The Weight of the Evidence (14 page)

‘I can’t say I’ve ever seen him eating grass or climbing up the curtains. Miss Godkin, have you?’

‘I have not. Nor did he strike me as a particularly unstable man. But undoubtedly he was an interfering one. When he came to tea it was invariably to tell me how St Cecilia’s ought to be run. I must admit that I resented it. After all, I have been some little time on the job. And I think I have learnt to concentrate on the elements. Many people have remarked that my girls
do
know how to go in and out of a room. And when to look at you and for how long. And
not
to be eternally buying cheap stockings. And to use–’

‘Quite so.’ Once in an afternoon, Appleby felt, was enough for all that. ‘You would naturally resent Pluckrose’s interference. But may I ask if it was at all based on knowledge? I mean–’

‘I quite understand what you mean.’ Miss Godkin nodded briskly. ‘And the knowledge was there. What was particularly annoying about Mr Pluckrose was the fact that he had always got the subject up. He would hold out the example of a new women’s college in Oslo – something like that.’

‘It was his way of badgering people all round.’ Pinnegar had turned up again after a sortie in search of further macaroons. ‘He got up your stuff on the quiet and then tried to trap you with it. Disgusting habit. But you couldn’t call it unacademic. Just petty, mannerless, and underbred.’

‘I suppose Sir David heard about the affair of the bust?’

Pinnegar chuckled. ‘My dear man, he was here at the time. And as he went up to take his leave of Mrs Tavender there was the thing staring at him. And I must say the old devil was superb. He looked at it and didn’t move a muscle of his face. Just said goodbye in his benevolent and loathly way and toddled down to his car. Only next day he had Tavender to luncheon and heard just what had happened.’

‘And would you say he would be likely to harbour resentment against Pluckrose on account of the insult?’

Pinnegar grinned. ‘And heave a rock at him? It makes a nice theory for you to work on, I’m sure. But I don’t think much of it. Miss Godkin, do you?’

‘I do not. Sir David’s attitude to the professors is peculiar. He may be said to take a kindly interest in seeing them make fools of themselves. Any imbecility on their part serves to reinforce some theory of his own. I couldn’t tell you quite what the theory is, but I have long been convinced that it is there.’

‘And it doesn’t apply to lecturers.’ Pinnegar was happily finishing his last macaroon. ‘Just to professors.’ He looked round the room. ‘And I should think it calculated to irritate the mildest of them – even Hissey.’

Appleby looked round too. It was the mild and absent Hissey who had been observed in some sort of argument with Pluckrose just before the embarrassing affair of the bust. Perhaps something could be extracted from him. But Appleby scanned the still thronging crowd of Mrs Tavender’s guests in vain. Hissey must have gone. For any enlightenment that he could offer it would be necessary to wait until they met that evening in the hotel. And now dusk was falling; it was time to hunt up Hobhouse again and learn if he had really traced the meteorite.

Mrs Tavender was standing by the door. Appleby went up and shook hands with her. Mrs Tavender said ‘So pleased’ in a voice at once absent and emotional. They were the only words Appleby was ever to hear her speak; decidedly she was not one of the ladies in the case. Involuntarily moving to the urgent rhythm of Mrs Tavender’s beads, he passed through an outer lobby. Mrs Tavender’s husband was standing on the steps; clearly within Mrs Tavender’s orbit one would think of him as that. And yet Tavender was somebody in himself. With a shamble and a giggle and a great rubbing of hands he was coming forward now: in some obscure way a formidable man. Perhaps he had hidden qualities of will or intellect; perhaps he was just uncommonly acute. He stopped before Appleby with an uncertain grin. ‘On the trail?’ he said – and clapped his hands with a disconcerting gesture, rather as if he were summoning invisible afreets or jinns.

‘Off it – hopelessly astray.’ Appleby, mysteriously prompted to this mild exaggeration, shook a rueful head.

Tavender was delighted. His giggle became genuinely friendly; he raised and lowered himself on his toes, like some uncouth crooner before a microphone. ‘Well, well,’ he said. ‘Think of that! But at least you’ve seen our bust?’

‘I’ve seen the bust.’

‘A great shame, don’t you think? A perfectly new bust, too.’

‘New?’

‘New, my dear sir – and exquisitely artistic, if you’ll believe my wife.’ Tavender chuckled – informed, malicious, and joyful. ‘You’ll come to it all – in time.’

Appleby was silent. I ought – he was thinking – to be annoyed. But I believe I am grateful – which is odd. And perhaps it might be possible to requite Tavender in his own quizzical coin. ‘Mr Tavender,’ he asked, ‘would you say there was much bigamy about the university just now?’

