The outing on the river was warranted, given the hours they’d put into the Atherton case. It was bliss indeed to be in a punt, if a touch parky. Still they were girded against the cold and the weather was nowhere near as inclement as Cambridge could throw at them should she want to.
The changing colours of the leaves on tree and shrub, lit by a watery midday sun, matched anything Orlando had seen in a long while for beauty, almost rivalling the glorious golden head that was propped up at the other end of the punt, smiling and humming a tune alongside Ariadne, who was keeping up a splendid harmony.
He smiled indulgently. “What’s that song?”
“It was supposed to be ‘Tipperary’ but it clearly failed to be if you didn’t recognise it.” Jonty nudged their guest. “We need to practice.”
“It would be pointless, in my case. That’s the best I can do.” Ariadne spread her hands in apology.
“It’s not like Dr. Stewart to sing war songs unless he’s in his cups. Lavinia didn’t approve of his teaching Georgie ‘Here’s to the Good Old Whisky.’”
Jonty smirked. “She should be pleased I didn’t teach him ‘Mademoiselle from Armentières’ or any of the other filth I could have shared. Maybe I should teach Ariadne instead.”
The lady concerned giggled. “I suspect I could sing you much worse. I did once go courting with a sailor.”
“Did you?” Orlando almost dropped his punt pole in shock.
“That’s a story for another day.” Ariadne gave them an impish grin. “I bet your nephew took that ‘Whisky’ song at his own level of understanding.”
“He did. He assumed the whisky would make him so frisky he’d want to play tricks on his sister.” Jonty wagged his finger. “And, before you ask, I taught him the version which said the brandy would make him dandy.”
Ariadne tapped his arm. “I think we’d better change the subject before we embarrass Professor Coppersmith further. You wanted to discuss Blackett’s case?”
“We did.” Orlando cut in, relaxing now the subject had been changed. “And we’d like you to do us a favour. Can you—or Dr. Sheridan—talk him into getting his hands on any personal papers Atherton left behind? We know that he was dictating a lot of private business, and think it’s possible he was writing his life story.”
“A manuscript, perhaps? You think it would be important?”
Jonty nodded. “It could prove to be the cornerstone to the case. Or at any rate hold enough of the cards to let us build a picture.”
“How many metaphors are you going to mix into that stew?” Orlando smirked. “Mrs. Sheridan, we believe the contents of that manuscript, or whatever it turns out to be, might be vital in putting this mystery to rest.”
“Oh. Excellent. I’ll get Robert on the case as soon as I get home. Maybe I could save some of the contents of that basket to bribe him with.” She sighed happily. “Your housekeeper is a queen among cooks.”
“We’ll put a plateful aside for him before Professor Coppersmith gets started on it. Or else there’ll be naught but crumbs.” Jonty looked slyly up at Orlando, who was trying not to rise to the bait.
“You behave yourself, or I’ll tell our professorial friend what you said when you rang to invite me here.” Ariadne wore an innocent air. “The thing which I must keep from him even if he tortures me by reading papers about differential calculus.”
“I thought he tortured you by making you listen to history books.” Jonty was rallying, but the guilty look in his eye was transparent.
“What’s all this?” Orlando edged the punt towards the bank, having spotted a convenient point for picnicking.
Jonty flushed. “I was telling our hostess that in the course of pursuing our enquiries—and I saw you grin there, I can’t help sounding like a policeman—you’d come up with your lady poisoner theory but I wasn’t convinced by it. I made it plain I hadn’t dismissed it entirely, though, because one mustn’t eliminate anything until one is absolutely sure it’s impossible and in this case the degree of uncertainty hasn’t reached the tipping point one way or the other.”
“Do you tell him off for making no sense, Professor Coppersmith?” Ariadne nodded towards Jonty. “Because if you do, you’re quite right.”
“I have to do so all the time. Except when he’s talking about the sonnets, of course.” Orlando leaped onto the bank and began tying the punt. “Did he explain the other theories to you?”
“Not so much explain as scatter a heap of puzzle pieces in my lap and say they’d have a chance of being partly put together today.” Ariadne had the hamper, ready to lay out the feast, once Jonty had disembarked and sufficient layers of groundsheets and blankets were on the ground. “Before I biff him over the head with the teapot, which I’m sure you must be inclined to do on an hourly basis, Professor, you’d better explain in words I can understand. No, belay that,” Ariadne raised her hand. “Make it words even a historian could understand.”
“Over lunch. It’s arduous work and requires the inner boilers to be fed and stoked.” Jonty eyed the food.
