And B B began to tell his story.
He worked, it seemed, in a kind of commodious dungeon beneath the college library. The cavernous chamber was impregnable; so, within it, were the numerous steel filing cabinets in which the Cannongate Papers had arrived. B B, coming and going, had only to deal faithfully with locks and keys, and nothing could go wrong. Unfortunately it is not easy, when living in a residential university, to bear at all constantly in mind that the world is inhabited by others as well as scholars and gentlemen, ancient faithful manservants of a quasi-hereditary sort, a few pretty secretaries, and an excellent chef. One may differ sharply from one’s colleagues over such issues as the problem of the historical Socrates; one may even be conscious that at times quite naked and shocking animosities can generate themselves out of less learned matters – as, for example, where to hang a picture or who shall look after the wine; but one doesn’t – one simply doesn’t – expect to have one’s pocket picked or one’s researches plagiarised. The concept of the felonious, in short, is one to which it is difficult to give serious thought.
These considerations – or something like them – B B did a little divagate to advance, as the early stages of his narrative now unfolded themselves. He had not always been too careful about those bloody keys, and he would look a pretty fool in a witness box if this ghastly affair had the consequence of depositing him in one before a judge and jury.
Appleby’s benevolent reception of the troubles of Bobby’s friend didn’t stand up to all this too well. He had a simple professional persuasion that keys exist to be turned in locks without fail at appropriate times, and that a young man who has gone vague on instructions he has received and accepted in such a matter ought not to be let off being told that he has been improperly negligent. On the other hand it was possible that B B was himself feeling very bad indeed. These were considerations that required balanced utterance.
‘I hope,’ Appleby said, ‘that we needn’t conclude your culpable carelessness over these things to have been the direct occasion of somebody’s getting murdered. It sounds inherently improbable. But go on.’
‘Well, sir, there’s rather a difficult one there.’ B B was recovering from the extreme disarray in which he had arrived at Dream. ‘I suppose the original chunk of dirty work – a bit of thieving – couldn’t have happened if I’d always been right on the ball over those rotten keys. But the murder’s a different matter. That seems to have been the result of my having, as a matter of fact, a brighter moment.’
‘Brian saw the significance of the electricity.’ Bobby Appleby, who had returned to his father’s study deftly carrying a decanter, three glasses and a plate of chocolate biscuits, offered this luminous remark. ‘Absolutely top-detective stuff, if you ask me.’
‘But I don’t ask you. So just pour us that sherry and be quiet.’ Appleby turned back to Mr Button. ‘More about your brighter moment, please.’
‘When I happen on any paper dealing with a certain delicate and purely family matter, I have instructions to photocopy it. There’s some prospect of a lawsuit, it seems, over whether a grandson of my Lord Cannongate was of legitimate birth or not; and a sort of dossier has to be got together for some solicitors.’
‘You have to make only one copy?’
‘Yes – and when I came on something relevant earlier this week I did just that. We have a machine on which we can do the job ourselves, you see, in one of the college offices. There were eight pages of the stuff, and when I’d made a copy I filed the eight sheets of it away in a special box with other photocopies of similar material. That was on Monday. Yesterday morning I had to go to that box again, and I happened to turn over those particular copies. Only, the sheets were pretty well stuck to each other still. So you see.’
‘No, Brian, I don’t see.’ Appleby glanced from the Cannongate Lecturer to the creator of The Lumber Room (who was punishing the chocolate biscuits rather more heavily than the sherry). He might have been wondering whether England was exclusively populated by excessively clever young men. ‘Why should they be stuck to each other?’
‘Because of what Bobby says – the electricity.’ B B seemed surprised that this had not been immediately apparent. ‘Those photocopying machines are uncommonly lavish with it. Static electricity, I think it’s called. If you stack your copies one on top of another as they come out of the contraption, they cling to one another like–’
‘Like characters in a skin-flick.’ Bobby had momentarily stopped munching to offer this helpful simile. ‘And that’s what Brian found.’
