The Weight of the Evidence (7 page)

‘To hell with the Law of Falling Bodies.’ For this sort of thing Hobhouse too must have a seasoned eye. But on Hobhouse too the frozen twist of those muscles had its effect.

‘Not at all. What did Crunkhorn tell us about Galileo’s experiment? That the one-pound shot and the ten-pound shot arrived at the foot of the leaning tower virtually at the same time. In a vacuum they would each have touched the ground actually at the same moment. But then they were bodies each with the same high specific gravity. If he had chucked over a ten-pound shot and, say, a one-pound open book the result would have been different. So what about a meteorite and a human body falling a considerable distance through air? Wouldn’t the meteorite be bound to arrive first?’

‘Not if the human body was clinging to it.’

‘I suppose that’s so. It’s only the resistance of the air which gives different velocities to different objects falling. But could he cling? Not, certainly, through a very long drop. If one jumped out of an aeroplane clutching a bomb one would part company with it soon and arrive on the ground some seconds later. Or so I should guess.’

Hobhouse looked up at the dark empty sky. ‘It’s not a thing very easily verified by the police. Nor Pluckrose and the meteorite either.’

‘But we can hunt up the university’s physicists and see what they say. And we may still find evidence that he was certainly sitting here in the chair when the thing fell. Although the court is secluded–’

Like a trick on the stage, light flooded them. Shafts of light, bars of darkness, lay on the grass, bridged the fountain, broke into confused chequering over the body with its sheltering tent. They turned round. Across the court half a dozen tall windows had sprung to a garish brightness and through their upper halves could be seen a system of shafts and wheels and belts which now with a faint throb began to turn. So something happened of an evening after all. The throbbing grew louder, and across the lower windows, of a semi-opaque sea-green glass, indeterminate shadows moved.

‘Engineering,’ said Hobhouse. ‘They work only in the afternoon and again at night. I suppose a good many of the students are in jobs. Anyway, that side would be deserted in the morning. And even if there were people about they couldn’t see out of the windows at ground level.’

‘I suppose not.’ Appleby was staring absently at the turning wheels. ‘Isn’t it odd that the university should be so insistent that there should never be a view from its windows? The eye is turned inward.’

‘Umph.’ Hobhouse was unimpressed by symbolism. ‘It’s time they collected the body. P-M at ten in the morning and funeral at two.’

‘Relations?’

‘One distant cousin, so far. There’s a will at the bank and a solicitor hard at work writing letters to anyone who could possibly be concerned. Nice easy wicket, the Law.’

‘Home?’

‘He lodged with a Miss Dearlove. I haven’t seen her yet. What a mess these deaths and homicides are. Far more running about than with burglary or forgery.’

‘Yes.’ Appleby looked at the body and agreed with this professional view. ‘Distinctly a mess.’

‘But embezzlement can be very bad. And I always say carnal knowledge is worst.’

‘I rather agree with you.’

Hobhouse lowered his voice. ‘Did you ever have a case of a man keeping–’

‘What I want to know’ – Appleby’s voice was suddenly incisive in the darkness – ‘what I want to know is this. Does anybody round about here keep pets?’

Outside the university trams charged down the hill. This lot took people to the first house at the Royal, the King’s, the Lyceum. The next lot would take cinemagoers: the Majestic, the Super, the Palace. Then there would be a lot taking people to the second house at the Royal, the King’s, the Lyceum. The trams charged past in a clang of bells, their swaying motion more marked now that they were stubby pencils of light; it was funny that nobody was ever sick on charging and bucketing trams that pencilled and swayed away into distance and became like bits broken off the Neons further on. Further on was lower down too, so you could see from here the city spread in a sort of drab sparkle in the darkness, and you could see a pool of darkness which was a park, and you could see the station and hard bright lights in the shunting-yards beyond the station.

It is odd – thought Appleby, saying good night to Hobhouse – that the mind when tired churns out such flawless modern prose. It is more than odd, he thought as he climbed the stairs of the private hotel; it is more than odd, it is suspicious. He poured chilly water at a Victorian ewer and basin and tried to go on beginning a Hemingway story where he had left off at the shunting-yards. But the plunge of his hands in the cold water woke him and Hemingway became irrelevant and he thought of Aeschylus. Aeschylus might be relevant. He thought of what he had stumbled against in the dusk of the Wool Court. Sisyphus was poppycock. But there might be something in Aeschylus. There might be something in Aeschylus if these people’s minds really worked in that sort of way – but he was inclined to doubt this.

