Dance to Your Daddy

'So Romilly would be about your age?'

'Just about, I suppose. Small, dark chap and wore very powerful glasses. Blind as a bat without them, he once told me, and, on another occasion, I had evidence of it.'

'Did you know anything of his life after he left the University?'

'Yes, he wrote to me twice while I was still up, once to send me five pounds he'd borrowed the previous term, and once to tell me that he was emigrating to Kenya, as his father had bought him a half-share in a coffee plantation. I never heard from him again.'

'What about the younger brother, Caesar?'

'He got himself rusticated in his second year. Started an undergraduate paper and printed some fairly actionable items about some of the dons. Was chewed up by the Dean, but persisted in his naughty ways, so Cambridge's loss became somewhere else's gain. I believe he got into Fleet Street later on, but I didn't really know him. Different faculties, and three years' difference in our ages, you see.'

'Do you remember what he was like to look at?'

'Not very clearly. The most noticeable thing about the poor chap was that he had one leg shorter than the other and had to wear a surgical boot.'

'How did you know they were illegitimate?'

'Romilly told me. He was bleating about it in a mild sort of way, and saying that he didn't suppose his old man would leave him anything worth talking about, although he'd always acknowledged him and kept him and his brother, and all that.'

'What kind of man was Romilly?'

'As I remember him, he was diffident, kindly, a bit vague, but a completely harmless chap. He was a connoisseur of pictures, I remember. Spent all his money on good copies of old masters and said he intended to collect the real things when he could afford it. My five-pound loan, I remember, went to make up the price of a very fine copy of Francesco di Giorgio's Saint Dorothy walking with the Holy Child. I must say that he's just about the last man I should think of as a murderer, but, of course, when it's a question of money-'

'Did you ever hear whether Felix Napoleon's legitimate union was blest with children?'

'Yes, there was a son named Harvard, some years younger than Caesar, but he was killed in the war in 1944. I knew about him because he came up once or twice to see the other two, and I was invited to cocktails.'

'Would you know Romilly again, if you saw him?'

'I might, of course, but a lot of water has flowed under the bridge since my undergraduate days.'

'You knew that Felix Napoleon was dead?'

'I'd never thought about it. I don't read the obituary columns and I don't suppose his wife would have thought of inviting me to the funeral.'

'She may have pre-deceased him.'

'Yes, of course. Well, mother, I must say that your account of Romilly really does surprise me. He must have altered a very great deal since I knew him.'

'I am suffering from dear Laura's complaint, no doubt,' admitted Dame Beatrice.

'What's that?'

'A pricking of the thumbs. Besides, now that you have described your Romilly to me, I do not see how he could be (however much his nature may have changed) my Romilly.'

'Physical description doesn't fit?'

'You said that Romilly was small.'

'And dark. Of course, he's probably grey-haired by now.'

'How small was he?'

'Oh, almost a head shorter than I am, and I am six feet one and a half. I should say he stood about five feet four-call it five five with his shoes on.'

'And was very short-sighted?'

'So much so that, when he mislaid his glasses one day-took them off to have a bath-I had to find them for him because he usually put them in their case on the bathroom stool, but this time had left them in his room and had been groping about for them in there for ages before he heard me on the stairs and yelled for my assistance.'

'Short sight is not usually a disability which cures itself as the years roll by. The younger brother, you tell me, had a club foot.'

'Yes. I wonder whether it had warped him a bit. His writings for his unofficial rag were extremely spiteful.'

'So, if my host at Galliard Hall is not the real Romilly, neither is he likely to be Romilly's brother Caesar. I did well to go to Selina and be referred to you. These are deeper waters than I had suspected. However, nothing is lost by making sure. Could you make it convenient to call at Galliard Hall at some time during the next few days so that you can meet this pseudo-Romilly?'

'On what pretext?'

'That you have heard from me that he has some very fine pictures, and you are wondering whether he would be willing to part with the Raeburn, as you particularly want to give it as an anniversary present to your wife, whose negotiations for a Raeburn have recently broken down. You are safe enough in making this offer. The pictures are not his to sell, as he is not the owner of Galliard Hall.'

'I wouldn't recognise a Raeburn if you handed one to me on a plate.'

'With watercress round it, as Laura's favourite author would remark. The Raeburn is the first portrait you come to as you enter the hall.'

'Very well. I can manage tomorrow afternoon, if that's all right.'

'Do not mention, of course, that you knew Romilly at Cambridge, unless you believe that this man really is Romilly Lestrange.'

'Now what do you take me for, mother!'

'I apologise.'

'Good. Let's rejoin the family, or they'll be complaining that I keep you all to myself. You look as though you're enjoying all this Romilly business, though. Are you?'

'The plot thickens in the most agreeable way. I am no longer able to keep Laura's fingers out of the pie.'

'Of course, the obvious point to consider is this: if Romilly isn't Romilly, who the devil is he?'

'If you can tell me who Felix Napoleon's lawyers were, I hope to be able to find that out.'

'Well, I'll enquire around. I know he'd chucked the Marshall-Provost gang-their solicitors, I mean.'

(3)

The older members of Snapp, Snapp and Bacon had preceded their client to the grave, but, although there were no Snapps left, a scion of the Bacons was senior partner in the firm, and had brought a son and a nephew into the business. It was the older Bacon who received Dame Beatrice.

'Upon receipt of your letter,' he said, 'I looked up the relevant facts. In 1960, on the death of his natural son Caesar, Mr Felix Napoleon Lestrange altered his Will. Up to that time the provisions were not quite as they are at present. For one thing, they made Caesar a beneficiary to the same extent as his brother. Both, as you know, were born out of wedlock, so, until 1944, when the legitimate son Harvard was killed in the war, Harvard had been in the position of sole heir in respect of his father's property, with the exception of legacies of five thousand pounds each to his half-brothers, Romilly and Caesar.

'Upon Harvard's death, however, the Will was somewhat materially changed. For one thing, at her father's death, which occurred in January, 1944, Rosamund, who, from the twenty-ninth of May next, will have a life-interest in her grandfather's wealth, irrespective of her possible marriage, was still en ventre sa mère. The new Will, therefore, gave her a life-interest after she had attained the age of twenty-five. Up to that time we, as Felix Napoleon's solicitors, were empowered to maintain her and her mother in the event of Felix Napoleon's dying before she reached her twenty-fifth year, but, as it happened, the mother died in giving birth, and Felix Napoleon assumed full responsibility for the baby and had her to live with him until his death, a couple of years ago.'