They had turned a corner and the sweep of a great staircase was before them; they began to climb. ‘Perhaps a girl,’ said Appleby. ‘These two were living here together for some time. Perhaps Marlow had a girl – a pure girl or one whom he imagined to be so. And then perhaps Prisk, who clearly has a disreputable side to him–’
‘It’s not a bad theory.’ The Duke reached the top of the staircase and quickened his pace. ‘Unfortunately it’s not true.’
‘Unfortunately the truth concerns your grandson, Gerald, whom both these men were brought in to coach.’
‘Quite so.’ The monstrous house was flowing past them still in unending saloons and corridors. ‘Quite so. Gerald is a most attractive lad – and very much what one calls clean-living. Marlow became extremely attached to him – perhaps in an emotional, but certainly not in an unseemly way. Then this Mr Prisk – whom I regret ever having retained – took it into his head to amuse himself by making what he called a “man” of Gerald. He meant a sort of young Regency buck. He took Gerald up to town and introduced him to disreputable women. There would have been no great harm in that’ – the Duke’s eye was momentarily on the shocked Hobhouse – ‘although it was certainly conduct extraordinarily unbecoming in a scholar placed in a position of some confidence. But unfortunately Gerald is not at all that sort of boy. He reacted to these stupid but quite common experiences with a neurotic explosion: irrational feelings of guilt and so on. Not that
that
is anything very out of the way either. In my day there was always a bishop or two to whom parents would turn to set such matters right. Nowadays it’s psychologists – and Gerald has one jawing away at him now. I don’t myself attach very great importance to the whole affair. But the point is that this young Marlow was tremendously upset. He saw – and I suppose still sees – the lewd Prisk as having blighted Gerald’s whole life. But it’s his own life that is blighted, poor chap, if he killed Pluckrose. Perhaps he was just proposing to give Prisk a horrible fright, and the thing fell truer than he intended. Or perhaps there is nothing in my whole hypothesis – and I’m sure I hope not. After all, it would be astonishingly inefficient to manage to kill the wrong man.’ The Duke halted and looked at Appleby hopefully. ‘Don’t you think?’
‘I rather do. But it happens that Pluckrose and Prisk shared a telephone. And if a telephone message was used to lure the victim, as it were, into position, then a mistake becomes more possible.’ Appleby frowned. ‘Does Prisk know that you know all this?’
‘Certainly not. He has no idea that Gerald has confessed the whole thing to me. Otherwise I hardly suppose that he could sit with comfort at my table.’
The Duke of Nesfield had perhaps something of the same constitution as his grandson. The leading of Gerald into evil courses shocked him far more than he cared to admit, and certainly he was very far indeed from forgiving the disreputable Prisk… But now surely even the recesses of Nesfield Court could not much longer conceal Mr Collins, and Appleby had another set of questions to put. ‘About the meteorite, sir. If it were here to be stolen, presumably Marlow – or for that matter Prisk – could have stolen it?’
‘Presumably. But why anyone should want–’
‘Quite so, sir. Why steal a meteorite? I’m coming to see the crux of the whole matter as lying there. Is there any conceivable reason why a man should steal such a thing in order to drop it on – or near – another man? We’ve had the suggestion that it was a matter of symbolism, and there might be something in that. It’s a theory with two branches, so to speak. The meteorite might be attractive or relevant in virtue of its
general
symbolism: the associations which such a thing carries for every man. Or it might be attractive or relevant in virtue of some
particular
symbolism: some particular association which it had just for murderer and victim and, perhaps, other specific people. But now notice this. The meteorite was stolen; the meteorite was hurled down on Pluckrose. It doesn’t at all follow that the meteorite was stolen
with that end in view
. So we must also ask: Is there any conceivable reason why a man should steal a meteorite? Just that – as a problem quite independent of the murder. For instance, can such a thing contain precious metal? Might it have a high degree of scientific interest?’
The Duke smiled. ‘My dear sir, it’s nice to hear one question that one can answer. The meteorite could have high scientific interest only for a
scientist
. And such a person would have sufficient information to know that I should be likely to relinquish the thing at once for any reasonably accredited scientific purpose. A scientist wouldn’t need to
steal
it. The idea of a precious metal seems a more likely one. But somehow I feel that gold or platinum, say, doesn’t happen in meteorites. We’ll ask Collins to look it up. And here we are.’
‘May I ask one more question before we rejoin the others? It’s still about the meteorite. Suppose that neither Marlow nor Prisk stole it. Would any of the other university people be possible – have the opportunity of noticing it, I mean, if it were about?’
