‘That’s all very well, Monsignor,’ he said, ‘but I’d be more impressed if you’d cite some manuscript sources.’
‘Oh, quite. I can’t recall them all at this moment, Mr Shepherd, but I can have someone look them up for me, and send them on to you.’
At that moment, the entrée was brought in, and the subject of relics was temporarily forgotten. A great joint of roast beef was expertly sliced at the sideboard, and served to them with broccoli, cauliflower, roast potatoes, Yorkshire pudding, and thick gravy. Jardine listened to the cheerful gurgling as a glass of fine claret was poured out to accompany this splendid main course. As they all did justice to the beef in silence, the waiters brought them plates of freshly baked bread.
Count Raphael Savident, who had rapidly made away with the contents of his piled plate, broke the silence. As he spoke, he seemed to accompany himself by waving his fork in the air. His face was red and sweating, from the exertion of making away with so much food in the least possible time. He was fond of food, but preferred conversation.
‘There are seven Greek manuscripts narrating Polycarp’s martyrdom,’ he said, ‘but they all date from the tenth to the thirteenth century. And there’s the Moscow Codex, you know, but I have my doubts about that. I’ve examined it myself, and I’m not persuaded that it’s written in the particular form of Greek that one would expect.’
Jardine inclined his head to the Chaplain, and whispered, ‘You’re going to lose this one, old chap. I have a strong feeling that the Monsignor and that cad Savident are working in collusion. Like card sharps, you know, on an ocean liner.’
Shepherd made no reply. Evidently he was thinking of his next move. The waiters circled round the table, replenishing the claret glasses, as there was a great deal left over, and neither waiter cared for claret.
Really, thought Jardine, this was proving to be a splendid dinner. There seemed no end to it, and he personally had no desire to see it end. He could hear Savident’s affected bleat talking about Eusebius, and of a single Latin text concerning Polycarp dating from the tenth century. God, what a rotten show-off he was!
Paul Shepherd attempted a rally, watching anxiously as a waiter topped up his glass. What had they been talking about? Oh, yes. Relics.
‘I take your point about Polycarp, Monsignor,’ he said, ‘but you’ll have to admit that there’s nothing in the Bible condoning the veneration of relics. As far as I am aware, the Bible is silent on the matter, except for the great prohibition in Exodus 20, and verse 4: “Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image.”’
‘One up for you, Paul, I think,’ said Jardine to himself. He looked at the impassive waiters, who had suddenly decided to remove all the wine glasses – did they think they’d had enough? – and thought: How can these good men keep a straight face while all this obscure point-scoring is going on? Perhaps they really were trained not to hear anything that guests said.
He closed his eyes, and for a moment he saw Rachel standing near the window, her hand on one of the velvet curtains, as though appraising it. He opened his eyes, and still saw her. She was looking in his direction, but not at him. He began to tremble with fear. Why could he, a careful scholar, see these terrible things?
From the end of the table he could hear Monsignor Lucie talking about Elisha’s bones bringing a dead man to life. 2 Kings 13, he said, and some numbers for verses. Rachel turned away from the window, and her phantom gradually faded.
‘And then, of course,’ Monsignor Lucie continued, ‘we’re told in Acts 19 that handkerchiefs that had touched St Paul’s body – he was alive, of course, not like poor Polycarp… What was I saying? Why have they cleared the table? Oh, yes, St Paul. When these kerchiefs were applied to the bodies of sick people, they revived. So in both the Old and New Testaments you’ve got reference to relics performing miracles, or rather God performing them through the medium of relics.’
The waiters returned, bearing orange water ices. They came as a cooling relief from the main course. They were served with a small glass of champagne.
‘You know, Provost,’ said Monsignor Lucie, with a gentle smile, ‘we would be enormously thankful if you could see your way to letting us have the relics of St Thomas. If would be such a generous thing to do. Cardinal Vaughan told me that you are known for your magnanimity. I’ll say no more about it, but yes, we would be enormously grateful. So would Pope Leo.’
