The Sibyl in Her Grave (30 page)

“I …” Albany was plainly having difficulty in deciding whether Sir Robert would disapprove more of his exchange with Mlle. Natasha than of insider dealing. “I … I was walking about.”

“In an area,” said Mr. Vavasour, “where it would not be difficult to find a public telephone? I’m afraid, Mr. Albany, that that is not a very satisfactory alibi.”

“I didn’t make any telephone call—I couldn’t have
made a telephone call. Why can’t you just take my word for it?”

“I’m afraid,” said Sir Robert, “that in the circumstances …”

“He knows,” said Albany, suddenly pointing at Ragwort. “That man—he knows I couldn’t.”

“My dear Edgar, you seem to be under some extraordinary delusion about this young man—I have no reason to think that he knows anything whatever about the matter.”

Ragwort had for some minutes taken no apparent interest in the conversation, but had stood smiling gently towards the ceiling, as if communing on matters spiritual with the celestial host of saints and seraphs.

“As it happens,” said Ragwort, “I was in Cannes during the Christmas holidays and might have some knowledge of the matter. It was my impression, however, that Mr. Albany did not wish me to mention the events of that morning.”

“Well, no need to go into details, old chap. If you could just tell Sir Robert and Mr. Vavasour that I couldn’t possibly have made a phone call any time between ten-thirty and twelve that morning …”

“But they may not believe me, Mr. Albany. You have told these gentlemen within the past five minutes that I am a liar and a blackguard and that they should not believe a word I say. We can hardly expect them, in those circumstances, to accept a bare statement with no corroborative detail.”

“My friend Mr. Ragwort,” said Selena, “is a member of the Bar and of these Chambers—his evidence may of course be relied on without question. Nonetheless, in a matter of such delicacy and importance, it would be
unsatisfactory for Sir Robert to be asked to rely on a bare assertion, with no explanation of the facts on which it is based.”

“And indeed,” said Ragwort, “it would be an embarrassment to me to ask him to do so. So do you wish me, Mr. Albany, to explain the circumstances of our meeting in Cannes or do you wish me to keep silent on the matter? It is entirely for you to say, but there is no middle course.”

“Oh God,” said Albany, slumping despondently against the wall. “All right, go on then, tell them.”

Ragwort appeared to reflect for a few moments.

“I happened, during Christmas, to be staying with a friend in a block of flats in Cannes. My friend’s next-door neighbour is—I won’t call her a doctor, since it may well be that she has no formal qualification—a specialist in pains of the lower back. Mr. Albany, I gather, has the misfortune to suffer from a problem of that sort, and on the morning after his arrival in Cannes found himself in urgent need of treatment. From ten-thirty until eleven-thirty that day he was undergoing a form of treatment which I think would effectively have precluded him from making a telephone call. He asked me not to mention the matter to anyone—at a certain age people become absurdly embarrassed about these physical infirmities.”

“A back problem?” said the Chairman. “Oh, my dear chap, you should have told me. I have a simply splendid man in Harley Street. …”

I did not stay to hear more. It seemed to me that my enquiry could be more fruitfully pursued in the Sir John Soane Museum.

IT WAS NOT THE SEASON
for tourists or schoolchildren: Miss Tavistock’s, until I added my own, was the only name in the visitors’ book.

She was not to be found in the Picture Room; nor in the New Picture Room; nor in the Breakfast Parlour; nor in any other of the upstairs rooms. Concluding that today she was not in the mood for paintings or antique furniture, I descended the narrow staircase leading to the basement—the area which the distinguished founder of the Museum, in gentle mockery of the fashion for the Gothick in art and literature, had designated the Crypt. Through silent, dimly lit chambers filled with sarcophagi and funeral urns, I came finally to the small chapel-like room known as the Monk’s Parlour.

She was sitting almost in darkness: the stained-glass window behind her, looking onto an enclosed courtyard furnished with picturesque ruins, afforded at that time of year but little illumination. Though presumably she had chosen the place for the sake of solitude, she seemed pleased, albeit surprised, by my intrusion, evidently now remembering me as a friend.

