Now Jonty and Orlando were ensconced in the dining room with dinner ordered and a bottle of Chablis opened and poured into their glasses.
“It’s been quite a day, one way or another,” Jonty said, having taken a sip of wine then laid the glass down to let the contents breathe. “One part of the mystery solved and the others as convoluted as ever. Were you that detective whose name I won’t mention, you’d be regaling me with all the things I hadn’t noticed and all the clever deductions you’d made from them.”
“Fortunately for both of us I’m not and I won’t.” Orlando jabbed at the butter with his knife, as though he were jabbing at Sherlock himself.
“Not even to your loyal Watson? Although I’m not quite as star struck with you as Watson was with Mr. Seven per cent Solution. Unhealthily besotted.” Jonty took a bite of buttered roll. “Delicious. I’ve half a mind to get hold of the good Doctor and give him a piece of my mind.”
“I don’t think Watson even existed. Anymore than Moriarty did.”
“I hate to alarm you but none of them actually existed. Fiction and all that. I had in mind upbraiding Conan Doyle.”
Orlando airily wafted his bread roll, to wave away the objection. “You know what I mean. A Shakespeare scholar should understand the significance of the play within the play or—in this case—the story within the story.”
“I stand corrected.” Corrected but still not entirely sure what Orlando was getting at. “Pray proceed.”
“Were the Holmes stories an account of real cases submitted to a magazine, I’d have suspected the great,” Orlando sneered at the adjective, “detective himself of writing them under the name of an imaginary amanuensis. Playing up his deduction skills to make himself appear more intelligent, naturally.”
An interesting theory, and one Orlando had clearly applied his own formidable brains to. “And Moriarty? You’d have suspected Holmes of inventing him, too?”
“I wouldn’t be at all surprised. Watson never sees him, does he?” Orlando averred. “He relies on Holmes’s reports.”
“That of a policeman too, I seem to recall. But it’s true his identity isn’t really presented in a manner that would convince the sceptics. “
“Exactly. Holmes could have recruited an actor to play the part, anyway.”
The scale on which Orlando had considered this was astonishing. Would he himself have done such a thing—invent an imaginary friend to show off in front of or a make believe enemy to pretend to have thwarted—had he not met Jonty when he did? How would that formidable intellect have found a non-mathematical outlet had he not been drawn into the sphere of investigations? How would those pent-up emotions have manifested themselves if they hadn’t been channelled into their romance? What a waste it would have been on both counts.
Orlando, waxing to his theme, carried on. “He uses the character to pretend he’s in danger and as a result be fussed over by Watson. He also uses Moriarty as an excuse to disappear when he feels like it.”
“Leaving Watson bereft.” Despite the fact they were discussing fictional people, Jonty couldn’t help but be impressed by the theory.
“Pretend Watson feeling pretend bereft. More grist to the Sherlock Oh look how everyone loves and admires me mill.” Orlando snorted, then took a fortifying sip of wine.
“To his credit, Holmes didn’t leave Watson—if he existed—carrying the can like Raffles did to Bunny. If ever a man needed a punch right on the end of his beak, it was him.” If Orlando had made a thorough consideration on Holmes’s behaviour, Jonty had done the same for the cricketer-cum-thief.
“I don’t think I’ve ever read any stories about Raffles.”
“Don’t bother. They’d annoy you. A man playing cricket for England and still having the nerve to commit robbery.” Jonty sniggered. “If he’d been real, Papa would have horsewhipped him.”
“Scandalous.”
Scandalous indeed, and not just for the unpunished thefts. Jonty was certain the stories held a lot of hidden meaning—perhaps even hidden from the author himself. There was little doubt that Bunny was in love with Raffles and that the cricketer himself had led Bunny on romantically. There’d been one or two lines in the early tales which had caused Jonty to raise an eyebrow and wonder what exactly was happening off the page. Orlando might have enjoyed that cryptic aspect of the tales, although the despicable way in which Raffles used Bunny and in which the latter let himself be used would have driven Orlando to despair. Better to leave the books hidden away at the back of the bookcase and leave Orlando in blissful ignorance.
