Gaudy Night

5

Harriet drove out to Oxford through a vile downpour of sleet that forced its way between the joints of the all-weather curtains and kept the windscreen-wiper hard at work. Nothing could have been less like her journey of the previous June; but the greatest change of all was in her own feelings. Then, she had been reluctant and uneasy; a prodigal daughter without the romantic appeal of husks and very uncertain of the fatted calf. Now, it was the College that had blotted its copybook and had called her in as one calls in a specialist, with little regard to private morals but a despairing faith in professional skill. Not that she cared much for the problem, or had very much hope of solving it; but she was able by now to look upon it as pure problem and a job to be done. In June, she had said to herself, at every landmark on the way: “Plenty of time yet-thirty miles before I need begin to feel uncomfortable-twenty miles more respite-ten miles is still a good way to go.” This time, she was plainly and simply anxious to reach Oxford as quickly as possible-a state of mind for which the weather was perhaps largely responsible. She slithered down Headington Hill with no concern beyond a passing thought for possible skids, crossed Magdalen Bridge with only a caustic observation addressed to a shoal of pushcyclists, muttered “Thank God!” as she reached the St. Cross Road gate, and said “Good afternoon,” cheerfully to Padgett the porter.

“Good afternoon, miss. Nasty day it’s been. The Dean left a message, miss, as you was to be put in the Guest Room over at Tudor and she was out at a meeting but would be back for tea. Do you know the Guest Room, miss. That would be since your time, perhaps. Well, it’s on the New Bridge, miss, between Tudor Building and the North Annexe where the Cottage used to be, miss, only of course that’s all done away now and you has to go up by the main staircase past the West Lecture-Room, miss, what used to be the Junior Common Room, miss, before they made the new entrance and moved the stairs, and then turn right and it’s half-way along the corridor. You can’t mistake it, miss. Any of the Scouts would show you, miss, if you can find one about just now.”.

“Thank you, Padgett. I’ll find it all right. I’ll just take the car round to the garage.”

“Don’t you trouble, miss. Raining cats and dogs, it is. I’ll take her round for you later on. She won’t ’urt in the street for a bit. And I’ll have your bag up in half a moment, miss; only I can’t leave the gate till Mrs. Padgett comes back from running over to the Buttery, or I’m sure I’d show you the way myself.” Harriet again begged him not to trouble.

“Oh it’s quite easy when you know, miss. But what with pulling down here, building up there and altering this and that there’s a many of our old ladies gets quite lost when they comes back to see us.”

“I won’t get lost Padgett.” And she had, in fact, no difficulty in finding the mysterious Guest Room by the shifting stair and the non-existent Cottage. She noticed that its windows gave her a commanding view over the Old Quad, though the New Quad was out of range and the greater part of the new Library Building hidden by the Annexe Wing of Tudor.

Having had tea with the Dean, Harriet found herself seated in the Senior Common Room at an informal meeting of the Fellows and Tutors, presided over by the Warden. Before her lay the documents in the case-a pitiful little heap of dirty imaginations. Fifteen or so of them had been collected for inspection. There were half-a-dozen drawings, all much of a same kind with the one she had picked up on the Gaudy night. There were a number of messages, addressed to various members of the S.C.R., and informing them, with various disagreeable epithets, that their sins would find them out, that they were not fit for decent society and that unless they left men alone, various unpleasing things would occur to them. Some of these missives had come by post; others had been found on window-sills or pushed under doors; all were made up of the same cut-out letters pasted on sheets of rough scribbling-paper. Two other messages had been sent to undergraduates: one, to the Senior Student, a very well-bred and inoffensive young woman who was reading Greats; the other to a Miss Flaxman, a brilliant Second Year scholar. The latter was rather more definite than most of the letters, in that it mentioned a name: “IF YOU DON’T LEAVE YOUNG FARRINGDON ALONE,” it said, adding an abusive term, “IT WILL BE THE WORSE FOR YOU.”

The remaining items in the collection consisted, first, of a small book written by Miss Barton: The Position of Women in the Modern State. The copy belonged to the Library, and had been discovered one Sunday morning merrily burning on the fire in the Junior Common Room in Burleigh House. Secondly, there were the proofs and manuscript of Miss Lydgate’s English Prosody. The history of these was as follows. Miss Lydgate had at length transferred all her corrections in the text to the final page-proof and destroyed all the earlier revises. She had then handed the proofs, together with the manuscript of the Introduction, to Miss Hillyard, who had undertaken to go through them with a view to verifying certain historical allusions. Miss Hillyard stated that she had received them on a Saturday morning and taken them to her own rooms (which were on Miss Lydgate’s staircase and on the floor immediately above). She had subsequently taken them into the Library (that is to say, the Library in Tudor, now about to be superseded by the New Library), and had there worked upon them for some time with the aid of some reference books. She said she had been alone in the Library at the time, except for someone, whom she had never seen, who was moving about in the bay at the far end. Miss Hillyard had then gone out to lunch in Hall, leaving the papers on the Library table. After lunch, she had gone on the river to put a group of First-Year students through a sculling-test. On her return to the Library after tea to resume work, she found that the papers had disappeared from the table. She had at first supposed that Miss Lydgate had come in and, seeing them there, carried them off to make a few more of her celebrated corrections. She went to Miss Lydgate’s rooms to ask about them, but Miss Lydgate was not there. She said she had been a little surprised that Miss Lydgate should have removed them without leaving a note to say what she had done; but she was not actually alarmed until, knocking again at Miss Lydgate’s door shortly before Hall, she suddenly remembered that the English Tutor had said that she was leaving before lunch to spend a couple of nights in Town. An inquiry was, of course, immediately set on foot but nothing had come of it until, on the Monday morning, just after Chapel the missing proofs had been found sprawled over the table and floor of the Senior Common Room. The finder had been Miss Pyke, who had been the first don to enter the room that morning. The scout responsible for dusting the S.C.R. was confident that nothing of the kind had been there before Chapel; the appearance of the papers suggested that they had been tossed into the room by somebody passing the window, which would have been an easy enough thing for anybody to do. Nobody, however, had seen anything suspicious, though the entire college, particular late-comers to Chapel and those students whose windows overlooked the S.C.R., had been interrogated.

