Death Before Wicket: Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries 10 (6 page)

Jeoffry Bisset, recovered from his gaffe, was at Phryne’s left hand. ‘Then we have the Quadrivium—Arithmetica, Geographica, Astronomica and Musica—that would make the scholar a master; they are the seven liberal arts. The angel with the scroll says,
Scientia inflat, charitas aedificat
—knowledge puffeth up but charity…er…edifieth. We think they are rather fine.’

‘They are beautiful,’ agreed Phryne, wishing that the server had also followed. There seemed to be nothing for it but to continue the tour, so she admired the grey and white marble floor, the bosses and corbels, and nodded respectfully to William Shakespeare in his window, hoping that he would get along with his companions, John Ford, Francis Beaumont and his colleague Fletcher.

‘What’s the symbol on Grammatica’s book?’ she asked.

‘A roll of papyrus—oh, my hat, I haven’t reported to the Dean yet about the Oxyrrinchus papyrus, I just remembered.’

Phryne wanted something else to talk about.

‘The Oxyrrinchus papyrus?’ she asked sweetly, laying a hand on Bisset’s arm.

‘Yes, you see, there was a huge find in Egypt a few years ago, a stone pit absolutely full of papyri, gigantic job to get it all translated, so they decided to send some to every university which has a Classics department, and you’ll really have to ask John Bretherton about it, he’s done the work. Massive task.’

‘But why are you reporting about it?’

Jeoffry Bisset blushed red. ‘Oh, I’ve been searching my own archives for it. It’s…excuse me.’

‘Professor, are all your Readers so precipitate?’ asked Phryne as Bisset fled through the chattering crowd.

‘Poor Bisset,’ said Kirkpatrick with what could only have been extreme malice. ‘There was a burglary, Miss Fisher, probably a student prank, and several things went missing. One of them was the papyrus. Nothing to do with any of my students, of course. Bisset has no system and his secretary has given up trying to impose one. All of his papers are in a large heap on his floor—I recall Ayers the Archaeologist saying to him, “Young man, you have there a proper midden and one could conceivably date the layers.” No matter, Miss Fisher. There’s the Vice Chancellor. Let me introduce you.’

Phryne allowed herself to be escorted through a fascinating rabble. Delayed by the dignified slowness of academic movement, Phryne had time to listen in to a babble of what sounded like very satirical gossip.

‘They say that he’s to be sold up, positively sold up, poor dear fellow,’ brayed one man above the roar of voices. He leaned forward, allowing Phryne to pass, and said in a confidential undertone, ‘It’s that expensive wife of his, you know. Always bring a chap undone, expensive women. Gimme girls, they call them. Can have a fur coat out of a wooden statue of James Cook faster than you could say “extravagance”.’

‘I always thought s-she was rather nice,’ protested the first speaker.

‘Oh, nice enough, I grant you, but…hello, Kirkpatrick! Who’s the lovely lady?’

‘The Hon. Miss Fisher,’ replied the Professor abruptly. ‘Might I mention’—His tone was reluctant, but social forms constrained him to continue with the ritual; but he was cross, so this was not an introduction and neither could claim any acquaintance with Phryne afterwards—’Assistant Professor of Engineering George Budgen and Doctor Edmund Brazell.’

‘Anthropology,’ explained Dr Brazell. ‘Very interesting s-subject—are you at all drawn to anthropology, Miss Fisher?’

Phryne noted that he did not make the common error and call her Lady Fisher, and that he had very bright eyes and a charming Cambridge stammer. She also noted that Assistant Professor George Budgen was gulping in the sight of her with an expression only previously seen on cod that had just met their maker unexpectedly, but she was tweaked through into another part of the crowd by Professor Kirkpatrick before she could comment further.

There a very thin young man with the burning eyes of the consumptive was discussing the morality of ownership so intensely that he did not even notice the vision of loveliness at his side. She heard him say in a thick Lanarkshire accent, ‘One must consider whether all property is no’ theft,’ when Professor Kirkpatrick nudged a stout academic aside and Phryne was through to the Vice Chancellor, Charles Waterhouse.

