‘Not a thing.’
‘Then she must have got out while Carrie was fetching you out of bed. I suppose nobody saw her go.’
‘I’ve asked the only three students whose windows overlook that wall, and they saw nothing,’ said Harriet.
‘Well, you might ask Annie about the beaker. And ask both of them whether they noticed, as they came past, if the dark-room window was open or shut, I don’t suppose they noticed anything, but you never can tell.’
‘What does it matter?’ asked the Dean.
‘Not very much. But if it was shut, it rather supports Miss Vane’s idea about the blackboard. If it was open, it would suggest that a retreat had been planned in that direction. It’s a question of whether we’re dealing with a short-sighted or a long-sighted person – mentally, I mean. And you might inquire at the same time whether any of the other women in the Scouts’ Wing saw the light in the lecture-room, and if so, how early.’
Harriet laughed.
‘I can tell you that at once. None of them. If they had, there would have been an eager rush to tell us all about it. You may be perfectly certain that Annie’s and Carrie’s adventure formed the staple of conversation in the servants’ hall this morning.’
‘That,’ said his lordship, ‘is very true indeed.’
There was a pause. The lecture-room seemed to offer no further field for research. Harriet suggested that Wimsey might like to look round the College.
‘I was about to suggest it,’ said he, ‘if you can spare the time.’
‘Miss Lydgate is expecting me in half an hour for a fresh attack on the Prosody,’ said Harriet. ‘I mustn’t cut that, because her time is so precious, poor dear, and she’s suddenly thought of a new appendix.’
‘Oh, no!’ cried the Dean.
‘Alas, yes! But we could just go round and view the more important battlefields.’
‘I should like particularly to see the Hall and Library and the connection between them, the entrance to Tudor Building, with Miss Barton’s former room, the lay-out of the Chapel with reference to the postern and the place where, with the help of God, one leaps over the wall, and the way from Queen Elizabeth into the New Quad.’
‘Great Heavens!’ said Harriet. ‘Did you sit up all night with the dossier?’
‘Hush! no, I woke rather early. But don’t let Bunter hear, or he will start being solicitous. Men have died and the worms have eaten them, but not for early rising. In fact, it is said that it’s the early worm that gets the bird.’
‘You remind me,’ said the Dean, ‘that there are half a dozen worms waiting in my room to get the bird this minute. Three late-without leaves, two gramophones-out-of-doors, and an irregular motor-vehicle. We shall meet again at dinner, Lord Peter.’
She ran briskly away to deal with the malefactors, leaving Peter and Harriet to make their tour. From Peter’s comments, Harriet could make out little of his mind; she fancied, indeed, that he was somewhat abstracted from the matter in hand.
‘I fancy,’ he said at last, as they came to the Jowett Walk Lodge, where he had left the car, ‘that you will have very little more trouble at night.’
‘Why?’
‘Well, for one thing, the nights are getting very short, and the risks very great . . . All the same – shall you be offended if I ask you – if I suggest that you should take some personal precautions?’
‘What sort of precautions?’
‘I won’t offer you a revolver to take to bed with you. But I have an idea that from now on you and at least one other person may be in some danger of attack. That may be imagination. But if this joker is alarmed and bottled up for a bit – and I think she has been alarmed – the next outrage may be a serious one – when it comes.’
‘Well,’ said Harriet, ‘we have her word for it that she finds me merely funny.’
His attention seemed to be attracted by something among the dash-board fittings, and he said, looking not at her but at the car:
‘Yes. But without any vanity, I wish I were your husband or your brother or your lover, or anything but what I am.’
‘You mean, your being here is a danger – to me?’
‘I dare say I’m flattering myself.’
‘But it wouldn’t stop you to damage me.’
‘She may not think very clearly about that.’
‘Well, I don’t mind the risk, if it is one. And I don’t see why it would be any less if you were a relation of mine.’
