"It’s the least he can do. Let us leave it. Tell me something interesting."
When we were younger, and Briony entertained her suitors while I was at University, she would always ask me, upon our twice-monthly meeting, to tell her something interesting. As it happened her stories of debutantes and jilted lovers were much better than my bland tales of dull professors and the tedium of translating Latin.
"You ask too much. It has been a long day." I lean back into the sofa, feigning a yawn.
"Fine, I will excuse you this time, though I must point out the very curious fact that you spent much of this
long day
with our dear Daniel." There is a distinctive twinkle in her eye and an unmistakable insinuation in her tone, making me toss a cushion her way. She easily evades the gentle missile and grins in an all-too wicked manner.
"Whatever your immoral thoughts, I recommend you banish them immediately. Daniel is a good man, and I a decorous," I alter my voice to mimic Aunt Agnes, "and respectably lady."
"Indeed." Briony cocks her head and raises an eyebrow, and while her line of questioning is decidely uninvited, I am relieved to find her spirits so quickly restored.
"Yes, indeed. I will hear no more on the matter. Rather, you may tell me something." At Jeffrey’s mention of Paul, I remembered Rosie, his wife, and her oddly unnatural demeanor, which left me unnerved and confused when we met.
"What may that be?"
"Rosie, Paul’s wife, what happened to her?" At this, the playful grin on Briony’s face disappears and thin lines crease her forehead.
"Oh, Rosie. So you noticed." Shrugging, she adds, "Of course you did. It is difficult not to. Yes, poor Rosie."
"What happened?" I repeat, sitting up in my seat.
"She drove an ambulance in France. Very brave, came as a volunteer."
"Was she hurt?"
"Oddly, she wasn’t. Came through it completely unscathed." Briony shakes her head.
"Did she meet Paul during the war?"
"No, they were engaged even before she left. He was at University when she decided to leave, to go off to the front. I doubt very much he was happy about it. There wasn’t much he could do. By the time he found out what she had done, it was too late."
"But what happened then? You are telling me the story of a woman full of courage and will-power, and I am sad to note this, but Rose is nothing that anymore." Briony loves telling a story, and I am keen to find my answers before we are interrupted for dinner.
"It is so tragic." Briony shakes her head, blond curls bouncing, "She arrives at home, is paraded around for her efforts, and finally marries Paul. Two months after the wedding, a car collides with her bicycle on her way home one evening. The driver never stopped and was never found. She was unconscious for days, and when she woke up, she was not the same."
"Oh, Briony, how terrible. Poor Rosie, poor Paul."
"Yes, they are both very sweet. Rosy does speak occasionally. Not much, still I think it gives Paul hope."
"How long has she been this way?"
"More than five years."
"Such a long time. Do you think she is aware of it at all?" I ask, trying to imagine being trapped inside a body that will not function as I would like it to.
"I do not know. Paul seems certain his old Rosie is in there still. I can tell when he looks at her, at least a part of him believes she will recover."
"What a tragedy, for them to be robbed of a proper future together. I should like to have met Rosie the way she used to be. "
"As would I. Looking at her, one would never think there is anything at all amiss. She gives the impression of being the picture of strength and good health."
"Yes, I thought the same when she was here." We are silent for a moment. I reflect back on the tall, strong-looking woman, and I remember likening her to the fierce warrior, Brunhild, who was robbed of her powers. An eerie parallel! I won’t share it with Briony, she will only think me morbid.
"Shall we go to the dining room? The men ought to be ready soon." Briony’s eyes dart over to the clock quietly ticking in the corner, and she adds, "It is nearly time anyway."
We leave the room and find ourselves running into her freshly-laundered husband and Daniel, descending the last few steps. Together we make our way into the well-lit dining room where the four of us naturally drop into our regular seats at one end of the long table.
Jeffrey asks what we have been up to and is in better spirits than the rest of us. We oblige by giving him the news of the alibis, at which he exclaims relief, "I never doubted them for a minute", and of the fire, "terrible, just terrible."
The evening is pleasant, and I ease into conversation as it turns from the events of the day to literature, and then to the difficulty of obtaining good English beans here. I comment that I have not suffered from their absence, whereupon Jeffrey, and surprisingly Briony (apparently united in their strong feelings on canned beans) argue, "Give it week!"
Thinking of food, we are served a delicate salad of tomatoes and spinach with warm walnuts, cubes of meat and vegetables on a little spit called "kebab", and a rare treat, or so I am told,
Bird’s
custard with rum-soaked figs. Altogether this is a pleasant conclusion to an otherwise draining day.
CHAPTER 14
We retire to the conservatory, none of us able to enjoy the terrace yet, as the view is inevitably of the oak tree, shielding a dead body only too recently. While we make ourselves comfortable around the table, Niobe brings out a tray of heavy brandy glasses along with a full decanter and a plate of cheese and grapes. Without saying a word. she disappears again like a spirit. My oblivious good humor is shaken by seeing her so soon after her confession, and the mysterious unease concerning her character returns.
"Are you all right, Evie, you have suddenly gone a bit pale?" Briony asks, leaning forward in her seat.
"Yes, fine." I must be unconvincing in my reply, for Briony looks at me with narrowed eyes before turning to the tray and its contents.
"Here, have a sip." She tipples a finger or so of liquor into my glass. I take it, but do not drink, preferring to swirl its contents around, creating a small eddy as it whirls slowly up the sides.
"Cheers!" says Jeffrey, and we all obligingly raise our glasses. "To us. To good company and good friends!"
