Death At the President's Lodging

by Michael Innes

  But here Libra, the scales, asserted themselves. There was matter to be balanced against that hope. Let this detective be anything but a model of discretion, let him have a taste for amusing the public, and there might be an uncomfortable enough period of startling, if improbable and unprovable, theories blowing about. The unlucky topographical circumstances of the deed, the Dean had realized from the first, set suspicion flowing where it should be fantastic that suspicion should flow… He frowned as he thought of his colleagues under suspicion of murder. How would they stand badgering by policemen, coroners, lawyers? How, for that matter, would he stand it himself? Praise Providence, he and his colleagues were all demonstrably sane.

  Those bones! They were mad. Last night, when he had viewed them, he had been annoyed by them. He had at first been more annoyed by the bones (he recollected with some discomfort) than distressed about the tragedy. He had been annoyed because he had been bewildered (Mr Deighton-Clerk disliked being bewildered – or even slightly puzzled). But later he had felt – somewhat incoherently – a possible blessedness in them: their very irrationality removed the crime somehow from the sinister and calculated to the fantastic. They were a sort of bulwark between the life of the college, in all its measure and reason, and the whole horrid business.

  And then – and it was as if Leo, Taurus and Aries had roared, bellowed, butted all in a moment – Mr Deighton-Clerk realized what a feeble piece of thinking this was. The first thing that this detective would suspect about the bones was that they were some sort of blind or bluff. How obvious; how very, very obvious! Indeed, were the man literate, his mind might run to some notion of the touch of fantasy, the vivid dash of irrationality, that it might please an intellectual and cultivated mind to mingle with a laboriously calculated crime… A mixture, thought Mr Deighton-Clerk, somewhat in the manner of Poe.

  Decidedly, he did not like the bones after all. And suddenly he realized that, subconsciously, they had profoundly disturbed him from the first. Sinister, grisly objects – surely they were striving to connect themselves with…something forgotten, suppressed, unconsidered on the borders of his consciousness…? He was nervous. The dock (he heard his own inner voice absurdly exclaim) is yawning open for us all…

  Mr Deighton-Clerk pulled himself up. He was decidedly tired. More than tired, he was unsettled. Indeed it was a terrible, a shocking business. Murder – the human soul hurled all unprepared to Judgment – was equally awful in college or cottage. He had seldom seen eye to eye with Umpleby – but how meaningless their disagreements had been! How absurd this or that estrangement between them in face of abrupt and total severance – the quick and the dead! The Dean looked at his watch. Just half an hour to hall, and hall and common-room would be something of an ordeal. At this moment there came a knock at the door and the announcement: Mr Appleby.

  II

  Mystery in the vicinity, the Dean was finding, was productive of irrational annoyances. He was annoyed again now, and it seemed for two most inadequate reasons. The stranger who had just been shown in upon him was remarkably young, and he had all the appearance of being – indeed quite plainly was – what Mr Deighton-Clerk still liked to think of under the designation “genteel.” But if both facts were disconcerting both might well be advantageous. In a moment the Dean had advanced and shaken hands. “I am glad to see you, Mr Appleby,” he said. “I am very glad that it has been possible to – ah – detail you for this” – the Dean hesitated – “this investigation. Sit down.”

  Appleby displayed a suitable awareness of politeness intended and seated himself in the chair which had been indicated – one somewhat uncompromisingly central before the Dean’s tidily arranged desk. It was plain that, in the introductory exchanges at least, Mr Deighton-Clerk intended to lead the conversation. Tapping the arm of his chair deliberately rather than nervously, he began speaking in an even, rather cold but pleasantly modulated voice.

  “You will have seen the extraordinary circumstances in which our President has met his death,” he began. “The university, I need hardly say, is very much shocked, and it is the duty of the college to assist in every way what must, it is only too clear, be called the course of justice. As soon as I saw the gravity of what has happened I determined that the college itself, for its own credit, must take…energetic action” – Mr Deighton-Clerk paused meditatively over the phrase – “and so overriding what I suspected might be tardy processes, I took steps to secure assistance from London at once. Nothing could be more satisfactory – more reassuring, indeed – than the promptitude of the response. We look to you, Mr Appleby, to clear up this terrible affair.”

