Death at the Alma Mater (26 page)

LIGHTING DOWN

“What was it?” St.
Just drove on, relentlessly. “A birthday present? Anniversary? A bribe to get rid of her? Or some sentimental gift that cost you nothing—after all, you knew what the book was worth then, which was nothing much. You fobbed it off on her, but I’d be willing to bet that’s not how she saw it. Lexy would have seen it as the sublime romantic gesture: You knew her well. During your divorce, you still thought the book was worthless and you were frantic anyway to get rid of Lexy and marry India. You probably thought you had been clever but then suddenly—the book became worth serious money. And just when you needed serious money.

“That money from your book—it could save you. Now, you might once have been able to swindle Lexy into assigning the rights back to you, but no longer. The veil had fallen from those famous blue eyes, had it not? I’m sure you reasoned—and this just fed your rage—that it was your book, not hers, for all that you had signed it away. It must have been absolutely galling, Sir James. The book was yours. And now this silly gesture, the gesture that Lexy had no doubt thought at one time to be so sensitive and loving, had come back to haunt you in a big way.”

“All right,” said Sir James. “I’d assigned her lifetime rights while we were married, and they weren’t part of the divorce settlement. So what? What does this have to do with poor Lexy being murdered? What proof do you have? You couldn’t possibly—”

“Now, it’s proof you want?” St. Just turned and pulled from his briefcase an evidence bag. Holding it aloft, they could see it contained a puddled mass of plastic. “Your doll, I believe, Sir?” He held up a second evidence bag. “And a wig for your doll. Partial to blondes, are we?” He nodded in India’s direction. “But let us not forget: Lexy was a blonde—famous, in fact, for her hair. The Lexy Cut, they call it. All the rage among the ladies. Do you know, Sir James, it did occur to me that you and your wife might be in on this together—that it was India in a wig that everyone saw talking with you in the Garden, providing you an alibi. But India was seen in the SCR right after dinner, so that wasn’t possible.”

St. Just shook the bag in Sir James’ direction. “We found these items—as you very well know, Sir James—in the river, inside a rubbish bag, the whole wrapped tightly with tape, and weighed down with a large stone. Funny kind of thing to find in the river, don’t you think?”

“Leftovers from an undergraduate prank, that’s all. What rubbish you are talking.”

“A first-year caper, you say? High-spirited youngsters larking about, you think?”

“Quite obviously. I’m surprised I have to point this out to the police.”

“We’re always grateful for input from the public; you’ve no idea. So, you’re saying that when the lab tests the prints that are all over the plastic here—”

“There can’t be pr—” Sir James began, then bit off the end of the sentence. But not quickly enough. St. Just let the silence hang in the air for several long moments.

“What’s that you say, Sir James? There can’t be prints—because the killer wore gloves? And just how would you know that, Sir? Still, no matter. The saliva found in and around the valve, used, of course, by the killer to inflate the doll—well, that’s as good as it gets. As good as prints, maybe better, I’m told. Ah! I see, Sir, you hadn’t thought of that.”

And from the look of him, he hadn’t. Sir James glanced around at the others, stricken, as the meaning of St. Just’s words spread through the SCR like the sound of a muffled underground detonation.

“Well, I never,” spluttered Mrs. Dunning. Her husband shushed her with a quick gesture. The Master, the Bursar, and the Reverend Otis, who had remained huddled together throughout these revelations, continued to look on silently, their mouths forming three perfect circles of astonishment.

“So,” continued St. Just, “let us reconstruct what really happened that night, shall we? And perhaps you’ll put me right if you think I’ve strayed too far off course, Sir?

“Now, many people told me they saw you talking with Lexy after dinner the night of the murder, or they saw Lexy talking with you, or some version of either. They reported seeing, in other words, a conversation, a communication, between two people, one of them standing, the other—Lexy—sitting on a bench in the Fellows’ Garden. These witnesses reported what must be true, what they had seen to be true, but in fact they saw only the back of a blonde woman’s head—a rather famously blonde head. A woman whose hairstyle was so well-known, so much a part of her ‘signature’ look, it has been universally copied. Whose hairstyle has been made into wigs sold throughout the country, in fact—a fact of which our killer took full advantage. Nothing easier than to find a Lexy wig in shops, is there, Sir? I do hope you got a receipt? Never mind, you can be sure we’ll find the shop.”

Sir James, a look of distain stamped on his features, looked stonily ahead. His wife India, St. Just noticed, was not standing quite as close to her husband as she had been moments earlier.

“And to make things even easier for you,” St. Just continued, “this woman—like all the men and women at dinner—was wearing a black academic gown. The alumni group was like an unkindness of ravens, or a murder of crows, wasn’t it? All of them covered in black. There was no way you could anticipate what dress Lexy might wear to dinner, Sir James, but there was of course no need. She’d be wearing an academic gown over her dress, concealing its color and style. From the back, as I say, all that could be seen was the back of a blonde woman’s head, and the top of a black gown covering her shoulders. She could have been anyone, really—or, more to the point: anything.”

“But I distinctly saw Lexy move,” interjected Hermione. “She was trembling—maybe shivering or crying. Upset.”

