Gaudy Night (18 page)

“Well—I see there is no proof against Miss Hudson. I believe she is rather a lively young woman, however; so it may be as well to keep an eye on her. She is very able; but her antecedents are not particularly refined, and I dare say, it is possible that she might look upon even the disagreeable expressions found in the—er—the communications in the light of a joke. I tell you this, not to create any prejudice against the girl, but merely for whatever evidential value it may possess.”

“Thank you. Well, then. Warden; if you feel it is impossible to call in outside help, I suggest that I should stay in College for a week or so, ostensibly to help Miss Lydgate with her book and to do some research on my own account in Bodley. I could then make a few more investigations. If nothing decisive results by the end of the term, I really think the question of engaging professionals will have to be faced.”

“That is a very generous offer,” said the Warden. “We shall all be exceedingly grateful to you.”

“I ought to warn you,” said Harriet, “that one or two of the Senior Members do not approve of me.”

“That may make it a little more difficult. But if you are ready to put up with that unpleasantness in the interests of the College, it can only increase our sense of gratitude. I cannot too strongly emphasise how exceedingly important it is to avoid publicity. Nothing is more prejudicial to the College in particular and to University women in general than spiteful and ill-informed gossip in the press. The students, so far, seem to have been very loyal. If any of them had been indiscreet we should certainly have heard of it by now.”

“How about Miss Flaxman’s young man at New College?”

“Both he and Miss Flaxman have behaved quite well. At first, naturally, it was taken to be a purely personal matter. When the situation developed, I spoke to Miss Flaxman, and received her assurance that she and her fiancé would keep the whole thing to themselves until it could be properly cleared up.”

“I see,” said Harriet. “Well, we must do what we can. One thing I should like to suggest, and that is that some of the passage-lights should be left on at night. It is difficult enough to patrol a large set of buildings in the light: in the dark, it is impossible.”

“That is reasonable,” replied Dr. Baring. “I will speak to the Bursar about it.”

And with this unsatisfactory arrangement, Harriet was obliged to be content.

O my deare Cloris be not sad,
Nor with these Furies daunted,
But let these female fooles be mad,
With Hellish pride inchanted;
Let not thy noble thoughts descend
So low as their affections,
Whom neither counsell can amend,
Nor yet the Gods corrections.

—MICHAEL DRAYTON

It was a matter of mild public interest at Shrewsbury College that Miss Harriet Vane, the well-known detective novelist, was spending a couple of weeks in College, while engaged in research at the Bodleian upon the life and works of Sheridan Le Fanu. The excuse was good enough; Harriet really was gathering material, in a leisurely way, for a study of Le Fanu, though the Bodleian was not, perhaps, the ideal source for it. But there must be some reason given for her presence, and Oxford is willing enough to believe that the Bodleian is the hub of the scholar’s universe. She was able to find enough references among the Periodical Publications to justify an optimistic answer to kindly inquiries about her progress; and if, in fact, she snoozed a good deal in the arms of Duke Humphrey by day, to make up for those hours of the night spent in snooping about the corridors, she was probably not the only person in Oxford to find the atmosphere of old leather and central heating favourable to slumber.

At the same time, she devoted a good many hours to establishing order among Miss Lydgate’s chaotic proofs. The introduction was re-written, and the obliterated passages restored, from the author’s capacious memory; the disfigured pages were replaced from fresh proof-sheets; fifty-nine errors and obscurities in the cross-references were eliminated; the rejoinder to Mr. Elkbottom was incorporated in the text and made more vigorous and conclusive; and the authorities at the Press began to speak quite hopefully about the date of publication.

Whether because Harriet’s night prowlings, or because the mere knowledge that the circle of suspects was so greatly narrowed, had intimidated the Poison-Pen, or from whatever cause, there were few outbreaks during the next few days. One tiresome episode was the complete stopping-up of the lavatory basin drain in the S.C.R. cloak-room. This was found to be due to some torn fragments of material, which had been rammed firmly down through the grid with the help of a fine rod, and which, when the plumber had got them out proved to be the remains of a pair of fabric gloves, stained with brown paint and quite unidentifiable as anybody’s property. Another was the noisy emergence of the missing Library keys from the interior of a roll of photographs which Miss Pyke had left for half an hour in one of the lecture-rooms before using them to illustrate some remarks about the Parthenon Frieze. Neither of these episodes led to any discovery.

