‘Oh well, so be it,’ he said. ‘I’ll have to leave it to you. My stomach…And in any case I
wouldn’t know where to look for the sort of so-called scholar she would accept as the Sir
Godber Evans Memorial Fellow.’
‘I’m sure I’ll find someone,’ said Goodenough. ‘You leave it to me. And if I were in your
position, I’d have that wretched gall bladder out.’
Mr Lapline sighed and shook his head sorrowfully. ‘It is all very well to talk,’ he said.
‘My wife won’t allow it. Her mother died during a gall-bladder operation. It’s a damned
nuisance’ He got up to go. And do please bear in mind that there must be nothing shady about
this business. Our responsibility lies in protecting Lady Mary from herself.’
It was a remark calculated to annoy Goodenough. ‘Of course it does,’ he said. ‘The
fact that the old bird is dotty is beside the point. Half my clients are off their trolleys,
but I still manage to keep them solvent and out of jail. Ask Vera.’
But Mr Lapline preferred not to. Goodenough’s secretary possessed physical
attractions that were rather too obvious for Mr Lapline’s taste and were, he suspected,
used in part to distract the Special Income Tax investigators from concentrating at
all closely on the dubious accounts of Goodenough’s clients. He chose not to speculate on
the other uses his partner might put them to. He went back to his office and thought
wistfully about having his gall bladder out after all.
That evening Goodenough explained the problem to Vera. ‘She’s an old woman who has seen
everything she believed in proved wrong and it has made her even more bitter than she was
before. In any case, she’s got more money than she knows what to do with and now she’s out to
raise hell in Porterhouse. She’s already put Lappie in a spin and his gall bladder is
playing up again. It always does when he’s under stress. I’ve said I’ll find the
applicants for him.’
‘Meaning that I will,’ said Vera, helping herself to another gin and tonic…’
‘Well, I was rather hoping…’ said Goodenough with a look of mock guilt.
Vera arranged herself on the sofa. ‘I shall need time off,’ she said. ‘And
expenses.’
‘No problem. Bloody Mary’s account will see you right. And you’re an angel.’
That wasn’t the way Vera saw herself but she was away for only a fortnight during which
time Mr Lapline felt far worse. Are you sure you know what you’re doing?’ he asked Goodenough
several times, only to be told that everything was under control. Goodenough chose not
to mention whose control that was and Mr Lapline chose not to question him too closely.
In the event Vera returned with a list of twenty academics who would be happy to
become Fellows at Porterhouse. Goodenough studied the list doubtfully.
‘I had no idea there were so many universities,’ he said. ‘And who’s this man in Grimsby
whose research is into Psycho-erotic Anal Fantasies? I can’t see Porterhouse accepting
him even for six million.’
‘I can’t see Lady Mary Evans taking to him either,’ said Vera. ‘Unless of course she
approves of early-morning drinking. On the other hand, his thinking is undoubtedly
radical.’
‘And Dr Lamprey Yeaster at Bristol? His curriculum vitae seems very sound.
“Historical Research into Industrial Relations in Bradford”.’
‘I don’t think he’s quite right for her, somehow,’ said Vera. ‘He’s a member of the
National Front and his views on blacks leave rather a lot to be desired.’
‘In that case she won’t touch him with a bargepole. There’s no one here she’s going to
choose.’
‘Oh yes, there is, my dear,’ said Vera. I think she’ll like Dr Purefoy Osbert.’
Goodenough looked at her suspiciously. ‘You mean you’ve ring-fenced him? Why? What’s so
special about him apart from his name?’
‘Nothing very much except that he’ll do what I tell him. Have a look at his list of
publications.’
Goodenough read them. ‘He seems to have a thing about executions,’ he said.
‘Particularly hangings. There’s a book here called _The Long Drop.’_
‘That’s Purefoy’s magnum opus. I haven’t read it myself but I’m told it’s strong stuff.
He has made a study of every hanging in England since 1891.’
‘And you think Bloody Mary is going to approve of him? She is violently anti-capital
punishment.’
‘So is Purefoy. You’ve no idea how many innocent people he believes have gone to the
gallows. That’s his whole thesis.’
‘What’s this about Crippen? _The Innocence of Dr Crippen?_ The bugger wasn’t
innocent. He was guilty as hell.’
‘Not according to Purefoy,’ said Vera. ‘Mrs Crippen committed suicide and the
doctor panicked and buried her in the cellar.’
‘What, after cutting her up into small pieces or whatever he did? The fellow is off
his head. Still, I can certainly see him getting on with Lady Mary like a house on
fire.
But tell me, why do you always refer to him by his Christian name?’
Vera smiled. ‘Because he’s my cousin,’ she said.
It was not something Goodenough mentioned to Mr Lapline. In fact he amended the list of
Dr Osbert’s publications. Mr Lapline was in a bad way without having to cope with the
innocence of Dr Crippen and what happened when they hanged Mrs Thompson. He was having
trouble with his own bowels. ‘I can’t honestly say I begin to like the sound of any of
them,’ he said, ‘and as for this one in Grimsby…’
‘You don’t think he’s right for Porterhouse?’
