Parting Breath (10 page)

‘None,' declared the Vice-Chancellor. ‘Malcolm Humbert doesn't come back.'

‘Can't we get rid of Challoner too?'

‘Not legally,' answered the Vice-Chancellor with precision.

‘Timothy Teed's in there with them, I take it?' said the Dean of Ireton. ‘Making the most of it all for his next programme.…'

‘He is.'

‘What's he wearing?'

‘A deer-stalker.'

‘He would.'

‘The cameras will pick that out all right.'

‘Bound to.'

‘He never misses a trick, does he?'

It was at this point that the news of the stabbing of a student reached them; and the Vice-Chancellor made a remark also destined to go down in the annals of the University of Calleshire:

‘Really,' he said, ‘this is going too far.'

‘They haven't stopped singing, sir,' announced Detective Constable Crosby as Sloan got back to the quadrangle after telephoning the Superintendent.

‘Good. At least we know where they've been all evening.'

‘“A pretty bonny lass was walking,”' chorused the University Madrigal and Glee Club. ‘“In the midst of May before the sun 'gan rise.”'

‘No one's come out,' went on Crosby, ‘and everything else is quiet.'

‘Good,' said Sloan again, casting his eye along the paved way. All that now remained of the earlier drama was some chalk lines on the stones. The late Henry Moleyns had been cocooned in polythene and removed to Dr Dabbe's mortuary while – the thickness of a wall away from sudden death – the singing had gone on.

‘I don't know how they keep it up, I'm sure,' said Crosby as the next two lines of the madrigal drifted over the quiet quadrangle.

‘Let's find out,' suggested Sloan.

‘Listen to them, sir.'

‘“I took her by the hand and fell to talking,”' sang the undergraduates, ‘“Of this and that, as best I could devise.”'

‘They've had half a dozen goes at this one already,' said the constable as the final strains of the madrigal came over the still evening air. ‘I know it by heart now.'

‘“Heart” seems to be the operative word with madgrigals,' observed Sloan, moving towards the door leading to the singers.

‘“I swore I would, yet still she said I should not,”' trilled the madrigalists. ‘“Do what I would, and yet for all I could not.”'

‘They get into a muddle with that part sometimes,' said Crosby.

‘I'm not surprised,' said Sloan vigorously, ‘but all the same I still think I prefer it to “Humbert in, Wheatley out.” Come on.…'

Inside the Madrigal and Glee Club meeting were not only singers but musicians. A large girl in a voluminous smock was strumming a strange instrument as they entered, while a weedy youth was blowing away at one nearly as tall as himself. Four singers were standing in the middle of the room, their mouths wide open, for all the world, thought Sloan, like four little birds in a nest waiting for worms.

‘There's some funny folk about even without looking in the mirror,' muttered Crosby into Sloan's right ear.

‘Police,' said Sloan loudly.

This group of undergraduates was not of the stuff of which militant demonstrators are made.

‘Were you looking for someone?' asked their leader politely.

‘The last man in here tonight,' said Sloan.

‘Stephen,' they said with one accord, pointing.

‘Me,' said a bespectacled boy with tow-coloured hair, who was sitting among the musicians with a very tiny instrument in his hand. It bore a close resemblance to the tambourine which Sloan remembered from his own first year at infant school and to the best of his recollection had not seen since.

‘Stephen?'

‘Stephen Smithers,' he said, laying down his instrument. ‘I was last, I know, because I was late.'

‘At least three minutes,' said the leader.

‘Nearer five,' said the large girl in the smock censoriously. It was a decidedly unbecoming garment on one so large. ‘We couldn't start with an air.'

‘More like ten minutes,' said someone else.

‘Which wouldn't have suited the Duke of Wellington,' said one of the singers.

Sloan turned enquiringly towards the last speaker.

‘Great on punctuality was the Duke,' the young man said, adding by way of explanation, ‘I'm reading History.'

‘Ah,' said Sloan. ‘And what would the rest of you be doing?'

Of the eight it emerged that two were reading English, only one Music, one was going to be a linguist (the fat girl), two were reading Theology (more musical clergymen, thought Sloan) and one was reading Politics.