“And you’ll be delighted to know I have another significant piece to add to the puzzle.” Orlando patted his pocket. “Charles Robertson sent me a copy of his brother’s suicide letter.”
“Blimey.” Jonty glanced up from where he was fighting an errant corner of blanket into submission. “You kept that quiet.”
“I was saving it as a surprise. To be examined once you’ve had your soup because you’ll only get it all over the paper.”
“Do you think he’ll always treat me like I’m seven and a half?” Jonty grinned at their guest.
“I hope so! Think of the fun we’ll miss if he doesn’t. And you’re right to defer business until after pleasure, Professor. This fresh air has given me quite an appetite, and I couldn’t apply a brain cell to anything—not even a planarian worm—until I’ve been fed.”
“Ladies first, then.” Orlando waved his hand over the provisions like a conjurer producing a rabbit, and the next ten minutes were given over to nothing but the satisfactions of the table. The subsequent twenty combined luncheon with a résumé of the case so far.
Orlando admired the beautifully chronological approach that Jonty employed—for once—and the sensible use of names and fact rather than “thingummy” and supposition. He could have been giving a lecture on the sonnets; the game pie must have sharpened his wits. Orlando chipped in as appropriate, although he was careful, when it came to Charles Robertson, to avoid areas that might touch on the horrors Jonty had suffered at school.
“How about Miss Chambers and your gardening lad?” Ariadne enquired as they reached the part of the story that dealt with the secretary’s evidence and Orlando’s latest theory.
“He’s not our gardening lad.” Orlando, buoyed up on red wine, just stopped himself from saying that any gardening lad they employed would be much handsomer. Oscar Wilde had got himself into trouble making such remarks and, even if Ariadne knew the state of play at Forsythia Cottage, who knew who might overhear them? Notwithstanding the fact that the only pairs of ears in the vicinity appeared to belong to some forlorn-looking cows in a distant field.
“If you’re thinking that love may well have blossomed over the little cakes with pink icing or whatever it was he tempted her with, then good luck to them, I say.” Jonty flicked a small crumb from his cuff.
Ariadne frowned. “But should you so readily dismiss their relevance to the case? Who was the first person in the locked room in the event?”
“That locked room is infuriating,” Jonty conceded. “Professor Coppersmith has been looking into every way you could commit a murder in one. When you’re not present in it, I mean. We’ve eliminated our murderer hiding inside a cabinet or whatever.”
Orlando took up the baton. “An idea I came up with was that Atherton and Robertson weren’t yet dead when the door was forced open, maybe just drugged, and either Wilshire or Mrs. McGinley could have killed both men while the other was off getting help. But among a welter of far-fetched ideas, it seems the farthest fetched.”
“Unless you have a distinct motive for the murder, which seems lacking at present.” Ariadne eyed the apple cake. “Maybe we need to encourage our brains with something sweet.”
When at last they’d all, even Jonty, had an ample sufficiency of soup and pies and the like, Orlando produced the letter. He let Ariadne see it first, and she allowed Jonty to read it over her shoulder.
“Extraordinary.” Jonty took off his glasses to polish them before looking at the letter again.
“We should consider it line by line,” Ariadne proposed. “Will you read it, please, Professor?”
“‘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.’”
“That’s terribly mawkish stuff,” Jonty sneered, “although my experience of suicide letters is admittedly limited, so it might be one of the better ones. Sorry. This is no joking matter.”
Given what he’d said, Jonty must have noticed the wince which Orlando had tried so hard to cover up. While he was happy to discuss any aspect of the case with their friend—even the aspects concerning illegal relationships—his father’s death was not a matter for discussion.
“It appears to bear out the stories about Paul Robertson’s inclinations.” Orlando caught the keen look in Ariadne’s eye. “Yes. We have a feeling that aspect might be germane to solving the mystery.”
“I suspect you’re right. Unless it’s just coincidence.” Ariadne eyed the half-finished glass of wine in her hand. “I’m not sure this is helping my thought processes.” She laid it down.
“Thank goodness a drop of wine makes reading this more bearable.” Jonty made a face. “I wonder if he was thinking of the sorrows he’d forced on friend and family.”
“Or on those young men,” Ariadne said, sombrely.
“A lot of it reads like a reflection on shell shock.” Jonty spoke with such authority that nobody could comment.
“It also strikes me he was concerned that war might spark again.” Orlando held the paper up to the light. “If only one could read into the man’s thoughts as easily as one can see the watermark.”
“He reminds me of Sassoon.” Ariadne‘s tone showed her disdain. “Give me Owen any day.”
