Death at the President's Lodging (22 page)

The entrance to the Chillingworth Club from Stonegate is down a few yards of covered alleyway. This gives upon a meagre little court with a meagre little fountain and fish-pond – the whole about fifteen feet square and known to members as the “garden.”… A subterraneous approach to the Chillingworth, Appleby decided as he traversed this retreat, was impracticable: there was nothing for it but a frontal attack upon the secretary. With this plan in view he rang the bell.

The secretary was an elderly youth of great discretion. Appleby’s credentials produced his assurance that the club would render all proper assistance with all possible expedition. Nevertheless, in a matter involving an inquisition into the movements of a member while on the premises, he was afraid he could not act without the sanction of the chairman. Could the chairman be consulted forthwith? Unfortunately not. Lord Pucklefield was in delicate health, and for some time his physicians had forbidden business matters being referred to him. An acting chairman? Well, yes; no doubt Dr Crummles’ authority might suffice. Ring up Dr Crummles? The Inspector would realize that it was scarcely a matter to confide to a telephone conversation…

Appleby was accustomed to getting over difficulties of this kind and in something over an hour he had obtained from a succession of club servants almost all the information he required. And his requirements, as far as Campbell’s movements were concerned, were minute. Campbell had arrived at ten-fifteen. Just before half-past ten he had been served with a drink in the smoke-room. A few minutes later he had entered the card-room, with this drink still in his hand, and had cut in upon a four at bridge. The game lasted till half-past eleven, and for ten minutes after that Campbell had remained talking to another of the players. But at exactly a quarter to twelve he had collected his hat and coat and gone out. Of the precise time of his leaving the servant concerned was convinced: just before getting up Campbell had looked at his watch, and this had had the effect of making the man glance at the clock. Moreover, something else had occurred to fix the matter in his mind. Campbell had gone out by way of the little court. But he had evidently forgotten something in the club, for a minute later he was seen in the building again. And then almost immediately he had finally left – this time by the side entrance that gave directly on Stonegate somewhat farther north.

This seemed detailed enough and Appleby did not feel disappointed when, on certain minute points on which he inquired, he did not succeed in getting a clearer picture. It was remarkable that of the casual movements of a member some nights before so much had been noted and remembered. Appleby was now almost certain that he was on the trail of something. Thoughtfully he emerged on Stonegate – as Campbell had done – and turned left for the Luton road. His next call was to be on Sir Theodore Peek – and on Sir Theodore’s neighbour, the Green Horse. For in this topographical fact lay the germ of Appleby’s present proceedings. Dodd’s street map had shown him that the Green Horse must be almost in the stables, so to speak, of the eminent scholar. And the exact topography, he hoped, would be finally illuminating.

It was. The entrance to the Green Horse Inn was from the inn yard. And the yard, which opened on one side to the high road, opened on the other to a secluded suburban avenue. And the nearest house was Berwick Lodge, Sir Theodore’s home. Appleby spent a moment conjuring up the whole venue in the dark. Then he ran up the steps of Berwick Lodge and knocked at the door.

The city abounds in venerable men. Particularly are its suburbs thronged with scholars of enormous age. The fact is not immediately observable – because once having abandoned their colleges they never go out. But hidden there in that humdrum Ruskinian villa is a greybeard who remembers the publication of Lachmann’s
Lucretius
; over the way, behind that imitation Tudor timbering, is the historian who quarrelled with Grote; down the road is an ancient whose infant head was patted by the great Niebuhr himself… Moreover there is something special about the generation of these primigenius
savants
. They are themselves the sons and grandsons of scholars who, having given a long working life to the furtherance of humane knowledge, and feeling, round about ninety or so, the first mists of senescence begin to gather about their minds, have retired from their intellectual pursuits to the solaces of matrimony and procreation. It thus comes about that the man who remembers Lachmann remembers too his father’s anecdotes of Porson, and that he who received the blessing of Niebuhr preserves the liveliest family anecdotes of Bentley and Heinsius and Voss – the sense of personal contact scarcely growing dim until it disappears with Politian and Erasmus into the twilight of the fifteenth century. This is the tradition of the true University Worthies – and of all living University Worthies Sir Theodore Peek was the oldest and the dimmest, the most sunk in the long and foggy history of scholarship – and the most truly bathed, perhaps, in the remote and golden sunlight of Greece and Rome.

