Gaudy Night

8

The fact remains,” said Miss Pyke, “that I have to lecture at nine. Can anybody lend me a gown?”

A number of the dons were breakfasting in the S.C.R dining-room. Harriet entered in time to hear the request, formulated in a high and rather indignant tone.

“Have you lost your gown, Miss Pyke?”

“You could have mine with pleasure, Miss Pyke,” said little Miss Chilperic, mildly, “but I’m afraid it wouldn’t be nearly long enough.”

“It isn’t safe to leave anything in the S.C.R. cloakroom these days,” said Miss Pyke. “I know it was there after dinner, because I saw it.”

“Sorry,” said Miss Hillyard, “but I’ve got a 9 o’clock lecture myself.”

“You can have mine,” suggested Miss Burrows, “if you can get it back to me by 10 o’clock.”

“Ask Miss de Vine or Miss Barton,” said the Dean. “They have no lectures. Or Miss Vane-hers would fit you.”

“Certainly,” said Harriet, carelessly. “Do you want a cap as well?”

“The cap has gone as well,” replied Miss Pyke. “I don’t need it for the lecture, but it would be convenient to know where my property has gone to.”

“Surprising the way things disappear,” said Harriet helping herself to scrambled eggs. “People are very thoughtless. Who, by the way, owns a black evening crêpe de Chine, figured with bunches of red and green poppies, a draped cross-over front, deep hip-yoke and flared skirt and sleeves about three years out of date?”

She looked round the dining-room, which was by now fairly well filled. “Miss Shaw-you have a very good eye for a frock. Can you identify it?”

“I might if I saw it,” said Miss Shaw. “I don’t recollect one like it from your description.”

“Have you found one?” asked the Bursar.

“Another chapter in the mystery?” suggested Miss Barton.

“I’m sure none of my students has one like it,” said Miss Shaw. “They like to come and show me their frocks. I think it’s a good thing to take an interest in them.”

“I don’t remember a frock like that in the Senior Common Room,” said the Bursar.

“Didn’t Miss Wrigley have a black figured crepe de Chine?” asked Mrs. Goodwin.

“Yes,” said Miss Shaw. “But she’s left. And anyhow, hers had a square neck and no hip-yoke. I remember it very well.”

“Can’t you tell us what the mystery is, Miss Vane?” inquired Miss Lydgate. “Or is it better that you shouldn’t say anything?”

“Well,” said Harriet, “I don’t see any reason why I shouldn’t tell you When I came in last night after my dance I-er-went the rounds a bit-”

“Ah!” said the Dean. “I thought I heard somebody going to and fro outside my window. And whispering.”

“Yes-Emily came out and caught me. I think she thought I was the Practical Joker. Well-I happened to go into the Chapel.”

She told her story, omitting all mention of Mr. Pomfret, and merely saying that the culprit had apparently left by the vestry door.

“And,” she concluded, “as a matter of fact, the cap and gown were yours, Miss Pyke, and you can have them any time. The bread-knife was taken from the Hall, presumably, or from here. And the bolster-I can’t say where they got that.”

“I think I can guess,” said the Bursar. “Miss Trotman is away. She lives on the ground floor of Burleigh. It would be easy to nip in and bag her bolster.”

“Why is Trotman away?” asked Miss Shaw. “She never told me.”

“Father taken ill,” said the Dean. “She went off in a hurry yesterday afternoon.”

“I can’t think why she shouldn’t have told me,” said Miss Shaw. “My students always come to me with their troubles. It’s rather upsetting, when you think your pupils value your sympathy-”

“But you were out to tea,” said the Treasurer, practically.

“I put a note in your pigeon-hole,” said the Dean.

“Oh,” said Miss Shaw. “Well, I didn’t see it. I knew nothing about it. It’s very odd that nobody should have mentioned it.”

“Who did know it?” asked Harriet.

There was a pause; during which everybody had time to think it strange and improbable that Miss Shaw should not have received the note or heard of Miss Trotman’s departure.

“It was mentioned at the High last night, I think,” said Miss Allison.

“I was out to dinner,” said Miss Shaw. “I shall go and see if that note’s there.”

Harriet followed her out; the note was there-a sheet of paper folded together and not sealed in an envelope.

“Well,” said Miss Shaw; “I never saw it.”

“Anybody might have read that and put it back,” said Harriet.

“Yes-including myself, you mean.”

“I didn’t say that, Miss Shaw. Anybody.”

They returned gloomily to the Common Room.

“The-er-the joke was perpetrated between dinner-time, when Miss Pyke lost her gown, and about a quarter to one, when I found it out,” said Harriet. “It would be convenient if anybody could produce a water-tight alibi for the whole of that time. Particularly for the time after 11.15. I suppose I can find out whether any students had late leave till midnight. Anybody coming in then might have seen something.”

“I have a list,” said the Dean. “And the porter could show you the names of those who came in after nine.”

“That will be a help.”

“In the meantime, said Miss Pyke, pushing away her plate and rolling her napkin, ”the ordinary duties of the day must be proceeded with. Could I have my gown-or a gown?”

She went over to Tudor with Harriet, who restored the gown and displayed the crêpe de Chine frock.

“I have never seen that dress to my knowledge before,” said Miss Pyke; “but I cannot pretend to be observant in these matters. It appears to be made for a slender person of medium height.”

“There’s no reason to suppose it belongs to the person who put it there,” said Harriet, “any more than your gown.”

“Of course not,” said Miss Pyke; “no.” She gave Harriet an odd, swift glance from her sharp, black eyes. “But the owner might provide some clue to the thief. Would it not-pardon me if I am trespassing upon your province-would it not be possible to draw some deduction from the name of the shop where it was bought?”

