‘I haven’t the least idea,’ said Harriet.
‘I don’t know, but I can guess,’ said Miss Edwards. ‘If people will bring dynamite into a powder factory, they must expect explosions.’ While Harriet was rooting about in the back of her mind for some association that these words called up, Miss Edwards went on:
‘If somebody doesn’t get to the bottom of these disturbances within the next few days, there’ll be murder done. If we’re like this now, what’s going to happen to us at the end of term? You ought to have had the police in from the start, and if I’d been here, I’d have said so. I’d like to deal with a good, stupid sergeant of police for a change.’
Then she, too, got up and stalked away, leaving the rest of the dons to stare at one another.
19
O well-knit Samson! strong-jointed Samson! I do excel thee in my rapier, as much as thou didst excel me in carrying gates. I am in love, too.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE
Harriet had been only too right about Wilfrid. She had spent portions of four days in altering and humanising Wilfrid, and to-day, after a distressful morning with him, had reached the dismal conclusion that she would have to rewrite the whole thing from the beginning. Wilfrid’s tormented humanity stood out now against the competent vacuity of the other characters like a wound. Moreover, with the reduction of Wilfrid’s motives to what was psychologically credible, a large lump of the plot had fallen out, leaving a gap through which one could catch glimpses of new and exciting jungles of intrigue. She stood aimlessly staring in the window of the antique shop. Wilfrid was becoming like one of those coveted ivory chessmen. You probed into his interior and discovered an intricate and delicate carved sphere of sensibilities, and, as you turned it in your fingers, you found another inside that, and within that, another again.
Behind the table where the chessmen stood was a Jacobean dresser in black oak, and, as she stood at gaze, a set of features limned themselves pallidly against the dark background, like Pepper’s ghost.
‘What is it?’ asked Peter over her shoulder; ‘Toby jugs or pewter pots or the dubious chest with Brummagem handles?’
‘The chessmen,’ said Harriet. ‘I have fallen a victim too them. I don’t know why. I have no possible use for them. It’s just one of those bewitchments.’
‘ “The reason no man knows, let it suffice. What we behold is censured by our eyes.” To be possessed is an admirable reason for possessing.’
‘What would they want for them, I wonder?’
‘If they’re complete and genuine, anything from forty to eighty pounds.’
‘Too much. When did you get back?’
‘Just before lunch. I was on my way to see you. Were you going anywhere in particular?’
‘No – just wandering. Have you found out anything useful?’
‘I have been scouring England for a man called Arthur Robinson. Does the name mean anything to you?’
‘Nothing whatever.’
‘Nor to me. I approached it with a refreshing absence of prejudice. Have there been any developments in College?’
‘Well, yes. Something rather queer happened the other night. Only I don’t quite understand it.’
‘Will you come for a run and tell me about it? I’ve got the car, and it’s a fine afternoon.’
Harriet looked round, and saw the Daimler parked by the kerb.
‘I’d love to.’
‘We’ll dawdle along the lanes and have tea somewhere,’ he added, conventionally, as he handed her in.
‘How original of you, Peter!’
‘Isn’t it?’ They moved decorously down the crowded High Street. ‘There’s something hypnotic about the word tea. I am asking you to enjoy the beauties of the English countryside, to tell me your adventures and hear mine, to plan a campaign involving the comfort and reputation of two hundred people, to honour me with your sole presence and bestow upon me the illusion of Paradise – and I speak as though the pre-eminent object of all desire were a pot of boiled water and a plateful of synthetic pastries in Ye Olde Worlde Tudor Tea-Shoppe.’
‘If we dawdle till after opening-time,’ said Harriet, practically, ‘we can get bread-and-cheese and beer in the village pub.’
‘Now you have said something.
The crystal springs, whose taste illuminates
Refinéd eyes with an eternal sight,
Like trìd silver, run through Paradise
To entertain divine Zenocrate.’
Harriet could find no adequate reply to this, but sat watching his hands as they lay lightly on the driving-wheel. The car passed on through Long Marston and Elsfield. Presently he turned it into a side-road and thence into a lane and there drew up.