We sat together in the recess below the window, not quite side by side: between us was a marble-topped card table, on which stood a rather charming bronze statuette representing, I believe, the god Hermes. I admitted that I had come there in hopes of finding her; she responded with a look of innocent enquiry.

“I thought it right to tell you,” I said, “that I have been visiting friends in sixty-two New Square and was present at a conversation involving, among others, Sir Robert Renfrew.”

“Oh,” said Miss Tavistock, “what an interesting coincidence.”

“And that matters have not turned out as I believe you were expecting. Edgar Albany has been cleared of the suspicion of insider dealing.”

“Oh,” she said again, adding after too long a pause, “I’m very pleased to hear it.” She was not an accomplished liar.

“Yes, it has been established that Mr. Albany has what is termed an alibi for the period during which instructions were given for the share purchase. … As of course you know, since you were careful to make the telephone call at a time when you had arranged for him to be kept fully occupied by your friend Mlle. Natasha.”

“Oh dear,” she said, looking disconsolate. “So you know all about it—oh dear. I thought it was such a good plan. And so did Natasha—such a kind girl, and really very talented. You see, we never thought Mr. Albany would be prepared to admit—oh dear, I seem to have made a complete mess of things, don’t I? I suppose you must think me very stupid, Professor Tamar.”

She sounded so much like an undergraduate admitting with excessive contrition to some minor misdemeanour
that I could not resist the impulse to comfort rather than reprove.

“Not at all, Miss Tavistock. It was a most intelligent plan, but you were very unlucky The young man who released Mr. Albany from Mlle. Natasha’s flat is a member of the same Chambers as Selena Jardine. He happened to be present this afternoon when the accusation was made and despite Mr. Albany’s own initial reluctance provided him with an alibi. It was a contingency you could not have foreseen.”

“It’s kind of you to say so, Professor Tamar,” she said sadly.

“It’s a pity, of course, from your point of view, that Geoffrey Bolton also has an unimpeachable alibi, but of course you must have known that he would.”

“Oh,” she said, turning towards me with a rather shocked expression, “I wouldn’t have risked Mr. Bolton being blamed. The whole point was to make it look as if Mr. Albany had done it. I hope you don’t think, Professor Tamar, that I acted from motives of personal gain?”

I admitted that some such thought had occurred to me.

“Oh no, I wouldn’t have done that, it would have been very wrong. I just wanted to make sure Mr. Albany never became Chairman of Renfrews’. You see, Sir Robert is bound to retire quite soon and I’m afraid, as things stand, Mr. Albany is almost certain to succeed him. Oh, I dare say Sir Robert would prefer Mr. Bolton, but after all, Mr. Albany is a relative and in the end blood’s thicker than water, isn’t it? So unless something happens to discredit him completely, I’m afraid he’ll be the next Chairman. And that’ll be a disaster, you must see that.”

“I can imagine,” I said, thinking that I now understood her, “that you would not find him a congenial person to work with.”

“I don’t just mean for me, Professor Tamar, I mean for the Bank. The trouble with Mr. Albany as an investment banker is that he’s—well, that he’s hopeless at investment. And he won’t admit it—his great-grandfather was a successful merchant banker and he thinks that must mean that he has a natural flair for it. So if he becomes Chairman, he won’t just sit back and leave things to people who know how to do them, he’ll want to run everything. It’ll be ruinous.”

It was not then, after all, for her own sake, but for the sake of the Bank that she had gone to such lengths. I confessed to some surprise that such an institution should inspire such a degree of affection.

“Well, I’ve worked at Renfrews’ since I was twenty, and generally been very happy there, so I suppose I do feel rather fond of it. But that’s not exactly—oh dear, I told you that I didn’t do it for motives of personal gain, but I suppose I did in a way. You see, we’ve always had very generous profit-sharing schemes and I’ve always exercised the option to take shares rather than cash, so I’ve built up quite a nice little holding. And they’ve done terribly well, much better than I expected. And I’ve rather got used to the idea that they’re my guarantee for old age—that whatever happens I’ll be quite comfortably off. But if Mr. Albany becomes Chairman—” She sighed.

