Dancing with Death

by Ruth Wade

  “The last part of it would be rather nice,” she retorted, with a sidelong glare at Tennyson-Smith.

  Daly would have expected the young man to pour himself some whiskey, too, but he had a bottle of lager. Mike Kenny miserably refused all consolation. Daly wondered if Badger could possibly have converted him to his view of the world. Bradley had not spoken to Mike since dinner had finished, but he glanced across at him from time to time as if to make sure that Mike was watching the guests as he had been asked to do.

  It was Leahy who broke up the party at last. He looked at his watch and stood up.

  “You’ll excuse me, President,” he said. “I aim to be in bed by ten-thirty. It’s now just on ten. I’ve had a most enjoyable evening. You think over the whole proposition some more. There must be some good way to spend fifty thousand dollars.”

  He shook hands with each member of the party. Daly noticed that he had each person’s name correctly. The President went out of the room with Leahy. Burren watched the door close and then opened his mouth to speak. Just in time, however, he glanced quickly at Mrs. Bradley and sank back in his chair again. Professor Daly stood up firmly and said:

  “It’s time that I went home, too. I have my first lecture in the morning and even now at this hour of my life, I find that disturbing.”

  “Lecturing never bothered me,” said Burren, with a snort.

  “I worry a lot about it, I must confess,” said Badger.

  “It’s terrible to think how a lightly spoken word of mine might send an innocent young person to perdition.”

  “Surely you never speak lightly,” said Burren rudely.

  Fortunately Bradley returned just then. Now he seemed to have forgotten the strained little scene in the dining-room, and to be held in a sort of glow of pleasure in Leahy and his money.

  “Yes, he is the most normal of them all,” said Daly to himself.

  This reflection made him rather sad, because when he had been one of them he had not thought them odd at all. His changed point of view was a measure of the gap that had developed between himself and his old colleagues.

  Bradley ignored the expectant looks turned upon him and made no reference whatever to Mr. Leahy. He shook hands with everyone and led them all towards the door with a light hand on Professor Burren’s shoulder. He did not seem to notice how Burren winced and shrank away from him. In a little fever of embarrassment, Daly tried to divert the President’s attention to himself. He said that he would like to see over the buildings next day for old time’s sake. Bradley turned to him, dropping his hand from Burren’s shoulder. Burren crossed the hall away from him with a strangely expressive wriggling movement of disgust. Daly wondered why Burren had accepted an invitation to dine at the President’s house at all, since he hated him so much.

  “I’ll come over to your rooms at two o’clock,” Bradley was saying, “and we’ll go about together. You’ll be busy with your lecture in the morning. I won’t be able to get to it, I’m afraid, but Badger will look after you.”

  When the door had shut behind them Burren said a general curt: “Good night!” and marched off across the quadrangle. Tennyson-Smith got his hand under his true love’s elbow and dragged her away with him.

  Mrs. Badger, who seemed to have become deeply attached to Mike Kenny, pressed him to come and visit their sett the next time that he was in town. Professor Badger suggested lugubriously that Daly should lie awake all night worrying as to whether his first lecture would or would not be a success. Then they were gone, pattering off along the gravel, clutched together because of the darkness.

  Chapter 5

  Left alone with the old man, Inspector Kenny gave vent to a short, sharp howl of laughter.

  “Stop that!” said Daly. “Come over to my place. I have a bottle of whiskey.”

  “It’s just that I never met such people before,” said Mike apologetically. “Are there many like Mrs. Badger about?”

  “Not many,” said Daly. “I must show you some of the other kind to-morrow.”

  “To-morrow!” Mike groaned. “Must I come again tomorrow?”

  “You promised,” said Daly. “Don’t be so hide-bound. You should value the opportunity of seeing how people live in universities.”

  “I do value it,” said Mike humbly, “but I can’t like it.”

