The Silent World of Nicholas Quinn

EPILOGUE

THE SYNDICATE WAS forced to close down as soon as the autumn examination results had been issued, and its oversea centres were parcelled out amongst the other GCE Boards. The building itself has been taken over by a department of HM Inspectorate of Taxes, and today female clerks clack up and down its polished corridors, and talk of girlish things in the rooms where once the little Secretary and his graduate staff administered their examinations.

From her considerable private income, Mrs. Bartlett bought a farm in Hampshire, where Richard at last found a life which served to soothe his troubled mind, and where his father's eyes were occasionally seen to blink almost boyishly again behind the rimless spectacles.

Until Sally had completed her undistinguished school career, Miss Height stayed in Oxford, taking on some part-time teaching. Several times in the months that followed the conviction of the Syndicate murderers, she had found her way to the Horse and Trumpet — just for old time's sake, she told herself. How dearly she would have loved to see him again! She owed him a drink, anyway, and she wanted to square the account; to make up for things, as it were. But much as she had willed it, she had never found him there.

More than sufficient evidence was found to justify the immediate disqualification of Master Muhammad Dubal from all his autumn O-level examinations; and six weeks later his father, the sheik, was listed among the 'missing' after a 'bloodless' coup within the emirate.

George Bland, though reported to have been seen in various eastern capitals, remains unpunished still; yet perhaps no criminal can live without some little share of justice.

№ 1 Pinewood Close is tenanted again, both upstairs and down; and Mrs. Jardine is thinking of buying herself a new outfit. As she'd expected, it had been no more than a few weeks before the notoriety had died down. Life was like that, as she had known.

Just after Christmas, at a christening in East Oxford, the minister dipped a delicate finger into the font, and in the name of the Holy Trinity enlisted his little charge in the myriad ranks of the great Church Militant. But the water was icy cold and Master Nicholas John Greenaway squawked stentoriously. In the end, the name had been Frank's choice: it had sort of grown on him, he said. But as Joyce took the baby in her arms and lovingly there-thered his raucous cries, her mind ranged back to the day when Nicholas, her son, was born, and when another man called Nicholas had died.