The question was so offered as to include the Dean, who said cheerfully:
‘Quite right. All done by cheeseparing.’
‘That being so,’ he said seriously, ‘even to admire seems to be a kind of impertinence. This is a very fine hall – who is the architect?’
The Warden supplied him with a little local history, breaking off to say:
‘But probably you are not specially interested in all this question of women’s education.’
‘Is it still a question? It ought not to be. I hope you are not going to ask me whether I approve of women’s doing this and that.’
‘Why not?’
‘You should not imply that I have any right either to approve or disapprove.’
‘I assure you,’ said the Warden, ‘that even in Oxford we still encounter a certain number of people who maintain their right to disapprove.’
‘And I had hoped I was returning to civilisation.’
The removal of fish-plates caused a slight diversion, and the Warden took the opportunity to turn her inquiries upon the situation in Europe. Here the guest was on his own ground. Harriet caught the Dean’s eye and smiled. But the more formidable challenge was coming. International politics led to history, and history – in Dr. Baring’s mind – to philosophy. The ominous name of Plato suddenly emerged from a tangle of words, and Dr. Baring moved out a philosophical speculation, like a pawn, and planted it temptingly en prise.
Many persons had plunged to irretrievable disaster over the Warden’s philosophic pawn. There were two ways of taking it: both disastrous. One was to pretend to knowledge; the other, to profess an insincere eagerness for instruction. His lordship smiled gently and refused the gambit:
‘That is out of my stars. I have not the philosophic mind.’
‘And how would you define the philosophic mind, Lord Peter?’
‘I wouldn’t; definitions are dangerous. But I know that philosophy is a closed book to me, as music is to the tone-deaf.’
The Warden looked at him quickly; he presented her with an innocent profile, drooping and contemplative over his plate, like a heron brooding by a pond.
‘A very apt illustration,’ said the Warden; ‘as it happens, I am tone-deaf myself.’
‘Are you? I thought you might be,’ he said, equably.
‘That is very interesting. How can you tell?’
‘There is something in the quality of the voice.’ He offered candid grey eyes for examination. ‘But it’s not a very safe conclusion to draw, and, as you may have noticed, I didn’t draw it. That is the art of the charlatan – to induce a confession and present it as the result of deduction.’
‘I see,’ said Dr. Baring. ‘You expose your technique very frankly.’
‘You would have seen through it in any case, so it is better to expose one’s self and acquire an unmerited reputation for candour. The great advantage about telling the truth is that nobody ever believes it – that is at the bottom of the .’
‘So there is one philosopher whose books are not closed to you? Next time, I will start by way of Aristotle.’
She turned to her left-hand neighbour and released him.
‘I am sorry,’ said the Dean, ‘we have no strong drink to offer you.’
His face was eloquent of mingled apprehension and mischief.
‘The toad beneath the harrow knows where every separate tooth point goes. Do you always prove your guests with hard questions?’
‘Till they show themselves to be Solomons. You have passed the test with great credit.’
‘Hush! there is only one kind of wisdom that has any social value, and that is the knowledge of one’s own limitations.’
‘Nervous young dons and students have before now been carried out in convulsions through being afraid to say boldly that they did not know.’
‘Showing themselves,’ said Miss Pyke across the Dean, ‘less wise than Socrates, who made the admission fairly frequently.’
‘For Heaven’s sake,’ said Wimsey, ‘don’t mention Socrates. It might start all over again.’
‘Not now,’ said the Dean. ‘She will ask no questions now except for instruction.’
‘There is a question on which I am anxious to be instructed,’ said Miss Pyke, ‘if you will not take it amiss.’
Miss Pyke, of course, was still worried about Dr. Threep’s shirt-front, and determined on getting enlightenment. Harriet hoped that Wimsey would recognise her curiosity for what it was: not skittishness, but the embarrassing appetite for exact information which characterises the scholarly mind.