“Obviously it would have been,” said Harriet; “the tab has been removed.”

“Oh,” said Miss Pyke. “Well; I must go to my lecture. As soon as I can find leisure I will endeavour to provide you with a time-table of my movements last night. I fear, however, it will scarcely be illuminating. I was in my room after dinner and in bed by half-past ten.”

She stalked out, carrying her cap and gown. Harriet watched her go, and then took out a piece of paper from a drawer. The message upon it was pasted up in the usual way, and ran:

tristius haud illis monstrum nec saevior ulla pestis er ira deum. Stygös sese extulit undis. Virginei volucrum vultus foedissima ventris proluvies uncaeque manus et pallida semper ora fame.

“Harpies,” said Harriet aloud. “Harpies. That seems to suggest a train of thought. But I’m afraid we can’t suspect Emily or any of the scouts of expressing their feelings in Virgilian hexameters.”

She frowned. Matters were looking rather bad for the Senior Common Room.

Harriet tapped on Miss Cattermole’s door, regardless of the fact that it bore a large notice: HEADACHE-DO NOT DISTURB. It was opened by Miss Briggs, whose brow was anxious, but cleared when she saw who the visitor was.

“I was afraid it might be the Dean,” said Miss Briggs.

“No, said Harriet, ”so far I have held my hand. How is the patient?”

“Not too good,” said Miss Briggs.

“Ah. ‘His lordship has drunk his bath and gone to bed again.’ That’s about it, I suppose.” She strode across to the bed and looked down at Miss Cattermole, who opened her eyes with a groan. They were large, light, hazel eyes, set in a plump face that ought to have been of a pleasant rose-leaf pink. A quantity of fluffy brown hair tumbled damply about her brow, adding to the general impression of an Angora rabbit that had gone on the loose and was astonished at the result.

“Feeling bloody?” inquired Harriet, with sympathy.

“Horrible,” said Miss Cattermole.

“Serve you right,” said Harriet. “If you must take your drink like a man the least you can do is to carry it like a gentleman. It’s a great thing to know your own limitations.”

Miss Cattermole looked so woebegone that Harriet began to laugh. “You don’t seem to be a very practised hand at this kind of thing. Look here; I’ll get you something to pull you together and then I’m going to talk to you.” She went out briskly and nearly fell over Mr. Pomfret in the outer doorway.

“You here?” said Harriet. “I told you, no visitors in the morning. It makes a noise in the quad and is contrary to regulations.”

“I’m not a visitor,” said Mr. Pomfret, grinning. “I’ve been attending Miss Hillyard’s lecture on Constitutional Developments.”

“God help you!”

“And seeing you cross the quad in this direction, I turned in that direction like the needle to the North. Dark,” said Mr. Pomfret, with animation, “and true and tender is the North. That’s a quotation. It’s very nearly the only one I know, so it’s a good thing it fits.”

“It does not fit. I am not feeling tender.”

“Oh!… how’s Miss Cattermole?”

“Bad hang-over. As you might expect.”

“Oh!… sorry… No row, I hope?”

“No.”

“Bless you!” said Mr. Pomfret. “I was lucky too. Friend of mine has a dashed good window. All quiet on the Western Front. So-look here! I wish there was something I could do to-”

“You shall,” said Harriet. She twitched his lecture notebook from under his arm and scribbled in it.

“Get that made up at the chemist’s, and bring it back. I’m damned if I want to go myself and ask for a recipe for hobnailed liver.”

Mr. Pomfret looked at her with respect.

“Where did you learn that one?” said he.

“Not at Oxford. I may say I have never had occasion to taste it; I hope it’s nasty. The quicker you can get it made up, the better, by the way.”

“I know, I know,” said Mr. Pomfret, disconsolately. “You’re fed up with the sight of me, and no wonder. But I do wish you’d come round some time and meet old Rogers. He’s incredibly penitent. Come and have tea. Or a drink or something. Come this afternoon. Do. Just to show there’s no ill feeling.”

Harriet was opening her mouth to say No, when she looked at Mr. Pomfret, and her heart softened. He had the appeal of a very young dog of a very large breed-a kind of amiable absurdity.

“All right,” said Harriet. “I will. Thank you very much.”

Mr. Pomfret exhausted himself in expressions of delight, and, still vocal, allowed himself to be shepherded to the gate, where, almost in the act of stepping out, he had to step back to allow the entrance of a tall, dark student wheeling a bicycle.

“Hullo Reggie,” cried the young woman, “looking for me?”

“Oh good morning,” said Mr. Pomfret, rather taken aback. Then, catching sight of a handsome leonine head over the student’s shoulder, he added with more assurance, “Hullo, Farringdon!”

“Hullo, Pomfret!” replied Mr. Farringdon. The adjective “Byronic” fitted him well enough, thought Harriet. He had an arrogant profile, a mass of close chestnut curls, hot brown eyes and a sulky mouth, and looked less pleased to see Mr. Pomfret than Mr. Pomfret to see him.

Mr. Pomfret presented Mr. Farringdon of New College to Harriet, and murmured that of course Miss Flaxman was known to her. Miss Flaxman stared coolly at Harriet and said how much she had enjoyed her detective talk the other night.

“We’re throwing a party at 6 o’clock,” went on Miss Flaxman to Mr. Pomfret. She pulled off her scholar’s gown and stuffed it unceremoniously into her bicycle-basket. “Care to come? In Leo’s room. Six o’clock. I think we’ve room for Reggie, haven’t we, Leo?”

