Grantchester Grind (19 page)

‘Well, Skullion–Master, that is–I have to hand it to you, you have been doing a splendid
job,’ said the Dean. ‘You had me very worried when I first came in. But I think you’ve
probably done enough. We are going to want that vile man’s evidence and it won’t look good
if he goes into court gibbering. Let him be for the time being, Master. You’ve done
everything–that is needed.’

‘Just so long as he don’t call me Quasimodo or hunchback again, sir,’ said Skullion.
‘You’d better warn him. And I don’t want him praying to me neither. I’m not some blooming
idol. And he calls himself a Christian too. Bloody Yank.’

‘Leave it to me, Master,’ said the Dean and went back into the bedroom.

‘I have come to warn you,’ he told Kudzuvine. ‘I have come to warn you that I have
persuaded the Master not to pursue the course he had in mind for you. On these
conditions: you will not speak to him one word and you will on no account refer to him as
Quasimodo or The Hunchback of Notre Dame. And furthermore you will behave politely and
in a civilized fashion. If you fail to meet these conditions, I cannot be responsible
for your safety. Do you understand?’

‘Yes sir, I sure do, sir. I sure as shit do.’

‘And that is another thing,’ said the Dean. ‘You will moderate your language It is not
customary in Porterhouse to use filthy expressions. Is that clear?’

‘I guess so, sir,’ said Kudzuvine humbly.

‘Don’t guess anything. Know it,’ said the Dean, and stalked out of the room.

That evening Purefoy Osbert dined in Hall for the first time and, because it was his
Induction Dinner, he sat with the Senior Fellows. But first he was introduced to the
Combination Room and to the Special Porterhouse Amontillado Sherry which was supposed
to have been blended at the time of the Peninsular War and which was certainly very old
and unusually strong. It was only drunk on special occasions and seldom more than once
a year. To begin with the Dean was content to stay in the background and merely observe
the Sir Godber Evans Memorial Fellow from a distance while making sure that the waiter
with the decanter saw to it that Purefoy’s glass was never empty.

Even the Senior Tutor, who was still taking very great care of his liver when it came to
fortified wines, had agreed to be genial. ‘We have got to find out what this young man has
come here to do,’ the Dean had told him, resisting the impulse to ask the Senior Tutor why
he had not told the College Council that the anonymous donor had employed Lady Mary’s
solicitors. Some time later would do to score that point.

In fact Purefoy’s reception was far pleasanter than he had anticipated. The
Praelector and the Chaplain, who was in any case naturally amiable, were particularly
friendly. Professor Pawley spoke about the measurement of time from the moment of the
Big Bang and even went so far as to attempt an explanation of the importance of his
discovery of the nebula Pawley One while Dr Buscott, who wanted to recruit Dr Osbert to
his progressive camp, was complimentary about The Long Drop, parts of which he had taken
the precaution of reading in the University Library. By the time they trooped into
dinner Purefoy had unwittingly drunk four glasses of the Special Amontillado and was
beginning to think that his first impressions of Porterhouse had been rather too harsh.
Only then did the Dean move forward.

‘My dear fellow, you must allow me to introduce myself,’ he said with a show of
bonhomie. ‘I am the Dean. You must come and sit beside me. I am so anxious to hear about
your work. Your reputation is not an inconsiderable one and we are, I must confess, a
rather ignorant bunch of old Fellows and don’t keep up with what you young people are
doing in your specialized areas of research.’

Through the excellent meat soup, the poached salmon, the deliciously underdone roast
beef, the crème caramel, the Stilton and the fruit but, most importantly, through the
Montrachet and the Fonbadet a small but perfect little vineyard, as the Dean was at pains
to point out–the Margaux and the Château d’Yquem, Purefoy Osbert gained confidence. He was
ready to talk about anything, including his belief that Dr Crippen had been wholly
innocent of the crime for which he was hanged. There had been a hiatus in the
conversation at that point but a kick from the Dean under the table had silenced the
Senior Tutor, who had gone very red in the face and who was on the point of saying he’d
never heard such damned tommyrot in his life. The situation was saved by the Chaplain who
said he had never been able to think of domestic murder as a capital crime because, as in
the case of Mrs Crippen, a great many women were such dreadful nagging scolds that they
deserved what was coming to them. Again the Dean had intervened.

‘You must excuse the Chaplain,’ he said. ‘He has always been something of a ladies’
man.’ The remark left Purefoy so baffled by its implications that he did not know how to
reply. By that time the talk had passed on to a discussion of the varying merits of
Château Lafite, which the Dean maintained had a delightfully feminine quality about it,
and Château Latour, which the Senior Tutor preferred as being more masculine. In other
circumstances Purefoy would have found these preferences deeply suspicious. But now he
was happy to have another chunk of Stilton. All his prejudices about Porterhouse had been
dissipated by the combination of sherry and the various excellent wines and the
conviviality with which he was surrounded. ‘I’m really enjoying myself,’ he
confessed to the Dean, who said he was delighted to hear it.