‘It seems to depend on just
where
about it lay. But a great many university people would have just as good a chance as Prisk or Marlow. You see, I give a party for them twice a year. And they wander all over the place.’
‘I see.’
‘In my mother’s time they weren’t let inside.’ The Duke smiled his always faintly arrogant smile. ‘She had them in a book called “Garden Parties Only” along with the city aldermen and the country doctors and the lower clergy. How remote those times seem!’ The Duke’s hand was on the door before him; his voice was gently ironical. ‘Now I let them in. Twice a year. And what happens? They steal my meteorites.’ He opened the door. ‘Collins,’ he said amiably, ‘I’ve brought the police.’
The room, Appleby reckoned in a vulgar comparison, was about the size of a small cinema. Everything showed cream and gold – including the greater part of the tens of thousands of books which clothed the walls. Ionic pillars supported a ceiling which was one swirling mythological battle-piece; Ionic pillars flanked a fireplace of green marble in which a great log was burning. And before this stood Mr Collins, a rosy-faced old man wearing a brocaded smoking-jacket and holding a churchwarden pipe. He had Prisk and Marlow comfortably placed on either side of him and was himself arranging a great silver bowl on a table. ‘Duke,’ he said when he had greeted Appleby and Hobhouse, ‘I think we have only to call for more lemons. Do you know how they came to give
Punch
its name? Because its first editor was Mark Lemon. I knew him well, Mr Appleby; a fellow of infinite jest, of most excellent fancy. His friends knew him as Uncle Mark. Alas, my dear professor,
tempus ferax
’ – Mr Collins busied himself above his bowl – ‘
tempus edax rerum
. Mr Hobhouse, are you at your ease? Here is a lower and more comfortable chair. Morals and domestic furniture, they say, grow lower together. A suggestive thesis, Marlow, my dear lad, for your learned pen. Pray draw up, gentlemen, draw up. Duke, it is nearly a week since you have assisted at these compotations. Commonly I sit here of an evening now.’ Mr Collins glanced round the vast room. ‘It is cosier in early spring. But had I known of your intended visit, I would have had fires lit in the library.’ His eye caught Hobhouse’s surprised blink round the room and he chuckled. ‘Ah, Mr Hobhouse, I often remind the Duke of something said by the poet Coleridge when he was stopping in a deserted palace in Malta. He lived, he said, like a mouse in a cathedral. How admirable a phrase! And here at Nesfield we are all like mice in a cathedral – and waiting for the cat.’ Mr Collins chuckled again and picked up a long-handled silver spoon. ‘Will it be a Cheshire cat? Well, the mob is distinguished by nothing if not by its grin. Will it be Dick Whittington’s cat? I judge it will scarcely be amiably disposed towards the City of London. Will it be Puss in Boots? Ah, gentlemen, it may have boots but it certainly won’t have breeches. The Duke’s cat is a sansculottic cat. And a sanguinary cat and a socialistic cat. But meantime the mice may play and the punch is ready. Professor, you will take a glass?
Nunc est bibendum
, Marlow,
nunc est bibendum.
And if
pede libero pulsanda tellus
be ruled out by our advancing years, at least we may have a catch.’ And Mr Collins, having served out the punch to his satisfaction, gave every indication of being about to break into song.
What used to be called Table Talk, thought Appleby. Perhaps the old gentleman wrote it all down afterwards and would one day publish it in a book. Table Talk by Dash Collins Esquire, Librarian to His Grace the Duke of Nesfield, KG… And meantime it made another atmosphere somewhat inimical to brisk criminal investigation.
‘Talking of cats,’ said the Duke adroitly, ‘there is one that has got out of the bag. The meteorite, Collins, the meteorite. Our friends here have discovered that it came from somewhere about the place and they have called to inquire. I don’t remember ever having seen it myself.’
‘Probably you never have.’ Mr Collins abandoned his singing posture and sat back comfortably by the fire. ‘Very probably you never have, Duke. You bought it only a few months ago. And hard upon its arrival on this dim spot which men call Earth.’ Mr Collins paused as if to savour the flavour of this quotation and of the punch together. ‘Hammond got you to buy it.’
‘Hammond?’ said the Duke, rather blankly – and then brightened. ‘Ah, yes, Hammond – of course. Then Hammond is our man – and a very charming fellow too. Thomas, be so good as to give my compliments to Mr Hammond–’
Mr Collins shook his head. ‘You forget, Duke. Hammond has left us. After he had catalogued the ceramics–’
‘To be sure, the ceramics. Of course I remember that he came for that.’
