Not a Penny More, Not a Penny Less (11 page)

Stephen had never said anything quite so
outrageous before in his life, but then he had never been under the same
pressure. For the first time he began to feel what it might be like for
ungifted students who were not good at examinations and were unsure of the
right
answers.
He knew that if he was to catch up with
Harvey Metcalfe he must think and react as he would have done. Stephen was
aware that he had a lot to learn, but he had always been a willing scholar.

Stephen’s answer motivated the girl into
action and she produced a file within a few minutes. It was by no means as racy
as the New York
Times,
but it did put
figures on the amount Harvey Metcalfe had donated to charity and gave exact details
of his gifts to the Democratic Party. Most people do not divulge the exact
amount they give to political parties, but Harvey only knew about lights–no one
seemed to have told him about bushels.

Stephen returned the file to the stern young
librarian. She softened a little and recommended that he should visit the
library at University College. The taxi dropped him in Gower Street at the
entrance of the imposing neoclassical facade of University College London.

Stephen hurried through the entrance hall to
the library, eyes averted from the macabre box in which are seated the mortal
remains of the illustrious founder of the college, Jeremy Bentham, who left a
vast legacy to the college on condition that they put his body in the
cloisters. The head has since had to be removed and placed in a separate box,
in order that students find it possible to work after a heavy breakfast.

The college library, which is on the first
floor under the glass dome, has an extensive reference section on other
universities and academic institutions. Stephen made for the Harvard Register
and the American Universities and Colleges Year Book, and scoured the indices
for Harvey’s name. More details of the Metcalfe munificence were listed, and
daughter Rosalie’s success at Vassar was chronicled. Stephen learnt that she
had been the winner of the Vassar May Queen Competition in 1970. He wondered if
Harvey had paid for that as well.

Having a little time to spare before
catching his train, he amused himself by looking up Bradley, S. C, in the
index. According to the register, Bradley, S. C., was on the road to success.
His election to a chair of mathematics at the tender age of twenty-eight was
gushingly reported. How Stephen wished he could see the next number of the
journal to find out whether he ever took the post up.

Stephen took a taxi to the Cunard offices in
St. James’s
Square
and from there went on to Claridge’s
in Brook Street and spent a few minutes with the manager. A telephone call to
Monte Carlo completed his research on Harvey Metcalfe. He returned to Oxford on
the five-fifteen.

Stephen went immediately to his college
rooms. He felt he knew as much about Harvey Metcalfe as anyone other than
perhaps Arlene and Detective Inspector Smith of the Fraud Squad. Once again he
stayed up into the night completing his dossier, which now numbered over forty
typewritten pages.

Stephen had taken a typewriting course as a
personal blow for Women’s Lib when he was at Harvard. He had a theory that all
boys should be taught to type at school. Once in business life, they would then
be able to type their own letters instead of mumbling haltingly at a secretary
or pouring out verbose torrents into a dictating machine. That way, Stephen
felt, the average length of the business letter would decrease to a more proper
size and a vast army of typists and stenographers who might, who knows, have
useful brains tucked away somewhere, would be released for more creative
employment.

When the dossier was completed he went to
bed and fell into a deep sleep. He rose again early in the morning, walked
across the cloisters to a Common Room breakfast and helped himself to eggs and
bacon, coffee and toast. Then he took his dossier to the bursar’s office, where
he made four copies of every document, ending up with five dossiers in all–one
master of the originals and four copies. He strolled across Magdalen Bridge,
admiring, as he always did, the trim flower beds of the University Botanic
Gardens beneath him on his right, and called into Maxwells Bookshop, just on
the other side of the bridge.

He returned to his rooms with five smart
files of different colours. He then made up the five dossiers in the separate
files and placed them in a drawer of his desk which he kept locked. He had a
tidy and methodical mind, as a mathematician must: a mind the like of which
Harvey Metcalfe had never yet come up against.

