Dead as a Dodo

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Dead as a Dodo Page 9

by Jane Langton

“Certainly.”

  “Oh, Homer, for heaven’s sake, you’ve got an inferiority complex about your own country. That’s ridiculous.”

  “No, it’s not. Americans are a bunch of callow, sentimental, gushy, undereducated louts, and I’m the worst of the lot.”

  “And your average British kid is all-wise and all-wonderful, is that it?”

  Homer fumbled with his tie. “That’s it. That’s precisely it.”

  “What about Stuart Grebe? He’s an American. He’s supposed to be really clever.”

  “Oh, God, don’t talk to me about Stuart. I spent the morning getting him out of trouble. He’s like some wacky computer hacker at home. He’s been blundering around in the private computer files of a couple of biochemists and a very important geneticist. They caught him at it, and they’re mad as hell. No, Mary dear, Stuart Grebe will not do as a model of American brilliance. And neither will I.”

  “Now look here, Homer, don’t you think Dr. Jamison had a reason for inviting you here to lecture?”

  “Oh, God, I don’t know. The point is, I’m scared out of my wits.”

  Homer’s fear increased as he crossed Parks Road. He felt like a fool. Who was he, the son of a traffic cop, educated in a Boston night school, to think he had anything worthwhile to say to Oxford undergraduates? Homer thought of institutions of higher learning all over the place, Ivy League universities back home, homely little schools in Zaire, or Kenya, or Malaya, and glassy new colleges in Third World capitals around the world. Some of them might be good, just as good as this place, or better—who could tell? But Oxford had the most glitter in the air around its name, it had the most lions and unicorns and heraldic bearings, it was the most revered educational institution in the world.

  He was an hour early in the museum. Homer went to the lecture hall and tested the equipment, switching on the speaker’s lamp and switching it off again, muttering into the microphone, It was a dark and stormy night. He tried out the podium, leaning on it this way, then that way, then stood back ostentatiously with his hands in his pockets. He looked at his watch. He still had fifty-five minutes to go.

  At loose ends, he wandered out into the gallery. His alarm was mounting. Then to his relief he saw something going on across the courtyard. Helen Farfrae was laughing and carrying a box into the Zoology Office. Homer loped around the gallery to see what was happening.

  “Oh, Dr. Kelly, come in,” said Helen. “See what we’ve found.”

  Homer beamed, his fear giving way to curiosity. “Please call me Homer, Dr. Farfrae.”

  “Oh, good, Homer, but only if you’ll call me Helen. Now look, just look at these things.” She spread her hands over the boxes on the table. “I think this is why that intruder was here on Friday night. He was putting all these jars on the floor outside the office door, hiding them under the tarpaulin. Did you see one out there in the corridor? Remember, I told you I heard him come in and go out again a couple of times? Obviously he couldn’t bring all of them in at once. Next morning one of the workmen found a couple of empty boxes on the floor of the corridor, and he tossed them over the railing.” Helen’s voice rose in excitement. “Remember, Homer, we saw that box on the head of James Watt? They must have been his boxes. He brought them up here one at a time, full of jars, and shoved the jars under the tarpaulin. Then he heard Bobby Fenwick coming after him, so he left the boxes on the floor and took off.”

  Homer was delighted. “It was a reverse burglary, bringing stuffin instead of taking stuff out. What did the guy think he was doing? What is all this stuff anyway?”

  Helen held up one of the jars. “You see, it says ‘Potted Beef’ on the label, but look at it—that’s not potted beef. And a lot of the labels don’t make sense. You wouldn’t put haunch of venison in a jar. It’s some kind of marine animal. A lot of little crayfish, I think.” She returned the jar tenderly to the box. “They’re in terrible shape.”

  “But what the hell for? I mean, why on earth did someone bring all this old stuff here in the middle of the night? Why didn’t he want to be seen doing it? And why did he put it outside your door?” Homer held up his hand and counted fingers. “So there were three things going on in the museum that night. What have they got to do with one another? Someone was dumping all these mysterious jars outside this office, the night watchman fell to his death from the roof—a roof it’s impossible to climb—and a couple of crazy kids stole the picture of the dodo. Did you hear about that?”

