"What was all that about paying a cock?" said Butler.
"Ah—that was another bit from the Phaeda, the last words of Socrates as he was being executed. You see, Aesculapius was the god of healing, and people who were sick used to sacrifice a cock to him before they went to sleep in the hope of waking up in good health again—or sometimes simply as a thank-offering for having recovered. As Socrates was dying he asked his friend Crito to make such an offering."
"As he was dying? Wasn't that a bit late?"
Audley smiled sadly, as though Socrates had been a friend of his too. "It was a sort of a joke—a typical Socratic joke. It's rather complicated, but he thought the soul mattered more than the body, so maybe he meant that by killing his body they were curing his soul."
Butler frowned. "Hmm! And that means maybe Zoshchenko rode into the lake deliberately after all!"
Audley pursed his lips thoughtfully, then shook his head.
"You'll have to sort that one out. But I wouldn't get in the habit of calling him Zoshchenko. As far as we're concerned he lived Smith and he died Smith. That's one wish of his we can grant."
He paused, rubbing his chin. "We want to know how he died, Butler. But even more we want to find out what brought him to the boil."
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"And what he was doing here in the first place," said Butler harshly. He held out the photocopied letter.
And come to that, he thought, it would be interesting to know just what Audley had been doing too these last few months. But he'd have to fish for that.
"Let me get things straight," he began innocently. "Hobson first spoke to Freisler some time ago. And did Freisler get in touch with you then?"
"Yes, as a matter of fact he did," Audley replied a shade guardedly, as though he wasn't quite sure that Butler had the right to ask the question, never mind be granted an answer.
"So what was this nightmare of his? Reds in the University?"
Audley blinked unhappily at him. "Not so much that, no."
"What then?" Pinning Audley down gave Butler a perverse but undeniable pleasure.
"He rather thinks they're framing his lads."
Butler allowed his jaw to drop. "You're joking!"
Audley regarded him malevolently.
"You're not trying to tell me that the KGB has come down to organising student protest?" Butler gave a scornful half-laugh.
"I'm not trying to tell you anything, Colonel. I'm telling you what the Master of King's thinks. Which is something you will have to check for yourself in due course, so I shouldn't laugh too much. He may not be quite the man he once was, but he's still a crafty old bastard, I can tell you."
He eyed Butler coldly. "And just in case you feel disposed to forget that, Butler, you may care to remember instead when you meet him that he commanded the column that drove Panzer Lehr's Tigers out of Tilly-le-Bocage in Normandy on D plus six."
Butler kicked himself for letting Audley ambush him just as he seemed to be on top. He should have known that the man would defend the academics; that deep down inside he identified with them, especially with the Hobson-types who had proved themselves in the jungle beyond their ivory towers.
"He pretends to be a simple old man, with an old man's fancies," Audley went on. "But he isn't simple."
"Yet he has nightmares."
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Audley puffed his cheeks. "The trouble with the Master is that he's always been a violent anti-Communist, so much so that he was tarred with the appeasement brush as a young don back in '38. Last summer wasn't the first time he'd seemed to cry 'Wolf! Wolf!'. He's been spotting subversive influences for years."
"Then what was different about last summer?"
"Ah, well, we had—something else to go on at the time, so it seemed. But I'd rather not go into that just now." Audley smiled apologetically. "The fact was, they'd been having a fair bit of trouble at the universities as well, and the Master's not without influence. It all added up."
"To what?"
Audley laughed. "Why, to my going back to university to see if there really were any wolf-prints round the fold."
"And were there ?"
The laugh faded quickly. "You decide that for yourself in due course, Butler."
Butler stared at the big man speculatively. There were quite a number of things he hadn't passed on. Or maybe couldn't pass them on because he didn't know them. But asking wouldn't make him change his mind. In any case, however fanciful Sir Geoffrey Hobson's nightmares might be, Eden Hall had been no fancy.
"Very well. But I can't see how I can achieve anything that you can't do better. You're already accepted in the academic world."
"That's just it: I am accepted. And believe me that's worth a great deal. My position is just too valuable to compromise just yet."
He bobbed up and down as though agreeing unexpectedly with himself. "Didn't Fred and Stocker warn you that we have to go very carefully?"
"They did—yes," growled Butler. "Stocker mentioned Dutschke. And there seems to be a petition of some sort floating around."
"Ha! You can say that again!" murmured Audley. "I've signed it myself. And I'm a member of the Cumbrian branch of the Council for Academic Freedom and Democracy too— a perfectly worthy institution. But unfortunately, there are a hell of a lot of clever friends of mine who can't distinguish between wolves and sheepdogs when they set about protecting their flocks—and there are some who dummy2.htm
think there isn't any difference anyway. They shoot on sight, and some of 'em are pretty good marksmen, I warn you, Butler."
He gazed at Butler quizzically. "Did Stocker ask you what you thought about the younger generation ?"
"Yes."
Audley sniffed. "Load of nonsense! He talks about the younger generation as though it was a political party with lifelong membership. And I think he's frightened of it."
"Whereas you aren't?" murmured Butler. There might be something in what Audley said, but it went against the grain to agree with him when he was laying down the law like this.
"They're too inexperienced to be dangerous at the moment. And by the time they've picked up the know-how, then life has moved them on, poor devils. As a rule they're no match for the terrible old men on the other side."
"You're sympathetic to them, then?"
"Sympathetic? My dear Butler—the girls are delicious, with their little tight bottoms, and the boys are splendid when they're arrogant—and when they've washed their hair. But when they forget they're individuals and try to be the Youth of Today I find them extraordinarily tedious and self-defeating."
"I was under the impression that they were giving the university authorities a run for their money."
"Oh—quite often they do. That is, when the authorities make mistakes. And it's just like our business, my dear fellow: only the mistakes get the headlines. That's part of the reason why Stocker and Fred are sweating—what happens in the universities is news. The other part is that there's still a lot of influence in the universities as well as a lot of brains. And they know how to use it too. We're an example of that."
"We are?"
"My dear Butler, we're here because the Master of King's knows which string to pull. Take my advice and forget about the younger generation. Think about the older one instead: think about the Master of King's."
He gave a little admiring grunt. "The Hobsons have been a power in Oxford for a century—you can see them planted in rows in St Cross churchyard. It'll be like a family reunion when the last trump sounds there. And our Sir Geoffrey's the second Hobson to be Master of King's. They say the first one had a niece who was Beerbohm's model for Zuleika. They also say old Hobson was the model for the Warden of Judas. There's also a story that Old Hob once made a guest at High Table take the college snuff, and when the poor chap fell dead of apoplexy (King's snuff being fearful stuff) all the old villain said was 'At dummy2.htm