Appleby File (16 page)

‘Quite right. Absolutely essential.’ Appleby nodded approvingly. ‘It’s what gets the results – in nine cases out of ten. And, on this occasion, they appear to have got a result quite rapidly. Too rapidly, I think you’d say?’

‘Of course I’d say. The notion of that young man Brian Button providing himself with a revolver and shooting the Master dead with it in his own study is simply too fantastic to stand up.’

‘But just at the moment, Vice-Master, it seems to be standing up rather well. The police have no doubt about what Dr Durham was doing when he was shot down – and it’s what they’ve discovered that has led them to question our young man. Durham was dictating a letter on his tape-recorder for his secretary to type out later. It was to the Cannongate trustees, and said flatly that Button had been guilty of professional misconduct of so scandalous a sort that he must be dismissed at once – even although it meant that all academic employment would henceforth be closed to him.’

‘It was a very strange thing for the Master to propose to write, Sir John.’

‘Well, there it is. The tape isn’t to be denied. The Master appears to have flicked the switch that stops the machine simply because he was interrupted while on the job. So the record remained for the police to find.’

‘I understand the police case. Button has admitted going to see the Master early yesterday morning and telling him a story about rifled papers. It is now supposed that he returned again in the late afternoon, armed and resolved. The Master told him of the step he proposed to take, but without saying that he had at that moment broken off from recording his letter. So Button killed him, hoping thus to smother up the whole thing. I repeat that it is utter nonsense, completely alien to Brian Button’s character, such as it is. A somewhat irresponsible young man, perhaps. But not precisely bloody, bold, and resolute.’

‘It’s Durham’s character that interests me more. And aren’t you saying that he too seems to have behaved
out
of character?’

‘In a sense, that is so.’ Fordyce had taken this point soberly. ‘But perhaps I have to say that, although I knew Robert Durham long before he became Master, I never quite understood the man. I have sometimes thought of him as harbouring that degree of inner instability which is liable to produce what they call a personality change. And yet that is a fantastic speculation.’

‘At least a change of job, one supposes, may bring out something roughly of that sort. Was there any particular regard in which he appeared to you to be changing?’

‘I can scarcely answer that without appearing very much at sea, Sir John. In one aspect Durham was a man growing detached, remote, fatigued. In another, he was becoming irascible, authoritarian, and increasingly prone to flashes of odd behaviour. He could behave like an old-fashioned headmaster with a vindictive turn of mind.’

‘Dear me! That sort of thing surely doesn’t cut much ice with undergraduates today?’

‘Decidedly not. They can be a very great nuisance, our young men. But it is reason alone that is of any avail with them. It’s something they have a little begun to get the hang of. Talk sense patiently enough and without condescension – and round they always come.’ Fordyce had delivered this high doctrine with an effect of sudden intellectual conviction. ‘Durham had lost grip on that.’

‘How did he get along with the younger dons?’

‘Ah! Not too well.’

‘To the extent of anything like feud? With Button himself, for instance?’

‘With Button, I’d scarcely suppose so – although the lad may have annoyed him. Nor with any of them to what you might call a point of naked animosity. Bone might be an exception.’

‘Bone? A young man called Bruno Bone?’

‘Yes. I’m not sure that Bone, for whatever reason, hadn’t got to the point of hating Durham in his guts.’ It was rather unexpectedly that the Vice-Master had produced this strong expression.

‘But Bone, too, would scarcely be bloody, bold, and resolute?’

‘Of course not. He–’ The Vice-Master, who seemed to have produced this reply by rote, suddenly checked himself. ‘Do you know,’ he said, ‘that I wouldn’t be quite confident of that? But then I’m coming to wonder what I shall ever be robustly confident about again. This is an undermining affair, Sir John.’

Bruno Bone, a lanky, prematurely bald young man, was spending his Saturday afternoon banging away on his typewriter. Perhaps he was writing a lecture, or perhaps he was writing a novel. Whichever it was, he didn’t seem much to care for being interrupted by the mere father of the author of
The Lumber Room
.

‘Yes, of course I know they’ve arrested Button,’ Bone said. ‘So what?’

