The September Society clm-2

by Charles Finch

  “Shared it?”

  “They each had it for a few days at a time, if you see what I mean. At any rate, I’m not sure.”

  “What did you do after you saw the cat?”

  “I fainted. After a few minutes-perhaps even a few seconds-I woke up and nothing had changed. I felt very weak. The problem was that my brother is in Newcastle on business, or I would have gone straight home and told him everything. As it is I waited very miserably in the sitting room for about an hour, sipping at a glass of the brandy George keeps on hand. Then I checked back in the teashop to see if George had come in-they know him there-and he hadn’t. By then I was at the end of my wits. I went home and sent a telegram to my brother, who wrote back that he would be at Lincoln by midday today-Sunday, that is. Then last night I had the idea to fetch you. Emily Foal speaks so highly of your skill.”

  “Yes, those emeralds. What time was it exactly when you last saw George?” said Lenox.

  “Five minutes past twelve.”

  “Did you speak to his friends before you came to London?”

  “No, I thought it best to seek you out right away.”

  ““Did you consult with the porter or master?”

  “No.”

  “What else do you know about this cat?”

  “Nothing, really. I know that they’ve had him for a while now.”

  “Well, you’ve been awfully brave,” said Lenox.

  “I don’t think it will be enough,” she said.

  “We shall see; I am certainly hopeful,” he said.

  “Are you?” This in a tone of despair.

  “It seems telling to me that he saw you when he knew something was wrong-and didn’t stop and run off with you.”

  “You’re quite right,” she said. “I suppose I hadn’t thought of it that way. So you think he’s alive, at the very least?”

  “I hope and believe he is, yes, Lady Annabelle-but I shouldn’t like to draw any conclusions until we arrive.”

  CHAPTER FIVE

  They were ten miles outside of Oxford and Lady Payson had fallen asleep, perhaps unburdened to have told her story. Through the window on his side of the coach, Lenox was looking out at the farmland of Oxfordshire; herds of sheep grazed in the golden swales where dawn was swelling. They reminded him of the trips he had taken to and from Oxford during vacations from term.

  For Lenox himself was an Oxonian. He had been at Balliol. It had been, oh, five years since he had returned to Broad Street and walked through the college’s gate. This would be the first case to bring him back to Oxford, and even as he ran over Lady Payson’s story from half a dozen angles in his mind, the carriage knocking down the road, he was thinking about having a pint at the Bear and going through the low arches into the Bodleian courtyard.

  Before he had left London he had hastily written two notes. One was to Jane, telling her that he would be gone for a day or two. The other was to Thomas McConnell, who had by now settled into the firm role of medical examiner on Lenox’s cases. To McConnell Lenox had written, Not sure what there is for you to do (beyond examining a dead cat), but if you want to see a real university -McConnell had been at Cambridge- come to Oxford at your convenience. You’ll find me at the Bath Place Hotel above the Turf Tavern, or else they can direct you on .

  It was now morning, about eight o’clock, and they were a short way outside of Oxford. The carriage was approaching from the south; the Cherwell River wound in and out of view to their left. A number of long, shallow punts were covered and locked on the banks of the river, past their season until spring, and the famous willow trees had begun to scatter their leaves across the water. The yellowish light of morning appeared over the dreaming spires that Lenox knew so well-Tom Tower at Christ Church, the shining dome of the Radcliffe Camera, the ridged flutes rising from the towers of All Souls. It would only be a moment until Magdalen Bridge.

  A dead cat! Well, but who knew.

  Lady Payson stirred. “You’ve no idea how lovely it was to shut my eyes. Do please excuse me, though.”

  “I’m happy you could rest.”

  “Do you have children, Mr. Lenox? I don’t think you do.”

  “No, I don’t-not yet.”

  There was a haunted pause, and then she steeled herself. “Where do you plan to stay?” she asked.

  “I thought I might look in at the Turf, actually. I probably ought to stay somewhere else, but I can’t help my sentimentality. I spent a number of undergraduate nights there, you see. And you? Shall you return to your brother’s house?”

  She laughed humorlessly. “I certainly couldn’t leave Oxford. I’ll be at the Randolph Hotel.”

  “Sound choice, from all I hear.”

  “My usual one. It opened just before George came up to Oxford.”

  The Randolph was the best hotel in Oxford, and despite being new looked like one of the ancient colleges, made as it was of the same golden stone, covered with the same red and green ivy. It faced the Ashmolean Museum (one of Lenox’s favorite places in the world, full of beautiful paintings, Roman sculpture, and old, strange British treasures) on Beaumont Street.

  Both Lenox and Lady Annabelle were silent. Oxford is a quiet and gentle river town, interrupted at its center by a cluster of buildings that happen to be among the most beautiful mankind has ever produced. They were reaching that center now, passing the botanical gardens and Queen’s College into the very heart of town. Lenox took his satchel from the empty seat opposite and put it on his lap.

  “Shall we meet in an hour, Lady Payson?”

  She seemed more determined and imperial, less wholly fretful, than she had a few hours before in Hampden Lane. “May I ask why we should delay, Mr. Lenox?”

  He smiled gently. “I’m afraid I need a few moments to collect myself, perhaps tackle a cup of tea and a bite of something.”