  “Make way there,” said Hal Shaw dramatically, coming into the office with William Dubchick on his arm.

  “Oh, Professor Dubchick,” said Helen eagerly, “look what we’ve found.” Then she stopped, shocked to see him hobbling to his desk. “Oh, sir, are you all right?”

  “It was just a little spill,” said William.

  “No sign of a fracture on the X ray,” said Hal. “They told us he has the bones of a young man.”

  That’s what comes of climbing trees in Ecuador, thought Homer enviously, feeling his own bones go soft. He said nothing, and watched as Helen explained the jars on the table.

  She was glowing with excitement. She lifted one bottle out, and then another. “Whoever made these cookery labels didn’t know anything about preserving food. And of course they’re not preserves at all. They’re marine animals, all of them, I’m sure they are.”

  William and Hal caught the infection at once. They bent over the jars and picked up samples and held them to the light.

  “This one’s a Grapsus of some kind,” said Hal. “And this one—wouldn’t you say it’s some sort of Porcellana, Professor Dubchick?” He looked up at William, then glanced eagerly at Helen.

  Homer stared at the three of them. They were grinning at one another. “Oh, I get it,” he said, as the light dawned. “You think they might be Darwin’s missing crabs, is that it?”

  Hal shook his head doubtfully. “Of course the jars aren’t right. Darwin didn’t use this kind of jar. Neither did Thomas Bell, who got the crabs from Darwin.”

  “What about the labels?” said Helen. “Look, one of them shows under the cookery label. It’s got a number.”

  “Good, good,” said William, rubbing his hands gleefully, “then we can compare them.” He turned to Helen. “Haven’t we got all the old Bell Collection labels filed away somewhere?”

  “Of course. They’re in the file downstairs.” Helen disappeared with a flick of skirt and a swirl of short gray hair. In a moment she was back with a manila folder. “Here we are.” Delicately she extracted a sheet covered with small strips of paper, and read the heading aloud. “Labels removed from jars of crustaceans in the Thomas Bell Collection.”

  Homer peered at them over her shoulder. “Uh-oh, the handwriting’s different.”

  William’s face fell. “Oh, too bad.”

  “What about the numbers?” said Hal quickly. “If the numbers are the same, the handwriting doesn’t matter.”

  They looked at each other blankly.

  “Well?” said Homer. “How about it? You can tear off the cookbook labels, can’t you? I mean, they’re not important, are they?”

  “It isn’t that,” said William. “It’s just that the numbers and descriptions of the missing crabs aren’t in this museum. They’re at Down House, Darwin’s house in Kent.”

  “Ah,” said Helen, nodding wisely, “we need the red notebooks.”

  Homer burst out laughing. “The red notebooks! The sacred books of the holy shrine! What’s the matter? Are they kept in a tabernacle and brought out once a year to perform miracles of healing? What’s the trouble?”

  Hal’s homely face lit up. “There’s no trouble. It means somebody has to go there, that’s all. I hereby volunteer.”

  “May I go with you?” said Homer impulsively.

  “Of course.”

  William laughed. “Excellent.”

  “I’ll give you a list of all the Darwin crabs in the museum,” said Helen eagerly. “Then when you find a crab in the red notebooks tha
t isn’t on the list, you’ll know it’s one of the missing ones, and we can see if it’s in one of these jars.”

  “Can you go this afternoon?” said Hal to Homer. “There’s a train to London at three o’clock.”

  “London? Is Down House in London?”

  “No, but you have to go to London first, then take a train to Kent. It will take the rest of the day and half the night to get there and come back.”

  “Well, I just have to deliver my lecture”—Homer glanced at his watch and yelped—“my God, in five minutes! But then I’ll be free, so that’s fine. Righteo.” Then he gulped. “Oh, sorry. Do you people say righteo? You don’t? Oh, I say, I’m sorry. Whoops, there I go again. You do say, Oh, I say, don’t you?”

  Helen laughed. “Just in old films. Don’t worry, Homer, your Briticisms are so out of date, they sound like Americanisms to me.”

  Homer said goodbye and galloped down the corridor in the direction of the lecture hall, dodging past another bunch of workmen putting up scaffolding in a new place.