The proofs, when found, had been defaced throughout with thick copying-ink. All the manuscript alterations in the margins had been heavily blacked out and on certain pages offensive epithets had been written in rough block capitals. The manuscript Introduction had been burnt, and a triumphant note to this effect pasted in large printed letters across the first sheet of the proofs.

This was the news with which Miss Hillyard had had to face Miss Lydgate when the latter returned to College immediately after breakfast on the Monday. Some effort had been made to find out when, exactly, the proofs had been taken from the Library. The person in the far bay had been found, and turned out to have been Miss Burrows, the Librarian. She, however, said that she had not seen Miss Hillyard, who had come in after her and gone to lunch before her. Nor had she seen, or at any rate noticed, the proofs lying on the table. The Library had not been very much used on the Saturday afternoon; but a student who had gone in there at about 3 o’clock to consult Ducange’s Late Latin Dictionary, in the bay where Miss Hillyard had been working, had said that she had taken the volume down and laid it on the table, and she thought that if the proofs had been there, she would have noticed them. This student was a Miss Waters, a second-year French student and a pupil of Miss Shaw’s.

A slight awkwardness had been introduced into the situation by the Bursar, who had seen Miss Hillyard apparently entering the Senior Common Room just before Chapel on Monday morning. Miss Hillyard explained that she had only gone as far as the door, thinking that she had left her gown there; but remembering in time that she had hung it up in the cloakroom of Queen Elizabeth Building, had come out immediately without entering the S.C.R. She demanded, angrily, whether the Bursar suspected her of having done the damage herself. Miss Stevens said, “Of course not, but if Miss Hillyard had gone in, she could have seen whether the proofs were already in the room, and so provided a terminus a quo, or alternatively ad quern, for that part of the investigation.”

This was really all the material evidence available, except that a large bottle of copying-ink had disappeared from the office of the College Secretary and Treasurer, Miss Allison. The Treasurer had not had occasion to enter the office during Saturday afternoon or Sunday; she could only say that the bottle had been in its usual place at one o’clock on Saturday. She did not lock the door of her office at any time, as no money was kept there, and all important papers were locked up in a safe. Her assistant did not live in college and had not been in during the weekend.

The only other manifestation of any importance had been an outbreak of unpleasant scribbling on the walls of passages and lavatories. These inscriptions had, of course, been effaced as soon as noticed and were not available. It had naturally been necessary to take official notice of the loss and subsequent disfigurement of Miss Lydgate’s proofs. The whole college had been addressed by Dr. Baring and asked whether anybody had any evidence to bring forward. Nobody offered any; and the Warden had thereupon issued a warning against making the matter known outside the college, together with an intimation that anybody sending indiscreet communications to either the University papers or the daily press might find herself liable to severe disciplinary action. Delicate interrogation among the other Women’s Colleges had made it fairly clear that the nuisance was, so far, confined to Shrewsbury.

Since nothing, so far, had come to light to show that the persecution had started before the previous October, suspicion rather naturally centered upon the First-Year students. It was when Dr. Baring had reached this point of her exposition that Harriet felt obliged to speak.

“I am afraid, Warden,” she said, “that I am in a position to rule out the First Year, and in fact the majority of the present students altogether.” And she proceeded, with some discomfort, to tell the meeting about the two specimens of the anonymous writer’s work that she had discovered at and after the Gaudy.

“Thank you, Miss Vane,” said the Warden, when she had finished. “I am extremely sorry that you should have had so unpleasant an experience. But your information of course narrows the field a great deal. If the culprit is someone who attended the Gaudy, it must have been either one of the few present students who were then waiting up for vivas, or one of the scouts, or-one of ourselves.”

“Yes. I’m afraid that is the case.”

The dons looked at one another.

“It cannot, of course,” went on Dr. Baring, “be an old student, since the outrages have continued in the interim; nor can it be an Oxford resident outside the college, since we know that certain papers have been pushed under people’s doors during the night, to say nothing of inscriptions on the walls which have been proved to have come into existence between, say, midnight and the next morning. We therefore have to ask ourselves who, among the comparatively small number of persons in the three categories I have mentioned, can possibly be responsible.”

“Surely,” said Miss Burrows, “it is far more likely to be one of the scouts than one of ourselves. I can scarcely imagine that a member of this Common Room would be capable of anything so disgusting. Whereas that class of persons-”

“I think that is a very unfair observation,” said Miss Barton. “I feel strongly that we ought not to allow ourselves to be blinded by any sort of class prejudice.”

“The scouts are all women of excellent character, so far as I know,” said the Bursar, “and you may be sure that I take very great care in engaging the staff. The scrubbing-women and others who come in by the day are, naturally, excluded from suspicion. Also, you will remember that the greater number of the scouts sleep in their own wing. The outer door of this is locked at night and the ground-floor windows have bars. Besides this, there are the iron gates which cut off the back entrance from the rest of the college buildings. The only possible communication at night would be by way of the buttery, which is also locked. The Head Scout has the keys. Carrie has been with us fifteen years, and is presumably to be trusted.”

“I have never understood,” said Miss Barton, acidly, “why the unfortunate servants should be locked up at night as though they were dangerous wild beasts, when everybody else is free to come and go at pleasure. However as things are, it seems to be just as well for them.”

