1984 legal mystery, second of Caudwell's Hilary Tamar series. When a
Trust is changed to avoid tax, one of the parties puts a high price on
her compliance; but it all goes through anyway, several months
before she falls from a balcony during a Boat Race party.
As with the first book, it's the lovely mannered prose that lures
one in. I found myself not entirely convinced by the solution to the
mystery, but the writing was such fun that I didn't really mind.
"I've got Camilla," said Cantrip, "but I couldn't swing it that I
ought to see her in conference. Absolutely sickening, having a
fantastically attractive bird on one's brief and not managing to
meet her."
"If you haven't met her," I said, "how do you know she's
fantastically attractive?"
"If a bird's all set to come into five million quid," said Cantrip,
"you don't need to meet her to know she's fantastically attractive."
There's a bit less distancing this time, and the principals get more
directly involved (after all, making a fuss to the police might
embarrass the clients), while managing to avoid being accused of
murder. Even Tamar leaves England for a while.
Murder is unusual. The irritations, disappointments, envies and
desires of everyday life are generally resolved in some manner less
extreme. When it occurs, then, or is thought to have occurred, there
must be looked for to account for it some unusual feature in the
surrounding circumstances—some unusual wrong to be avenged, some
unusual passion to be assuaged, some unusual advantage to be
obtained.
A personal fortune of five million pounds is unusual. To gain
possession of it, it is conceivable that someone might behave in a
manner quite contrary to custom and convention. At a gathering,
therefore, of the descendants of Sir James Remington-Fiske a murder
would be not wholly unaccountable.
But one would expect it to be the heiress who was murdered.
The joy, though, is in seeing these people go through life with a
combination of self-assurance and blindness; they are able to assume
that nothing will really have all that much effect on them, and so it
doesn't. They could be annoying; in person they almost certainly would
be. But Caudwell always manages to keep things light and enjoyable.
"I did suggest, Julia, that it would be better not to eat too much
of it."
"As always, I would have done wisely to act on your advice; but it
was rather delicious fudge, and I was quite hungry. You will be
interested to hear, Hilary, that it had a most remarkable
effect—even on Selena after a very modest quantity. She cast off all
conventional restraints and devoted herself without shame to the
pleasure of the moment."
I asked for particulars of this uncharacteristic conduct.
"She took from her handbag a paperback edition of Pride and
Prejudice and sat on the sofa reading it, declining all offers of
conversation. I have never known you, Selena, so indifferent to the
demands of social obligation.
All right, one reads more for the language than for the puzzle, the
solution to which is hinted at rather than actually clued, but it's
pleasant to spend time again in the company of these people who are
thoroughly self-confident but somehow not quote smug.
Comments on this post are now closed. If you have particular grounds for adding a late comment, comment on a more recent post quoting the URL of this one.