Dead as a Dodo

by Jane Langton

  It was easy to oblige. Homer avoided bunches of them by dodging left and right and moving out into the street. He looked anxiously at his watch. He was going to be late. But at last the pedestrian traffic thinned, and there were no more shops. As the bell in Tom Tower sounded eleven, Homer hurried across the street and walked into the arched entrance. At once a tall porter in a bowler hat came forward and asked a courteous, “May I help you, sir?” It was a kindly warning that admission was limited to members of the college.

  But Mukerji was already there. He busded forward, and spoke up for Homer. “It’s all right, Mr. Aubrey, Professor Kelly is with me.” Grinning, he led the way into a spacious quadrangle.

  It looked familiar to Homer. Surely he had seen it in guidebooks. Yes, there in the middle was the famous Mercury fountain. To Homer’s uneducated eyes the place looked bare. There were no clipped hedges or spreading trees like those on an American college green. He felt like Alice, going through the looking-glass. British cars drove on the wrong side of the street, British cyclists wore ordinary clothes instead of helmets and tight-fitting spandex, the British language was quaintly eccentric, and this college quadrangle was unadorned with pompoms of shrubbery. It was the differences that made everything so interesting.

  As they crossed the quad and headed through a passage at one side, Mukerji expounded on the history of the college and named some of its celebrated graduates—John Wesley, Charles Dodgson, W. H. Auden. “And me, of course,” he said, chuckling. “I graduated one day, and next day I walked around the corner and became a police officer. I confess,” he said, astonishing Homer with his frankness, “that it was not my college degree that mattered, so much as the influence of my uncle in military intelligence. Come, Dr. Kelly. The Graduate Common Room is up these stairs.”

  “Tell me, Inspector,” said Homer, “what’s a common room anyway? A dining hall, is that it?”

  “No, no. It’s like a club. It includes everyone at the same level in the college. Only senior members use the Senior Common Room, and I suppose only postgrads use this one.” Mukerji cackled again. “I don’t know why the hell the undergraduates bother with the Junior Common Room. Myself, I preferred the local pubs.”

  Mukerji’s mild profanity, spoken in his perfect diction, amused Homer as he puffed after him up the stairs. “Tell me, Inspector, did Dr. Farfrae tell you what she saw on the roof of the University Museum? You know, when the night watchman fell to his death? I told her to call you.”

  Mukerji stopped at the top of the stairs and rolled his eyes dramatically at Homer. “Oh, yes, she called it a creature. What a strange lady. Why did she not report it at once?”

  Homer reached the top step and gasped for breath. “I think she has a rather odd marriage. Her husband is easily”—Homer groped for a word, then picked the one Helen had used herself—“upset. I think she hoped to stay out of it altogether.”

  “Inspector, will you come this way?” It was a genial servant of the college. He led them down a corridor, unlocked a door and gestured them inside.

  Once again Homer had a feeling of recognition. Surely he had seen this room in a picture somewhere, this layout, these windows, this door at one side of the hearth? But no, it couldn’t be. How many rooms in Oxford had windows on the wall to the left of fhe fireplace, and a door on the right? There must be hundreds of them, thousands. He banished the eerie sense that he had seen the room before, and burst out laughing.

  There between the windows was the portrait of the dodo, taking up most of the wall between the long red draperies. It looked huger and more ridiculous than ever.

  Mukerji laughed too. “Is that it? That thing is a dodo?”

  “It’s the dodo, all right. I must say, it looks perfectly at home. How on earth did it get here?”

  The answer came from an unexpected source. A key turned in the door and two people walked in. One was Stuart Grebe, the goggle-eyed Rhodes scholar who had introduced Homer to the dodo at last Wednesday’s reception. The other was Freddy Dubchick.

  “It was my idea,” said Stuart.

  “We stole it together,” said Freddy.

  CHAPTER 13

  “But I don’t want to go among mad people,” Alice remarked.

  “Oh, you can’t help that,” said the Cat: “we’re” all mad here.