“Hear hear.” Jonty nodded. “That lad understood. On more than one front.”
“Fighting memories of the war or fighting his inclinations or both?” Orlando speculated.
“Both, probably.” Ariadne wrinkled her nose.
“‘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.’”
Ariadne tapped the paper, accusingly. “It struck me when I first read this that it’s all a bit odd. Rambling.”
“Atherton’s is a model of succinctness in comparison,” Jonty agreed. “If that muddled prose reflects Robertson’s muddled thinking, no wonder we can’t make out his intentions.”
“It definitely reads like it’s addressed to Charles,” Orlando averred, to the nodded agreement of his two listeners. “Who else would he be apologising to?”
“He ended on a sort of rhyme, to his credit.” Jonty wrinkled his nose. “It sounds awfully like bad poetry. Some poorly written sonnet.”
“Maybe he plagiarised a sonnet, to produce it. Was he a historian in his spare time, perchance?” Ariadne had a mischievous twinkle in her eye; she had no love for historians, whom she lumped together as—in her wide experience—being ineffective, plagiaristic letches.
“It would make sense.” Jonty nodded. “And it seems to tip the balance back towards suicide.”
“Unless it’s a forgery.” Orlando wouldn’t give up on his pet theory just yet.
“If it’s a forgery it’s a peculiar one,” Ariadne pointed out, entirely reasonably. “Why not just say, ‘I’ve had enough, good-bye’ and thereby avoid over-egging the pudding? Robertson interests me, though. Both of the brothers do, but what Charles told you about Paul and this chap Buxton rang a bell.”
“Really? Ding the thing for us, then.” Jonty shook his hand as though sounding a handbell.
“If you want to murder him now, Professor, I’ll pretend it was a complete accident.” Ariadne cuffed Jonty’s arm. “Those awkward looks that Buxton gave Paul. Charles understood them to be distaste.”
“With good reason. There is a look in the eye of the predator—” Jonty, who’d turned ashen, stopped.
Ariadne laid her hand on his arm. “I’m sorry. If this is too painful to discuss . . .”
Orlando held his breath. How much did Ariadne know of Jonty’s background? What revelations had been shared since Jonty’s return to the college, or back in his undergraduate days there? There’d been a case, many years previously, when they’d had to investigate the death of one of the men who’d abused Jonty so terribly at school. The murderer had been another such victim. Had the details of that investigation been aired over tea and cakes?
“No, these things have to be faced. It would be cowardly not to do so. Good grief, I’ve faced worse.” A touch of colour returned to Jonty’s cheeks.
“You’re one of the bravest men I know.” Ariadne produced a handkerchief, blew her nose, and carried on. “Well, this isn’t getting the baby bathed. Back to Robertson and Buxton. There’s another interpretation to the looks they shared. More pleasant and much closer to home. Would you like to hear a story?”
“We always do. Unless it’s about us?” Orlando trusted Ariadne not to exceed the bounds of good taste, but the woman could be uncomfortably perceptive.
“No, although one might see similarities.” She leaned forward, smiling. “There was a young don here, before you came to St. Bride’s and before Dr. Stewart returned to the scene of his goat-related misdemeanour. There were times I’d see this chap and he’d look almost petrified, especially if a certain other person was present. Neither of them is here anymore so I may speak freely, relying on your confidentiality, naturally.”
“Of course.” Orlando inclined his head.
“My brother was extremely concerned for Dr. Cl—this chap’s well-being.”
Orlando nodded again. Dr. Peters, who’d have been master of St. Bride’s at the time, had been a true shepherd to his flock, whether they be don or dunderhead.
“Well, it transpired, or perhaps I should say it became apparent to me, that it was simply a case of him—Dr. C. we could call the man—being attracted to the other man, and was scared stiff that he’d give himself away. Which is why he appeared so anxious.”
“How sad.” Jonty stuck out his bottom lip, looking for all the world like a child suddenly puzzled, or about to cry.
“Very good, Dr. Stewart!” Ariadne clapped her hands. “That’s just how Dr. C. looked.”
Orlando had seen that expression on his own face, caught in the mirror, when he was trying to get his brain clear about his burgeoning attraction to Jonty. Coming to terms with liking men rather than women had been considerably muddied by the fact he’d never even considered being attracted to anybody. “What happened to this mysterious Dr. C. and the chap he liked?”
“Oh, I knocked their heads together. Sort of.” Ariadne beamed. “Asked each of them, individually, outright. Did they fancy the other?”