‘I’d rather suppose you might be distressed or concerned. Not that they have, perhaps, quite arrested him. He’s helping them with their inquiries. They have to tread carefully, you know. But it’s true they hold a document from a magistrate. It’s in reserve. But I’d simply like to ask, Mr Bone, what you think of the affair.’

‘Absolute poppycock. Brian Button’s an irresponsible idiot, and I wouldn’t trust him with looking after the beer in the buttery, let alone those Cannongate Papers. But he wouldn’t shoot old bloody Durham. Wouldn’t have the nerve.’

‘Would you?’

‘If you weren’t old enough to be my father, I’d tell you that was a damned impertinent question.’

‘Never mind the impertinence. Would you?’

‘I don’t know that I know.’ Bruno Bone was of a sudden entirely amenable. ‘It’s an interesting speculation. On the whole – I’m ashamed to say – I guess not.’

‘Or would anybody else in the college?’

‘Can’t think of anybody.’

‘Then I’m left – so far as anybody who has been put a name to goes – with a London journalist whom Button sent for and talked to a shade rashly. There are journalists, I suppose, who are fit for anything.’

‘This one may have scented a hopeful whiff of blackmail, or something of that kind? And the Master may have got on to what he was up to, and had his brains blown out for his pains? I wouldn’t like to have to render such a course of events plausible in a novel.’

‘If you ever try, I’ll hope to read your attempt at it.’ Appleby gave this quite a handsome sound. ‘When did you last see Dr Durham?’

‘When did I last see my father?’ Bruno Bone was amused. ‘Quite late in the day, really. I’m not a bad suspect, come to think of it. Smart of you to be chasing me up, Sir John. Quite Bobby’s father, if I may say so. Bobby’s bright.’

‘I never judged him exactly dim – but the point’s not of the first relevance. Be more precise, please.’

‘Very well. I went to see the old brute about an hour before he was indubitably dead. Probably the last man in, so to speak. A breathless hush in the close, and all that. I wanted to sound him out about the prospects of my touching the college for a travel grant. California. Awful universities, but a marvellous climate. Durham treated me as if I was a ghost. Bizarre, wouldn’t you say? Considering he was so well on the way to becoming one himself.’

‘No doubt. What was the Master doing?’

‘Concocting a letter.’

‘On some sort of dictaphone?’

‘Nothing of the sort. Laborious pen and ink. And putting a lot of concentration into it, I’d say. He made a civil pretence of listening to me for about thirty seconds, and then turfed me out. He was back on his job before I’d reached the door.’

‘And that was the last you saw of him?’

‘No, it wasn’t.’ Bruno Bone was sardonically triumphant. ‘And here’s where I get off the hook. I saw him ten minutes later – and so must plenty of other people – crossing the great quadrangle, with his letter in his hand. He went out through the main gate, crossed the road to the post office, shoved his letter into the box, and came back.’

‘There would be nothing particularly out of the way, would there, about all that?’

‘Of course there would. He had only to leave the thing on a table in his hall, and it would have been collected and dealt with by a college messenger.’

‘Thank you very much, Mr Bone. And I apologize for disturbing you.’

Appleby’s final call was on the senior History Tutor, an elderly man called Farnaby. Farnaby, he supposed, was in some vague and informal fashion Brian Button’s boss.

‘One of Button’s indiscretions,’ Appleby said, ‘appears to have been dreaming up some popular articles based on the documents in his charge, and calling in a man from some paper or other with whom to discuss the matter. Would you term his doing that a grave breach of confidence?’

‘Certainly not. Button ought, no doubt, to have mentioned the proposal to the Master or to myself in the first instance. It might even be said that there was a slight element of discourtesy in his conduct of the matter; and anything of the kind is, of course, greatly to be deprecated in a society like ours.’

‘Of course.’

‘But let us simply call it an error of judgement. Button has the makings of a competent scholar; but of what may be called
practical
judgement he has very little sense.’

‘I see. Would you say, Dr Farnaby, that the young man’s lack of practical judgement might extend to his supposing it judicious to murder Dr Durham?’

‘Of course not. I am almost inclined, Sir John, to say that the question could be asked only in a frivolous spirit. It is utter nonsense.’