“The reason, as you very well know,” replied the Bursar, “is that there is no porter at the tradesmen’s entrance, and that it would not be difficult for unauthorized persons to climb over the outer gates. And I will remind you that all the ground-floor windows that open directly upon the street or the kitchen yard are barred, including those belonging to the Fellows. As for the locking of the buttery, I may say that it is done to prevent the students from raiding the pantry as they frequently did in my predecessor’s time, or so I am informed. The precautions are taken quite as much against the members of the college as against the scouts.”

“How about the scouts in the other buildings?” asked the Treasurer. “There are perhaps two or three occupying odd bedrooms in each building,” replied the Bursar. “They are all reliable women who have been in our service since before my time. I haven’t the list here at the moment; but I think there are three in Tudor, three or four in Queen Elizabeth, and one in each of the four little dormer rooms in the New Quad. Burleigh is all students’ rooms. And there is, of course, the Warden’s own domestic staff, besides the Infirmary maid who sleeps there with the Infirmarian.”

“I will take steps,” said Dr. Baring, “to make sure that no member of my own household is at fault. You, Bursar, had better do the same by the Infirmary. And, in their own interests, the scouts sleeping in College had better be subjected to some kind of supervision.”

“Surely, Warden-” began Miss Barton, hotly.

“In their own interests,” said the Warden, with quiet emphasis. “I entirely agree with you, Miss Barton, that there is no greater reason for suspecting them than for suspecting one of ourselves. But that is the more reason why they should be cleared completely and at once.”

“ By all means,” said the Bursar.

“As to the method used,” went on the Warden, “to keep check upon the scouts, or upon anybody else, I feel strongly that the fewer people who know anything about that, the better. Perhaps Miss Vane will be able to put forward a good suggestion, in confidence to myself, or to…”

“Exactly,” said Miss Hillyard, grimly. “To whom? So far as I can see, nobody among us can be taken on trust”

“That is unfortunately quite true,” said the Warden, “and the same thing applies to myself. While I need not say that I have every confidence in the senior members of the College, both jointly and severally, it appears to me that, exactly as in the case of the scouts, it is of the highest importance that we should be safeguarded, in our own interests. What do you say, SubWarden?”

“Certainly,” replied Miss Lydgate. “There should be no distinction made at all. I am perfectly willing to submit to any measures of supervision that may be recommended.”

“Well, you at least can scarcely be suspected,” said the Dean. “You are the greatest sufferer.”

“We have nearly all suffered to some extent,” said Miss Hillyard.

“I am afraid,” said Miss Allison, “we shall have to allow for what I understand is the well-known practice of these unfortunate-um, anonymous-letter writers, of sending letters to themselves to distract suspicion. Isn’t that so, Miss Vane?”

“Yes,” said Harriet, bluntly. “It seems unlikely, on the face of it, that anybody would do herself the kind of material damage Miss Lydgate has received; but if we once begin to make distinctions it is difficult to know where to stop. I don’t think anything but a plain alibi ought to be accepted as evidence.”

“And I have no alibi,” said Miss Lydgate. “I did not leave College on the Saturday till after Miss Hillyard had gone to lunch. What is more, I went over to Tudor during lunchtime, to return a book to Miss Chilperic’s room before I left; so that I might quite easily have taken the manuscript from the Library then.”

“But you have an alibi for the time when the proofs were put in the S.C.R.,” said Harriet.

“No,” said Miss Lydgate; “not even that. I came by the early train and arrived when everybody was in Chapel. I should have had to be rather quick to run across and throw the proofs into the S.C.R. and be back in my rooms again before the discovery was made; but I suppose I could have done it. In any case, I would much rather be treated on the same footing as other people.”

“Thank you,” said the Warden. “Is there anybody who does not feel the same?”

“I am sure we must all feel the same,” said the Dean. “But there is one set of people we are overlooking.”

“The present students who were up at the Gaudy,” said the Warden. “Yes; how about them?”

“I forget exactly who they were,” said the Dean, “but I think most of them were Schools people, and have since gone down. I will look up the lists and see. Oh, and, of course, there was Miss Cattermole who was up for Responsions-for the second time of asking.”

“Ah,” said the Bursar. “Yes. Cattermole.”

“And that woman who was taking Mods-what’s her name? Hudson, isn’t it? Wasn’t she still up?”

“Yes” said Miss Hillyard, “she was.”

“They will be in their Second and Third Years now, I suppose,” said Harriet. “By the way, is it known who ‘young Farringdon’ is, in this note addressed to Miss Flaxman?”

“There’s the point,” said the Dean. “Young Farringdon is an undergraduate of- New College, I think it is-who was engaged to Cattermole when they both came up, but is now engaged to Flaxman.”

“Is he, indeed?”

“Mainly, I understand, or partly, in consequence of that letter. I am told that Miss Flaxman accused Miss Cattermole of sending it and showed it to Mr. Farringdon; with the result that the gentleman broke off the engagement and transferred his affections to Flaxman.”

“Not pretty,” said Harriet.

“No. But I don’t think the Cattermole engagement was ever anything much more than a family arrangement, and that the new deal was not much more than an open recognition of the fait accompli. I gather there has been some feeling in the Second Year about the whole thing.”

“I see,” said Harriet.

“The question remains,” said Miss Pyke, “What steps do we propose to take in the matter? We have asked Miss Vane’s advice, and personally I am prepared to agree-particularly in view of what we have heard this evening-that it is abundantly necessary that some outside person should lend us assistance. To call in the police authorities is clearly undesirable But may I ask whether, at this stage, it is suggested that Miss Vane should personally undertake an investigation? Or alternatively, would she propose our placing the matter in the hands of a private inquiry agent? Or what?”

