The Shortest Way to Hades by Sarah Caudwell Read Free Book Online Page B

Julia. In the circumstances it had something of the quality of a deathbed request, and Julia would feel a sense of guilt that she had not complied with it—though, had she done so, she would have waited in vain for Deirdre, who by seven o’clock on the Saturday of the Boat Race had already the best of all excuses for failing to keep her engagements. She had wanted to tell Julia of something she had discovered; some childish and trivial secret, very probably, of no interest to anyone; but she had died without telling it. I could understand that Julia would feel troubled.
    The letter lay mute and unhelpful in the candlelight, like the embodiment of some small, resentful ghost.
    “I suppose,” I said, “that you could take it to the police.”
    “Yes,” said Timothy, frowning slightly at his wineglass. “Yes, we did consider that. But it’s not really evidence of anything, is it? If the police did nothing, Julia would remain uneasy. On the other hand, if they did reopen the case, several perfectly innocent people might be quite unnecessarily upset.”
    “So she got this idea,” said Cantrip, “that we ought to do it ourselves. Rootle about and look for clues, you know, but being all tactful and unobtrusive, so as not to upset anyone. Well, what I said was, if you get half the Chancery Bar crawling along the towpath with magnifying glasses looking for bloodstains, it might be a lot of things, but unobtrusive isn’t one of them. Apart from which, I said, I couldn’t see it was any of our business—after all, if the bird’s family aren’t fussed about her getting pushed off the roof, why should Julia worry about it?”
    “That proved,” said Ragwort, “to be an ill-advised remark.”
    “Too right,” said Cantrip. “It was when I said that that she got all miffed and started talking about Sir Thomas More and the traditions of the English Bar. This Thomas More chap was something in history—you ought to have heard of him, Hilary.” His tone implied, however, that he did not suppose I had. “Julia thinks he’s hot stuff, and she reckons that if someone had bumped off one of his clients he’d have done something about it. She went on about him for ages.”
    “Sir Thomas More, saint and martyr,” said Ragwort, “as of course you know, Hilary, was the only member of Lincoln’s Inn ever to be canonized: a very proper object of admiration for Julia, and indeed all of us. Were it possible, however, to dwell excessively upon so improving a topic, one might be tempted to say that Julia had done so.”
    “You bet one might,” said Cantrip. “Anyway, if he was allowed to waste time playing detectives instead of getting on with his paperwork, he can’t have had a Clerk like Henry. The thing is, you see, we’re all frantically busy at the moment, and we just can’t spare the time. So what we thought we’d better do,” said Cantrip happily, “was get you to do it, Hilary. It’s just your sort of thing—digging up odds and ends of gossip and finding out things that aren’t your business.”
    I remarked with some coldness that my own time was not so entirely undisposed of as my companions appeared to believe, and I doubted whether my academic responsibilities would allow me to undertake the task they envisaged for me. If they wished merely to prevent Julia from talking about Sir Thomas More, I supposed some simple but humane form of gag would sufficiently serve the purpose.
    “What Cantrip means is,” said Ragwort, “that your flair for research and your training in the methods of Scholarship seemed to us to make you uniquely qualified to conduct the investigation. That is what you meant, isn’t it, Cantrip?”
    “Oh rather,” said Cantrip.
    “And we ventured to hope,” continued Ragwort, “that by this stage of the summer term the burden of your academic duties might be less onerous than at other times of the year.”
    “I’m afraid,” said Timothy, “that Julia will be quite upset if you