  Lewis Carroll, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland

  After the tragedy of Bobby Fenwick’s death, the theft of the dodo painting seemed to Homer like a comic turn. But everyone in the museum was alarmed about it, he knew that. They wanted their painting back, undamaged by thieving vandals.

  And here were the vandals in person. As thieves, Freddy Dubchick and Stuart Grebe were an unlikely pair, but Homer could see that they were dangerous. Freddy was young and suggestible, and Stuart was brash and clever, with funny ideas rattling around in his head like marbles in a pinball machine.

  “But why?” said Homer, looking at Stuart. “Why did you steal it? What was the point?”

  “Because it belongs here, that’s why.” Stuart’s eyes popped affectionately at the dodo.

  “That’s right,” said Freddy stoutly. “And it must stay here forever.”

  They were obviously deranged. Homer opened his mouth to ask Why? once again, but Detective Inspector Mukerji forestalled him. He raised one finger, and said, “Aha! I know. It is because Lewis Carroll once occupied these rooms, is that it? And he put the dodo in Alice in Wonderland?”

  Stuart and Freddy spoke as one: “Of course.”

  Homer nodded his head vigorously, understanding at last why the room had looked so familiar. He had seen it in a photograph, Charles Dodgson’s sitting room. “I remember now. He taught mathematics at Christ Church most of his life, isn’t that right? So you people just decided, all on your own, that the painting of the dodo belonged here, is that it?”

  Freddy nodded, her face radiant. Stuart beamed with pride.

  “Do I understand,” said Mukerji, his jovial face now grave, “that you both freely admit having stolen this valuable painting from the University Museum? Do you realize that, among other things, you will both be sent down?”

  Stuart’s face fell. “Sent down? You mean, expelled?”

  “I don’t care,” said Freddy, defiant.

  Mukerji made them sit down side by side on the enormous red sofa that occupied the center of the room. He sat opposite, leaning forward in an armchair. Homer pulled up a straight chair and disposed himself to watch the interviewing technique of this distinguished representative of British law enforcement.

  The detective inspector looked at Stuart and began strangely. “Come to us, youth, tell us truly why there is madness in your eyes?”

  “What?” said Stuart, dumbfounded.

  Mukerji chuckled. “Forgive me, Mr. Grebe. I couldn’t resist. I am quoting from the Bengali poet Tagore. Tell me, what time did you remove the picture from the museum? And how did you get in?”

  “Midnight,” said Stuart promptly. “Freddy had a key.”

  Freddy laughed. “We sort of enjoyed the idea of meeting at midnight to rescue the dodo. And I used my father’s key. I mean I just sort of borrowed it.”

  “What about a key to this room?” said Mukerji. “Ah, I know. You are a Rhodes scholar here at Christ Church, Mr. Grebe? You borrowed a key to the Graduate Common Room from a friendly postgrad?” Stuart grinned. Mukerji nodded wisely, then fixed his dark shining eyes on Freddy’s face. “Have either of you been reading the newspaper? Or listening to the news? Do you know what else was going on in the museum on Friday night?”

  Freddy and Stuart looked at each other, their faces blank. “No,” said Stuart. “No,” said Freddy.

  “You mean to say you unlocked the front door of the museum at midnight, lifted the picture off the wall and went away with it? You did nothing else? You never left the ground floor?”

  “That’s right,” said Freddy. “It couldn’t have taken us more than five minutes. We popped the picture into the back seat of Stuart’
s car and drove away.”

  “You have a car?” Homer had not meant to interrupt, but he couldn’t help it. Stuart Grebe didn’t look like the kind of American kid who could afford to own a car in a foreign country. His gawky wrists hung out below a ragged shirt, and his torn jeans had not been deliberately ripped by Ralph Lauren.

  “It’s a borrowed car. My roommate, he’s from Rhode Island. He bought this old Rover.”

  Mukerji’s brilliant eyes bored into Stuart, then looked back at Freddy. “During this five minutes in the museum, did you hear anything? Anything at all?”

