An Unsuitable Job for a Woman (26 page)

Miss Leaming looked very pale. She was wearing the grey suit she had worn when Cordelia first met her but with a small black hat, black gloves and a black chiffon scarf knotted at her throat. The two women did not look at each other. Cordelia found a seat at the end of a bench and sat there,
unrepresented and alone. One or two of the younger policemen smiled at her with a reassuring but pitying kindness.

Miss Leaming gave her evidence first in a low, composed voice. She affirmed instead of taking the oath, a decision which caused a brief spasm of distress to pass over her lawyer’s face. But she gave him no further cause for concern. She testified that Sir Ronald had been depressed at his son’s death and, she thought, had blamed himself for not knowing that something was worrying Mark. He had told her that he intended to call in a private detective, and it had been she who had originally interviewed Miss Gray and had brought her back to Garforth House. Miss Leaming said that she had opposed the suggestion; she had seen no useful purpose in it, and thought that this futile and fruitless enquiry would only remind Sir Ronald of the tragedy. She had not known that Miss Gray possessed a gun nor that Sir Ronald had taken it from her. She had not been present during the whole of their preliminary interview. Sir Ronald had escorted Miss Gray to view his son’s room while she, Miss Leaming, had gone in search of a photograph of Mr. Callender for which Miss Gray had asked.

The coroner asked her gently about the night of Sir Ronald’s death.

Miss Leaming said that Miss Gray had arrived to give her first report shortly after half past ten. She herself had been passing through the front hall when the girl appeared. Miss Leaming had pointed out that it was late, but Miss Gray had said that she wanted to abandon the case and get back to town. She had showed Miss Gray into the study where Sir Ronald was working. They had been together, she thought, for less than two minutes. Miss Gray had then come out of the study and she had walked with her to her car; they had only talked briefly. Miss Gray said that Sir Ronald had asked her to
call back in the morning for her pay. She had made no mention of a gun.

Sir Ronald had, only half an hour before that, received a telephone call from the police to say that his laboratory assistant, Christopher Lunn, had been killed in a road accident. She had not told Miss Gray the news about Lunn before her interview with Sir Ronald; it hadn’t occurred to her to do so. The girl had gone almost immediately into the study to see Sir Ronald. Miss Leaming said that they were standing together at the car talking when they heard the shot. At first she had thought it was a car backfiring but then she had realized that it had come from the house. They had both rushed into the study and found Sir Ronald lying slumped over his desk. The gun had dropped from his hand to the floor.

No, Sir Ronald had never given her any idea that he contemplated suicide. She thought that he was very distressed about the death of Mr. Lunn but it was difficult to tell. Sir Ronald was not a man to show emotion. He had been working very hard recently and had not seemed himself since the death of his son. But Miss Leaming had never for a moment thought that Sir Ronald was a man who might put an end to his life.

She was followed by the police witnesses, deferential, professional, but managing to give an impression that none of this was new to them; they had seen it all before and would see it again.

They were followed by the doctors, including the pathologist, who testified in what the court obviously thought was unnecessary detail to the effect of firing a jacketed hollow-cavity bullet of ninety grains into the human brain.

The coroner asked: “You have heard the police evidence that there was the print of Sir Ronald Callender’s thumb on
the trigger of the gun and a palm mark smudged around the butt. What would you deduce from that?”

The pathologist looked slightly surprised at being asked to deduce anything but said that it was apparent that Sir Ronald had held the gun with his thumb on the trigger when pointing it against his head. The pathologist thought that it was probably the most comfortable way, having regard to the position of the wound of entry.

Lastly, Cordelia was called to the witness box and took the oath. She had given some thought to the propriety of this and had wondered whether to follow Miss Leaming’s example. There were moments, usually on a sunny Easter morning, when she wished that she could with sincerity call herself a Christian; but for the rest of the year, she knew herself to be what she was—incurably agnostic but prone to unpredictable relapses into faith. This seemed to her, however, a moment when religious scrupulosity was an indulgence which she couldn’t afford. The lies she was about to tell would not be the more heinous because they were tinged with blasphemy.