‘There’d be an innocent excuse for my presence, wouldn’t there? . . . Don’t think I’m trying to make capital out of this on my own account. I’m being careful to observe the formalities, as you may have noticed. I’m only warning you that I’m sometimes a dangerous person to know.’
‘Let’s have this clear, Peter. You think that your being here may make this person desperate and that she may try to take it out of me. And you are trying to tell me, very delicately, that it might be safer if we camouflaged your interest.’
‘Safer for you.’
‘Yes – though I can’t see why you think so. But you’re sure I’d rather die than make such an embarrassing pretence.’
‘Well, wouldn’t you?’
‘And on the whole you’d rather see me dead than embarrassed.’
‘That is probably another form of egotism. But I am entirely at your service.’
‘Of course, if you’re such a perilous ally, I could tell you to go away.’
‘I can see you urging me to go away and leave a job undone.’
‘Well, Peter, I’d certainly rather die than make any sort of pretence to you or about you. But I think you’re exaggerating the whole thing. You don’t usually get the wind up like this.’
‘I do, though; quite often. But if it’s only my own risk, I can afford to let it blow. When it comes to other people—’
‘Your instinct is to clap the women and children under hatches.’
‘Well,’ he admitted, deprecatingly, ‘one can’t suppress one’s natural instincts altogether; even if one’s reason and self-interest are all the other way.’
‘Peter, it’s a shame. Let me introduce you to some nice little woman who adores being protected.’
‘I should be wasted on her. Besides, she would always be deceiving me, in the kindest manner, for my own good; and that I could not stand. I object to being tactfully managed by somebody who ought to be my equal. If I want tactful dependents, I can hire them. And fire them if they get too tactful. I don’t mean Bunter. He braces me by a continual cold shower of silent criticism. I don’t protect him; he protects me, and preserves an independent judgment . . . However; without presuming to be protective, may I yet suggest that you should use a reasonable caution? I tell you frankly I don’t like your friend’s pre-occupation with knives and strangling.’
‘Are you serious?’
‘For once.’
Harriet was about to tell him not to be ridiculous; then she remembered Miss Barton’s story about the strong hands that had seized her from behind. It might have been quite true. The thought of perambulating the long corridors by night was suddenly disagreeable.
‘Very well; I’ll be careful.’
‘I think it would be wise. I’d better push off now. I’ll be round in time to face the High Table at dinner. Seven o’clock?’
She nodded. He had interpreted strictly her injunction to come ‘this morning instead of at six.’ She went, feeling a little blank, to cope with Miss Lydgate’s proofs.
17
He that questioneth much shall learn much, and content much; but especially if he apply his questions to the skill of the persons whom he asketh; for he shall give them occasion to please themselves in speaking, and himself shall continually gather knowledge. But let his questions not be troublesome, for that is fit for a poser; and let him be sure to leave other men their turns to speak.
FRANCIS BACON
‘You look,’ said the Dean, ‘like a nervous parent whose little boy is about to recite Th
e Wreck of the Hesperus at a School Concert.’
‘I feel,’ said Harriet, ‘more like the mother of Daniel.
King Darius said to the lions:—
Bite Daniel. Bite Daniel.
Bite him. Bite him. Bite him.’
‘G’rrrrr!’ said the Dean.
They were standing at the door of the Senior Common Room, which conveniently overlooked the Jowett Walk Lodge. The Old Quad was animated. Late-comers were hurrying over to change for dinner; others, having changed, were strolling about in groups, waiting for the bell; some were still playing tennis; Miss de Vine emerged from the Library Building, still vaguely pushing in hairpins (Harriet had checked up on those hairpins and identified them); an elegant figure paraded towards them from the direction of the New Quadrangle.
‘Miss Shaw’s got a new frock,’ said Harriet.
‘So she has! How posh of her!
And she was as fine as a melon in the corn-field,
Gliding and lovely as a ship upon the sea.
That, my dear, is meant for Daniel,’
‘Dean, darling, you’re being a cat.’
‘Well, aren’t we all? This early arrival of everybody is exceedingly sinister. Even Miss Hillyard is arrayed in her best black gown with a train to it. We all feel there’s safety in numbers.’
