“Oh, nothing like that, sir!” The porter hastened to reassure him. “I think Sir Geoffrey’ll be looking at the East Window—I think he’s a bit worried about it-if you go to the far corner of the quadrangle,sir, through the archway, and you can’t miss the Chapel on your left.”
Butler nodded and set out, carefully skirting the well-disciplined square of grass. This, too, was how he had imagined Oxford: this positively medieval calm. It was as though it had all been laid on for him, and because of that he ought doubly to beware of it.
He passed under the archway, one side of which was given over to Rolls of Honour of the two world wars—the first name was a Royal West Kents subaltern but the second, impossibly, was a lieutenant of Brandenburg Grenadiers. He shook his head too late to expel the thought that a Zoshchenko might not be out of place now in a foundation which had been home to a Von Alvenslaben in 1913.
The Porter’s direction had been an understatement: it was quite impossible to miss the Chapel, which had clearly been built in the days when the health of the students’ souls was of more consequence than the comfort of their bodies. Even to Butler’s uninformed eye its proportions were noble, tower and spire, choir and transepts, stonework flowering into intricate images and patterns as though it had still been soft and malleable when the craftsmen set their hands to it.
The interior was surprisingly bare at first sight and Butler resolutely blinkered his eyes against any second look : he had not come thus far to be seduced by the architectural glories of Oxford in general and any college chapel in particular—he had come to see a live Englishman about a dead Russian, no more and no less.
And the live Englishman was standing directly ahead of him, arms folded, gazing fixedly upwards and ahead, presumably at that east window.
“Sir Geoffrey Hobson?”
Tall, grey, slightly stooping. Tired, washed-out, droop-lidded eyes. And the suggestion of a once formidable physique which had not run to seed but had simply been overtaken by the passage of time.
“My name is Butler, Sir Geoffrey.”
“Ah, Colonel Butler! Delighted to meet you.”
The voice too was a disappointment, high-pitched, almost querulous. But this was the voice nevertheless which had given the orders for the attack on Tilly-le-Bocage, which the official war history had called “a classic lesson in the employment of Sherman tanks against Tigers”.
“I regret having to disturb you like this, but I’m afraid my business is somewhat urgent.”
“Not at all, Colonel Butler. I have been expecting you, but I had no idea of your exact time of arrival so I took the opportunity of having another look at our east window. I fear its violent history is catching up with it at last, but after over three centuries I suppose we mustn’t grumble.”
In spite of his resolve Butler could not resist staring down the choir at the mysterious window. But like its Master’s voice it was a disappointment, with plain glass filling the elaborate stone framework.
“It wasn’t always like that, Colonel,” said the Master, sensing his disappointment. “In its day it was one of the glories and curiosities of Oxford—it purported to illustrate the Lord God welcoming St Edward the Confessor into Heaven, but the artist was said by some people to have deliberately confused the Confessor with King Edward the Martyr, who was assassinated a century before. Not that our Royal Founder minded, of course—he always intended that it should be generally associated with his own great-grandfather, Edward II, who was in his view more of a saint and martyr than either of the other Edwards.”
“What—ah—happened to the stained glass then?” asked Butler, resigning himself to an inevitable period of small talk.
“Ah, Colonel, that was what you might call a war casualty. We’ve had our troubles here in Oxford, you know, down the centuries, and some of them make today’s problems seem trivial.”
“You see, back in the 17th century we expelled from the college a certain young man named Bradshaw—Deuteronomy Bradshaw—for his repulsive Puritan practices. But instead of emigrating to North America,as most of the drop-outs did in those days, he turned up again at the end of the Civil War with a company of soldiers at his back. Captain Bradshaw he was by then, and he used our East Window for target practice —Musket in hand I rattled down Popish Edward’s glassy bonesis how he recalled the deed in his diary.”
“Unfortunately his men seem to have hit the stonework as often as the glass, and I fear it will cost us a lot of money now!” He smiled ruefully at Butler. “I’m afraid we nursed a viper in our bosom in Deuteronomy Bradshaw.”
“And in Neil Smith.”
The Master stared at Butler in silence.
“That may be,” he said softly at length. “Yes, Colonel Butler, that may be.” He paused again. “Except that Smith was no more Smith than Butler, I take it, is Butler?”
Butler reached inside his pocket for his identification folder. “I am Colonel Butler, Master—“ he passed the folder across “—though perhaps not the Butler you expected. Let’s say that I’m a friend of a friend of Dr Freisler’s. But if people think I’m an expert in Byzantine military history, then so much the better.”
“I see,” the Master murmured. “Or I see a little, anyway. And I must say that I’m relieved—for more than one reason, too … “
“More than one?”
“I’m heartily relieved that you aren’t the other colonel, Butler. I took the precaution of obtaining one of his—er— treatises from Blackwell’s this morning, and I found it quite excruciatingly pedestrian. But chiefly I’m glad that Freisler has acted promptly on my information … which I presume the authorities are taking really seriously now.”
“We took it seriously from the start, Master. But I’d like to hear just what aroused your suspicions in the first place— absolutely off the record, of course.”
