Hangmans Holiday (19 page)

Mr. Egg expressed himself as delighted to accept Radcott’s invitation, and was soon trotting along the Cornmarket at his conductor’s athletic heels. At the corner of Broad Street the second undergraduate left them, while they turned on, past Balliol and Trinity, asleep in the June sunshine, and presently reached the main entrance of Pentecost.

Just as they did so, a small, elderly man, wearing a light overcoat and carrying an M.A. gown over his arm, came ambling short-sightedly across the street from the direction of the Bodleian Library. A passing car just missed whirling him into eternity, as Radcott stretched out a long arm and raked him into safety on the pavement.

“Look out, Mr. Temple,” said Radcott. “We shall be having
you
murdered next.”

“Murdered?” queried Mr. Temple, blinking. “Oh, you refer to the motor-car. But I saw it coming. I saw it quite distinctly. Yes, yes. But why ‘next’? Has anybody else been murdered?”

“Only the Master of Pentecost,” said Radcott, pinching Mr. Egg’s arm.

“The Master? Dr. Greeby? You don’t say so! Murdered? Dear me! Poor Greeby! This will upset my whole day’s work.” His pale-blue eyes shifted, and a curious, wavering look came into them. “Justice is slow but sure. Yes, yes. The sword of the Lord and of Gideon. But the blood—that is always so disconcerting, is it not? And yet, I washed my hands, you know.” He stretched out both hands and looked at them in a puzzled way. “Ah, yes—poor Greeby has paid the price of his sins. Excuse my running away from you—I have urgent business at the police-station.”

“If,” said Mr. Radcott, again pinching Monty’s arm, “you want to give yourself up for the murder, Mr. Temple, you had better come along with us. The police are bound to be about the place somewhere.”

“Oh, yes, of course, so they are. Yes. Very thoughtful of you. That will save me a great deal of time, and I have an important chapter to finish. A beautiful day, is it not, Mr.—I fear I do not know your name. Or do I? I am growing sadly forgetful.”

Radcott mentioned his name, and the oddly assorted trio turned together towards the main entrance to the college. The great gate was shut; at the postern stood the porter, and at his side a massive figure in blue, who demanded their names.

Radcott, having been duly identified by the porter, produced Monty and his credentials.

“And this,” he went on, “is, of course, Mr. Temple. You know him. He is looking for your Superintendent.”

“Right you are, sir,” replied the policeman. “You’ll find him in the cloisters. … At his old game, I suppose?” he added, as the small figure of Mr. Temple shuffled away across the sun-baked expanse of the quad.

“Oh, yes,” said Radcott. “He was on to it like a shot. Must be quite exciting for the old bird to have a murder so near home. Where was his last?”

“Lincoln, sir; last Tuesday. Young fellow shot his young woman in the Cathedral. Mr. Temple was down at the station the next day, just before lunch, explaining that he’d done it because the poor girl was the Scarlet Woman.”

“Mr. Temple,” said Radcott, “has a mission in life. He is the sword of the Lord and of Gideon. Every time a murder is committed in this country, Mr. Temple lays claim to it. It is true that his body can always be shown to have been quietly in bed or at the Bodleian while the dirty work was afoot, but to an idealistic philosopher that need present no difficulty. But what
is
all this about the Master, actually?”

“Well, sir, you know that little entry between the cloisters and the Master’s residence? At twenty minutes past ten this morning, Dr. Greeby was found lying dead there, with his lecture-notes scattered all round him and a brickbat in a woollen sock lying beside his head. He’d been lecturing in a room in the Main Quadrangle at nine o’clock, and was, as far as we can tell, the last to leave the lecture-room. A party of American ladies and gentlemen passed through the cloisters a little after 10 o’clock, and they have been found, and say there was nobody about there then, so far as they could see—but, of course, sir, the murderer might have been hanging about the entry, because, naturally, they wouldn’t go that way but through Boniface Passage to the Inner Quad and the chapel. One of the young gentlemen says he saw the Master cross the Main Quad on his way to the cloisters at 10:50, so he’d reach the entry in about two minutes after that. The Regius Professor of Morphology came along at 10:20, and found the body, and when the doctor arrived, five minutes later, he said Dr. Greeby must have been dead about a quarter of an hour. So that puts it somewhere round about 10:10, you see, sir.”

“When did these Americans leave the chapel?”