“I feel I am in a very awkward position,” said Harriet. “I am willing to give any help I can; but you do realize, don’t you, that this kind of inquiry is apt to take a long time, especially if the investigator has to tackle it single-handed A place like this, where people run in and out everywhere at all hours is almost impossible to police or patrol efficiently. It would need quite a little squad of inquiry agents-and even if you disguised them as scouts or students a good deal of awkwardness might arise.”

“Is there no material evidence to be obtained from an examination of the documents themselves?” asked Miss Pyke. “Speaking for myself, I am quite ready to have my fingerprints taken or to undergo any other kind of precautionary measure that may be considered necessary.”

“I’m afraid,” said Harriet, “the evidence of finger-prints isn’t quite so easy a matter as we make it appear in books. I mean, we could take fingerprints, naturally, from the S.C.R. and, possibly, from the scouts-though they wouldn’t like it much. But I should doubt very much whether rough scribbling-paper like this would show distinguishable prints. And besides-”

“Besides,” said the Dean, “every malefactor nowadays knows enough about finger-prints to wear gloves.”

“And,” said Miss de Vine, speaking for the first time, and with a slightly grim emphasis, “if we didn’t know it before, we know it now.”

“Great Scott!” cried the Dean, impulsively, “I’d forgotten all about its being us.”

“You see what I meant,” said the Warden, “when I said that it was better not to discuss methods of investigation too freely.”

“How many people have handled all these documents already?” inquired Harriet.

“Ever so many, I should think,” said the Dean.

“But could not a search be made for-” began Miss Chilperic. She was the most junior of the dons; a small, fair and timid young woman, assistant-tutor in English Language and Literature, and remarkable chiefly for being engaged to be married to a junior don at another college. The Warden interrupted her.

“Please, Miss Chilperic. That is the kind of suggestion that ought not to be made here. It might convey a warning.”

“This,” said Miss Hillyard, “is an intolerable position.” She looked angrily at Harriet, as though she were responsible for the position; which, in a sense, she was.

“It seems to me,” said the Treasurer, “that, now that we have asked Miss Vane to come and give us her advice, it is impossible for us to take it, or even to hear what it is. The situation is rather Gilbertian.”

“We shall have to be frank up to a point,” said the Warden. “Do you advise the private inquiry agent, Miss Vane?”

“Not the ordinary sort,” said Harriet; “you wouldn’t like them at all. But I know of an organization where you could get the right type of person and greatest possible discretion.” For she had remembered that there was a Miss Katherine Climpson, who what was ostensibly a Typing Bureau but was in fact a useful organization of women engaged in handling odd little investigations. The Bureau was self-supporting, though it had, she knew, Peter Wimsey’s money behind it. She was one of the very few people in the Kingdom who did know it.

The Treasurer coughed.

“Fees paid to a Detective Agency,” she observed, “will have an odd appearance in the Annual Audit.”

“I think that might be arranged,” said Harriet. “I know the organization personally. A fee might not be necessary.”

“That,” said the Warden, “would not be right. The fees would, of course, have to be paid. I would gladly be personally responsible.”

“That would not be right either,” said Miss Lydgate. “We certainly should not like that.”

“Perhaps,” suggested Harriet, “I could find out what the fees were likely to be.” She had, in fact, no idea how this part of the business was worked.

“There would be no harm in inquiring,” said the Warden. “In the meantime-”

“If I may make the suggestion,” said the Dean, “I should propose, Warden, that the evidence should be handed over to Miss Vane, as she is the only person in this room who cannot possibly come under suspicion. Perhaps she would like to sleep upon the matter and make a report to you in the morning. At least, not in the morning, because of Lord Oakapple and the Opening; but at some time during tomorrow.”

“Very well,” said Harriet in response to an inquiring look from the Warden. “I will do that. And if I can think of any way in which I can be helpful, I’ll do my best.”

The Warden thanked her. “We all appreciate,” she added, “the extreme awkwardness of the situation, and I am sure we shall all do what we can to co-operate in getting the matter cleared up. And I should like to say this: Whatever any of us may think or feel, it is of the very greatest importance that we should dismiss, as far as possible, all vague suspicions from our minds, and be particularly careful how we may say anything that might be construed as an accusation against anybody at all. In a close community of this kind, nothing can be more harmful than an atmosphere of mutual distrust. I repeat that I have the very greatest confidence in every Senior Member of the College. I shall endeavour to keep an entirely open mind, and I shall look to all my colleagues to do the same.”

The dons assented; and the meeting broke up.

“Well!” said the Dean, as she and Harriet turned into the New Quad, “that is the most uncomfortable meeting I have ever had to sit through. My dear, you have thrown a bombshell into our midst!”

“I’m afraid so. But what could I do?”

“You couldn’t possibly have done anything else. Oh, dear! It’s all very well for the Warden to talk about an open mind, but we shall all feel perfectly ghastly wondering what other people are thinking about us, and whether our own conversation doesn’t sound a little potty. It’s the pottiness, you know, that’s so awful.”

“I know. By the way, Dean, I do absolutely refuse to suspect you. You’re quite the sanest person I ever met.”

“I don’t think that’s keeping an open mind, but thank you all the same for those few kind words. And one can’t possibly suspect the Warden or Miss Lydgate, can one? But I’d better not say even that, I suppose. Otherwise by process of elimination-oh, lord! For Heaven’s sake can’t we find some handy outsider with a cast-iron alibi ready for busting?”

“We’ll hope so. And of course there are those two students and the scouts to be disposed of.” They turned in at the Dean’s door. Miss Martin savagely poked up the fire in the sitting-room, sat down in an armchair and stared at the leaping flames. Harriet coiled herself on a couch and contemplated Miss Martin.

