Inspector Horrocks of the Cambridge Police always made me doubt that the war was really over. Though I had never seen him in any kind of uniform, I felt that he belonged in the drawings of Bruce Bairnsfather—at least he was the type of Englishman which that eminent cartoonist tried in vain to caricature. But no mere pencil could ever give adequate expression to that plum-and-apple complexion, those guileless china blue eyes or that red walrus moustache. It would require the brush of a Raeburn or a Reynolds to do justice to Inspector Horrocks’ peculiarly English type of—well, not exactly beauty. He was the final epitome of much beef and beer; the glorious, solid result of plain living, military discipline, and no hanky-panky when it came to high thinking.
But Inspector Horrocks was also a man of infinite resource and sagacity. If, during our not infrequent visits to the “Plumed Cock,” I had underestimated his mental powers, I very soon revised my opinion when he finally reached Baumann’s room at eleven o’clock that Monday night.
“Well, sir,” he said, turning deferentially to Dr. Warren, who had been explaining his theory of the accident, “if he was cleaning his gun when it went off in his hand there’ll be powder marks on his face to show it was point-blank range, as you might say, sir.”
Dr. Warren lifted up the mangled head without speaking. Indeed, words were unnecessary, for no powder marks or anything else could be seen on that terrible, blood-stained countenance.
“Then there’s the bullet, sir. It usually goes right through in such cases. We ought to find it somewhere in the room.”
“I thought of that,” replied Dr. Warren, “but the bullet didn’t pierce the skull. You can see for yourself there’s no hole in the back of the head. Strange,” he mused, “the cerebrum is as soft as putty. The bullet must have been deflected on passing through one of the frontal bones. Now if it had been a spent bullet, we might have expected—” His voice trailed off.
Horrocks picked up the revolver and wrapped it in a large pocket handkerchief. As he did so I stole a furtive glance at the isolated blood stain and noticed, to my relief, that it was now almost invisible. “It’s no good even trying to get fingerprints off this gun,” he said in disgust. “I never did see such a mess. Worse than Dunkirk, eh, Colonel?”
The two old soldiers smiled gravely at each other and, as they did so, I noticed that Horrocks’ eyes looked at Dr. Warren with an almost doglike devotion and admiration. I suspected then, as I afterwards found out to be the truth, that it was by saving Inspector Horrocks’ life that Colonel (then Captain) Warren had won his V. C. Our tutor could do no wrong in the eyes of Cambridge Law as embodied in Inspector Herbert Horrocks.
After he had washed his hands and taken a careful survey of the room, Horrocks produced his notebook and began to question me. There was hardly any need to be untruthful. No, I could not say that I had definitely heard the shot. Nor had I seen or heard any stranger go into Baumann’s rooms. I knew of no circumstances which should make the South African wish to take his own life. Yes, I had some reason to believe that the gun was his own, and, as Dr. Warren suggested, the sudden extinction of the lights might well have startled him and caused the pistol to go off. It had certainly startled me. When I came to think of it, there had been a crash about that time but, of course, we had all taken it for thunder.
One question, however, was not so easy.
“If you didn’t hear the shot, Mr. Fenton, what made you climb over the roof to get into his room that way?”
I paused before replying.
“I wanted to speak to Baumann. I knew he was in since there was a light under his door. I banged and banged. There was no answer. So finally—”
“I didn’t know Baumann was such a close friend of yours,” interrupted the tutor, looking at me narrowly.
“Well, sir, we were neighbours,” I commented lamely.
“But even with neighbours, surely, one respects the sported oak.”
Before I had time to reply, Horrocks suddenly made a dive towards the fireplace.
“See here, sir,” he said, holding up a partially consumed match. “Here’s a match.”
There was indeed no doubt about it. Its significance, however, was not immediately apparent to us two victims of higher education.
“Well,” explained the inspector, stating the fact as though it was the most obvious thing in the world, “the deceased young gentleman didn’t smoke. Not an ashtray in sight. Not a packet of gaspers, as you might say, sir; and—what’s more—not a match neither. Not even in his pockets.”