“I suppose so,” said Mr. Farringdon, rather ungraciously. “There’ll be an awful crowd anyway.”

“Then we can always stuff in one more,” said Miss Flaxman. “Don’t mind Leo, Reggie; he’s mislaid his manners this morning.”

Mr. Pomfret appeared to think that somebody else’s manners had also been mislaid, for he replied with more spirit than Harriet had expected of him:

“I’m sorry; I’m afraid I’m engaged. Miss Vane is coming to tea with me.”

“Another time will do for that,” said Harriet.

“Oh, no,” said Mr. Pomfret.

“Couldn’t you both come along, then, afterwards?” said Mr. Farringdon. “Always room for one more, as Catherine says.” He turned to Harriet. “I hope you will come, Miss Vane. We should be delighted.”

“Well-” said Harriet. It was Miss Flaxman’s turn to look sulky.

“I say,” said Mr. Farringdon, suddenly putting two and two together, “are you the Miss Vane? the novelist… You are! Then, look here, you simply must come. I shall be the most envied man in New College. We’re all detective fans there.”

“What about it?” said Harriet, deferring to Mr. Pomfret.

It was so abundantly clear that Miss Flaxman did not want Harriet, that Mr. Farringdon did not want Mr. Pomfret, and that Mr. Pomfret did not want to go, that she felt the novelist’s malicious enjoyment in a foolish situation. Since none of the party could now very well get out of the situation without open rudeness, the invitation was eventually accepted. Mr. Pomfret stepped into the street to join Mr. Farringdon; Miss Flaxman could scarcely get out of accompanying Miss Vane back through the quadrangle.

“I didn’t know you knew Reggie Pomfret,” said Miss Flaxman.

“Yes, we have met,” said Harriet. “Why didn’t you bring Miss Cattermole ome with you last night? Especially as you must have seen she was unwell.”

Miss Flaxman looked startled.

“It was nothing to do with me,” she said. “Was there a row?”

“No; but did you do anything to prevent it? You might have done, mightn’t you?”

“I can’t be Violet Cattermole’s guardian.”

“Anyway,” said Harriet, “you may be glad to know that some good has ome of this stupid business. Miss Cattermole is now definitely cleared of all suspicion about the anonymous letters and other disturbances. So it would h quite a good idea to behave decently to her, don’t you think?”

“I tell you,” said Miss Flaxman, “that I don’t care one way or the other about it.”

“No; but you started the rumours about her; it’s up to you to stop them now you know. I think it would be only fair to tell Mr. Farringdon the truth. If you do not, I shall.”

“You seem to be very much interested in my affairs. Miss Vane.”

“They seem to have aroused a good deal of general interest,” said Harriet bluntly. “I don’t blame you for the original misunderstanding, but now that it is cleared up-and you can take my word for it that it is-I am sure you will see it is unfair that Miss Cattermole should be made a scapegoat. You can do a lot with your own year. Will you do what you can?”

Miss Flaxman, perplexed and annoyed, and obviously not quite clear what status she was to accord to Harriet, said, rather grudgingly:

“Of course, if she didn’t do it, I’m glad. Very well. I’ll tell Leo.”

“Thank you very much,” said Harriet.

Mr. Pomfret must have run very fast both ways, for the prescription appeared in a remarkably short space of time, along with a large bunch of roses. The draught was a potent one, and enabled Miss Cattermole not only to appear in Hall, but to eat her lunch. Harriet pursued her as she was leaving and carried her off to her own room.

“Well,” said Harriet, “You are a young idiot, aren’t you?”

Miss Cattermole dismally agreed.

“What’s the sense of it?” said Harriet. “You have contrived to commit every crime in the calendar and got dashed little fun out of it, haven’t you? You’ve attended a meeting in a man’s rooms after Hall without leave, and you oughtn’t to have got leave, because you gate-crashed the meeting. That’s a social crime as well as a breach of rules. In any case, you were out after nine, without putting your initials in the book. That would cost you two bob. You came back to College after 11.15 without extra late leave-which would be five shillings. You returned, in fact, after midnight, which would be ten shillings, even if you had had leave. You climbed the wall, for which you ought to be gated; and finally, you came in blotto, for which you ought to be sent down. Incidentally, that’s another social crime. What have you got to say, prisoner at the bar? Is there any reason why sentence should not be passed upon you? Have a cigarette.”

“Thank you,” said Miss Cattermole, faintly.

“If,” said Harriet, “you hadn’t, by this silly piece of work, contrived to clear yourself of the suspicion of being the College lunatic, I should go to the Dean. As it is, the episode has had its usefulness, and I’m inclined to be merciful.”

Miss Cattermole looked up.

“Did something happen while I was out?”

“Yes, it did.”

“Oh-h-h!” said Miss Cattermole, and burst into tears.

Harriet watched her for a few minutes and then brought out a large clean handkerchief from a drawer and silently handed it over.

“You can forget all that,” said Harriet, when the victim’s sobs had died down a little. “But do chuck all this nonsense. Oxford isn’t the place for it. You can run after young men any time-God knows the world’s full of them. But to waste three years which are unlike anything else in one’s lifetime is ridiculous. And it isn’t fair to College. It’s not fair to other Oxford women. Be a fool if you like-I’ve been a fool in my time and so have most people-but for heaven’s sake do it somewhere where you won’t let other people down.” Miss Cattermole was understood to say, rather incoherently, that she hated College and loathed Oxford, and felt no responsibility towards those institutions.

“Then why,” said Harriet, “are you here?”

“I don’t want to be here; I never did. Only my parents were so keen. My mother’s one of those people who work to get things open to women-you know-professions and things. And father’s a lecturer in a small provincial University. And they’ve made a lot of sacrifices and things.”

