The Dog It Was That Died

by H. R. F. Keating

  Eric appeared to have heard, but seemed to have no comment to make.

  ‘Well, well,’ came Professor McKenna’s raised voice from the platform, ‘as we’ve come in we may as well all sit down, otherwise we might just as well have waited for Meredith outside.’

  He walked to the middle of the neat row of chairs and began jerking one or two out of their places.

  ‘Now,’ he said, ‘I suppose we’d better leave this one for Meredith – at least until we’re sure he hasn’t entirely forgotten the occasion – and you sit next to him here, Bosenwite. I shall sit on his other side, I think.’

  The Bosun’s chair held for him politely until he had carefully caused his enormous bulk to descend on it. McKenna turning to take his own place.

  His whole frame abruptly taking on an utterly disapproving rigidity.

  Someone else, a stocky man with fierce black hair, had sat himself down on the designated spot.

  ‘Who’s that with the mass of dark hair?’ Roger asked.

  ‘O’Dwyer,’ answered Eric absently. ‘Dr Peadar O’Dwyer. He lectures in social psychology at National. Not bad either, considering how warily he has to tread in a Catholic country.’

  Down on the dais Professor McKenna strode across and stood in front of Dr O’Dwyer. He glared down at him. O’Dwyer turned, found someone sitting a couple of chairs away and began a loud conversation with them on the subject of the weather.

  ‘They’re incompatible, O’Dwyer and McKenna,’ Eric said. ‘They seem to appear together on every Committee there is. I’ve a notion O’Dwyer gets himself on to them as fast as he finds out that McKenna has been appointed.’

  He seemed to be a little more relaxed.

  McKenna turned away from O’Dwyer and, still on his feet, began apologizing again to the Bosun for Professor Meredith’s lateness. The Bosun showed every sign of being delighted at the hitch.

  ‘Not at all, not at all,’ came the familiar high, piping voice rising above the murmur of general conversation.

  Eric gripped the bar in front of him again.

  The Bosun pushed a pudgy finger into McKenna’s waistcoat.

  ‘I expect he’s been detained by a leprechaun,’ he said. ‘I understand they are still abundant in this part of Ireland. Tell me, do you use them for experiments in extra-sensory perception? I bet you do, though you’re damned cagey about publishing your results. Still, you can trust me, you know. Tell me all.’

  Evidently McKenna was by no means sure how to take this.

  ‘Certainly something seems to have detained your man Meredith,’ he answered in his give-nothing-away Ulster voice. ‘I think perhaps in the circumstances I’ll venture to take the chair –’

  He broke off abruptly. Dr O’Dwyer was rising to his feet with the evident intention of hopping smartly into the chairman’s place. Professor McKenna snatched the academic cap from his head and tossed it neatly across on to the vacant chair.

  ‘Yes,’ he said grimly, ‘I don’t doubt that it’s time we began.’

  He crossed to the chairman’s place and tapped once or twice on the table. A silence fell, broken only by Dr O’Dwyer beginning to tell his neighbour a complicated story about a piece of lobbying in the Dail in a voice nicely calculated to be loud enough to irritate the chairman but controlled enough to rank as a whisper.

  ‘Gentlemen,’ said McKenna very loudly, ‘I have great pleasure in declaring this meeting open. We are –’

  From beneath the gallery there was the sound of a pair of doors being flung open with a loud clap. A voice floated up.

  ‘Ah, here we are, here we are. I wondered where you had all got to. You should have been in the Regent House, you know, but no matter, no matter.’

  ‘Meredith,’ whispered Eric to Roger.

  A tall man with flowing grey hair and flowing tattered gown came striding rapidly up the length of the theatre. He was checked by the four rows of chairs just under the platform, looked wildly round for a moment, started off to go round them one way, stopped himself unaccountably, and went round the other. As he passed the single member of the audience sitting near the end of the front row he turned to him with a beaming smile. The man in the dark blue jacket and grey trousers half rose. Professor Meredith spread all five fingers of each hand in his face in astonishment, shook his head rapidly from side to side, swung round, and mounted the few steps up on to the dais.