Here was deduction indeed. Dr. Warren and I were flatteringly impressed.
“And what is one’s first instinct when lights go out?” continued Horrocks sagely. “Why to strike a match, of course. And if Mr. Baumann hadn’t got a match, well, it may mean there was someone else here who had.”
This was terrible. I could almost feel the colour come and go in my cheeks.
“Perhaps I can explain that,” I stammered out at length. “I smoked a cigarette in here this morning while I was—er—having a little chat with Baumann. You can see the end of it in the fireplace now. Probably that was the match I used to light it.”
Horrocks’ little balloon of triumph seemed to have been summarily pricked. He looked almost crestfallen, but I thought I saw a flicker of relief pass over the tutor’s mask-like countenance.
After Horrocks had asked a few more questions and received generally satisfactory answers, Dr. Warren gravely summed up his own conclusions.
“I am quite satisfied myself, Horrocks, that this was a case of accidental death. At present I see no reason to suspect otherwise. The position of the body, the wound and the revolver all seem perfectly reasonable to me. Indeed, I sincerely hope that such will be proved the case. One point, however, I feel I ought to mention. When I entered this room I had a distinct impression that a woman had been here. There was a strong smell of perfume.”
The word “woman” alarmed me so much that I completely lost my head and burst forth into a tissue of half-lies.
“I think I can explain that, too, sir,” I said in a voice so calm that I was surprised at my own duplicity. “When I saw Baumann lying there, I didn’t realize at first that he was dead. I ran into the bedroom to see if I could find anything to help him. While I was there I upset a bottle of perfume that was on his dressing table and got it all over my sleeve.”
“Perfume?” The tone was sceptical.
I went into the bedroom and produced the bottle. Dr. Warren sniffed at it and peered through his monocle.
“Well,” he said, “that’s certainly the odour I smelled.”
The arrival of the police surgeon put a stop to all further inquiries that were not strictly medical. Dr. Warren counted the title M. D. amongst his other academic distinctions, and could talk to the medical examiner in his own language. Polysyllabic words such as intercranial pressure, cerebral hemorrhage, medulla oblongata and corpus striatum were tossed lightly to and fro like so many ping-pong balls. Horrocks and I indulged in a lay conversation on the side.
Finally Dr. Warren turned to me and said, “I think, Mr. Fenton, I must ask you to come with me while I report this matter to the Master. He has guests at the Lodge tonight, but I’m afraid we shall have to trouble him.” He turned to Horrocks. “Will you find your way over there when Dr.—er—Beaverly has made the necessary arrangements?” The inspector nodded.
Whatever the truth about our Master, the longevity of the Cambridge don is notorious. The excellence of the college cellar is probably responsible, on the principle that the better the preservative the longer the preservation.
Dr. Hyssop, the Master of All Saints College, was as warm and human as Dr. Warren was austere and formal. We could hear his benevolent voice booming out goodnights to his guests as we stood on the porch waiting to be admitted. The door opened at length and we saw the fine leonine head (he justifiably prided himself on his resemblance to his old friend, George Meredith), the snow-white beard and kindly, tranquil eyes. Dr. Warren and I stood aside for his guests to pass, and I scrutinized the ladies carefully in the wild hope that the Profile might be among them or that I should see some young woman whom I might have mistaken for her on the staircase that night. No, they were all middle-aged or elderly and there was not a soul there, man or woman, that I did not know by sight; each of the ladies was as far beyond my suspicions as Caesar’s wife herself or the Master’s only surviving granddaughter, who was acting as hostess.
After the party had dispersed, Dr. Hyssop turned to give me one of his famous electric handshakes.
“Well, Hilary, my boy,” he said warmly. “This is indeed a pleasure. And how is my old friend, Aloysius Fenton? Is he still championing the cause of the desolate and the oppressed on the bench of the Supreme Court?”
