Lessons in Discovery (4 page)

hoarded, adding to the documents relating to the case whenever

new information turned up.

Copies of these original papers Miss Peters happily left on

the sick bed, wishing her friends the best of luck. “I’m sure you’ll succeed where others haven’t.”

As soon as she’d departed, Orlando questioned his

colleague. “But why should she feel that I—we—should be able

to solve a mystery that has taxed so many other people? There’s

been speculation about this case for years. Surely a few newly

discovered papers can’t make all that difference?”

Stewart grinned ruefully and fiddled with a sheaf of papers.

“Ah, this may be another thing that you’ll find hard to believe, but we’ve got ourselves a bit of a reputation for sleuthing. I never could decide which of us was Holmes and which was Watson, yet

murder and mystery seemed to beat a path to our door.”

“Was this the college murders?”

“Yes. The police asked us to keep an ear and eye out in

Bride’s, provide them with some inside information. I think we

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Charlie Cochrane

helped to bring the case to an earlier conclusion than might have been otherwise.”

Stewart didn’t seem to want to elaborate further so Orlando

didn’t ask him to. He decided to accept this bald explanation as adequate, at least for now. “And the other murder, when we were

on holiday?”

“Now that was one of your great successes, although it

wasn’t so to start with. You seemed to suspect any and everyone, for a million different reasons, although in the end you deduced the whole thing before the police did. Think you might have a

distinct knack for it. It’s the mathematical training, no doubt.”

Stewart’s face seemed awash with pride at his friend’s

achievement and Orlando felt himself blushing. It seemed an

appropriate moment for them to part company for the day, leaving Orlando to eye the pile of papers with relish.

The next morning the nurse decided that Orlando could be

allowed to return to his own room, so long as he promised to rest all afternoon, a decision that left Jonty hopping mad as he had

commitments all day and couldn’t help with the process.

Orlando was assisted back to his set by Summerbee, the

porter, who carried all his stuff, apart from the papers Miss Peters had entrusted to him. He found the place much the same although

some things he didn’t recognise, like the half-finished bottles of sherry and port which had appeared on his sideboard and the

beautiful tie pin that lay nestled in tissue paper among his

underwear. He took the latter out and examined it under the light.

There was no inscription or other clues to its provenance, so it was added to the many mysteries he had to solve.

What he didn’t find, as Jonty had carefully removed them

two days earlier, were any of the little signs that the room

occasionally had a second occupant. Even the spare key to Jonty’s 26

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Lessons in Discovery

set of rooms, which had been affixed to Orlando’s key ring, had

been whisked away and no trace of it left behind.

Orlando was allowed to go to dinner in hall on the

understanding that he retire early and be sensible. He was

dreading it but knew the ordeal would have to be endured at some point. There would be questions, concern and fuss, none of which he wanted. As it was, he was met en route by Stewart, who’d sped back from a late meeting with a motley collection of English

fellows to accompany his friend to High Table. Jonty provided an effective shield, telling all who began to make a nuisance of

themselves that Nurse Hatfield had insisted that Coppersmith

wasn’t to be harassed. Anyone who tried to do so had to go to sick bay and report to her as to why the instruction had been

disobeyed. No one was likely to risk having to do any such thing.

Going to the SCR afterwards had been something that Jonty

had been, if not dreading, then ill at ease with. He was still unsure how Orlando was going to react to the pair of them sitting so

close, but he needn’t have worried. Orlando had been thinking it all out and had deduced that Jonty would occupy the seat next to his. “It’s only logical that, if we’re friends, we must sit together here.”

Jonty felt a wave of relief sweep over him. He desperately

wanted to say something like
This is where we first met
but that would have sounded far too romantic, so he settled for, “This is exactly where we first ran into each other. I sat in your chair and you were officious beyond all belief. ‘Well, Stewart,’ you said,

‘we are great ones for resisting change and the particular chair a man inhabits after High Table is regarded as sacrosanct.’” It was an uncanny impression of Orlando’s tone on the day.

Orlando frowned. “I never said that, did I? Not in that

voice?”

“You did, you were a terrible grouch then. You seem to have

lightened up no end.”

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Charlie Cochrane

They drank their coffee and chatted pleasantly in the dark,

comfortable room, Orlando pointing out several of their fellow

dons and wanting to have the latest information about them. Jonty noticed the signs of weariness gradually creeping over his friend’s face and laid his now-empty cup down in a gesture that spoke of

time to go
. “Does Nurse allow you to take a drink? I notice you were abstemious during the meal.”

“Oh, a little one would be allowable, but it’s a bit late now.”

“I have an excellent port in my room. It’s on the way back to

your set and you could spare ten minutes, surely, to celebrate your release from incarceration?”

Orlando smiled, with slight hesitation. “A small one and a

swift one. That would be fine.”

They slowly made their way over to his set, Jonty nervously

scrutinising every step Orlando took on the stairs and making sure he stayed behind him this time, just in case he was needed to play wicketkeeper.

Jonty led the way in, ushered his guest towards a chair, then

found the decanter, pouring a small libation for them both. “This was always your favourite seat, Orlando.” Jonty pointed to the

sagging but comfy armchair where Orlando was wont to stretch

out his legs in front of the fire. He felt the other man’s sudden unease and looked up. “Orlando? What’s the matter?”

“No one outside my family has called me by my Christian

name since I was a boy. I’ve always been Dr. Coppersmith here at St. Bride’s. Even with you these last few days. What has

changed?”