‘There comes a moment when one must cease voyaging through strange seas of thought alone. Will you speak first, or shall I?’
‘Who is Arthur Robinson?’
‘Arthur Robinson is the gentleman who behaved so strangely in the matter of a thesis. He was an M.A. of York University, held various tutorships from time to time in various seats of learning, applied for the Chair of Modern History at York, and there came up against the formidable memory and detective ability of your Miss de Vine, who was then Head of Flamborough College and on the examining body. He was a fair, handsome man, aged about thirty-five at the time, very agreeable and popular, though hampered a little in his social career by having in a weak moment married his landlady’s daughter. After the unfortunate episode of the thesis, he disappeared from academic circles, and was no more heard of. At the time of his disappearance he had one female child of two years of age and another expected. I managed to hunt up a former friend of his, who said that he had heard nothing of Robinson since the disaster, but fancied that he had gone abroad and changed his name. He referred me to a man called Simpson, living in Nottingham. I pursued Simpson, and found that he had, in the most inconvenient way, died last year. I returned to London and dispatched sundry members of Miss Climpson’s Bureau in search of other friends and colleagues of Mr. Arthur Robinson, and also to Somerset House to hunt through the Marriage and Birth Registers. That is all I have to show for two days of intensive activity – except that I honourably delivered your manuscript to your secretary.’
‘Thank you very much. Arthur Robinson. Do you think he can possibly have anything to do with it?’
‘Well, it’s rather a far cry. But it’s a fact that until Miss de Vine came here there were no disturbances, and the only thing she has ever mentioned that might suggest a personal enmity is the story of Arthur Robinson. It seemed just worth while following up.’
‘Yes, I see. . . . I hope you’re not going to suggest that Miss Hillyard is Arthur Robinson in disguise, because I’ve known her for ten years.’
‘Why Miss Hillyard? What’s she been doing?’
‘Nothing susceptible of proof.’
‘Tell me.’
Harriet told him the story of the telephone call, to which he listened with a grave face.
‘Was I making a mountain out of a mole-hill?’
‘I think not. I think our friend has realised that you are a danger and is minded to tackle you first. Unless it is a quite separate feud – which is just possible. On the whole it’s as well that you thought of ringing back.’
‘You may take the credit for that. I hadn’t forgotten your scathing remarks about the thriller-heroine and the bogus message from Scotland Yard.’
‘Hadn’t you? . . . Harriet, will you let me show you how to meet an attack if it ever does come?’
‘Meet a—? Yes, I should like to know. Though I’m fairly strong, you know. I think I could cope with most things, except a stab in the back. That was what I rather expected.’
‘I doubt if it will be that,’ said he, coolly. ‘It makes a mess and leaves a messy weapon to be disposed of. Strangling is cleaner and quicker and makes no noise to speak of.’
‘Yeough!’
‘You have a nice throat for it,’ pursued his lordship, thoughtfully.
‘It has a kind of arum-lily quality that is in itself an invitation to violence. I do not want to be run in by the local bobby for assault; but if you will kindly step aside with me into this convenient field, it will give me great pleasure to strangle you scientifically in several positions.’
‘You’re a gruesome companion for a day’s outing.’
‘I’m quite serious.’ He had got out of the car and was holding the door open for her. ‘Come, Harriet. I am very civilly pretending that I don’t care what dangers you run. You don’t want me to howl at your feet, do you?’
‘You’re going to make me feel ignorant and helpless,’ said Harriet, following him nevertheless to the nearest gate. ‘I don’t like it.’
‘This field will do charmingly. It is not laid down for hay, it is reasonably free from thistles and cow-pats, and there is a high hedge to screen us from the road.’
‘And it is soft to fall on and has a pond to throw the corpse into if you get carried away by your enthusiasm. Very well. I have said my prayers.’
‘Then kindly imagine me to be an unpleasant-faced thug with designs on your purse, your virtue and your life.’
