Thursday evening was cool, cooler than the evening before, although still without the sharpness of late autumn, and their legs were not yet so old that walking back from St. Bride’s after high table was a chore rather than a pleasure. To take one’s time, to talk of nothing or everything, to enjoy the sensation of a stomach full of the best the college chef could provide—and a head full of the best the college cellar could come up with to boot—was bliss indeed. Maybe the fresh, clear air would clear their minds too. They needed it. Despite the undisputed means and an abundance of motive, they still couldn’t think of robust framework for the murders, if murders they were. While a case could be made for one of their suspects killing one man or the other, nobody obviously had cause to kill both.
“Have they started running night air races around here? Or is there a reason they’ve got aeroplanes up making reconnaissance?” Jonty swished his silver-topped walking cane—the one he insisted was just for show rather than necessary to movement—at a patch of long grass by the side of the path.
Orlando couldn’t hear anything, but was loath to admit it in case he was accused of going deaf. “I have no idea. Why?”
“Because I can hear something or other going like the clappers, and it has to be either an aircraft or your brain.”
Orlando ignored the jibe. Those came on a regular basis. “I was wondering if, as often before, we’ve got this the wrong way round somehow.”
Jonty nodded, then swished his cane again. “I wouldn’t be at all surprised if it were the case, given that you have a nose for us reading things arsy-versy.”
Orlando who happened to be rubbing the item concerned, moved his hand and smiled gratefully, a smile Jonty wouldn’t be able to see as their torch was pointed towards the pavement to make sure they didn’t fall down a hole. “I’ve nothing concrete to offer in evidence, except for the pricking of my thumbs.”
“We’ve relied on such pricking before and it’s kept us going until we’ve found the truth.” Jonty slipped his cane under one arm and the other into the crook of Orlando’s. Nobody would see in this dark a night and if they did, Orlando would insist Jonty was drunk and needed help to walk straight. “Anything concrete causing that prickling, rather than just a feeling?”
“That suicide letter of Robertson’s, for a start.”
“We’ve discussed that, although I don’t remember much of the text. It was so awful I’m afraid my brain has expunged it.” Jonty sniggered. “Any new light to shed on the matter?”
“It doesn’t sound right. The words and the style.”
“It’s certainly appallingly written. If I ever did such a thing, I’d do it with much more aplomb.” Jonty sniffed. “Maybe I should give the man the benefit of the doubt. It might just have been an initial draft, one that he was intending to spruce up.”
“Does one draft and spruce up suicide letters as though they were a work of prose? Or a sonnet?” Orlando stopped, grabbed his lover’s arm, then drew him into a convenient patch of deep shadow where only a bat could have found its way about, and gave him a smacking kiss.
“Steady on! We’re in public, you know.” Jonty didn’t sound that affronted. “That was very nice, but what exactly did I do to deserve it, apart from being naturally gorgeous?”
“You were a genius but you didn’t know it. So is your sister, but as she isn’t here for me to embrace and I had to kiss somebody, you had to do.” Orlando grinned, then pulled them back into a slightly more well-lit portion of the path.”
“That strikes me as momentous.”
“It is. But maybe I shouldn’t tell you about it until we get home.” Orlando set off again like a pace bowler.
“Oh, come on.” Jonty trotted up to join him. “You know you’ll spill the beans eventually, so it might as well be sooner than later.”
“One day I shall surprise you by acting completely out of character. Maybe it should be today.”
Jonty dropped his voice. “You already have with that kiss in the shadows. Come on, I’ll race you home.” He broke into a jog, picking up speed before slowing down again, looking over his shoulder. “Not playing?”
“My Achilles tendon wouldn’t stand it. But don’t let me stop you. Put the coffee pot on when you get there.” The few minutes breathing and thinking space would help him to get his ideas entirely clear.
By the time Orlando was home, warming his hands by the lounge fire, the sound of voices and clink of china suggested coffee might well be on the way. He busied himself with producing Robertson’s letter so no further time would be lost.
“I see you’ve found the wretched thing,” Jonty remarked, as he came through the door with a laden tray.
“I have.” Orlando waited for the tray to be safely put on the table. “You pointed out that the note read like it was based on a sonnet. What if it was just that and nothing else?”
“Well, I’m blowed!” Jonty looked up from pouring the coffee, sounding mortally offended, although Orlando wasn’t sure if that was because he disagreed with the idea or was cross he hadn’t thought of it first. “I knew it. Mind you, if it is a sonnet, it’s a rotten one. Even Dr. Panesar, when he’s writing one of his awful limericks, produces better stuff than that. And he sets the lines on the page correctly.”
“That’s as may be.” Orlando laid the letter on the table. It didn’t look any better. “Maybe the original was set out differently and Charles just copied the words down for us, without seeing anything significant about the presentation.”