Stephen then referred to the notes he had
written after his meeting with Detective Inspector Smith and rang Directory
Enquiries, asking for the London addresses and telephone numbers of Dr. Adrian
Tryner, Jean Pierre Lamanns and Lord Brigsley. Directory Enquiries would not
give him more than two numbers at any one time. Stephen wondered
how,
or indeed if, the GPO made any money at all. In the
States the Bell Telephone Company would happily have given him a dozen
telephone numbers and still ended with the invariable “You’re welcome.”

The two he managed to wheedle out of his
reluctant informant were Dr. Adrian Tryner at 122 Harley Street, London, W.1,
and Jean Pierre Lamanns at the Lamanns Gallery, 17 New Bond Street, W.1.
Stephen then dialled Directory Enquiries a second time and requested the number
and address of Lord Brigsley.

“No one under Brigsley in Central London,”
said the operator. “Maybe he’s ex-Directory. That is, if he really is a lord,”
she sniffed.

Stephen left his study for the Senior Common
Room, where he thumbed through the latest copy of Who’s Who and found the noble
lord:

BRIGSLEY, Viscount; James Clarence Spencer;
b 11 Oct. 1942; Farmer; s and heir of 5th Earl of Louth cr 1764
qv.,
Educ: Harrow; Christ Church, Oxford (B.A.); President
of Oxford University Dramatic Society; Lt. Grenadier Guards 1966-68;
Recreations: Polo (not water), Shooting; Address: Tathwell Hall, Nr. Louth,
Lines. Clubs: Garrick,
The
Guards.

Stephen then strolled over to Christ Church
and asked the secretary in the treasurer’s office if she had a London address
for James Brigsley, matriculated 1963, in the records. It was duly supplied as
119 King’s Road, London,
S.W
. 3.

Stephen was beginning to warm to the
challenge of Harvey Met-calfe. He left Christ Church by Peckwater and the
Canterbury Gate out into the High back to Magdalen, hands in pockets, composing
a brief letter in his mind. Oxford’s nocturnal slogan writers had been at work
on a college wall again, he saw. “Deanz meanz feinz,” said one neatly painted
graffito. Stephen, the reluctant Junior Dean of Magdalen, responsible for
undergraduate discipline, smiled. When back at his desk he wrote down what had
been in his mind.

Magdalen College,

Oxford.

April 15th

Dear Dr. Tryner,

I am holding a small dinner party in my
rooms next Thursday evening for a few carefully selected people.

I would be very pleased if you could spare
the time to join me, and I think you would find it worth your while to come.

Yours sincerely,

Stephen Bradley.

Black Tie.
7:30 to 8 p.m.

Stephen changed the sheet of letter paper in
his typewriter and addressed similar letters to Jean Pierre Lamanns and Lord
Brigsley. Then he thought for a little and picked up the internal telephone.

“Harry?” he said to the head porter, “if
anyone rings the lodge to ask if the college has a member called Stephen
Bradley, I want you to say, ‘Yes, sir, a new Mathematics Fellow akeady famous
for his dinner parties.’ Got that?”

“Yes, sir,” said the head porter, Harry
Woodley. He had never understood Americans and Dr. Bradley was no exception.

All three men did ring and enquire as
Stephen had anticipated they would. He himself would have done the same. Harry
remembered his message and repeated it, although the callers seemed a little
baffled.

“No more than me, or is it I,” muttered the
head porter.

Stephen received acceptances from all three.
James Brigsley’s arrived last on the Monday. The crest on his letter paper
announced a promising motto: Ex nihilo omnia.

The butler to the Senior Common Room and the
college chef were consulted, and a meal to loosen the tongues of the most
taciturn was planned:

Coquilles Saint-JacquesPouilly-Fuisse
1969Carree d’agneau en crouteFeux St. Jean 1970Casserole d’artichauds et
champignonsPommes de terre boulangereGriestorte with raspberriesBarsac Ch. d’Yquem
1927Camembert frappe CafePort Taylor 1947Everything was now planned; all
Stephen could do was wait for the appointed hour.