The next few minutes were rather breathless.
‘Don’t thrash about,’ said Peter, mildly. ‘You’ll only exhaust yourself. Use my weight to upset me with. I’m putting it entirely at your disposal, and I can’t throw it about in two directions at once. If you let my vaulting ambition overleap itself, I shall fall on the other side with the beautiful precision of Newton’s apple.’
‘I don’t get that.’
‘Try throttling me for a change, and I’ll show you.’
‘Did I say this field was soft?’ said Harriet, when her feet had been ignominiously hooked from under her. She rubbed herself resentfully. ‘Just let me do it to you, that’s all.’
And this time, whether by skill or favour, she did contrive to bring him off his balance, so that he only saved himself from sprawling by a complicated twist suggestive of an eel on a hook.
‘We’d better stop now,’ said Peter, when he had instructed her in the removal of the thug who leaps from in front, the thug who dives in from behind, and the more sophisticated thug who starts operations with a silk scarf. ‘You’ll feel tomorrow as if you’d been playing football.’
‘I think I shall have a sore throat.’
‘I’m sorry. Did I let my animal nature get the better of me? That’s the worst of these rough sports.’
‘It would be a good bit rougher if it was done in earnest. I shouldn’t care to meet you in a narrow lane on a dark night, and I only hope the Poison-Pen hasn’t been making a study of the subject. Peter, you don’t seriously think—’
‘I avoid serious thought like the plague. But I assure you I haven’t been knocking you about for the fun of it.’
‘I believe you. No gentleman could throttle a lady more impersonally.’
‘Thank you for the testimonial. Cigarette?’
Harriet took the cigarette, which she felt she had deserved, and sat with her hands about her knees, mentally turning the incidents of the last hour into a scene in a book (as is the novelist’s unpleasant habit) and thinking how, with a little vulgarity on both sides, it could be worked up into a nice piece of exhibitionism for the male and provocation for the female concerned. With a little manipulation it might come in for the chapter where the wart Everard was due to seduce the glamorous but neglected wife, Sheila. He could lock her to him, knee to knee and breast to breast in an unbreakable grip and smile challengingly into her flushed face; and Sheila could go all limp – at which point Everard could either rain fierce kisses on her mouth, or say, ‘My God! don’t tempt me!’ which would come to exactly the same thing in the end. ‘It would suit them very well,’ thought Harriet, ‘the cheap skates!’ and passed an exploring finger under the angle of her jaw, where the pressure of a relentless thumb had left its memory.
‘Cheer up,’ said Peter. ‘It’ll wear off.’
‘Do you propose to give Miss de Vine lessons in self-defence?’
‘I’m rather bothered about her. She’s got a groggy heart, hasn’t she?’
‘She’s supposed to have. She wouldn’t climb Magdalen Tower.’
‘And presumably she wouldn’t rush round College and steal fuses or climb in and out of windows. In which case the hairpins would be a plant. Which brings us back to the Robinson theory. But it’s easy to pretend your heart is worse than it is. Ever seen her have a heart-attack?’
‘Now you mention it, I have not.’
‘You see,’ said Peter, ‘she put me on to Robinson. I gave her the opportunity to tell a story, and she told it. Next day, I went to see her and asked for the name. She made a good show of reluctance, but she gave it. It’s easy to throw suspicion on people who owe you a grudge, and that without telling any lies. If I wanted you to believe that somebody was having a smack at me, I could give you a list of enemies as long as my arm.’
‘I suppose so. Do they ever try to do you in?’
‘Not very often. Occasionally they send silly things by post. Shaving-cream full of nasty bugs and so on. And there was a gentleman with a pill calculated to cure lassitude and debility. I had a long correspondence with him, all in plain envelopes. The beauty of his system was that he made you pay for the pill, which still seems to me a very fine touch. In fact, he took me in completely; he only made the one trifling miscalculation of supposing that I wanted the pill – and I can’t really blame him for that, because the list of symptoms I produced for him would have led anybody to suppose I needed the whole pharmacopœia. However, he sent me a week’s supply – seven pills – at shocking expense; so I virtuously toddled round with them to my friend at the Home Office who deals with charlatans and immoral advertisements and so on, and he was inquisitive enough to analyse them. “H’m,” said he, “six of ’em would neither make nor mar you; but the other would cure lassitude all right.” So I naturally asked what was in it. “Strychnine,” said he. “Full lethal dose. If you want to go rolling round the room like a hoop with your head touching your heels, I’ll guarantee the result.” So we went out to look for the gentleman.’