The Senior Common Room behaved to Harriet with that scrupulous and impersonal respect for a person’s mission in life which the scholarly tradition imposes. It was clear to them that, once established as the official investigator, she must be allowed to investigate without interference. Nor did they hasten to her with protestations of innocence or cries of indignation. They treated the situation with a fine detachment, making little reference to it, and confining the conversation in Common Room to matters of general and University interest. In solemn and ritual order, they invited her to consume sherry or coffee in their rooms, and refrained from comment upon one another. Miss Barton, indeed, went out of her way to invite Harriet’s opinions upon
Women in the Modern State
and to consult her on the subject of conditions in Germany. It is true that she flatly disagreed with many of the opinions expressed, but only objectively and without personal rancour; the vexed subject of the amateur’s right to investigate crimes was decently shelved. Miss Hillyard also, setting aside animosity, took pains to interrogate Harriet about the technical aspect of such historical crimes as the murder of Sir Edmund Berry Godfrey and the alleged poisoning of Sir Thomas Overbury by the Countess of Essex. Such overtures might, of course, be policy; but Harriet was inclined to attribute them to a careful instinct for propriety.

With Miss de Vine she had many interesting conversations. The Fellow’s personality attracted and puzzled her very much. More than with any other of the dons, she felt that with Miss de Vine the devotion to the intellectual life was the result, not of the untroubled following of a natural or acquired bias, but of a powerful spiritual call, over-riding other possible tendencies and she felt inquisitive enough, without any prompting, about Miss de Vine’s past life; but inquiry was difficult, and she always emerged from an encounter with the feeling that she had told more than she had learnt. She could guess at a history of conflict; but she found it difficult to believe that Miss de Vine was unaware of her own repressions or unable to control them.

With a view to establishing friendly relations with the Junior Common Room Harriet further steeled herself to compose and deliver a “talk” on “Detection in Fact and Fiction” for a College literary society. This was perilous work. To the unfortunate case in which she had herself figured as the suspected party she naturally made no allusion; nor in the ensuing discussion was anybody so tactless as to mention it. The Wilvercombe murder was a different matter. There was no obvious reason why she should not tell the students about that, and it seemed unkind to deprive them of a legitimate thrill on the purely personal grounds that it was a bore to have to mention Peter Wimsey in every second sentence. Her exposition, though perhaps erring slightly on the dry and academic side, was received with hearty applause, and at the end of the meeting the Senior Student, one Miss Millbanks, invited her to coffee.

Miss Millbanks had her room in Queen Elizabeth, and had furnished it with a good deal of taste. She was a tall, elegant girl, obviously well-to-do, much better dressed than the majority of the students, and carrying her intellectual attainments easily. She held a minor scholarship without emoluments, declaring publicly that she was only a scholar because she would not be seen dead in the ridiculous short gown of a commoner. As alternatives to coffee, she offered Harriet the choice of madeira or a cocktail, politely regretting that the inadequacy of college arrangements made it impossible to provide ice for the shaker. Harriet, who disliked cocktails after dinner, and had consumed madeira and sherry on an almost wearisome number of occasions since her arrival in Oxford, accepted the coffee, and chuckled as cups and glasses were filled. Miss Millbanks inquired courteously what the joke was.

“Only,” said Harriet, “that I gathered the other day from an article in the
Morning Star
that ‘undergraduettes,’ in the journalist’s disgusting phrase, lived entirely on cocoa.”

“Journalists,” said Miss Millbanks, condescendingly, “are always thirty years behind the times. Have you ever seen cocoa in College, Miss Fowler?”

“Oh, yes,” said Miss Fowler. She was a dark, thick-set Third Year, dressed in a very grubby sweater which, as she had previously explained, she had not had time to change, having been afflicted with an essay up to the moment of attending Harriet’s talk. “Yes, I’ve seen it in dons’ rooms. Occasionally. But I always looked on that as a kind of infantilism.”

“Isn’t it a re-living of the heroic past?” suggested Miss Millbanks. “
O les beaux jours que ce siècle de fer.
And so on.”