It was not out of the way for the Senior Common Room to collect outside their own door before dinner for a fine summer’s day, but Harriet, glancing round, had to admit that there were more of them there that evening than was usual before 7 o’clock. She thought they all seemed apprehensive and some even hostile. They tended to avoid one another’s eyes; yet they gathered together as though for protection against a common menace. She suddenly found it absurd that anybody should be alarmed by Peter Wimsey; she saw them as a harmless collection of nervous patients in a dentist’s waiting-room.
‘We seem,’ said Miss Pyke’s harsh voice in her ear, ‘to be preparing a somewhat formidable reception for our guest. Is he of a timid disposition?’
‘I should say he was completely hard-boiled,’ said Harriet.
‘That reminds me,’ said the Dean. ‘In the matter of shirt-fronts—’
‘Hard, of course,’ said Harriet, indignantly. ‘And if he pops or bulges, I will pay you five pounds.’
‘I have been meaning to ask you,’ said Miss Pyke. ‘How is the popping sound occasioned? I did not like to ask Dr. Threep so personal a question, but my curiosity was very much aroused.’
‘You’d better ask Lord Peter,’ said Harriet.
‘If you think he will not be offended,’ replied Miss Pyke, with perfect seriousness, ‘I will do so.’
The chimes of New College, rather out of tune, played the four quarters and struck the hour.
‘Punctuality,’ said the Dean, her eyes turned towards the Lodge, ‘seems to be one of the gentleman’s virtues. You’d better go and meet him and settle his nerves before the ordeal.’
‘Do you think so?’ Harriet shook her head. ‘Ye’ll no fickle Tammas Yownie.’
It may, perhaps, be embarrassing for a solitary man to walk across a wide quadrangle under a fire of glances from a collection of collegiate females; but it is child’s play compared, for example, with the long trek from the pavilion at Lord’s to the far end of the pitch, with five wickets down and ninety needed to save the follow-on. Thousands of people then alive might have recognised that easy and unhurried stride and confident carriage of the head. Harriet let him do three-quarters of the journey alone, and then advanced to meet him.
‘Have you cleaned your teeth and said your prayers?’
‘Yes, mamma; and cut my nails and washed behind the ears and got a clean handkerchief.’
Looking at a bunch of students who happened to pass at the moment, Harriet wished she could have said the same of them. They were grubby and dishevelled and she felt unexpectedly obliged to Miss Shaw for having made an effort in the matter of dress. As for her convoy, from his sleek yellow head to his pumps she distrusted him; his mood of the morning was gone, and he was ready for mischief as a wilderness of monkeys.
‘Come along then, and behave prettily. Have you seen your nephew?’
‘I have seen him. My bankruptcy will probably be announced to-morrow. He asked me to give you his love, no doubt thinking I can still be lavish in that commodity. It all returned from him to you though it was mine before. That colour is very becoming to you.’
His tone was pleasantly detached and she hoped he was referring to her dress; but she was not sure. She was glad to relinquish him to the Dean, who came forward to claim him and to relieve her of the introductions. Harriet watched in some amusement. Miss Lydgate, far too unselfconscious to have any attitude at all, greeted him exactly as she would have greeted anybody else, and asked eagerly about the situation in Central Europe; Miss Shaw smiled with a graciousness that emphasised Miss Stevens’s brusque ‘How-d’ye-do’ and immediate retreat into animated discussion of college affairs with Miss Allison; Miss Pyke pounced on him with an intelligent question about the latest murder; Miss Barton, advancing with an evident determination to put him right about capital punishment, was disarmed by the blank amiability of the countenance offered for her inspection and observed instead that it had been a remarkably fine day.
‘Comedian!’ thought Harriet, as Miss Barton, finding she could make nothing of him, passed him on to Miss Hillyard.
‘Ah!’ said Wimsey instantly, smiling into the History Tutor’s sulky eyes, ‘this is delightful. Your paper in the Historical Review on the diplomatic aspects of the Divorce. . .’