‘That phenomenon,’ he said, readily, ‘comes within my own sphere of knowledge. It occurs because the human torso possesses a higher factor of variability than the ready-made shirt. The explosive sound you mention is produced when the shirt-front is slightly too long for the wearer. The stiff edges, being forced slightly apart by the inclination of the body come back into contact with a sharp click, similiar to that emitted by the elytra of certain beetles. It is not to be confused, however, with the ticking of the Death-watch, which is made by tapping with the jaws and is held to be a love-call. The clicking of the shirt-front has no amatory significance, and is, indeed, an embarrassment to the insect. It may be obviated by an increased care in selection or, in extreme cases, by having the garment made to measure.’
‘Thank you so much,’ said Miss Pyke. ‘That is a most satisfactory explanation. At this time of day, it is perhaps not improper to adduce the parallel instance of the old-fashioned corset, which was subject to a similar inconvenience.’
‘The inconvenience,’ added Wimsey, ‘was even greater in the case of plate armour, which had to be very well tailored to allow of movement at all.’
At this point, Miss Barton captured Harriet’s attention with some remark or other, and she lost track of the conversation on the other side of the table. When she picked up the threads again, Miss Pyke was giving her neighbours some curious details about Ancient Minoan civilisation, and the Warden was apparently waiting till she had finished to pounce on Peter again. Turning to her right, Harriet saw that Miss Hillyard was watching the group with a curiously concentrated expression. Harriet asked her to pass the sugar, and she came back to earth with a slight start.
‘They seem to be getting on very well over there,’ said Harriet.
‘Miss Pyke likes an audience,’ said Miss Hillyard, with so much venom that Harriet was quite astonished.
‘It’s good for a man to have to do the listening sometimes,’ she suggested.
Miss Hillyard agreed absently. After a slight pause, during which dinner proceeded without incident, she said:
‘Your friend tells me he can obtain access for me to some private collections of historical documents in Florence. Do you suppose he means what he says?’
‘If he says so, you may be sure he can and will.’
‘That is a testimonial,’ said Miss Hillyard. ‘I am very glad to hear it.’
Meanwhile, the Warden had affected her capture, and was talking to Peter in a low tone and with some earnestness. He listened attentively, while he peeled an apple, the narrow coils of the rind sliding slowly over his fingers. She concluded with some question; and he shook his head.
‘It is very unlikely. I should say there was no hope of it at all.’
Harriet wondered whether the subject of the Poison-Pen had risen at last to the surface; but presently he said:
‘Three hundred years ago it mattered comparatively little. But now that you have the age of national self-realisation, the age of colonial expansion, the age of the barbarian invasions and the age of the decline and fall, all jammed cheek by jowl in time and space, all armed alike with poison-gas and going through the outward motions of an advanced civilisation,, principles have become more dangerous than passions. It’s getting uncommonly easy to kill people in large numbers, and the first thing a principle does – if it really is a principle – is to kill somebody.’
‘ “The real tragedy is
not the conflict of good with evil but of good with good”; that means a problem with no solution.’
‘Yes. Afflicting, of course, to the tidy mind. One may either hulloo on the inevitable, and be called a bloodthirsty progressive; or one may try to gain time and be called a blood-thirsty reactionary. But when blood is their argument, all argument is apt to be – merely bloody.’
The Warden passed the adjective at its face-value.
‘I sometimes wonder whether we gain anything by gaining time.’
‘Well – if one leaves letters unanswered long enough, some of them answer themselves. Nobody can prevent the Fall of Troy, but a dull, careful person may manage to smuggle out the Lares and Penates – even at the risk of having the epithet pius tacked to his name.’
‘The Universities are always being urged to march in the van of progress.’
‘But epic actions are all fought by the rearguard – at Roncevaux and Thermopylæ.’
‘Very well,’ said the Warden, laughing, ‘let us die in our tracks, having accomplished nothing but an epic.’