I told him hastily that my father was well. As I smiled into that kindly face I felt instinctively that I wanted to put off the bad news about Baumann as long as possible. Dr. Warren had no such scruples, however, and as soon as we had seated ourselves in the Master’s comfortable study, he launched forth into an account of the South African’s death.
While he was talking I forgot for a moment the enigma of Baumann. My eyes wandered round the fascinating room. It was warm and personal as the character of its owner. Its untidiness and haphazard arrangement gave it a charm of its own; periods and personalities were inextricably blended in a glorious hodgepodge. There was a signed portrait of Lord Tennyson (next to one of Bernard Shaw), another of Thomas Hardy, affectionately inscribed “To Mart from Tom.” A very recent Matisse hung on a William Morris wallpaper; a bust of Meredith adorned one corner of the room; in the other was Rodin’s famous head of Dr. Hyssop himself. The mantelpiece was full of photographs. These I examined with interest; and I caught the face of my father, looking absurdly youthful and unimportant despite his court robes.
The sight of him brought me back with a start to the unfortunate present. Dr. Warren had finished his tale, and the Master was making clucking noises like a distressed hen. It hurt me to see the pain which we had involuntarily inflicted on this benevolent old gentleman.
“Poor boy!” he murmured, “how sad, how very sad, how very sad! I don’t recall ever meeting him. What year did you say he was in, Warren?”
“He’s a second year man, Master. Plays cricket for the University and looks—or rather, looked—certain to get his blue this year. He was a good classical scholar, too. Came to us from the University of Grahamstown on a sixty pound open scholarship—a South African of Dutch extraction. Well-to-do people, I imagine. By nature he was morose and anti-social. Disliked college activities and had few friends. A most unpopular fellow with the other undergraduates.”
I was amazed to learn that, despite all appearances to the contrary, each hair of our heads is numbered by the authorities.
“Dear, dear,” sighed the Master. “It will mean an investigation, I suppose. The police, the coroner—all that kind of thing. I shall leave it to you, Warren. I just can’t wrestle with it.” The faded eyes lost their light for a moment and looked infinitely weary. “It will do the college no good, I’m afraid. But we shall survive it, just as we survived that sad affair of William North. Dear me, dear me!” The Master passed a hand over his face as if to wipe out a painful memory.
And indeed the story of William North, though it had sounded humorous enough when referred to by Somerville that morning, was one of the most tragic incidents in the history of the college. William North had been one of the most brilliant French students of his day; his book Rabelais et Son Siècle was (and for all I know, still is) the last word on an intricate and hitherto little appreciated period in French literature. The young author had once had the academic world at his feet. It was even predicted that he would one day have his picture hung in the College Hall along with the other immortals. Today it was blazoned on the front page of every newspaper in England.
As an undergraduate, and before all his troubles started, North had made an unfortunate marriage with a local barmaid. The marriage was doubtless perpetrated in a moment of Rabelaisian impetuosity. It had not, however, hindered him from getting his fellowship at All Saints and his lectures were reputed to have been among the most brilliant ever given at Cambridge.
He lived with his wife and two children, happily enough, at Madingley. Every vacation he would rush off to France, where he explored the Rabelais country around Chinon, always seeking for fresh material to put in his ever growing volume. He was a terrific worker and a prodigious scholar.
And then, almost immediately following the publication of his book, the crash came. For some time he had been nervous and irritable; overwork during a neglected attack of influenza had induced a mild form of brain fever. He attended his classes as usual. One day the most horrible screams were heard issuing from his rooms on “A” staircase (those now occupied by the staid Dr. Long).
The oak was sported; the screams died to a hideous, strangled gurgling. When finally the door was opened, a madman was discovered gloating in sixteenth century French over the dead body of one of his most brilliant woman students. The corpse was hideously mutilated. There was talk of an outrage of an even more terrible nature.
William North was tried and condemned to death. The case completely eclipsed for a time the notorius Crippen trial, with which it was almost contemporaneous. A clever counsel got the case appealed on a legal technicality. Then followed the second trial of William North, which was so interesting in the legal points involved that my father included an account of it in his Famous Second Trials. My father happened to be present at both the trials of North and saw his sentence commuted from death on the gallows to confinement for life in the Cambridgeshire asylum for the criminally insane.