  “Sorry,” said one of them, moving a bucket of mortar out of Homer’s way.

  “Oh, it’s quite all right,” said Homer, falling into old British film language once again.

  Hal Shaw was also in a rush. He hurried in the direction of the north staircase and the Vertebrate Spirit Store to tell his wife he’d be away until midnight. But as he ran he glanced down into the courtyard and saw Freddy Dubchick looking at the elephant skeletons, then moving on disconsolately to stare up at the stone figure of the Prince Consort.

  Margo had been telling him about Freddy. She was a spoiled child, Margo said, immature and ignorant, wild for sex. Hal kept his mouth shut, a response learned by hard experience. At home in their rented flat on Walton Street he shuffled from room to room like one of Darwin’s giant Galápagos tortoises, grunting noncommittal replies to his wife’s sharp interrogations. His marriage was a mistake, but he was doing his damnedest not to let it ruin his life.

  He wondered if Freddy was really wild for sex. She might be immature, but she certainly wasn’t ignorant. Talking to her he felt nimble and intelligent, like the gray seal in the museum courtyard, Halichoerus grypus, diving and plunging around her, bobbing to the surface, offering conversational fishes plucked from the depths of the sea. And Freddy too sported and splashed, her round eyes bright. He went to her at once.

  Helen Farfrae looked down at them from the gallery above. Hal Shaw and Freddy Dubchick were laughing together, talking, gazing at each other. She’s a silly girl, of course, thought Helen enviously, so young and pretty, so lucky. No, no, she’s not silly, she’s just young. How wonderful to be able to laugh like that!

  “What are you laughing at?” said Hal, grinning at Freddy. “What did I say that’s so funny?”

  “It’s not that,” said Freddy impulsively. “It’s your feathers. They’re so—” She burst out laughing again.

  “My feathers?”

  Freddy tried to control herself. “It’s nothing. Never mind.” She couldn’t possibly explain her Darwinian revelation, that Hal Shaw’s peacock tail was even more splendid than Oliver Clare’s, even though Hal wasn’t nearly as good-looking. His sharp mind and cleverness were his peacock tail, and they were iridescent, the feathers were radiant, green and gold and blue. But how could she tell him that? Oh, she shouldn’t have laughed.

  Hal looked at his watch. “I’ve got to go,” he said brusquely, and tore himself away.

  His feelings are hurt, thought Freddy regretfully. He thinks I’m laughing at him, when really the truth is, I’m falling in love with him.

  CHAPTER 19

  I this day paid horse-hire for thirty-one leagues.

  Charles Darwin, The Voyage of the Beagle

  It was phenomenal, the speed with which the wild new canes established themselves beside the ditch on the Botley Road. Up they sprang, their thick stems fleshy and splotched with red. The rain came down and the warm sun of autumn shone. Cars moved in and out of the parking lot, but none were rented to botanists, who might have looked down into the ditch and taken quick action.

  Homer’s lecture passed muster. He began with an arrogant roar from Walt Whitman, Come, muse, migrate from Greece and Ionia! and went on to picture her tossing on the Atlantic in her frail bark, leaving the European poets gasping on the shore, while the lusty young Americans held out welcoming hands. Homer’s audience tittered politely. They seemed accustomed to insults.

  “As soon as I got a look at them,” said Homer as he boarded the London train with Hal Shaw, “I forgot to be scared. They looked just like kids at home, scruffy and healthy and young, very young. I threw in a couple of my best jokes, and they seemed to like that.” They sat down in the half-filled car. “Stuart Grebe was there, unfortunately. He asked some really sharp questions, damn him, and I had a hell of a time inventing plausible answers.”

  “Stuart Grebe?” said Hal. “What’s Stuart doing at one of your lectures? He’s a biochemist.”

  “Pure hoggishness. Stuart’s a megalomaniac. He wants to gobble up everything in the university, swallow it whole. The trouble is, he’s also a dangerous criminal.”

  “A criminal?” said Hal, startled. “You don’t mean it?”

  “Well, no, not really. It’s just that he has too many strokes of genius for his own good.” Homer looked around as the train silked forward on its way to Paddington. “I must say, I’m disappointed. Where are all the compartments? I thought British trains had lots of little doors and charming compartments full of mysterious-looking occupants, some of them in disguise.”