Mr Lapline expressed the opinion that he wasn’t right for anywhere except hell.
Goodenough went away to make his next move. Having studied the notes Lady Mary had made on
the Senior Fellows–there wasn’t a faintly benevolent comment among them–he decided it
would be best not to discuss the possibility of the new Fellowship with the Bursar. The
Dean (what she had to say about the Dean was vitriolic) and the Senior Tutor, ‘a wholly
unintelligent person whose interest in rowing suggests obsessive adolescent
interests’ in her words, clearly distrusted the Bursar who ’sided with Godber on
financial grounds’. There was independent evidence of this dislike in the reports of
the two private detectives she had employed to investigate her husband’s death. One
report, written by an unfortunate operative who had spent two hellish months working as
a human dishwasher in the College kitchens and who had developed a most unpleasant skin
condition thanks to the scouring powder and detergents he had been forced to use,
described the Dean as the real power in Porterhouse with the Senior Tutor as his
deputy.
‘I have decided to make the offer through the Senior Tutor,’ Goodenough told Vera.
‘If I took the idea to the Bursar, the Dean would turn it down flat. He’d smell trouble. Got
a nose for it. In any case, from what I hear the Bursar is so desperate for money we’re
bound to have his support. It will look better coming from the Tutor.’
In fact the stratagem was unnecessary. The Dean was already making plans to spend some
time away from Porterhouse. He was going to find a rich successor to Skullion, preferably
from among the Old Porterthusians. He had always been fond of Skullion, but in view of the
financial situation in Porterhouse the need to find a new Master, one with financial
pull and a very large private income, seemed imperative. At least to the Dean. That was how
they had dealt with the financial mess Lord Fitzherbert had got the College into.
Fitzherbert had been a rich enough man himself, and they had made him Master. That had
always been the preferred Porterhouse method, and the Dean meant to use it again. The real
difficulty lay in finding a way to remove Skullion. It had never been supposed he would
live so long after his stroke and now the Dean could only hope he would pass quietly away
after an excellent dinner. The Dean had in mind the special Duck Dinner. Skullion had
always loved _Canards pressés à la Porterhouse._ All the same the Dean had been to see the
College doctor in the hope of an unfavourable prognosis for the Master, but Dr
MacKendly was more concerned with the Dean himself. ‘Now what is it this time?’ he asked.
‘The old prostate giving you trouble again?’
‘Hardly,’ said the Dean, ’since it has never given me the slightest trouble
before.’
‘Well, it was bound to happen at your age,’ said the doctor, putting on a surgical glove
and indicating the examination couch. ‘Now this may be a touch uncomfortable but
hardly painful.’
‘It certainly won’t,’ said the Dean, remaining rooted to his chair. ‘I have not come
about my own condition. I am concerned about Skull…the Master, that is.’
Dr MacKendly sat down regretfully at his desk but did not remove the surgical glove.
‘Skullion? Can’t say I’m entirely surprised All that sitting about in a wheelchair and so
on and widdling into a bag is bound to have an effect in the end. Of course we could
operate, but that can cause problems you know. Sometimes one ejaculates backwards into
the bladder.’
‘I hardly think Skullion…the Master is likely to ejaculate anywhere,’ said the Dean
bitterly, ‘particularly as he doesn’t need a prostate operation. What I want you to tell
me is your opinion on the Master’s general fitness.’
The doctor nodded. He still hadn’t removed the surgical glove. ‘General fitness, eh?
Well, that’s a different matter altogether. I mean at our age we can hardly expect to
be entirely fit and–’
‘I am talking about the Master, Skullion, for goodness sake,’ the Dean snapped. ‘His
general fitness.’
‘Point taken,’ said the doctor. ‘And I have to say that he is not at all well. The
Porterhouse Blue he had, you know, was a very bad one It’s amazing he survived at all. He
must have the constitution of an ox.’
The Dean eyed him very unpleasantly. ‘And would you assess his ability to perform his
duties as Master of the College at the same bovine level?’ he asked.
‘Ah, there you have me, Dean. I have never really known what a Master’s duties are,
apart from dining in Hall and being around for official occasions and so on. Otherwise
there is practically damnall to do as far as I can see. Skullion has proved that, hasn’t
he?’
The Dean made a final attempt to get an answer that made sense. ‘And how long do you
think he’s got? Got to live, I mean.’
‘There you have me again,’ said the doctor. ‘It is almost impossible to say. Only a
matter of time, of course.’
But the Dean had had enough. ‘Have you ever known when it wasn’t?’ he asked and stood
up.
‘Wasn’t? Wasn’t what?’
‘A matter of time. From the day we are born, for instance’ And leaving Dr MacKendly to
work that out–the doctor’s speciality was rugby knees, not metaphysics–the Dean went down
the steps into King’s Parade and walked back to Porterhouse in a very nasty temper. Around
him tourists stared into shop windows or sat on the wall under King’s College Chapel or
photographed the Senate House. The Dean disregarded them. They belonged to a world he had
always despised.