For a moment Tavender blankly stared. And then his good humour became positively riotous. ‘Oh, well done, sir!’ he said. ‘Very pretty, indeed! I wouldn’t say that it will take you anywhere – or not positively – but it’s a remarkable feat, all the same.’ He paused, suddenly oddly immobile. ‘Are you a reading man?’ he asked.

Appleby smiled. ‘So-so. When I get the time.’

‘Read
Zuleika Dobson
. Read
Zuleika Dobson
by the incomparable Max!’

Nothing more tiresome, thought Appleby, emerging through the Tavenders’ front gate, than cryptic advice.
Zuleika Dobson
was a masterpiece of fantasy justly endeared to university men. But why should the chronicle of a lovely lady’s catastrophic impact upon Oxford be likely to illuminate this affair of bedaubed busts and pulverizing meteorites? And why –

‘Acritochromacy,’ said a voice almost in Appleby’s ear. He turned round. There was nobody to be seen; nevertheless the voice spoke again. ‘Acroasis,’ it said; ‘acroama, acroatic, acroamatical.’ There was a pause. ‘Acronarcotic,’ said the voice, rising in a sort of triumph; ‘acronyctus, acrophony, acrochordon.’ There was another pause. ‘Acrobat,’ said the voice – rather dejectedly this time. The Tavenders’ gate opened once more and Professor Prisk appeared. ‘Acrid,’ he said. ‘Acrid,’ he repeated in a tone of sudden and disconcerting repugnance. ‘An irregular and recent formation.’ He advanced down the footpath, and Appleby saw that he was alone. More strictly, perhaps, he and his word-hoard had left the party together.

Appleby waited. ‘Good evening,’ he said.

His philological musings thus interrupted, Prisk halted and peered suspiciously down his spade-like nose. Then he spoke with an incisiveness that was somewhat surprising. ‘How do you do. I hope you enjoyed our meeting last night. Though it has been hinted to me that your real business–’

‘Quite true, sir. I’m after Pluckrose’s death all right.’

Prisk fell into step. ‘And may I ask if you have been following a trail to our artistic friend’s?’

‘I don’t think I could say that.’ Appleby hesitated. ‘I have been hearing about the curious affair of Sir David Evans’ bust.’

‘Ah.’ Suddenly Prisk stopped in his tracks. ‘Acrocomic,’ he said triumphantly. ‘You are familiar with the word?’

‘Decidedly not, sir.’

‘No more you should be. It’s never been found.’

‘I see. Well, in that case–’

‘But Cockeram cites it in 1626. You know Cockeram?’

‘I’m afraid I don’t.’

‘
An Interpreter of Hard English Words
. Interesting book. And the word means “possessed of long hair”. What you said about the Vice-Chancellor’s bust put me in mind of it.’ Prisk as he poured out this learned twaddle was striding along – it occurred to Appleby – in an incongruously businesslike way. In marked contrast with the absent-minded Hissey, he seemed to know just where he was going. So perhaps he knew just what he was saying as well…

‘Yahoo,’ said Prisk suddenly.

‘I beg your pardon?’

‘Where do you think Swift got that? Houyhnhnm is obvious – a mere neigh. But why Yahoo?’

Appleby considered. ‘It’s a good word.’

‘Of course it’s a good word. And the point is that I’m put in mind of it by Pluckrose. The man was a Yahoo. Remember to put that in your report.’ And Prisk quickened his pace.

Quite a ferocious person, Appleby reflected. And put most of it into pounding and pummelling and torturing words. Was it conceivable that this curious form of sublimation might on occasion fail and leave Prisk with sufficient free belligerence to liquidate a distasteful colleague? It was a fantastic supposition. But then the meteorite and the bust were fantastic as well. Appleby glanced curiously at the figure hurrying along beside him. ‘You were unable to regard Pluckrose in an amiable light?’

‘Jargon,’ said Prisk.

‘I beg your pardon?’

‘Amiable light is jargon. Don’t talk it. And as for Pluckrose, he was infrahuman.’

‘Isn’t that jargon too?’

‘It may be.’ Prisk laughed robustly. ‘But it’s true.’

‘I see. Of course there was the telephone.’

‘So you’ve heard of that?’ Prisk swung so suddenly round a corner that the two men bumped shoulders. ‘Would you willingly share a toothbrush with a Yahoo? Of course not. Then why should I share a telephone with Pluckrose? I felt strongly about it. You might consider it as a motive for murder.’

‘Everything shall be considered.’ Appleby found that he was almost out of breath. ‘And I may say that odd little troubles do lead to homicide from time to time.’

‘Subhomi-cide. Infrahomi-cide. But why – when one comes to reflect on the thing soberly – should anyone think to murder Pluckrose?’