When he went into the dining-room he found himself unexpectedly confronted at table with Professor Hissey. And Hissey recognized him. ‘Appleby?’ he said in amiable surprise. ‘What brings you here? And what has happened to Williams and Merryweather and Grant? And do you ever hear from Harrison? I had a letter about a year ago. The natives, he says, are becoming interested – really interested – in Catullus. I can well believe it. Merryweather, I am sure, is a very capable lecturer. Harrison, that is to say.’ And Professor Hissey ate some soup.

It was rather difficult. Appleby decided to begin with Grant. ‘Grant–’ he said.

‘Williams, my dear fellow’ – Hissey leant across the table confidentially – ‘do you remember Appleby? I have been told a most extraordinary thing. He became a policeman.’

‘Yes,’ said Appleby. ‘I became a policeman.’ It was really very difficult indeed.

‘And do you like it?’ Mr Hissey betrayed no consciousness of there having been any hitch in the conversation. ‘I don’t think I ever had a competent pupil become a policeman before. But some of the very incompetent ones have.’ He ate more soup. ‘In Africa, that is. They go about on motor bicycles. No doubt quite a different thing. We have no wine at table here. But if you care to join me in my room afterwards I can offer you a glass of port, my dear – Appleby.’ And Mr Hissey first smiled at his former pupil in innocent triumph and then looked slowly round the dining-room, rather as if he found it faintly but pervasively unfamiliar. Appleby remembered that Hissey had always been a slightly absent-minded man.

‘I should like a glass of port very much. I think I should say that I have come to Nesfield to inquire into the business of Professor Pluckrose.’

Hissey looked perplexed. ‘Pluckrose?’ he said. ‘I don’t think Piuckrose
has
a business.’

‘I mean–’

‘Some of them have businesses. Rather surprising in scholars, don’t you think? Crunkhorn is said to own and manage a garage. It perplexes me, I confess. But you’re too late with Pluckrose, anyway. I’ve just remembered. He’s dead.’

‘That’s just it, sir. Pluckrose has died in a mysterious way and I’ve been sent down to inquire into the circumstances.’

‘I see. You
said
, you know, into the
business
.’ Hissey was mildly reproachful. ‘One can’t be too careful with tramps.’

‘Tramps?’ Appleby looked rather blankly at his former preceptor.

‘They may appear innocent and even deserving. But as likely as not they are concerned to rob you – and prepared to offer violence if you resist.’ And Hissey shook his head, very worldly wise. ‘Of course I should never refuse a tramp a shilling or two if he asked for it. It is quite clear from the accounts that they give of themselves that they have a very hard time. It would be uncharitable to refuse. But when I walk in the country I always carry a big stick.’

‘I see.’ Appleby watched the fish go. ‘And you think that Pluckrose–’

‘Pluckrose?’ Hissey spoke as if some quite new term had been introduced into the discussion. ‘Killed by tramps, poor chap. I suppose the police will send up to investigate. Do you always see the
Hellenic Review
?’

At the Royal, the King’s, the Lyceum the first houses would be in full swing. Life, in fact, is extremely various. Perhaps the best technique for tackling its problems is a thoroughgoing inconsequence. ‘Not always,’ Appleby said. ‘Do many people at the university keep pets?’

‘No,’ said Hissey. He appeared wholly unsurprised. ‘I don’t think many people do.’ He considered. ‘The head porter keeps a tortoise.’

‘You disappoint me,’ said Appleby. ‘Keenly.’

‘I am extremely sorry.’ Hissey looked benevolently across the table at this extravagant animal-lover. ‘But I am really afraid that nobody else keeps–’

‘You mistake me. I mean I am disappointed that the porter should keep a tortoise. I thought it might have something to do with Pluckrose – and Aeschylus.’

Professor Hissey laid down his knife and fork. ‘My dear Merryweather – Appleby, I mean – there are no eagles round about Nesfield. Nor was Pluckrose bald.’

Appleby chuckled to himself. Lead the old boy to his own ground and his mind became instantly cogent. ‘I didn’t mean quite that. I don’t suppose that Pluckrose was killed as Aeschylus was by having an eagle drop a tortoise on his bald head in mistake for a stone. I was thinking of something rather symbolical.’

‘Dear me,’ said Hissey.