Two days later, explaining that he had a sick relative in Wales to visit, the Dean set
off in search of a new Master for Porterhouse Something told him he had to hurry. It was a
gut feeling, but such a feeling seldom let him down.
The feelings that Mr Lapline had in his stomach were by now so acute that it was some two
weeks before Goodenough had sufficient time to spare from his partner’s work to travel to
Cambridge to meet the Senior Tutor for lunch at the Garden House Hotel overlooking the
Cam. ‘I’d have invited you to my club in London, but it gets very crowded these days and we
can talk more privately here. Besides, it is always a pleasure to visit Cambridge and
I’m sure you’re a very busy man. I hope you don’t mind lunching here?’
The Senior Tutor didn’t in the least mind. He had heard good things about the Garden
House, and Wednesday lunch in Hall tended to be rather meagre. He accepted a very large
pink gin and studied the menu while Goodenough spoke about his nephew in the Leander Club,
his own college, Magdalen at Oxford, and anything but the matter he had come to discuss.
It was only after he had persuaded the Senior Tutor to have another very large pink gin
and then had primed him with a sizeable helping of pâté, an excellent fillet steak and a
bottle and a half of Chambertin and they were sitting with their coffee and Chartreuse,
that Goodenough finally got round to the topic of the donation. He did so with an air of
slight embarrassment.
‘The fact of the matter is that we have been instructed by someone in the City who
wishes to remain anonymous to sound out the Senior Fellows about the creation of a new
Fellowship, and frankly, knowing your reputation for discretion, I thought a quiet chat
with you might be the best way to start.’ He paused to allow the Senior Tutor to choose a
cigar to go with another Chartreuse. ‘The funding for the salary of the new Fellow would of
course be paid for by our client and the donation to the College would run into seven
figures.’
Again he paused, this time to allow the tutor to calculate that seven figures made one
million. ‘In fact the client has mentioned six million pounds with possibly more to
follow on her…his death.’
‘Six million? Did you say six million?’ asked the Senior Tutor rather huskily. If it
hadn’t been for the meal, and the cost of the Chambertin and the Partagas cigar, he would
have wondered if he was being subjected to some fiendish practical joke. Nobody had
ever offered Porterhouse such an enormous sum before.
‘Oh yes, at least six,’ Goodenough said, sensing the Senior Tutor’s bewilderment.
Taking advantage of it, he went on. ‘But on condition that the donation is not made
public. I’m afraid, my client is an eccentrically private person and insists on
anonymity. I have to make that point.’
For a moment the thought crossed his mind of hinting the client might be Getty. He did
better. ‘You’ve heard of Getty?’
‘Yes,’ said the Senior Tutor almost in a whisper.
‘Unfortunately my client does not possess that degree of wealth but she…he’ (damn that
second Chartreuse) ‘has a very considerable fortune all the same.’
‘Must have,’ muttered the Senior Tutor, and made the mistake of inhaling the Havana
too deeply. When his gasping coughs stopped, Goodenough went on. ‘I’m telling you all this
privately because of your reputation for discretion. It is essential that nothing
leaks out. Your influence in Porterhouse is well known and I feel sure that with your
backing…’
The practised words wafted happily into the Senior Tutor’s mulled consciousness.
The client was particularly anxious that the Bursar, whose reputation was not so…well,
to be a little indiscreet, not so reliable, must not be consulted, but if the Senior
Tutor could give his assurance that the donation would be accepted–the Senior Tutor
could, and did–and the Fellow appointed–the Senior Tutor had no doubt about that–then the
matter was settled, and Mr Goodenough’s client would proceed. A letter putting forward
the terms of the appointment would be drawn up and sent to the Senior tutor, who would make
the necessary arrangements, presumably through the College Council, and confirm the
decision in writing. By the time Goodenough had finished, the Senior Tutor was in a
state of euphoria. Goodenough gave him a lift back to Porterhouse in his taxi then caught
the train to London.
‘He did what?’ said Mr Lapline next day.
‘Lapped it up,’ Goodenough said.
‘Lapped it up? Are you sure?’ Mr Lapline couldn’t imagine any of the Senior Fellows at
Porterhouse lapping anything, apart from soup, up. From what he had seen of the Dean and the
Senior Tutor at the inquest into Sir Godber Evans’ death, they might well chew but they
were definitely not of the lapping sort.
‘Absolutely,’ Goodenough assured him. ‘Swallowed the proposal hook, line and sinker,
along with an excellent bottle of Burgundy and an underdone steak–’
‘For heaven’s sake, Goodenough, don’t talk about food. If you knew what my stomach is
doing to me–’
‘Sorry, sorry. All I’m trying to tell you is that you’ve got no reason to worry about
losing Her Ladyship’s account. She will find someone on that list who will prove just the
sort of person she wants, and Porterhouse will accept him with open arms. Whether they like
what they get is another matter altogether. That is not your problem, nor mine.’