by Anne Perry
An opportunity came to him when he was discussing a problem of interpretation with Elwyn, who was finding a particular passage of translation difficult.
They had walked from the lecture rooms together, and rather than go inside had chosen to cross the bridge to the Backs. It was a quiet afternoon. As they turned on the gravel path to go toward the shade, bees drifted lazily among the spires of delphiniums and late pinks by the wall of the covered walk. Bertie was rolling on the warm earth in between the snapdragons.
Elwyn was still showing signs of the shock and grief of loss. Joseph knew better than others how one can temporarily forget a cataclysm in one’s life, then remember it again with surprise and the renewal of pain. Sometimes one floated in a kind of unreality, as if the disaster were all imagination and in a little while would disappear and life be as it was before. One was tired without knowing why; concentration slipped from the grasp and slithered away.
It was not surprising that Elwyn was wandering off the point again, unable to keep his mind in control.
“I ought to get back to the master’s house,” he said anxiously. “Mother may be alone.”
“You can’t protect her from everything,” Joseph told him.
Elwyn’s eyes opened abruptly, then his lips tightened and color flooded his face. He looked away. “I’ve got to. You don’t understand how she felt about Sebastian. She’ll get over this anger, then she’ll be all right. It’s just that—” He stopped, staring ahead at the flat, bright water.
Joseph finished the sentence for him. “If she knew who did it, and saw them punished, her anger would be satisfied.”
“I suppose so,” Elwyn conceded, but there was no conviction in his voice.
Joseph broached the subject he least wanted to. “But perhaps not?”
Elwyn said nothing.
“Why?” Joseph persisted. “Because to do so would force her to see something in Sebastian that she would not wish to?”
The misery in Elwyn’s face was unmistakable. “Everyone sees a different side of people. Mother doesn’t have any idea what Sebastian was like away from home, or even in it, really.”
Joseph felt intrusive, and certain that he, too, wanted to keep his illusions intact, but that was a luxury he could no longer afford. He was being offered a chance to learn, and he dared not turn away from it.
“Did she know about Flora Whickham?” he asked.
Elwyn stiffened, for an instant holding his breath. Then he let it out in a sigh. “He told you?”
“No. I discovered for myself, largely by accident.”
Elwyn swung around. “Don’t tell Mother! She wouldn’t understand. Flora’s a nice girl, but she’s . . .”
“A barmaid.”
Elwyn gave a rueful smile. “Yes, but what I was going to say was that she’s a pacifist, I mean a real one, and Mother wouldn’t begin to understand that.” There was confusion and distaste in his face, and a hurt too tender to probe. He looked away again toward the river, shielding his eyes from Joseph’s gaze. “Actually, neither do I. If you love something, belong to it and believe in it, how can you not fight to save it? What kind of a man wouldn’t?”
Perhaps he suspected Joseph of that same incomprehensible betrayal. If he did, there would be some truth in it. But then Joseph had read of the Boer War, and his imagination could re-create the unreachable pain, the horror that could not be eased or explained and never, with all the arguments on earth, be justified.
“He was not a coward,” Joseph said aloud. “He would fight for what he believed in.”
“Probably.” There was no certainty in Elwyn’s voice or his face.
“Who else knew about Flora?” Joseph asked.
“I don’t know.”
“Regina Coopersmith?” Joseph asked.
Elwyn froze. “God! I hope not!”
“But you’re not certain?”
“No. But I don’t really know Regina well. I suppose”— he chewed his lip and looked awkwardly at Joseph—“I don’t know women very well. I would feel dreadful, but maybe—” He did not finish.
There were a few moments of silence as they walked side by side over the grass and onto the path under the trees.
“Sebastian had a row with Dr. Beecher,” Elwyn went on.
“When?” Joseph felt a sinking inside himself.
“A couple of days before he died.”
“Do you know what it was about?”
“No, I don’t.” He turned to face Joseph. “I thought it was odd, actually, because Dr. Beecher was pretty decent to him.”
