by Ruth Wade
Mike and Professor Daly stood on the steps and watched him march off across the quadrangle towards his own house.
“Not at all the academic type,” Daly quoted meditatively. “So you and I will not feel small with Leahy, Mike.”
“Oh, I don’t think he means it like that,” said Mike. “At least not for you.”
“He thinks I’m a funny old man, academically,” said Daly. “That does not please me. Still, I’m flattered at being asked for my help within my little limits.”
“I’m surprised at your being so bitter,” said Mike mildly.
“There’s something about him that arouses inimical feelings in everyone,” said Daly. “I wonder what it is. I suppose it’s his self-absorption, really. He can’t conceal his opinion that we are unimportant and naturally we don’t like that.”
“It depends on whether you are accustomed to thinking yourself important,” said Mike mischievously.
Before Daly could reply, Professor Badger came down the stairs and crossed the hall to join them.
“I don’t know why we put up with this coffee business,” he said at once. “It’s most frightful tyranny. No one enjoys it. Were a lot of sheep, really, to let him do it to us.”
“It’s down in the Charter,” said Daly. “Fellows taking such meals together, or something. You’ll admit it’s better than dining at a high table.”
“I should have to resign if we went back to that,” said Badger. “You’re going to Bradley’s dinner tomorrow night, I hear?”
“I was not invited,” said Daly, “but I gathered that I am expected. Mike, here, is coming, too. Special invitation in his case, to talk about the weather to Leahy.”
Badger shot an uninterested look at Mike and grunted. Then he said:
“Well, I have some work to do. See you later, Daly, when you’re free.”
With another quick hostile look at Mike he walked off.
“Really, Professor Daly! Your friends!” said Mike.
“Not my fault,” said Daly complacently. “I do what I can with them, but you can’t make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear.” He stepped out into the quadrangle. “Come for a walk down to the river. It’s bright enough, with that moon.”
They were silent as they passed through the quadrangle and until they came to a wide gravelled path that went downhill towards the river. The moonlight silvered the stones. It was very quiet. A little breeze blew the sound of the traffic away from them. The city might have been a hundred miles away, if the night sky had not been red with neon lights.
“Badger is not a bad fellow,” said Daly after a while. “He was one of my first students. The trouble with him is that English Literature turned and bit him. All those gloomy chaps that you and I would avoid, Badger laps up. He loves the Russians, and those modern fellows who are so preoccupied with sin. The result you see. The years like great black oxen tread the world, and poor old Badger is broken by their passing feet. At his back he always hears Time’s winged chariot hurrying near. Under the bludgeonings of chance his head is bludgy but unbowed. You know the kind of thing. Rather rough on the students, when they are just at the suicidal age anyway. I used to try to keep them cheerful. Badger prefers to mar the merriment as you and I fare on our long fool’s errand to the grave.”
“Is he capable of murder?” Mike asked.
“Always the little policeman,” said Daly. “It’s hard to say, I doubt if a man who talks about death as much as Badger does would be realistic enough to commit murder. Death is just a beautiful idea to him at the back of it all. Badger laid out, surrounded by lilies, Mrs. Badger and the little Badgers in floods of tears, sympathy on all sides, great man passes away. But no fun if he couldn’t open one eye and see it all for himself.”
“‘And I’ll hear ye all cry over me: Oh, why did you die?’” Mike quoted, having caught the habit from the old man. Daly chuckled and said:
“That’s it.”
Presently he asked:
“What did you think of them all? Do you think Bradley should take the threats in the anonymous letters seriously?”
“Everyone should take threats seriously,” said Mike. “He’ll have to show the letters, of course. It’s difficult to do anything without them, but if we once got our hands on them, it should not take long to find out who is writing them.”
“Is it so easy?”
“Quite easy, I assure you.”
“Then I’ll try again to persuade him to let me have them to-morrow,” said Daly. “But I doubt if I’ll have any success.”
They had reached the river now. The moon laid a path across it, as if they could have walked to the other side. They stood and watched the flickering water slide past. Then Mike said:
“One could not conclude anything from that gathering tonight. They are certainly under some strain, every one of them. But that could be because they don’t like the custom of having coffee together — ”
“It could be, indeed,” said Daly. “I always enjoyed it, but then I am more gregarious than most of them. The average professor likes to creep away to his burrow after a meal and contemplate the infinite. Still, I never remember that little ceremony being so painful.”
“You saw what happened when the President came in,” said Mike.
“Oh, he’s quite right to be frightened,” said Daly seriously. “I hardly believed him until they all went silent. Do you think I should advise him to go away?”
“That would be quite the best thing that he could do,” said Mike firmly. “He should hand over the letters to the Guards and give us a chance of getting to the bottom of it all. He would be much safer out of the way while the investigations are going on.”
“I doubt very much if he will agree to that,” said Daly. “He was very insistent that the Guards were not to be brought in. And I feel that I have treated you badly, too, Mike. I was so sure that you would dismiss the whole affair as academic oddity. Now I see that you could not possibly have done that.” He sighed deeply. “I’m getting old and tired. I find I can’t bear to feel that we can do nothing to save Bradley.”