  Freddy and Stuart looked at each other again. “Well, there was this guy sort of yelling, upstairs somewhere,” said Stuart.

  “So we hurried,” said Freddy. “We were afraid he might come down.”

  “Then the yelling stopped,” said Stuart. “Everything was quiet when we left.”

  Afterward Mukerji left them in no doubt as to the seriousness of their offense. “I will not report this to the college authorities, at least not yet, although it may be necessary to do so in the weeks to come.” He wagged a warning finger. “But the picture is to be restored to the museum at once. Professor Kelly, will you supervise its return?”

  “Of course,” said Homer.

  They stood up. The interview was over. Mukerji’s round cheeks shone, his eyes sparkled, his black brows were more commanding than ever. He shook hands all around and darted away, leaving the rest of them to cope with the return of the painting.

  The aged Rover was in a minimal state of repair. The enormous picture barely fitted in the back. A chip fell off the gold frame as Stuart wedged it into the back seat.

  “Tell me, Stuart,” said Homer nervously, climbing in beside it, “do you know how to drive in this country?”

  “Oh, sort of,” said Stuart. “Don’t worry. I pick things up fast.”

  It was a wild ride. The car shivered and shook. “Left, left,” shouted Homer, as Stuart wobbled into the crossing at Carfax. There was a moment of frightening confusion at the Martyrs’ Memorial as he yawed left and right, trying to head into the Banbury Road, and another as he made the right turn onto Keble, with Freddy shrieking in warning.

  In front of the museum, Stuart and Freddy emerged from the car cheerful and unshaken. Homer was trembling, having escaped death by the narrowest of margins.

  CHAPTER 14

  The female… with the rarest exceptions, is less eager than the male … she is coy, and may often be seen endeavouring for a long time to escape.

  Charles Darwin, The Descent of Man

  DIARY OF FREDERICKA DUBCHICK

  Oliver is having dinner with us tomorrow.

  Solemn note: I know what he wants. I’m supposed to give him my answer. Oh, the question is so boring. I wish he’d stop tormenting me. I wish—

  What shall I make for lunch? Lentil soup, salad, stewed pears? I’ve got a new French cookbook, but I think I’ll save it for a really royal occasion.

  Important announcement: this entry is to be a further dissertation

  ON BEING LOOKED AT—

  a subject of IMMENSE interest.

  Item 1) My tutor, Dr. Swann, doesn’t look at me at all. I don’t know how he knows it’s me, and not somebody else. His eyes skitter around the room and land on the windowsill or the rug or the lampshade. Yesterday he actually looked at my shoelaces. Maybe he’ll work his way up to my knees and eventually to my face, then rear back and say, Good heavens, I thought you were Miss Smith!

  Item 2) My dog Fluffy looks at me with worshipful yearning, his brown eyes misty with love.

  Item 3) Oliver looks at me the same way!

  Item 4) The American looked at me again last Wednesday in the Examination Schools.

  It was a lecture by Professor Heddlestone, who has just won the Nobel Prize for something or other. I took a lot of notes, but when I glanced at them afterward they were meaningless. At one point I dropped my pen, and when I reached down for it, I saw that he was sitting right behind me, and he reached for it too, and for a minute our hands were touching, in fact his kept missing the pen and running into my hand and it was like—oh, God, it was like being kissed, it really was. Afterward we walked out together and he looked at the cupola of Queen’s and said it reminded him of a pet albino spider he had kept as a boy. He didn’t look at me while we were talking, but he knew it was me, all right, not Miss Smith!

  Item 5) Oh, brrrr, this is a different kind of being looked at. On Cornmarket Street yesterday I saw a horrible old woman shuffling along, stopping to reach into one of the litter containers. She had long dragging hair and grim yellow eyes and an immense posterior, and for a minute we looked at each other, and she didn’t say anything, but a message came out of her eyes, and I could understand it as plainly as if she had said it out loud—

  As I am now you too shall be,

  Prepare for death and follow me.