“Wasn’t he to everyone?”
“Of course. I meant more than to the rest of us.”
Joseph was puzzled. He remembered Beecher’s dislike of Sebastian. “In what way?” he asked. He had meant to be casual, but he heard the harder edge in his voice, and Elwyn must have heard it also.
Elwyn hesitated, uncomfortable. He shuffled his feet on the gravel of the path and sighed. “We all behave badly sometimes—come to a lecture late, turn in sloppy work. You know how it is?”
“I do.”
“Well, usually you get disciplined for it—ticked off and made to look an ass in front of the others, or get privileges revoked, or something like that. Well, Dr. Beecher was easier on Sebastian than on most of us. Sebastian sort of took advantage, as if he knew Dr. Beecher wouldn’t do anything. He could be an arrogant sod at times. He believed in his own image. . . .” He stopped. Guilt was naked in his face, the stoop of his shoulders, the fidgeting of his right foot as it scuffed the stones. He had said only what was true, but convention decreed that one spoke no ill of the dead. His mother would have seen it as betrayal. “I never thought he liked Sebastian very much,” he finished awkwardly.
“But he favored him?” Joseph pressed.
Elwyn stared at the ground. “It makes no sense to me, because it isn’t a favor in the long run. You’ve got to have discipline or you have nothing. And other people get fed up if you keep on getting away with things.”
“Did other people notice?” Joseph asked.
“Of course. I think that’s what the row was about with Beecher, a day or two before Sebastian’s death.”
“Why didn’t you mention it before?”
Elwyn stared at him. “Because I can’t see Dr. Beecher shooting Sebastian for being arrogant and taking advantage of him. Those things are irritating as hell, but you don’t kill someone for them!”
“No,” Joseph agreed. “Of course you don’t.” He tried to think of the need to bring Mary Allard toward reality in a way she could manage. He wanted to help, but he could see her fragility, and nothing was going to ease the blow for her if something ugly was exposed in Sebastian. She might even refuse to believe it and blame everyone else for lying. “Try to be patient with your mother,” he added. “There is little on earth that hurts more than disillusion.”
Elwyn gave a twisted smile. Blinking rapidly to fight his emotion, he nodded and walked away, too close to tears to excuse himself.
Joseph went back to St. John’s to look for anyone who could either substantiate or deny what Elwyn had told him. Near the bridge he ran into Rattray.
“Favor him?” Rattray said curiously, looking up from the book he was reading. “I suppose so. Hadn’t thought about it much. I got rather used to everyone thinking Sebastian was the next golden poet and all that.” The wry, almost challenging look in his eyes very much included Joseph within that group, and Joseph felt the heat burn up his face.
“I was thinking of something a bit more definable than a belief,” he said rather tartly.
Rattray sighed. “I suppose he did let Sebastian get away with more than the rest of us,” he conceded. “There were times when I thought it was odd.”
“Didn’t you mind?” Joseph was surprised.
“Of course I minded!” Rattray said hotly. “Once or twice taking advantage of Beecher was clever, and we all thought it would make it easier for the rest of us to skip lectures if we want
ed, or turn in stuff late, or whatever. Even came in blotto a couple of times, and poor old Beecher didn’t do a damn thing! Then I began to see it was all rather grubby, and in the end stupid as well. I told Sebastian what I thought of it and that I wasn’t playing anymore, and he told me to go to hell. Sorry. I’m sure that isn’t what you wanted to hear. But your beautiful Sebastian could be a pain in the arse at times.”
Joseph said nothing. Actually it was Beecher he was thinking of, and afraid for.
“When he was good, he was marvelous,” Rattray said hastily, as if he thought he had gone too far. “Nobody was more fun, a better friend, or honestly a better student. I didn’t resent him, if that’s what you think. You don’t when somebody’s really brilliant. You see the good, and you’re happy for it—just that it exists. He just changed a bit lately.”
“When is lately?”
Rattray thought for a moment. “Two or three months, maybe? And then after the Sunday of the assassination in Sarajevo, he got so wound up I thought he was going to snap. Poor devil, he really thought we were going to war.”
