After breakfast, Harry Archdale paid his usual visit to the Jericho. He joined the knot of men waiting their turn at the door. Tom Turdman was wheeling his handcart on the path beside the Long Pond. Afterwards, as Harry walked back to his rooms, he met the night-soil man outside New Building. Tom stood to one side with his eyes respectfully on the ground.
He took off his hat as Harry drew level with him. ‘If it please your honour,’ he muttered in his low, thick voice.
Harry stopped.
Tom held out a grubby square of paper. ‘Begging your pardon, sir, you let this fall.’
Harry had never seen the paper before and he had no desire to touch anything that the night-soil man had touched. Nevertheless he took it. He walked on with the note, holding it a few inches away from his body. He did not look at it until he was back in his keeping room.
He dropped the scrap of paper on the hearth and washed his hands. Afterwards, he crouched in front of the fireplace and picked up the tongs and a pipe spill. Using these implements, he unfolded the note. He was not usually so squeamish but there was something about Tom Turdman’s dirty hands that would make a man break the habit of a lifetime.
There was neither salutation nor signature on the paper but he recognized Soresby’s neat and clerkly hand.
If you would be so good, pray meet the bearer at one o’clock at the river end of Mill Lane. He will guide you to me.
Harry was suddenly irritated. Who did that man Soresby think he was? It was one thing for a gentleman to feel pity for an unfortunate wretch, but it was quite another for him to be summoned by a filthy billet to a squalid rendezvous with the wretch’s disgusting uncle. Why, anyone might see them together. It was quite intolerable.
Elinor heard a knock at the door, footsteps in the hall and the murmur of low voices. She laid down her pen and listened. Then Ben came up with the news that Mr Holdsworth was downstairs and sent up his name, but he did not wish to intrude, merely to ask how the Master did.
‘Ask him to step up,’ Elinor said.
The servant left the room. She pushed her letter to Lady Anne under the blotter, darted across the room and examined herself in the mirror over the mantel. Her own dark-browed face stared back at her, stern and dreary. The gown she wore was a sober grey, fit for the wife of a man in the anteroom of death. She straightened her cap and pushed a lock of hair underneath it. It made no improvement. She still looked a fright.
Ben announced Mr Holdsworth. The notion of him she had in her head did not quite correspond with reality, which was unsettling.
‘How is Dr Carbury?’ he asked immediately. His time at the mill had left a healthy glow on his face.
‘A little better, thank you, sir. You will forgive me if I do not disturb him. He is sleeping now. But I know he would take it as a favour if you would call on him when he is awake. I have told him that you and Mr Frank are back in college.’
‘Would he be well enough to receive me?’
‘That I cannot say. If you were to call at about two o’clock, perhaps, you should find him awake.’
‘I am glad to report that Mr Frank continues to improve. I have every hope that familiar scenes and old friends will complete his cure.’
‘I shall be sure to mention that to Dr Carbury – and to Lady Anne.’ She gestured towards her desk. ‘I am writing to her now.’
Suddenly they ran out of things to say. The silence between them lengthened beyond the point where it was comfortable or even polite. She wished he would not look at her with such close attention, particularly when she was not at her best.
‘There is one other thing, madam,’ Holdsworth said at last. ‘A matter I wished to raise with the Master himself, but I wonder whether in the circumstances I should confide in you instead. If you would permit it?’
She inclined her head, indicating her willingness to be confided in, but said nothing. The hairs on the back of her neck rose.
‘The matter is very delicate.’
She drew back in her chair, preparing a suitable snub in case Mr Holdsworth intended an impertinence. Her caution seemed confirmed when he drew his own chair closer to hers and leaned towards her.
‘It has to do with Mr Whichcote,’ he said in a low voice. ‘He is staying in college to avoid the bailiffs and he has certain papers in his possession. There are many people, in Cambridge and elsewhere, who would prefer it if these papers were suppressed. One of them is Mr Frank. And I am persuaded that the destruction of the papers would also be to the benefit of the college.’
‘What are they about?’
‘The Holy Ghost Club, madam. Whichcote hopes to use them to retrieve his fortunes.’
Elinor moistened her lips. ‘Blackmail?’
‘Unless he is stopped.’
‘Are you sure? It’s a grave accusation to lay at a gentleman’s door.’
‘Gentlemen may grow desperate like the rest of us, madam. The papers are in his rooms in New Building. If we can find them and destroy them, then the difficulty is resolved.’
‘You intend to play the housebreaker?’
‘I can see no alternative,’ Holdsworth said. ‘I know where he keeps them. But I cannot break into the room like a burglar. It would be impossible to do so without arousing attention, even when he is absent. Besides, the outer doors of those sets are made of seasoned oak near two inches thick. I would need to take a crowbar to the lock and even that might not be easy. Which is why I had hoped to apply to the Master for help.’
She frowned. ‘Even if he were well, how he could help you? He could not be seen to condone a forced entry into a guest’s rooms.’
‘The only way to come and go unobtrusively is with a key. I understand that Mr Whichcote guards his own keys very carefully – when he goes out, he keeps them on his person. But Mulgrave tells me that the college Treasury contains duplicate keys for every lock in the college.’
She stared at him, scarcely believing her ears. ‘You wish to borrow the duplicates for Mr Whichcote’s rooms?’
‘If Dr Carbury had been well enough, I would have laid the difficulty before him and asked for his assistance.’
‘But the very idea of -’
‘I should not ask you if I could see any other way.’
She did not speak. Her mind worked furiously.
Holdsworth leaned further forward, bringing himself even closer to her. ‘Madam, I must move as soon as possible if I am to move at all. Would you be able to act for Dr Carbury? Would you be able to lay your hands on the Treasury keys?’
She studied him, thinking that he was not plain-featured, after all; there was too much force and expression in his face. Part of her relished the temporary power she held over him, the power to make him wait, the power to grant or withhold a favour.
‘What would you do with these papers?’
‘Burn them, madam. They can do no good, only harm.’
She came to her decision. ‘I know where he keeps the keys, sir. If we are to go into the Treasury unobserved, now is as good a time as any to do it. Susan is out on an errand. The nurse is with Dr Carbury, and Ben will not stir unless rung for.’
Elinor stood up, taking care to turn her face from the window in case her expression betrayed even a hint of what she was thinking, and left the room with more speed than dignity.
She visited her husband’s bedchamber, where the patient was still sleeping, lying on his back and snoring, while the nurse knitted by the window. She found the first key in his dressing-table drawer. Afterwards, she went downstairs and fetched the other key from the book room. She almost expected Dr Carbury to suddenly materialize at her shoulder, his face black with anger, and demand what in heaven’s name she thought she was doing.
Holdsworth followed her downstairs and was waiting for her in the hall of the Master’s Lodge. The door to the Treasury was set back in a deep alcove. The walls were particularly thick here; Dr Carbury had told her that they might once have formed part of the monastic church that had once stood on the site. The door was blackened oak, bound with iron. The locks were new, installed last year and as cunningly constructed as the locksmith could make them.