  He went across and shook hands warmly with the Bosun.

  ‘You will think us Irish sadly disorganized, I fear,’ he said. ‘But we must try to make up in warmth what we have lacked in efficiency.’

  He turned to the baize-covered table, pressed down on it with the tips of his extended fingers and appeared to turn his address to the body of the hall.

  ‘Yes,’ he said, ‘we must try in our Irish way to be hospitable even if we can never be – ahem – punctual.’

  ‘Hear, hear,’ said the man with the thatch of hair in the body of the theatre.

  Professor Meredith gave him a long look.

  ‘I declare this meeting open,’ he said.

  The member of the audience looked abashed.

  ‘I think I hardly need,’ Professor Meredith went on, ‘to introduce to any of you William Bosenwite, whose work first in our northern Athens of Belfast and latterly at Liverpool must be well known to us every one.’

  ‘Leeds,’ piped Bosenwite.

  ‘I think we can say without fear of contradiction,’ Professor Meredith continued blandly, ‘that it is due almost solely to his efforts at the Institute for Human Relations that Liverpool has been put, as it were, firmly on the academic map.’

  ‘Leeds, Leeds,’ Bosenwite piped.

  But it was plain from the look of sharp delight on the pink balloon face that he was feeling no resentment.

  ‘But it is not for me to keep you all here with these few words of introduction,’ Meredith resumed.

  He looked once more at the solitary member of the audience.

  ‘It is simply for me,’ he said, ‘to put before you, as it were, first our distinguished visitor from Liverpool –’

  He swung round to Bosenwite just as he was opening the little slit of a mouth in his full-to-bursting face. The slit closed.

  ‘– or as I might well call him,’ Meredith said flinging his tattered gown wide, ‘our erstwhile colleague from that sister centre of learning in the six counties of this island.’

  He swung round in a full circle and faced Professor McKenna.

  ‘And secondly,’ he said in a concluding gabble, ‘Professor McKenna who is presenting the Sir Patrick Dun Medal on this auspicious occasion.’

  Professor McKenna rose gauntly to his feet.

  The member of the audience clapped politely.

  ‘One of the great difficulties that face our committee in making this triennial award,’ Professor McKenna began, measuring out thriftily his terse Ulster vowels, ‘is the provision that the recipient be an Irishman, or that their work has been done wholly or partly in Ireland. We have attempted to have the deed of trust altered. But this, it seems, would require legislation by at least three parliaments, and our legislators being what they are …’

  A long pause. Evidently a joke had been made. After a while the member of the audience managed to produce a clucking sound which might have been taken for appreciative, reminiscential laughter. Professor McKenna resumed.

  ‘In short, we find with the years increasing difficulty in making the award at all. And there is not even any provision for leaving it in abeyance.’

  The sharpness of the committee’s predicament had brought an unaccustomed tinge of emotion into the harshness of the Ulster tones.

  Roger looked over to the Bosun. His slit mouth in the big balloon face was curled in a delighted smile at this example of an Irish compliment.

  ‘It is thus,’ McKenna continued, ‘that we have the greatest pleasure in singling out for the award this year Professor William Bosenwite, Director of the Institute for Human Relations,
Leeds. Of his work there I am not competent to speak. No doubt the administrative problems of the directorship have precluded the publication of much written material.’

  Roger nudged Eric. Eric, sitting tensely examining the blimp-like form of the Bosun, appeared not to notice.

  ‘I have however,’ McKenna continued, ‘some knowledge of what is undertaken at the Institute –’

  Eric must obviously have been listening to what McKenna had been saying because at this he turned to Roger with a look of total amazement.

  ‘Surely he’s not going to turn out to know?’ he said.

  He had forgotten in his excitement to whisper. Roger drew quickly back into the shadows. If conversations on the dais could be clearly heard in the gallery …

  But apparently the acoustic phenomenon worked only in one direction. Down on the platform the Bosun was looking at Professor McKenna with a glance of mild inquiry, Professor Meredith had captured the carafe and was pouring some water into the tumbler with intense deliberation. The other members of the committee were making a respectable show of listening to McKenna. Dr O’Dwyer was sitting with his face in his hands and his greenish black gown falling forward on either side of him, giving the effect of an abandoned heap of mourning garments.

