The sun moved down the sky and the shadows lengthened upon the water. There were fewer craft on the river now; the tea-parties were hurrying home to dinner and the supper-parties had not yet put out. Endymion had the air of being settled for the night; it was really time to harden her heart and pull up the poles. She put off decision from moment to moment, till a loud shriek and a bump at her end of the punt came to spare her the trouble. The incompetent novice had returned with her crew and, having left her pole in the middle of the river, had let her craft adrift across their stern. Harriet pushed the intruders off with more vigour than sympathy and turned to find her host sitting up and grinning rather sheepishly.
‘Have I been asleep?’
‘Getting on for two hours,’ said Harriet, with a pleased chuckle.
‘Good lord, what disgusting behaviour! I am frightfully sorry. Why didn’t you give me a shout? What time is it? My poor girl, you’ll get no dinner to-night if we don’t hurry up. Look here, I do apologise most abjectly.’
‘It doesn’t matter a bit. You were awfully tired.’
‘That’s no excuse.’ He was on his feet now, extricating the punt-poles from the mud. ‘We might make it by double-punting – if you’ll forgive the infernal cheek of asking you to work to make up for my soul-destroying sloth.’
‘I’d love to punt. But, Peter!’ She suddenly liked him enormously. ‘What’s the hurry? I mean, is the Master expecting you, or anything?’
‘No; I’ve removed myself to the Mitre. I can’t use the Master’s lodgings as a hotel; besides, they’ve got people coming in.’
‘Then couldn’t we get something to eat somewhere along the river and make a day of it? I mean, if you feel like it. Or must you have a proper dinner?’
‘My dear, I would gladly eat husks for having behaved like a hog. Or thistles. Preferably thistles. You are a most forgiving woman.’
‘Well, give me the pole. I’ll stay up in the bows and you can do the steering.’
‘And watch you bring the pole up in three.’
‘I promise to do that.’
She was conscious, nevertheless, of Wimsey of Balliol’s critical eye upon her handling of the heavy pole. For either you look graceful or you look ghastly; there is no middle way in punting. They set their course towards Iffley.
‘On the whole,’ said Harriet, as they took boat again some little time later, ‘thistles would have been preferable.’
‘That kind of food is provided for very young people whose minds are elsewhere. Men of passions but not parts. I am glad to have dined on apricot flan and synthetic lemonade; it enlarges one’s experience. Shall I, you or we pole? Or shall we abandon aloofness and superiority and paddle in beauty side by side?’ His eyes mocked her. ‘I am tame; pronounce.’
‘Whichever you prefer.’
He handed her gravely to the stem seat and coiled himself down beside her.
‘What the devil am I sitting on?’
‘Sir Thomas Browne, I expect. I’m afraid I rifled your pockets.’
‘Since I was such a bad companion, I’m glad I provided you with a good substitute.’
‘Is he a constant companion of yours?’
‘My tastes are fairly catholic. It might easily have been Kai Lung or Alice in Wonderland or Machiavelli—’
‘Or Boccaccio or the Bible?’
‘Just as likely as not. Or Apuleius.’
‘Or John Donne?’
He was silent for a moment, and then said in a changed voice:
‘Was that a bow drawn at a venture?’
‘A good shot?’
‘Whang in the gold. Between the joints of the harness . . . If you would paddle a little on your side it would make it handier to steer.’
‘Sorry . . . Do you find it easy to get drunk on words?’
‘So easy that, to tell you the truth, I am seldom perfectly sober. Which accounts for my talking so much.’
‘And yet, if anybody had asked me, I should have said you had a passion for balance and order – no beauty without measure.’
‘One may have a passion for the unattainable.’
‘But you do attain it. At least, you appear to attain it.’
‘The perfect Augustan? No! I’m afraid it’s at most a balance of opposing forces . . . The river’s filling up again.’
‘Lots of people come out after supper.’
‘Yes – well, bless their hearts, why shouldn’t they? You’re not feeling cold?’
‘Not the least bit.’
That was the second time within five minutes that he had warned her off his private ground. His mood had changed since the early hours of the afternoon and all his defences were up once more. She could not again disregard the ‘No Thoroughfare’ sign; so she left it to him to start a fresh subject.
He did so, courteously enough, by asking how the new novel was getting on.
‘It’s gone sticky.’
‘What happened to it?’
This involved a full rehearsal of the plot of Death ‘twixt Wind and Water. It was a complicated story, and the punt had covered a good deal of water before she reached the solution.
‘There’s nothing fundamentally wrong with that,’ said he; and proceeded to offer a few suggestions about detail.
‘How intelligent you are, Peter. You’re quite right. Of course that would be much the best way to get over the clock difficulty. But why does the whole story sound so dead and alive?’
‘If you ask me,’ said Wimney, ‘it’s Wilfrid. I know he marries the girl – but must he be such a mutt? Why does he go and pocket the evidence and tell all those unnecessary lies?’
‘Because he thinks the girl’s done it.’