  He felt more cheerful after he had had a glass of Daly’s whiskey, which was quite as good as Bradley’s. Daly stirred up the wood fire. Its warmth was pleasant after the October chill of the night outside. Mike complained for a few minutes, without interruption, about the deception into which he had been forced. At last Daly said:

  “For heaven’s sake stop worrying about that. After all, you were not deceiving your host. I would have had some sympathy with you if you had to do that. The rest of them don’t care what your profession is. They were all thinking of themselves, every one of them.”

  “That is true,” said Mike. “Still, I was a wolf in sheep’s clothing — ”

  “Wolf!” said the old man. “You are a sheep in sheep’s clothing! Where’s your detective spirit, man?”

  “Um,” said Mike.

  “What did you think of Leahy?” Daly asked.

  “The answer to Bradley’s prayer, I should say,” said Mike. “Bradley could do what he likes with that money, as far as I can see.”

  “Short of keeping a few thousand pounds for himself just for being a good boy,” said Daly.

  “He seems to be very wealthy,” said Mike. After a pause he went on: “That was a disgraceful scene about the macaroons.”

  “I had not thought them capable of it,” said Daly, half to himself. “Even Sodia — ”

  He sighed deeply.

  Presently Mike stood up to go home, promising to come to Daly’s lecture in the morning. He said that he would try to arrange for leave to spend the day in the College.

  “But the President has not asked for help,” he said uneasily, “and really I have nothing to show them — ”

  “Tell them you’ll have Bradley’s body to show them if they don’t let you come,” said Daly brutally.

  The President’s house was in darkness when Mike passed it on his way down the avenue. He promised himself that he would call there to-morrow immediately after Daly’s lecture, and ask Bradley to discuss the whole affair with him. A clever man would surely see that it was nonsense at this stage to have Daly as an intermediary. The line of thought started by this reflection kept him occupied all the way back to his lodgings.

  It was five minutes to noon when he reached the College next day. He had found it surprisingly hard to convince his superiors that his presence was necessary to save the President’s life. They had released him at last, however, with the stipulation that it was to be for one day only. If there were no developments at the College by the evening he was to go back to his ordinary work. Seven more of those forged notes had come in, his superior said pettishly. That was far more important than playing watchdog to some silly man who was afraid of the dark.

  In the main hall Jennings was waiting to conduct him to the scene of Daly’s lecture. This was a long room, well lighted with oblong Georgian windows, and furnished as a library with chairs and long, leather-covered tables. The walls were lined with glass-fronted book-shelves. Mike took his place at the end of the room, behind the already assembled audience.

  There were about two hundred people present. They sat at the tables, looking towards the top of the room, where there was a little dais for the lecturer. The fact that they were not placed in rows gave the whole business a pleasing air of informality. Mike thought that Daly would like this. The outsiders, recognizable by their overcoats, their hats and their age, had congregated near the dais, with earnest expressions and notebooks at the ready. Mike found himself surrounded by students, male and female. Their penetrating, all-seeing eyes frightened him, so that he shrank against the bookcase behind him. Tennyson-Smith was there with Sodia, as Mike had begun to call her in his mind. They seemed a
little more pleased with each other’s company this morning. Tennyson-Smith had fixed a wicked eye on the lecturer’s chair. Mike’s practice as observer at political meetings told him that the young man was planning to heckle. He felt quite sorry for him. There would be small satisfaction indeed in heckling Professor Daly.

  Intent as he was on watching Tennyson-Smith, he had not noticed a young man leave his place at the other side of the room and come to sit in the vacant chair beside his own, until a voice said genially:

  “May the harp of old Ireland never want for a string as long as there’s a gut in a policeman!”

  Mike felt a tremor run through him. He turned to greet the young man with a warning frown, and said in a low voice:

  “Keep quiet, Johnny. Don’t tell the world who I am.”

  “Don’t call me Johnny!” the young man spluttered. “I’ve just trained everyone to say John.” He sat down and peered at Mike with lively interest. “Are you travelling infra dig?”

