‘Ask where Tom Turdman lives,’ Archdale ordered Augustus, his voice indistinct because of the handkerchief.
‘The night-soil man, sir?’
Archdale nodded. Augustus seized one of the larger children by his ear, who pointed them to a doorway halfway down the passage. The door stood open. The child said that Tom and his family lived in a room on the top floor, at the back.
‘You won’t want to go up there, sir,’ Augustus said to Archdale. ‘Shall I tell the girl to bring him down for you?’
Archdale nodded and the child sped off. The three visitors waited outside. Augustus shifted restlessly from foot to foot. Undergraduates were not popular in a place like this and nor were strange boys. There was a danger they might be attacked. On the other hand, the young men were strong, especially Mr Oldershaw, and they carried sticks.
The child reappeared and scuttled between their legs into the safety of the alley. A woman followed, negotiating the steep and narrow stairs with caution. The first thing Augustus saw of her was a cherry-red slipper with a pointed toe. Another joined it on the step. Then came the ragged hem of a dark blue dress to which age and use had lent a green patina. At length the whole woman appeared, though she kept well away from the doorway as though fearing the visitors might bring infection into her house.
‘Who are you?’ Archdale said, lowering his handkerchief.
‘Mrs Floyd, your honour.’
‘Who?’
‘My husband’s the night-soil man, sir. John Floyd, sir, they call him Tom Turdman. Nothing wrong, is there?’
Augustus stared at the cherry-red slippers. On the toe of each was a decoration, finely worked in silk, a geometric pattern that reminded him of the carpet in Mr Whichcote’s study at Lambourne House.
‘No, not in the world,’ Archdale said. ‘I understand he has a – a connection with Mr Soresby of Jerusalem.’
Mrs Floyd curtsied, as though honoured that the gentleman should be aware of anything concerning her husband’s family. ‘Yes, sir – Tobias is Floyd’s poor dead sister’s child.’
‘Have you seen Mr Soresby in the last day or so? I am particularly anxious to talk to him.’
The woman stared at the ground. ‘No, sir. He don’t come here. He’s a scholar, you see, up at the college.’
Augustus frowned at the slippers. They reminded him of something else. He was conscious that all around them were ears and eyes, that the building was invisibly alive.
‘Well, look here, my good woman,’ Archdale said. ‘Tell your husband I want to see his nephew, and – and that I wish him nothing but good. And if either of you sees him, let me know directly. A message addressed to me at Jerusalem will reach me – you may leave it with Mr Mepal, the porter. My name’s Archdale.’
The woman curtsied again and the slippers vanished from view for an instant, masked by the hem of the dress. In that instant, Augustus remembered.
Frank turned and began to move away. Archdale glanced after him, shrugged and followed.
‘Sir,’ Augustus said, with a nightmarish sense that he was about to jump off a very high cliff with his eyes closed. ‘Sir, sir.’
The undergraduates turned back. ‘What is it?’ Archdale said.
‘The slippers, your honour, Mrs Tom’s slippers. I swear they’re the same as madam’s.’
‘Eh? What the devil do you mean? Which madam?’
‘Mrs Whichcote, sir.’
On the first evening after his return to Jerusalem, Frank supped in his own rooms. He had only Holdsworth to keep him company. Archdale, whom he invited to join them, cried off, saying he had one of Mr Crowley’s lectures in the morning. They were reading selected passages from Grotius, he explained, and Mr Crowley was not always kind if a man made a blunder while construing. Last week, someone had mistaken merx for meretrix, and half the college were still laughing at him.
‘Why?’ Frank had said. ‘What’s so droll about that? They sound much the same to me.’
‘Merx signifies an item of merchandise,’ Archdale explained. ‘But meretrix is a loose woman.’
Here Archdale blushed. Holdsworth thought of that hot evening when he had seen Mr Archdale vanishing into the darkness of the Leys in pursuit of a whore.
So Frank’s only guest was Holdsworth. Mulgrave served their supper in the keeping room. It was, Frank said drily to Holdsworth, quite like old times at Whitebeach Mill. Their table was by the window and they looked out over the garden, at the oriental plane and the Long Pond.
There was a feverish gaiety about the young man that evening. It reminded Holdsworth of the night when the two of them had sat by the millpond in the darkness and taken more wine than was altogether good for them.
When Mulgrave withdrew, leaving them to their wine and nuts, the atmosphere changed. It was still light outside, but Frank rose to his feet and made a great to-do of lighting a candle.
‘Perhaps it’s as well Harry couldn’t join us,’ he said with his back to Holdsworth.
‘Yes. I have something I wish to say to you alone. This threat of blackmail from Mr Whichcote – do you wish me to try to help you? Or not.’
‘Oh, sir – I will be utterly confounded if you won’t.’ Frank turned his head. The gaiety had drained away from his face, exposing something pinched and desperate underneath. ‘If he talks about the club, it means ruin for me. And my mother -I believe it would kill her. I will do anything you ask, sir, anything – only save me from this devil.’
Holdsworth leaned back in his chair. ‘Mr Oldershaw, I cannot hope to be of service to you unless you tell me everything.’
‘Of course – whatever you like.’
‘Tabitha Skinner.’
There was silence. Frank looked away.
‘When I asked you about her this morning in the coffee house, you said you had not heard of her, and then you were very haughty and we left.’
‘I beg your pardon, sir, I was unmannerly – I acted out of turn, I -’
‘But this afternoon I hinted to Mr Whichcote that he might be in danger of having a criminal charge laid against him. It was a bow at a venture but it struck home. Just as Tabitha Skinner has done with you. Young men drink and gamble and join clubs – that is reprehensible, no doubt, and their mothers will disapprove if they learn the truth. But you fear more than disapproval here, just as Mr Whichcote does. And I am persuaded that the key to this puzzle is Tabitha Skinner.’
Holdsworth waited. Frank came back to the table and poured more wine. He raised his glass and Holdsworth thought for a moment that the foolish boy was about to propose yet another toast. Instead he stared at the candle flame through the wine and said, ‘If I tell you what happened that night, will you promise not to tell a living soul? And also -’ He broke off and swallowed the wine. ‘I – I know I have not acted wisely.’
Holdsworth thought of his own behaviour since Georgie had died. ‘You are not alone in that.’
‘Well, then, sir. When a man is made a full member of the Holy Ghost Club, it is said he becomes an Apostle and an apostolic name is bestowed on him. I was made an Apostle at the meeting in February. And there is a ceremony that is done on these occasions, a part of the proceedings that must not be omitted. We were sworn to secrecy but I shall break my oath.’ He looked into his empty glass, which was still in his hand. ‘The candidate must lie with a girl. There and then.’
‘So Mr Whichcote provides a whore for the purpose?’ Holdsworth said, after the silence had grown too long.
‘Not exactly. The club is named for the Holy Ghost.’ Frank rapped the table with the spoon, as if to put a peculiar emphasis on the words ‘Holy Ghost’. ‘And so…’