The Sirens Sang of Murder

  A crescendo of cheering and exploding champagne corks among those gathered at the bar had already indicated that Selena bore victorious tidings and was lingering there to relate the particulars of her success. I had little fear of missing them; it is seldom that any member of Lincoln’s Inn is reluctant to repeat a story of forensic triumph. In due course she and Julia made their way to our table.

  ‘I can’t really claim,’ said Selena, demurely sipping her champagne, ‘that it was anything to do with my skill in advocacy. I had quite a nice little speech ready, based on a plea in mitigation I once did for some juvenile delinquents when I was a pupil in the Temple – all about the Colonel being the inevitable product of a society which encouraged aggression and glamorized violence and not being morally responsible for his actions and so on – but I didn’t have to use it. The financier had a change of heart. Just before the case was due to be heard he told Counsel for the prosecution that he thought he might have said something in his conversation with the Colonel which the Colonel might have understood as permission to fly the helicopter. So all charges were dismissed and the Colonel left the court without a stain on his character.’

  ‘How extraordinary,’ said Clementine. ‘Did the financier have a specially nice lunch or something?’

  ‘Possibly,’ said Selena. ‘Actually, it seemed to happen just after I mentioned to Counsel for the prosecution that I naturally intended to cross-examine his witness about the meeting in Le Touquet – after all, if it was part of their case that we’d made him miss an important meeting, we were entitled to know what it was about and who was there. It’s possible, I suppose, that he didn’t want the details to be generally known, and with the legal affairs correspondent of the Financial Times sitting in the press benches . . .’

  ‘The F. T. correspondent?’ said Clementine. ‘What on earth was he doing covering a criminal case in a provincial magistrates court?’

  ‘Oh,’ said Selena, ‘I always let him know when I have a case he might be interested in. It’s very important to maintain good relations with the press, don’t you think?’

  It was several minutes – a surprisingly long time, considering the company I was in – before it occurred to anyone to suggest that it was my fault that the Colonel had stolen the helicopter: why had the truth not occurred to me until eleven o’clock on the night before the last Daffodil meeting? If I had thought of it sooner the whole helicopter adventure would have been quite unnecessary. I explained patiently that it was not until eleven o’clock on the night before the meeting that I had studied Gabrielle’s chequebook.

  ‘I expect,’ said Selena, with an air of indulgent generosity, ‘that you would like to explain to us about the chequebook.’

  ‘Until I saw the chequebook I had assumed that the fountain pen which Gabrielle had lost was the same one which Patrick Ardmore had found – it would have seemed perverse to imagine otherwise. That meant either that Gabrielle herself had dropped the pen on the Coupee or that someone had stolen or borrowed it from her before she left Sark.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Selena, ‘of course.’

  ‘The chequebook included the counterfoils for the period of Gabrielle’s visit to the Channel Islands, and they had all been completed in ink, with a fountain pen rather than a ballpoint. The next counterfoil after these recorded a withdrawal from a bank in St Malo on the first of May – the day that Gabrielle left Sark. It was in the same hand, in the same ink, and beyond all shadow of doubt written with the same pen – as a student of ancient and medieval manuscripts, I am not without experience of such questions. It was clear then that when Gabrielle reached St Malo she still had with her the fountain pen she had been using in the Channel Islands. Once I knew that, I could have no doubt of her husband’s guilt.’

  ‘I suppose you mean,’ said Selena, frowning slightly, ‘that he was the only person who had the chance to steal it between the time she used it in St Malo and the time she discovered it was missing?’

  ‘I couldn’t be absolutely sure of that, though it would have been easier for him than for anyone else – no doubt he took it while she was changing for dinner. But if Gabrielle still had the original pen in St Malo, then the pen which Patrick Ardmore found on the Coupee must have been a duplicate. As Ragwort pointed out earlier, the pen was not an item which any jeweller who valued his reputation would duplicate without the authority of the original customer. The Count was the original customer.’

  ‘I say,’ said Clementine, ‘do you mean he had a copy made in advance to frame Gabrielle for the murder?’

  ‘I don’t suppose,’ I said, ‘that when he ordered the duplicate he had any precise plans for its use, but I have little doubt that he expected it to be in some way of use to him in perfecting his revenge. He would not have intended, I think, that she should actually be charged with the murder – merely that she should be exposed to a sufficient degree of suspicion to compound her distress for the loss of her lover.’

  Julia renewed her complaint that the pen was a deplorably old-fashioned clue. No doubt she was right; but we had been dealing, as I pointed out, with a deplorably old-fashioned murder.