“Ah, there you are, sir!” replied the constable. He seemed very ready to talk, thought Mr. Egg, and deduced, rightly, that Mr. Radcott was well and favourably known to the Oxford branch of the Force. “If that there party had come back through the cloisters, they might have been able to tell us something. But they didn’t. They went on through the Inner Quad into the garden, and the verger didn’t leave the chapel, on account of a lady who had just arrived and wanted to look at the carving on the reredos.”

“And did the lady also come through the cloisters?”

“She did, sir, and she’s the person we want to find, because it seems as though she must have passed through the cloisters very close to the time of the murder. She came into the chapel just on 10:15, because the verger recollected of the clock chiming a few minutes after she came in and her mentioning how sweet the notes was. You see the lady come in, didn’t you, Mr. Dabbs?”

“I saw
a
lady,” replied the porter, “but then I see a lot of ladies one way and another. This one came across from the Bodleian round about 10 o’clock. Elderly lady, she was, dressed kind of old-fashioned, with her skirts round her heels and one of them hats like a rook’s nest and a bit of elastic round the back. Looked like she might be a female don—leastways, the way female dons used to look. And she had the twitches—you know—jerked her head a bit. You get hundreds like ’em. They goes to sit in the cloisters and listen to the fountain and the little birds. But as to noticing a corpse or a murderer, it’s my belief they wouldn’t know such a thing if they saw it. I didn’t see the lady again, so she must have gone out through the garden.”

“Very likely,” said Radcott. “May Mr. Egg and I go in through the cloisters, officer? Because it’s the only way to my rooms, unless we go round by St. Scholastica’s Gate.”

“All the other gates are locked, sir. You go on and speak to the Super; he’ll let you through. You’ll find him in the cloisters with Professor Staines and Dr. Moyle.”

“Bodley’s Librarian? What’s he got to do with it?”

“They think he may know the lady, sir, if she’s a Bodley reader.”

“Oh, I see. Come along, Mr. Egg.”

Radcott led the way across the Main Quadrangle and through a dark little passage at one corner, into the cool shade of the cloisters. Framed by the arcades of ancient stone, the green lawn drowsed tranquilly in the noonday heat. There was no sound but the echo of their own footsteps, the plash and tinkle of the little fountain and the subdued chirping of chaffinches, as they paced the alternate sunshine and shadow of the pavement. About midway along the north side of the cloisters they came upon another dim little covered passageway, at the entrance to which a police-sergeant was kneeling, examining the ground with the aid of an electric torch.

“Hullo, sergeant!” said Radcott. “Doing the Sherlock Holmes stunt? Show us the bloodstained footprints.”

“No blood, sir, unfortunately. Might make our job easier if there were. And no footprints neither. The poor gentleman was sandbagged, and we think the murderer must have climbed up here to do it, for the deceased was a tall gentleman and he was hit right on the top of the head, sir.” The sergeant indicated a little niche, like a blocked-up window, about four feet from the ground. “Looks as if he’d waited up here, sir, for Dr. Greeby to go by.”

“He must have been well acquainted with his victim’s habits,” suggested Mr. Egg.

“Not a bit of it,” retorted Radcott. “He’d only to look at the lecture-list to know the time and place. This passage leads to the Master’s House and the Fellows’ Garden and nowhere else, and it’s the way Dr. Greeby would naturally go after his lecture, unless he was lecturing elsewhere, which he wasn’t. Fairly able-bodied, your murderer, sergeant, to get up here. At least—I don’t know.”

Before the policeman could stop him, he had placed one hand on the side of the niche and a foot on a projecting band of masonry below it, and swung himself up.

“Hi, sir! Come down, please. The Super won’t like that.”

“Why? Oh, gosh! Fingerprints, I suppose. I forgot. Never mind; you can take mine if you want them, for comparison. Give you practice. Anyhow, a baby in arms could get up here. Come on, Mr. Egg; we’d better beat it before I’m arrested for obstruction.”

But at this moment Radcott was hailed by a worried-looking don, who came through the passage from the far side, accompanied by three or four other people.

“Oh, Mr. Radcott! One moment, Superintendent, this gentleman will be able to tell you what you want to know; he was at Dr. Greeby’s lecture. That is so, is it not, Mr. Radcott?”

“Well, no, not exactly, sir,” replied Radcott, with some embarrassment. “I should have been, but, by a regrettable accident, I cut—that is to say, I was on the river, sir, and didn’t get back in time.”

