Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 49, No. 6. Whole No. 283, June 1967

Lament for a Scholar by Neil MacNeish

It was exactly the sort of case that “happened” to Sir Blane Jopphy, Commissioner of Metropolitan Police, whenever he left his office in New Scotland Yard...

Normally nothing happens at St. Merridue College — that is, nothing out of the ordinary. Young men arrive, become educated in their fashion, and leave to make place for a new lot of ignoramuses. Professors argue small points with each other in the common room after dinner, and gossip, when they have the opportunity, with remarkable pettiness about those colleagues who do not happen to be present at the time.

On one such evening they were doing just that — even with a distinguished visitor, Sir Blane Jopphy, in their midst. Sir Blane had simply stopped off to spend the night when his car had broken down, so he really didn’t count. The fact that he was Commissioner of Metropolitan Police didn’t count either, for what have Shakespeare and Homer to do with the Metropolitan Police?

“You know Deedcase,” Sceptus was saying. Sceptus was lean and wiry, and had a low opinion of his colleagues. “Our distinguished fellow scholar, that is, who is not here tonight. Where is he, by the way?”

“Gone to town — to the cinema, I believe,” put in Rasley scornfully. Rasley, even with one arm in a sling, conveyed an impression of boundless, but acrid, energy.

“Just what you’d expect,” said Sceptus. “As I was saying, I think he’s getting — I do hate to say it — a bit shallow. I found him reading Suetonius in English.” A shocked silence, followed by a low murmur, greeted this revelation.

“Surely not,” Farlee Prout-Rossiter, whose field was Comparative Literature, protested. He was younger, plumper, and milder than the others, apparently deficient in that aspect of personality which leads one to take pleasure in the foibles and failings of others. Perhaps, thought Jopphy, adiposity is the differentiating factor — or perhaps it’s youth.

Hadenet, the white-haired and fragile Dean of the college, spoke to Jopphy. “I’m afraid all this is over your head.” he said kindly. “Still, Deedcase has been annoying us considerably of late by his ill-considered tastes. It isn’t seemly for a professor to behave thus, and we are no end disturbed.”

At that precise moment the harmonious little scene was shattered by the unprecedented bursting in — there is no other expression for it — the bursting in of a student.

“Nudsett, what is the meaning of this?” asked the Dean sharply.

“Sir,” replied the unhappy youth, “it really is important. We’ve found the body of Deedcase at the archery range — with an arrow through it. Through the body, I mean. It’s — I mean he’s dead, sir,” he added.

“Now, now,” said the Dean, employing a surprisingly mild tone to this boy who had entered the sacred precincts of the common room. “No need to be redundant, you know. When you say you found a body, that presupposes it to be a dead one.”

“Sorry, sir.” The youth looked properly abashed.

“Well, well,” the Dean turned his attention from the student. “I don’t know that I am versed in procedures for dealing with bodies that are dead.” He waited for a response to this sally, then went on. “I do believe, though, that we are fortunate to have with us — what a singularly fortuitous coincidence, my dear sir... a... um... a bobby, if that is the correct nomenclature. Can you help us, Sir Blane?”

Jopphy was unruffled by this appalling ignorance of the difference between a bobby and a Commissioner of police. He merely said that he would be delighted to instruct the gentlemen in proper procedure, the first step of which was to call in the local police.

“But surely,” the Dean protested gently, “you yourself have a greater... hem... eminence than they. If we already have a Commissioner on the scene, what need we with them?”

“So,” thought Jopphy, “the old boy isn’t quite so naive in worldly matters as he tries to appear. That might be useful to know. Decidedly useful.”

Aloud he explained about jurisdictions, protocol, and similar baffling matters, and then he himself called the local police without further delay.

The local Inspector, Collier Pact-son, on learning to whom he was speaking, of course invited Sir Blane, with the utmost deference, to participate ex officio in the investigation.

Sir Blane then sent Nudsett back to stay with the body, and continued, while awaiting the arrival of Inspector Pactson, to elicit more information about the dead man.

For a large point had yet to be elucidated — and that, of course, was whether it was accident or murder.

Sceptus was as acid in his appraisal of Deedcase as before. Was he so innocent of the suspicious light in which he was thus placing himself, or was he pursuing some deep game of his own? The answer to that, Sir Blane decided, would come later.

