An Oxford Tragedy (13 page)

‘No, indeed,' I hastily interjected, for I had been appalled at Brendel's remark. ‘I am sure that no good purpose could be served by any more discussion. I feel certain that Professor Brendel will not wish to trouble you any more.'

Brendel was profuse in his apologies. In pursuing his inquiries he had not sufficiently considered that such questions must give pain to Miss Vereker; he was desolated at his own clumsiness; he hoped that he might be excused for his quite unintentional rudeness. Very stiffly Mary accepted his apology, and he bade the two ladies adieu.

I did not go with him, but stayed behind to smooth down the troubled waters. It was no very easy task. The purport of Brendel's questions had not been clear to any of us, but their general trend was obvious enough. If his questions had any significance whatever he had surely been suggesting the possibility of sordid quarrels and misunderstandings in Shirley's family circle. The questions which he had put to Mary seemed to me, as they had to her, purely impertinent. I tried to explain them away as the clumsy
faux pas
of an amateur investigator, who was searching blindly for some chance clue; but I could see that in the minds of both ladies the reputation of Brendel was hopelessly ruined.

Brendel was dining at All Souls that evening, and had told me that he would come to my rooms at about ten o'clock. I
waited for him in a state of considerable exasperation, and prepared rather carefully what would be, I felt, at once a tactful yet severe reproof. I was pondering in my mind whether it would be wise to suggest to him that it might be safer, after all, to leave the investigation in official hands, when he knocked and came in. But I had no opportunity to broach the subject, for before I could open my mouth he had patted me twice on the back as though I were a child needing comfort, and was launched on a flood of words which I could not easily stem.

‘You were going to say, if I had let you, my dear friend, that the poor blundering Austrian Professor had made an intolerable
gaffe
; that he had been terribly rude to your quite charming ladies in the President's Lodgings; that he did not quite understand the conventions of English society; that in short he had made a real mess of all your business; that perhaps even, yes, perhaps he ought to give up the work of detection and leave it to those who understand it better. Now, admit, you were going to say all that, very tactfully yet very firmly; were you not?'

Somehow as he spoke all my old confidence and belief in him returned to me, but I could not help admitting that his prognosis was almost literally true.

‘Yes,' I said a little sheepishly. ‘I suppose I was going to say something of the kind. You know really in those questions to Mary Vereker you went too far; both she and her sister were terribly upset. And I was upset too. I've known them both so long and I like them so much. I really consider myself – well – more or less I'm in a sort of semi-paternal relation to them, poor girls. I feel for them more than I can say, and naturally they resented your questions, just as I did.'

I was working myself into a state of indignation again, but Brendel soothed me with a reassuring gesture of the hand.

‘My dear Winn,' he said, ‘indeed, as you say, they are
the most charming young ladies, I find it in my heart to envy you – what is it? – your semi-paternal status in that household. Consider now. Do you really think that I can have liked asking them those very awkward and unpleasant questions? Am I quite such a heartless Philistine, am I really so little of what you call a gentleman to enjoy a task like that? I tell you I was quite nervous, quite uncomfortable all the time. I felt like one of your youngest undergraduates facing you for the first time, and finding you in a bad temper.' All the little crow's-feet round his eyes puckered up as he smiled at me. I knew that he was laughing at me and at my annoyance, but it was impossible for me to take offence or to maintain my censorious attitude towards him. I surrendered once more to his odd charm and power.

‘No, no,' he went on, ‘I hated having to do it. It hurt me to ask those questions. But they were quite, quite necessary. You must believe that, and trust me a little if I am to help you. I can't tell you now just why I had to ask them, but I will tell you this. I like and admire your Miss Vereker, almost as much as she disapproves of me, and I'm very glad that she answered just as she did. But what a snub I got! Well, I must get over that. And now do remember that I only started on this investigation because you begged me to – so please let us have the old confidence, or we shan't make progress.'