“Look here,” said the Dean; “you had better not tell me too much about what you think, but there’s no reason why any of us shouldn’t tell you what we think, is there? No. Well. Here’s the point. What is the object of all this persecution? It doesn’t look like a personal grudge against anybody in particular. It’s a kind of blind malevolence, directed against everybody in College. What’s at the back of it?”

“Well, it might be somebody who thought the College as a body had injured her. Or it might be a personal grudge masking itself under a general attack. Or it might be just somebody with a mania for creating disturbance in order to enjoy the fun; that’s the usual reason for this kind of outbreak, if you can call it a reason.”

“That’s sheer pottiness, in that case. Like those tiresome children who throw furniture about and the servants who pretend to be ghosts. And, talking of servants, do you think there’s anything in that idea that it’s more likely to be somebody of that class? Of course, Miss Barton wouldn’t agree; but after all, some of the words used are very coarse.”

“Yes,” said Harriet; “but actually there isn’t one that I, for example, don’t know the meaning of. I believe, when you get even the primmest people under an anaesthetic, they are liable to bring the strangest vocabulary out of the subconscious-in fact, the primmer the coarser.”

“True. Did you notice that there wasn’t a single spelling mistake in the whole bunch of messages?”

“I noticed that. It probably points to a fairly well educated person; though the converse isn’t necessarily true. I mean, educated people often put in mistakes on purpose, so that spelling mistakes don’t prove much. But an absence of mistakes is a more difficult thing to manage, if it doesn’t come natural. I’m not putting this very clearly.”

“Yes, you are. A good speller could pretend to be a bad one; but a bad speller can’t pretend to be a good one, any more than I could pretend to be a mathematician.”

“She could use a dictionary.”

“But then she would have to know enough to be dictionary-conscious-as the new slang would call it. Isn’t our poison-pen rather silly to get all her spelling right?”

“I don’t know. The educated person often fakes bad spelling rather badly, misspells easy words and gets quite difficult ones right. It’s not so hard to tell when people are putting it on. I think it’s probably cleverer to make no pretence about it.”

“I see. Does this tend to exclude the scouts?… But probably they spell better than we do. They so often are better educated. And I’m sure they dress better. But that’s rather off the point. Stop me when I dither.”

“You’re not dithering,” said Harriet. “Everything you say is perfectly true. At present I don’t see how anybody is to be excluded.”

“And what,” demanded the Dean, “becomes of the mutilated newspapers.”

“This won’t do,” said Harriet; “you’re being a great deal too sharp about this. That’s just one of the things I was wondering about.”

“Well, we’ve been into that,” said the Dean, in a tone of satisfaction. “We’ve checked up on all the S.C.R. and J.C.R. papers ever since this business came to our notice-that is, more or less, since the beginning of this term. Before anything goes to be pulped, the whole lot are checked up with the list and examined to see that nothing has been cut out.”

“Who has been doing that?”

“My secretary, Mrs. Goodwin. I don’t think you’ve met her yet. She lives in College during term. Such a nice girl-or woman, rather. She was left a widow, you know, very hard up, and she’s got a little boy of ten at a prep. school. When her husband died-he was a schoolmaster-she set to work to train as a secretary and really did splendidly. She’s simply invaluable to me, and most careful and reliable.”

“Was she here at Gaudy?”

“Of course she was. She-good gracious! You surely don’t think-my dear, that’s absurd! The most straightforward and sane person. And she’s very grateful to the College for having found her the job, and she certainly wouldn’t want to run the risk of losing it.”

“All the same, she’s got to go on the list of possibles. How long has she been here?”

“Let me see. Nearly two years. Nothing at all happened till the Gaudy, you know, and she’d been here a year before that.”

“But the S.C.R. and the scouts who live in College have been here still longer, most of them. We can’t make exceptions along those lines. How about the other secretaries?”

“The Warden’s secretary-Miss Parsons-lives at the Warden’s Lodgings. The Bursar’s and the Treasurer’s secretaries both live out, so they can be crossed off.”

“Miss Parsons been here long?”

“Four years.”

Harriet noted down the names of Mrs. Goodwin and Miss Parsons.

“I think,” she said, “for Mrs. Goodwin’s own sake we’d better have a second check on those newspapers. Not that it really matters; because, if the poison-pen knows that the papers are being checked, she won’t use those papers. And I suppose she must know, because of the care taken to collect them.”

“Very likely. That’s just the trouble, isn’t it?”

“How about people’s private newspapers?”

“Well, naturally, we couldn’t check them. We’ve kept an eye on the waste-paper baskets as well as we can. Nothing is ever destroyed, you know. It’s all thriftily collected in sacks and sent to the paper-makers or whoever it is that gives pence for old papers. The worthy Padgett is instructed to examine the sacks-but it’s a terrific job. And then, of course, since there are fires in all the rooms, why should anybody leave evidence in the W.P.B.?”

“How about the gowns that were burnt in the quad? That must have taken some doing. Surely more than one person would have been needed to work that.”

“We don’t know whether that was part of the same business or not. About ten or a dozen people had left their gowns in various places-as they do, you know-before Sunday supper. Some were in the Queen Elizabeth portico and some at the foot of the Hall stairs and so on. People bring them over and dump them, ready for evening Chapel.” (Harriet nodded; Sunday evening Chapel was held at a quarter to eight and was compulsory; being also a kind of College Meeting for the giving-out of notices.) “Well, when the bell started, these people couldn’t find their gowns and so couldn’t go in to Chapel. Everybody thought it was just a rag. But in the middle of the night somebody saw a blaze in the quad, and it turned out to be a merry little bonfire of bombazine. The gowns had all been soaked in petrol and they went up beautifully.”