Harriet thought Miss Cattermole was probably the sacrificial victim. “I didn’t mind coming up, so much,” went on Miss Cattermole; “because I was engaged to somebody, and he was up, too, and I thought it would be fun and the silly old Schools wouldn’t matter much. But I’m not engaged to him any more and how on earth can I be expected to bother about all this dead-and-gone History?”

“I wonder they bothered to send you to Oxford, if you didn’t want to go, and were engaged.”

“Oh! but they said that didn’t make any difference. Every woman ought to have a University education, even if she married. And now, of course, they say what a good thing it is I still have my College career. And I can’t make them understand that I hate it! They can’t see that being brought up with everybody talking education all round one is enough to make one loathe the sound of it. I’m sick of education.”

Harriet was not surprised.

“What should you have liked to do? I mean, supposing the complication about your engagement hadn’t happened?”

“I think,” said Miss Cattermole, blowing her nose in a final manner and taking another cigarette, “I think I should have liked to be a cook. Or possibly a hospital nurse, but I think I should have been better at cooking. Only, you see, those are two of the things Mother’s always trying to get people out of the way of thinking women’s sphere ought to be restricted to.”

“There’s a lot of money in good cooking,” said Harriet.

“Yes-but it’s not an educational advance. Besides, there’s no school of Cookery at Oxford, and it had to be Oxford, you see, or Cambridge, because of the opportunity of making the right kind of friends. Only I haven’t made any friends. They all hate me. Perhaps they won’t so much, now that the beastly letters-”

“Quite so,” said Harriet, hastily, fearing a fresh outburst. “How about Miss Briggs? She seems to be a very good sort.”

“She’s awfully kind. But I’m always having to be grateful to her. It’s very depressing. It makes me want to bite.”

“How right you are,” said Harriet, to whom this was a direct hit over the solar plexus. “I know. Gratitude is simply damnable.”

“And now,” said Miss Cattermole, with devastating candour, “I’ve got to grateful to you.”

“You needn’t be. I was serving my own ends as much as yours. But I’ll tell you what I’d do. I’d stop trying to do sensational things, because it’s apt to get you into positions where you have to be grateful. And I’d stop chasing undergraduates, because it bores them to tears and interrupts their work. I’d tackle the History and get through Schools. And then I’d turn round and say, ‘Now I’ve done what you want me to, and I’m going to be a cook.’ And stick to it.”

“Would you?”

“I expect you want to be very truly run after, like Old Man Kangaroo. Well, good cooks are. Still, as you’ve started here on History, you’d better worry on at it. It won’t hurt you, you know. If you learn how to tackle your subject-any subject-you’ve learnt how to tackle all subjects.”

“Well,” said Miss Cattermole, in rather an unconvinced tone, “I’ll try.”

Harriet went away in a rage and tackled the Dean. “Why do they send these people here? Making themselves miserable and taking up the place of people who would enjoy Oxford? We haven’t got room for women who aren’t and never will be scholars. It’s all right for the men’s colleges to have hearty passmen who gambol round and learn to play games so that they can gambol and game in Prep. Schools. But this dreary little devil isn’t even hearty. She’s a wet mess.”

“I know,” said the Dean, impatiently. “But schoolmistresses and parents are such jugginses. We do our best, but we can’t always weed out their mistakes. And here’s my secretary-called away, just when we’re all so busy, because her tiresome little boy’s got chicken-pox at his infuriating school. On, dear! I oughtn’t to talk like that, because he’s a delicate child and naturally children must come first, but it is too crushing!”

“I’ll be off,” said Harriet. “It’s a shame you should have to be working of an afternoon and a shame of me to interrupt. By the way, I may as well tell you that Cattermole had an alibi for last night’s affair.”

“Had she? Good! That’s something. Though I suppose it means more suspicion on our miserable selves. Still, facts are facts. Miss Vane, what was the noise in the quad last night? And who was the young man you were bear-leading? I didn’t ask this morning in Common-Room, because I had an idea you didn’t want me to.”

“I didn’t,” said Harriet.

“And you don’t?”

“As Sherlock Holmes said on another occasion: ‘I think we must ask for an amnesty in that direction.’”

The Dean twinkled shrewdly at her.

“Two and two make four. Well, I trust you.”

“But I was going to suggest a row of revolving spikes on the wall of the Fellows’ Garden.”

“Ah!” said the Dean. “Well, I don’t want to know things. And most of it’s sheer cussedness. They want to make heroes and heroines of themselves. Last week of term’s the worst for wall-climbing. They make bets. Have to work ’em off before the end of term. Tiresome little cuckoos. All the same, it can’t be allowed.”

“It won’t happen again, I fancy, with this particular lot.”

“Very well. I’ll speak to the Bursar-in a general way-about spikes.”

Harriet changed her frock, pondering on the social absurdities of the party to which she was invited. Clearly, Mr. Pomfret clung to her as a protection against Miss Flaxman, and Mr. Farringdon, as a protection against Mr. Pomfret, while Miss Flaxman, who was apparently her hostess, did not warn her at all. It was a pity that she could not embark on the adventure of annexing Mr. Farringdon, to complete a neat little tail-chasing circle. But she was both too old and too young to feel any thrill over the Byronic profile of Mr. Farringdon; there was more amusement to be had out of remaining a buffer state. She did, however, feel sufficient resentment against Miss Flaxman for her handling of the Cattermole affair, to put on an exceedingly well-cut coat and skirt and a hat of unexceptionable smartness, before starting out for the first item in her afternoon’s program.