(Heavens! thought Harriet, I hope he knows his stuff.)
‘. . . really masterly. Indeed, I felt that, if anything, you had slightly underestimated the pressure brought to bear upon Clement by. . . .’
‘. . . consulted the unedited dispatches in the possession of . . .’
‘. . . you might have carried the argument a trifle farther, You very rightly point out that the Emperor . . .’
(Yes; he had read the article all right.)
‘. . . disfigured by prejudice, but a considerable authority on the Canon Law . . .’
‘. . . needing to be thoroughly overhauled and re-edited. Innumerable mistranscriptions and at least one upscrupulous omission. . . .’
‘. . . if at any time you require access, I could probably put you in touch with . . . official channels . . . personal introduction . . . raise no difficulties . . .’
‘Miss Hillyard,’ said the Dean to Harriet, ‘looks as though she has been given a birthday present.’
‘I think he’s offering her access to some out-of-the-way source of information.’ (After all, she thought, he is Somebody, though one never seems able to remember it.)
‘. . . not so much political as economic.’
‘Ah!’ said Miss Hillyard, ‘when it comes to a question of national finance, Miss de Vine is the real authority.’
She effected the introduction herself, and the discussion continued.
‘Well,’ said the Dean, ‘he has made a complete conquest of Miss Hillyard.’
‘And Miss de Vine is making a complete conquest of him.’
‘It’s mutual, I fancy. At any rate, her back hair’s coming down, which is a sure sign of pleasure and excitement.’
‘Yes,’ said Harriet. Wimsey was arguing with intelligence about the appropriation of monastic funds, but she had little doubt that the back of his mind was full of hairpins.
‘Here comes the Warden. We shall have to separate them forcibly. He’s got to face Dr. Baring and take her in to dinner. . . . All’s well. She has collared him. That firm assertion of the Royal Prerogative! . . . Do you want to sit next him and hold his hand?’
‘I don’t think he needs any assistance from me. You’re the person for him. Not a suspect, but full of lively information.’
‘All right; I’ll go and prattle to him. You’d better sit opposite to us and kick me if I say anything indiscreet.’
B
y this arrangement, Harriet found herself placed a little uncomfortably between Miss Hillyard (in whom she always felt an antagonism to herself) and Miss Barton (who was obviously still worried about Wimsey’s detective hobbies), and face to face with the two people whose glances were most likely to disturb her gravity. On the other side of the Dean sat Miss Pyke; on the other side of Miss Hillyard was Miss de Vine, well under Wimsey’s eye. Miss Lydgate, that secure fortress, was situated at the far end of the table, offering no kind of refuge.
Neither Miss Hillyard nor Miss Barton had much to say to Harriet, who was thus able to follow, without too much difficulty, the Warden’s straightforward determination to size up Wimsey and Wimsey’s diplomatically veiled but equally obstinate determination to size up the Warden; a contest carried on with unwavering courtesy on either side.
Dr. Baring began by inquiring whether Lord Peter had been conducted over the College and what he thought of it, adding, with due modesty that architecturally, of course, it could scarcely hope to compete with the more ancient foundations.
‘Considering,’ said his lordship plaintively, ‘that the architecture of my own ancient foundation is mathematically compounded of ambition, distraction, uglification and derision, that remark sounds like sarcasm.’
The Warden, almost seduced into believing herself guilty of a breach of manners, earnestly assured him that she had intended no personal allusion.
‘An occasional reminder is good for us,’ said he. ‘We are mortified in nineteenth-century Gothic, lest in our overweening Balliolity we forget God. We pulled down the good to make way for the bad; you, on the contrary, have made the world out of nothing – a more divine procedure.’
The Warden, manœuvring uneasily on this slippery ground between jest and earnest, found foothold:
‘It is quite true that we have had to make what we can out of very little – and that, you know, is typical of our whole position here.’
‘Yes; you are practically without endowments?’