  “More or less,” said Mike. “What are you doing here yourself?”

  “Pursuing the Arts,” said John. “Surely your fellows in Galway have noticed by now that I disappear mysteriously three times a year?”

  “They probably haven’t got you on their books yet,” said Mike mildly. “Why don’t you pursue the Arts in Galway, you little traitor?”

  “I’d like it better,” said John, “but my mother says she needs a rest. Awfully selfish of her, don’t you think?”

  “Dreadful,” said Mike. “I had noticed that you were developing a metropolitan polish. Now don’t go telling anyone about me, young Johnny, or I’ll rub your nose in the mud!”

  “There’s a return for my kindly interest!” said John.

  He marched back to his former seat. Mike heard one of his friends ask:

  “Who is your buddy, John?”

  “A plumber looking for culture,” said John airily. “It will probably knock him right off his drain-pipe. Great mistake this mass education.”

  Just then a door at the top of the room opened, and a little procession came in. Professor Badger was in front, head down, and with the weight of the world on his bent shoulders. Next came Daly, smiling genially about, with the simple pleasure of a prima donna. After him came Professor Fox. Mike was surprised to see him there, until he remembered that he was the registrar. Fox looked bored, as indeed he probably was. The extern members of the audience clapped slightly, while all three sat down. Then Badger stood up again and moved forward with an appearance of weariness to introduce the lecturer.

  He spoke for twenty minutes without a break, swaying slightly from heel to toe and never once lifting his eyes from his ill-polished shoes. He recalled his younger days when Daly had opened the vast doors of English literature to him. He said that Daly had inspired not only Badger but every sane member of his class to the writing of English. He named Daly’s five celebrated students and a whole covey of minor ones that no one had ever heard of, but that Badger swore made their living by the pen. He said that the world was in a parlous state, and that it was beyond hope that people like Daly could save it by their petty potterings at culture. He said that the only fate in store for himself and the entire audience was to give up all hope of fulfilment or achievement, come to terms with frustration and creep about to find themselves dishonourable graves. He called up Nietzsche and Sartre to support him, with accurate quotations. At last he sat down, sank his head on his chest and appeared to fall into a gloomy sleep.

  Hearing a snort behind him Mike turned to see that Burren and one or two other professors had come in during Badger’s discourse. The students’ eyes sparkled, but they gave no other sign of the awful joy that must have swelled their susceptible souls to bursting-point. When Professor Daly stood up they stamped their feet gently to show their appreciation. But then they waited, as civilly as the outsiders, for him to begin.

  Three minutes later Badger was forgotten. Mike had often heard of Daly’s skill and power as a lecturer. Now as he listened he began to understand something of the reason why the students stopped grinning, the outsiders’ notebooks slipped unheeded into their laps, and even the professors forgot to look as if they knew it all before. Tennyson-Smith’s jaw, always highly flexible, dropped open and hung throughout the lecture, so that a wandering fly could easily have buzzed in and out of his mouth, if it had so wished.

  Daly’s thesis was simple. He began by thanking Badger for reminding them of the present parlous state of the world. He rolled the adjective pleasurably on his tongue. When external conditions were so terrible, the life of the mind assumed a greater importance. Anyone can live happily in Paradise, he said. It takes a clever man to live happily in hell.

  “Tut-tut!” said a parson at the front table.

  Thus, Daly went on undisturbed, it behoved every man who wanted to shape the destiny of the world with his pen to pause and think which was the more powerful, the weeping or the laughter. He urged them to create a world of the mind which would eventually influence the physical world and change it. For half a century, he said, he had devoted himself to the task of getting the starkness out of Anglo-Irish literature. He implored them to stop writing about undigested alcohol and drains. He implored them not to go to the other extreme and write about primroses and lambkins, either, if they did not wish to inflict their readers with wool-ball. Seen from the right point of view, he said, even love and marriage were not without their lighter moments.