A nice man, she immediately thought on meeting his honest brown eyes. He was large, red-faced and balding and his suit was a poem in thin dark wool. Phryne diagnosed a wife with very good taste. The VC was not very bright, perhaps, and probably very conservative, but nice. He shook her hand heartily and bellowed ‘Sykes! The gown!’ and a flustered elderly man struggled to his side with an armload of serge.

‘Have to wear a gown, eh, Miss Fisher!’ puffed Waterhouse. Phryne could detect a quip approaching with elephantine tread and prepared a suitable giggle in advance. ‘Decided by unanimous vote to make you a Master of Arts, though you would always be a Mistress of Arts, and Hearts, too, eh, ha, ha!’

Phryne giggled dutifully, the ring of sycophants around the VC chuckled lightly—clearly this was not even up to the usual Waterhouse standard—and Phryne allowed herself to be draped in a scholar’s gown, her hood a chaste blue. Phryne bowed experimentally and the VC tipped his Tudor bonnet, beaming approval. He liked a young woman with no pretensions to learning who would play along with a little harmless flirtation.

Dashed decorative, too, and apparently of fabulous wealth.

The gown, Phryne considered, was a wonderful garment. It dragged pleasurably from the shoulder, producing the academic stance which kept both hands on the bands. Its billowing folds would disguise the defects produced in the figure by far too many faculty dinners and it flowed gracefully as one moved. Making a mental note to borrow one and show it to her favourite dressmaker, Phryne accepted another glass of sherry and asked, ‘Who is that young man?’

The VC stopped beaming. ‘Professor Anderson. Philosophy. Comes from Glasgow. Heard the accent, eh, Miss Fisher? Uncomfortable sort of chap. Now you’re one of us, Miss Fisher, expect to see you around the old place. What do you think of my Great Hall, hmm?’

‘It’s marvellous,’ said Phryne, without having to exaggerate.

‘More beautiful than the Guildhall, and I shall enjoy dining here a good deal more because it isn’t freezing.’

She had said the right thing. The VC filled with pride as a balloon fills with helium. ‘Students complained about it being too dark to see in here on dull days,’ he said. ‘So I put in electricity, though my committee thought that it might be too harsh for the hall, remove the glamour, y’know, but I’m bucked about it. You can see the angels’ faces now. I like to see their faces.’

Phryne looked up. Geometrica was smiling severely down on the gathering. Phryne took the VC’s arm when he offered it.

‘Come along, m’dear, they’ve all drunk quite enough of my sherry, let’s go and sit down. The University cooks have been slaving all day on this meal—be a pity to keep them waiting.’

Phryne found herself at the head of a procession as the gowned figures fell in behind the VC, two abreast, and paced decorously towards the tables and the dais, passing the illuminated windows and the bosses and corbels. She matched her pace to her escort’s and enjoyed the swing of her gown and the patch-and-glow of the hanging lamps. It was very beautiful, like a medieval dance, and the gowned procession cast shadows of itself as it passed on the grey and white marble of the floor.

‘Now, m’dear, do sit down,’ said Charles Waterhouse frankly, ‘because I can’t until you do and I’m a bit weary.’

Phryne sat as the server shoved her chair forward. The VC and the Senate followed, and the silence was broken by the scraping of chairs and the scurrying of liveried servers who were hauling in tureens of soup and decanting it into the University’s expensive white china.

The Reverend Doctor of Divinity (Dublin) James O’Malley stood and began to intone a grace from a card he held partially concealed in his hand. Phryne, having very little Latin but a lot of French and Italian, grasped that they were thanking the lord for his mercy in providing bounteous meats. The soup smelled delicious. Beef bouillon, if she was any judge. She surveyed the mob in the hall to take her mind off how hungry she was.

There was the ‘uncomfortable chap’, Anderson, still haranguing his neighbour despite the silence required for grace. There was the anthropologist with the beautiful eyes, Dr Edmund Brazell, a picture of piety. She was seated between the VC and a tall man with silvery hair who was listening to the Reverend Doctor with barely concealed loathing. When the Irish voice had intoned the last word he snapped ‘Amen,’ and added, ‘Nice to meet you, Miss Fisher. I’m John Bretherton, Classics.’

‘And you don’t like the way the Reverend Doctor reads Latin.’