‘I see.’ Appleby was no longer mystified. ‘The electrical phenomenon fades, and therefore the sheets manifesting it yesterday could not be those which you had filed away on Monday. Earlier yesterday, or just a little before that, somebody had extracted your copies from their box; photocopied them in turn; and then – inadvertently, perhaps – returned to the box not the older copies but the newer ones. And, but for this curious electrical or magnetic effect on the paper, and but for your being alert enough to notice it and draw the necessary inference, nobody need ever have known that there had been any monkey-business at all.’
‘That’s it, sir. And, if I may say so, pretty hot of you to get there in one.’
‘Thank you very much,’ Appleby said a shade grimly. ‘It doesn’t exactly tax the intellect. And just what did you do, Brian, when you made this unfortunate discovery?’
‘I went straight to our Master, Robert Durham, and told him the whole thing. There was nothing else for it but to confess to the head man.’
‘That was thoroughly sensible of you.’ Appleby spoke as a man mollified. ‘And how has the Master taken it?’
‘How did he take it,’ Bobby corrected, and reached for another biscuit.
‘What?’ Appleby looked from one to the other young man aghast. ‘Brian…?’
‘Yes, sir. You see, the Master seemed to have ideas about what had happened, although he didn’t tell me what they were. It appeared to ring a bell. And that must be why they’ve murdered him.’
‘Good God!’ Appleby had a passing acquaintance with the scholar thus summarily disposed of.
‘We could have better spared a better man.’ Bobby offered this improving quotation with some solemnity. ‘Of course, the old boy had had his life. I did feel that. He must have been sixty, if he was a day. He’d toasted his bottom before the fire of life. It sank–’
‘Possibly so.’ Appleby made no attempt to find this out-of-turn mortuary humour diverting, but he did perhaps judge it, from Bobby, a shade mysterious.
‘Still,’ Bobby went on, ‘even if the Master was a clear case for euthanasia, the thing must be cleared up. You must come and clear it up, as I’ve said. The fact is, they may be getting round to imagining things.’
‘Who do you mean by “they”? B B seems to be applying the word to a gang of assassins.’
‘What I mean is the police.’ Bobby Appleby was suddenly speaking slowly and carefully. ‘They may pitch on some quite unsuitable suspect. For instance, on B B himself. You see, there are one or two things you haven’t yet heard.’
‘To my confusion, Bobby means.’ Mr Button, who had cheered up while retailing his acumen over the electrified photocopies, was again sunk in gloom, and he had blurted this out after a short expressive silence. ‘I think the police believe I took the Master a cock-and-bull story, just as a cover-up for something else. I think they believe the Master spotted my deception, and that I killed him because otherwise I’d have been turfed out in disgrace and it would have been the end of me.’
‘That’s a succinct statement, at least.’ Appleby was looking at his son’s friend gravely. ‘Does it mean that, in addition to being careless with those keys, you had been at fault in some other way as well?’
‘I’m afraid it does. You see, I’d had the idea of writing a few popular articles on the side.’<
br />
‘My dear young man! You were going to publicize this intimate Cannongate family scandal you’ve been talking about?’
‘Of course not!’ B B had flushed darkly. ‘Just some purely political things. I’d have got permission, and all that, from the trustees. But I felt I wanted to have a definite proposition to put to them. So I had a newspaper chap up from London several times, and showed him this and that. It was a bit irregular, I suppose. It could have looked bad. As a matter of fact, our senior History Tutor came on us a couple of times, and didn’t seem to like it. I expect he has told the pigs.’
‘As it had undoubtedly now become his duty to do.’ Appleby wasn’t pleased by this manner of referring to the police. ‘But this London contact of yours could at least substantiate your comparatively blameless intentions?’
‘I suppose so.’
‘On the other hand, if this journalist is an unscrupulous person, might he have come back into the college and done this thieving and copying himself? Had you told him about those more intimate papers? Even shown them to him?’
