Whichcote flicked his fingers as though brushing the threat away. ‘You allude to my temporary embarrassment, I collect – well, I don’t see what business it is of yours, but you need not trouble yourself for it is only temporary. And I shall not be inconvenienced while I lodge here in college.’
‘No, sir. Not that. I allude to the possibility of a criminal prosecution. This college would be no refuge to you then.’
41
Harry Archdale had intended to spend the hours after dinner at his books, but he had not reckoned on the unexpected reappearance of Frank. The two young men sat together at dinner and celebrated their reunion with a number of toasts. Afterwards, Frank had a fancy to go on the river and revisit old haunts.
They took a punt to Grantchester. It was warm work in the early evening sunshine. When they reached the village they quenched their thirst at the Red Lion for the better part of two hours.
Frank did not talk about his experiences since he had gone away. Harry did not like to pry. Indirectly, however, they arrived at the subject of Mr Whichcote and the Holy Ghost Club and found themselves in perfect agreement that they wanted nothing more to do with either the man or his club.
‘You know this business with Soresby?’ Archdale said as Frank was punting them towards Cambridge. ‘Didn’t you read with him last term?’
‘Yes. Not for long – I found it didn’t answer.’
‘He’s been reading with me this last week or two,’ Harry went on. ‘Devilish clever.’
Frank thrust the pole down. He twisted it and brought it up again. ‘I daresay. Still, he’s a thief.’
‘You don’t think there might be some mistake? Mind you, he ran off yesterday so I doubt there was. He wouldn’t do that if he was innocent, would he?’
Frank said nothing. He concentrated on negotiating a large willow branch that had fallen into the water.
‘And then there’s the letter he left for me in the book. Said he didn’t do it. Perhaps he didn’t.’
Frank squinted down at him. ‘What?’
‘You’re not listening. Perhaps he didn’t steal that Marlowe play after all. So I don’t know what to think.’
‘Do you have to think anything at all?’
‘Yes – he was most obliging to me, you know. In any case, if any a man needs a friend, he does.’
‘A friend?’
Archdale laughed a little awkwardly. ‘Well, perhaps not exactly that. But someone to lend a helping hand. Like you and that man Holdsworth.’
It was the first time Archdale had touched directly on Frank’s madness. Neither of them spoke. The punt glided through the weed-streaked water, startling a pair of ducks.
‘Ask Mulgrave,’ Frank said. ‘That’s what I’d do.’
‘Mulgrave? Why?’
Frank paused, allowing the pole to trail behind them, making a silver streak in the green water. ‘That’s what I do if I want something here. But perhaps Soresby can’t be found. Have you thought of that?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Perhaps he’s drowned himself.’
Soon after this, they reached the landing place and walked in silence back to college. The gyp was in Chapel Court, unloading Frank’s portmanteaus and boxes from the same barrow that had carried Philip Whichcote’s belongings a few hours earlier.
‘Mulgrave, you know Mr Soresby, don’t you?’ Archdale said without any preamble. ‘The sizar?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Have you heard what’s happened to him?’
‘Mr Mepal said something about a missing library book, sir.’
‘That’s it. And have you also heard he’s made off? Stole away in the dead of night?’
‘Yes, sir.’ Mulgrave hoisted a box on to his shoulder and took a step towards the doorway.
‘Any notion where he might be? Are his parents living?’
‘I believe his mother is dead, sir, and his father works as a road-mender somewhere beyond Newcastle. But I doubt if he’d have gone there, sir. There’s bad blood between them.’
‘Anyone else he might have gone to, anyone who might know where he is?’
Mulgrave sucked in his cheeks and shifted his grip on the box. ‘I suppose Mr Soresby’s uncle might have some notion of his whereabouts, sir.’
‘His uncle? Who’s that?’
Mulgrave kept his eyes respectfully on the ground but he moved another step towards the door, staggering slightly under the weight of the box. ‘Why, sir, the night-soil man. Tom Turdman.’
With the exception of Mrs Carbury’s maid, Susan, and the duty porter, none of the servants spent the night in college. The porter guarded the main gate throughout the night. In theory he made regular tours of the college and never went to sleep, but in practice he rarely stirred from his lodge and often slept as soundly as anyone in Jerusalem. There was one other exception – sometimes the night-soil man came early, by special arrangement with Mr Mepal, and the porter would admit him at the main gate.
Since Augustus could not spend the night in college, Whichcote had settled that he would pass his nights at Mrs Phear’s house in Trumpington Street.
‘You might as well go now,’ he’d said when the chapel clock was striking seven. ‘I shall manage very well without you for the rest of the evening – you are all fingers and thumbs. Mind you give Mrs Phear my best compliments and be sure to say that I wish you to make yourself useful while you are there.’
Augustus walked slowly through Chapel Court, his mind groping for a possible future that did not include his being involved with Mr Whichcote’s ruin. The bailiff had advised him to look for another situation. Could he put his trust in Mr Holdsworth? If not, how could he even start? His present position would be no recommendation to a possible employer. He doubted that Mr Whichcote would give him a character. He was without friends, and in a town that was positively crawling with boys looking for employment, most of whom had an uncle here or brother there willing to extend a helping hand.
Lost in his thoughts, he almost collided with two undergraduates who were talking in the arcade by the porter’s lodge. As he cowered back, begging the gentlemen’s pardon, he recognized Frank Oldershaw and Harry Archdale.
‘You, boy,’ Archdale said. ‘Do you know the town well?’
‘Oh yes, sir. I was born here.’ In the cellar of a rat-infested building in a court off Green Street. ‘Every nook and cranny.’
‘Do you know Audrey Passage?’
‘Yes, sir – off King’s Lane.’ Desperation made him cunning. ‘Not easy to find.’
‘Will you take us there?’
‘Yes, your honour. Now, your honour?’
Frank Oldershaw laid a hand on Archdale’s sleeve. ‘This is Whichcote’s footboy. I knew I’d seen his face somewhere.’
Archdale blinked. ‘So it is.’
‘But I’m looking for another situation, sir,’ Augustus put in quickly.
Archdale murmured to Frank, ‘Can’t harm, can it? This is something quite different.’
‘Please, sir,’ Augustus said.
Frank shrugged. ‘I pity anyone in Whichcote’s service.’
‘You’ll come with me, I hope?’ Archdale went on, still addressing Frank. ‘There’s music at the Black Bull on Wednesday and we might step in there afterwards if it took your fancy.’
The three of them left the college and walked down Bird Bolt Lane. Augustus congratulated himself – Audrey Passage lay on the other side of Trumpington Street between King’s Lane and the Black Bull Inn. He would have taken this direction for Mrs Phear’s house in any case, and she was not expecting him to arrive yet. There was a chance of a handsome tip – young gentlemen tended to be open-handed.
He led them into King’s Lane and then turned off to the left. The two gentlemen already had their handkerchiefs up to their noses. They picked their way through narrow lanes, scarcely more than open corridors between buildings, until they came to Audrey Passage. It was a dark and winding alley, a cul-de-sac with a communal cesspool at the far end. The cobbles were greasy and damp, despite the dry weather. The place was haunted by ragged children and scrawny cats.