“Very vexatious,” said Professor Staines, while the Superintendent merely observed:

“Any witness to your being on the river, sir?”

“None,” replied Radcott. “I was alone in a canoe, up a backwater—earnestly studying Aristotle. But I really didn’t murder the Master. His lectures were—if I may say so—dull, but not to that point exasperating.”

“That is a very impudent observation, Mr. Radcott,” said the Professor severely, “and in execrable taste.”

The Superintendent, murmuring something about routine, took down in a note-book the alleged times of Mr. Radcott’s departure and return, and then said:

“I don’t think I need detain any of you gentlemen further. If we want to see you again, Mr. Temple, we will let you know.”

“Certainly, certainly. I shall just have a sandwich at the café and return to the Bodleian. As for the lady, I can only repeat that she sat at my table from about half-past nine till just before ten, and returned again at ten-thirty. Very restless and disturbing. I do wish, Dr. Moyle, that some arrangement could be made to give me that table to myself, or that I could be given a place apart in the library. Ladies are always restless and disturbing. She was still there when I left, but I very much hope she has now gone for good. You are sure you don’t want to lock me up now? I am quite at your service.”

“Not just yet, sir. You will hear from us presently.”

“Thank you, thank you. I should like to finish my chapter. For the present, then, I will wish you good-day.”

The little bent figure wandered away, and the Superintendent touched his head significantly.

“Poor gentleman! Quite harmless, of course. I needn’t ask you, Dr. Moyle, where
he
was at the time?”

“Oh, he was in his usual corner of Duke Humphrey’s Library. He admits it, you see, when he is asked. In any case, I know definitely that he was there this morning, because he took out a Phi book, and of course had to apply personally to me for it. He asked for it at 9:30 and returned it at 12:15. As regards the lady, I think I have seen her before. One of the older school of learned ladies, I fancy. If she is an outside reader, I must have her name and address somewhere, but she may, of course, be a member of the University. I fear I could not undertake to know them all by sight. But I will inquire. It is, in fact, quite possible that she is still in the library, and, if not, Franklin may know when she went and who she is. I will look into the matter immediately. I need not say, professor, how deeply I deplore this lamentable affair. Poor dear Greeby! Such a loss to classical scholarship!”

At this point, Radcott gently drew Mr. Egg away. A few yards farther down the cloisters, they turned into another and rather wider passage, which brought them out into the Inner Quadrangle, one side of which was occupied by the chapel. Mounting three dark flights of stone steps on the opposite side, they reached Radcott’s rooms, where the undergraduate thrust his new acquaintance into an armchair, and, producing some bottles of beer from beneath the window-seat, besought him to make himself at home.

“Well,” he observed presently, “you’ve had a fairly lively introduction to Oxford life—one murder and one madman. Poor old Temple. Quite one of our prize exhibits. Used to be a Fellow here, donkey’s years ago. There was some fuss, and he disappeared for a time. Then he turned up again, ten years since, perfectly potty; took lodgings in Holywell, and has haunted the Bodder and the police-station alternately ever since. Fine Greek scholar he is, too. Quite reasonable, except on the one point. I hope old Moyle finds his mysterious lady, though it’s nonsense to pretend that they keep tabs on all the people who use the library. You’ve only got to walk in firmly, as if the place belonged to you, and, if you’re challenged, say in a loud, injured tone that you’ve been a reader for years. If you borrow a gown, they won’t even challenge you.”

“Is that so, really?” said Mr. Egg.

“Prove it, if you like. Take my gown, toddle across to the Bodder, march straight in past the showcases and through the little wicket marked ‘Readers Only,’ into Duke Humphrey’s Library; do what you like, short of stealing the books or setting fire to the place—and if anybody says anything to you, I’ll order six dozen of anything you like. That’s fair, isn’t it?”

Mr. Egg accepted this offer with alacrity, and in a few moments, arrayed in a scholar’s gown, was climbing the stair that leads to England’s most famous library. With a slight tremor, he pushed open the swinging glass door and plunged into the hallowed atmosphere of mouldering leather that distinguishes such temples of learning.

Just inside, he came upon Dr. Moyle in conversation with the door-keeper. Mr. Egg, bending nonchalantly to examine an illegible manuscript in a showcase, had little difficulty in hearing what they said, since, like all official attendants upon reading-rooms, they took no trouble to lower their voices.