Appleby found him in a small and gloomy room, piled round with an indescribable confusion of books and manuscripts – and asleep. Or sometimes asleep and sometimes awake – for every now and then the eyes of this well-nigh ante-mundane man would open – and every now and then they would close. But when they opened, they opened to decipher a fragment of papyrus on his desk – and then, the deciphering done, a frail hand would make a note before the eyes closed once more. It was like being in the presence of some animated symbol of learning.

Sir Theodore was finally aware of Appleby, but scarcely aware of him in his character as a policeman. Rather he seemed to think of him as a young scholar who, having just taken a creditable First in Schools, had come to consult authority on matters of post graduate study. It was only with difficulty that he was headed off from a discussion of the Aristarchic recension of Homer to a consideration of the reiterated name “Campbell.”

“Campbell,” said Appleby firmly. “Campbell of St Anthony’s!”

Sir Theodore nodded, and then shook his head. “Able,” he murmured, “able, no doubt – but we are scarcely interested – are we? – in his field. Umpleby is the only man at St Anthony’s. I advise you to see Umpleby. What a pity that he too has taken to these anthropological fantasies! You know him on Harpocration?”

“
Did
…
Campbell
…
visit
…
you
…
on
…
Tuesday
…
night
…?” asked Appleby.

“Indeed,
you
might consider Harpocration,” Sir Theodore went on. “He preserves, as you know, a number of passages from the Atthidographers Hellanicus, Androtion, Phanodemus, Philochorus and Istrus – to say nothing of such historians as Hecataeus, Ephorus and Theopompus, Anaximenes, Marsyas, Craterus–”

Appleby tried again.

“Yes,” he said emphatically, “yes; Harpocration.
Was…it…about… Harpocration…that…Campbell…was…talking…here…on…Tuesday…night
?”

Dimly, remotely, Sir Theodore looked surprised. “Dear me, no,” he said. “Campbell knows nothing about it, I am afraid. He simply brought a manuscript for the Journal – we don’t object to giving a little space to that sort of thing. He was here only a few moments. And now, if you should want introductions when you go abroad…”

Sir Theodore Peek was venerable, but exhausting. Respectfully, Appleby withdrew – and betook himself, for more purposes than one, to the Green Horse.

Appleby got back to his rooms in St Anthony’s at half-past eight. The visit to the Green Horse had not finished the day’s ferreting. There had been interviews with surprised and uncertain clerks; telephone messages to the Senior Proctor, to the Vice-Chancellor; minute interrogation of pugilistic-looking persons clutching bowler hats. …But the evening had ended pleasantly in supper with Inspector Dodd, and in restfully irrelevant talk which would have been prolonged had not that excellent officer had to take himself hurriedly off. The very crisis of his operations against the burglars was approaching. Now Appleby, refreshed, was seeking the solitude of his room for a spell of hard thinking on the material available after the day’s investigations. But he stopped as he opened the door. Sitting waiting by the fire, much as he had waited by Pownall’s fire that morning, was Mr Giles Gott.

Mike’s enthusiasm for his tutor was understandable. Gott began well by being, in repose, quite beautiful. When he moved, he was graceful, when he spoke, he was charming; when he spoke for long, he was interesting. Above all, he was disarming. “Plainly” – he seemed to say – “I am a creature whose life is more fortunate, more elevated, more effortlessly athletic and accomplished than yours, but – observe! – you are not in the least irritated as a result; in fact, you are quite delighted.”