“Yes, I remember you told me and I later wondered how that could be true, but it was in the end so easy to explain. What simpler than for Sir James to give his “dummy” a little nudge or two with his foot? It wouldn’t take much to create the illusion of movement—trembling, as you described it.”

Hermione seemed to think back over what she had seen, and slowly nodded. Reluctantly, she stole a look at Sir James. Incredible. And him a blueblood. Aloud she said, “I did tell you. Sir James’ family have been allowed to breed too closely, and for generations.”

St. Just acknowledged what she had said with a nod. The scheme was madness itself, the scheme of a desperate madman. But it could so nearly have worked.

“Our alumni witnesses heard no conversation,” he went on, turning again to Sir James, “because of the glassed-in arches of the gallery, but they saw your lips move. You then told them you’d been talking with Lexy. They believed they saw Lexy in conversation because that is what it looked like, and that is what they’d been told by the estimable Sir James. That you were talking to a plastic doll—a man of your stature and dignity—would never in a million years have occurred to any of them.

“The college chef, in an unexpected bonus for you, actually overheard you talking. She also saw you walk away and leave ‘Lexy.’ Did you smell the chef’s cigarette smoke—is that what told you you were being watched? In any event, you left ‘Lexy’ and came back to clear away the traces once the chef had gone back inside.

“As to the real Lexy—she was already dead. You’d killed her right after dinner. You’d arranged to meet her by the boathouse on some pretext or other—I imagine the boathouse held some romantic attachment from your old rowing days—and then you killed her and left her body there to be found by Sebastian. Then you raced back to the Fellows’ Garden, where you planted her lipstick to bolster the impression she had sat there. You’d earlier, before dinner, hidden the dummy under the stone bench—if by remote chance it had been found, you could indeed have claimed an undergraduate prank. You’d dressed it in a wig and gown. The gown was simple: You borrowed it, one of dozens, from a peg in the entrance hall. As I say, you killed Lexy, then ran back to position yourself to await the trickle of people leaving the Hall. You had to make sure you were seen ‘talking’ with Lexy. Next, you waited until the last straggler had passed through the gallery walkway, and the chef had left. You let the air out of the dummy, stuffed it and the wig inside your shirt—your voluminous gown aided in all this concealment—and raced to join the others, putting the borrowed gown back on its peg as you ran.”

“How long do I have to stand here and listen to these ridiculous police fantasies?”

“Not much longer, Sir James, do you have to stand there and listen to the truth. Just a little while longer, now. Next, you stood about sipping your port and your coffee—waiting. You wanted the body found quickly, not the next morning, and so you timed things for young Sebastian to find it. Your alibi, if you will pardon the pun, had to be ‘water tight.’ You knew Seb’s routine and were relying on him not to deviate too far from it, to return on the dot.

“When Seb obligingly raised the alarm, you—leaping into your role of concerned step-parent—ran out to the river. As a still-fit member of the Hare and Hounds Club—the University running club—the distances you had to cover that night, back and forth, would present no problem whatsoever. At the river, you deep-sixed the doll and wig using a bag and tape you’d secreted near the boathouse earlier. You did this just in case having the police on the premises made it impossible for you to hide this evidence inside the college, or in the remote case the police immediately ordered a search of anyone’s person. There would be no explaining that dummy and wig, would there? From this point we can pick up the story again from eyewitness accounts. You were racing back to the SCR for ‘help’ when you encountered the others on their way. They hadn’t stayed to wait for you as commanded, but no matter. You ordered someone to get help; Augie Cramb punched in 999 on the mobile.

“All done. I wondered why the body of Lexy hadn’t been tossed into the river—it seemed the best way for a killer to try to destroy whatever evidence there might be. But of course, the last place you wanted to direct our attention was the river, wasn’t it, Sir?”

But Sir James, who suddenly looked as deflated as “Lexy,” seemed to have chosen an enraged silence as the best course. St. Just let him tread water, hopefully to drown, while he himself pondered his next move.

“She’d recognized you for the freeloader you were,” St. Just said. “When you asked her to revert back the rights to your book—you did ask, didn’t you, Sir?—she finally had the gumption to say no, those rights were hers. So—and I’m guessing, here—you let the conversation drop, pretended it was a thing of no matter, perhaps casually asked her if she were going to be attending this weekend get-together. One way or the other, you lured her here. And she couldn’t resist maybe a final little revenge—the chance to appear with her handsome, famous boyfriend on her arm. To prove how much she didn’t care. You probably knew she couldn’t resist—you knew her ramshackle personality so well. You lured her, as I say—to her death. This was carefully researched, planned, and premeditated, this crime. And so I shall tell the court.”

St. Just sighed then, a vexed exhalation.

“Everyone thought of Lexy as a victim,” he said, “but when you examine what we were told about her, there was a side to her character that doesn’t go with true victimhood. We were told she was relentless, even ruthless, in her pursuit of James when they first met—although that ruthlessness may have backfired, as it so often does, given the brevity of the marriage that followed, and James’ early revolt. We were also told by more than one of you that Lexy brought Mr. Valentiano along this weekend only for show—to show James she no longer cared.”

“For show?” asked Geraldo, offended. Clearly, using people, women in particular, was his prerogative. He was not used to the shoe being on the other foot.