‘It is always refreshing to welcome a new face to High Table,’ he said, after the
Chaplain had mumbled Grace and they were going through to the Combination Room for
coffee and port or brandy, whichever one preferred. The Senior Tutor stuck to coffee but
Purefoy, who had never in his life drunk so much and who was decidedly tiddly, made the
mistake of taking both port and cognac, much to the Senior Tutor’s horror and the Dean’s
delight. He was achieving what he had set out to do. His only worry was that Purefoy
Osbert would pass out before he could discover what the Sir Godber Evans Memorial
Fellowship really entailed. And when Purefoy accepted a second cognac, the Dean
intervened. ‘My dear Dr Osbert,’ he said, ‘let me advise against it. Port is all very well
on its own and in moderation but, as it is already fortified with spirit, to add cognac
to it is to risk a very unpleasant Morning After The Night Before. Don’t you agree,
Senior Tutor?’

‘I do indeed,’ said the Senior Tutor. ‘The other night in Corpus…But I’d rather not
speak about it.’

But Purefoy had seized on the word. ‘Talking about corpses,’ he said, ‘you know what I’m
supposed to be researching here?’

‘No,’ said the Dean with a geniality he did not in the least feel. ‘I have been
wondering what your particular interest in the College is. Do tell us.’

‘You’ll never guess.’

The Dean smiled and preferred not to. ‘I don’t suppose we will.’

Purefoy Osbert swallowed the rest of his port and held out his glass for more. ‘I’m here
to find out for Her Ladyship which of you Fellows murdered her husband. He was Master of
Porterhouse you know.’

In the silence that followed this appalling revelation the Dean had the presence of
mind to say that he had heard Sir Godber mentioned as the Master but that in his opinion
the real power lay with Lady Mary. ‘I suppose you might say we had a Mistress of
Porterhouse rather than a Master and, had I intended to murder anybody, I think I’d have
chosen her rather than him. A very ineffectual man, hardly worth murdering.’

A nervous titter ran round the little group. Purefoy concentrated on this argument.
It seemed logical to him but there was a flaw in it somewhere. It took him some time to spot
it…’

”S right,’ he said with a terrible slur. ‘But you kill him and she hasn’t got any power,
has she?’

‘There is that,’ said the Dean. ‘I can’t fault your reasoning. And on which of us Fellows
do your suspicions lie most heavily?’

‘Don’t have any suspicions,’ Purefoy managed to say with some difficulty. ‘All good
fellows as far as I can see,’

‘Which by the look of things cannot be very far,’ said the Praelector, and got up to
leave. ‘I must say this is the first time in a very long life that I have been a murder
suspect. It’s a novel sensation.’

But the Senior Tutor wasn’t taking the accusation so casually. ‘By Heavens, I’ve
never heard anything so monstrous. Appointing a Fellow to prove that one of us murdered
her bloody husband. I’m going to consult my lawyer in the morning. The woman is going to
pay for this,’ he said, and stormed out of the room after the Praelector.

Purefoy Osbert sat on with the Dean and the Chaplain, who had fallen asleep in his chair
and was dreaming of the girls in Boots.

‘Drink up, my dear chap,’ said the Dean and passed the port. ‘And, Simpson, I think Dr
Osbert might like another cup of coffee.’ The waiter poured coffee. And I don’t think you
need wait up any longer.’

He waited until Simpson had gone before continuing with his questions. Purefoy
Osbert was exceedingly drunk now. ‘And what makes Her Ladyship think Sir Godber was
murdered?’ he asked. ‘I always understood him to have over-indulged his taste for Scotch,
and then fallen and cracked his skull on the grate. That is certainly what the coroner’s
jury decided.’

‘Know they did,’ said Purefoy. ‘Know they did. I read the transcript she had made. Know
all about it.’

The Dean made a note of this. The damned woman had really gone to some pains. And now she
was prepared to spend six million pounds. It was all most interesting. Purefoy’s next
remark was even more revealing. ‘Seen the post-mortem report too,’ he said.

‘Have you indeed? And does that support Her Ladyship’s thesis?’

‘She says he never got drunk.’

‘Yes,’ said the Dean encouragingly. And?’

‘The autopsy report says he wasn’t drunk either.’

‘But the autopsy report that I remember definitely stated that he had drunk a large
quantity of whisky,’ said the Dean.