As they turned to walk back to the College he leaned on Mike’s arm, as if he had suddenly become too weak to make the ascent alone.
It was not until they had reached the quadrangle that he broke the silence.
“I’ll have a talk with Badger about Bradley. He may be able to help. I can’t take him into my confidence, of course, but I’ll lead the conversation around until we get talking about Bradley. Badger has a very penetrating mind.”
“I hope he hasn’t penetrated my thin disguise,” said Mike.
They arranged to meet the next evening and go to Bradley’s dinner-party together. Then Professor Daly waved to Mike and bounded up the front steps two at time. Mike grinned to himself in the darkness at the difference between the vigorous reality and Daly’s picture of himself as a tired old man. The promise of a glorious gossip with Badger had put an anticipatory light in his eye which he could not conceal.
Mike’s professional interest was thoroughly aroused now. He would have given a great deal to have been allowed to listen to that conversation. He consoled himself with the assurance that he would hear it all from Professor Daly in due course.
On the next evening Mike reached the College at half-past six. Lewis brought him upstairs to Daly’s rooms. The old man looked up from his papers and began to gather them together as he said:
“Good evening, Mike. Bradley spotted you last night.”
Mike had just shut the door. He leaned against it suddenly and looked at Daly in horror.
“That’s right,” said the old man, apparently unperturbed. “He’s a sharp fellow, as I told you. He remembered seeing a photograph of you in the papers, and he knew I had some friends among the Guards. Don’t take it so hard.”
Mike tried to sound casual as he asked:
“What was his reaction?”
“He was rather pleased, you know. I certainly felt a fool when he told me, and I
think he liked that, too. He would never have called in the Guards himself, but I think he feels much safer now that they are taking an interest in him.”
“I certainly can’t have dinner with him to-night,” Mike began, but Daly interrupted:
“Of course you must. He said so particularly. He said he had spotted you before he asked you to come, and he asked me to tell you so. I think it was rather nice of him to have told me before the dinner party. I should have felt much worse if he had waited until afterwards.”
“Well, then, is he prepared to talk to me about the threats to his life?”
“No. You can only communicate with him through me. He says policemen make him uneasy.”
“And can I see the anonymous letters?”
“Out of the question. He still says he burned them. Later on, if he gets more frightened, he may show them. But not now.”
Feeling very much relieved that there was still almost half an hour to go before he must meet Bradley, Mike sat down and tried to put his confused thoughts in order. If he had not been dealing with a university president, he would have sworn that Bradley had a murk in his past. Else why should policemen make him uneasy? Law-abiding people rather like policemen as they would like and admire a good dog. Mike guessed from his experience, as Professor Daly had done, that the accusations in the letters could contain at least some proportion of truth. He could imagine many ways in which Bradley could have faltered from the path of virtue. That face with its hooded eyes was the face of a highwayman.
“At first I was quite put out,” Daly was saying, “but then I began to see that this clears the air. It means you can come to the College again — ”
“But what is the use of that if Bradley won’t talk to me?” Mike asked angrily. “What am I supposed to do?”
“You are to observe the staff and students and see if any of them look like murder.”
“The staff all looked like murder last night,” said Mike. “Bradley saw that for himself. And you know
I’m not a freelance detective. I doubt if any such thing exists in Ireland, since we are so grossly under-produced in the matter of crime. I’ll have to put myself right with my bosses. I’m going to look very silly, if I don’t watch out.”
“I should say you have done nothing to be ashamed of so far,” said Daly judicially. “If you were patrolling your beat in the city — ”
“I don’t patrol a beat,” said Mike indignantly.
“All the better, for my parallel,” said Daly complacently. “If you were proceeding home after your day’s work and saw someone acting suspicious-like, you would stalk, discover and apprehend him to the best of your ability. Even a private citizen would be expected to do that. How much more so a guardian of the law, whose conscience never sleeps? In this College you have been persuaded that something queer is happening. The Guards have not been called in, there is no tangible reason why you should stand at the front gate and blow your little whistle. But you feel that it would be well to keep an eye on the situation from within, since the opportunity has been offered you. Isn’t this true?”
“Yes,” said Mike reluctantly. “If I slunk off now, and then if something — went really wrong, I should feel that I had neglected my duty — ”
“Exactly!” said Daly triumphantly. “Then conscience would gnaw at your duodenum and afflict it with ulcers. We must not risk that.”
“But I’ll have to explain the whole thing to my superior officer in the morning,” said Mike. “I can’t just walk off in the daytime without saying where I am going.”
“Can’t you?” Daly was disappointed. “Well, I suppose you can’t. Is he a reasonable sort of a chap?”
“Very reasonable. I rather think you will see too much of me in the next few days. You may take it that the police won’t like it if anything happens to Bradley.”
“Neither will Bradley,” said Daly dryly.
“Did you learn anything from Professor Badger last night?”