‘Did you find him?’
‘Oh, yes. Dear old friend of mine. Had him in the dock before on a cocaine charge. We put him in jug – and I’m dashed if, when he came out, he didn’t try to blackmail me on the strength of the pill correspondence. I never met a scoundrel I liked better. . . . Would you care for a little more healthy exercise, or shall we take the road again?’
It was when they were passing through a small town that Peter caught sight of a leather-and-harness shop, and pulled up suddenly.
‘I know what you want,’ he said. ‘You want a dog-collar. I’m going to get you one. The kind with brass knobs.’
‘A dog-collar? Whatever for? As a badge of ownership?’
‘God forbid. To guard against the bites of sharks. Excellent also against thugs and throat-slitters.’
‘My dear man!’
‘Honestly. It’s too stiff to squeeze and it’ll turn the edge of a blade – and even if anybody hangs you by it, it won’t choke you as a rope would.’
‘I can’t go about in a dog-collar.’
‘Well, not in the day-time. But it would give confidence when patrolling at night. And you could sleep in it with a little practice. You needn’t bother to come in – I’ve had my hands round your neck often enough to guess the size.’
He vanished into the shop and was seen through the window conferring with the proprietor. Presently he came out with a parcel and took the wheel again.
‘The man was very much interested,’ he observed, ‘in my bull-terrier bitch. Extremely plucky animal, but reckless and obstinate fighter. Personally, he said, he preferred greyhounds. He told me where I could get my name and address put on the collar, but I said that could wait. Now we’re out of the town, you can try it on.’
He drew in to the side of the road for this purpose, and assisted her (with, Harriet
fancied, a touch of self-satisfaction), to buckle the heavy strap. It was a massive kind of necklace and quite surprisingly uncomfortable. Harriet fished in her bag for a hand-mirror and surveyed the effect.
‘Rather becoming, don’t you think?’ said Peter. ‘I don’t see why it shouldn’t set a new fashion.’
‘I do,’ said Harriet. ‘Do you mind taking it off again.’
‘Will you wear it?’
‘Suppose somebody grabs at it from behind.’
‘Let go and fall back on them – heavily. You’ll fall soft, and with luck they’ll crack their skull open.’
‘Bloodthirsty monster. Very well. I’ll do anything you like if you’ll take it off now.’
‘That’s a promise,’ said he, and released her. ‘That collar,’ he added, wrapping it up again and laying it on her knee, ‘deserves to be put in a glass case.’
‘Why?’
‘It’s the only thing you’ve ever let me give you.’
‘Except my life – except my life – except my life.’
‘Damn!’ said Peter, and stared out angrily over the wind-screen. ‘It must have been a pretty bitter gift, if you can’t let either of us forget it.’
‘I’m sorry, Peter. That was ungenerous and beastly of me. You shall give me something if you want to.’
‘May I? What shall I give you? Roc’s eggs are cheap today.’
For a moment her mind was a blank. Whatever she asked him for, it must be something adequate. The trivial, the commonplace or the merely expensive would all be equally insulting. And he would know in a moment if she was inventing a want to please him. . . .
‘Peter – give me the ivory chessmen.’
He looked so delighted that she felt sure he had expected to be snubbed with a request for something costing seven-and-sixpence.
‘My dear – of course! Would you like them now?’
‘This instant! Some miserable undergraduate may be snapping them up. Every day I go out I expect to find them gone. Be quick.’
‘All right. I’ll engage not to drop below seventy, except in the thirty-mile limit.’