“Let’s try splitting it up so it reads rhythmically.” Jonty copied the words into a more conventional form on another sheet of paper.
If I have caused offence in heaven’s sight,
I all alone carry the weight of it.
Though I have spent my nights in tearful sorrow,
forgive the sorrows I have forced on you.
I might well wish I had not seen such things
as torture sleep and torment waking hours
but these I have, and fear someday to see
once more the slaughter of our bravest lads.
So with these thoughts I fight as though in conflict still,
doomed not to find rest while they endure.
When you said I would find another source of joy,
my broken heart alone drove my response.
That I pushed you I now regret bitterly;
my way ahead is only misery.
“It could well be a bit of iambic pentameter, seen like that,” Jonty said, as he got up and fetched his much-loved and well-thumbed book of sonnets from the bookshelf. “And Ariadne was right, too, when she joked about plagiarism. Compare it to one of your old favourites.”
“I don’t need to.” Orlando smiled. “‘When in disgrace with fortune and men’s eyes . . .’ Is that the one you mean?”
“The very same. Shades of ‘I all alone beweep my outcast state.’ What a cheek!” Jonty tipped his head from side to side, as he reread it. “He’s gone a tad awry in that ‘another source of joy’ line but maybe it was just a draft.”
“So, would you write a suicide letter in a sonnet form?”
“I doubt it. I suspect you’ve hit the nail on the head: it’s nothing more than a poem, from somebody who’s doomed in love, as Mrs. McGinley so aptly put it to you.” Jonty looked at it again. “Which is why it now feels doubly familiar. Older man, younger man, Shakespeare sort of thing.”
“Isn’t that something like what Charles told you?”
“Yes. He used the comparison with Shakespeare and the Earl of Southampton. It’s what made Lavinia think of poetry in the first place.” Jonty looked at the sonnet again. “So Paul writes this for Buxton’s eyes, do you think? If so, it could support either the view that Buxton had no interest in returning Paul’s affections, or that he’d found himself a new love in Llewelyn Davies.”
“If Charles had read similar stuff from his brother’s pen, no wonder he would be concerned about the possibility of it being published. Grist to his mill, all that ‘offence in heaven’s sight’ stuff.” Orlando wrinkled his nose. “But if it’s not really a suicide letter, why was it on the table? Sudden decision by Paul to take his life so he whips out something which could pass for a declaration of intent?”
“I suspect you find that as unlikely as I do.” Jonty sipped his coffee, brows wrinkled in thought. “What if he’d just produced the thing to show Atherton?”
“Why would he do that?”
“Because Atherton wanted to have this whole Oxford business out with him.” Jonty was clearly warming to his theme. “So he produces said sonnet to show that all is finished between him and Buxton—if there ever was anything to finish—and to protest his innocence in the drownings.”
“I’m not sure it would convince anyone. Thwarted love might be seen as a motive to incite those young men to kill themselves.” Orlando knocked back the rest of his coffee; these waters, like those of Sandford pool, were getting too muddied and difficult to make much headway through.
“Grist to Atherton’s mill then, to use your phrase.” Jonty looked at his sonnet version of the text, then back at the original. “Awfully convenient thing, this. If you were so convinced of somebody’s wrongdoing, so convinced you were inclined to kill them, and then they produced this scribble, with its seemingly incriminating bit about ‘pushing,’ you might just think you had proof they were guilty as charged. Then maybe you’d carpe the old diem and murder them there and then. With a nice little piece of evidence to leave to suggest it was suicide.” He stopped, frowned, then broke into a grin. “It would be even better if you’d seen that draft in advance, maybe even taken a copy of it. A planned event rather than a spur-of-the-moment thing.”
“Don’t stop there. It’s getting interesting.”
“I should jolly well hope I’m always interesting. Anyway, remember what we discussed about taking the puzzle and rearranging the pieces? I think it’s just happened again. Maybe we should start off by looking at things back to front. It would make life so much simpler.”
Orlando ignored the ridiculous logic contained in that statement. “Would you like to explain further? Because you’ve lost me.”
“Among the many theories we’ve put together on this case, was one in which Paul lured Atherton to his death, not realising Charles had already arranged for him to be poisoned too. What if the lurer was actually the luree?”
“I don’t think ‘luree’ is a word, nor ‘lurer,’ but go on.”
“What if Atherton lured Robertson? With talk of his wanting to end it all. Once he’d persuaded Paul to help him do the deed, and thereby lulled him into a false sense of security, he could ensure that they were in a locked room where they couldn’t be disturbed, and he could turn the tables.” Jonty laid down his cup. “He might have enlisted Wilshire’s help, before the fact, arranging for him to break in once the deed was done, so he could help make everything look like Paul took his own life.”
“But how does that sit with his supposed conversion and this other stuff about wanting to see Charles, then getting cold feet? Surely that would have made him reluctant to commit murder?”
