Sarah Caudwell - The Shortest Way to Hades

“Camilla,” said Sebastian, “what on earth do you think you’re doing? And where’s Constantine? We heard him calling out from here less than a minute ago.”

“Oh,” said the girl, “you don’t need to worry about Constantine. That was just a sort of selection of the great man’s conversation put together on my dinky little tape-recorder. I didn’t think you’d come down here if it was me you heard calling, so I spent a day last week getting it ready. Quite clever, don’t you think?”

“Most ingenious,” said Selena. “You have evidently been to some trouble to arrange this little gathering. And to some risk, if you got up there from the pathway. It’s quite a precipitous climb, and a long way down to the rocks.”

“Oh,” said Camilla, as if deprecating any praise for her athletic accomplishments, “that wasn’t difficult. I left a rope hanging down there earlier this afternoon, the same time I fixed up the ‘No Entry’ sign to make sure we weren’t disturbed. So when I was certain you were on your way up here, I just came round the other side and shinned up it.”

“Did you,” asked Sebastian, “have any particular purpose in making these arrangements?”

“So that I could kill you, of course,” said Camilla.

The boy and I remained equally motionless: I had hardly noticed, so entirely was my attention held by Camilla, the moment when he ceased to hold the knife to my throat; but when he drew breath as if to speak, I had put my hand to his mouth. My friend Sebastian, a glimmering patch of white in the shadows at the foot of the staircase, lay helpless at the mercy of Camilla’s spear; and I did not doubt, as Leonidas may have done, that she was wholly in earnest. I thought that it would require no little circumspection to ensure that any of us left the chamber alive.

“Are you sure,” asked Selena at last, in a pleasantly conversational tone, “that that is a very good idea? The consequences, if you happened to be found out, would be rather disagreeable; and it is not immediately clear what advantage you hope to obtain.”

“You must be joking,” said the other girl. “You don’t think I’m going to spend the rest of my days letting you two blackmail me, do you? I suppose you thought you’d have a meal-ticket for life, once my great-grandmother died and I came into the money. Well, you’ve picked the wrong woman for that game — I know what to do about blackmailers.”

“What on earth makes you think—?” Some warning movement by Selena, I supposed, discouraged Sebastian from completing the question.

“Oh, don’t start trying to pretend you weren’t going to blackmail me, I know what you were up to. It makes it absolutely justifiable to get rid of you in any way I can — every one agrees that blackmail’s worse than murder. And no one’s going to find out about it. You’re going to have a nasty accident due to fooling about too close to the edge of that opening.” She pointed towards the embrasure facing southwards.

“Rather like Deirdre,” said Selena, sounding interested. “You don’t feel that people may begin to make unpleasant remarks about the inflationary effect of your presence on the fatal accident figures?”

“Why should they? When Deirdre fell off the roof of Daddy’s flat I was down in the drawing-room, with half a dozen witnesses to prove it.”

“Ah yes, so you were,” said Selena thoughtfully. “How did you manage it? It sounds rather clever.”

“Yes, it was rather, though I says it as shouldn’t. Specially as I didn’t have time to plan anything properly — I didn’t know I was going to kill her, you see, I’m not even sure I really meant to. Afterwards, of course, I saw it was the only thing I could have done. She’d been all excited and pleased with herself all through lunch, but I didn’t know why. And then afterwards, when we were alone on the roof, she told me she’d found out — well, the same thing as you two, of course. She was gloating and crowing over me fit to burst, you’d have thought she wanted to get herself murdered. Anyway, I got so riled I just went for her, and before I knew what had happened there she was with her neck broken, silly little beast. So I had to think pretty quickly what to do about it. The first thing I thought of was chucking her straight over on to the pavement, but then I thought it might mean some embarrassing questions. So I pitched her over the side on to the bedroom balcony — it sticks out a bit further than the roof — and went downstairs to watch the Boat Race on television. When it got to the exciting bit and everyone was concentrating on it, I muttered something about going to the loo, and went and tipped her over on to the pavement — from the end of the balcony, of course, so it would look as if she’d fallen from the front of the building. It didn’t take a minute, I don’t think anyone even noticed I was gone. Not bad for the spur of the moment, don’t you think?”

“Extremely quick-witted,” said Selena. “But how did you persuade Dolly to say that Deirdre was still on the roof when she went up there again?”

“Oh, Dolly didn’t go back on to the roof. She was having a touching farewell scene in the study with old Tanks — she’d let him squire her about for a few weeks before Costas came over to London and he’d fallen for her in a big way. The twins were covering for her, the way they always do. So when Dolly came back into the drawing-room, she pretended she’d come down from the roof — and of course she thought Deirdre was still up there.”

“From your point of view,” said Selena, “a rather fortunate combination of circumstances.”

“Yes, it was rather, because it meant no one twigged that I was the last person who’d been alone with Deirdre. Mind you, it’s a good thing I wasn’t counting on it — Costas got the idea it was his fault Dolly hadn’t been on the roof at the right time to stop Deirdre falling off it, and she got in a tizzwozz and started thinking she ought to set his mind at rest by saying where she really was. But I managed to persuade her he’d be happier feeling bad about Deirdre than knowing about the little fling with Tancred.”

Looking at the boy Leonidas, I noted that his expression was one of relief. His satisfaction in being assured of his mother’s innocence was no doubt very commendable; I hoped it would not render him for too long impervious to the danger of our present position.

“The sailing accident,” said Selena, “was also most ingenious. You arranged a suitable compass deviation, I suppose, with the assistance of a transistor radio or some other magnetic object, and left Leonidas obediently steering straight for the rocks of Parga. So when you went overboard, you knew just where you were and what point to swim for. You were wearing a wetsuit, I expect, under the famous black pajamas, and I suppose you had a face mask and flippers and so forth — it would have been too dark for Leonidas to see what you were wearing. You’d have had to dispose of them, of course, before you went ashore — that must have been rather nerve-racking. How disappointing, after so much risk and effort, to find that your cousins had all survived.”

“I had the rottenest luck,” said Camilla. “It was a super plan, and the conditions were simply perfect. That’s the important thing — seeing one’s opportunities and making the most of them. Well, that’s what I did, and if it hadn’t been for those damned fishermen it would have worked perfectly.”

“Still, as you say, it was an excellent plan — with the particular merit that whatever happened no suspicion could possibly attach to yourself. That’s why I’m surprised at your putting yourself in this awkward position so far as Sebastian and I are concerned.”