Sarah Caudwell - The Sirens Sang of Murder

“Did he pay you compliments? Did he say, for example, that you had nice eyes or pretty hair or anything of that kind?”

“Good heavens, no,” said Julia, apparently slightly shocked by the suggestion.

“We are speaking,” said Selena, “of an experienced and sophisticated man, well practised in the arts of persuasion. He is, after all, a banker — that is to say, he spends his life persuading people to pay for the privilege of lending him money and again for the privilege of borrowing some of it back. He would have realised at once, I daresay, that Julia likes being the one who says silly things about people’s eyes and hair and would be rather resentful of someone stealing her lines.”

“Did he deceive you,” continued Ragwort, “as to his matrimonial standing or suggest that his present arrangements were in any way unsatisfactory?”

“Oh no,” said Julia. “He spoke frequently of his wife, and always in terms of the highest regard and affection. So I was encouraged to think that he was well disposed towards women.”

“As he no doubt intended that you should be,” said Selena, “since everyone knows that a man who is ill-natured even towards his wife is hardly likely to behave well towards any other woman. But you must remember, Julia, that men are very deceitful about such things, and it’s quite possible that he didn’t really behave nearly as well towards his wife as he would have wished you to believe.”

“Did he,” said Ragwort, “attempt any form of physical familiarity, as by holding your hand, patting your shoulder, or anything of that sort?”

“No,” said Julia, “nothing like that at all.”

“It would not take much sophistication,” said Selena, “to realize how much Julia dislikes men who are physically aggressive.”

“In short,” said Ragwort, “did this man do or say anything which he might not have done or said if you had been a young man introduced to him in similar circumstances and whose company he found agreeable?”

“No,” said Julia pitifully, “absolutely nothing.”

It was infamous: Casanova would have blushed; Don Juan would have raised an eyebrow and murmured “Cad.” It was inconceivable (said Selena) that a man of mature years and wide experience of life should without design have adopted a course of conduct so precisely calculated to reduce Julia to a state of hopeless infatuation. He had done it all on purpose; and Julia, unversed in the ways of men and the world, had not suspected him of any ulterior motive.

“I don’t think,” said Julia, “that one can quite say that. My Aunt Regina has often warned me that when men make themselves agreeable they generally have some ulterior motive, and I was not so naive as to think Patrick an exception.”

“You suspected him,” said Ragwort, “of having designs on your person?”

“Oh no,” said Julia. “I thought he wanted free tax advice.”

Patrick Ardmore’s tax problem — although he had expressed it in hypothetical terms and made no mention of names, Julia had no doubt of the identity of those concerned — related to the Daffodil Settlement. It arose from the fact that whenever Gabrielle recommended buying any shares in the United Kingdom the arrangements for the purchase were dealt with by Gideon Dark-side.

“As I have mentioned,” said Julia, “shares in United Kingdom companies were supposed to be registered in the name of the Sark company. But Darkside noticed one day that registering them in the name of a nonresident company tended to involve a certain amount of extra time and paperwork, adding perhaps as much as twenty-five pounds to the cost of each transaction. So in order to save, as he put it, ‘a lot of unnecessary fuss and bother,’ he decided to register them instead in the joint names of the two directors resident in this country — that is to say, of himself and Oliver Grynne.”

Leaning back in her chair in the manner of a woman who has made a shocking and sensational disclosure, Julia was rewarded by Selena and Ragwort with the gasps and cries of horrified astonishment which she evidently considered appropriate. I gathered that the consequences of Darkside’s action might not be altogether satisfactory from the point of view of taxation.

“They vary,” said Julia, “as Oliver Grynne pointed out to Darkside when he found out what had happened, from the inconvenient to the catastrophic, depending on the precise circumstances. When Darkside was eventually persuaded of this he suggested what seemed to him a simple and obvious remedy: he and Grynne would transfer the investments into the name of the company which ought to have held them in the first place and there would be no harm done.”

“Provided,” said Selena, wrinkling her nose, “that the matter never came to the attention of the Revenue.”

“Quite so,” said Julia. “If, however, one of Her Majesty’s Inspectors of Taxes happened to be looking through the register of shareholders of some major company or other and noticed a substantial holding in the joint names of a United Kingdom solicitor and accountant, he might begin to wonder in what capacity they held it and whether they’d included it in their tax returns. And if they hadn’t, he might ask them why not.”

“I suppose they would say,” said Selena, “that they had been holding as bare nominees for a nonresident company not liable to file returns of income in this country.”

“Yes,” said Julia. “But if the man from the Revenue were in one of his suspicious moods, as men from the Revenue so often are, he might insist on verifying that statement by reference to their internal records. And since Darkside regarded the distinction between the trust and the company as a mere legal technicality and of no practical significance, his internal records clearly indicated that the shares were held by himself and Grynne on the trusts of the Daffodil Settlement,”

“Dear me,” said Selena, “how very embarrassing.”

“It is not unknown,” said Ragwort, “for embarrassing internal records to be by some sad mischance accidentally lost or destroyed and replaced by others nearer to the heart’s desire.”

“The same thought,” said Julia, ’had of course occurred to Gideon Darkside. He could do nothing, however, without the cooperation of Oliver Grynne, who naturally declined to assist in any course of action which might culminate in a fraud on the Revenue. So the shares remained in their joint names, and there was a stalemate.”

“It is not entirely clear to me,” I said, “why Patrick Ardmore should be in need of advice on the position. As I understand it, no action was required on his part-it was a matter for Darkside and Grynne.”

“Theoretically, yes, but Darkside thought that if the other Daffodil directors could be persuaded to share his view, Oliver Grynne might be brought under sufficient pressure to concur in a transfer of the shares. By this time, you see, he had begun to realise that his little economy might prove to be rather expensive, and he was becoming concerned about his own position.”

“As one does,” said Selena, “when facing the prospect of a claim for professional negligence. The potential liability in damages would presumably be substantial?”

“In view,” said Julia, “of the total value of the fund, one would certainly imagine so. Darkside, of course, didn’t feel that he was in any way to blame for the problem. He thought that it was all the fault of the lawyers — lawyers in general, because they’d invented this silly technical distinction between trusts and companies, and Oliver Grynne in particular, because he unreasonably refused to cooperate in an innocent little deception of the Revenue. The fact that Grynne was being vigorously supported by Edward Malvoisin served only to confirm his feeling that he was the victim of a conspiracy on the part of the legal profession. He felt very bitter about the whole thing, and by the end of a week he and Grynne were barely on speaking terms.”