She had little difficulty in finding Mr. Pomfret’s staircase, and none whatever in finding Mr. Pomfret. As she wound her way up the dark and ancient stair, past the shut door of one, Mr. Smith, the sported oak of one, Mr. Banerjee, and the open door of one, Mr. Hodges, who seemed to be entertaining a large and noisy party of male friends, she became aware of an altercation going on upon the landing above, and presently Mr. Pomfret himself came into view, standing in his own doorway and arguing with a man whose back was turned towards the stair.

“You can go to the devil,” said Mr. Pomfret.

“Very good, sir,” said the back; “but how about me going to the young lady? If I was to go and tell her that I seen you a-pushing of her over the wall-”

“Blast you!” exclaimed Mr. Pomfret. “Will you shut up?”

At this point, Harriet set her foot upon the top stair, and encountered the eye of Mr. Pomfret.

“Oh!” said Mr. Pomfret, taken aback. Then, to the man, “Clear off now; I’m busy. You’d better come again.”

“Quite a man for the ladies, ain’t you, sir?” said the man, disagreeably.

At these words, he turned, and, to her amazement, Harriet recognized a familiar face.

“Dear me, Jukes,” said she. “Fancy seeing you here!”

“Do you know this blighter?” said Mr. Pomfret.

“Of course I do,” said Harriet. “He was a porter at Shrewsbury, and was sacked for petty pilfering. I hope you’re going straight now. Jukes. How’s your wife?”

“All right,” said Jukes, sulkily. “I’ll come again.”

He made a move to slip down the staircase, but Harriet had set her umbrella so awkwardly across it as to bar the way pretty effectively. “Hi!” said Mr. Pomfret. “Let’s hear about this. Just come back here a minute, will you?” He stretched out a powerful arm, and yanked the reluctant Jukes over the threshold.

“You can’t get me on that old business,” said Jukes, scornfully, as Harriet followed them in, shutting oak and door after her with a bang. “That’s over and done with. It ain’t got nothing to do with that other little affair what I mentioned.”

“What’s that?” asked Harriet.

“This nasty piece of work,” said Mr. Pomfret, “has had the blasted neck to come here and say that if I don’t pay him to keep his mouth shut, he’ll lay an information about what happened last night.”

“Blackmail,” said Harriet, much interested. “That’s a serious offence.”

“I didn’t mention no money,” said Jukes, injured. “I only told this gennelman as I seen something as didn’t ought to have happened and was uneasy in my mind about it. He says I can go to the devil, so I says in that case I’ll go to the lady, being troubled in my conscience, don’t you see.”

“Very well,” said Harriet. “I’m here. Go ahead.”

Mr. Jukes stared at her.

“I take it,” said Harriet, “you saw Mr. Pomfret help me in over the Shrewsbury wall last night when I’d forgotten my key. What were you doing out there, by the way? Loitering with intent? You then probably saw me come out again, thank Mr. Pomfret and ask him to come in and see the College Buildings by moonlight. If you waited long enough, you saw me let him out again. What about it.”

“Nice goings-on, I don’t think,” said Jukes, disconcerted.

“Possibly,” said Harriet. “But if Senior Members choose to enter their own college in an unorthodox way, I don’t see who’s to prevent them. Certainly not you.”

“I don’t believe a word of it,” said Jukes.

“I can’t help that,” said Harriet. “The Dean saw Mr. Pomfret and me so she will. Nobody’s likely to believe you. Why didn’t you tell this man the whole story at once, Mr. Pomfret, and relieve his conscience? By the way, Jukes, I’ve just told the Dean she ought to have that wall spiked. It was handy for us, but it really isn’t high enough to keep out burglars and other undesirables. So it’s not much good your loitering about there any more. One or two things have been missed from people’s rooms lately,” she added, with some truth, “it might be as well to have that road specially policed.”

“None of that,” said Jukes. “I ain’t a-going to have my character took away. If it’s as you say, then I’m sure I’d be the last to want to make trouble for a lady like yourself.”

“I hope you’ll bear that in mind,” said Mr. Pomfret. “Perhaps you’d like to have something to remember it by.”

“No assault!” cried Jukes, backing towards the door. “No assault! Don’t you go to lay ’ands on me!”

“If ever you show your dirty face here again,” said Mr. Pomfret, opening the door, “I’ll kick you downstairs and right through the quad. Get that? Then get out!”

He flung the oak back with one hand and propelled Jukes vigorously through it with the other. A crash and a curse proclaimed that the swiftness of Jukes’s exit had carried him over the head of the stairs.

“Whew!” exclaimed Mr. Pomfret, returning. “By jove! that was great! That was marvellous of you. How did you come to think of it?”

“It was fairly obvious. I expect it was all bluff, really. I don’t see how he could have known who Miss Cattermole was. I wonder how he got on to you.”

“He must have followed me back when I came out. But I didn’t get in through this window-obviously-so how did he-? Oh! yes, when I knocked Brown up I believe he stuck his head out and said, That you, Pomfret? Careless blighter. I’ll talk to him…I say, you do seem to be everybody’s guardian angel, don’t you? It’s marvellous, being able to keep your wits about you like that.”

He gazed at her with dog-like eyes. Harriet laughed, as Mr. Rogers and the tea entered the room together.

Mr. Rogers was in his third year-tall, dark, lively and full of an easy kind of penitence. “All this running round and busting rules is rot,” said Mr. Rogers. “Why do we do it? Because somebody says it is fun, and one believes it. Why should one believe it? I can’t imagine. One should look at these things more objectively. Is the thing beautiful in itself? No. Then let us not do it. By the way, Pomfret, have you been approached about debagging Culpepper?”

