more dangerous — if your clients are the sort of people who are anxious to hide their funds away in Jersey or Liechtenstein, then you are fishing in deep and murky waters.”
“But surely,” I said, “there is nothing necessarily criminal about keeping money in such places. My understanding is that the purpose may be perfectly legitimate tax avoidance.”
“In some cases avoidance. In most, in my opinion, downright evasion — why else the secrecy? Even if the money itself is honestly come by — and that is by no means always the case — I do not consider that a crime to be treated lightly. In my view a man who enjoys the privileges of living in a country, and yet is not willing to make his just contribution to that country’s exchequer, is no more an upright or honourable man than one who spends a week at a first-class hotel and leaves without paying his bill. Still, you must not allow me to bore you on the subject — some of my colleagues would say that it is a hobbyhorse of mine. Suffice it to say that I am sorry Gabrielle has chosen to use her talents in assisting such people, and should not be surprised if there are those among them with whom it is dangerous to have dealings.”
Rachel Alexandre had done more than confide in him. She had asked him to go to Jersey at the time of the next meeting and to try to discover if her daughter’s fears had any foundation in reality. Gabrielle herself was to know nothing of his presence or its purpose. I remarked that it sounded like a difficult task.
“Difficult? It was a hopeless task, Professor Tamar, an impossible task. But what could I do? Rachel Alexandre had saved my life, and it was the only favour she had ever asked of me. Moreover, I still feel a sense of responsibility for Gabrielle. I told her that I would do my best, and so I did. I have been following Gabrielle since she left her mother’s house in Brittany eight days ago. That part wasn’t so difficult — I knew in broad terms about her travel arrangements, and some tomfoolery of dressing up as an old countrywoman when she crossed the French frontier. I don’t mean that she was constantly in my view — that would indeed have been impossible, but I always knew, at the very least, what building she was in, and I would have been, I think, within earshot if she had needed help. But as to knowing whether anyone else was following her — it was hopeless. Any one of a thousand holidaymakers could have been watching her, and I would have been none the wiser.”