The coroner let her tell her story without interruption. She sensed that the court was puzzled by her but not unsympathetic. For once, the carefully modulated middle-class accent, which in her six years at the convent she had unconsciously acquired, and which in other people often irritated her as much as her own voice had irritated her father, was proving an advantage. She wore her suit and had bought a black chiffon scarf to cover her head. She remembered that she must call the coroner “sir.”

After she had briefly confirmed Miss Leaming’s story of how she had been called to the case, the coroner said: “And now, Miss Gray, will you explain to the court what happened on the night Sir Ronald Callender died?”

“I had decided, sir, that I didn’t want to go on with the case. I hadn’t discovered anything useful and I didn’t think there was anything to discover. I had been living in the cottage where Mark Callender had spent the last weeks of his life and I had come to think that what I was doing was wrong, that I was taking money for prying into his private life. I decided on impulse to tell Sir Ronald that I wanted to finish the case. I drove to Garforth House. I got there about ten-thirty. I knew it was late but I was anxious to get back to London the next morning. I saw Miss Leaming as she was crossing the hall and she showed me straight into the study.”

“Will you please describe to the court how you found Sir Ronald.”

“He seemed to be tired and distracted. I tried to explain why I wanted to give up the case but I’m not sure that he heard me. He said I was to come back next morning for my money and I said that I had only proposed to charge expenses, but that I would like to have my gun. He just waved a hand in dismissal and said, ‘Tomorrow morning, Miss Gray. Tomorrow morning.’ ”

“And then you left him?”

“Yes, sir. Miss Leaming accompanied me back to the car and I was just about to drive away when we heard the shot.”

“You didn’t see the gun in Sir Ronald’s possession while you were in the study with him?”

“No, sir.”

“He didn’t talk to you about Mr. Lunn’s death or give you any idea that he was contemplating suicide?”

“No, sir.”

The coroner doodled on the pad before him. Without looking at Cordelia, he said: “And now, Miss Gray, will you please explain to the court how Sir Ronald came to have your gun.”

This was the difficult part, but Cordelia had rehearsed it.
The Cambridge Police had been very thorough. They had asked the same questions over and over again. She knew exactly how Sir Ronald had come to have the gun. She remembered a piece of Dalgliesh dogma, reported by Bernie, which had seemed to her at the time more appropriate advice for a criminal than a detective. “Never tell an unnecessary lie; the truth has great authority. The cleverest murderers have been caught, not because they told the one essential lie, but because they continued to lie about unimportant details when the truth could have done them no harm.”

She said: “My partner, Mr. Pryde, owned the gun and was very proud of it. When he killed himself I knew that he meant me to have it. That was why he cut his wrists instead of shooting himself, which would have been quicker and easier.”

The Coroner looked up sharply. “And were you there when he killed himself?”

“No, sir. But I found the body.”

There was a murmur of sympathy from the court; she could feel their concern.

“Did you know that the gun wasn’t licensed?”

“No, sir, but I think I suspected that it might not have been. I brought it with me on this case because I didn’t want to leave it in the office and because I found it a comfort. I meant to check up on the licence as soon as I got back. I didn’t expect ever to use the gun. I didn’t really think of it as a lethal weapon. It’s just that this was my first case and Bernie had left it to me and I felt happier having it with me.”

“I see,” said the coroner.

Cordelia thought that he probably did see and so did the court. They were having no difficulty in believing her because she was telling the somewhat improbable truth. Now that she was about to lie, they would go on believing her.

“And now will you please tell the court how Sir Ronald came to take the gun from you.”

“It was on my first visit to Garforth House when Sir Ronald was showing me his son’s bedroom. He knew that I was the sole owner of the Agency, and he asked me if it wasn’t a difficult and rather frightening job for a woman. I said that I wasn’t frightened but that I had Bernie’s gun. When he found that I had it with me in my bag he made me hand it over to him. He said that he didn’t propose to engage someone who might be a danger to other people or herself. He said that he wouldn’t take the responsibility. He took the gun and the ammunition.”

“And what did he do with the gun?”