The arrival of an enticingly aromatic clear soup occupied them for a few minutes. Jonty hadn’t realised quite how hungry he’d got—perhaps he should have succumbed to sampling Mrs. Evans’s baking.
When the last soupcon of the delicious concoction had been sent to its proper alimentary home, Orlando asked, “How upset would Denison have been at losing what he loved, by which I mean his prowess with the violin? I’d be mortified were I in his shoes but the impression I get is that he didn’t really bat an eyelid.”
“Perhaps he found succour—romantic or merely maternal—in the substantial arms of his housekeeper. She thought the world of him, didn’t she?”
“So it appears. That handkerchief got too much of an airing for my liking. As though it were a stage prop. I’m not convinced she hadn’t already considered whether he’d taken his own life.”
“Yes. I rather wondered if she was hoping that we’d be the ones to reach the suicide conclusion, to save her casting aspersions on the dead man.”
“It would be hard to prove at an inquest, if the doctor is both as adamant and as incompetent as they make out.” Orlando scanned the room, eyes probably unseeing and brain clearly working ten to the dozen. “Why persist with employing him if he was so useless?”
“An old friend, maybe? Someone to whom Denison had an obligation? Or, if he was contemplating taking his own life, perhaps it was useful to have a man who was likely to misdiagnose. Avoid the scandal. I guess it’s too late and too much bother now for them to disinter Denison and rebury the body outside consecrated ground.”
Orlando rolled his eyes. “You do think morbidly at times. If that’s true, while they’ve saved one scandal, folk like Lewis-Duckworth are thinking something infinitely worse. There’s more than one thing that doesn’t add up here. That fire in Gabriel, for example. I struggle to believe it was set deliberately, so could it have been merely coincidental?”
“I can’t help agreeing. It would surely risk bringing attention to the violin-thief-in-reverse, rather than deflecting it. How was he not seen or heard?”
“Heard isn’t the issue. Remember when we still lived in college and one evening we were evacuated because of a gas leak? You couldn’t hear yourself think with the hubbub of dunderheads getting overexcited.” Jonty topped up both their glasses.
“Could the wall climber have dressed all in black, with a mask or balaclava cap to cover their face?”
“They could, but they’d have had to be pretty careful moving across the court not to be spotted somehow. Unless, of course, they’d sneaked in earlier to do the deed?” Jonty almost spilled some wine in his excitement at this new theory. “For some reason they were prevented from putting the violin out so they went into hiding. I assume that Gabriel is as full of store cupboard and other nooks or crannies as St. Bride’s is. The evacuation allowed them to put the violin out to be found. Then they hid again and escaped later, when all the rumpus had died down.”
“Remember what Mrs. Evans told us about the missing violin: could Denison have actually lent it to Lewis-Duckworth and he put it in the court himself, making use of the fortuitously timed fire alarm. Afterwards he would make it appear to have come from an anonymous donor?”
“Because he knew that it’s worth a fortune? Or maybe even because he wanted the instrument for his own. You saw how lovingly he handled it. Almost as lovingly as I handle you,” Jonty added in a very low voice, assured that
nobody was seated close enough to hear him.
“Behave. What about the marks on the wall and the evidence of rope?”
“Coincidence of timing. Surely they’re much more likely to be the result of a student dare than an attempt to smuggle in a violin. As you said earlier, lots of things don’t add up. Still,” Jonty raised his glass, “we’ve had cases before where nothing adds up but we’ve been able to make a decent sum of it in the end. And write QED at the bottom.”
Orlando, clearly not impressed with the analogy, almost snorted his wine out of his nose. Luckily the arrival of some trout meant Jonty wouldn’t for the moment be upbraided for getting his metaphors wrong. An apt time to change the subject to something which would turn out to be more profitable. Always good to get one up on your lover.