  The Dean paused at this, but even as Appleby was framing a reply he continued in the same somewhat formal strain. He had apparently delivered himself merely of a sort of exordium or proem and intended something like a speech. Perhaps, thought Appleby, it was simply the academic habit of sustained utterance; perhaps something more idiosyncratic and revealing. Anyway, he sat tight, with an air of respectful attention.

  “I should not like,” Mr Deighton-Clerk continued, “to say that this tragedy has occurred at a particularly unfortunate time. It would be a most improper thought. Nevertheless you will understand me when I tell you that the five hundredth anniversary of the foundation of the college falls to be celebrated in only two months’ time. The occasion is to be marked in – ah – various ways. It is known, for instance, that Dr Umpleby was to have been knighted. That the college must enter upon the sixth century of its history upon the morrow of its President’s violent death is, of course, terrible in itself. But it would be yet more deplorable should we have to suffer from prolonged mystery and scandal. And the longer Dr Umpleby’s death is unexplained, the more scandal – shocking though the admission be – will circulate. I know that, Mr Appleby, only too well. And it is my duty as the acting Head of this House to see that the living are not penalized, either in their peace of mind or in their careers and material interests, by an ounce of avoidable scandal – or suspicion.”

  Here Mr Deighton-Clerk made a real stop, conscious perhaps that in a somewhat wandering declaration he had spoken two words more than was discreet. Appleby replied briefly. He was fully aware of the likelihood of extravagant and irresponsible rumour. Searching inquiry in various directions would, perhaps, be unavoidable, but in whatever he did he would endeavour to act with all possible discretion. He hoped he could do something to restrain the exuberance of the Press… Appleby’s tactful speech, terminated by an inviting pause, had the effect which was intended. Mr Deighton-Clerk began again. And this time he advanced from generalities to a specific position. Dr Umpleby – he declared in fine – had met his death under certain complicated circumstances which the police would interpret. But a valid interpretation must be congruous, not with physical or mechanical facts merely, but with higher psychological probabilities as well. Obviously, a murder in St Anthony’s could not be a domestic matter.

  This proposition – put forward with a good deal of complication – Appleby in some measure met. “I agree,” he said, “that the physical circumstances of the case are not in any way conclusive. They may be very misleading – deliberately misleading. I recognize that they do not point in any certain way either at any one person or at any group of persons. They are merely factors in a total situation about which as yet I have very insufficient information.” Appleby let this sink in and then he added: “There is the queer business of those bones. They may well be thought to point to a wholly irrational element in the affair. I remember something very similar, sir, in a case in Cumberland: homicidal mania accompanied by what is called, I think, obsessional neurosis. A man broke into a totally strange building – a public house as it happened – and committed a murder. Then he turned everything he could move upside down, chalked up his own name on the wall and went home. They’ve never been able to discover at the asylum whether he remembers anything about it.”

  That Mr Deighton-Clerk, fresh from his recent revelation on the likely of
ficial view of the bones, was altogether taken in by this reassuring anecdote is uncertain. But in combination with Appleby’s manner it encouraged him to proceed with the train of thought he plainly wished to develop. Dr Umpleby’s death, he agreed, might well be the work of a demented person – indeed he could imagine no other explanation. And that the bones pointed the same way he also thought extremely probable. Not that he considered that a matter of certainty: the bones might be some sort of blind – a point Mr Appleby had no doubt considered – though the very obviousness of this somewhat discounted the idea. But of one thing the Dean was certain: there existed within St Anthony’s itself no circumstances, no relations, no individual that could, with the slightest psychological probability, be in any way connected up with an attempt on the President’s life. The actions and motives of his colleagues and himself might quite properly fall to be scrutinized: he would not, for his part, object for a moment. But with what authority he might possess, and in the interests of a rapid elucidation of the crime, he would again state his simple conviction that, whatever physical circumstances might suggest to the contrary, the problem must be one which lay essentially outside the precincts of St Anthony’s.