“Where did the petrol come from?”

“It was a can Mullins keeps for his motor-cycle. You remember Mullins-the Jowett Lodge porter. His machine lies in a little outhouse in the Lodge garden. He didn’t lock it up-why should he? He does now, but that doesn’t help. Anybody could have gone and fetched it. He and his wife heard nothing, having retired to their virtuous rest. The bonfire happened bang in the middle of the Old Quad and burnt a nasty patch in the turf. Lots of people rushed out when the flare went up, and whoever did it probably mingled with the crowd. The victims were four M.A. gowns, two scholars’ gowns and the rest commoners’ gowns; but I don’t suppose there was any selection; they just happened to be lying about.”

“I wonder where they were put in the interval between supper and the bonfire. Anybody carrying a whole bunch of gowns round College would be a bit conspicuous.”

“No; it was at the end of November, and it would be pretty dark. They could easily have been bundled into a lecture room to be left till called for. There wasn’t a proper organized search over College, you see. The poor victims who were left gownless thought somebody was having a joke; they were very angry, but not very efficient. Most of them rushed round to accuse their friends.”

“Yes; I don’t suppose we can get much out of that episode at this time of day. Well-I suppose I’d better go and wash-and-brush-up for Hall.”

Hall was an embarrassed meal at the High Table. The conversation was valiantly kept to matters of academic and world interest. The undergraduates babbled noisily and cheerfully; the shadow that rested upon the college did not seem to have affected their spirits. Harriet’s eye roamed over them.

“Is that Miss Cattermole at the table on the right? In a green frock, with a badly made-up face?”

“That’s the young lady,” replied the Dean. “How did you know?”

“I remember seeing her at Gaudy. Where is the all-conquering Miss Flaxman?”

“I don’t see her. She may not be dining in Hall. Lots of them prefer to boil an egg in their rooms, so as to avoid the bother of changing. Slack little beasts. And that’s Miss Hudson, in a red jumper, at the middle table. Black hair and horn rims.”

“She looks quite normal.”

“So far as I know, she is. So far as I know, we all are.”

“I suppose,” said Miss Pyke, who had overheard the last remark, “even murderers look much like other people. Miss Vane. Or do you hold any opinions about the theories put forward by Lombroso? I understand that they are now to a considerable extent exploded.”

Harriet was quite thankful to be allowed to discuss murderers.

After Hall, Harriet felt herself rather at a loose end. She felt she ought to be doing something or interviewing somebody; but it was hard to know where to begin. The Dean had announced that she would be busy with some lists, but would be open to receive visitors later on. Miss Burrows the Librarian was to be engaged in putting the final touches to the Library before the Chancellor’s visit; she had been carting and arranging books the greater part of the day and had roped in a small band of students to assist her with the shelving of them. Various other dons mentioned that they had work to do; Harriet thought they seemed a little shy of one another’s company.

Catching hold of the Bursar, Harriet asked whether it was possible to get hold of a plan of the College and a list of the various rooms and their occupants. Miss Stevens offered to supply the list and said she thought there was a plan in the Treasurer’s office. She took Harriet across into the New Quad to get these things.

“I hope,” said the Bursar, ‘You will not pay too much attention to that unfortunate remark of Miss Burrows’ about the scouts. Nothing would please me more, personally, than to transfer all the maids to the Scouts’ Wing out of reach of suspicion, if that were practicable; but there is no room for them there. Certainly I do not mind giving you the names of those who sleep in College, and I agree, certainly, that precautions should be taken. But to my mind, the episode of Miss Lydgate’s proofs definitely rules out the scouts. Very few of them would be likely to know or care anything about proof sheets; nor would the idea of mutilating manuscripts be likely to come into their heads. Vulgar letters-yes, possibly. But damaging those proofs was an educated person’s crime. Don’t you think so?”

“I’d better not say what I think,” said Harriet.

“No; quite right. But I can say what I think. I wouldn’t say it to anybody but you. Still, I do not like this haste to make scapegoats of the scouts.”

“The thing that seems so extraordinary,” said Harriet, “is that Miss Lydgate, of all people, should have been chosen as a victim. How could anybody-particularly one of her own colleagues-have any grudge against her? Doesn’t it look rather as though the culprit knew nothing about the value of the proofs, and was merely making a random gesture of defiance to the world in general?”

“That’s possible, certainly. I must say, Miss Vane, that your evidence today has made matters very complicated. I would rather suspect the scouts than the S.C.R., I admit; but when these hasty accusations are made by the last person known to have been in the same room with the manuscript I can only say that-well, that it appears to me injudicious.”

Harriet said nothing to this. The Bursar, apparently feeling that she had gone a little too far, added:

“I have no suspicions of anybody. All I say is, that statements ought not to be made without proof.”

Harriet agreed, and, after marking off the relevant names upon the Bursar’s list, went to find the Treasurer.

Miss Wilson produced a plan of the College, and showed the positions of the rooms occupied by various people.

“I hope this means,” she said, “that you intend to undertake the investigation yourself. Not, I suppose, that we ought to ask you to spare the time for any such thing. But I do most strongly feel that the presence of paid detectives in this college would be most unpleasant, however discreet they might be. I have served the College for a considerable number of years and I have its interests very much at heart. You know how undesirable it is that any outsider should be brought into a matter of this kind.”

“It is, very,” said Harriet. “All the same, a spiteful or mentally deficient servant is a misfortune that might occur anywhere. Surely the important thing is to get to the bottom of the mystery as quickly as possible; and a trained detective or two would be very much more efficient than I should be.”

Miss Allison looked thoughtfully at her, and swayed her glasses to and fro slowly on their gold chain.