“His feet got warm again. Or it was simply a smoke screen to deflect attention from his true plans. People—even the most innocent of people, if innocence can have degrees—do have an awful habit of not telling the truth, as well we know.”
“True.”
“And would all people who find religion react in such a sensible way, saying that they can’t accuse without proof? Some of them see their new-found zealousness as an excuse to wield the knife of vengeance.” Jonty shuddered. “We know that Atherton’s thought ran to taking revenge. Maybe he thought he was doing God’s will, bringing the doctor to justice for killing Michael.”
Orlando nodded slowly. Always best to listen to Jonty’s opinions on matters spiritual. “How does this new theory affect our previous one? About Wilshire and his trust fund?”
“It sheds a new light on it, too. The money becomes the reward for helping Atherton get away with murder.”
“Ah, but he didn’t, did he? Get away with it. Or at any rate he didn’t survive to enjoy it.” If Paul Robertson’s death had been the quicksand dragging down the theory of his being the murderer, the same applied when looking at the case this way round.
But Jonty wasn’t to be beaten. “Perhaps they both decided to kill each other, if that isn’t stretching coincidence beyond breaking point. Or—and this horse has much more potential—what if Wilshire saw this as a chance to get his paws on the trust fund quicker? Otherwise Atherton could have clung on for years.”
That horse was a definite runner. “So he planned to take advantage of the situation, knowing he’d be first on the scene?”
“Not necessarily. He might have acted opportunistically, seeing Atherton in a weakened state, with the cyanide to hand and aware that suicide letter of his was in the folder he always carried with him.”
“If we’ve reexamined one letter, we should reexamine the other.” Orlando rummaged among the relevant documents to produce it, but it brought no further illumination.
“I have to say this is a much more polished production, Orlando.” Jonty ran his fingers along the words as though that might reveal hidden depths. “Certainly not a spur-of-the-moment thing. I can imagine Atherton using it as part of his ploy. Showing it to the doctor, all ‘woe is me, I have no future’ to help set up the fatal appointment.”
“Hmm.” Orlando left his chair, poured himself another cup of coffee, and brought back the pot to offer Jonty a refill. “It’s a very neat little theory, so far as Atherton luring his victim goes. It would take away the need to resort to the unpredictable ‘whisky decanter poisoned by Charles at some point’ solution and puts the murderer and victim firmly together at the same time.”
Jonty glanced up from his coffee. “Why do I have this awful feeling that you’re about to puncture my balloon?”
“Because I am. Were this a different case I might be happy to shout hurrah and crack open the champagne. But it isn’t and I won’t, because there’s a stumbling block. A large one, perhaps more difficult to navigate than the quicksand.” Orlando took another fortifying swig of coffee, then put down his cup. “How can a man who has almost no use of his arms or legs force another man to take poison? An able-bodied, healthy man, to boot?”
Jonty, surprisingly, didn’t appear too crestfallen. “I hadn’t forgotten that. Maybe Atherton used his powers of persuasion to get Paul to take his own life. We’ve come across that villainy before.”
“He could.” Orlando nodded. “And we have. But would it not be stretching coincidence beyond breaking to encounter it again?”
“Well . . .” Jonty puckered his brows, tip of his tongue poking out as a clear indication that the Stewart brain was at work. “What if he simply confused Paul somehow, so that he didn’t realise which glass held the poison intended for Atherton’s suicide. Swopped them over, maybe, as you were going to swop your teacup with Mrs. McGinley’s if there was any hint that she’d laced the tea.”
“But how? Given Atherton’s degree of bodily weakness, he wouldn’t have been able to perform any sleight of hand.”
“I had in mind more a kind of verbal prestidigitation.” Jonty seemed to be grabbing at the very straws he’d accused Orlando of clutching. “Which would explain why the cyanide could have been in one glass and not the other, and why the scientists got in such a typically scientific tizzy. Atherton used to do party tricks, didn’t he?”
“He did.” Orlando liked the sheer audacity of the theory, but there was too much to overcome for him to go along with it too easily. “Perhaps we should find out exactly what sort of things he used to do. Whether they involved some kind of mesmerism, perhaps.”
“Exactly.” Jonty nodded, although Orlando wasn’t sure he’d had that idea himself.
“Let’s consider what seems to be impossible, then. Ignoring the modus operandi for a moment, what do you think Atherton had wanted Wilshire to do? I’m guessing that you’d think his role vital to the successful execution of the plan, if you’ll excuse the pun.”
“Absolutely pivotal. Atherton would have had to hold his nerve until he heard Wilshire return to the house. Then I suspect he’d have shouted for help, in anticipation of the door being broken down, as agreed.” Jonty rose from his chair, pacing the room, arms waving, as he reconstructed the scene as it would have been planned. “Atherton would have played the part of a man inconsolable. How he’d never realised that Paul had been contemplating ending it all. How when he’d confronted Paul with his misdemeanours it had tipped him over the edge, leaving Atherton—because of his weakness—unable to prevent the awful occurrence of the doctor’s death at his own hand.”