The waiters now returned to the fray. They brought in large silver bowls of fresh fruit, and several decanters of port, together with new glasses. As they left, another waiter came in with several bottles of brandy on a silver tray, a set of the hotel’s inviting bulbous brandy glasses, and a box of Cuban cigars. Anthony Jardine relaxed in his chair. Once the spirits of the dead left him, he always rallied very quickly.
This dinner was becoming quite splendid. Really, Lucie was a man after his own heart. Savident began to talk of dulia and hyperdulia, but no one was listening.
Freddy Stringer had said nothing all evening. Ecclesiastical chit-chat was not his forte. Now he turned his glazed eyes to Paul Shepherd, and said thickly, ‘For God’s sake, Paul, let him have the damned bones. He’s earned them tonight.’
Cigar cutters were passed round, and soon the hot room reeked with the fragrant smoke of Hoyos de Monterray. Thank goodness there’s nothing more to eat, thought Jardine. Would he be able to stand up when this magnificent repast was over?
The doors were flung open, and the waiters brought in a massive cheese board, with a new decanter of port, and glasses of water, each with a slice of lemon. Jardine watched Lucie and Savident, who used this water to wash their fingers, and did likewise.
They rose from the table at just after ten. Jardine heard Provost Chalmers ask Lucie where he was staying for the night. The Monsignor had sensibly booked a room in the Randolph, and would leave for London early the next morning. Chalmers’ own carriage was waiting to collect him, and he invited Stringer and Shepherd to join him, as they both lived in college. The bracing night air was welcome after the alcoholic haze of the hot dining room, and Jardine was about to cross Magdalen Street to the cab rank when Count Savident pulled him by the sleeve.
‘My house is just round the corner, in Beaumont Street,’ he said, ‘come in for half an hour, and take a glass of seltzer with me. It’ll banish the noxious fumes of all that alcohol.’
Jardine could hardly refuse. The others had clambered into the Provost’s carriage without so much as a ‘good night’. The two men walked down Beaumont Street. It had started to rain, but neither of them noticed. Jardine glanced at his companion. His monocle was still screwed into his eye, and he was wearing a black cloak lined with red silk. His top hat was rather taller than English fashion dictated. But hang it all, the fellow was going to help sober them both up. It was a kindly thought on his part.
They reached a house some way down the left-hand side of the street, and Savident used a latch key to open the door. They crossed the threshold, and entered a foreign land.
The narrow hall was lit by gas, but the mantles boasted dark red glass shades, which dimly illuminated a vast Chinese dragon tapestry hanging down the entire wall beside the staircase. The air was perfumed by a thin cloud of smoke rising from an incense burner hanging from the ceiling. It was a sickly, cloying scent, not at all to an Englishman’s liking.
A door somewhere beyond them in the gloom opened, and a small, Eurasian man clad in the livery of a footman, appeared, and bowed. Savident spoke to him in a language that Jardine failed to recognize. The small man flung open a door to their right, and they entered the main sitting-room of the house.
In contrast to the gloomy hall, this room was adequately lit by a great chandelier hanging from the ceiling. It carried a full complement of tall, slender tallow candles. A fire burnt in a massive rococo grate, far too large for the wall containing it. The mantelpiece contained a series of
ancient icons set in gold frames, and beside them stood what Jardine recognized as a reliquary, which appeared to house an indeterminate fragment of bone. Bones again.
Surrounding the fireplace were three divans, over which luxurious shawls had been thrown with artful carelessness. There were two tall baroque cabinets containing all kinds of curios, and bookshelves overflowing with ancient volumes. To one side of the fireplace stood a tall Turkish hookah.
‘Sit down, Jardine,’ said Count Savident, ‘put your coat and hat on that chair, and choose one of these divans. All three were a gift from the Sultan of Turkey.’ His host all but collapsed in one of the other divans, and his monocle dropped from his eye, and hung down by its ribbon over his frilly shirt front.
God, thought Anthony Jardine, what a poseur! How could he live with all this foreign junk? But then, this probably wasn’t his only house. Maybe he had a more conventional house somewhere in London.
