Even Anne was nervous that weekend.
‘Harry?’
‘Doctor Bradley.’
‘I have an American guest dining with me in my rooms tonight. His name is Harvey Metcalfe. When he arrives will you see he is brought over to my rooms, please.’
‘Certainly, sir.’
‘And one small thing. He seems to have mistaken me for Professor Porter of Trinity College. Don’t correct the mistake, will you? Just humor him.’
‘Certainly, sir.’
Harry retreated into the Porter’s Lodge shaking his head sadly. Of course, all academics went dotty in the end, but Dr Bradley had been afflicted at an unusually tender age.
Harvey arrived at eight. He was always on time in England. The head porter guided him through the cloisters and up the old stone staircase to Stephen’s rooms.
‘Mr Metcalfe, sir.’
‘How are you, Professor?’
‘I’m well, Mr Metcalfe. Good of you to be so punctual.’
‘Punctuality is the politeness of princes.’
‘I think you’ll find it is the politeness of kings, and, in this particular instance, of Louis XVIII.’ For a moment Stephen forgot that Harvey wasn’t a pupil.
‘I’m sure you’re right, Professor.’
Stephen mixed him a large whiskey. His guest’s eyes took in the room and settled on the desk.
‘Gee — what a wonderful set of photographs. You with the late President Kennedy, another with the Queen and even the Pope.’
That touch was due to Jean-Pierre, who had put Stephen in contact with a photographer who had been in jail with his artist friend David Stein. Stephen was already looking forward to burning the photographs and pretending they had never existed.
‘Let me give you another to add to your collection.’
Harvey pulled out of his inside coat pocket a large photograph of himself receiving the trophy for the King George VI and Queen Elizabeth Stakes from the Queen.
‘I’ll sign it for you, if you like.’
Without waiting for a reply, he scribbled an exuberant signature diagonally across the Queen.
‘Thank you,’ said Stephen. ‘I can assure you I will treasure it with the same affection as I do my other photographs. I certainly appreciate you sparing the time to visit me here, Mr Metcalfe.’
‘It’s an honor for me to come to Oxford, and this is such a lovely old college.’
Stephen really believed he meant it, and he suppressed the inclination to tell Harvey the story of the late Lord Nuffield’s dinner at Magdalen. For all Nuffield’s munificence to the university, the two were never on entirely easy terms. When a manservant assisted the guest’s departure after a college feast, Nuffield took the proffered hat ungraciously. ‘Is this mine?’ he said, disdainfully. ‘I wouldn’t know, my lord,’ was the rejoinder, ‘but it’s the one you came with.’
Harvey was gazing a little blankly at the books on Stephen’s shelves. The disparity between their subject matter, pure mathematics, and the putative Professor Porter’s discipline, biochemistry, happily failed to arrest him.
‘Do brief me on tomorrow.’
‘Surely,’ said Stephen. Why not? He had briefed everyone else. ‘Let me first call for dinner and I’ll go through what I’ve planned for you and see if it meets with your approval.’
‘I’m game for anything. I feel ten years younger since this trip to Europe — it must’ve been the operation — and I’m thrilled about being here at Oxford University.’
Stephen wondered if he really could stand seven hours of Harvey Metcalfe, but for another $250,000 and his reputation with the rest of the Team...
The college servants brought in shrimp cocktail.
‘My favorite,’ said Harvey. ‘How did you know?’
Stephen would have liked to say, ‘There’s very little I don’t know about you,’ but he satisfied himself with, ‘A fortunate guess. Now, if we meet up at 10 tomorrow morning we can take part in what is thought to be the most interesting day in the university calendar. It’s called Encaenia.’
‘What’s that?’
‘Well, once a year at the end of Trinity Term, which is the equivalent of the summer term in an American university, we celebrate the ending of the university year. There are several ceremonies followed by a magnificent Garden Party, which will be attended by the Chancellor and Vice-Chancellor of the University. The Chancellor is the former British Prime Minister, Harold Macmillan, and the Vice-Chancellor is Mr Habakkuk. I’m hoping it will be possible for you to meet them both, and we should manage to cover everything in time for you to be back in London by 7 pm.’
‘How did you know I had to be back by 7?’
‘You warned me at Ascot.’ Stephen could lie very quickly now. He was afraid that if they did not get their million soon he would end up a hardened criminal.
Harvey enjoyed his meal, which Stephen had planned almost too cleverly, each course featuring one of Harvey’s favorite dishes. After Harvey had drunk a good deal of after-dinner brandy (price £7.25 per bottle, thought Stephen) they strolled through the quiet Magdalen Cloisters past the Song School. The sound of the choristers rehearsing a Gabrieli mass hung gently in the air.
‘Gee, I’m surprised you allow record players on that loud,’ said Harvey.
Stephen escorted his guest to the Randolph Hotel, pointing out the iron cross set in Broad Street outside Balliol College, said to mark the spot on which Archbishop Cranmer was burned at the stake for heresy in 1556. Harvey forebore to say that he had never even heard of the reverend gentleman.
Stephen and Harvey parted on the steps of the Randolph.
‘See you in the morning, Professor. Thanks for a great evening.’
‘My pleasure. I’ll pick you up at 10 am Sleep well — you have a full day ahead of you tomorrow.’
Stephen returned to Magdalen and immediately called Robin.
‘All’s well, but I nearly went too far. The meal was altogether too carefully chosen — I even had his favorite brandy. Still, it’ll keep me on my toes tomorrow. We must remember to avoid overkill. See you then, Robin.’
Stephen reported the same message to Jean-Pierre and James before falling gratefully into bed. The same time tomorrow he would be a wiser man, but would he be a richer one?
16
At 5 am the sun rose over the Cherwell, and those few Oxonians who were about that early would have been left in no doubt as to why the connoisseurs consider Magdalen to be the most beautiful college at either Oxford or Cambridge. Nestling on the banks of the river, its perpendicular architecture is easy on the eye. King Edward VII, Prince Henry, Cardinal Wolsey, Edward Gibbon and Oscar Wilde had all passed through its portals. But the only thing that was passing through Stephen’s mind as he lay awake that morning was the education of Harvey Metcalfe.
He could hear his own heartbeat, and for the first time he knew what Robin and Jean-Pierre had been through. It seemed a lifetime since their first meeting only three months before. He smiled to himself at the thought of how close they had all become in their common aim of defeating Harvey Metcalfe. Although Stephen, like James, was beginning to have a sneaking admiration for the man, he was now even more convinced that Metcalfe could be outmaneuvered when he was not on home ground. For over two hours Stephen lay motionless in bed, deep in thought, going over his plan again and again. When the sun had climbed over the tallest tree, he rose, showered, shaved and dressed slowly and deliberately, his mind still on the day ahead.
He made his face up carefully to age himself by fifteen years. It took him a considerable time, and he wondered whether women had to struggle as long in front of the mirror to achieve the opposite effect. He donned his gown, a magnificent scarlet, proclaiming him a Doctor of Philosophy of the University of Oxford. It amused him that Oxford had to be different. Every other university abbreviated this universal award for research work to Ph.D. In Oxford, it was D.Phil. He studied himself in the mirror.