Death at the President's Lodging (31 page)

Professor Curtis placidly stroked his beard and looked with mild and luminous intelligence upon his guest. With just such a lucid little proem would he begin expounding the mysteries of the papal chancellery to his pupils.

“You may think it in some degree singular, Mr Appleby, that I have not communicated the intelligence of this domestic event to my colleagues. But to begin with I may – may I not? – plead precedent. Of course you remember dear old Lethaby, who was Dean of Plumchester Cathedral? He was an honorary Fellow here and a regular member of our common-room for ten or twelve years, coming up every week. But it was only when he died and Umpleby went down to attend his funeral that we became aware that he was a married man. He had not mentioned it.

“In my own case I saw distinct inconveniences, which I need not particularize, as likely to be attendant upon a public announcement. And for the remainder of my time – which is now merely a matter of a few terms – I determined, therefore, on reticence.”

“Mrs Curtis,” Appleby smoothly interposed, “of course agreeing.”

“My wife, as you say, agreeing. She is a most meritorious female, Mr Appleby, and I am happy that she had the pleasure of meeting you today. But all this – save in one particular – is really irrelevant to the distressing and confounding circumstances to which I must presently come. Let me mention this particular at once: you will see later how it gained significance. Attendant upon keeping my marriage clandestine there were certain difficulties which you will no doubt apprehend. But these have been minimized by the fact that I happen to possess, adjacent to this room, a convenient and private means of egress from the college.”

“Yes,” said Appleby, “I know: the coal-hole.”

“Exactly so. That is no doubt the purpose for which it is actually intended. For a long time, as I think I told your colleague, I have been without a key to the college, and this emergency exit” – and Curtis beamed at his little joke – “has been most useful. By leaving the door – aperture perhaps I should say – that gives on the little blind-alley unbolted at night I have on occasion been able to slip in that way. And now,” continued Professor Curtis with great complacency, “I approach the agitating portion of my narrative.”

Appleby produced notebook and pencil. “I shall ask you to sign your statement,” he said, “and I have to warn you–”

Curtis nodded amiably. “Yes, Mr Appleby, yes – and I believe I have got, as they say, on the wrong side of the law. But so bewildering – so very bewildering – has everything been, that I have paused during these last two days in order to watch the turn of the event. I think that expresses it: to watch the turn of the event.”

“The event might have turned more quickly if you had come forward at once with such information as you possess.”

“That is no doubt a just observation, Mr Appleby. And – well,
here goes
.” And Professor Curtis, after an appreciative pause over the dashing colloquialism, really went, if somewhat parenthetically, ahead.

“That I have the knowledge – if knowledge such a confused concatenation of impressions may be termed – of events on Tuesday night that I do have is purely fortuitous. It results from my having resolved, I suppose a little after ten o’clock, to pay a visit to Titlow. It was not a merely social call. A vexed point in a Carlovingian manuscript had been worrying me for some time and it suddenly occurred to me that Titlow might help. He is not, of course, in
any
sense a palaeographer, but then he
is
– is he not? – an epigrapher and I thought he
might
help. The notion was most exciting and I put the document in my pocket and went straight across. Or rather I did
not
go straight across – and that no doubt was the trouble.

“I had entered Orchard Ground when it occurred to me to consult Umpleby. I did not” – Professor Curtis continued with some severity – “
approve
of our late President: for some years, it had seemed to me, he had turned controversy into dispute – always an unbecoming thing, Mr Appleby, in a scholar. But Umpleby was really remarkably intelligent. And being distinctly excited over my problem and seeing a light in his study, I tapped at the French windows – rather familiarly, I fear, considering our by no means intimate relations – and, in short, I stepped in and consulted him. He was very civil and immediately interested – it must be said of our late President that he was a man generously eager for the furtherance of learning – and I suppose we spent some ten minutes over the document.”

“That would take you,” Appleby interposed, “to about ten-twenty-five?”

“Until about ten-twenty-five. Umpleby made one or two interesting points and then I left him in order to consult Titlow as I had originally proposed. I left, as I had come, by the French windows, and that” – added Curtis as if with some memory from Pentreith’s fictions of the proper formula for such matters – “was the last occasion on which I saw Umpleby alive.

“Well, I went straight to Titlow’s. Or rather – you must excuse my lack of lucidity – I did
not
go straight to Titlow’s. For it occurred to me half-way to Little Fellows’ that in addition to the document in debate I might advantageously have brought certain other documents showing analogous problems. So I struck over the orchard in the dark, intending to return to my rooms by way of the east gate and get what I wanted. I had quite forgotten, of course, the vexatious business of these gates being locked at ten-fifteen. I came up against the closed gate with such unexpectedness, indeed, that injury might well have resulted. Upon that, I turned back to Little Fellows’: if the further documents proved necessary, Titlow, who had a key, could come over with me to my own rooms. And it was just as I was approaching Little Fellows’ once more that I received the first great shock.”

“Can you fix the time,” Appleby gravely inquired, “of the first great shock?”

“I believe I can. I was presently to be very much
aware
, and that awareness, by some retrospective operation of the mind, seems to include anterior events as well. I remember that the half-hour struck a moment before I came up so abruptly with the east gate. And in the dark it would take me three minutes – would it not? – to arrive at Little Fellows’.

“And then, Mr Appleby, I became aware of Haveland. He was standing just outside the doorway of Little Fellows’ and the light from the lobby illuminated him, if not clearly, yet sufficiently. I believe I must have discerned, and been much struck with his expression: I cannot otherwise account for the fact that I pulled up immediately. For it was distinctly a second afterwards that I became aware of what he was holding. He was holding a pistol – rather delicately in both hands. And he was examining it, it seemed to me, with something like fascination. But he had paused for a moment only; the next second he vanished into the darkness, only to return almost immediately and disappear into Little Fellows’.