“I see you incline to the most comfortable theory. Probably we all do. But there is the other possibility. Mind you I quite see that from your own point of view, you would not wish to take part in an exposure of a member of the Senior Common Room. But if it came to the point, I would put more faith in your tact than in that of an outside professional detective. And you start with a knowledge of the workings of the collegiate system, which is a great advantage.”

Harriet said that she thought she would know better what to suggest when she had made a preliminary review of all the circumstances.

“If,” said Miss Allison, “you do undertake an inquiry, it is probably only fair to warn you that you may meet with some opposition. It has already been said-but perhaps I ought not to tell you this.”

“That is for you to judge.”

“It has already been said that the narrowing-down of the suspects within the limits mentioned at today’s meeting rests only upon your assertion. I refer, of course, to the two papers you found at the Gaudy.”

“I see. Am I supposed to have invented those?”

“I don’t think anybody would go as far as that. But you have said that you sometimes received similar letters on your own account. And the suggestion is that-”

“That if I found anything of the sort I must have brought it with me? That would be quite likely, only that the style of the things was so like the style of these others. However, I admit you have only my word for that.”

“I’m not doubting it for a moment. What is being said is that your experience in these affairs is-if anything-a disadvantage. Forgive me. That is not what I say.”

“That is the thing that made me very unwilling to have anything to do with the inquiry. It is absolutely true. I haven’t lived a perfectly blameless life, and you can’t get over it.”

“If you ask me,” said Miss Allison, “some people’s blameless lives are to blame for a good deal. I am not a fool, Miss Vane. No doubt my own life has been blameless as far as the more generous sins are concerned. But there are points upon which I should expect you to hold more balanced opinions than certain people here. I don’t think I need say more than that, need I?”

Harriet’s next visit was to Miss Lydgate; her excuse being to inquire what she should do with the mutilated proofs in her possession. She found the English Tutor patiently correcting a small pile of students’ essays.

“Come in, come in,” said Miss Lydgate, cheerfully. “I have nearly done with these. Oh, about my poor proofs? I’m afraid they re not much use to me. They’re really quite undecipherable. I’m afraid the only thing is to do the whole thing again. The printers will be tearing their hair, poor souls. I shan’t have very much difficulty with the greater part of it, I hope. And I have the notes of the Introduction, so it isn’t as bad as it might have been. The worst loss is a number of manuscript footnotes and two manuscript appendices that I had to put in at the last moment to refute what seemed to me some very ill-considered statements in Mr. Elkbottom’s new book on Modern Verse-Forms. I stupidly wrote those in on the blank pages of the proofs and they are quite irrecoverable. I shall have to verify all the references again in Elkbottom. It’s so tiresome, especially as one is always so busy towards the end of term. But it’s all my own fault for not keeping a proper record of everything.”

“I wonder,” said Harriet, “if I could be of any help to you in getting the proofs put together. I’d gladly stay up for a week or so if it would do any good. I’m quite used to juggling with proof-sheets, and I think I can remember enough of my Schools work to be reasonably intelligent about the Anglo-Saxon and Early English.”

“That would be a tremendous help!” exclaimed Miss Lydgate, her face lighting up. “But wouldn’t it be trespassing far too much on your time?”

Harriet said, No; she was well ahead with her own work and would enjoy putting in a little time on English Prosody. It was in her mind that, if she really meant to pursue inquiries at Shrewsbury, Miss Lydgate’s proofs would offer a convenient excuse for her presence in College.

The suggestion was left there for the moment. As regards the author of the outrages. Miss Lydgate could make no suggestion; except that, whoever it was, the poor creature must be mentally afflicted.

As she left Miss Lydgate’s room, Harriet encountered Miss Hillyard, who was descending the staircase from her own abode.

“Well,” said Miss Hillyard, “how is the investigation progressing? But I ought not to ask that. You have contrived to cast the Apple of Discord among us with a vengeance. However, as you are so well accustomed to the receipt of anonymous communications, you are no doubt the fittest person to handle the situation.”

“In my case,” said Harriet, “I only got what was to some extent deserved. But this is a very different matter. It’s not the same problem at all. Miss Lydgate’s book could offend nobody.”

“Except some of the men whose theories she has attacked,” replied Miss Hillyard. “However, circumstances seem to exclude the male sex from the scope of the inquiry. Otherwise, this mass-attack on a woman’s college would suggest to me the usual masculine spite against educated women. But you, of course, would consider that ridiculous.”

“Not in the least. Plenty of men are very spiteful. But surely there are no men running about the college at night.”

“I wouldn’t be too sure of that,” said Miss Hillyard, smiling sarcastically. “It is quite ridiculous for the Bursar to talk about locked gates. What is to prevent a man from concealing himself about the grounds before the gates are locked and escaping again when they are opened in the morning? Or climbing the walls, if it comes to that?”

Harriet thought the theory far-fetched; but it interested her, as evidence of the speaker’s prejudice, which amounted almost to obsession.

“The thing that in my opinion points to a man,” went on Miss Hillyard, “is the destruction of Miss Barton’s book, which is strongly pro-feminist. I don’t suppose you have read it; probably it would not interest you. But why else should that book be picked out?”

Harriet parted from Miss Hillyard at the corner of the quad and went over to Tudor Building. She had not very much doubt who it was that was likely to offer opposition to her inquiries. If one was looking for a twisted mind, Miss Hillyard’s was certainly a little warped. And, when one came to think of it, there was no evidence whatever that Miss Lydgate’s proofs had ever been taken to the Library or ever left Miss Hillyard’s hands at all. Also, she had undoubtedly been seen on the threshold of the S.C.R. before Chapel on the Monday morning. If Miss Hillyard was sufficiently demented to inflict a blow of this kind on Miss Lydgate, then she was fit for a lunatic asylum. But indeed, this would apply to whoever it was.