‘No. He’s read it often enough, why can’t he recite it? He’s got a card in his sleeve, you can see it. And entire social classes would have been exiled from Rome for massacring the tongue as he does. No one cares about Classics nowadays—I put it down to the war. What was your university, Miss Fisher? I observe you are wearing an Arts hood, but it might be the spare—last week it was Veterinary Science.’

‘Neither. I have no university. I’m here as a guest.’

‘Very kind of you to alleviate the masculinity of this assembly.’ He recovered gracefully. ‘All chaps together can get very crude.’

‘I shall do my best to provide an example of the purity of womanhood,’ said Phryne with a very creditable straight face. John Bretherton looked at her for an astounded moment then gave a short bark of laughter.

‘I’m glad to have made your acquaintance,’ he said, picking up his spoon.

‘“How pleasant it is to stand in the marketplace, taking notes on one’s neighbour’s behaviour,”‘ she quoted, and he put the spoon down again.

‘You knew that he was my favourite Roman, how did you know that?’

‘A satirical cast of expression and a very discerning eye,’ said Phryne. ‘Who but Juvenal would really speak to you? You can do me a service.’

‘My gifts, such as they are, are yours,’ he said, fascinated.

‘Tell me all about your fellows,’ she said, and Professor John Bretherton grinned. ‘And tell me all about the burglary of the Dean’s safe,’ she added, and the grin widened.

‘Such a scandal,’ he began. ‘But, Miss Fisher, do eat your soup and I shall eat mine, and we shall discourse further. Old Charlie’s engrossed in trying to talk to even older Charlie, so we shall not be overheard.’

The VC was indeed bellowing conversation into the wrinkled ears of a gowned man of fabulous antiquity. Phryne was going to hear the whole story of the theft in what amounted to decent privacy.

Four

Game of all games, man Olympian, Roman, serener;
Cricket I sing!

Here is no bloody barbarian dyeing the sward;
No thumbs turned upward or down
.

Only verdure and pipe-clay and silence perfect;
The sacred silence of the game!

Stephen Phillips,
Cricket I Sing

‘A
rts is not a large faculty,’ began John Bretherton. ‘We have one secretary, the Dean Mr Gorman, Professor Kirkpatrick, the Bursar Mr Sykes and us academic rabble. The University doesn’t work like one of those city offices, you know. Anyway, a number of things were put into the Dean’s safe. Because you knew that I liked Juvenal, Miss Fisher, I am not asking you how you came to hear of this, or why you want to know.’ He paused and Phryne nodded. ‘Well, the safe is a huge great Sheffield-steel thing. In it were the Classics examination questions, the faculty books, the Dean’s wife’s gewgaws, some bit of rock belonging to Brazell, an illuminated book, the petty cash, and the Oxyrrinchus papyrus, which is in Greek, unmistakeable and important.’

‘Important to whom?’

‘Why, scholarship, Miss Fisher. Scholarship, to be sure. I can’t see it having a great value except to a collector. Someone’s probably told you that there was a great find of Aegypto-Hellenic papyri, and each university is responsible for translating and publishing their allotment.’

‘And have you translated yours?’

‘Oh, yes, got on to them as soon as they arrived. All the others are in the library, but I was keeping this one by me. That’s why it was in the safe. I feel very badly about that. It was a rather curious manuscript.’

‘Oh? Why?’ Phryne allowed a waiter to remove her soup plate.

‘Er, well.’ Professor Bretherton looked uncomfortable for the first time. ‘It was a curse. The Egyptians were rather inventive when it came to curses. Greek is such a good language to curse in. Anyway, it’s lost, which is a pity. Where was I? Ah, yes. Picture the scene. There we all are, in the faculty office. I was talking to Dora, the typist, a stupid girl who cannot copy what is in front of her, about the number of errors in the very simple prayer she was typing for the Bishop—you’ve heard of the trouble at John’s College? Refused to let the Archbishop in? I was thinking I ought to let it go, and see if the cleric would detect the difference between
Domine te regamus
and
Domine te rogamus
, meaning that he was declaring that God should worship us rather than the other way round, you see…’ He paused in case Phryne was going to laugh, so she smiled obligingly. ‘The Dean was shouting at the Bursar about some irregularity in the book-keeping, the secretary went to open the safe and lo and behold, nothing in it. The cupboard was bare. Nothing at all, upon my word. And my papyrus gone along with my examination papers and all the other things.’