“Deedcase,” Sceptus was saying, “aroused much dislike. He was not a proper scholar, nor was he a nice man. He provokes — no, I should now utilize the past tense, should I not? — he provoked Rasley mercilessly. He threatened to expose his treatise on the weapons of the Bible as a thoroughly trumpery work. Of course, my dear fellow,” he turned to Rasley, “I’m not so sure it isn’t. But that’s neither here nor there.”

So that was it. Sceptus had, unfortunately for him, conveyed his own antagonism toward Deedcase too early and too firmly to undo — before, in fact, the death had been discovered. Now he was losing no time in supplying the others with motives as cogent as his own. Did not this also indicate, in some measure, innocence? For, if Sceptus were guilty, he would not have spoken against Deedcase even before the discovery; he would have known even then that Deedcase was murdered.

Rasley protested with vigor. “That was just the usual innocent merriment that adds spice to scholarship, so to speak.” He waved his injured arm, winced, and continued to gesture with the other one. “We were the best of friends, really. That, indeed, is why we indulged in our little byplay of criticisms. Friendly bickering, that was all there was to it.”

A noise came from the Dean that would, in a less utterly dignified person, be called a snort. Jopphy turned to him. “Do you, perhaps, have a different interpretation of their relationship, sir?”

“No, indeed, not at all,” objected the Dean. “Surely Rasley knows best how he felt about his late colleague. All in the spirit of fun, if he says so.”

For the second time that evening the peace of the common room was disturbed. The local Inspector was a brisk, bustling, no-nonsense man, who ruffled the atmosphere considerably. However, he was somewhat ill at ease in this academic milieu, which threw his briskness a little out of focus.

“I’m very glad you’re here, sir,” he confided to Jopphy. “You are an educated man yourself, if I may say so, and you may understand these blokes. I don’t know what they’re talking about, and besides, a man has been killed — one of their own. Wouldn’t you think they’d care? All they talk about are conditional concessive clauses and iambic pentameters and I don’t know what.”

“Dust, my dear Pactson — they’re just throwing dust in our eyes with their twaddle. They think one of themselves killed Deedcase, and they’re badly frightened. Decidedly that.”

Pactson was cheered by this outlook. “Ah. That makes a difference, doesn’t it? Now we know where we are. Let’s have a look at the scene of the crime.”

The Dean wanted to show them the way, but he was really too frail and palsied for a crosscountry walk at night. It fell to Sceptus to guide the police to the archery range.

“We installed it just two weeks ago,” he explained as they went. “Some of us are quite good at it. I myself,” he said, trying to sound modest, “am no mean hand with a longbow. Rasley too is quite an enthusiast, and avers that he is expert as well. But he hasn’t demonstrated this as yet. No. He broke his arm helping to install the equipment. Most fortuitous, don’t you think?”

“Are you suggesting,” asked Jopphy, “that he broke his arm deliberately, so as not to have to make good his claim to being a skilled archer? Or, alternatively, do you think he is pretending about the arm to avoid possible loss of face? Or even, pretending about the arm to prepare a defense against a charge of murder by longbow?”

“You may not believe it,” said Sceptus aggressively, “but I would not think Rasley incapable of such a deception. However, no. The arm is broken. I asked his doctor.” He uttered an embarrassed titter. “You must think I don’t have a high opinion of anyone. I like Prout-Rossiter, though. In fact, I like Prout-Rossiter so much I spent the whole day with him.”

Here it comes, thought Jopphy — the first alibi. He had wondered when these learned but unworldly gentlemen would get around to that. The whole day, though. Wasn’t that overdoing it? Or did it reveal rather that Sceptus did not know when the crime had taken place and was taking no chances? Or was that what Jopphy was meant to think? To be, or not to be, that is the question. Now why, he mused, should this have come into his head?

They walked on in the dark. Jopphy tripped over a piece of wood, halted, then inspected the archery range, now lit by the torches of the police. He was standing on a small hillock, by a shed which would no doubt prove to contain bows and arrows. The shed, he noted, was unlocked. Across the meadow, at what seemed to be a stiff version of regulation distance, were three targets.

They went over to those. Four targets, if one included the body of a man with an arrow in his chest.

“Not a doubt of it, sir.” The Inspector was brisk and bustling again as they sat in the common room, now cleared of professors and established as police headquarters for the investigation. Pactson had taken over, making the common room his own, vanquishing academe and installing brisk police practicality. “There was poison on that arrow. We can rule out accident once and for all. But you did that long ago, didn’t you?”