  ‘I have had the pleasure of spending some considerable periods,’ McKenna went parsimoniously on, ‘at the Institute’s parent university of Leeds, and while there I have enjoyed the occasional hospitality of Professor Bosenwite.’

  ‘He makes it sound very occasional,’ Roger whispered to Eric.

  This time Eric looked round at him. He smiled bleakly at the joke.

  ‘And although,’ McKenna continued down on the dais, ‘our conversation never happened to turn to academic matters, I formed the distinct impression that the Institute for Human Relations was under the guidance, and I may say tutelage, of a very remarkable person.’

  The Bosun deflected his glance of mild inquiry. A crisis had passed.

  ‘Of his work in Belfast, which happily makes him eligible for this award,’ McKenna resumed after a disappointed glance at the tumbler of water which Professor Meredith was now sipping appreciatively, ‘it is easier to speak. Bosenwite was, as you all know, a lecturer at Queen’s University for –’

  He faltered.

  ‘– for a period a few years ago. It was a period of fruitful endeavour, of that I am certain. It was in some sense a period of sterling achievement. It was a time which we in Ireland have much to be grateful for. It made its mark – small perhaps but none the less significant – in the annals of medical history in this island. Unfortunately, as no doubt you all know, Bosenwite was called away to his present responsibilities earlier than we could have wished, but those three months –’

  He stopped in full flow. The enormity of his admission appeared to strike him with paralysing force. Then academic integrity asserted itself.

  ‘Those three months – though they may seem to some an unduly short period – were nevertheless of abiding significance and it is fit that we honour them today. And so I have great pleasure in presenting this medal to William Bosenwite, formerly of Queen’s University, Belfast, now of the Institute for Human Relations, Leeds.’

  Professor McKenna drew a small black box from his jacket pocket and took from it a little silver medal dangling at the end of a loop of broad plangent green ribbon. He advanced on the Bosun who stood to meet him.

  Suddenly the black hump which concealed the form of Dr O’Dwyer was convulsed by a seismic ripple.

  ‘One moment, Mr Chairman,’ O’Dwyer said loudly.

  McKenna hesitated.

  O’Dwyer now fully on his feet gave him a smile of angelic charm.

  ‘I think it must have been forgotten,’ he said, ‘that Professor McKenna’s excellent speech has to be seconded. In the absence of any other arrangement I am very glad to take that responsibility upon myself.’

  Professor Meredith waved at him vaguely.

  ‘By all means, my dear fellow, by all means,’ he said.

  He drew a gold hunter from his waistcoat pocket, unclipped it from its chain, and placed it in front of him on the green baize table. With ceremony.

  ‘I have very great pleasure in seconding the proposal to grant to Professor Bosenwite the Sir Patrick Dun Medal,’ O’Dwyer began.

  He turned for a moment to look not at the Bosun but at McKenna.

  ‘Of his work at present, as my good friend Professor McKenna has said, we know nothing,’ he continued with unmistakable relish. ‘But of his work in his brief period at Belfast I feel I am competent to speak. It is not many of us in this island who have made any studies of the human mind at the point of breakdown under artificially induced stress, but that – as of course Professor McKenna knows very well – was the subject on which Bosenwite had begun a certain amount of research before the attractions of the other side of the Irish Sea proved too great for him.’

  ‘I didn’t know he actually worked on that at a university,’ Roger whispered to Eric.

  ‘What else?’ Eric replied.

  Bitterly.

  ‘Curiously enough,’ O’Dwyer went on, ‘I have myself undertaken a not inconsiderable amount of research, unofficially as it were, into much the same field. And I think I can say it is a field of such novelty and complication that only those who have worked in it are in a position to assess the work of others on the same subject.’

  He changed his stance to face McKenna squarely.