‘Not shown them. And only mentioned them in a general way. A bit of talk over a pint. He may have gathered where they were kept.’
‘Could he, as a stranger, have got swiftly at the photocopying machine?’
‘Well, yes – in theory. I took him in there and copied something trivial for him – just to show him we’re quite up to date. It’s all a bit unfortunate.’
‘I agree. And is there anything else that’s unfortunate? For example, have you done any other indiscreet talking about this scandal-department in the Cannongate Papers?’
‘No, of course not. Or only to Bruno.’
‘Very well, B B. Tell me about Bruno.’
‘Bruno Bone is our English Tutor, although he’s pretty well just a contemporary of Bobby and me. Teaches Wordsworth and Coleridge and all that sort of stuff. But, really, he wants to be a novelist. More junk yards, so to speak.’ This impertinent glance at Bobby’s masterpiece was accompanied by rather a joyless laugh on B B’s part. ‘I told Bruno one evening that there was a whole novel in those damned private papers.’
‘That was sheer nonsense, I suppose?’
‘I’m afraid so. You know how it is, late at night and after some drinks. Talking for effect, and all that.’
‘But at least your brilliant conversation apprised Mr Bone that these scandalous papers exist? Did he take any further interest in them?’
‘Well, yes. Bruno came in one morning and asked to have a dekko. He was a bit huffed when I told him it couldn’t be done.’
‘Just how did you tell him?’
‘Oh, I slapped the relevant box and said “Not for you, my boy”.’
‘I see.’ Appleby gazed in some fascination at this unbelievably luckless youth. ‘Tell me, B B. Of course there isn’t the material for a novel in your wretched dossier. But might there be material for blackmail?’
‘Definitely, I’d say. It’s not all exactly past history, you know. There are still people alive–’
‘All right – we needn’t go into details yet. But tell me this: might the Master have got to know about your chatter to Bruno Bone?’
‘It’s not unlikely. Bruno’s an idiot. Talk about anything to anybody.’
‘That’s a habit I’m glad to feel you disapprove of. Do you think Bruno could have developed some morbid and irrational curiosity as a result of all this, and have actually abstracted that particular bunch of papers and made copies of them?’
‘I suppose it’s possible. Those literary characters are wildly neurotic.’
‘And the Master might have found out – with the result that Bruno’s own career would suddenly have been very much at risk?’
‘Yes. The Master is – was – rather a dab at nosing things out.’
‘And that brings us to the last relevant point at the moment. Just how did Dr Durham die?’
‘Brains blown out.’ Bobby Appleby (who had finished the last chocolate biscuit) produced this robustly. ‘With some sort of revolver, it seems. Not something it’s likely that Brian keeps handy, I’d have thought.’
‘Nor Bruno,’ B B said handsomely.
‘Nor any stray blackmailer, either.’ Appleby was frowning. ‘You wouldn’t know whether the police are claiming to have found the weapon?’
‘Oh, yes.’ Bobby nodded vigorously. ‘It was just lying on the carpet in the Master’s study.’
‘That’s where I’d expect it to be.’ Appleby sounded faintly puzzled. ‘You know, the great majority of men who are found with their brains blown out have effected the messy job themselves. And even in the moment of death some spasm or convulsion can result in the weapon’s landing yards away. So, just for the moment, this story of yours sounds to me something of a mare’s nest. Robert Durham is in some pathological state of depression and suddenly makes away with himself. And then in comes Brian’s bad conscience about his handling of his archive. Bobby, wouldn’t you agree? You’ve said something that makes me think you would agree.’
‘Have I?’ Bobby seemed not to make much of this. ‘Durham wasn’t my Master, you know. He got the job only when mine died a couple of years ago. But I’ve seen enough of him to know that he was a rum bird.’
‘Secretive,’ B B added. ‘Nobody quite knew what he was up to. He was a bit remote. Brooding type. And a sick man, some said.’