“It had the smell of murder,” Sir Blane agreed. “I can’t be more definite than that. They weren’t acting naturally, or what passes with them for natural. They thought it was murder. And one of them knew.”

“And the others suspected it. I can follow you, and them, that far. Now then” — his efficiency was certainly coming through — “there are some we can rule out. The professors who weren’t here at all tonight, for a start. They had engagements elsewhere, with reputable people to vouch for them that they really were where they said they were.

“Then there’s the Dean. He could never draw one of those longbows. He’s too weak and shaky by far for a feat of that strength, or for accurate aim. And Rasley couldn’t have done it with his broken arm.

“Then there’s Sceptus. I like him. What I mean is, I don’t like him, but I like him as our man. He admitted he’s a good shot with a longbow — had to, knew we’d find out — and he certainly didn’t like Deed-case. His alibi could be a phony — we’re checking it now. Of course, if it is, we’ll have to consider Prout-Rossiter too, but he’s less likely. Not even this bunch of birds has said anything against him, and he doesn’t seem to be in on the general dislike of Deedcase. Besides, they all say he can’t handle a bow and arrow. But that’s not such a telling point — he could be pretending, of course. What’s your opinion, sir?”

“The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,” said Jopphy.

“I beg your pardon, sir?” Pactson was puzzled. “If you’ll excuse my saying so, you sound like one of them. I know you’re an educated man, but you’re a policeman too.”

“Sorry.” Jopphy hadn’t meant to speak the quotation aloud, but now he felt he had to explain. “It’s just something I’ve been thinking of. I don’t really know why. It doesn’t get us much further. We know there are arrows in the case. There’s a sling too, but as you so appositely point out, a man with his arm in a sling — legitimately — cannot draw a bowstring. I agree that we must find out more about Sceptus’ alibi. Decidedly we must.”

But why did he keep coming back to Hamlet’s soliloquy?

Well, someone had certainly died. And someone had taken arms, for a bow and arrow could be called that. And Deedcase’s troubles, whatever they might have been, had ended. He did seem to have trouble in maintaining harmonious relations with his colleagues. But could that be called a sea of troubles? It might not have troubled Deedcase at all. He might, indeed, have enjoyed it.

Sir Blane tried another tack. The murderer, presumably, had ended some of his own troubles by his act. For one does not kill unless one is troubled, and expects to find relief, or at least improvement in an intolerable situation. But could the murderer’s troubles be said to be ended? Surely some further trouble would be involved in avoiding detection.

At that moment Nobcastle, a member of the local constabulary, entered with the discouraging news that Sceptus’ alibi was valid. So, of course, interrelatedly, was Prout-Rossiter’s. Not perhaps for the whole day. But that was not necessary — the claim had been, in fact, an extravagance. Deedcase had been killed between 6:00 and 7:00 p.m. — they knew that now — and Sceptus and Prout-Rossiter had been in the latter’s quarters during that period. They had been waited on by Prout-Rossiter’s servant, who seemed quite reliable; also, various members of the student body had been in and out, some by invitation and some unexpectedly.

Decidedly the alibi was valid. It was too large, too numerous, one might say, to be anything but that.

“Which brings us back to Rasley and the Dean,” said Pactson without much hope. “Do you think it could be someone we haven’t yet considered? In this crazy place I could even believe a student might murder because of a grudge.”

“Perhaps.” But Jopphy’s reply was absent-minded and without conviction. The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune. It kept coming back to that.

And now he saw how. “Pactson, Rasley is our man.”

“Indeed, sir?” The Inspector was doubtful. “How do you figure that?”

“It hinges, as I thought, on slings and arrows. Or, to be more exact, on a man with his arm in a sling, and on slingshots. That was what we overlooked. Arrows can be shot from slings, not exclusively from bows, as we had been taking for granted. By a skilled shooter of arrows, that is. A man who studies Biblical weapons and likes archery. The probability is high that he has experimented with slingshots.

“Perhaps, as Sceptus so uncharitably suggested, he did break his arm on purpose — to divert suspicion from himself. He planted his slingshot in the ground on that hillock we stood on and needed only one arm to draw the arrow back. I believe I actually tripped on the slingshot. Certainly there was a piece of wood lying about, on which I stumbled. He was careless to leave it there, but perhaps he was feeling overly secure because his broken arm would free him from suspicion, and so he didn’t take sufficient pains over the other points. With poison on the arrow he didn’t need the power of a longbow — just enough to break the victim’s skin.

“And there was always his name, Pactson. His name pointed to him at once.”