“I refreshed my memory about Bradley’s history,” said Daly. “It was not very easy to get Badger to talk about him. One would almost think he had made a vow not to mention his name. We had a talk about the Keyes Lectures first, and about the English department, and how the standard of manners among students has declined. I don’t remember Badger being exceptionally mannerly when he was a student, but he seems to think the modern student is worse. I told him this was a sign of age in him. I said — ”
“How did you get him talking about the President?” asked Mike, fearing that Daly was about to embark on his favourite game of repeating his own witticisms.
Daly looked at him reproachfully.
“I’m coming to that. I took Bradley’s own advice. I said that the President was developing a politician’s paunch, that I was glad I did not have to live with him, that he looked as if he enjoyed wielding power, and so on. I dropped these remarks one by one, and at last he rose. I played him for a few minutes, and then I certainly got what I wanted. I think I told you about old Blake, who was born old Blake, and did crosswords and jigsaws and died in the odour of dust and tobacco ash?”
“Yes, I have often heard you discourse on Blake,” said Mike.
“Well, it seems that Freedom shrieked when Bradley got the job,” said Daly. “He sees that all the rules are kept. He makes them all toe the line. They come in time for their lectures, hand in their examination papers on the appointed day, ask permission if they want to be away for a few days, notify him if they get married or die, keep off the grass, don’t park their bicycles against the hedges, send in reports and rolls at regular intervals — ”
“Sounds just like ordinary life to me,” said Mike in amusement.
“It’s hell to them,” said Daly simply. “They are all hypersensitive, and they can’t bear pin-pricks. Large injustices they would almost enjoy. But these daily shacklings of their former glorious freedom are bitterly resented. And it all comes to a head with the arrival of Leahy.”
“The same Leahy who is coming to dinner to-night?”
“Yes. It’s not every day of the week that a fat little Irish-American comes along with an offer of money for the College. Professors rather pride themselves on being able to manage the finances of their Colleges. Bradley has them on a sore point there, though he is so thick that he may not know it. He has patted them on the head and advised them to keep to the things that they understand and leave Leahy and his money to him. Each of them wants a whack of that money — not for himself, of course, but for his department. They don’t trust the President to handle the business properly.”
“But have they a right to be consulted?” asked Mike, who knew very little about how such affairs are managed in universities.
“In theory they must be consulted,” said Daly, “but a president has very wide powers, and he can, if he likes, present them with a fait accompli from which it will be difficult to change. Besides, there is Leahy himself, who admires the President, and will agree to almost anything that will please him.”
“What I cannot understand,” said Mike at last, “is how Bradley came to be made President at all.”
“He was a snake-charmer,” said Daly. He waved an elegant hand. “You know how these things happen. He was a graduate of this College who went off to Africa and became quite celebrated as a consulting mineralogist. We were always hearing traveller’s tales about how clever and successful he was, and what glory he reflected on his College. He made a stack of money there, too, and presently in his later middle age he took ship and set sail for the land of the Gael, where his heart had always been. The professorship of mineralogy became vacant and Bradley applied for it — just for old time’s sake, he said. Of course he won hands down. We were always showing him off to visitors as the great man who by a stroke of fortune was humble enough to spend his declining years with us.”
“Was he a successful professor?”
“Young man,” said Daly severely, “there is no such thing as an unsuccessful professor. An
yway, he wasn’t one for long. Within two years of his appointment old Blake died. I had just retired. Bradley laughingly allowed his name to be put forward, and here he is.”
“Why did they appoint him?” Mike asked curiously. “Surely they must have known by then what he was like.”
“Professors are simple souls at bottom,” said Daly. “They liked the idea of Bradley more than they liked Bradley himself. He was new and fresh to most of them. His reputation in his subject was prodigious — deservedly so, I think. And above all, he was wealthy. They felt that a man who does not need anxiously to watch the price of eggs would give more distinction to the business of being the President. There is some justice in that assumption, though there is that little snag about the camel going through the eye of a needle. Of course I have this by hearsay only. I rather lost touch after I retired, for one reason and another.”
“Tell me about Bradley’s household,” said Mike. “Who will be there to-night? Is there a wife and family?”
“A wife, but no family,” said Daly after a short pause. “I knew Mrs. Bradley — rather well, at one time. I haven’t seen her since I came, but no doubt she will be there to-night.”
“How did you know her? Did she not live in South Africa with her husband?”
“Oh, yes, for most of the time. But she is a Dublin woman. It’s all so long ago.” He paused again, and then went on: “I remember Bradley’s testimonials that he brought from South Africa. He had been connected with one or two universities there. They said his presence always stimulated the intellectual life wherever he went. I thought there was a distinct note of menace in that statement. He certainly has stimulated the intellectual life to a fury since he came here.” He stood up. “Come along now, young Mike. It’s time we went over and enjoyed his hospitality.”
Mike looked up in despair from the depths of his armchair.
“How can you seem so unconcerned? I’m quite certain to fall over the carpet, and break my glass, and spill my soup — ”
“Nonsense, man! Where’s your self-control? Don’t you dare let me down!”