Mr Gott rose gracefully now – and said nothing at all. But he looked at Appleby with a whimsical, tentative familiarity such as few men, being total strangers, could have achieved without some hint of impertinence. In this creature, it was most engaging.

Appleby saw no present need to decline the atmosphere suggested. Quite silently he sat down at the other side of the fire and filled his pipe. And when he spoke his opening remark seemed obligingly calculated to the slight oddity of the encounter.

“And so,” he said, “you are a bibliographer?”

Gott was filling his own pipe, and he merely chuckled.

“You are,” Appleby pursued didactically, “professionally a bibliographer – which is as good as being a detective. You make a science of the physical constituents of books and you are able, by means of the most complex correlations of the minutest fragments of evidence, to detect forgery, theft, plagiarism, the hand of this man or of that man in a text, an interpolation here, a corruption there – perhaps hundreds of years ago. By pure detective work, for instance, you have found out things about Shakespeare’s plays that Shakespeare never stopped to learn…”

Appleby paused to puff at his pipe and stir the fire.

“And this technique – or at least the type of trained mind behind this technique – you have actually turned (I am told) upon crime. Pentreith’s books are the best in their kind; pleasantly fantastic, but pleasantly closely-reasoned. I fancy you must take quite a professional interest in the pleasantly fantastic, pleasantly closely-reasoned death of Dr Umpleby?”

Gott shook his head. “Mr Appleby, you don’t believe it. Amid all the sad puzzles in which this case is involving you, you have one or two certainties. And you know that although – to my embarrassment – I write thrillers, I did
not
plan this real murder.”

“I know that you planned – something.”

“To be sure. But remember
Don Juan
. ‘The fact is that I have nothing planned except perhaps to be a moment merry.’ … What do you think?”

“I think that it is dangerous to make merry in the vicinity of murder. And I think it is wrong to make murder a matter of disinterested observation. It would be wrong to go into a thieves’ kitchen and be simply
interested
in murder. And – sentimentally, perhaps – it is wronger here.”

Gott had listened seriously. “Yes,” he said soberly after a silence, “that’s true. But my affairs, you know, have nothing to do with the case.”

Abruptly, Appleby was emphatic. “Mr Gott, I have spent all this afternoon over your affairs, and a good deal of preliminary thinking too. And it happens that, in a case like this, my time has a certain scarcity value.”

But this only brought Gott out of his sobriety. “What’s the Green Horse bitter like, Mr Appleby? And how did you find Sir Theodore? And I suppose you have worked it all out…?” His laugh was mocking and friendly, his speech at once confession and challenge.

“Yes,” answered Appleby, “I have worked it out. It wasn’t
very
difficult.”

“Ah!” said Gott… “Can I have your story?” It was cheeky but charmingly topsy-turvy – and there was no denying that Appleby liked the man.

“You can have my story from first suspicion to proof. And the first suspicion was pure chance. I was not very interested in anybody’s doings round about midnight on Tuesday. I should not have been interested in yours. But a conscientious colleague, commissioned to check up on you earlier on, actually followed your movements – or what he thought were your movements – just as far as he could.

“The junior Proctor was at Town Cross at eleven-forty. Just after that he was going up Stonegate. At midnight he was at the Green Horse. Oddly enough, another Fellow of St Anthony’s, Mr Campbell, declared himself to have been going in just the same direction at just the same late hour. There was just enough coincidence (to use, I am afraid, a very unscientific term) to arrest my attention and make me call for a map. And the map was suggestive enough to make me take a walk. And the walk showed me why Campbell was visiting Sir Theodore Peek at approximately the same time as the Junior Proctor was visiting the Green Horse.”

Appleby paused. His visitor was contemplating him mildly through a haze of tobacco smoke.

“Mr Gott, you and Campbell were faking an alibi for yourselves on the night of Umpleby’s murder, but as far as that murder went you were faking it for the wrong hour. Your alibi was an hour too late.”

“Odd,” said Gott. “But won’t you tell me a little more of how you thought of all this? I like it.”