The hubbub surrounding his caller had grown so loud that it threatened to drown Casden’s voice completely.
“I must go now,” he said firmly.
The Saint sighed.
“Don’t talk to any strange Santas,” he advised, but the line was dead before he finished speaking.
Simon returned to the adjusting of his tie and thought through what Casden had told him. What interested him most of all was not what had been said but what had not been said. Casden had been unresponsive when asked who else knew what was being planned. If he had thought nobody else was involved he could have said so without giving anything away to those around him. But he had chosen to refuse to talk, which meant that he knew that somebody else knew but didn’t want to reveal who it was. As to whether that person was a suspected murderer or a potential victim he had offered no clue.
The Saint was slipping on his jacket when the telephone buzzed again, but this time it was just to inform him that Chantek had arrived.
He walked down to the lobby, looking in at the private room he had booked an hour before to check that all was as it should be. It was, and so was Chantek. He kissed her lightly on the forehead and smiled at the nervousness in her eyes.
“Don’t worry, they’re not ogres,” he reassured her as he led the way back up the stairs, adding mischievously: “Well, not all of them.”
She pouted.
“It’s all right for you. I have to return to St. Enoch’s in January. You don’t.”
“January is another year,” Simon said airily. “Personally I rarely plan beyond tomorrow. Sufficient unto the day, et cetera. And the day has hardly begun.”
They were taking the first sips of their respective aperitifs, hers a vermouth, his a pink gin, when Darslow arrived. He hovered a step inside the room and eyed them uncertainly.
“Dr. Burridge said I was invited.” He made it sound like an apology.
“And so you are, Edwin, old thing,” Simon confirmed with a grin.
He ordered a large measure of malt to top up the professor’s already high spirit level. Judging by his breath and slightly rolling gait, Darslow must have been drinking steadily since he had left Chantek over an hour earlier.
Darslow cupped the tumbler in both hands and gulped at the contents.
“What’s happened?” he asked in an attempt at a conspiratorial whisper that came out loud enough to be heard in the back row of the stalls.
The Saint smiled.
“If you mean has anything new occurred to affect you in connection with this morning’s shenanigans, then the answer is nothing.”
Darslow looked blank.
“Then why do you want me here?”
Simon patted him encouragingly between the shoulder blades as he guided him towards a chair.
“Because I like you, Edwin,” he responded with a bonhomie that made Darslow peer at him in bleary-eyed suspicion. “I want you to tell me all about codicils and torts and Gintrap v. Gintrap 1929, and fascinating things like that.”
He motioned to the waiter at the side table that was serving as a bar to top up his guest’s glass. Darslow drunk, he decided, might be more interesting than Darslow sober. Without the stimulus of alcohol he was likely to repeat his nervous seat perching silences of the previous evening, whereas once sufficiently lubricated there was always the chance that he might inadvertently contribute something of interest to the debate.
Leaving Chantek to keep him company, the Saint turned to greet the arrival of Dr. Burridge and Godfrey Nyall.
“Good of you to come, gentlemen.”
“Kind of you to invite us, Mr. Templar,” the dean rejoined stiffly.
“Most kind,” echoed Nyall.
“And Professor Rosco?” Simon asked.
“I’m afraid we could not locate him,” said Burridge.
“He hasn’t been in the college all morning,” added Nyall. “We left a message in his study in case he returned.”
If the Saint was disappointed at the non-appearance of the man he most wanted to meet he did not allow it to show.
“Perhaps he may come along later,” he said, and proceeded to introduce the two men to Chantek, whom Nyall admitted to knowing by sight but whom the dean could not recall at all, and then to administer to their liquid needs.
From that moment until most of the meal was consumed the Saint guided the conversation along paths that had nothing to do with the events that had brought them together. He was the perfect host, seeing to the requirements of his guests, listening and chatting and allowing them their silences. Once or twice he caught Chantek’s eye and smiled at her puzzled expression. She had expected some sort of interrogation, not a convivial get-together. But the Saint knew exactly what he was doing.
They talked about student grants, speculated on the likely repercussions of government cuts in the education budget, recalled places they had visited and people they had met, and gradually the atmosphere thawed until by the time the plates were pushed towards the centre of the table the gathering almost resembled that of old friends.
The process was helped by the standard of the cuisine, which was better than the Saint had hoped, and the quality of the wines, which were everything he expected. The fact that Darslow swallowed the vintage Lafite as if it were lager and threatened at any moment to slide from view added to rather than subtracted from the relaxed mood around the table.
Finally, when the cheeseboard was in place and the port circulated, he brought the conversation adroitly around to the subjects that most interested him. He had casually enquired about the process of appointing a new Master for the college, and the dean had explained about the make-up of the committee that would make the decision.
“I expect we shall convene in the New Year,” said Bur-ridge. “It would not do to go too long without a Master.”
“But surely it’s merely an honorary post,” said the Saint. “The college can function from day to day whether there is a Master or not.”
Burridge shook his head and smiled thinly as he leant his elbows on the table and placed his fingertips together in a mannerism Simon had noticed him employ several times during the course of the lunch whenever he wished to emphasise a point.
“To be the Master of St. Enoch’s is an honour of course, but though in some colleges the Master might be just a figurehead, this is not the case at St. Enoch’s,” the dean explained. “The tradition here is that the Master has almost total executive control. It comes down to us from the time when the places of learning were controlled by monks who would unquestionably obey their abbot.”
“You mean that once appointed he can do anything he likes?” Simon asked in mild surprise.
Nyall answered: “Almost, yes. But of course there are limits, even if they are broad ones.”
“Supposing a Master wanted to do something which the other fellows objected to,” suggested the Saint. “Could you get it thrown out or would you have to like it or lump it?”
“Usually a compromise is reached,” Burridge said. “If the Master had all the staff against him, the difficulties that would be put in his way would be such that it is doubtful if he could carry on in the face of their opposition.”
“But if some were for and some against, it would be possible, I suppose,” said the Saint.
“I suppose it would,” Burridge agreed. “But the situation is hardly likely to arise.”
Simon studied the dean’s face as he pursued his questioning and was conscious of the man’s strength. Not in the physical sense, though his frame was wiry enough to make him powerful above the average, but rather his force of will. He might speak slowly and pedantically but the words were underscored by an inner strength and always there was the hint of a fire behind the eyes and a tension in the long-fingered hands which belied his outward calm.