‘Politics?' echoed Sloan. ‘What's your name?'

‘Barry Naismyth.'

Sloan was quite relieved that the voice was deep. Sexing students these days could be as highly skilled as sexing chickens except that you didn't get paid for it. Naismyth's hair was as long as any girl's and – which was worse – curly, and his clothes totally and quite deliberately epicene.

‘And if you want to know why he isn't at the sit-in,' began the historian smugly.

‘Yes?' said Sloan, intrigued.

‘It's because he's just read the life history of Napoleon Bonaparte.'

Naismyth started to protest.

‘Has he?' said Sloan. He considered the historian. ‘And you're going to tell me what that's got to do with his missing the sit-in, aren't you?'

The speaker grinned. ‘Yes, I am.'

‘It's got nothing to do with it,' interposed Barry Naismyth hastily. ‘Nothing at all.'

‘Just as Napoleon was first beginning in politics after he left Corsica something a bit troublesome cropped up –'

‘The French Revolution,' said Sloan. There had been a lecturer at the Police College who dated all disorder from that: Cromwell's English Republic had been an orderly one.

‘Yes, well' – the student was clearly surprised – ‘When Napoleon could see that everyone was going to get egg on their faces, what did he do?'

‘You tell me,' suggested Sloan, ‘then I'll know, won't I?'

‘Galloped off in the opposite direction, that's what. Went off on a long campaign somewhere else, Italy, I think.'

‘I'll let you into a little secret,' said Sloan. ‘It's been done before.'

‘Not news?' said the history student sadly.

‘Not news,' said Sloan. ‘A lot of politicians duck when they see trouble coming. They get diplomatic illnesses.' His manner sobered suddenly. ‘And then they leave the dirty work to the police.' He looked round the room. ‘And the rest of you? Why weren't you at the sit-in? Have you all got Napoleon complexes or what?'

‘It was our Club night,' said the girl in the smock earnestly. ‘That's why we didn't go.'

‘We're rehearsing for a concert, too,' said one of the incipient clergymen.

‘If wet, in village hall,' muttered Crosby.

Sloan pulled himself together. ‘Now, then, Mr Smithers, can you spare us a moment.…'

The chief impediment to interviewing Stephen Smithers was his sneeze.

‘Sorry,' he sniffed. ‘Hay-fever.'

‘You were late at the meeting,' observed Sloan.

‘Had to get some more tissues,' he explained. ‘Run out. I buy them by the hundred now. Ah … ah … ah … atishoo!'

‘Sneeze on Monday, sneeze for danger,' said Detective Constable Crosby.

‘When should you have been there?' asked Sloan valiantly, where a lesser man would have turned upon his assistant.

‘Seven-thirty but … atishoo … sorry … I wasn't.'

‘So we hear.'

‘They had to start with a madrigal,' said Smithers. ‘No glee without me.'

‘No glee.' Crosby wrote that down. Sloan wondered what the Superintendent would make of it.

Smithers sneezed again.

‘Sneeze on Tuesday, sneeze for sorrow,' said Crosby.

‘How late were you?' asked Sloan rather sharply.

‘They'd got to the end of John Wilbye's “Cloris,”' said Smithers helpfully, ‘so I expect we can work it out if it's important.' He looked alertly from one policeman to the other. ‘It is important, isn't it?'

‘Oh, yes,' said Sloan, ‘it is important.'

‘Couldn't stop sneezing, you see.' He was fumbling for a tissue even as he spoke. ‘It's even worse first thing in the morning. They say,' he managed between sneezes, ‘that all this hay-fever's come from a new strain of Canadian wheat that they've brought into England these last few years but I don't know, I'm sure. All I know is –'

‘This evening,' said Sloan implacably.

‘Yes?'

‘Did you see anyone as you came along?'

‘Plenty of people. Had you anyone in mind, Inspector?'

‘Henry Moleyns.'

Smithers shook his head. ‘Not him. At least, not that I remember.'

‘Did you see anyone at all you knew?'

Smithers screwed his face up as for another sneeze but this time it signified the effort of recollection. ‘Colin Ellison – I saw him on the stairs. Someone from the Fencing Club and Miss Linaker. She was in a hurry like me. There were people about, you know. There always are.'