Jonty whistled. “What if you’d been wrong? Or if you’d been right but one or both didn’t like somebody having noticed. Perhaps only your gender protected you from having your block knocked off.”
“My gender wouldn’t have protected me.” She laughed. “Neither of them seemed to think much of women. Actually, I suspect Dr. C. regarded me as an honorary chap, which would have helped, as did my assuring him that I wasn’t bring prurient, just pragmatic. He beat his breast a bit, convinced that the other chap, whom we shall call Dr. S., had no interest in him, so I ladled poor Dr. C. with tea and cakes until he went away content and I could get on with things.”
“And then what did you do, madam?” Jonty had an amused twinkle in his eye, one much the same as Ariadne’s.
“I repeated the whole process with Dr. S., next. Almost but not quite a Beatrice and Benedict thing.”
“Sounds very Beatrice and Benedict to me. Especially if it turns out they really were dotty about each other and wouldn’t admit it. Which they were, I take it?”
“They were. Still are, as I understand it. The pair of them relocated to the Sorbonne and are living the life of Riley in Paris.”
“So do you think Buxton and Paul Robertson might have been in the same situation?” Orlando pontificated. “Attracted but afraid to show the attraction? It would be no wonder, if even Paul’s closest relative is so rabid in his condemnation of such relationships.”
“That rabidity or whatever you want to call it would also make Charles less likely to admit—or simply recognise—that the appeal was mutual.” Jonty nodded, vigorously. “One could construct a whole story around this. Paul and Buxton, fallen for each other. Along comes Michael Llewelyn Davies, stealing Buxton’s affection. Hence Robertson’s broken heart. The two younger chaps believe there is no future for them in a world as condemning as the Charles Robertson types make it, so they take their own lives. Paul is either distraught or feels guilty about having somehow caused it.”
“It fits with what we know. It even fits that letter. What if the ‘you’ referred to in, ‘When you said I would find another source of joy,’ is Buxton, giving Paul the brush off?” Orlando blew out his cheeks.
Ariadne frowned. “What did Paul mean by ‘pushing’ him, if the ‘you’ is Buxton? Into choosing between Paul and Michael?”
“Genius girl!” Jonty rubbed his hands together. “What if he was regretting a literal push?”
“Into Sandford pool.” Orlando beamed.
“Oh, I see what you’re getting at.” Ariadne nodded. “But we have no proof.”
“We have no real proof of anything. Yet.” Jonty began to clear up the luncheon things. “But we won’t let that little consideration get in the way.”
***
They proceeded back up the river at a brisker pace, mainly due to the lack of convenient bushes to go and relieve themselves behind. Once the punt was moored, Ariadne wished a fond good-bye, and all the paraphernalia loaded into a convenient cab, Jonty—who’d clearly been desperate to share one of his thoughts for the last half an hour—piped up.
“Do you think we can prove Robertson had an involvement in Buxton’s death? I can’t remember anything in the newspaper reports to suggest foul play, and I know you’ll ask me how anyone can drown two strong young men and then make it appear to be accidental, but I can’t ignore the idea.”
“Neither can I.” Orlando looked out of the window at the students. Scurrying, strolling, loitering on the pavement in groups chatting; so much promise for the future, promise that wasn’t fulfilled in the case of the two lads who’d drowned in that pool. “We should begin by establishing whether Robertson could have been in Oxford on—what did you say the date was?”
“Sometime around June, maybe a bit earlier. We could easily find out.”
“That’s the first step, then. The day of the unfortunate event and those preceding it. Maybe I could go back to Oxford and have a poke about.”
“Hmm.” Jonty stuck out his bottom lip. “I’m reluctant to go down that line, on two counts. The first is that we could get sidetracked. Irrespective of whether we find out what happened to those two men, it’s the other two we’re concerned with. If somebody killed Paul Robertson because he or she believed he’d been implicated in the Oxford deaths, it might be irrelevant whether he was guilty or not.”
“I accept that. What’s the second count?”
“Simply that those boys have suffered enough. Better to leave the world thinking it was a tragic accident, Llewelyn Davies falling in the water and Buxton trying to save him, than raising the spectre of murder, particularly when the murderer would be beyond earthly justice.” Jonty shuddered. “Or worse, raise suspicions about the relationship between the two drowned men. It would profit nothing. We have to consider the living, Orlando.”
The almost unprecedented use of a Christian name—never employed outside unless they were on holiday—made Orlando’s stomach lurch. How deep must this be cutting Jonty?
He laid his hand on his lover’s arm. “By the living, are you thinking of Saunders again?”