  Was this gentleman, Appleby wondered, protesting too much? Or was he, in all this declamation, simply pumping up conviction within himself? And he wasn’t finished yet. Standing up now with his back to the fire, the Dean looked directly at Appleby and began again. “Mr Appleby,” he said, speaking in more abrupt tones than he had yet permitted himself, “there’s another thing. You may find your man, mad or sane, tomorrow. Or you may, as I have said, find it necessary to undertake a laborious investigation among us all. If you do, you may find – you certainly will find – disturbing circumstances. It is such circumstances which I suggest, very seriously, are only too likely to delude. In a college like this we have our own manners, and I hope they are the manners of scholars and gentlemen. But superficially – I deliberately use the word – there are jealousies, conflicts – quarrels even – enough. When you come upon them I ask you to do two things: first to weigh the gravity of such learned squabbles carefully against the well-nigh imponderable deed of murder; secondly to give some thought to the possible relevance of each before pursuing it to the point of publicity.”

  This was Mr Deighton-Clerk’s best speech, and he might have rested on it. But he had something to add and he added it forthrightly enough.

  “I will quote an example. Only a few days ago Dr Umpleby and I had something approaching a personal quarrel – in public. Consider it, and you will find it pretty evidently not the quality of thing men commit murder over. Investigate it further and, while keeping that quality, it will reveal matter of minor scandal – matter which, in the interest of the college, I would not see made public without dismay. And so on. You must know only too well, Mr Appleby, that in any company of men minute perscrutation of act and motive may have the most miserable consequences… But I am at your disposal for such inquiries as you may think useful – and so, I am sure, are my colleagues. Mr Appleby, how would you wish to proceed?”

  But Appleby, who was inwardly congratulating the Dean on this quite magnificent manner of admitting to a recent quarrel with a murdered man, was given no opportunity to reply. Indeed, the climax of the interview had all the appearance of being timed to the minute: even as Mr Deighton-Clerk ceased speaking the college bell began to ring.

  “That is our dinner-bell, Mr Appleby,” the Dean explained. “I am afraid we must defer further discussion until tomorrow – or later tonight should you choose.” And after a moment of apparent hesitation he added: “May I ask what your arrangements are? You will need constant access to the college: would you care, I wonder – would it be regular, if I may so put it – to stay in St Anthony’s? We would be glad to receive you if you should think it convenient, and I can promise you a quiet set of rooms from which to – ah – operate.”

  Appleby reflected rapidly on this unexpected suggestion. No official objection, he felt sure, would be made to his lodging in the college if he considered it expedient. And it had several obvious advantages – not least that it made him free of the college buildings at any hour of the day or night. He accepted the proposal gratefully, explaining that he had driven straight to St Anthony’s and that his suitcase was at the porter’s lodge. He would be glad to sleep in college that night – and for longer should it prove necessary.

  Mr Deighton-Clerk was pleased with himself. Here was more energetic action. It entailed, perhaps, some breach of the minor proprieties – but it was in a crisis in the college’s history that justified the action fully. He took another glance at Appleby – the man was indubitably a gentleman – and plunged finally. “Excellent,” he said, “a most satisfactory arrangement. And you will of course dine with us now in hall. I only wish you were meeting the high-table on a more auspicious – ah, on a less melancholy occasion.”

  This was slightly more than Appleby had bargained for and the official in him was moved to demur. But Mr Deighton-Clerk, having twirled a dial and murmured into an ivory telephone, was enfolding himself in his gown. “Not at all, not at all,” he said, meeting what he took to be the reason for Appleby’s objection. “There is no need whatever for you to change. A number of the Fellows will not have taken the trouble. Mr Haveland, for instance, will certainly not be changed. He never does change. It annoys – dear me! – annoyed poor Dr Umpleby. Indeed, the manciple had to bring him a list every day, and if Haveland and his tweeds were to be in hall the President as often as not stayed away. I fear they detested each other. Mr Appleby, let me lead the way downstairs.”