“Groupists drink cocoa,” added another Third Year. She was thin, with an eager, scornful face, and made no apology for her sweater, apparently thinking such matters beneath her notice.

“But they are oh! so tender to the failings of others,” said Miss Millbanks. “Miss Layton was ‘changed’ once, but she has now changed back. It was good while it lasted.”

Miss Layton, curled on a pouffe by the fire, lifted a wicked little heart-shaped face alight with mischief.

“I did enjoy telling people what I thought of them. Too rapturous. Especially confessing in public the evil, evil thoughts I had had about that woman Flaxman.”

“Bother Flaxman,” said the dark girl, shortly. Her name was Haydock and she was, as Harriet presently discovered, considered to be a safe History First. “She’s setting the whole Second Year by the ears. I don’t like her influence at all. And if you ask me, there’s something very wrong with Cattermole. Goodness knows, I don’t want any of this business of being my brother’s keeper—we had quite enough of that at school—but it’ll be awkward if Cattermole is driven into doing something drastic. As Senior Student, Lilian, don’t you think you could do something about it?”

“My dear,” protested Miss Millbanks, “what can anybody do? I can’t forbid Flaxman to make people’s lives a burden to them. If I could I wouldn’t. You don’t surely expect me to exercise authority? It’s bad enough hounding people to College Meetings. The S.C.R. don’t understand our sad lack of enthusiasm.”

“In their day,” said Harriet, “I think people had a passion for meetings and organisation.”

“There are plenty of inter-collegiate meetings,” said Miss Layton. “We discuss things a great deal, and are indignant about the Proctorial Rules for Mixed Parties. But our enthusiasm for internal affairs is more restrained.”

“Well, I think,” said Miss Haydock bluntly, “we sometimes overdo the
laisser-aller
side of it. If there’s a big blow-up, it won’t pay anybody.”

“Do you mean about Flaxman’s cutting-out expeditions? Or about the ragging affair? By the way, Miss Vane, I suppose you have heard about the College Mystery.”

“I’ve heard something,” replied Harriet, cautiously. “It seems to be all very tiresome.”

“It will be extremely tiresome if it isn’t stopped,” said Miss Haydock. “I say we ought to do a spot of private investigation ourselves. The S.C.R. don’t seem to be making much progress.”

“Well, the last effort at investigation wasn’t very satisfactory,” said Miss Millbanks.

“Meaning Cattermole? I don’t believe it’s Cattermole. She’s too obvious. And she hasn’t the guts. She could and does make an ass of herself, but she wouldn’t go about it so secretively.”

“There’s nothing against Cattermole,” said Miss Fowler, “except that somebody wrote Flaxman an offensive letter on the occasion of her swiping Cattermole’s young man. Cattermole was the obvious suspect then, but why should she do all these other things?”

“Surely,” Miss Layton appealed to Harriet, “surely the obvious suspect is always innocent.”

Harriet laughed; and Miss Millbanks said:

“Yes; but I do think Cattermole is getting to the stage when she’d do almost anything to attract attention.”

“Well, I don’t believe it’s Cattermole,” said Miss Haydock. “Why should she write letters to
me?
”

“Did you have one?”

“Yes; but it was only a kind of wish that I should plough in Schools, the usual silly thing made of pasted-up letters. I burnt it, and took Cattermole in to dinner on the strength of it.”

“Good for you,” said Miss Fowler.

“I had one too,” said Miss Layton. “A beauty—about there being a reward hell for women who went my way. So, acting on the suggestion given, I forwarded it to my future address by way of the fireplace.”

“All the same, said Miss Millbanks, “it is rather disgusting. I don’t mind the letters so much. It’s the rags, and the writing on the wall. If any snoopy person from outside happened to get hold of it there’d be a public stink, and that would be a bore. I don’t pretend to much public spirit, but I admit to some. We don’t want to get the whole College gated by way of reprisals. And I’d rather not have it said that we were living in a madhouse.”

“Too shame-making,” agreed Miss Layton; “though of course, you may get an isolated queer specimen anywhere.”

“There are some oddities in the First Year all right,” said Miss Fowler. “Why is it that every year seems to get shriller and scrubbier than the last?”