‘Yes – but why should he? He’s dotingly in love with her – he thinks she’s absolutely the cat’s pyjamas – and yet, merely because he finds her handkerchief in the bedroom he is instantly convinced, on evidence that wouldn’t hang a dog, that she not only is Winchester’s mistress but has also murdered him in a peculiarly diabolical way. That may be one way of love, but—’
‘But, you would like to point out, it isn’t yours – and in fact, it wasn’t yours.’
There it was again – the old resentment, and the impulse to hit back savagely for the pleasure of seeing him wince.
‘No,’ he said, ‘I was considering the question impersonally.’
‘Academically, in fact.’
‘Yes – please. . . . From a purely constructional point of view, I don’t feel that Wilfrid’s behaviour is sufficiently accounted for.’
‘Well,’ said Harriet, recovering her poise, ‘academically speaking I admit that Wilfrid is the world’s worst goop. But if he doesn’t conceal the handkerchief where’s my plot?’
‘Couldn’t you make Wilfrid one of those morbidly conscientious people, who have been brought up to think that anything pleasant must be wrong – so that, if he wants to believe the girl an angel of light she is, for that very reason, all the more likely to be guilty. Give him a puritanical father and a hell-fire religion.’
‘Peter, that’s an idea.’
‘He has, you see, a gloomy conviction that love is sinful in itself, and that he can only purge himself by taking the young woman’s sins upon him and wallowing in vicarious suffering. . . . He’d still be a goop, and a pathological goop, but he would be a bit more consistent.’
‘Yes – he’d be interesting. But if I give Wilfrid all those violent and lifelike feelings, he’ll throw the whole book out of balance.’
‘You would have to abandon the jig-saw kind of story and write a book about human beings for a change.’
‘I’m afraid to try that, Peter. It might go too near the bone.’
‘It might be the wisest thing you could do.’
‘Write it out and get rid of it?’
‘Yes.’
‘I’ll think about that. It would hurt like hell.’
‘What would that matter, if it made a good book?’
She was taken ab
ack, not by what he said, but by his saying it. She had never imagined that he regarded her work very seriously, and she had certainly not expected him to take this ruthless attitude about it. The protective male? He was being about as protective as a can-opener.
‘You haven’t yet,’ he went on, ‘written the book you could write if you tried. Probably you couldn’t write it when you were too close to things. But you could do it now, if you had the-the—’
‘The guts?’
‘Exactly.’
‘I don’t think I could face it.’
‘Yes, you could. And you’ll get no peace till you do. I’ve been running away from myself for twenty years, and it doesn’t work. What’s the good of making mistakes if you don’t use them? Have a shot. Start on Wilfrid.’
‘Damn Wilfrid! . . . All right. I’ll try. I’ll knock the sawdust out of Wilfrid, anyhow.’
He took his right hand from the paddle and held it out to her, deprecatingly.
‘ “Always laying down the law with exquisite insolence to somebody.” I’m sorry.’
She accepted the hand and the apology and they paddled on in amity. But it was true, she thought, that she had had to accept a good deal more than that. She was quite surprised by her own lack of resentment.
They parted at the postern.
‘Good night, Harriet. I’ll bring back your manuscript tomorrow. Would some time in the afternoon suit you? I must lunch with young Gerald, I suppose, and play the heavy uncle.’
‘Come round about six, then. Good night – and thank you very much.’
‘I am in your debt.’
He waited politely while she shut and locked the heavy grille against him.
‘And so-o-o’ (in saccharine accents), ‘the co-onvent gates closed behind So-o-onia!’
He smote his forehead with a theatrical gesture and an anguished cry and reeled away almost into the arms of the Dean, who was coming up the road at her usual brisk trot.
‘Serve him right,’ said Harriet, and fled up the path without waiting to see what happened.
As she got into bed she recalled the extempore prayer of a well-meaning but incoherent curate, heard once and never forgotten:
‘Lord, teach us to take our hearts and look them in the face however difficult it may be.’
16
From noise of Scare-fires rest ye free,
From Murders Benedicite.
From all mischances, they may fright
Your pleasing slumbers in the night:
Mercie secure ye all, and keep
The Goblin from ye, while ye sleep.
ROBERT HERRICK
‘Oh, miss!’
‘We are so sorry to disturb you, madam.’
‘Good gracious, Carrie, what is it?’
When you have been lying awake for an hour or so wondering how to reconstruct a Wilfrid without inflicting savage mayhem upon your plot, and have just tumbled into an uneasy slumber haunted by the embalmed bodies of dukes, it is annoying to be jerked into consciousness again by two excited and partly hysterical maid-servants in dressing-gowns.
‘Oh, miss, the Dean said to come and tell you. Annie and me have been so frightened. We nearly caught it.’
‘Caught what?’
‘Whatever it is, miss. In the Science lecture-room, miss. We saw it there. It was awful.’
Harriet sat up, dazed.
‘And it’s gone off, miss, rampaging something horrible, and nobody knows what it mayn’t be up to, so we thought we ought to tell somebody.’
‘For goodness’ sake, Carrie, do tell me. Sit down, both of you, and begin from the beginning.’