  Appleby followed obediently, feeling that he had gained a point. The Reverend and Honourable the Dean, for the past half-hour so elevated and so correct, had condescended to a fragment of downright gossip.

  4

  One of the nicest of academic fantasies is Zuleika Dobson, that pleasing narrative of Max Beerbohm’s in which an entire undergraduate population, despairing of its heroine’s affection, casts itself into the fatal waters of the Isis. The great touch, it will be remembered, comes at the end. Life goes on undisturbed; that night the dons file into the halls of their several colleges as usual; and at the high-table dinner proceeds, in complete unawareness of the deserted benches where armies of perished undergraduates had sat.

  Inspector Appleby had this fable flitting in his head as he entered the hall of St Anthony’s on the morrow of a less comprehensive academic fatality. The college had already assembled as he was guided up to the dais by Mr Deighton-Clerk. Round the high-table there stood, gowned and for the most part dinner jacketed, the Fellows – looking grave certainly, but no graver than the ceremonial preprandial moment commonly demanded. Stretching down the length of the hall were the lines of those in statu pupillari: two tables of commoners in the oddly diminished, vestigial-looking gowns of their order; an equally long table of more generously-swathed scholars; a short and bunchy table of completely enfolded Bachelors. By a lectern near the high-table, ready to say grace, was the bible-clerk, a blue-eyed cherubic undergraduate, doing his best to disguise an undisguisable constitutional breeziness. The few whispers in the hall died away as the Dean took off his cap and bowed gravely to the cherub – who bowed profoundly, if not exactly gravely, in return and proceeded to deliver himself with miraculous speed of a flood of medieval latinity. The bible-clerk bowed; the Dean bowed; the Dean sat down; the college – and Appleby with it – did the same; ritual was preserved. But there was no instant babble of voices such as customarily would have arisen. St Anthony’s conversed but conversed sparely and quietly. The high-table set the tone, and the cherub, in occasional brief remarks to his neighbour the senior scholar, seconded. From around the lofty dark-panelled walls the vanished statesmen, divines, poets and philosophers whom St Anthony’s had, in one century or another, produced, looked down on a decorum amply maintained.

  Appleby considered his neighbours. A rapid count made one fact evident: all the Fellows of t
he college had made a point of turning up in hall. Decorum once more, thought Appleby. Decorum too in the fact that nobody seemed to regard him with any curiosity – and decorum finally, he reflected, required that he should not begin a too-curious circumspection himself. He was on the right of the Dean; on his own right there sat, as a murmured introduction had informed him, Mr Titlow – middle-aged, handsome, with a touch of encroaching flabbiness, nervous. And Titlow’s present nervousness, he quickly decided, was something that went with a good deal of chronic irritability or internal excitement. Alone among the diners that night Titlow had the look of an imaginative man – a man, as used to be said, of quick invention. Those long, square fingers, alone preserved from some old portrait, would have suggested just that mobile mouth and lively eye. What they would not have suggested was so negative a nose. If features could be read, Appleby concluded, Titlow was a brilliant but unreliable man.

  Directly opposite Appleby was Dr Barocho, a round, shining and beaming person, eating heartily and happily. He was a clear specimen of the stage foreigner – the foreigner who remains obstinately foreign. Which by no means prevented him from being an equally clear specimen of the maturest thing in the world – Latin culture. Dr Barocho, Appleby’s considering mind told itself, was master by right of birth of something in which his colleagues were laborious undergraduates still. And his mind would not work like theirs… But of one thing Barocho was plainly not master – his colleagues’ language. He was getting into difficulties now in the simple matter of explaining that he had mislaid his gown. (Would he be put off the capital grilled sole, Appleby wondered, if he knew what purpose it was now serving? Probably not.)