  Mike wondered at the way in which Daly seemed to have foreseen exactly how long he could hold the attention of his audience. He bounced them along from point to point of his discourse, leaving them increasingly breathless but still eager. Mike saw the fire of fiction slowly dawning in their eyes. Now hot, shaky hands were fumbling for pencils with which to note great thoughts. But there was only time for a word before they were swept on again. The students’ ears, always prominent, seemed to have increased in size, so ardently were they stretched in the lecturer’s direction. There was not a sound as the old man gathered up the ends of his arguments and tied them into a reef knot. Even when he had finished the silence continued until he had sat down. Then someone gave a little sigh, and a moment later there was a storm of applause from the students.

  Badger shook himself awake and looked around him. A voice on Mike’s right called out derisively:

  “False alarm, Badger! Winter’s not over yet!”

  It was Mike’s friend, John Fahy. Some of his friends hustled him outside, while the others redoubled their cheers. Badger stood up and waved a feeble hand for order. Fox, who had shown no sign of interest until now, was seen to glance sharply about and note a name or two on the paper in front of him. Silence fell.

  “Professor Daly’s next lecture will be given at noon on Monday,” droned Badger. “The subject will be ‘The Crafty Novelist’ — ”

  He glanced sideways with annoyance at a porter who had come in and was whispering agitatedly to Fox. It was Jennings. Mike saw Daly’s face go white. He waited for no more. He leaped to his feet and pushed his way without ceremony through the little crowd around the door. Outside in the lobby he paused for a second. Then he saw a passageway running by the side of the lecture-room. Darting along it he reached the top just as Daly, Jennings, Fox and Badger came out of the library by the upper door. Fox had tears in his eyes. Mike grasped Jennings’s arm.

  “What’s the matter?”

  “It’s a matter for the College, sir,” said Jennings with dignity.

  “He’s a policeman, Jennings,” said Daly wearily. “Mike, Bradley is dead, after all.”

  Chapter 6

  A policeman?” said Jennings sharply. “What’s a policeman doing here? I don’t like the look of this at all, Professor, and I don’t mind telling you — ”

  “Mr. Kenny is a friend of mine,” said Daly soothingly. “He has just been at my lecture. We’re very fortunate in having him here to help us. He understands this kind of thing.”

  “What kind of thing?” Jenni
ngs persisted. “What do we want with the police? The President died in the night the way any of us might. Why did you say he’s dead ‘after all’? I want to know that, so I do!”

  “Slip of the tongue,” said Daly, coldly fixing a hard eye on Jennings. “This is no longer your responsibility, Jennings, and I should advise you not to take too much upon yourself.”

  They measured each other. Then Jennings looked a little uncomfortable and said:

  “All right, sir, so long as there’s someone in charge.” He looked meaningly at Fox, who seemed suddenly to recollect himself as he said:

  “Yes, yes, I’m in charge, I suppose. We’d better not stand here. Shall we go over to the President’s Lodging? Yes, that would be best.”

  People were pouring out of the library now. They had sensed that something was wrong. One or two professors, headed by Burren, began to walk purposefully along the passageway towards the little group. Jennings hissed:

  “This way, gentlemen!”

  He led them out by another door into the quadrangle. They crossed it quickly and had reached the President’s Lodging just as the first students emerged from the library entrance. They were admitted immediately by an extremely intelligent-looking parlourmaid of uncertain years. Daly thanked Jennings gravely and left him standing, surprised, outside on the steps. Fox said abstractedly:

  “What’s all this, Nellie? What’s all this?”

  She was impeccably dressed and showed no sign of agitation except that her frilled, starched apron had moved to the back. Daly put out a thoughtful hand and pulled it around to the front again. She stroked it absently, as a cat might lick a returned kitten.

  Mike took her attention by asking if Mrs. Bradley could be seen.

  “I gave her two aspirins and made her lie down, sir,” said Nellie. “It was a nasty shock for her.”

  “Come into the study and tell us all about it,” said Daly, who always hated standing about in halls.