I could hardly have resisted his appeal even if I had wished to do so, and I decided at once to tell him the whole ugly history of Cotter's visit that morning, and of the latter's suspicions of Scarborough. I had settled in my mind before Brendel arrived that I should say nothing of all this to him, but now I felt strongly the need for his advice and support. So I poured out the whole wretched story of Cotter's discovery of Scarborough's connexion with the revolver, and of the suspicions which, in the Inspector's
mind and my own, were making the case grow blacker and blacker with regard to that unfortunate young man. Finally I told him how I had written to Scarborough's father, so that he might be warned of the danger in which his son stood.

To my intense astonishment he broke into a roar of laughter. ‘Forgive me,' he said. ‘I ought not to laugh, but it is really very funny. The Inspector had not seen Scarborough when he talked to you?'

‘No, he had not. But by now he may have put the wretched boy on the rack and, for all I know, have dragged a confession out of him. It's too awful, and I'm more or less responsible for him up here.'

Brendel patted me again on the shoulder.

‘No, no, don't worry,' he said. ‘I assure you on my word of honour that your young protégé is as safe from suspicion as you are, or as I am. And by now the good Inspector certainly knows that too. He was just what you would call one lap behind. When you've heard what I have to tell you, you'll know all about that. Settle yourself down comfortably in your chair, and get ready for a long story. I want to tell you all about my luncheon party and a lot of other things as well.'

We sat down on each side of the fire; I lit a pipe and composed myself to listen.

‘To-day,' he began, ‘I had my little luncheon party. Two days ago I invited them, and they all accepted. There came – let me see –' He held up four rather chubby fingers and ticked off his guests on them. ‘First your Scarborough, then his friend Garnett, and the young man Martin and his friend Howe. From your quite excellent descriptions of them on Thursday night I knew already a great deal of each of them. And so everything is as natural, as natural as can be. Look!' He held up his four fingers again. ‘Of Scarborough's father I heard so much from you that I am a friend of his early days. Garnett has lived for two years in Mexico, and I have studied Mexico in your college library with all the encyclopaedias for nearly two days, and he will never guess that I have not really had those six months there that I described so picturesquely! Of course I must ask my fellow-Mexican to lunch! And then Howe and Martin; that is really most curious! My friend Martyn with whom years ago I used to shoot in Norfolk spells his name with a Y, and so I am quite wrong in thinking that the Martin here is a relation of his! And my old business correspondent How, in the City of London, has no E in his name, and my guest of to-day has! What an extraordinary coincidence, so extraordinary that it must be true! If you invent something sufficiently absurd in all its details people will always believe it. How we all five laughed at the thought of a luncheon party where two of the guests had been asked because the host thought that their names had been spelt differently! Four guests and two of them there under false pretences! And so there we were all as happy as possible; no stiffness, no discussion of your quite execrable Oxford climate,
no polite inquiries about the state of the University at Vienna. No
Zwang
, as we say, at all. Of course they called me “Sir” a little too often at first, and were just a little too polite, but that soon passed, for I had taken my precautions.'

He paused to relight his cigar, and to smile at me.

‘There were no cocktails, because they would have been unsuited to your great traditions, but the estimable Callendar had provided me with some very admirable sherry, an Amontillado of great merit. The young, as I have often observed, are fond of discussing wine, so I ask them at once for their opinion. I think it really good, but is it perhaps the slightest degree too dry? Scarborough rolls it round his tongue, and says that for his taste sherry should be dry, and that it is excellent. And Howe commends it, and Martin praises it, and Garnett, who is a little older – isn't he – than the others, continues to say nothing, but he drinks two glasses whilst the others are criticizing one. So we are already all good friends when we start lunch, and over that lunch I have taken very great trouble. It is a good lunch, Winn; let me say your cook is a great ornament and credit to your college. With our lunch we drink a Clos de Vougeot of 1911, specially commended to me by Callendar. And again I invite the criticism of these connoisseurs. Though I speak as host it really does seem to me a worthy wine, but do they think it if anything just a little lacking in body? Scarborough, who has been very well brought up, thinks it an admirable wine, but agrees that if any criticism could be offered it would be just precisely that one which I have suggested. Howe is full of encomiums, and Martin hazards some praise of the bouquet. Garnett offers no special contribution to the discussion, but the greater part of the bottle finds its way into his glass. I suggest that perhaps the second bottle will by chance be better than the first, since bottles differ so much. And my little party begins to go very well.