  Hal laughed, and picked up a newspaper someone had left on the seat. “Sorry, Homer.”

  He was unable to read a word. Homer kept him talking about The Origin of Species. “Tell me about the eye. It was a ghastly problem for Darwin, wasn’t it? People said it couldn’t have evolved little by little because it wouldn’t do any good until it was all there—lens, cornea, retina, iris, everything.”

  “Chapter Six,” said Hal patiently. “You’ll get to it. The point is, there were a lot of small steps that were useful, like gelatinous spots on starfish that helped them tell light from dark. Things like that. The eye developed gradually, just like everything else.”

  “Oh, I see,” said Homer humbly. “But what about—?”

  Only in the London underground did he quiet down, because of the racketing roar. He kept his mouth shut too in the passageways between platforms, where they were carried along in thick floods of Londoners all pouring in the same direction.

  “My God, Hal,” puffed Homer, “how does a guy from Kansas know his way around so well?”

  “My mother’s British. She got rid of me every summer by sending me to my Aunt Peggy in Nottingham.”

  Hal kept talking as he dodged into another passage. Homer struggled to keep up. He sprinted forward, edging around a throng of elderly women upholstered with shopping bags. “What did you say?”

  “I said things were pretty bad at home. Aunt Peggy saved my life. She took me to the Natural History Museum in London.”

  “The Natural History Museum, I see. That’s how you started being interested in zoology? Well, listen, what about—?” As they boarded the train to Bromley South they were deep in blind moles and eyeless animals in caves. Even on the bus from Bromley South, Homer didn’t stop asking questions. He was still babbling as they walked along the country road from the village of Downe. Only at the door of Down House did his interrogation break off at last.

  Here they were greeted by an excited old gentleman. “Come in, come in, Dr. Shaw. And this is Dr. Kelly? Oh, do come in. My name is Frolic. Yes, yes, the notebooks are here. You are in luck. They were loaned to Cambridge years ago, but they have recently been returned. So fortunate. Come right this way. Have you seen Mr. Darwin’s study? No? This is your first visit? Oh, you must see it, you must see it! Come right this way!”

  They followed Mr. Frolic into the study, and admired the rolling stool and the round table wi
th its mineral specimens. Homer imagined the Darwin children popping in to borrow the foot rule. Was this the sofa where he lay groaning while Emma read aloud? The room looked like a place where work had been going on until only recently.

  “I wonder if these are really his books,” said Hal. “Homer, do you know what he did with a heavy book? Too big to hold? He tore it in half.”

  “How sensible,” said Homer.

  “How dreadful!” said Mr. Frolic, who had been rising and falling on his toes. “Now, if you’re quite finished, I’ll show you the Beagle memorabilia. This way, if you please.”

  The object of their journey was in the next room. There they were, many small notebooks, lying side by side in a large display case, along with tools and instruments carried by El Naturalista Don Carlos in Brazil and Argentina and Tierra del Fuego—collecting boxes, folding compasses, a spyglass, a pistol.

  “Imagine fitting yourself out for a voyage that would last for years,” said Homer. “How could he possibly know all he would need?”

  Mr. Frolic jingled his keys. “If you’re quite ready?” he said, dancing forward.

  “We’d better get to work,” murmured Hal.

  At once the impetuous Mr. Frolic opened the case and extracted three of the little red books. Each bore a pasted label, Catalogue for Animals in Spirits of Wine.

  Homer took them reverently. Mr. Frolic waved his arm at a table, swooped out a pair of chairs and bowed in invitation.

  They settled down. “We don’t have to copy everything,” Hal said to Homer. “Just the entries labeled C for Crustacean. And then only the ones that aren’t on the museum list. Be sure to write down Darwin’s numbers, so we can compare them with the numbers on those mysterious jars. You got it?”

  “Got it,” said Homer, opening the first of the small books. At once he began copying entries.

  1832 PORTO PRAYA

  41 C Two upper Crustacea from Praya.—

  others taken at sea between this & Canary.—

  1832 BAIABLANCA

 

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