“You mean what I told Freisler at Rhodes House last year? I’ve no objection to repeating that, Butler—off the record, as you say. But let us get out of this infernal draught first—go and sit in the back of the choir stalls over there. I’ll just go and lock the door to make sure we aren’t disturbed!”
Butler made his way into the body of the chapel. It was obvious where the Master intended them to sit—the back stalls were sumptiously furnished with velvet cushions and padding, enough to make the dullest sermon bearable, as well as being tucked away from prying eyes. Except that with the doors locked there could be no eyes to pry: despite the false Butler cover the Master was taking no chances that anyone should see them talking together. It might even be that he was not quite so taken by surprise by his visitor’s identity as he had indicated—that he had deliberately chosen this place for their meeting and that the tale of Deuteronomy Bradshaw was no more than a cue which he had obediently taken.
He leaned back on the soft velvet and fixed his gaze on the intricate fan vaulting of the ceiling far above him. Those terrible old men, that was how Audley had described this species, admiration balancing his fear. But Audley would have welcomed this confrontation because in a decade or so he too would be just such a terrible old man himself.
“That’s better!” The Master sank into the pew at right angles to where Butler was sitting. “Now we shall not be interrupted under any circumstances!”
He turned to Butler. “And now, Colonel Butler—you know we’ve had our little troubles here—students are news these days, and Oxford always has been news, more’s the pity. Not so much this year—I fancy it is a little out of fashion for the moment—but I expect you read about it last year, eh?”
Butler nodded. He had seen the stories of sit-ins and demonstrations, for the most part ineffably tedious, as Audley had observed—except the affair of the Springboks cricket tour, which had mightily angered him, and the disgraceful insults offered recently to the Portuguese military delegation. He raked in his memory—and there had been much trouble about secret files allegedly kept on students and available to would-be employers, which was in his view a perfect
ly reasonable precaution.
“There was some business about files, wasn’t there?”
“Files?” The Master smiled a thin smile. “A good case in point, Butler—a very good case! My anonymous friend Mercurius Oxoniensis dealt with that most admirably in one of his letters in the Spectator—it showed how appallingly naive the dissidents were. As if we had the time (never mind the inclination) to bother ourselves recording undergraduates’ petty misdemeanours! Anyone who knows Oxford would know that lack of files would be far more likely. But I’d like to come back to that later.”
“No, Butler. What alerted me was when one of my most promising students was arrested in London during the vacation—there was a demonstration against the odious Greek regime and he was taken in for assaulting a policeman.”
“Was he guilty?”
The Master held up his hand. “All in good time, Butler. He was arrested, and when they searched him they found a very considerable quantity of the drug LSD on him—far more than any one person could reasonably be expected to consume. So naturally the prosecution’s case was that he intended to distribute it, and he was lucky to escape with a large fine and a suspended sentence. The point is that he denied it.”
“Of course!”
“Pray don’t jump to conclusions. He denied assaulting the policeman—he said he was pushed—and he denied possessing the drug, which he claimed had been planted on him.”
“By the police?”
“That was what he thought, inevitably. I’m afraid the younger generation does not think our police are as wonderful as you and I do. Very few of them have had much experience with other police forces on which to build any sort of comparison. But I happened to know this young man very well— a brilliant boy. He would have gone a very long way.”
“Would have—but not with a drugs conviction?”
“I’m not sure that he wants to go far now. He is somewhat —disenchanted, shall we say? He disapproves of the system, and I can’t say that I blame him. Because in this instance I believe he spoke the truth.”
“Master, are you saying that the police framed this boy? Because if you are—“
But of course that was precisely what he wasn’t saying. He might have thought that at first, because for all his contempt for dissident undergraduates they were nonetheless part of his life and very much his responsibility. And a man like the Master of King’s would know just where to apply his influence to find out whether some bent policeman was framing one of them.
Besides, it was written in that heavy-lidded stare: not the police either, therefore—
“So somebody else planted the drugs on him,” said Butler, “and somebody else pushed him. You’re sure of that?”
“It was not the police, of that I’m confident. And it was not the boy himself—he’s idealistic and politically unsophisticated, but he’s not belligerent and he’s never been interested in drugs. And, Colonel—he’s not a fool.”
That was a point Butler could have argued. For though only an idiot would attend a demonstration with a pocketful of drugs, high common sense did not automatically accompany a high I.Q.
“I take your point, Master. But one swallow doesn’t make a summer. So there’s more, I presume.”
“There have been other incidents. Not always drug cases, but always nasty ones—the sort of thing that ruins a career and sours the victim. And always involving particularly able young men. I was talking to Dr Gracey, of Cumbria, just recently, and he told me he’d lost two very promising people last autumn.” He shook his head to himself at the enormity of it. “And there have been others. Too many for my liking. And too many for coincidence.”
Butler rubbed his chin doubtfully. This was substantially what Audley had said. But Audley had not radiated his usual confidence.
“Let me get this straight, Master,” he began slowly. “You believe the Russians are deliberately taking advantage of student unrest. But, you know, I find it very hard to believe they’d bother themselves with such a trivial enterprise. They’re very hard-headed as a rule.”
The Master regarded him in silence for a time.