‘Did you cross the quad or go round?'

‘Across,' said Smithers promptly. ‘Saves time. I knew I was late.'

‘Did you see anything unusual by the fountain?'

‘Nothing,' sneezed Smithers. ‘Should I have done?'

‘Not,' said Sloan precisely, ‘if there wasn't anything there unusual to see at the time.'

Over in the Combination Room at Tarsus College, old Professor McLeish was taking a detached – not to say totally academic – view of the news of the death of Henry Moleyns.

‘I think,' he said, ‘that the last time that we had an undergraduate of this University actually killed on the premises, so to say, was in 1797 – or was it 1798 – yes, perhaps it was in 1798.…'

One of the young scientists present who still believed in accuracy above all for its own sake (and even more naïvely believed that other people felt the same) waited on principle for him to decide.

Nobody else did.

‘What happened then?' enquired Professor Tomlin curiously.

‘A duel.'

‘Ah.' Professor Tomlin gave a wolfish smile. ‘Pistols for two, breakfast for one.'

‘If my memory serves me correctly,' said old McLeish complacently, ‘it was over a lady.' In fact his memory was excellent and few people knew enough to contradict him anyway.

‘Boys will be boys,' muttered Roger Hedden
sotto voce
.

‘Or it might have been a matter of honour between gentlemen,' said the old man.

Those in the Combination Room treated this as the unlikeliest explanation at all.

‘That's out these days,' said someone quickly.

‘And how!' added the College's classicist, who was for some reason curiously addicted to modern slang – taking his revenge on the live tongue for the invulnerability of the dead ones, his colleagues thought. ‘There isn't much of that about these days.'

‘And as for the lady's honour …' began Bernard Watkinson, the misogynist.

‘Nobody seems to think that's worth fighting for anymore either,' agreed Tomlin mournfully. He was much-married to the daughter of a Bishop who found it impossible to keep abreast of changing standards and lamented the fact
ad nauseam
.

‘I believe that there was some suggestion,' rumbled on old McLeish, ‘that our Jacob Greatorex had – er – an insurable interest in the outcome of the duel.'

‘Very probably.'

‘I shouldn't think anyone is going to gain from young Moleyns' dying,' said someone. ‘He's an orphan. Brought up by a maiden aunt, I believe.'

‘Poor Moleyns,' said Hedden ambiguously. ‘I wonder what really happened?'

This, as is usually the way with the first instalment of bad news, nobody seemed to know. And – as again is the way with bad news – they were about to go over the same ground all over again when they were joined by an irate Professor Simon Mautby. He erupted into the Combination Room in a fine state of outrage.

‘Just wait,' he stormed. ‘Just wait until I get my hands on them. That's all. Just wait – then I'll – I'll –'

‘Hands on whom?' enquired Tomlin.

‘Whoever's been in my lab without my permission,' snapped Mautby. ‘That's who. And when I do I'll –'

‘And what did they do in there?' asked Tomlin with the maddening calm that men reserve for other people's difficulties.

‘Do!' exploded Mautby. ‘They opened one of the animal cages there, that's what they did. And when I catch them I'll –'

It wasn't that words showed any sign of failing the Professor of Ecology. It was just that he was interrupted before he could get on to the fine detailing of the hanging, drawing and quartering that was obviously in store for whoever had illicitly entered his precious laboratory.

‘What happened as a consequence of this cage being opened?' enquired the junior scientist earnestly. After all,
Penicillium
had been discovered by much the same sort of accident.

‘Some white mice got out,' said Mautby tightly.

Nobody in the Combination Room so much as tittered.

‘And?' enquired Watkinson gravely.

‘And one of them used one of my heated propagating trays for the accouchement of her family.…'

8 Prises de Fer

Detective Constable Crosby's initial examination and subsequent sealing up of Henry Moleyns' room in Tarsus College was following the orthodox pattern he had been taught at his Police Training College. As far as he was concerned he was not looking for anything in particular and, if asked, would have replied that he was carrying out a routine procedure.

He did, however, find something.