“I am all for it,” said Mr. Pomfret.

“True, Culpepper is a wart. He is a disgusting object. But would he look better debagged? No, Socrates, he would not. He would look much worse. If anybody is to be debagged, it shall be somebody with legs that will stand exposure-your own, Pomfret, for example.”

“You try, that’s all,” said Mr. Pomfret.

“In any case,” pursued Mr. Rogers, “debagging is otiose and out of date. The modern craze for exposing unaesthetic legs needs no encouragement from me. I shall not be a party to it. I intend to be a reformed character. From now on, I shall consider nothing but the value of the Thing-in-Itself, unmoved by any pressure of public opinion.”

Having, in this pleasant manner, confessed his sins and promised amendment, Mr. Rogers gracefully led the conversation to topics of general interest, and, about 5 o’clock, departed, murmuring something in an apologetic way about work and his tutor, as though they were rather indelicate necessities. At this point, Mr. Pomfret suddenly went all solemn, as a very young man occasionally does when alone with a woman older than himself, and told Harriet a good deal about his own view of the meaning of life. Harriet listened with as much intelligent sympathy as she could command; but was slightly relieved when three young men burst in to borrow Mr. Pomfret’s beer and remained to argue over their host’s head about Komisarjevsky. Mr. Pomfret seemed faintly annoyed, and eventually asserted his right to his own guest by announcing that it was time to pop round to New College for old Farringdon’s party. His friends let him go with mild regret and, before Harriet and her escort were well out of the room, took possession of their armchairs and continued the argument.

“Very able fellow, Marston,” said Mr. Pomfret, amiably enough. “Great noise on O.U.D.S. and spends his vacations in Germany. I don’t know how they contrive to get so worked up about plays. I like a good play, but I don’t understand all this stuff about stylistic treatment and planes of vision. I expect you do, though.”

“Not a word,” said Harriet, cheerfully. “I dare say they don’t, either. Anyhow, I know I don’t like plays in which all the actors have to keep on tumbling up and down flights of steps, or where the lighting’s so artistically done that you can’t see anything, or where you keep on wondering all the time what the symbolical whirligig in the center of the stage is going to be used for, if anything. It distracts me. I’d rather go to the Holborn Empire and have my fun vulgar.”

“Would you?” said Mr. Pomfret, wistfully. “You wouldn’t come and do a show with me in Town in the vac, would you?”

Harriet made a vague kind of promise, which seemed to delight Mr. Pomfret very much, and they presently found themselves in Mr. Farringdon’s sitting-room, packed like sardines among a mixed crowd of undergraduates and struggling to consume sherry and biscuits without moving their elbows.

The crowd was such that Harriet never set eyes on Miss Flaxman from first to last. Mr. Farringdon did, however, struggle through to them, bringing with him a bunch of young men and women who wanted to talk about detective fiction. They appeared to have read a good deal of this kind of literature, though very little of anything else. A School of Detective Fiction would, Harriet thought, have a fair chance of producing a goodly crop of Firsts. The fashion for psychological analysis had, she decided, rather gone out since her day: she was instinctively aware that a yearning for action and the concrete was taking its place. The pre-War solemnity and the post-War exhaustion were both gone; the desire now was for an energetic doing of something definite, though the definitions differed. The detective story no doubt was acceptable, because in it something definite was done, the “what” being comfortably decided beforehand by the author. It was borne in upon Harriet that all these young men and women were starting out to hoe a hardish kind of row in a very stony ground. She felt rather sorry for them.

Something definite done. Yes, indeed. Harriet, reviewing the situation next morning, felt deeply dissatisfied. She did not like this Jukes business at all. He could scarcely, she supposed, have anything to do with the anonymous letters: where could he have got hold of that passage from the Aeneid? But he was a man with a grudge, a nasty-minded man, and a thief; it was not pleasant that he should make a habit of hanging round the College walls after dark.

Harriet was alone in the Senior Common Room, everybody else having departed to her work. The S.C.R. scout came in, carrying a pile of clean ash-trays, and Harriet suddenly remembered that her children lodged with the Jukeses.

“Annie,” she said, impulsively, “what does Jukes come down into Oxford for, after dark?”

The woman looked startled. “Does he, madam? For no good, I should think.”

“I found him loitering in St. Cross Road last night, in a place where he might easily get over. Is he keeping honest, do you know?”

“I couldn’t say, I’m sure, madam, but I have my doubts. I like Mrs. Jukes very much, and I’d be sorry to add to her troubles. But I never have trusted Jukes. I’ve been thinking I ought to put my little girls somewhere else. He might be a bad influence on them, don’t you think?”

“I certainly do think so.”

“I’m the last person to wish to put difficulties into the way of a respectable married woman,” went on Annie, slapping an ash-tray smartly down, “and naturally she’s right to stick by her husband. But one’s own children must come first, mustn’t they?”

“Of course,” said Harriet, rather inattentively. “Oh, yes. I should find somewhere else for them. I suppose you haven’t ever heard either Jukes or his wife say anything to suggest that he-well, that he was stealing from the College or cherishing bad feelings against the dons.”

“I don’t have much to say to Jukes, madam, and if Mrs. Jukes knew anything, she wouldn’t tell me. It wouldn’t be right if she did. He’s her husband, and she has to take his part. I quite see that. But if Jukes is behaving dishonestly, I shall have to find somewhere else for the children. I’m much obliged to you for mentioning it, madam. I shall be going round there on Wednesday, which is my free afternoon, and I’ll take the opportunity to give notice. May I ask if you have said anything to Jukes, madam?”