‘But, miss, didn’t we ought to see what’s gone with it? Out through the dark-room window, that’s where it went, and it may be murdering people at this very minute. And the room locked and the key inside – there might be a dead body lying there, all blood.’
‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ said Harriet. But she got out of bed, none the less, and began to hunt for her slippers. ‘If somebody’s playing another practical joke, we must try and stop it. But don’t let’s have any nonsense about blood and bodies. Where did it go to?’
‘We don’t know, miss.’
Harriet looked at the stout and agitated Carrie, whose face was puckered and twitching and her eyes bolting with imminent hysteria. She had never thought the present head scout any too dependable, and was inclined to put down her abundant energy to an excess of thyroid.
‘Where is the Dean, then?’
‘Waiting by the lecture-room door, miss. She said to fetch you—’
‘All right.’
Harriet put her torch into her dressing-gown pocket and hustled her visitors out.
‘Now tell me quickly what’s the matter, and don’t make a noise.’
‘Well, miss, Annie comes to me and says—’
‘When was this?’
‘About a quarter of an hour ago, miss, or it might be more or less.’
‘About that, madam.’
‘I was in bed and asleep, never dreaming of nothing, and Annie says, “Have you got the keys, Carrie? There’s something funny going on in the lecture-room.” So I says to Annie—’
‘Just a minute. Let Annie tell her part first.’
‘Well, madam, you know the Science lecture-room at the back of the New Quad, and how you can see it from our wing. I woke up about half-past one and happened to look out of my window and I saw a light in the lecture-room. So I thought, that’s funny, as late as this. And I saw a shadow on the curtain, like somebody moving about.’
‘The curtains were drawn, then?’
‘Yes, madam; but they’re only buff casement-cloth, you know, so I could see the shadow as plain as plain. So I watched a bit, and the shadow went away but the light stayed on and I thought it was funny. So I went and woke Carrie and said to her to give me the keys so as I could go and look in case it was something that wasn’t quite right. And she saw the light, too. And I said, “Oh, Carrie, come with me; I don’t like to go alone.” So Carrie came down with me.’
‘Did you go through the Hall or across the yard?’
‘Across the yard, madam. We thought it would be quicker. Through the yard and the iron gate. And we tried to look through the window, but it was tight shut and the curtains pulled close.’
They were out of Tudor Building now; its corridors as they passed through had seemed quiet enough. Nor did there seem to be any disturbance in the Old Quad. The Library Wing was dark, except for a lamp burning in. Miss de Vine’s window and the dim illumination of the passage lights.
‘When we came to the lecture-room door, it was locked and the key in it, because I stooped down to look through the hole, but I couldn’t see anything. And then I saw that the curtain wasn’t quite drawn across the door – it has glass panels, you know, madam. So I looked through the crack and saw something all in black, madam. And I said, “Oh, there it is!” And Carrie said, “Let me see,” and she gave me a bit of a push and my elbow bumped against the door and that must have frightened it, because the light went out.’
‘Yes, miss,’ said Carrie, eagerly. ‘And I said, “There now!” and then there was a most awful crash inside – dreadful, it was, and something bumping, and I calls out, “Oh, it’s coming out after us!” ’
‘And I said to Carrie, “Run and fetch the Dean! We’ve got it in here.” So Carrie went for the Dean and I heard whoever it was moving about a bit, and then I didn’t bear anything more.’
‘And the Dean came along and we waited a bit, and I said, “Ooh! do you think it’s lying in there with its throat cut?” and the Dean said, “There, now! How silly we’ve been. It’ll have gone out through the window.” And I says, “But all them windows are barred,” I says. And the Dean says, “The dark-room window, that’s where it’s gone.” The dark-room door was locked too, so we run round outside and sure enough, there’s the window wide open. So the Dean says, “Fetch Miss Vane.” So we comes for you, miss.’
By this
time they had reached the east angle of the New Quad, where Miss Martin stood waiting.
‘Our friend’s vanished, I’m afraid,’ said the Dean. ‘We ought to have been quick enough to think of that window. I’ve been round this quad, but I can’t find anything wrong there. Let’s hope the creature’s gone back to bed.’
Harriet examined the door. It was certainly locked from the inside, and the curtain over the glass panel did not fit quite closely. But everything within was dark and silent.
‘What does Sherlock Holmes do now?’ inquired the Dean.
‘I think we go in,’ said Harriet. ‘I suppose you haven’t such a thing as a pair of long-nosed pliers? No. Well, it’s probably just as good to break the glass.’
‘Don’t cut yourself.’
How many times, thought Harriet, had her detective Robert Templeton broken through doors to discover the dead body of the murdered financier! With a ludicrous feeling that she was acting a part, she laid a fold of her dressing-gown across the panel and delivered a sharp blow upon it with her closed fist. Rather to her astonishment, the panel broke inwards exactly as it should have done, to the accompaniment of a modest tinkle of glass. Now – a scarf or handkerchief wrapped round to protect the hand and wrist, and prevent leaving extra finger-prints on the key and handle. The Dean obligingly fetched this needful accessory; and the door was opened.
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