“Haveland, as you know, was at one time afflicted by a nervous ailment and my first thought was that he was about to make some attempt upon his own life. In that persuasion I was about to rush into the building after him when I became aware of a disconcerting, indeed of a horrible impression.
I had the distinct impression that I had already heard a shot
. It had lodged itself in my unsuspicious mind as some noise incident to the abominable traffic by which the university has come to be afflicted. But now it came back to me as a
shot
. I could not tell
when
I heard it: it might have been any time after leaving the President’s study.

“And then, Mr Appleby, I did what I believe was a weak thing. I ought, I know, to have accosted Haveland at once – or alternately to have sought other assistance. But some unreadiness of nature supervened and I took a turn in the darkness of the orchard to reflect. I was already perplexed: how much more of perplexity was to come!”

Professor Curtis paused at this and smiled comfortably at Appleby. Then he resumed.

“I paced about in great agitation for, I suppose, five minutes–”

“Ten-thirty-nine or forty,” said Appleby.

“And at the end of that time I determined to consult Titlow on the whole disturbing incident. Titlow is our Senior Fellow and a man of brilliant if volatile intelligence: he seemed at once a proper and convenient person in whom to confide. I therefore retraced my steps to Little Fellows’ – and for the second time became aware of something
most
untoward. Titlow himself was just emerging,
dragging what was plainly a human body
. He hauled it just out of the circle of light from the doorway, pitched it down, to use a vulgar expression, like a sack of coals, and disappeared once more into Little Fellows’. I was very much shaken.

“I am humiliated to think,” continued Curtis with every appearance of the blandest ease, “that my duty was once more clear and that I again failed in it. Indubitably I should have hurried at once to the victim and rendered what assistance I could. But I was horribly convinced that the body I had momentarily seen was a
dead
body – and I was, moreover, excessively perturbed. I retreated once more into the orchard and it was a few minutes before I was sufficiently calm to take action. Then I saw that my proper course, in circumstances so exceedingly grave, was to go at once to the President. I made the best of my way through the orchard to his study… I would remind you, Mr Appleby, that the horror of these events was exacerbated by the inspissated gloom in which they were enveloped.

“Dr Umpleby’s study was deserted – and it was only on discovering this that I remembered, in my agitation, his having remarked that he was going over to see Empson almost at once. Within a few moments of my leaving him he must have followed me through the windows. I had as yet no suspicion of his fate, but I saw that I had no resource save to return at once to Little Fellows’. I passed out of the window once more and had advanced a few steps on my way when I became aware of a mysterious object advancing upon me through the darkness. I was so unnerved by this time that I at once withdrew from the path and made no sign of my presence. And the object soon revealed itself as some species of conveyance; a moment later it had halted before the windows of Umpleby’s study and I became aware of sounds of intense physical effort. Then the curtains were drawn for a moment aside, allowing a vision of yet another appalling spectacle.
Pownall was hauling out of a bath chair what was plainly the dead body of Umpleby
– and a moment later he had disappeared into the study with his burden.

“I will not pause,” said Professor Curtis, who had just paused impressively over this lurid picture, “I will not pause to particularize my feelings. I will merely say that I fled – and again passed some minutes in the darkness of the orchard in great agony of mind. At length I hurried back to Little Fellows’ to throw myself for counsel – and I may almost say for protection – upon Empson. In the inferno in which I was trapped – I do not think my expression is too strong – it seemed plain to me that there remained only one sane man. I hurried upstairs to Empson’s rooms. He was out. The resource had failed. I disliked the thought of Umpleby’s study – but I disliked Little Fellows’ yet more. I hastily sought the protection of the orchard once again and there I formed what I believe was the most rational plan open to me. I would wait some minutes to allow Pownall to get clear of the study and would then enter it and call the assistance of the President’s servants. Looking at my watch, therefore, I gave myself five minutes. Then I, boldly I hope I may say, approached the study–”

“What time was this?” There was a tremor of excitement in Appleby’s voice.

“It was between two and three minutes to eleven o’clock. I stepped straight through the windows and came upon Umpleby’s body laid among a litter of bones. But I came too upon something far more appalling than that. At the far end of the room by one of the revolving bookcases, and so absorbed in some operation of his own that he was quite unaware of my presence, was – Empson!

“I had just volition to slip silently from the room once more – and then, to use a familiar expression, my wits deserted me. I was, as I said before, trapped: my only way out of Orchard Ground was by the President’s Lodging, and that was blocked by the presence – the sinister presence I cannot but call it – of Empson. It is really disconcerting, Mr Appleby, for a retiring scholar to find himself incarcerated in a college court with a congeries of criminal lunatics.”

Professor Curtis lost himself for a moment in the placid contemplation of this alliterative effort. And then he continued. “Of my movements during the succeeding half-hour I can really give no coherent account. I was conscious, shortly after leaving the study, of hearing another shot; I have a memory of wandering round the orchard in plain distraction. I came to myself only with the sound of voices and what I took to be a general alarm. I was standing in the farthest corner of the orchard, beside the wicket that gives upon the street – and suddenly I noticed that the wicket was opening. By the light of a street-lamp I discerned a bearded person whom I did not recognize step tentatively into the orchard and check himself at the sound of the shouting. But I had seen my chance and, making a dive for the gate, I caught it just before it shut to and made good my escape. To such an extent was I nervously indisposed that I felt momentarily incapable of any other action. A few minutes later I slipped exhausted into my own rooms here – by means of the coal-hole, as you accurately call it. And since then I have waited, as I expressed it, on the turn of the event – waited for what was most plainly a horrid conspiracy to unmask itself.”