“Yes. He talked to me about it.”
“Don’t you think it’s possible, sir?” Rattray looked surprised. “A quick sort of thing, in and out. Settle it?”
“Perhaps,” Joseph said uncertainly. Had Sebastian been killed out of some stupid jealousy here, nothing to do with the document or John Reavley’s death?
Rattray gave a sudden grin. It lit his rather ordinary face and made it vivid and charming. “We don’t owe the Austrians anything, or the Serbs, either. But I wouldn’t find a spell in the army so terrible. Could be a wheeze, actually. Spot of adventure before the grind of real life!”
All kinds of warnings came into Joseph’s mind, but he realized he actually knew no more than Rattray did. They were both speaking in ignorance, fueled only by other men’s experiences.
Before dinner, when he was almost certain to find him alone, Joseph went to Beecher’s rooms, bracing himself for a confrontation that could break a friendship he had long valued.
Beecher was surprised to see him, and evidently pleased.
“Come in,” he invited him warmly, abandoning his book and welcoming Joseph, offering him the better chair. “Have a drink? I’ve got some fairly decent sherry.”
That was typical of Beecher’s understatement. “Fairly decent” actually meant absolutely excellent.
Joseph accepted, embarrassed that he was going to take hospitality in what might prove to be a false understanding.
“I could do with one myself.” Beecher went to the sideboard, took the bottle out of the cupboard, and set two elegant engraved crystal glasses on the table. He was fond of glass and collected it now and then, when he found something quaint or very old. “I feel as if I’ve been dogged by that wretched policeman all week, and God knows the news is bad enough. I can’t see any end to this Irish fiasco. Can you?”
“No,” Joseph admitted honestly, sitting down. The room had grown familiar over the time he had been here. He knew every book on the shelves and had borrowed many of them. He could have described the view out the window with his eyes closed. He could have named the various members of the family in each of the silver-framed photographs. He knew exactly where the different scenic paintings were drawn, which valley in the Lake District, which castle on the Northumberland coast, which stretch of the South Downs. Each held memories they had shared or recounted at one time or another.
“The police are not getting anywhere, are they?” he said aloud.
“Not so far as I know.” Beecher returned with the sherry. “Here’s to an end to the investigation, although I’m not sure if we’ll like what it uncovers.”
“And what might that be?” Joseph asked.
Beecher studied Joseph for some time before replying. “I think we’ll discover that somebody had a thoroughly good motive for killing Sebastian Allard, even though they may be hideously sorry now.”
Suddenly Joseph was cold, and the aftertaste of the sherry was bitter in his mouth. “What do you think a good motive could be?” he asked. “It was in cold blood. Whoever it was took a gun to his room at a quarter after five in the morning.” With a jolt of memory so violent it turned his stomach, Joseph recalled exactly the feel of Sebastian’s skin, already cool.
Beecher must have been watching him and seen his color bleach. He breathed out slowly. “I’d like to let you go on in your belief that he was as good as you wanted him to be, but he wasn’t. He had promise, but he was on the verge of being spoiled. Poor Mary Allard was at least in part responsible.”
Now was the moment. “I know,” Joseph conceded. “I was responsible as well.” He ignored Beecher’s look of amusement and compassion. “Elwyn protected him partly for his own sake, partly for his mother’s,” he went on. “And apparently you let him get away with being rude, late with work, and sometimes sloppy. And yet you didn’t like him. Why did you do that?”
Beecher was silent, but the color had paled from his face and his hand holding the sherry glass was trembling very slightly; the golden liquid in it shimmered. He made an effort to control it and lifted it to his lips to take a sip, perhaps to give himself time.
“It was hardly in your interest,” Joseph went on. “It was bad for your reputation and your ability to be fair to others and maintain any kind of discipline.”
“You favored him yourself!”
“I liked him,” Joseph pointed out. “I admit, my judgment was flawed. But you didn’t like him. You know the rules as well as I do. Why did you break them for him?”