“I have spoken to him, and told him that if he hangs round here any more he will have to do with the police.”

“I’m very glad to hear that, madam. It isn’t right at all that he should come here like that. If I’d known about it, I really shouldn’t have been able to sleep. I feel sure it ought to be put a stop to.”

“Yes, it ought. By the way, Annie, have you ever seen anybody in the College in a dress of this description?”

Harriet picked up the black figured crepe de Chine from the chair beside her. Annie examined it carefully.

“No madam, not to my recollection. Perhaps one of the maids that’s been here longer than me might know. There’s Gertrude in the dining-room; should you like to ask her?”

Gertrude, however, could give no help. Harriet asked them to take the dress and catechize the rest of the staff. This was done, but with no result. An inquiry among the students produced no identification, either. The dress was I brought back, still unclaimed and unrecognized. One more puzzle. Harriet concluded that it must actually be the property of the Poison Pen; but if so, it must have been brought to College and kept in hiding till the moment of its dramatic appearance in Chapel; for if it had ever been worn in College, it was almost inconceivable that no one should be able to recognize it.

The alibis produced, meekly enough, by the members of the S.C.R. were none of them water-tight. That was not surprising; it would have been more surprising if they had been. Harriet (and Mr. Pomfret, of course) alone knew the exact time for which the alibi was required; and though many people were able to show themselves covered up to midnight or thereabouts, all had been, or claimed to have been, virtuously in their own rooms and beds by a quarter to one. Nor, though the porter’s book and late-leave tickets had been examined, and all students interrogated who might have been about the quad at midnight, had anybody seen any suspicious behaviour with gowns or bolsters or bread-knives. Crime was too easy in a place like this. The College was too big, too open. Even if a form had been seen crossing the quad with a bolster, or indeed for that matter a complete set of bedding and a mattress, nobody would ever think anything of it. Some hardy fresh-air fiend sleeping out; that would be the natural conclusion.

Harriet, exasperated, went over to Bodley and plunged into her researches upon Le Fanu. There, at least, one did know what one was investigating.

She felt so much the need of a soothing influence that, in the afternoon, she went down to Christ Church to hear service at the Cathedral. She had been shopping-purchasing, among other things, a bag of meringues for the entertainment of some students she had asked to a small party in her room that evening-and it was only when her arms were already full of parcels that the idea of Cathedral suggested itself. It was rather out of her way; but the parcels were not heavy. She dodged across Carfax, angrily resenting its modern bustle of cars and complication of stop-and-go lights, and joined the little sprinkling of foot-passengers who were tripping down St. Aldate’s and through Wolsey’s great unfinished quadrangle, bound on the same pious errand as herself.

It was quiet and pleasant in Cathedral. She lingered in her seat for some little time after the nave had emptied and until the organist had finished the voluntary. Then she came slowly out, turning left along the plinth with a vague idea of once more admiring the great staircase and the Hall, when a slim figure in a grey suit shot with such velocity from a dark doorway that he cannoned full tilt against her, nearly knocking her down, and sending her bag and parcels flying in disorder along the plinth.

“Hell!” said a voice which set her heart beating by its unexpected familiarity, “have I hurt you? Me all over-bargin’ and bumpin’ about like a bumble-bee in a bottle. Clumsy lout! I say, do say I haven’t hurt you. Because, if I have, I’ll run straight across and drown myself in Mercury.” He extended the arm that was not supporting Harriet in a vague gesture towards the pond.

“Not in the least, thank you,” said Harriet, recovering herself.

“Thank God for that. This is my unlucky day. I’ve just had a most unpleasant interview with the Junior Censor. Was there anything breakable in the parcels? Oh, look! your bag’s opened itself wide and all the little oojahs have gone down the steps. Please don’t move. You stand there, thinkin’ up things to call me, and I’ll pick ’em all up one by one on my knees sayin‘ ’meâ culpâ’ to every one of ’em.” He suited the action to the words.

“I’m afraid it hasn’t improved the meringues.” He looked up apologetically. “But if you’ll say you forgive me, we’ll go and get some new ones from the kitchen-the real kind-you know-speciality of the House, and all that”

“Please don’t bother,” said Harriet.

It wasn’t he, of course. This was a lad of twenty-one or two at the most, with a mop of wavy hair tumbling over his forehead and a handsome, petulant face, full of charm, though ominously weak about the curved lips and upward-slanting brows. But the color of the hair was right-the pale yellow of ripe barley; and the light drawling voice, with its clipped syllables and ready babble of speech; and the quick, sidelong smile; and above all, the beautiful, sensitive hands that were gathering the “oojahs” deftly up into their native bag.

“You haven’t called me any names yet,” said the young man.

“I believe I could almost put a name to you,” said Harriet. “Isn’t it-are you any relation of Peter Wimsey’s?”

“Why, of course,” said the young man, sitting up on his heels. “He’s my uncle; and a dashed sight more accommodating than the Jewish kind,” he added, as though struck by a melancholy association of ideas. “Have I met you somewhere? Or was it pure guesswork? You don’t think I’m like him, do you?”

“When you spoke, I thought you were your uncle for the moment. Yes, you’re very like him, in some ways.”

“That’ll break my mater’s heart, all right,” said the young man, with a grin. “Uncle Peter’s not approved. I wish to God he was here, though. He’d come in uncommonly handy at the moment. But he seems to have beetled off somewhere as usual. Mysterious old tom-cat, isn’t he? I take it you know him-I forgot the proper bromide about how small the world is, but we’ll take it as read. Where is the old blighter?”

“I believe he’s in Rome.”