Cordelia had thought this one out carefully. Obviously he hadn’t carried it downstairs in his hand or Miss Leaming would have seen it. She would have liked to have said that he put it into a drawer in Mark’s room but she couldn’t remember whether the bedside table had had any drawers. She said: “He took it out of the room with him; he didn’t tell me where. He was only away for a moment and then we went downstairs together.”

“And you didn’t set eyes on the gun again until you saw it on the floor close to Sir Ronald’s hand when you and Miss Leaming found his body?”

“No, sir.”

Cordelia was the last witness. The verdict was quickly given, one that the court obviously felt would have been agreeable to Sir Ronald’s scrupulously exact and scientific brain. It was that the deceased had taken his own life but that there was no evidence as to the state of his mind. The coroner delivered at length the obligatory warning about the danger of guns. Guns, the court was informed, could kill people. He
managed to convey that unlicensed guns were particularly prone to this danger. He pronounced no strictures on Cordelia personally although it was apparent that this restraint cost him an effort. He rose and the court rose with him.

After the coroner had left the bench the court broke up into little whispering groups. Miss Leaming was quickly surrounded. Cordelia saw her shaking hands, receiving condolences, listening with grave assenting face to the first tentative proposals for a memorial service. Cordelia wondered how she could ever have feared that Miss Leaming would be suspected. She herself stood a little apart, delinquent. She knew that the police would charge her with illegal possession of the gun. They could do no less. True, she would be lightly punished, if punished at all. But for the rest of her life she would be the girl whose carelessness and naïveté had lost England one of her foremost scientists.

As Hugo had said, all Cambridge suicides were brilliant. But about this one there could be little doubt. Sir Ronald’s death would probably raise him to the status of genius.

Almost unnoticed, she came alone out of the courtroom on to Market Hill. Hugo must have been waiting; now he fell into step with her.

“How did it go? I must say death seems to follow you around, doesn’t it?”

“It went all right. I seem to follow death.”

“I suppose he did shoot himself?”

“Yes. He shot himself.”

“And with your gun?”

“As you will know if you were in court. I didn’t see you.”

“I wasn’t there, I had a tutorial, but the news did get around. I shouldn’t let it worry you. Ronald Callender wasn’t as important as some people in Cambridge may choose to believe.”

“You know nothing about him. He was a human being and he’s dead. The fact is always important.”

“It isn’t, you know, Cordelia. Death is the least important thing about us. Comfort yourself with Joseph Hall. ‘Death borders upon our birth and our cradle stands in the grave.’ And he did choose his own weapon, his own time. He’d had enough of himself. Plenty of people had had enough of him.”

They walked together down St. Edward’s Passage towards King’s Parade. Cordelia wasn’t sure where they were making for. Her need at present was just to walk, but she didn’t find her companion disagreeable.

She asked: “Where’s Isabelle?”

“Isabelle is home in Lyons. Papa turned up unexpectedly yesterday and found that Mademoiselle wasn’t exactly earning her wages. Papa decided that dear Isabelle was getting less—or it may have been more—out of her Cambridge education than he had expected. I don’t think you need worry about her. Isabelle is safe enough now. Even if the police do decide that it’s worthwhile going to France to question her—and why on earth should they?—it won’t help them. Papa will surround her with a barrage of lawyers. He’s not in a mood to stand any nonsense from Englishmen at present.”

“And what about you? If anyone asks you how Mark died, you’ll never tell them the truth?”

“What do you think? Sophie, Davie and I are safe enough. I’m reliable when it comes to essentials.”

For a moment Cordelia wished that he were reliable in less essential matters. She asked: “Are you sorry about Isabelle leaving?”

“I am rather. Beauty is intellectually confusing; it sabotages common sense. I could never quite accept that Isabelle was what she is: a generous, indolent, over-affectionate and stupid
young woman. I thought that any woman as beautiful as she must have an instinct about life, access to some secret wisdom which is beyond cleverness. Every time she opened that delicious mouth I was expecting her to illumine life. I think I could have spent all my life just looking at her and waiting for the oracle. And all she could talk about was clothes.”