It was Sir Cathcart’s birthday and as usual there was a party at Coft Castle. On the gravel forecourt the sleek cars bunched in the moonlight like so many large seals huddled on the foreshore. Inside the animal analogy continued. In the interests of several Royal guests and uninhibited debauchery, masks were worn if little else. Sir Cathcart typically adopted the disguise of a horse, its muzzle suitably foreshortened to facilitate conversation and his penchant for fellatio. Her Royal Highness the Princess Penelope sought anonymity as a capon and deceived no one. A judge from the Appellate Division was a macaw. There was a bear, two gnus, and a panda wearing a condom. The Loverley sisters sported dildos with stripes and claimed they were zebras and Lord Forsyth, overzealous as a labrador, urinated against a standard lamp in the library and had to be resuscitated by Mrs Hinkle, who was one of the judges at Crufts. Even the detectives mingling with the crowd were dressed as pumas. Only the Dean and the Senior Tutor came as humans, and they were not invited.
“Cathcart’s the only man I know who could do it,” the Dean had said suddenly during dinner in the empty Hall.
“Do what?” asked the Senior Tutor.
“See the PM,” said the Dean. “Get him to rescind the Master’s nomination.”
The Senior Tutor lacerated a shinbone judiciously and wiped his fingers. “On what grounds?”
“General maladministration,” said the Dean.
“Difficult to prove,” said the Senior Tutor.
The Dean helped himself to devilled kidneys and Arthur replenished his wine glass. “Let us review the facts. Since his arrival the College has seen the deaths of one undergraduate, a bedder, the total destruction of a building classified as a national monument, charges of peculation and a scandal involving the admission of unqualified candidates, the sacking of Skullion and now, to cap it all, the assumption of dictatorial powers by the Master.”
“But surely -”
“Bear with me,” said the Dean. “Now you and I may know that the Master is not wholly responsible, but the general public thinks otherwise. Have you seen today’s Telegraph?”
“No,” said the Senior Tutor, “but I think I know what you mean. The Times has three columns of letters, all of them supporting Skullion’s statement on the box.”
“Exactly,” said the Dean. “The Telegraph also has a leading article calling for a stand against student indiscipline and a return to the values Skullion so eloquently advocated. Whatever the merits of the Carrington Programme, it has certainly provoked a public reaction against the dismissal of Skullion. Porterhouse may have been blackguarded but it is Sir Godber who takes the blame.”
“As Master, you mean?”
“Precisely,” continued the Dean. “He may claim -”
“As Master he must accept full responsibility,” said the Senior Tutor.
“Still, I don’t see that the Prime Minister would willingly dismiss him. It would reflect poorly on his own judgement in the first place.”
“The Government’s position is not a particularly healthy one just at the moment,” said the Dean. “It only needs a nudge…”
“A nudge? From whom?”
The Dean smiled and signalled to Arthur to make himself scarce. “From me,” he said when the waiter had shuffled off into the darkness of the lower hall.
“You?” said the Senior Tutor. “How?”
“Have you ever heard of Skullion’s Scholars?” the Dean asked. His bloated face glowed in the light of the candles.
“That old story,” said the Senior Tutor. “An old chestnut surely?”
The Dean shook his head. “I have the names and the dates and the sums involved,” he said. “I have the names of the graduates who wrote the papers. I have even some examples of their work.” He put the tips of his fingers together and nodded. The Senior Tutor stared at him.
“No,” he muttered.
“Yes,” the Dean assured him.
“But how?”
The Dean withdrew a little. “Let’s just say that I have,” he said. “There was a time when I disapproved of the practice. I was young in those days and full of foolishness but I changed my mind. Fortunately I did not destroy the evidence. You see now what I mean by a nudge?”
The Senior Tutor gulped some wine in his amazement. “Not the PM?” he muttered.
“Not,” admitted the Dean, “but one or two of his colleagues.” The Senior Tutor tried to think which ministers were Porterhouse men.
“I have some eighty names,” said the Dean, “some eighty eminent names. I think they’re quite sufficient.”
The Senior Tutor mopped his forehead. There was no doubt in his mind about the sufficiency of the Dean’s information. It would bring the Government down. “Could you rely on Skullion to substantiate,” he asked.
The Dean nodded. “I hardly think it will come to that,” he said, “and if it does I am prepared to stand as scapegoat. I am an old man. I no longer care.”
They sat in silence. Two old men together in the isolated candlelight under the dark rafters of the Hall. Arthur, standing obediently by the green baize door, watched them fondly.
“And Sir Cathcart?” asked the Senior Tutor.
“And Sir Cathcart,” agreed the Dean.
They stood up and the Dean said grace, his voice tremulous in the vastness of the silent Hall. They went out into the Combination Room and Arthur shuffled softly up to the High Table and began to collect the dishes.
Half an hour later they drove out of the College car park in the Senior Tutor’s car. Coft Castle was blazing with Edwardian brilliance when they arrived.
“It seems an inopportune moment,” said the Senior Tutor, doubtfully surveying the shoal of cars.
“We must strike while the iron is hot,” said the Dean. Inside they were accosted by a puma.
“Do we look like gatecrashers?” the Dean asked severely. The puma shook its head.
“We have urgent business with General Sir Cathcart D’Eath,” said the Senior Tutor. “Be so good as to inform him that the Dean and Senior Tutor have arrived. We shall wait for him in the library.”
The puma nodded dutifully and they pushed their way through a crush of assorted beasts to the library.
“I must say I find this sort of thing extremely distasteful,” said the Dean. “I am surprised that Cathcart allows such goings on at Coft Castle. One would have thought he had more taste.”
“He always did have something of a reputation,” said the Senior Tutor. “Of course he was before my time but I did hear one or two rather unsavoury stories.”
“Youthful excess is one thing,” said the Dean, “but mutton dressed as lamb is another.”
“They say the leopard doesn’t change its spots,” said the Senior Tutor. He sat down in a club easy while the Dean idly examined a nicely bound copy of Stendhal. It contained, as he had expected from the title, a bottle of liqueur.
Outside the puma stalked Sir Cathcart. He found it extremely difficult. He tried the billiard-room, the smoking-room, the morning-room, and the dining-room without success. In the kitchen he asked the cook if she had seen him.
“I wouldn’t know him if I had,” the cook said primly. “All I know is that he’s gone as a horse.”
The detective went back into the menagerie and asked several guests who were wearing horsey masks if they were Sir Cathcart. They weren’t. He helped himself to champagne and tried again. Finally he ran Sir Cathcart to ground in the conservatory with a well-known jockey. The detective surveyed the scene with disgust.
“Two gentlemen to see you in the library,” he said. Sir Cathcart got to his feet.
“What do you mean?” he said indistinctly. “What are they doing there? I said nobody was to go in the library.” He staggered off down the passage and into the library where the Dean had just discovered a copy of A Man and A Maid inside an early edition of Great Expectations.