“Hard-headed … Yes, I would be inclined to agree with you there, Colonel,” he said at length, with more than a touch of frost in his voice. “As it happens, I am not without experience of them myself. And I have never subscribed to the foolishly tolerant views of some of my colleagues. In fact, I fancy I understand the nature of the beast—the true nature of the beast—better than most people.”
The nature of the beast. Now Butler understood the origins of Audley’s uncertainty: an obsession was an unreliable starting point for any investigation.
“But first—“ the frosty voice cut into his doubts—“I would quarrel with your assumption of triviality.”
“I’m sorry. The word was ill-chosen.”
“But the word reflected the attitude nevertheless, Colonel Butler—what’s a dozen or two students between friends, eh?”
Butler shrugged.
“Then I differ from you, Butler. These were a dozen or two of tomorrow’s foremost men in their fields, in industry and government and politics. I’d be inclined to call that a fair return for very little outlay—much better return than some expensive spy ring set up to obtain a few petty secrets. And secrets are soon outdated; this would be in the nature of an investment, don’t you think?”
Or maybe a pilot project, thought Butler, impressed a little despite his misgivings. If such a thing could be done successfully in Britain, where conformity and a clean sheet was not yet an absolute key to high advancement, what might not be achieved in the far more vulnerable and sensitive upper levels of American society?
To pinpoint the best men—the coming men—and make sure they never arrived …
Sir Geoffrey was watching him narrowly now.
“Well, Colonel Butler?”
“Hmm!” Butler cleared his throat. “We’ll look into it, Master. But in the meantime—tell me about Zoshchenko.”
“Zoschenko?” The Master’s expression saddened. “Zoshchenko … I still find it hard to think of him as anyone other than Neil Smith. Indeed, if it was not my own testimony— if you were now telling me what I told Freisler—you might find me hard to convince.”
“You knew him well?”
“Well? Not well, perhaps, but I liked what I knew. He was a likeable fellow, good-humoured but mature in his way. He seemed older than his years—“
“He probably was older.”
“Yes … yes, I suppose he might have been. But he was still young—a jolly young man, if I may use a somewhat archaic word.”
“Convivial?”
“A drinker? No, hardly that. I rather think it was part of the joke that everyone called him ‘Boozy’ when his friends relied on him to drive them home.”
“He was popular, then?”
“He joined in the social life of the college certainly. Rowed bow in the second eight, and played a bit of rugger I believe. And he was president of the college’s de Vere Society, which prides itself on balancing culture with athletic pursuits.”
“And he was a scholar.”
“An exhibitioner. He had a good mind, but steady rather than brilliant—if he’d been less clever one might put him down as a plodder. But he was no plodder—plodders don’t often get first-class degrees, you know. But I rather think teaching was more in his line than research.”
“That was why I had no hesitation in recommending him to Gracey at Cumbria—Gracey is one of the few provincial vice-chancellors who are determined on quality rather than quantity in his student body, and I believed that Smith … that is, Zoschenko … was just the man for him.”
The Master sighed heavily, though whether at his own error or at Zoschenko’s betrayal of his confidence it was impossible to judge.
“And you never for one moment suspected that he might have any hand in the—ah—plot you suspected?”
Sir Geoffrey raised an eyebrow. “I never came upon him singing the
Red Flag if that’s what you mean,” he murmured drily.
“I mean—“ Butler began sharply and then blunted the anger in his voice as he saw the glint in the Master’s eye “—I mean did he take part in politics here?”
“His politics were to the left of centre. He wasn’t a communist—“ The Master stopped abruptly. “I should say he gave no indication that he was a communist. I would have described him as a liberal socialist, equally anti-communist and anti-fascist.”
Butler snorted. “Do you find that surprising?”
“Not in the least.” Sir Geoffrey regarded him equably now. “It’s fashionable to be a political animal up here. Not all the best of the young are left-wingers, but some of the cleverest certainly are. So he was neither extreme nor unusual.”
“It wasn’t as if he was going into the government service either. He had an academic career ahead of him and a moderate left-wing involvement wouldn’t have damaged his chances. More likely it would have made him a more useful senior member later on.”
Butler nodded. Deep down Sir Geoffrey still could not quite believe in Smith’s duplicity, or was unwilling to believe in it in spite of his own knowledge. But in fact Zoshchenko’s political cover had been simple commonsense.
“How did he come to you—to the college?”
“Through UCCA in the normal way. That is, through the University Central Council for Admissions. The only complication, as I remember, was that the last years of his secondary education had been in New Zealand. But that was no great problem really, his parents were dead, but they’d left him enough money to put himself through one of the cramming establishments over here. He had a letter from his headmaster in New Zealand and another from an Anglican bishop out there.”
“Forged, naturally. Or stolen.”
The Master shrugged. “He had enough ‘O’ levels, and when he’d taken our scholarship examination we jumped at him. He was a promising man, as I’ve said.”
It was too easy, all too easy: it was like taking candy from a baby. Audley had mentioned that UCCA was about to computerise itself, but as it was the checking was minimal. Up here the good brain validated the credentials: nobody really cared about a man’s origins, but only about his potential. After all, it was a university, not a top security establishment.
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