“To espionage or not to espionage?” Jonty said, twirling his fork insouciantly. “This fish is beautifully cooked, by the way.”
“Agreed to the latter and we have insufficient evidence to tell for the former.” Orlando scooped up some mashed potato. “This is good, too.”
“Mrs. Evans thinks a history of spying is unlikely.”
“True, but he might have hidden his career for Miss Evan’s own protection. If she’d known, that might have made her vulnerable. To questioning, perhaps even to physical danger.”
“An excellent point, but—alas—one that is now null and void.” Jonty couldn’t hide a grin, even behind a forkful of potato and peas.
“What is it? You look like a cat who’s found a secret way into the dairy.”
“Very picturesque comparison. We’ll make a sonnet writer of you yet. I feel like I’ve found a whole stash of cream. Double and perfectly whipped.” Jonty reached into his dinner jacket pocket, to produce a letter, which he laid on the table. “I’ve had this letter from Dr. Panesar. He sent it yesterday, from London, to await us here.”
“Oh, so that’s what you picked up earlier? I thought it was an official warning from the university board here not to take any goats into any colleges.”
Jonty leaned forward and whispered, “Were we at home I’d take you over my knee and give you such a slap. I’ve a good mind not to tell you what this letter contains until tomorrow.”
“I apologise,” Orlando said, with no hint of sincerity.
“I accept. And you’ll appreciate this.” Jonty patted the letter. “On the surface of it he enquires how our holiday is going and clarifies the arrangements for what he’ll be doing this summer. I thought the chap might be going off his rocker as it didn’t make a lot of sense, then I wondered if he was being ultra-cunning. If it was a cipher.”
“A cipher?” If Orlando had been a racehorse his ears would have visibly pricked at the sight of the winning post. “Would you like me to decrypt it for you?”
“No need. I’ve done it all myself. While you were in the tub.”
“Oh. Well done.” Orlando visibly bit back on his disappointment. He loved to crack a code, especially one that was germane to a case. Of course, that had made Jonty’s deciphering of it twice as sweet. “Was it an easy one?”
“Easy?” Jonty slammed his hand on the table. “I’ll have you know it was based on looking at the letter following a certain type of word. Simple enough to make sense of if you understand the principle but otherwise perplexing. And being hidden within an ostensibly innocuous missive, rather than being a jumble of letters, it didn’t scream ‘I’m a code. I dare you to work me out.”
“Then double well done.” Disappointment gave way to admiration. “May I see it?”
“Of course.” Jonty passed the letter across the table. “I’ll see what you make of it before I tell you what it says.”
Orlando scanned the page, then held it to the light, probably to see if there was some sort of mark on the paper to indicate the important words and letters, then scanned it again. “I’m impressed. No obvious indication as to the key words. Ones with three letters? Letters consecutive in the alphabet? How long did it take you to fathom it out?”
“All of a minute.” Jonty’s whole attitude must have suggested mischief was afoot. Orlando should really have spotted that already but he’d been so taken up with the coded missive he’d ignored the other signs.
He laid the letter down, frowning. “Out with it, you’re up to something.”
Jonty held up his hand, then bowed his head. “I can no longer lie. You’ll remember our conversation ‘twixt St. Bride’s and home, in which I wondered if Dr. P might be involved in espionage? I followed it up.”
“You asked him directly if he was a spy?”
“Of course I didn’t. I refer you to that same conversation and how we decided it was pointless trying to get an honest answer from anyone to that question. I merely suggested that if Dr. Panesar—in theory—had anything he wanted to impart to us regarding the case, from any delicate source, then he might be as well to employ some method that couldn’t be intercepted and read by anybody he didn’t want to read it. Given that these could well be murky waters into which we dip our toes.” Jonty had been proud of the way he’d phrased the suggestion and delighted with Panesar’s equally diplomatic response.
“What did he say to that?” Orlando asked, great minds thinking alike.