‘God bless my soul!’ As he made use of this antique expression, Sir John Appleby got to his feet. ‘Unless you’re both having me up the garden path, you’re describing a thoroughly persuasive candidate for suicide. Not that such don’t get murdered from time to time. They may ingeniously elect liquidation in one way or another, without so much as being conscious of the fact. Which is psychologically interesting, no doubt, but murder it nevertheless remains.’ Appleby paused, and looked searchingly from one young man to the other. ‘Is there anything else I ought to know?’
‘Not in the way of fact, I’d say.’ For the moment, Bobby Appleby (so childishly addicted to chocolate biscuits) appeared to have taken charge of things. ‘Of course, the people who may have extra facts are the police. And they do have something. I don’t know what – but I know it’s there. I was present when they talked to Brian early this morning. They kept mum, but I knew they had something.’ Bobby grinned at his father. ‘Family instinct, perhaps. It’s why I brought Brian over to Dream. You can take a hand?’
‘I can stroll around the college, and have a chat here and there. I’d tell the Chief Constable, and he wouldn’t mind a bit – always provided I was tactful with his men on the spot. And being that is one of the things I keep a grip on even in senescence.’ Appleby, as he momentarily adopted this humorous vein, let his glance stray out of the window. It fixed itself briefly, and then returned to the two young men. ‘I’ll make a call or two,’ he said easily, and moved towards the door. ‘Drink up the sherry meanwhile: there’s about a thimbleful left for each of you.’
With this, Appleby left the room. But he was back before much in the way of telephone calls could have been achieved.
‘We were talking about the police,’ he said gently. ‘As a matter of fact, they’re here; and – Brian – they very probably have a warrant for your arrest.’
‘The personalities of the people concerned?’ The Vice-Master, who was called Fordyce, looked at Appleby doubtfully. ‘That’s not what the local police are asking. They want to know who had keys to what, and when who could have been where.’
‘Quite right. Absolutely essential.’ Appleby nodded approvingly. ‘It’s what gets the results – in nine cases out of ten. And, on this occasion, they appear to have got a result quite rapidly. Too rapidly, I think you’d say?’
‘Of course I’d say. The notion of that young man Brian Button providing himself with a revolver and shooting the Master dead with it in hi
s own study is simply too fantastic to stand up.’
‘But just at the moment, Vice-Master, it seems to be standing up rather well. The police have no doubt about what Dr Durham was doing when he was shot down – and it’s what they’ve discovered that has led them to question our young man. Durham was dictating a letter on his tape-recorder for his secretary to type out later. It was to the Cannongate trustees, and said flatly that Button had been guilty of professional misconduct of so scandalous a sort that he must be dismissed at once – even although it meant that all academic employment would henceforth be closed to him.’
‘It was a very strange thing for the Master to propose to write, Sir John.’
‘Well, there it is. The tape isn’t to be denied. The Master appears to have flicked the switch that stops the machine simply because he was interrupted while on the job. So the record remained for the police to find.’
‘I understand the police case. Button has admitted going to see the Master early yesterday morning and telling him a story about rifled papers. It is now supposed that he returned again in the late afternoon, armed and resolved. The Master told him of the step he proposed to take, but without saying that he had at that moment broken off from recording his letter. So Button killed him, hoping thus to smother up the whole thing. I repeat that it is utter nonsense, completely alien to Brian Button’s character, such as it is. A somewhat irresponsible young man, perhaps. But not precisely bloody, bold, and resolute.’
‘It’s Durham’s character that interests me more. And aren’t you saying that he too seems to have behaved out of character?’
‘In a sense, that is so.’ Fordyce had taken this point soberly. ‘But perhaps I have to say that, although I knew Robert Durham long before he became Master, I never quite understood the man. I have sometimes thought of him as harbouring that degree of inner instability which is liable to produce what they call a personality change. And yet that is a fantastic speculation.’
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