That this confinement had now come to an abrupt termination was the theme of Inspector Horrocks, who had joined us in the courtyard after we had said goodnight to the Master.
“It’s a strange thing, Colonel,” he said, biting the ends of his enormous moustache, “that the two things should have happened almost in one day as you might say, sir, and both of them involving this college of yours. I’ve been working all day on the North case and a rare job I’m having of it, trying to trace his footsteps, though every police station in the country has been wired a description of him. I was thinking sir,” here his voice dropped to a confidential whisper, “that if Mr. Baumann’s death wasn’t accidental—well, there was murder on ‘A’ staircase once before, and they say that murderers always return to the scene of their crime.”
Dr. Warren gave a little start, and his eyeglass fell from his eye. His face was pale in the moonlight.
“Nonsense, Horrocks,” he exclaimed. “Your imagination is running away with you. North was a scholar and a gentleman. His—er—unfortunate lapse occurred twenty years ago whilst he was very ill and his mind temporarily deranged. You know as well as I do that fundamentally he was not a criminal—and incidentally he was one of my greatest friends.”
The inspector mumbled an apology. “Well, I must say, sir, he’s been quiet enough and docile like in the ‘home’ there. Was allowed to do almost anything he liked, as you might say, sir. Given the run of the establishment almost. No one dreamed as how he was lying in wait for his opportunity to get away. All the staff was surprised and hurt, sir—surprised and hurt. The superintendent felt it was casting reflections on his treatment as you might say.”
We had now reached “A” staircase. I was thinking how little inclination I felt to go up to my own room, past Baumann’s door.
“Have you finished in there?” asked the tutor, with an upward jerk of his head.
“Yes, sir,” replied Horrocks. “The body has been removed. Dr. Beaverly agreed with you as to the time of death, sir, and we have found nothing else of a suspicious nature. It will be ‘Death by Misadventure’ all right, Colonel.”
“So much the better,” said Dr. Warren. “Good night, Horrocks.”
“Good night, Colonel, sir. Good night, Mr. Fenton. I shall have to trouble you again tomorrow, I’m afraid. I hope the coroner can arrange to sit on the case by Wednesday or Thursday. Good night.”
Dr. Warren and I parted at the door of his rooms. As I paused a moment I heard again the soft notes of his piano. A look of annoyance passed over his face and he wished me an abrupt good night.
Someone was in Dr. Warren’s rooms—someone who did not know or did not care that musical instruments are forbidden after 11 P.M. And whoever was there played Chopin much better than Dr. Warren did—and very differently. There was a certain abandon, a divine delirium never achieved by our tutor in his sporadic tinklings.
But I was too tired to worry my head about these further complications, so I ran upstairs as quickly as I could and went straight to bed. When sleep finally came, I dreamed a dream strangely similar to that of Somerville’s unfortunate Marlborough friend. I was in bed in a strange room which suddenly seemed to become more and more familiar.
Eventually I realized that it was Baumann’s, but instead of being a sitting-room it was now a dormitory full of beds, all empty except the one I was in, and one other. Outside, it seemed, a thunderstorm was raging. Then slowly the door opened and a figure entered.
It advanced toward the other occupied bed. I could neither move nor cry out. The figure glided onwards. I closed my eyes, and when I opened them I noticed that the occupant of the other bed. was now lying face downwards in a position which I knew only too well. Beneath the head was a dark, growing stain.
The figure was now retreating towards the door, but before disappearing it half turned towards me. It was the Profile. She was speaking—speaking to me in a clear, yet somewhat unearthly voice, and across that strange yet familiar room I heard her repeating the marvelous words of that macabre poem by William Blake:
O Rose, thou art sick!
The invisible worm
That flies in the night
In the howling storm,
Has found out thy bed
Of crimson joy;
And his dark secret love
Does thy life destroy.