“One of his conspiratorial smiles, for a start.” Jonty produced one of his own. “He said that if that theoretical state of affairs were to apply, then he would probably send me a piece of correspondence which would contain several adjectives and that the first letters of the words immediately following those adjectives would spell out whatever message he wanted to pass on.”
“You rotter.” Orlando thrust out his lip like a petulant child. “I thought you’d worked that out all by yourself.”
“That’s what you were supposed to think. I enjoyed my little moment of triumph. Anyway, knowing the key in advance, all I had to do was read the thing and make some notes.”
Orlando had already started to scan the letter while Jonty spoke, picking out the relevant parts. “No evidence that Denison was a spy. Hmm. Is that definitive?”
Jonty shrugged. “Who knows? We can’t ask Dr. P to reveal his sources, but he’s not the sort of man either to lie or to make such a categorical statement without a firm basis in important business such as this. And don’t contend that if he himself is involved in espionage then he’ll be used to lying, because my poor noddle couldn’t cope with all the complications. We’ll take it for what it is and put the spying angle into abeyance I think.”
“But why did Denison tell Lewis-Duckworth that he’d taken an active role?”
“Because, as the warden himself averred, the man liked to tell tales. Perhaps he wanted to impress his new friend and saw that as an excellent stratagem, seeing that—as we’ve said time and again—it would be impossible to prove or disprove and we know he could have researched the matter. Who do we trust in this? A victim we didn’t know or Dr. Panesar who we know like the back of our hands?”
Orlando raised his hand. “Accepted. This also adds weight to Mrs. Evans’s statement.”
“And detracts from Professor Lewis-Duckworth’s one.” Jonty picked his words carefully, unwilling to insult the head of Orlando’s old college, but knowing he’d have to get there eventually. “She reminded me of Mama, who’s as honest and forthright as the day is long, and not always diplomatic, to boot.” He’d need to deploy some diplomacy skills now. “We do need to consider two possibilities. That the warden deliberately lied to us about the spying stories or was easily duped. Which of those two horses would you have your money on?”
Orlando, who’d famously won a pot of money when he’d been the Stewarts’ guest at the Derby, assumed the expression he used while assessing the runners in the paddock. Thank goodness he didn’t appear to have been offended by the question. “The second. The other must be a long shot, given that he called us in, and he was the person to tell us the spying story in the first place. Why bother if he knew it wasn’t true?”
“Why bother to c
all us in if he knew he’d planted the violin?” Which brought them full circle.
The waiter came to clear their plates, while the sommelier topped up their glasses and enquired if they’d like anything else. The offer was declined, Jonty feeling that his wits were befuddled enough and now feeling desperately tired. So tired that he felt he could only manage a little fresh fruit for dessert.
He soon bucked up when Orlando suddenly confessed, “I’ve a couple of ideas swirling around in my brain. Shall we leave discussing them until tomorrow?”
“No. Strike while the iron’s hot and all that. They might keep me awake.”
“For a start, could Denison have been mentally ill? Imagining he was being followed, inventing a colourful past and believing it, telling the warden one set of things—about both spying and his ability to play—while presenting another face to his housekeeper?”
Jonty picked up his glass, appreciating the changing colours as he swirled the last of the wine. “That’s an interesting point. Perhaps he even subconsciously exaggerated the extent of his arthritis or imagined it altogether which would explain why he could still play the violin in private. Although I’d hazard a guess that something really had happened to him. I spotted some photographs of Denison which appeared to have been taken in more recent days and couldn’t help thinking how old and tired he looked. I suppose we all have it coming to us—lines and wrinkles—but it wasn’t so much those as his face seeming to be etched with pain, too.”
“That can come from mental illness as much as from physical,” Orlando’s face, strained, revealed his thoughts, which surely would have centred on his father’s mental frailty and his own tendency to look on the bleak side of things.
Lessons in Playing a Murderous Tune: A Cambridge Fellows Mystery novella (Cambridge Fellows Mysteries) Page 6