The September Society

CHAPTER SIX

Lenox washed his face, changed his clothes, had a final gulp of coffee, and at the appointed time stood at the gates of Lincoln College.

Oxford was made up of about twenty constituent colleges. Each of these had its own traditions, its own library, its own chapel, its own dining hall, its own professors, and its own buildings (though most of the colleges were in the same Gothic style, which gave Oxford its medieval look). United, along with the structures that belonged to Oxford as a university, like the Bodleian Library and the Sheldonian Theater, one of Wren’s most beautiful buildings, they formed Oxford. Against Cambridge every student from every college was an Oxonian, but within the university there were these other minor allegiances, though there was a great deal of exchange and friendship across their fluid boundaries.

Lincoln was a middling sort of college, full of young men more amiable and athletic than scholarly, young men who would rather drink at the pub than debate at the Union. Both it and its students were well liked around the university. The first rank of colleges-Christ Church, Balliol, Merton-could be less cheerful places, especially when class reared its head too high. Lincoln’s merriness was enduring.

It was also beautiful, folded into a side lane between Oxford’s two main thoroughfares, Broad Street and the High. It was made from the same quarry of yellowish, ancient stone as the other colleges that dated to the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. In fact, it had been founded in 1427 by the Bishop of Lincoln, and it was often said that it looked more like the colleges of that era had than any other place standing, because it was still only three stories high, cozy rather than grand, a home and a haven rather than an impersonal palace. Nobody was allowed to walk on the quad, of course, and its brilliant color, even at this time of the year, was the result of only about twenty men in four and a half centuries treading on it-each generation’s lawn mower, who in his turn was as famous a character in the college as the junior dean or the head porter.

One of the most notable members of the college had been John Wesley, the religious reformer, who with his brother had held the first meetings of the infamous Holy Club in college rooms. This had all occurred in the 1720s and ’30s, long ago, but even then religious zealotry couldn’t weigh Lincolnites down-they had made a joke of Wesley, naming him and his followers Methodists because of their dull, methodical ways. It was a light-hearted college. Its alumni were famously devoted to it, the mark of the best places in Oxford, places like Lincoln and the Turf.

Lady Payson arrived a few minutes late. “Do you think he’s alive?” she said without preamble.

“I certainly hope he is, and I certainly think there’s a good chance,” said Lenox.

“You don’t know George, Mr. Lenox. Nothing would have made him miss our lunch except a crisis-and no explanation, no note! Some sons might be capable of that, but not George. Only real trouble could have made him leave me like that.”

“At any rate, I shall try my best to find him. That is what I can promise you. Would you rather I went in alone? Or will you come?”

“I’ll come,” she said stoutly.

“Just as you please, though I must ask you not to touch anything. Unless you have already?”

“No, I left everything as it was. Why?”

“It may be important to see what George left behind-whether he left in haste or deliberately, for instance, whether there’s any sign of forced access to a window or door.”

“I see. No, I shan’t touch anything. I only sat in the chair by the window when I was here before. That may be slightly disturbed, but otherwise the rooms are as George left them.”

Lady Payson nodded to the porter on duty, and she and Lenox walked along the stone path that circled the lawn, toward an entrance at the rear of the Front Quad.

“Does anybody at the college know of anything amiss?” he asked.

“I don’t think so.”

“Best to keep it that way, perhaps. What do the porters think of your coming and going?”

“I told them I was visiting, and asked if I could have leave to enter the college freely. They said I could, on the word of the master.”

“And you haven’t spoken to any of his friends?”

“No.”

“Have you ever met any of them?”

“Only very briefly.”

They reached a slim stone stairwell in which the morning light angled through the mullioned windows on each landing. On the third and top floor, Lady Payson pointed to a door. Lenox took the lead.

The sitting room looked as familiar as the back of his hand, and immediately Lenox took a liking to the young man who inhabited it. There was a grate just by the door, full of ready coals (a sensible proposition-no use fumbling in the coal with wet hands as you got in), and by it there was a single armchair, maroon and stuffed, accompanied by a medium-sized circular table on which there were several books and a battered sort of walking stick. Walking boots, heavy with mud, sat on their sides in the chair.

In case of a guest there was a small table and two chairs by the window, which looked out over the Front Quad and had a view of the Radcliffe Camera, the domed library at the center of Oxford. On it were the remains of a breakfast that the scout had yet to remove-from two days before, it would seem, as Lady Annabelle confirmed that it had been a day old the day before. Lenox wondered about this and made a quick note of it on a pad that he whisked from the inner pocket of his jacket.

There was a bookcase, stacked with old newspapers and bric-a-brac, along with a few volumes on Tudor history. The center of the room was covered by a thick, ornate rug, which Lady Payson explained her late husband had sent back from India. Stooping to examine it, Lenox saw several small artifacts of the missing man’s life: a frayed piece of string about two feet long of the sort you might bind a package with, half of a pulpy fried tomato, which was too far from the breakfast table to have been dropped, a fountain pen, and lastly a card, which said on the front THE SEPTEMBER SOCIETY. Lenox turned it and was surprised to discover on the back two pen lines, one pink, one black, forming an?.

The September Society-hadn’t been an Oxford club in his day. What was interesting about the items on the rug was that they were all scattered within a few inches of each other, while the rest of the rug was spotless. He stood up. Why this spot? It had but a poor angle on the window: too far from the fire for warmth, and too far from the desk (opposite the bookcase was a desk, which was tidy-in contrast with the mess on the carpet) for glancing over papers. Its only distinguishing mark was that it was in a kind of no-man’s-land in the room.

He examined the rest of the room and found only one thing that he thought enough of to add to his notebook: a messy line of ash from a pipe, on the floor just beneath the window.

“Was your son much of a smoker?” he asked Lady Payson, who was lingering in the doorway.

“No, not that I know of. He didn’t smoke when he came home.”

“I don’t see a pipe in this room, at any rate. He might have carried it on his person-but why not tap the ash outside the window, within arm’s length, rather than on the floor just by it?”

“I confess I don’t know, Mr. Lenox. Have you any clue of what happened yet?”

“Clues-but no clue yet. Still, we shall see. I think I may proceed to the bedroom now, Lady Payson. Would you like to sit in the armchair? I could light a fire.”

“No, no,” she said. “I’ll come in.”

Just then, however, there was a clattering on the stairs behind them, and they both turned. A voice said, “Really, I quite assure you that I am expected-really,” while the voice of a porter said, “But sir, we can call up-no problems on that account.” The first voice said, “Ah, but it’s a matter of urgency.” Then there was a brief silence-the coin of the empire changing hands, perhaps?-and the first voice came to the door, found it open, and walked in.

“A dead cat?” the voice said. “Has your grade of case declined?”

Lenox smiled, and said, “Why, hullo, McConnell. How good of you to come.”