  ‘It is for that reason,’ he said, ‘that I am inclined to regret the fact that I did not have the happiness to join the committee until after this award had been decided. I might have been able to make my colleagues a little clearer on the exact extent of Bosenwite’s achievement at Belfast. But, as I say, I have the greatest pleasure now in seconding the presentation of the award.’

  ‘Well,’ whispered Roger, ‘he did at least leave the worth of the Bosun’s work utterly ambiguous.’

  Eric’s eyes were fixed on the Bosun.

  The solitary member of the audience leant forward anxiously and clapped.

  Professor Meredith rose.

  ‘It only remains then,’ he said, ‘for me to thank you all for your attendance.’

  He allowed his glance to wander over the wide and bare expanse of the hall.

  ‘I like to think,’ he added, ‘of all the various ceremonies these mute walls have witnessed – today’s not least among them – and of how after each one of them the theatre is left deserted, calm and silent once again. A delightful calm, if I may borrow the words of that great and neglected poet, Jeremiah Joseph Callinan, our Irish Byron.’

  ‘Oh, no,’ Eric groaned.

  ‘What’s that?’ Roger asked.

  ‘Callinan, Jeremiah Joseph, Meredith’s symptom of monomania. I didn’t see how he could manifest it on this occasion.’

  But Professor Meredith was quoting. His right hand extended, its long fingers beating strict time.

  ‘Tis a delightful calm. There is no sound

  Save the low murmur of the distant rill.

  A voice from heaven is breathing all around

  Bidding the earth and restless man be still.’

  Roger turned to Eric.

  ‘I like the distant rill touch,’ he said. ‘I suppose it refers to the traffic in Nassau Street.’

  But Eric seemed not to have heard. Again he was staring with fixed intensity at the bloated form of the Bosun.

  ‘Look, Eric,’ Roger said, ‘don’t get wound up about the Bosun. You were right: this has been amusing. I’m glad I locked Cuchulain up in his kennel and came. But don’t you start taking it all seriously.’

  Eric did not answer.

  Down on the dais Professor Meredith had got into full swing on the Irish Byron. The critics who had unaccountably failed to accord him his correct niche in the Irish pantheon were getting a pretty severe working over. Already the English Byron had been sharply demoted in the international status tables. Roger began to look round at
the low archway leading to the stairs down to the square.

  But Eric was not going to be easy to get away. Roger decided he might as well wait.

  At last Professor Meredith gracefully and tactfully brought the subject round to the Sir Patrick Dun Medal. He thanked them all for coming once again, and with a wide spreading gesture of lay benediction dismissed them.

  The dignitaries on the platform began to file out. The member of the audience daringly went up the steps on to the dais. He sought out the Bosun and seemed to be introducing himself.

  ‘One moment,’ Dr O’Dwyer called out suddenly.

  The informal procession stopped half way between the chairs and the door.

  ‘We seem to have forgotten to hand the medal to Bosenwite,’ O’Dwyer said.

  Sure enough the little black box was lying on the table beside the almost empty carafe. A short length of its green ribbon protruded, clashing horribly with the baize.

  Professor McKenna darted a glance of pure hatred at O’Dwyer and seized the little box. He walked across towards the Bosun holding it out for him to take.

  When he was about a yard away Professor Meredith’s long-fingered hand swooped. It neatly abstracted the medal from the box.

  Swiftly Meredith spread the hideous green ribbon into a broad loop. The Bosun backed a pace. Meredith advanced, the loop held wide.

  The Bosun glanced to the side and in an instant Meredith had pounced. The little silver medal dangled on the Bosun’s enormous puffy chest. The virulent ribbon encircled his neck in a broad band of green.

  Then the Bosun grinned.

  ‘You know,’ he said in his high piping voice, ‘I was beginning to think I was going to miss the chance of making the impromptu speech I prepared in the aeroplane coming over. That would have been a pity. I too was going to quote some lines of Jeremiah Joseph Callinan’s. I was going to apologize for leaving Ireland by quoting her greatest poet. Ireland, I was going to say,

  Thy name to this bosom

  Now sounds like a knell;

  My fond one, my dear one,