‘But it hadn’t made him drunk before his head was hit,’ said Purefoy.

‘Really? How do we know that?’

‘You don’t, but I do,’ Purefoy said. ‘Because it wasn’t in his bleeding blood.’

‘Bleeding blood? I don’t quite follow.’

‘The blood he bled. It was in his stomach when he died but it hadn’t got into his
bloodstream so he couldn’t have been drunk, could he?’

The Dean said nothing. For the first time he felt a sense of unease about Dr Purefoy
Osbert. The man might be very, very drunk, but the clarity of his reasoning told the Dean
he was not dealing with a fool. Lady Mary had chosen her champion very shrewdly. ‘And do
you think Sir Godber was murdered?’ he asked.

‘Me? I don’t know. I only go on facts and I don’t have enough of them to know or even think
but…’ Purefoy Osbert paused. He was staring straight ahead of him as though the Dean was not
there but his mind was still working with surprising swiftness and concentration.

‘Yes?’ prompted the Dean.

‘Motive,’ said Purefoy. ‘Supposing he was murdered, _cherchez_ the motive. The Dean
had one and the Senior Tutor. They were going to be sacked. She said so. Yes, they had
motives. But they also had alibis. They’d gone to this General’s party and could prove
it. Very convenient, that.’

The Dean sat motionless and listened. It was like hearing a man whose mind was
sleep-talking. What he was saying had a frightening logic to it.

‘And someone else had a motive. The Porter, Skullion. He had been sacked. He wanted
revenge. He wanted his job back and he’d get it if Sir Godber died. The Dean and Tutor
would see to that. They’d owe him. So where was he that night? There’s a question needs an
answer.’

It was very still in the Combination Room. Only the Chaplain’s heavy breathing seemed
to stir the air. A clock ticked loudly. The Dean’s unease had turned to fear. The reasoning
was impeccable. He and the Senior Tutor had had no invitations to Sir Cathcart’s
party. They had gone there to force the General to use his influence to rid the College
of Sir Godber and, while they were gone, the Master had been mortally wounded.
Accidentally, of course. Of course he hadn’t been murdered but listening to this drunk
young man thinking aloud was eerie and a little frightening. It was as if Dr Osbert were
the prosecuting counsel in a trial, slowly but insistently building up his case. On
the Bull Tower the clock struck midnight. And still Purefoy followed his line of thought
aloud. ‘But why didn’t the Porter Skullion get his old job back?’ he asked.

The Dean didn’t reply. He wanted to hear Dr Osbert’s answer.

‘Because the Dean and Senior Tutor said the dying Master had named Skullion as his
successor. But why should Sir Godber do that when he hated him? That doesn’t make
sense.’

It hadn’t made sense to the Dean at the time but he had a terrible idea what was coming
next. He was wrong.

‘So what does make sense? They only said the dying man named him. No one else was there to
prove he really had. Yes, that’s more like it. They made the Porter Master to reward him
for doing the killing or because they had to keep him quiet. Or both. That does make sense.
Much more.’ Purefoy paused.

Beside him the Dean was driven to intervene The charge was too monstrous to be
ignored. ‘But Skullion had a Porterhouse Blue, a stroke,’ he said. ‘He was
incapacitated.’

Still staring into space Purefoy Osbert waited for an explanation to come to mind.
‘Ever hear of a man who’s incapac…incapacitated by a stroke going to prison?’ he asked
and answered the question himself. ‘I haven’t. A man in a wheelchair who couldn’t even
speak, in prison? It doesn’t happen. And yet they make the Porter Skullion who’s had a stroke
and is in a wheelchair the Master? Of Porterhouse, the snobbiest college in Cambridge?
There has to be a reason.’

But the reason never came. Without any warning Purefoy Osbert slowly tilted forward
out of his chair and fell flat on his face. For a moment the Dean sat looking down at the
sprawled figure. There was no contempt on his face now, only a look of fear and something
like admiration. His hatred was reserved for Lady Mary.

The Dean got up and went out into the Court and crossed the lawn to the Porter’s Lodge.
‘Walter,’ he told the Head Porter. ‘I think the new Fellow needs assisting to his rooms.
And wake the Chaplain while you are about it.’

‘Can’t hold his liquor, sir?’

‘You could put it like that, Walter,’ the Dean said, but he said it without conviction.
Drunk, the Sir Godber Evans Memorial Fellow was capable of frightening deductions.
Sober, he might be lethal. Lethal and absolutely wrong. The Dean climbed wearily up the
stone staircase to his rooms thinking, as he so often thought, how dangerous pure
intellect alone could be. In Cambridge pure intellect was power and like power it
tended to corrupt. Something would have to be done about Dr Purefoy Osbert.