‘There was an oracle – wasn’t there? – which said that Aeschylus would die by a blow from heaven. Now Pluckrose – despite your very interesting theory about tramps – appears to have died something like that. A meteorite fell on him. You could call that a blow from heaven, more or less. And in the court where they found his body I stumbled over a tortoise. It occurred to me that if the manner of his killing had some symbolical significance the person responsible might have dropped the tortoise out of the Aeschylus story, so to speak, just by way of underlining the blow-from-heaven idea.’

‘Dear me,’ said Hissey again. His features assumed a courteous consideringness. ‘
Dear
me.’

In fact, thought Appleby, he is not impressed. Their minds
don’t
work in that sort of way. Nor would mine have, perhaps, if it hadn’t been for Sir David Evans and Sisyphus. The death of Pluckrose isn’t wrapped up in Greek and Latin and Freudian complexes and the Law of Falling Bodies. It is wrapped up in one or more of the usual things: a woman, blackmail, drink, drugs, and the rest. A policeman’s lot is not a happy one. Appleby looked across at Hissey. Hissey had grown abstracted; his eye appeared to be on the open page of an invisible
Hellenic Review
. Nevertheless when he spoke it was to ask mildly: ‘Have you any clues?’

‘I don’t know that I have. Not now that the tortoise is gone.’

‘The tortoise has
gone
?’ Hissey was interested.

‘I mean not now that we have eliminated the possibility of the presence of the tortoise’s having had a special significance in regard–’

‘I understand you,’ said Hissey placidly. Suddenly he looked dismayed. ‘Bless my soul! I had quite forgotten the Symposium.’

‘The Symposium?’

‘Of course it is quite the wrong word.’ Hissey laughed merrily. ‘It is quite the wrong word, I am sorry to say. Colloquium would undoubtedly be better. Nothing but coffee is provided.’ Hissey again dissolved in innocent mirth. ‘But perhaps there is something a shade pedantic about Colloquium. The word is scarcely in common English use.’

‘I suppose not.’ Appleby had just finished a chunk of blancmange and was feeling as one often does feel after dinner in small provincial hotels. ‘In fact distinctly not. Colloquium is a most pedantic word.’

‘No doubt you are right.’ Hissey was slightly wistful. The possibility of changing from Symposium to Colloquium was clearly a matter to which he gave a good deal of thought. Now he looked at his watch. ‘What worries me is our glass of port. You see, I have to take the chair, and so it is necessary that I should go. But perhaps you would care to come across too? I am sure everybody would be delighted that I should bring an old pupil of my own.’

‘You are very kind.’ Appleby was cautious. ‘Will the Vice-Chancellor be there?’

‘Evans? Dear me, no.’ Hissey looked quite shocked.

‘Or Professor Crunkhorn or Church?’

‘Neither of them, I judge.’

‘I should like to come, very much.’ There might be something, Appleby thought, in getting a representative section of the academic body of Nesfield within one
coup d’oeil
. Particularly if his own identity were not yet generally known.

‘This is most delightful!’ Hissey had risen nimbly from his chair. ‘I think you will enjoy it. There are likely to be one or two interesting things. Prisk has a further batch of notes on the place names of Provence. Young Marlow is bringing a tentative bibliographical analysis of the 1582 quarto of
Mumblechance
. Tavender will review some recent contributions to epigraphy…’

‘It sounds very interesting indeed. And I hope you are giving something yourself?’

Hissey was moving towards the door. He stopped and lowered his voice. ‘Well, as a matter of fact I did happen the other day upon something a little odd in Paley’s Theocritus–’

‘In Paley’s Theocritus!’ Appleby was extremely impressed.

Hissey beamed. ‘I judge it to be not altogether without interest. In fact I am rather tempted to save it up.’

They were out in a sort of uncomfortable compromise between a vestibule and a lounge. Residential ladies, little palms, commercial travellers, a dull fire made a background as they passed. Over the way and a bit up the hill they would by now have shoved Pluckrose in an ambulance, a mortuary car, a van. Hissey, winding a scarf, still beamed. ‘Because I am hoping to put out a book.’

‘Really? I am sure people have been waiting for it a long time. What is it going to be called?’

Hissey shook his head; stopped to put on a rusty bowler hat; shook it again. ‘I find it difficult to make up my mind. But something quite simple will do. What do you think of just
Annotatiunculae Criticae?
’