‘Why indeed?’ Appleby’s tone expressed untroubled agreement. ‘Or why should anyone think to murder you?’

‘But, my dear sir, nobody has thought to murder me.’ Prisk was suddenly speaking as if to an unreasonable child. ‘Even Pluckrose was a much more likely victim than I am. He interfered with people. Whereas I might be described as the most harmless and retiring of men.’ And Prisk laughed his oddly fierce and sinister laugh – a sensualist’s laugh, Appleby found himself remarking. ‘A man too without possessions – barring a modicum of philological knowledge of no market value.’

‘No doubt, sir. But it is interesting that you appear to have considered the matter. The possibility, I mean, of there having been a mistake. A message going astray on that telephone – something of that sort.’ Appleby paused, but Prisk said nothing. ‘Several of your colleagues have been debating it. You may feel it to be rather an uncomfortable theory. But it has this point of comfort. If, in fact, the murder of Pluckrose represented the miscarrying of a plan to murder you, then it isn’t likely to be you who murdered Pluckrose.’

‘Well, well!’ Prisk laughed again. ‘This, no doubt, is what they call deduction. And I certainly agree that Pluckrose’s death can scarcely have been the unforeseen result of my attempting to commit suicide.’

‘Quite so. If the murderer was really after you, then certainly you were not the murderer.’ Appleby paused as if to admire the logical irrefutability of this. ‘But of course there is another side to the thing – and one not quite so comfortable. It has been well expressed by our late host.’

‘Tavender?’ Prisk’s voice had subtly sharpened.

‘Yes – and he seems to me rather an acute person. What he said was this:
Shy
,
shy
again
.’

‘Ah!’ said Prisk. ‘The adage.’

‘Quite so, sir. Or, if you like, the apophthegm. If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again. Supposing Pluckrose to have been the intended victim, one meteorite was enough. But if it was really aimed at you and went astray, then it is conceivable that another may follow. Or that some further attempt on your life may be made. That’s the uncomfortable side to it.’

‘Um,’ said Prisk. They had reached a main street, and he came to a halt by a tram-stop. ‘This is an absurd discussion. I cannot understand why you should have wished to conduct it.’ He looked sharply at Appleby. ‘Such irregular interviews must be quite foreign to correct police procedure. And now, as I have a dinner engagement, I fear you must excuse me.’ And Prisk strode into the middle of the road and jumped with some athletic skill on a moving tram.

It was an exit not unlike that of the indignant Crunkhorn on the previous day. Only Crunkhorn before taking himself off had unburdened himself of quite a lot, whereas Prisk had been pretty close. His extreme distaste for Pluckrose was matter of common knowledge – and it was virtually the only sentiment he had permitted himself, Undoubtedly the interview had been irregular. Was it possible – Appleby asked himself as he too boarded a tram – that it might be not without its sequel in due time?

‘Nesfield Court,’ said Hobhouse triumphantly. ‘The lethal object, Mr Appleby, came from Nesfield Court itself. And that’s where you and I are going now.’

‘By all means. Only I don’t think we ought to come down on His Grace for another meal quite so soon. What about getting something to eat – and investigating that lager – first?’ Appleby glanced at his watch. ‘Then it will be an after-dinner call.’

They went out and ate roast beef and Yorkshire pudding. Or rather – for Hobhouse was a purist in these matters – they ate Yorkshire pudding and gravy first and roast beef afterwards. And Hobhouse told about the tracing of the meteorite. He had begun with museums and learned institutions generally and everywhere drawn a blank. Directors and curators were unanimous; most had never possessed a meteorite worth speaking of, and those who did were in the enjoyment of their property still. Moreover the directors and curators were able to compile a list of private persons whose scientific tastes suggested that they might possibly own such a thing; and here too there was a blank. Whereupon it had occurred to Hobhouse that great houses often run to something like a museum of their own. Nesfield Court had been the first place to try, and Hobhouse had cautiously contacted the Duke’s man of business in the city. And after a good deal of telephoning to and fro among the mysterious powers which shared among them the stewardship of the noble household, there had arrived the message that a meteorite there had been and that the meteorite had disappeared. At this Hobhouse had firmly announced that police officers would present themselves that evening to make further inquiries at Nesfield Court. And at this the Chief Constable, who had not hitherto taken any marked interest in the Pluckrose affair, announced that the proprieties required his presence with the party. But Hobhouse as the result of an exercise of tact of which he now favoured Appleby with the fullest particulars, had persuaded the Chief Constable that it would be enough if he sent his car. As a result of this curious fragment of social logic Appleby and his colleague presently found themselves purring very comfortably out of town. Nesfield Court was some twenty miles away. Once clear of traffic, they would make it in half an hour.