Orlando nodded. “Then Wilshire is supposed to send Mrs. McGinley off and begin to make the scene more convincing?”
“Precisely. And everybody fusses over this poor man in a wheelchair who’s had to witness such a terrible thing, and whom nobody—except us—would suspect of being behind the crime.”
“And what if the plan had failed?”
“It did fail.” Jonty had finished pacing, ending up at the hearth where he could warm his backside.
“I know, but I’ll come to that in a minute. What if both Atherton and the doctor had survived? How would Atherton explain things away if Paul insisted that his patient had tried to coerce him into taking his life?”
Jonty turned, watched the flames, then began pacing again. “He’d probably have muddied the waters with a ton of counteraccusations. How he’d no intention of taking his life since his conversion, how the doctor had tried to coerce him into committing suicide. Because Robertson believed he was still named in that trust fund,” Jonty said triumphantly. “Most people would look at the case and assume that Paul had to be the aggressor.”
“So what went wrong?”
Jonty shrugged. “It could be any number of things. Wilshire drawing a sudden bow at a venture, for a start. Most likely Paul realises he’s been poisoned and it’s too late to get help, but he manages to take revenge on his own killer. Wilshire could have covered up any signs of a struggle afterwards. Or Atherton hasn’t reckoned for Paul being quite so prepared to help him take his life. Back again to the poison, which might not be noticed, lying in wait in the whisky. And,” he said, drawing a loop with his hands, rather as Orlando had drawn loops on his lover’s skin the evening before, “to bring us full circle, maybe the whisky was already poisoned, so both of them were doomed from the moment the decanter went into the room.”
“Perhaps they were.” And perhaps he and Jonty were doomed never to flesh out their bones of theories with even an ounce of truth.
For once Orlando was first to bed, with his book of logic problems to pore over while Jonty made his ablutions, the man appearing—toothbrush in hand for some reason—at the bedroom door looking tousled and impossibly young for a man in his forties. In the half-light of the reading lamp he could have passed for a dunderhead in his final year.
“That book must be good, seeing as you never seem to put it down.” Jonty closed the door behind him, then discarded his toothbrush on the dresser.
“It isn’t, particularly. Less logic than cheating if you ask me. And before you do ask me why I keep reading it, it’s to find all the little byways of logic. It’s like a treasure hunt.”
“Will you be writing to the author to point out all his or her failures? You should.” Jonty gave his backside a final warm at the banked-down fire, then came and slipped into bed. “It would serve them right for trying to be too clever.”
“I think discretion might be the better part of valour. I don’t want to end up in some blazing academic row. You know how serious mathematicians can be about things.”
“Indeed,” Jonty replied, clearly trying not to grin. “And what does my serious mathematician propose we do next? With the case, I mean. I’m far too lathered after last night to contemplate anything else.”
Orlando snorted. “So lathered you forgot to leave your toothbrush in the bathroom?”
“What toothbrush? Oh.” Jonty looked over to where Orlando was pointing. “I was practicing one of my lectures in front of the mirror. I’d come up with some rather good points about Hamlet and I think I was using that to illustrate them. Didn’t realise it had come with me.”
Orlando just stopped himself snorting again. A man mustn’t sound like a hog. “I shan’t enquire further. Maybe Paul Robertson didn’t realise he’d left the cyanide capsules on his desk.”
“Indeed.” Jonty made himself comfy under the blankets. “Which brings us back to what we do next. Go and pin down Wilshire?”
“You don’t sound like you think that’s a good idea.”
“That’s because I don’t think it is. He’s not likely to come over all contrite and confess his involvement, whether as accomplice in the original plan or opportunist when that failed. Whatever role he had, he’s not given much away so far.”
Orlando laid down his book; he wasn’t going to be getting back to logic anytime soon. “I have half a mind to assemble them all in one room, like in the last act of a play. Phyllis and Charles and Mrs. McGinley and Mrs. Blackett—and Wilshire, she probably won’t like that—tell them what we know and leave them to squabble about it. Mrs. McGinley can act as referee.”
“She’ll need Ariadne to run the line, then.” Jonty rubbed his hands together. “Actually, it’s not that bad an idea. A few well-placed questions and suppositions might well put the cat among the pigeons.”
“Seriously?” Orlando had expected his idea to be shot down.
“Why not? I’m not sure we have any other means at our disposal of getting at the truth.”
“Hmm. Will you arrange it, old thing?”
“With pleasure. We’ll get Ariadne to invite them all to the master’s lodge, independent of each other. She’ll appreciate the challenge.”
And Orlando would appreciate having a modus operandi for Atherton as murderer to put to them.