“I am. My mind’s made up that I need to act and act fast. We can try to help him find peace and reconciliation. Perhaps he’s a better man than I am and would forgive Hughes.” Jonty shook his head. “In terms of those lads in Oxford, all we would do is disturb their peace.”
“Point taken. But I’d still like to pursue it, if only for we two alone to know.” Orlando waited until Jonty had nodded assent before continuing. “Perhaps Mrs. McGinley would be able to furnish us with information on Paul’s whereabouts, if she still has his appointment book. We can hopefully rely on her discretion, and I’d recommend we don’t make it plain why we want to know.”
“That sounds an excellent idea. I’d like to see the house itself, to get a feel for the layout. However, we mustn’t forget that Dr. Robertson didn’t need to be there. We’ve come across someone previously who talked young lads into taking their lives. He could have ‘pushed’ them over the edge of sanity.” Jonty shivered, no doubt at the memory of Reggie Tuffnell and his honeyed, deadly words. Please God this isn’t a repeat of that. “We need to know exactly what Atherton suspected.”
“One or both of us needs to see Charles again, too, on the same subject. Swear we’ll keep it a secret forever if only he’ll tell us what he really thinks went on. Shall we tackle them separately on the same day, then treat ourselves with an evening at the theatre or something? St. Bride’s wouldn’t collapse if we had a night away, especially if that were a Saturday. We could ask the chaplain to excuse us matins.”
“The prospect gets better and better.” Particularly the missing matins bit. “Maybe we should drop in on your Lavinia. Get her onto chasing the publisher.”
“Without a name?” Jonty slapped Orlando’s arm. “I admit that my sister is possessed of many great qualities, all of which she gets from Mama, but going on wild-goose chases isn’t one of them. She’d not welcome the suggestion that she contact every establishment in the country on the off chance that they were the ones expecting to see Robertson.”
“It wouldn’t need to be throughout the country. Just London to start with.” Orlando could see the wisdom of focusing her efforts. “Perhaps we should set her on Charles Robertson. See if she can wheedle the publisher name from him. Unless that would compromise young Georgie?”
“You could ask her. She certainly enjoys being a bloodhound.”
Orlando paused. “I wouldn’t relish that man seeing us together. Not that I think we give the impression of being anything other than good friends, but if he has a bee in his bonnet . . .”
“He might see signs of buzzing everywhere.”
“Technically you can’t see buzzing, but you get the idea.”
“I think I have to go this time, Orlando. I’ll arrange to see Saunders while I’m there.” Jonty frowned.
“But what about support? I thought I was going to be there to help you?”
“I think that puts us too much at risk, old man. Would you mind if I took Lavinia, instead?” Jonty smiled tenderly. “She’s proving quite a formidable ally in the investigative stakes and, being female, can hide behind her own screen. By which I mean the curiosity that is allegedly the prerogative of her sex—she can use that with Charles Robertson. With Saunders she can be suitably maternal. Not that she would agree about the nosiness, so don’t mention it.”
Orlando went along with the slightly forced mood. “I won’t. Best to be pragmatic. Lavinia it is, then.”
“Shame you can’t have her to play Watson to your Holmes.” Jonty yanked his leg out of kicking or slapping range.
Orlando snorted at the mention of the man—no, character; he wouldn’t honour him with the designation of “man” either. “I shall not grace that remark with an answer. I’d better tackle Mrs. McGinley, irrespective of you wanting to see the house. Assuming we can pin them down at the same time.”
“I shall take my ropes and tent pegs with me.” Jonty smiled, if only briefly, and when he spoke again his face was sombre. “What if we have got two or three murders here? Or maybe even four in total, if we really do have two killers for the London side of things?”
“Then, as he might say to Watson, instead of the rope and pegs, you’d better take your forces revolver. Or whatever equivalent thing you can lay your hands on.” Orlando shivered. They’d faced mortal danger on several occasions, when they’d got too close to running a murderer to ground, let alone the perils of war.
“I’ll have Lavinia’s hatpin to protect me. You’re the one who needs to beware.”
“Do you think Mrs. McGinley will stab me with her knitting needles?”
“Not exactly. But it’s just struck me that, if poison is a woman’s weapon, then you’d better be careful accepting her hospitality.”
Orlando patted his lover’s arm. “I’ll swop the teacups over so she’ll be hoist on her own petard. But don’t narrow your thinking on this. Men use poison, too.” He turned the pat into a firm grasp. “Maybe you should think twice about taking any hospitality from Charles Robertson as well. Hatpin notwithstanding.”