She collected the High Table with her eye, rose, and made a stately exit. Peter effaced himself politely against the panelling while the dons filed past him, arriving at the edge of the dais inn time to pick up Miss Shaw’s scarf as it slipped from her shoulders. Harriet found herself descending the staircase between Miss Martin and Miss de Vine, who remarked:
‘You are a courageous woman.’
‘Why?’ said Harriet lightly. ‘To bring my friends here and have them put to the question?’
‘Nonsense,’ interrupted the Dean. ‘We all behaved beautifully. Daniel is still uneaten – in fact; at one point he bit the lion. Was that genuine, by the way?’
‘About tone-deafness? Probably just a little more genuine than he made out.’
‘Will he lay traps all evening for us to walk into?’
Harriet realised for a moment how queer the whole situation was. Once again, she felt Wimsey as a dangerous alien and herself on the side of the women who, with so strange a generosity, were welcoming the inquisitor among them. She said, however:
‘If he does, he will display all the mechanism in the most obliging manner.’
‘After one is inside. That’s very comforting.’
‘That,’ said Miss de Vine, brushing aside these surface commentaries, ‘is a man able to subdue himself to his own ends. I should be sorry for anyone who came up against his principles – whatever they are, and if he has any.’
She detached herself from the other two, and went on into the Senior Common Room with a sombre face.
‘Curious,’ said Harriet. ‘She is saying about Peter Wimsey exactly what I have always thought about herself.’
‘Perhaps she recognises a kindred spirit.’
‘Or a foe worthy of – I ought not to say that.’
Here Peter and his companion caught them up, and the Dean, joining Miss Shaw, went on in with her. Wimsey smiled at Harriet, an odd, interrogative smile.
‘What’s worrying you.’
‘Peter – I feel exactly like Judas.’
‘Feeling like Judas is part of the job. No job for a gentleman, I’m afraid. Shall we wash our hands like Pilate and be thoroughly respectable?’
She slid her hand under his arm.
‘No; we’re in for it now. We’ll be degraded together.’
‘That will be nice. Like the lovers in that Stroheim film, we’ll go and sit on the sewer.’ She could feel his bone and muscle, reassuringly human, under the fine broadcloth. She thought: ‘He and I belong to the same world, and all these others are the aliens.’ And then: ‘Damn it all! this is our private fight – why should they have to join in?’ But that was absurd.
‘What do you want me to do, Peter?’
‘Chuck the ball back to me if it runs out of the circle. Not obviously. Just exercise your devastating talent for keeping to the point and speaking the truth.’
‘That sounds easy.’
‘It is – for you. That’s what I love you for. Didn’t you know? Well, we can’t stop to argue about it now; they’ll think we’re conspiring about something.’
She released his arm and went into the room ahead of him, feeling suddenly embarrassed and looking, in consequence, defiant. The coffee was already on the table, and the S.C.R. were gathered about it, helping themselves. She saw Miss Barton advance upon Peter, with a courteous offer of refreshment on her lips but the light of determination in her eye. Harriet did not for the moment care what happened to Peter. He had given her a new bone to worry. She provided herself with coffee and a cigarette, and retired with them and the bone into a corner. She had often wondered, in a detached kind of way, what it was that Peter valued in her and had apparently valued from that first day when she had stood in the dock and spoken for her own life. Now that she knew, she thought that a more unattractive pair of qualities could seldom have been put forward as an excuse for devotion.
‘But do you really feel comfortable about it, Lord Peter?’
‘No – I shouldn’t recommend it as a comfortable occupation. But is your or my or anybody’s comfort of very great importance?’
Miss Barton probably took that for flippancy; Harriet recognised the ruthless voice that had said, ‘What does it matter if it hurts . . .’ Let them fight it out . . . Unattractive; but if he meant what he said, it explained a great many things. Those were qualities that could be recognised under the most sordid conditions. . . . ‘Detachment . . . if you ever find a person who likes you because of it, that liking is sincere.’ That was Miss de Vine; and Miss de Vine was sitting not very far away, her eyes, behind their thick glasses, fixed on Peter with a curious, calculating look.