Jonty swallowed hard and attempted a reassuring smile. “It’s

been Jonty and Orlando in our own rooms ever since…well, ever

since we began to visit each other. For reading or chess, or tea and buns,” he added with a degree of haste.

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Lessons in Discovery

“Never anywhere else?” It was as if Orlando had to relearn

all the rules of their relationship, as he had learned the sacred rules of mathematics as a boy.

“Nowhere else in college or in the town. On holiday we

relaxed our regulations, and at my parents’ house as well. But in the university and SCR we are always Dr. Coppersmith and Dr.

Stewart.”

“Thank you…Jonty.” Orlando said it hesitatingly, making

the vowel sound long and languorous, reminding Jonty of just

how he’d spoken the name when they’d been intimate.

“My pleasure, Orlando.” They finished their port and Jonty

escorted his friend home to his own rooms, seeing him safely

through the door but not entering himself. That particular

invitation would have to wait.

Orlando didn’t immediately turn in. He sat by his own fire,

contemplating the flames, as he had sat alone many an evening

since coming to St. Bride’s. Now he’d visited Stewart’s set for a drink and was apparently a regular guest there. He never used to visit any of the other fellows in their rooms, and no one had been allowed past the portals of his, but perhaps this was another rule which had to be learned anew. With Dr. Stewart—Jonty, how

pleasant that name sounded—as part of his life, the world had to be viewed afresh.

He recalled Jonty’s impersonation of him at their first

meeting and he knew it would have been correct; he remembered

clearly what he’d been like a year back. He wouldn’t be like that now, he was certain, and that was one more piece of evidence that 1906 had been a watershed year. He was becoming increasingly

convinced that something out of the ordinary had happened to

him, something which had a lasting effect, but Stewart had given no indication of what that had been. Perhaps the man didn’t know.

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Orlando sat by his desk, coffee and rolls to hand and Miss

Peters’ papers next to them. He was enormously grateful that

she’d hunted out this little puzzle for him, being a man who liked to think—there had been too much time recently for

contemplation and only two subjects for consideration. One was

what had happened to him over the past year, another was the fact that his room didn’t seem to be a refuge from the world anymore.

There were distinct impressions left that someone else might visit it, at least on occasions.

Which brought him immediately to the second point for

consideration—Dr. Stewart. Orlando wondered whether it was

normal, when regarding a friend, to be quite so obsessed about

him as he seemed to be. He’d eagerly awaited the man’s visits to sick bay and in between had thought of him often. Almost all the time, if he was being honest. Jonty was a great mystery, garrulous about so many things, yet there seemed to be whole areas upon

which he seemed reluctant to expound. Irrespective of this, he was a constant source of joy and entertainment, the like of which

Orlando couldn’t at any point remember in his “old life”.

He’d begun to construct a timeline of the past twelve

months, not just in his head but on paper too, put together from what he’d read in the newspapers and in university publications.

And from the endless chatter that had proceeded from his friend.

It had been an incident-packed time—
could he really have started
playing bridge on a regular basis, and at another college?
—but
Lessons in Discovery

he got no clues as to this significant event, if one there was.

Perhaps it had been linked to his close involvement, twice over, with violent death.

Now he’d been given another possible murder to set his

mind to. Once he’d had his breakfast, Orlando’s first trip of the morning was to the college library to borrow what was generally

regarded as the most accurate of the summaries of the Woodville

Ward case. The story was well known to anyone at Bride’s, being

one of the frequent topics for conversation in both common

rooms. Theories were often bandied forth as to the means and

motive for the death, hypotheses that were often completely

outrageous.

Having made another strong pot of coffee and settling

himself in a comfortable spot on his old, familiar sofa, Orlando began to re-familiarise himself with the main points of the case.

Charles Shaa had been orphaned at eleven, taken under the wing

of Elizabeth of York, who had been a great friend of his mother, then conveyed to the college for safekeeping. He was raised

among the students, much cosseted by them and by the college

tutors. The Queen Elizabeth Hall records which had survived

showed that he’d been well cared for and had soon been taken on

as a student himself, to study astronomy. His name, the treatise stated, showed up among various remaining documents of the

time, even appearing on a laundry bill that had somehow

continued in existence until the 1850’s.

Any mention of Shaa ceased in early 1497 and the records

showed that the queen had herself visited the Hall in great

agitation to seek her ward, for whom she felt a particular

responsibility. She’d returned home with no more understanding

of what had happened than when she came. Much time and

money had been spent on a search, extending, given the lad’s

avowed wish to be a sailor, to the local seaports. In the end the hunt had, like all the other avenues explored, drawn a complete

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Charlie Cochrane

blank—the Master at the time believed the young man had simply

given them all the slip and was halfway across the Atlantic.

The body had been found in 1701, a sad corpse in a dried-

out, disused well. College records put the closure of the water

supply at June, 1497, so the theory was that Shaa had been put in there almost as soon as he’d disappeared. The hue and cry had

been in vain, the net spread far and wide for someone who all the time was just outside the Hall’s portals. The body had been

identified by means of the distinctive jewellery he wore, items

which could be traced back to his grandmother, whose portrait

was still in existence at the time. So was a sketch of Shaa himself, with the items clearly displayed. To clinch things, the body

showed signs of a slight fracture to the arm that had not had a

chance to heal. It was known that young Shaa had suffered a

suspected break in one of his bones shortly before his

disappearance.

The author of the work concluded with a series of

summaries. First of all the probable means of death, which was

given as drowning, strangulation or suffocation. All these had