  It’s what they used to write on gravestones. And it was true! Right away I could feel my head wedged down into my shoulders and my big bottom cantilevered out behind me. It was a foretaste of my own old age.

  Item 6) The way Father looked at me when I told him about my scrape with the police!

  Homer Kelly made me tell him. After we brought the dodo picture back to the museum, Homer scolded me. He said I was lucky not to be thrown out, and Stuart was lucky too, and I should confess everything to my father. So I ran upstairs to Father’s office and burst in without knocking, and found him trying to fix his glasses with a couple of safety pins. I told him about the Great Dodo Caper, and then I laughed as though it had all been such fun. “It’s all right, Father,” I said. “Dr. Kelly has hushed it up.”

  It was a horrible mistake. Father looked at me in this terribly GRAVE way, and said that I was “fortunate indeed.” It was worse, oh, much worse than the ghastly stare of that fearsome old woman on Cornmarket Street!

  CHAPTER 15

  “Make a remark,” said the Red Queen: “it’s ridiculous to leave all the conversation to the pudding!”

  Lewis Carroll, Through the Looking-Glass

  Oliver Clare was making a painful effort to seem relaxed, but things started off badly. When Freddy opened the door her dog Fluffy yipped wildly at him as though he were about to make off with the family silver.

  Oliver was not a physical coward, but he was afraid of Fluffy. “Hello, there, boy!” he said heartily, stretching out his hand. At once Fluffy jumped up and bit it.

  There followed a scene of apologies by Freddy and protestations by Oliver that it was nothing, really nothing, followed by antiseptic, bandages and adhesive tape.

  Freddy’s father, Professor Dubchick, smoothed the situation by showing the scar on his finger and talking about the monkey that had bitten him in Ecuador. Freddy displayed the scars on her knees, achieved by falling off her bicycle. Oliver reached out a tender hand to touch them, then pulled it back.

  The next awkwardness was the Episode of the Decanter, as Freddy described it afterward in her diary. In his nervousness Oliver managed to knock over the crystal decanter from which Professor Dubchick had been pouring sherry. The old family heirloom flooded his trousers, then smashed on the floor. Again there was a scene of yelped apologies, this time by Oliver, and protestations by Freddy and her father that it was nothing, really nothing, followed by sponges, wet towels and grovelings under the table, as Oliver tried to find all the broken pieces.

  Afterward he stayed an hour longer than he should have, trying to glue the decanter back together. He was hoping for a chance to ask Freddy his enormously important question. Instead he conversed uncomfortably with her father. His voice sounded pompous in his own ears, but he couldn’t stop talking like a clergyman of the Church of England.

  He did his best to go halfway. “I wonder, sir,” he said, as Freddy vanished to dish up the stewed pears, “if it’s possible to reconcile contemporary evolutionary theory with the views of the enlightened Christian church?”

  William maintained a polite
face, but he was bored with this question, tired of this young man, fatigued by his earnestness. If only Oliver had hurled the decanter at the wall, he might be someone you could take an interest in. “Well, plenty of people have tried,” he said mildly.

  “I mean,” said Oliver, pressing two pieces of crystal together with his thumbs while the glue took hold, “wouldn’t it be true to say that natural law in all its complexity is the work of God?”

  William tried to forgive this naive remark. Patiently he gave his usual answer. “To attribute everything to the intervention of God is simply to beg the question. But if it makes you happy to overarch the natural world in all its splendor and terror with a being of great magical power, so be it. Darwin would say you were merely restating the problem in dignified language. He found grandeur enough in the variety of species and in the natural laws governing their growth and change.”

  Poor Oliver tried to cobble up a response, but his mind was a blank, and then the two pieces of crystal shot out of his hands and disappeared under the table. When Freddy hurried in with her tray of stewed pears he was once again down on all fours.

  “Oh, Oliver,” she said, laughing at the sight of his black-trousered bottom, “you look as if you’re praying. Forget about the decanter. We’ll throw it away.”

  They ate their pears and sipped their coffee, retreating to the safe subject of ancestors.