“I didn’t know you had such tenacity,” Beecher said drily. “You’ve changed.”
“Rather past time, isn’t it?” Joseph said with regret. “But as you said, there is no point in dealing with anything less than the truth.”
“No. But I don’t propose to discuss it with you. I did not kill Sebastian, and I don’t know who did. You’ll have to believe that or not, as you wish.”
It was not as Joseph wished. He had liked Beecher profoundly almost since they had met. Everything he knew about him, or thought he knew, was decent. Beecher was the ideal professor, learned without being pompous. He taught for the love of his subject, and his students knew it. His pleasures seemed to be mild: old buildings, especially those with quaint or unusual history, and odd dishes from around the world. He had the courage and the curiosity to try anything: mountain climbing, canoeing, potholing, small-boat sailing. Beecher loved old trees, the more individual the better; he had jeopardized his reputation campaigning to save them, to the great annoyance of local authorities. He liked old people and their memories, and odd irrelevant facts. He had spoken of his family now and then. He was particularly fond of certain aunts, all of whom were marvelously eccentric creatures who espoused lost causes with passion and courage, and invariably a sense of humor.
Joseph realized with surprise, and sadness, that Beecher had never spoken of love. He had laughed at himself over one or two youthful fancies, but never anything you could call a commitment, nothing truly of the heart. It was a gaping omission, and the longer Joseph considered it the more it troubled him.
Guardedly he looked at Beecher now, sitting only a few feet away from him, effecting to be relaxed. He was not handsome, but his humor and intelligence made him unusually attractive. He had grace and he dressed with a certain flair. He took care of himself like a man who was not averse to intimate involvement.
And yet he had never spoken of women. If there was no one, why had he not ever mentioned that, perhaps regretted it? The most obvious answer was that had such an attachment existed, it was illicit. If so, he could not afford to tell even his closest friends.
The silence in the room, which would usually have been warm and comfortable, was suddenly distressing. Joseph’s thoughts raced in his head. Had Sebastian either stumbled on a secret or gone looking for it and unearthed it deliberately, then used it? It was a thought Joseph would much rather have put away as unworthy, but he coul
d no longer afford to do that.
Whom was it Beecher loved? If he was telling the truth and had not killed Sebastian, nor know who had, then surely the natural person to consider after that would be whoever else was involved in the illicit romance. Or whoever was betrayed by it, if such a person existed.
At last he faced the ultimate ugliness: What if Beecher was lying? What if his illicit lover had been Sebastian himself? The thought was extraordinarily painful, but it fitted all the facts he knew—the undeniable ones, not the dreams or wishes. Perhaps Flora Whickham was merely a friend, a fellow pacifist, and an escape from the inevitable demands of his family?
There were people who could love men and women with equal ease. He had never before considered Sebastian as one such, but then he had not thought deeply about him in that regard at all. It was a private area. Now he was obliged to intrude into it. He would do it as discreetly as possible, and if it led nowhere with regard to Sebastian’s death, he would never speak of it. He was accustomed to keeping secrets; it was part of the profession he had chosen.
Beecher was watching him with his characteristic patience until Joseph should be ready to talk again.
Joseph was ashamed of his thoughts. Was this what everyone else was feeling—suspicion, ugly ideas racing through the mind and refusing to be banished?
“Sebastian had a friendship with a local girl, you know?” he said aloud. “A barmaid from the pub along near the millpond.”
“Well, that sounds healthy enough!” Then Beecher’s face darkened with something very close to anger. “Unless you’re suggesting he misused her? Are you?”
“No! No, I really mean a friend!” Joseph corrected him. “It seems they shared political convictions.”
“Political convictions!” Beecher was amazed. “I didn’t know he had any.”
“He was passionately against war.” Joseph remembered the emotion shaking Sebastian’s voice as he had spoken of the destruction of conflict. “For the ruin it would bring. Not only physically, but culturally, even spiritually. He was prepared to work for peace, not just wish for it.”