We lean across the large table and chink our glasses together. Only Jeffrey takes a sip. Daniel, who has been making a good attempt at light-hearted conversation throughout the meal, has grown quiet. I catch his eye across the table. He is to be trying to say something, but being unfortunately obtuse when it comes to the deciphering of subtleties, I cannot quite comprehend what this may be. Finally, he breaks eye contact and looks at both Briony and Jeffrey, before opening his mouth to speak.
"I think there is something you all should know. Something I have only today discovered." His voice is calm in spite of the tension in the tight set of his jaw.
"What is it?" Jeffrey responds to the change in tone. I put my untouched glass on the table.
"Before dinner, Evelyn and I discovered Caspar’s diary."
"His diary? Where?" Jeffrey sounds puzzled. Briony remains silent, cradling her glass in both hands and flashing me a questioning look. I raise my eyebrows and shrug, not knowing what Daniel might be about to share.
"In his room."
"You searched his room?" Jeffrey leans forward, craning his head in Daniel’s direction.
"Yes, I know it seems an intrusive thing to do—"
"No, that isn’t what I meant," Jeffrey shakes his head, though it is exactly what he meant.
I can only commend him for attempting to make the situation less awkward. Silently, I hope Daniel doesn’t mention that this search only began after he discovered me already practicing my sleuthing skills in his friend’s room.
"It’s all right," he says, rubbing his forhead, his brows tensely knitted together. "It was not something I planned. The police have already been through his things, so my doing so did not seem harmful. Besides, Caspar would have done the same and sooner, too. He would have wanted me to understand what happened, to resolve this."
"Likely as not," Jeffrey concedes and takes a small sip.
"As I was saying," Daniel continues, "we found his diary. He kept journals all his life. Until today, I never knew what he wrote in them."
"Didn’t seem the type to write about meeting Mr Jones at the club for tea, did he?" Jeffrey shakes his head. "So, what did he write about?"
"That is the strange thing. Every page is written in a sort of code."
"Code?" I cannot help but ask, wishing I had stayed upstairs to read it with him.
"Was he some kind of spy?" Briony looks hopeful.
"No, no I am sure it has a different meaning. In fact, I have a vague idea what the code may be."
"And?" Jeffrey gives off an air of exasperation.
"It reminds me of a code we used as boys. Not just Caspar and me, quite a few boys in our school knew of it. We thought we were very clever, leaving these coded notes which our teachers could not read, though in reality, it was not terribly clever."
"Were you able to decipher any of it yet?" I ask.
"Not yet. But if I am correct in my assumptions, it is not going to take very long. Caspar only wrote about ten pages, and those all seem to be made up of short sentences, almost as though he was making brief notes rather than writing about any one event."
"And how do you know it isn’t all meaningless?"
"I don’t, but what if he wrote down something leading us to his …" Daniel falters for a second, "his murderer."
"Why don’t you explain the code to us? My mind is still clear enough, tonight, to take on some new information. If we all know it, we could work through the book together."
Daniel considers Jeffrey’s suggestion, and I can tell he is uncertain about entrusting his friend’s diary, and thereby his private thoughts, to us. After a moment though, his face clears, and he nods.
"Fine. Let me go and fetch it and some paper."
He gets to his feet, scraping the chair on the tiled floor, and leaves the room. We remain silent while we wait for him to return, which he does in due time, carrying the ominous journal and a small writing pad and pencils. Like eager students, we crowd around him.
"Here, see this," he says and opens it to the first page. What meets our eyes is a set of neat letters and numbers written in a slanted, angular hand. Each line consists of no more than three words, and ends in a number.
"You recognize this?" Jeffrey raises his eyebrows.
"At least I think I do. Look," he tears a piece of paper from the writing pad and draws a small chart.
1
| 2
| 3
| 4
| 5
|
A-
| A
| B
| C
| D
| E
|
B-
| F
| G
| H
| IJ
| K
|
C-
| L
| M
| N
| O
| P
|
D-
| Q
| R
| S
| T
| U
|
E-
| V
| W
| X
| Y
| Z
|
"Oh, I see!" I cry, excitedly.
"Yes. It’s really very simple, we were only boys so it seemed remarkably clever to us then, but it is far from mind-boggling. You combine a letter and a number to represent the new letter. So, B3-A5-C1-C1-C4 is …"
"
Hello
!"
"Exactly, as I said, not very complex, just a nuisance for whoever finds himself confronted with it."
"Well, whatever Caspar wrote this journal, he considered the precaution of writing in code a necessity."
"It wasn’t exactly lying about the room either," I interject with a small grimace. "It was in the drawer of his bedside table, pushed spine-side-up against the back. You could only find it if you felt around for it."
"How mysterious. Do you think we ought to call the police, surely they will want to see it?" Briony asks wide-eyed. We give each other questioning looks.
"If we find anything, we will tell them. Thus far, all we have is our late friend’s journal." Jeffrey answers diplomatically. He is keen to start the process of decoding.
"Why don’t we each take four rows per page," suggests Daniel, his eyes alert. "There are sixteen on each page, and nearly ten pages are filled. It should not take terribly long."
Daniel passes around pencils and paper, and we sit crowded around the unassuming diary. As we begin, silence descends on the room, and all we hear is the scratching of lead on paper. It takes a few lines to get into the rhythm. Daniel is much quicker than the rest of us and has his lines translated first, waiting us to finish, so he can turn the page.
After ten pages of tedious work, Jeffrey lays down his pencil and stretches his fingers, making them crack. "This is futile, if you ask me." He leans back in his chair and rubs his eyes.