‘So everybody except the police appears to feel. Might Button be described as a protégé of yours?’

‘I don’t think we go in for protégés.’ Farnaby had frowned. ‘But I certainly feel in some degree responsible for him. He was my pupil, and it was I who recommended him for his present employment.’

‘Thank you. Now, it appears to me, Dr Farnaby, that we have at present just one hard fact in this affair. The day before yesterday, or thereabout, some person unknown abstracted eight sheets from a file of photocopies, photocopied those photocopies anew, and then returned the newer and not the older photocopies to the file. The switch was almost certainly fortuitous rather than intentional. It could not have been designed to attract Button’s attention, since there was no particular likelihood of his turning over those particular papers again before the static electricity had faded from them. At this specific point, then, we have no reason to suspect any sort of plot against the young man.’

‘Clearly not.’

‘Button went to the Master and told his story. The Master – if Button is to be believed, and if he didn’t form a false impression – the Master responded to the story as if he had some inkling of what lay behind it. It rang a bell. That is Button’s phrase for it. Does that suggest anything to you?’

‘Nothing whatever, I fear.’

‘I suppose everybody would have learnt almost at once about Button’s cleverness in tumbling to the implications of that small electrical phenomenon?’

‘Almost certainly. He’s a young man who can’t help chattering.’

‘Do you think that his chatterbox quality, and perhaps other forms of tiresomeness, may have been irritating the Master in a manner, or to a degree, Button himself wasn’t aware of?’

‘I’m afraid it is only too probable. Poor Durham was becoming rather intolerant of folly.’

‘That seems to be a view generally held – and it brings me to my last point. The Vice-Master has given me some impression of Durham as a man. And he judges it rather odd, for one thing, that Durham should have thought to dictate a letter to the Cannongate trustees that could only have resulted in Button’s being sacked. But again – and rather contradictorily – he represents Durham as increasingly irascible, indeed vindictive. How would you yourself describe the man?’

‘He owned a certain complexity of character, I suppose. Sit beside him at dinner, and you might judge him rather a dull – even a morose man, particularly during his recent ill-health. But in solitude and at his desk he must have become something quite different, since his writing was often brilliantly witty. And maliciously witty, it may be added; whereas in all his college relations his sense of the academic proprieties extended almost to the rectitudinous.’ Farnaby paused, and seemed to become aware of this speech as a shade on the heavy side. ‘In fact,’ he added, ‘poor Robert Durham, barring occasional acts of almost alarming eccentricity, was a bit of a bore. But it would have been a safe bet that the memoirs he was working on would have been highly entertaining. You will recall that he was in political life as a younger man, and knew everybody there was to know. It was probably because he found Oxford a bit of a bore that
we
found
him
one. But I must not speak uncharitably. A horrifying mystery like this is a chastening thing.’

‘It is, no doubt, horrifying.’ Appleby stood up. ‘Or, if not horrifying, at least distressing. Whether it is a mystery is another matter. We can only wait and see.’

‘Wait and see, Sir John! I very much hope that the most active steps are being taken to clear the matter up.’

‘In a sense, perhaps they are. A little patience is what is required, all the same.’

‘And my unfortunate young colleague has to set us an example in the matter?’ Farnaby spoke with asperity. ‘Button has to rest content in his cell?’

‘I think not. It is improbable that any very definitive step has been taken in regard to him. Perhaps I can make myself useful – in this way if in no other, my dear sir – by persuading my former colleagues to part with him. In fact, I’ll take him back to Dream with me. He and Bobby can play tennis.’

‘And for how long will they have to do
that
?’ Although he uttered this question challengingly, Farnaby was clearly much relieved.

‘Oh, until Monday morning. It’s my guess that between breakfast and lunch on that day Dr Durham’s demise will effectively clear itself up.’

And it was at ten o’clock on Monday that Appleby strolled out to the tennis court. A police car had arrived at Dream and departed again, and Appleby now had some papers in his hand.

‘Relax,’ he said to the two young men. ‘Your late Master wilfully sought his own salvation. Or that’s how the First Grave Digger would put it.
Felo de se
. The letter has arrived, and all is clear.