The door opened, and the Eurasian servant came in with a tray containing two glasses of a foaming liquid. Jardine waited until his host had downed his drink before doing the same. Within less than a minute he felt decidedly sober, and was able to look at his surroundings with greater interest.
The walls were hung with ancient Italian primitives, while here and there he caught sight of pale plaster death-masks fixed above them. In a dim alcove near the window he saw a tall, glazed case containing the upright body of a mummified man.
He was recalled from contemplation of his surroundings by the high, affected voice of his host, who sprawled rather than sat on his divan.
‘Our host excelled himself tonight,’ he said, ‘and I think that his culinary bribe was quietly accepted by your good Provost. The way to a man’s integrity is through his stomach. Or sometimes through his purse. Don’t you agree? Vaughan will get his precious bones.’
‘I wouldn’t be surprised,’ Jardine replied. ‘It was a grand discovery, and your exposition of the whole matter was astoundingly interesting, but it’s all lost its charm, now, Savident. It’s dwindled down to two parcels of bones locked up in one of Stringer’s laboratory cupboards.’
While he was speaking, his eye had caught an elaborate clock standing on a pedestal. It had a conventional white enamel dial, with the usual holes to take a winding-key, but the number 12 was where one would expect to find the number 6. God, what a rotter this fellow was!
‘I see you’re looking at that clock,’ said Savident. ‘It’s Turkish. The numbers run counter to our system. Oh, and when the fingers reach the figure one, it strikes thirteen.’
‘I suppose the Sultan threw that in as a job lot with the divans,’ said Jardine, and Savident laughed, a thin high snicker that was rather chilling, though his host seemed genuinely amused.
‘You know, Savident,’ said Jardine, ‘I’m not well up in all these Papal ranks and titles. What exactly is a monsignor?’
‘It’s a sort of honorific, awarded to members of the clergy for services rendered. Lucie’s title goes with his having been appointed an Assistant to the Papal Throne. It’s all tremendous fun. I myself am a Papal Count, a title conferred on me for certain services performed for the Holy See.’
‘But you are an Englishman?’
The Count treated Jardine to an amused smile.
‘Indeed I am, Mr Jardine. An Englishman through and through! It’s time to send my servant for a cab.’ He rang a bell, and presently the footman appeared. Savident spoke to him in his own language, and the man bowed and left the room.
Count Savident sat back in his divan and Jardine saw that he was looking at him appraisingly. From time to time his face was enlivened by spasms of what seemed to be compassion, but at other times suppressed mirth.
‘And you are the unfortunate Mr Anthony Jardine,’ he said at last. ‘Not the scholar whom I met at St Gabriel’s College, but the man who was plunged into grief, and wrongly suspected of murder. Allow me to say that such an accusation was an appalling slander.’
If he offers me his condolences for Dora’s death, thought Anthony, I’ll knock him down. Still, it would be best to say nothing, and wait for the cab to arrive. And his seltzer had worked wonders.
The next few minutes passed in silence. Jardine’s eyes wandered to the alcove beside the window.
‘That mummy in the ancient coffin—’ he ventured.
‘He’s a fourth-century Coptic monk,’ said Savident. ‘No, he wasn’t a present from the Sultan. I bought him at Sotheby’s last year. There was a Coptic patriarch, too, but I was outbid on him. He would have balanced the monk in that alcove on the other side, where the Venetian automaton is standing. But there, we can’t have everything in this life. Ah! I hear your cab. It’s been an interesting evening, Mr Jardine. I’m sure we’ll meet again.’
*
As Jardine sat back in the cab, he was assailed by one of his migraine headaches. The relentless throbbing seemed to be synchronized with the steady clatter of the horse’s hooves. Bright lights flashed on the periphery of his vision. He glanced out of the window, and saw the buildings on the left of St Giles outlined with orange light.
Had Savident poisoned him? Nonsense. These attacks were part of a cursed metaphysical ailment that no one could diagnose. But then, he’d not bothered to consult Dr Maitland, the physician who had failed to notice that Dora was a morphine addict. A tramcar came rumbling along the track on its way to town, and Anthony thought he saw Dora looking out from one of the windows. The cursed malady again.