“He would be. That means a letter. It’s awfully hard to be persuasive in a letter, don’t you think? I mean, it all takes so much explaining, and the famous family charm doesn’t seem to go over so well in black and white.” He smiled at her with engaging frankness as he recaptured a last straying copper.

“Do I gather,” said Harriet, with some amusement, “that you anticipate an appeal to Uncle Peter’s better feelings?”

“That’s about it,” said the young man. “He’s quite human, really, you know, if you go about him the right way. Besides, you see, I’ve got the bulge on Uncle Peter. If the worst comes to the worst, I can always threaten to cut my throat and land him with the strawberry leaves.”

“With the what?” said Harriet, fancying that this must be the latest Oxford version of giving the raspberry.

“The strawberry leaves,” said the young man. “The balm, the sceptre, and the ball. Four rows of moth-eaten ermine. To say nothing of that dashed great barracks down at Denver, eating its mouldy head off.” Seeing that Harriet still looked blankly at him, he explained further: “I’m sorry; I forgot. My name’s Saint-George and the Governor forgot to provide me with any brothers. So the minute they write d.s.p. after me, Uncle Peter’s for it. Of course, my father might outlive him; but I don’t believe Uncle Peter’s the sort to die young, unless one of his pet criminals manages to bump him off.”

“That might easily happen,” said Harriet, thinking of the plug-ugly.

“Well, that makes it all the worse for him,” said Lord Saint-George, shaking his head. “The more risks he takes, the quicker he’s got to toe the line for the matrimonial stakes. No more bachelor freedom with old Bunter in a Piccadilly flat. And no more spectacular Viennese singers. So you see, it’s as much as his life’s worth to let anything happen to me.”

“Obviously,” said Harriet, fascinated by this new light on the subject.

“Uncle Peter’s weakness,” went on Lord Saint-George, carefully disentangling the squashed meringues from their paper, “is his strong sense of public duty. You mightn’t think it to look at him, but it’s there. (Shall we try these on the carp? I don’t think they’re really fit for human consumption.) He’s kept out of it so far-he’s an obstinate old devil. Says he’ll have the right wife or none.”

“But suppose the right one says No.”

“That’s the story he puts up. I don’t believe a word of it. Why should anybody object to Uncle Peter? He’s no beauty and he’d talk the hind leg off a donkey; but he’s dashed well-off and he’s got good manners and he’s in the stud-book.” He balanced himself on the edge of Mercury and peered into its tranquil waters. “Look! there’s the big old one. Been here since the foundation, by the looks of him-see him go? Cardinal Wolsey’s particular pet.” He tossed a crumb to the great fish, which took it with a quick snap and submerged again.

“I don’t know how well you know my uncle,” he proceeded, “but if you do get a chance, you might let him know that when you saw me I was looking rather unwell and hagridden and hinted darkly at felo-de-se.”

“I’ll make a point of it,” said Harriet. “I will say you seemed scarcely able to crawl and, in fact, fainted into my arms, accidentally crushing all my parcels. He won’t believe me, but I’ll do my best.”

“No-he isn’t good at believing things, confound him. I’m afraid I shall have to write, after all, and produce the evidence. Still, I don’t know why I should bore you with my personal affairs. Come on down to the kitchen.”

The Christ Church cook was well pleased to produce meringues from the ancient and famous College oven; and when Harriet had duly admired the vast fireplace with its shining spits and heard statistics of the number of joints roasted and the quantity of fuel consumed per week in term-time, she followed her guide out into the quadrangle again with all proper expressions of gratitude.

“Not at all,” said the viscount. “Not much return, I’m afraid, after banging you all over the place and throwing your property about. May I know, by the by, whom I have had the honour of inconveniencing?”

My name’s Harriet Vane.”

Lord Saint-George stood still, and smote himself heavily over the forehead.

“My God, what have I done? Miss Vane, I do beg your pardon-and throw myself abjectly on your mercy. If my uncle hears about this he’ll never forgive me, and I shall cut my throat. It is borne in upon me that I have said every possible thing I should not.”

“It’s my fault,” said Harriet, seeing that he looked really alarmed, “I ought to have warned you.”

“As a matter of fact, I’ve no business to say things like that to anybody. I’m afraid I’ve inherited my uncle’s tongue and my mother’s want of tact. Look here, for God’s sake forget all that rot. Uncle Peter’s a dashed good sort, and as decent as they come.”

“I’ve reason to know it,” said Harriet.

“I suppose so. By the way-hell! I seem to be putting my foot in it all round but I ought to explain that I’ve never heard him talk about you. I mean, he’s not that sort. It’s my mother. She says all kinds of things. Sorry. I’m making things worse and worse.”

“Don’t worry,” said Harriet. “After all, I do know your uncle, you know-well enough, anyhow, to know what sort he is. And I certainly won’t give you away.”

“For Heaven’s sake, don’t. It isn’t only that I’d never get anything more out of him-and I’m in a devil of a mess-but he makes one feel such an appalling tick. I don’t suppose you’ve ever been given the wrong side of my uncle’s tongue-naturally not. But of the two, I recommend skinning.”

“We’re both in the same boat. I’d no business to listen. Good-bye-and many thanks for the meringues.”

She was half-way up St. Aldate’s when the viscount caught her up.

“I say-I’ve just remembered. That old story I was ass enough to rake up-”

“The Viennese dancer?”

“Singer-music’s his line. Please forget that. I mean, it’s got whiskers on it-it’s six years old, anyway. I was a kid at school and I dare say it’s all rot.” Harriet laughed, and promised faithfully to forget the Viennese singer.