On the stroke of 7:30 P.M. on Thursday Jean
Pierre arrived. Stephen admired the elegant dinner jacket and floppy bow tie
that his guest wore, and fingered his own little clipon, surprised that Jean
Pierre Lamanns, with such apparent savoir faire, could also have fallen victim
to Discovery Oil. Stephen plunged into a monologue on the significance of the
isosceles triangle in modern art. Not a subject he would normally have chosen
to speak without a break for five minutes on, but he was saved from the
inevitability of questions from Jean Pierre by the arrival of Dr. Adrian
Tryner. He had lost a few pounds in the past days, but Stephen could see why
his practice in Harley Street would be a success. He was, in the words of H. H.
Munro, a man whose looks made it possible for women to forgive any other little
inadequacies. Adrian studied his shambling host and asked himself if he dared
to enquire immediately if they had ever met before. No, he would leave it a
little and perhaps some clue would materialise during the course of dinner.

Stephen introduced him to Jean Pierre and
they chatted while the host checked the dinner table. Once again the door
opened and with a little more respect than previously displayed the porter
announced: “Lord Brigsley.”

Stephen greeted him, suddenly unsure whether
he should bow or shake hands. Although James did not know anyone present (a
very strange gathering, he thought) he showed no signs of discomfort and
entered easily into the conversation. Even Stephen was struck by James’s
relaxed line of small talk, but he couldn’t help recalling his academic results
at Christ Church and he wondered whether the noble lord would be an asset to
his plans.

The meal worked the magic that had been
intended. No guest could possibly have asked his host why the dinner party was
taking place at all while such delicately garlicky lamb, such tender almond
pastry, were to hand.

Finally, when the servants had cleared the
table and the port was on its way round for a second time, Adrian could stand
it no longer:

“If it’s not a rude
question, Dr. Bradley.”

“Do call me Stephen.”

“Stephen, what in hell’s name is the purpose
of this select gathering?” Six eyes bore into him asking the same question.

Stephen rose and surveyed his guests. He
started by recalling the entire happenings of the past few weeks. He told them
of his meeting with David Kesler, his investment in Discovery Oil and the visit
of the Fraud Squad. He ended his carefully prepared speech with the words, “Gentlemen,
the truth
is
that the four of us are all in the same
bloody mess.”

Jean Pierre reacted before Stephen could
finish what he was saying.

“Count me out. I would not be involved in
anything quite
so
stupid as that. I am a humble art
dealer not a speculator.”

Adrian Tryner joined in even before Stephen
was given the chance to reply.

“Never heard anything so
preposterous.
You must
have got the wrong man. I am a Harley Street doctor–I know nothing about oil.”

Stephen could see why the Fraud Squad had
had trouble with those two and why they had been so thankful for his
co-operation. They all looked at Lord Brigsley, who raised his eyes and said
very quietly:

“Absolutely right to the detail, Mr.
Bradley, and I am in more of a pickle than you. I borrowed a hundred and fifty
thousand pounds to buy the shares against the security of my small farm in
Hampshire and I don’t think it will be long before the bank insist that I sell
it, and when they do and my dear old Pa, the fifth Earl, finds out, it’s
curtains for me or I become the sixth Earl overnight.”

“Thank you,” said Stephen. As he sat down,
he turned to Adrian and raised his eyebrows interrogatively.

“What the hell,” said Adrian, “you are quite
right about my
involvement.
I met David Kesler as a
patient and in a rash moment invested a hundred thousand pounds in Discovery
Oil as a loan against my securities. God only knows what made me do it. As the
shares are only worth fifty cents now, no one will buy them, and I have a
shortfall at my bank which they are beginning to fuss about. I also have a
large mortgage on my country home in Berkshire and a heavy rent on my Harley
Street consulting room, a wife with expensive tastes and two boys at the best
private prep school in England. I have hardly slept a wink since Detective
Inspector Smith visited me two weeks ago.” He looked up. His face had drained
of colour and the assured suavity of Harley Street had gone. Slowly, they
turned and looked at Jean Pierre.