Miss Chilperic rose up, trembling.
“I think, Miss Hillyard,” she said, “you must be beside yourself. I do not mind what you say about me, but I cannot sit here while you insult Jacob Peppercorn.” She stumbled a little over the syllables of this unfortunate name, and Miss Hillyard laughed unkindly. “Mr. Peppercorn is a very fine scholar,” pursued Miss Chilperic, with rising anger as of an exasperated lamb, “and I insist that-”
“I’m glad to hear you say so,” said Miss Hillyard. “If I were you, I should make do with him.”
“I don’t know what you mean,” cried Miss Chilperic.
“Perhaps Miss Vane could tell you,” retorted Miss Hillyard, and walked away without another word.
“Good gracious!” cried Miss Chilperic, turning to Harriet, “Whatever is she talking about?”
“I haven’t the least idea,” said Harriet.
“I don’t know, but I can guess,” said Miss Edwards. “If people will bring dynamite into a powder factory, they must expect explosions.” While Harriet was rooting about in the back of her mind for some association that these words called up, Miss Edwards went on:
“If somebody doesn’t get to the bottom of these disturbances within the next few days, there’ll be murder done. If we’re like this now, what’s going to happen to us at the end of term? You ought to have had the police in from the start, and if I’d been here, I’d have said so. I’d like to deal with a good, stupid sergeant of police for a change.”
Then she, too, got up and stalked away, leaving the rest of the dons to stare at one another.
19
O well-knit Samson! strong-jointed Samson! I do excel thee in my rapier, as much as thou didst excel me in carrying gates. I am in love, too.
– WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE
Harriet had been only too right about Wilfrid. She had spent portions of four days in altering and humanizing Wilfrid, and today, after a distressful morning with him, had reached the dismal conclusion that she would have to rewrite the whole thing from the beginning. Wilfrid’s tormented humanity stood out now against the competent vacuity of the other characters like a wound. Moreover, with the reduction of Wilfrid’s motives to what was psychologically credible, a large lump of the plot had fallen out, leaving a gap through which one could catch glimpses of new and exciting jungles of intrigue. She stood aimlessly staring into the window of the antique shop. Wilfrid was becoming like one of those coveted ivory chessmen. You probed into his interior and discovered an intricate and delicate carved sphere of sensibilities, and, as you turned it in your fingers, you found another inside that, and within that, another again.
Behind the table where the chessmen stood was a Jacobean dresser in black oak, and, as she stood at gaze, a set of features limned themselves pallidly against the dark background, like Pepper’s ghost.
“What is it?” asked Peter over her shoulder; “Toby jugs or pewter pots or the dubious chest with Brummagem handles?”
“The chessmen,” said Harriet. “I have fallen a victim to them. I don’t know why. I have no possible use for them. It’s just one of those bewitchments.”
“ ‘The reason no man knows, let it suffice What we behold is censured by our eyes.’ To be possessed is an admirable reason for possessing.”
“What would they want for them, I wonder?”
“If they’re complete and genuine, anything from forty to eighty pounds.”
“Too much. When did you get back?”
“Just before lunch. I was on my way to see you. Were you going anywhere in particular?”
“No-just wandering. Have you found out anything useful?”
“I have been scouring England for a man called Arthur Robinson. Does the name mean anything to you?”
“Nothing whatever.”
“Nor to me. I approached it with a refreshing absence of prejudice. Have there been any developments in College?”
“Well, yes. Something rather queer happened the other night. Only I don’t quite understand it.”
“Will you come for a run and tell me about it? I’ve got the car, and it’s a fine afternoon.” Harriet looked round, and saw the Daimler parked by the kerb.
“I’d love to.”
“We’ll dawdle along the lanes and have tea somewhere,” he added, conventionally, as he handed her in.
“How original of you, Peter!”
“Isn’t it?” They moved decorously down the crowded High Street. “There’s something hypnotic about the word tea. I am asking you to enjoy the beauties of the English countryside, to tell me your adventures and hear mine, to plan a campaign involving the comfort and reputation of two hundred people, to honour me with your sole presence and bestow upon me the illusion of Paradise-and I speak as though the pre-eminent object of all desire were a pot of boiled water and a plateful of synthetic pastries in Ye Olde Worlde Tudor Tea Shoppe.”
“If we dawdle till after opening-time,” said Harriet, practically, “we can get bread-and-cheese and beer in the village pub.”
“Now you have said something.
The crystal springs, whose taste illuminates
Refined eyes with an eternal sight,
Like tried silver, run through Paradise
To entertain divine Zenocrate.”
Harriet could find no adequate reply to this, but sat watching his hands as they lay lightly on the driving-wheel. The car passed on through Long Marston out to Marston and Elsfield. Presently he turned it into a side-road and thence into a lane and there drew up.
“There comes a moment when one must cease voyaging through strange seas of thought alone. Will you speak first, or shall I?”
“Who is Arthur Robinson?”
“Arthur Robinson is the gentleman who behaved so strangely in the matter of a thesis. He was an M.A. of York University, held various tutorships from time to time in various seats of learning, applied for the Chair of Modern History at York, and there came up against the formidable memory and detective ability of your Miss de Vine, who was then Head of Flamborough College and on the examining body. He was a fair, handsome man, aged about thirty-five at the time, very agreeable and popular, though hampered a little in his social career by having in a weak moment married his landlady’s daughter. After the unfortunate episode of the thesis, he disappeared from academic circles, and was no more heard of. At the time of his disappearance he had one female child of two years of age and another expected. I managed to hunt up a former friend of his, who said that he had heard nothing of Robinson since the disaster, but fancied that he had gone abroad and changed his name. He referred me to a man called Simpson, living in Nottingham. I pursued Simpson, and found that he had, in the most inconvenient way, died last year. I returned to London and dispatched sundry members of Miss Climpson’s Bureau in search of other friends and colleagues of Mr. Arthur Robinson, and also to Somerset House to hunt through the Marriage and Birth Registers. That is all I have to show for two days of intensive activity-except that I honourably delivered your manuscript to your secretary.”
“Thank you very much. Arthur Robinson. Do you think he can possibly have anything to do with it?”
“Well, it’s rather a far cry. But it’s a fact that until Miss de Vine came here there were no disturbances, and the only thing she has ever mentioned that might suggest a personal enmity is the story of Arthur Robinson. It seemed just worth while following up.”