‘Sooner or later, of course, we must talk of the murder, though it is not I who first mention it. What do I think of it, they ask? I shrug my shoulders, and explain that I am of course a stranger here, and I can know nothing of the people concerned, or how this dreadful thing can have happened. But what do
they
think of it? And who was really the murderer, and how did he get away unobserved? Then they all begin to talk at once – (except Garnett who is filling his glass) – and I – well – I listen. But for you, my dear Winn, I shall disentangle their most interesting stories.'

Brendel fancies himself not a little as a raconteur, and he now made a dramatic pause, and smacked his hand on the arm of his chair. ‘Ah,' he said, ‘I've forgotten the most important thing of all! Now listen!'

‘Nonsense,' I said, ‘you haven't forgotten anything. I'm not taken in so easily. You're just working up the effects.'

He laughed. ‘Well, perhaps. But you must forgive the tricks of the old lecturer. I'm just underlining the important things for you, so be patient, and don't spoil my little story.'

‘Go on,' I said. ‘I'm too old to be kept in suspense like this. You're like an old lady at the card-table who won't play out her trumps.'

‘Not at all. I am that rare creature, a lawyer with a true sense of the dramatic. Besides, it's better than a trump, or even than the ace of trumps. It is the joker which I shall now play, and the joker will make all your poor Inspector Cotter's little trumps look quite shabby. Are you ready?'

‘Yes, for heaven's sake, let's have it out,' I replied, half amused and half exasperated.

‘Well, it's only this. I quite forgot to say – now don't contradict me – I
quite
forgot to say that your friend Scarborough came to my little party with the fingers of his right hand all bandaged up …'

‘But …'

‘There are no buts about it. Listen to me. The young man shows me his hand, and curses his ill-fortune. (How little, my dear Winn, we understand our own best interests!) He tells me how he spoke to Callendar (we knew that!) and how he and Garnett went on to join the party which was celebrating your rowing victories. And since he was just a little – oh, just a very little – intoxicated, and since fireworks are dangerous things, he contrived to blow off a nice little bit of the first and second fingers of his right hand. What happens next? Of course his friend Garnett is there to help him, and by happy chance the Head Porter is there too; between them they bandage up the damaged hand; they go into Garnett's rooms and smear a lot of grease over the wounds and tear up a handkerchief or two, and the thing's done. Yes, I've seen Mr Pine and it's all correct. Five or ten minutes after he spoke those very incriminating words to Callendar, Scarborough was being bandaged up by Pine and Garnett. I daresay they didn't bandage him very skilfully, but they did it quite well enough. Have you ever tried, Winn, to shoot a man with a revolver when your right hand has just been roughly bandaged by the Head Porter? Of course you haven't, and, if you ever do, you'll miss. Scarborough's got a grand alibi, and nothing can shake it. Providence, as you must have observed in the course of your career, has a wonderful way of watching over the young and the intoxicated. He might have blown out one of his eyes and have been blind for life, he might have remained unhurt at all, and then he would have been considered by suspicious persons like you and Cotter as a murderer. But, no! He damages his hand just enough to give himself a cast-iron alibi at the cost of three weeks' inconvenience. Really Providence is wonderful! And he, poor young man, is so blind to his good fortune, that all he can say is that it was damnable to be knocked out just then,
because otherwise he and Garnett would probably have been cruising (yes, that was the word) round the Quad, and would no doubt have spotted the murderer on his way towards the crime. Incidentally Scarborough's alibi secures Garnett as well; the pair of them were together all the evening. I noticed that you didn't observe that one was as much implicated as the other, or that of the two Garnett was much the more likely to have committed a deed of violence. I'm afraid, Winn, that you let your personal feelings sway you too much for successful detective work! But Scarborough was lucky, all the same. And why did he want to see Shirley that night? Just because he had what he called a tutorial the next day, and he wanted to postpone it. Shirley was always difficult, but sometimes a little more approachable after a good dinner. How very, very simple!'