The headache had cleared somewhat when they reached Culpeper Gardens, and he was able to give the cabbie his fare without dropping any coins in the road. He felt utterly exhausted, but knew that most of his tiredness was due to the gargantuan dinner that Monsignor Lucie had used as a bribe for Teddy Chalmers.
The gas was turned low in the hall. Anthony lit a chamber candle, turned off the gas, and climbed the stairs. Once in his room, he mixed himself a glass of Bishop’s Effervescing Citrate of Caffeine, tossed it off, and fell fully clothed on to his bed, where he slept soundly until Mrs Green rang the rising-bell at seven o’clock.
13
Consultations in Ditch Lane
‘Well, Stringer,’ said Provost Chalmers, ‘I could sit here in my study all day as part of my convalescence. It was a miracle that I made it thus far from my bedroom. Another course, another glass of wine last night, and you would have been advertising for a new Provost this week.’
‘What are you going to do, Provost?’ Stringer asked. ‘I wish Becket’s bones had never been discovered, then they would be lying in a sort of hallowed dignity down there in the secret vault below Staircase XII. Now, they’re stuffed into a cupboard in my laboratory, with a collection of pipettes and burettes. I’m not susceptible to atmosphere, Provost, but I feel very uneasy with Becket being there. It’s not right.’
‘No, it’s not, and after last night’s magnificent bribe, I intend to yield to the Cardinal’s blandishments. I want the whole thing gone and forgotten. I’ll see Bates in the works yard this morning, and ask him to knock together some kind of decent crate to house the bones. Let’s get the whole thing out of the way before term ends on Saturday. The crate can be sent on the railway this coming Friday. Meanwhile, I’ll alert Cardinal Vaughan to expect the relics to be delivered to him at Archbishop’s House.’
‘What about the Archbishop of Canterbury? Won’t he be peeved?’
‘He needn’t know anything about it. As I predicted, the Bishop of Oxford never contacted me, not being accustomed to run errands. Dr Benson, I hope, will take no further interest in the matter.’
As the Provost was speaking, an impish idea was taking shape in the young science don’s head, a sure way of keeping Benson quiet. Would his friend Carter play along with him? He’d go out to see him tomorrow at the Pitt-Rivers Museum, and find out whether he’d play ball… What was the Provost saying?
*
Harry Napier passed under the arched gateway of St Aloysius’ Church, and emerged into St Giles’. It was Tuesday, 3 December, the feast of St Francis Xavier, and the Jesuits had managed to celebrate the Low Mass with a certain extra panache. They were good at that kind of thing.
On the previous afternoon, Lewis, the young college workman who had fallen to his knees when Jardine had pronounced the bones as truly those of St Thomas à Becket, had knocked on Harry Napier’s door. ‘Sir,’ he’d said, when Harry opened to him, ‘the Provost’s been to talk to Bates and me in the works yard. I think you should hear what he said to us.’ He had listened, and the two young men had agreed to meet the next day at the seven o’clock Mass.
Lewis was dressed in his working clothes, as he was due to report to Bates in the college works yard at half past eight.
‘Lewis,’ said Harry Napier, ‘did you manage to have a word with your brother? About the luggage van, you know.’
‘Yes, sir, I did. He’s no objection, seeing as you’re one of our gentlemen, and that I vouched for you. I had to say that. I hope you don’t think I was being impertinent, but Joel’s a nervous kind of man, sir.’
‘And it’ll be the luggage van on the 11.35 from the GWR station on Friday, the sixth, the day before term ends—’
‘It will, Mr Napier, just as you arranged. My brother will let you into the van. And it’s agreed that you’ll leave the train at Reading.’ The young workman permitted himself a fleeting smile. He was the same age as Napier and his friends, and shared with them a certain liking for harmless pranks. But he knew that this particular adventure was rather more than that.
An Oxford Scandal Page 17