I did not doubt for a moment the truth of her explanation. Plainly it could apply only to the most recent incident, not to the previous episodes of insider dealing which had left Albany and Bolton equally under the shadow of suspicion; but I had already accepted that for
those some other person must be responsible. I had never supposed that the naive and diffident Miss Tavistock was capable of the bold and ruthless actions which I had ascribed to X. Moreover, the one thing certain from the Reverend Maurice’s description was that the occupant of the black Mercedes was a man.

And yet I was troubled by a curious sense of having overlooked some vital point—a conviction that something I had learnt that day would be, if correctly interpreted, of crucial significance to the solution of the insider-dealing problem and that Miss Tavistock somehow held the key to it.

“And now I’ve made such a mess of things, Mr. Albany will become Chairman. And I suppose I’ll be disgraced and have to resign straightaway. And Sir Robert—oh dear, poor Sir Robert, is he very upset? About me, I mean?”

“When I left New Square, the idea that you might be the person responsible had not yet occurred to him. Though one might think it an obvious conclusion to draw from the fact that neither Albany nor Bolton could have done it, I am somehow inclined to think that he will regard you as above suspicion.”

“And Mr. Albany, I suppose, regards me as beneath it.”

She rose from her chair and stood gazing pensively out of the window at the picturesque ruins, absent-mindedly fingering the bronze statuette. There was no Museum official at hand to reprove her: the Crypt was as empty of staff as of tourists.

“So actually, Professor Tamar,” she said in a more cheerful tone, “you’re really the only person who knows it was me?”

I acknowledged that I was.

Now that she was standing I could see her more clearly—tall, athletically built, large featured, dressed as usual in a tailored trouser suit, her hair severely drawn back. I felt, for the first time in her presence, a qualm of apprehension. Seeing her across the street from the window of his study, by the light of the lamp over the front door of the Rectory, could the Reverend Maurice have made a mistake? Could she after all be the person whom he had described as “a middle-aged man in a City suit”? Had I perhaps been a trifle unwise to seek her out in such a secluded place?

But no—plausible as it might seem, I knew at once that there was something false about the idea, something indefinably wrong. My conviction nonetheless persisted that the solution to the insider-dealing mystery was almost within my grasp—that if only I knew the right question to ask she could give me the answer. On a sudden random impulse, I adopted what might be termed the Cantrip method of questioning.

“Miss Tavistock,” I said, “do you happen to know a place called Parsons Haver?”

“Well yes,” she said, with perfect composure. “As a matter of fact, until a few months ago I used to drive Sir Robert down there quite regularly. Why do you ask?”

“Sir Robert—?” I found that I was at a loss for words. A monstrous suspicion had all at once begun to form itself in my mind: a suspicion impossible to believe, and yet once thought of impossible to doubt.

The silence was broken by the sound of footsteps.

“Katharine? Katharine, are you there?” The rotund figure of Sir Robert Renfrew appeared in the doorway. “Ah, Katharine, my dear, I was hoping I might find you here—I know it’s one of your favourite places.”

“Sir Robert,” she said, turning towards him and blushing. “Sir Robert, I’m so sorry—I didn’t think you’d need me until at least half past three.”

“Neither did I, my dear, but our conference ended unexpectedly early, so I thought I’d come and look for you. Good heavens, isn’t that Professor Tamar? What an extraordinary coincidence—are you a friend of Katharine’s?”

“I hope,” I said, “that I may say so.”

“I am very pleased to have the opportunity of thanking you, Professor Tamar, for your timely intervention—you have saved me from committing a grave injustice. Katharine, my dear, you will be pleased to hear that Edgar Albany has been entirely exonerated—he has a problem with his back, poor fellow, and was receiving medical treatment throughout the morning when the call was made. And Bolton was with me, of course, so he can’t have made it either.”