‘He came to deal with the Pickering Collection.’
‘The Pickering Collection?’ The Duke nodded sagely and turned to Appleby. ‘Armour,’ he said. ‘Interesting stuff.’
Mr Collins shook his head indulgently once more. ‘Early scientific instruments,’ he corrected. ‘And when Hammond had done that, and most kindly lent Borrow a hand with the ceramics–’
‘Ah, Borrow.’ The Duke was confident. ‘The man with the beard and the mania for asparagus.’
‘Precisely. Well, Hammond, as I say, went back to the British Museum. You had only borrowed him, after all.’
‘A great pity. And have I only borrowed Borrow?’
Mr Collins chuckled happily. ‘I fear not. But perhaps you could lend him somewhere. Otherwise we had better give instructions for more asparagus beds. And that reminds me of something I had intended to suggest to you about the peaches.’
Appleby caught Hobhouse’s eye and thought it wise to interrupt. ‘Perhaps you have heard, Mr Collins, that one of the professors of the university has been killed. Somebody hurled this meteorite at him from a tower. So our investigation is really of some gravity and we are concerned to make the best speed we can.’
‘Dear me!’ Mr Collins took his pipe from his mouth and looked comfortably concerned. ‘May I ask who the unfortunate man was?’
‘His name was Pluckrose.’
‘You surprise me.’ Very deliberately, Mr Collins got up and gave a poke at the great log on the fire. ‘I know little of Mr Pluckrose – or indeed of any of the university people except our two friends here.’ And Mr Collins bowed ceremoniously to Prisk and Marlow. ‘Nevertheless you could have named no name by which I should have been occasioned greater surprise. His Grace’ – and Mr Collins, whom punch was inclining perhaps to old-world forms, bowed quite profoundly – ‘His Grace is without the necessary information to be particularly startled. But hereby hangs a tale.’ He paused and looked doubtfully at the Duke. ‘I suppose it isn’t necessary to have a man of business present? I must confess to feeling that all this is unfamiliar and perhaps delicate ground.’
For the first time the Duke was mildly impatient. ‘Go ahead, man, go ahead. Lawyers won’t help us.’
‘Then what I have to say is this.’ Mr Collins puffed at his pipe. Was he, Appleby debated, looking rather apprehensively at Marlow? If so, it was only fleetingly, for now his glance was following a puff of smoke up to the great painted ceiling. ‘What I must say is this: I know who stole the meteorite. In fact I was present when the thing happened.’
‘Bless my soul!’ The Duke looked at his librarian in astonishment. ‘Why ever didn’t you have it stopped?’
‘Because the circumstances were such that I had to conclude that it was not, in fact, theft that was in question.’ Mr Collins frowned – probably because he felt this sentence to be stylistically inelegant. ‘The meteorite was removed under – how shall I put it? – under the most respectable auspices. This I had on Marlow’s authority.’
The Duke swung round. ‘Martin, what is this? Have you known–’
‘I don’t know anything. I don’t know what Collins is talking about.’ Marlow looked at once dogged and alarmed.
‘I think that may be so. There is no reason why it may not be so, as the circumstances will make plain.’ Mr Collins had turned earnestly to Appleby. ‘When Hammond first bought the meteorite for the Duke it was stored somewhere about the house. Then it was sent away somewhere for scientific examination; it was weighed and photographed and no doubt analysed in various technical ways. Perhaps it proved to be without any special interest; I don’t know. But when it was brought back Hammond had it put outside – under one of the little colonnades that flank the carriage drive by the lower of the east terraces. And there I happened to he strolling one morning when an open car drove up and there got out a figure that was vaguely familiar to me. I was quite unable to place the fellow, but I knew that I had met him on some social occasion. He walked up to the meteorite, examined it, and then called out to a gardener who was working near by. I could hear his words distinctly. “My good man,” he said, “be so good as to find help and lift this large stone into my car.” I think now that the gardener too must have seen this fellow among the guests here at one time or another. Certainly he did what he was told without misgiving. Of course an authoritative tone would go a long way with him – particularly when the object in question would appear to him as without any special value. Be that as it may, the meteorite was hoisted in the car, and away its new owner drove.’ Mr Collins took a sip of punch, as if to recruit himself after this long narrative effort. ‘And now, I think, Marlow will know what I am talking about, and can take up the tale.’