She went into Tudor and tapped on Miss Barton’s door, asking, when she was admitted, whether she might borrow a copy of Woman’s Place in the Modern State.

“The sleuth at work?” said Miss Barton. “Well, Miss Vane, here it is. By the way, I should like to apologize to you for some of the things I said when you were here last. I shall be very glad to see you handle this most unpleasant business, which can scarcely be an agreeable thing for you. I admire exceedingly anyone who can subordinate her own feelings to the common advantage. The case is obviously pathological-as all anti-social behaviour is, in my opinion. But here there is no question of legal proceedings, I imagine. At least, I hope not. I feel extremely anxious that it should not be brought into court; and on that account I am against hiring detectives of any kind. If you are able to get to the bottom of it, I am ready to give you any help I can.”

Harriet thanked the Fellow for her good opinion and for the book.

“You are probably the best psychologist here,” said Harriet. “What do you think of it?”

“Probably the usual thing: a morbid desire to attract attention and create a public uproar. The adolescent and the middle-aged are the most likely suspects. I should very much doubt whether there is much more to it than that. Beyond, I mean, that the incidental obscenities point to some kind of sexual disturbance. But that is a commonplace in cases of this kind. But whether you ought to look for a man-hater or a man-trap,” added Miss Barton, with the first glimmer of humour Harriet had ever seen in her, “I can’t tell you.”

Having put away her various acquisitions in her own room, Harriet thought it was time to go and see the Dean. She found Miss Burrows with her, very tired and dusty after coping with the Library, and being refreshed with a glass of hot milk, to which Miss Martin insisted on adding just a dash of whisky to induce slumber.

“What new light one gets on the habits of the S.C.R. when one’s an old student,” said Harriet, “I always imagined that there was only one bottle or ardent spirits in the college, kept under lock and key by the Bursar for life-and-death emergencies.”

“It used to be so,” said the Dean, “but I’m getting frivolous in my old age. Even Miss Lydgate cherishes a small stock of cherry brandy, for high-days and holidays. The Bursar is even thinking of laying down a little port for the College.”

“Great Scott!” said Harriet.

“The students are not supposed to imbibe alcohol,” said the Dean, “but I shouldn’t like to go bail for the contents of all the cupboards in College.”

“After all,” said Miss Burrows, “their tiresome parents bring them up to cocktails and things at home, so it probably seems ridiculous to them that they shouldn’t do the same thine here.”

“And what can one do about it? Make a police search through their belongings? Well, I flatly refuse. We can’t keep the place like a gaol.”

“The trouble is,” said the Librarian, “that everybody sneers at restrictions and demands freedom, till something annoying happens; then they demand angrily what has become of the discipline.”

“You can’t exercise the old kind of discipline in these days,” said the Dean; “it’s too bitterly resented.”

“The modern idea is that young people should discipline themselves,” said the Librarian. “But do they?”

“No; they won’t. Responsibility bores ’em. Before the War they passionately had College Meetings about everything. Now, they won’t be bothered. Half the old institutions, like the College debates and the Third Year Play, are dead or moribund. They don’t want responsibility.”

“They’re all taken up with their young men,” said Miss Burrows.

“Drat their young men,” said the Dean. “In my day, we simply thirsted for responsibility. We’d all been sat on at school for the good of our souls, and came up bursting to show how brilliantly we could organize things when we were put in charge.”

“If you ask me,” said Harriet, “it’s the fault of the schools. Free discipline and so on. Children are sick to death of running things and doing prefect duty; and when they get up to Oxford they’re tired out and only want to sit back and let somebody else run the show. Even in my time, the people from the up-to-date republican schools were shy of taking office, poor brutes.”

“It’s all very difficult,” said Miss Burrows with a yawn. “However, I did get my Library volunteers to do a job of work today. We’ve got most of the shelves decently filled, and the pictures hung and the curtains up. It looks very well. I hope the Chancellor will be impressed. They haven’t finished painting the radiators downstairs, but I’ve bundled the paintpots and things into a cupboard and hoped for the best. And I borrowed a squad of scouts to clean up, so as not to leave anything to be done tomorrow.”

“What time does the Chancellor arrive?” asked Harriet.

“Twelve o’clock; reception in the S.C.R. and show him round the College. Then lunch in Hall, and I hope he enjoys it. Ceremony at 2:30. And then push him off to catch the 3:45. Delightful man; but I am getting fed up with Openings. We’ve opened the New Quad, the Chapel (with choral service), the S.C.R. Dining-Room (with lunch to former tutors and Fellows), the Tudor Annexe (with Old Students’ Tea), the Kitchens and Scouts’ Wing (with Royalty), the Sanatorium (with address by the Lister Professor of Medicine), the Council-Chamber, and the Warden’s Lodgings, and we’ve unveiled the late Warden’s Portrait, the Willett Memorial Sundial and the New Clock. And now it’s the Library. Padgett said to me last term, when we were making those alterations in Queen Elizabeth, ‘Excuse me, madam dean, miss, but could you tell me, miss, the date of the Opening?’ ‘What Opening, Padgett?’ said I. ‘We aren’t opening anything this term. What is there to open?’ ‘Well, miss,’ says Padgett, ‘I was thinking of these here new lavatories, if you’ll excuse me, madam Dean, miss. We’ve opened everything there was to open up to the present, miss, and if there was to be a Ceremony, miss, it would be convenient if I was to know in good time, on account of arranging for taxis and parking accommodation.’”

“Dear Padgett!” said Miss Burrows. “He’s the brightest spot in this academy.” She yawned again. “I’m dead.”

“Take her away to bed. Miss Vane,” said the Dean, “and we’ll call it a day.”