Conversations, carried on in groups, were beginning to falter and fall into silence. People were sitting down. The voices of Miss Allison and Miss Stevens rose into prominence. They were discussing some collegiate question, and they were doing it intently and desperately. They called upon Miss Burrows to give an opinion. Miss Shaw turned to Miss Chilperic and made a remark about the bathing at ‘Spinsters’ Splash.’ Miss Chilperic replied elaborately – too elaborately; her answer took too long and attracted attention; she hesitated, became confused, and stopped speaking. Miss Lydgate, with a troubled face, was listening to an anecdote that Mrs. Goodwin was telling about her little boy; in the middle of it, Miss Hillyard, who was within earshot, rose pointedly, stabbed out her cigarette on a distant ash-tray, and moved slowly, and as though despite herself, to a window-seat close to where Miss Barton was still standing. Harriet could see her angry, smouldering glance fix itself on Peter’s bent head and then jerk away across the quad, only to return again. Miss Edwards, close to Harriet and a little in front of her on a low chair, had her hands set squarely and rather mannishly on her knees, and was leaning forward; she had the air of waiting for something. Miss Pyke, on her feet, lighting a cigarette, was apparently looking for an opportunity to engage Peter’s attention; she appeared eager and interested, and more at her ease than most of the others. The Dean, curled on a humpty, was frankly listening to what Peter and Miss Barton were saying. They were all listening, really, and at the same time most of them were trying to pretend that he was there as an ordinary guest – that he was not an enemy, not a spy. They were trying to prevent him from becoming openly the centre of attention as he was already the centre of consciousness.
The Warden, seated in a deep chair near the fireplace, gave nobody any help. One by one, the spurts of talk failed and died, leaving the one tenor floating, like a solo instrument executing a cadenza when the orchestra has fallen silent:
‘The execution of the guilty is unpleasant – but not nearly so disturbing as the slaughter of the innocents. If you are out for my blood, won’t you allow me to hand you a more serviceable weapon?’
He glanced round and, finding that everybody but Miss Pyke and themselves was sitting down silent, made a brief, interrogative pause, which looked like politeness, but which Harriet mentall
y classed as ‘good theatre.’
Miss Pyke led the way to a large sofa near Miss Hillyard’s window-seat and said, as she settled herself in the corner of it:
‘Do you mean the murderer’s victims?’
‘No,’ said Peter, ‘I meant my own victims.’
He sat down between Miss Pyke and Miss Barton, and went on in a pleasantly conversational tone:
‘For example; I happened to find out that a young woman had murdered an old one for her money. It didn’t matter much: the old woman was dying in any case, and the girl (though she didn’t know that) would have inherited the money in any case. As soon as I started to meddle, the girl set to work again, killed two innocent people to cover her tracks and murderously attacked three others. Finally she killed herself. If I’d left her alone, there might have been only one death instead of four.’
‘Good gracious!’ said Miss Pyke. ‘But the woman would have been at large.’
‘Oh, yes. She wasn’t a nice woman, and she had a nasty influence on certain people. But who killed those other two innocents – she or society?’
‘They were killed,’ said Miss Barton, ‘by her fear of the death-penalty. If the unfortunate woman had been medically treated, they and she would still be alive to-day.’
‘I told you it was a good weapon. But it isn’t as simple as all that. If she hadn’t killed those others, we should probably never have caught her, and so far from being medically treated she would be living in prosperity – and incidentally corrupting one or two people’s minds, if you think that of any importance.’
‘You are suggesting, I think,’ said the Warden, while Miss Barton rebelliously grappled with this problem, ‘that those innocent victims died for the people; sacrificed to a social principle.’
‘At any rate, to your social principles,’ said Miss Barton
‘Thank you. I thought you were going to say, to my inquisitiveness.’
‘I might have done so,’ said Miss Barton, frankly. ‘But you lay claim to a principle, so we’ll stick to that.’
‘Who were the other three people attacked?’ asked Harriet. (She had no fancy to let Miss Barton get away with it too easily.)