  “The Turf, as I understand it-never having been, myself-is on Holywell Street? Yes? Well, then, it’s only a few steps from Lincoln. Shall we meet at the college gates in three-quarters of an hour?

  Lenox nodded. “As you please,” he said agreeably. It was a bother. Still, he didn’t envy her the position she was in. “Oh-I say, you can let me out here, driver.”

  “Are you sure, Mr. Lenox?” asked Lady Annabelle.

  “Oh, yes,” he said. They were just by Hertford College. “I’ll go in by the back way.”

  One could reach the Turf by Holywell, or else by a wending little cobblestone alley, probably not wider than an average man’s shoulders. The alley was darkly lit, and even at this hour Lenox had to turn his back to the wall and make way for a thin stream of students. Many of them were wearing the undergraduate subfusc, in various states of dishevelment. Perhaps they had finished their second-year examinations the day before. Passing by the used brown kegs as he approached the door, a smile he couldn’t wipe away on his face, Lenox went inside.

  It was a low-ceilinged place that dated to the 1300s. (Still leaving it a few hundred years shy of being the city’s oldest continuous drinking establishment.) Once it had been a strong-cider bar, and then briefly a pub called the Spotted Cow, but even to the oldest gents at the stile it had always been and would always be the Turf, hidden away from all but those who really knew Oxford. The wood on the walls was darkened by smoke and time, though the beams holding the roof up were freshly painted white. There was a bar in the front room-above it was the famous first menu of the Turf, a wooden plank with DUCK OR GROUSE written on it-and another in the back room, just by a staircase leading to the rooms above. It was by the staircase that Lenox found himself confronted by a lad of perhaps twelve. He was plump with fiery red hair and a freckly face.

  “Go on, sir,” he said, rather rudely.

  “Hello there-I was hoping I might have a room?”

  “Full up, compliments.”

  “No rooms at all?”

  “How about a beer instead?”

  Lenox laughed. “I don’t think so.”

  “Tom Tate, what d’you reckon
you’re doing!” A strong, very short woman emerged from the front bar, looking at the boy. Lenox smiled at her in recognition.

  Her eyes focused on him after she had dealt the lad a cuff and told him to see to the tables in front. “Is that… is that Mr. Lenox, there?” she said. “Not Edmund, but Charles?”

  “Too right, Mrs. Tate.”

  “Mr. Lenox!” She called back Tom, who was in high dudgeon with the world at having been cuffed, and told him to look out for Lenox’s bag.

  “You do have a room, then, Mrs. Tate?”

  “Have a room! Bless you, of course we have a room!”

  She led him up the staircase, behind her disgruntled employee and son. “Breakfast, then?” she said, looking back.

  “That might do me well, thanks.”

  She led him down to the end of the hallway-to his old room. Clearing Tom out and promising that breakfast would arrive soon, she left, saying only, “Excellent to see you, Mr. Lenox! You must excuse me, we’re busier than bees at the moment!” on her way out. Her brusqueness put Lenox in an affectionate mood; it meant nothing had changed.

  It was a room small in proportions but comfortably arranged. There were two windows with a lovely view of New College, a large bed in one corner, a nicked and blackened desk that had seen many first letters to home, and by the window a round, rickety table with a comfortable armchair alongside it and a fireplace behind it in the corner. There would have been a better turned-out (and perhaps even more comfortable) room in one of the nice hotels on Beaumont Street or the High, but he wouldn’t have been happy at either, knowing his room above the kitchen at the Turf was still available. He had spent so many nights here just before term started-that first, nervous night of his fresher year, in fact, waiting for his brother, Edmund, a third-year, to come fetch him for supper. Edmund-he would have understood. He would have stayed here too, as their father had, and his father, and his father.

  A moment later the chastised Tom staggered in under a tray about as big as him. Lenox slipped him a sixpence and smiled conspiratorially. “Not a word to Mum, eh?” he said.

  Then he slipped the window open to feel the breeze and poured himself a cup of coffee. There was a plate loaded down with toast, eggs, kippers, rashers, fried tomatoes, baked beans, and sausages on the tray, and he tucked into them with his mind on anything but a dead cat, smiling.

  CHAPTER SIX

  Lenox washed his face, changed his clothes, had a final gulp of coffee, and at the appointed time stood at the gates of Lincoln College.

  Oxford was made up of about twenty constituent colleges. Each of these had its own traditions, its own library, its own chapel, its own dining hall, its own professors, and its own buildings (though most of the colleges were in the same Gothic style, which gave Oxford its medieval look). United, along with the structures that belonged to Oxford as a university, like the Bodleian Library and the Sheldonian Theater, one of Wren’s most beautiful buildings, they formed Oxford. Against Cambridge every student from every college was an Oxonian, but within the university there were these other minor allegiances, though there was a great deal of exchange and friendship across their fluid boundaries.

  Lincoln was a middling sort of college, full of young men more amiable and athletic than scholarly, young men who would rather drink at the pub than debate at the Union. Both it and its students were well liked around the university. The first rank of colleges-Christ Church, Balliol, Merton-could be less cheerful places, especially when class reared its head too high. Lincoln’s merriness was enduring.

  It was also beautiful, folded into a side lane between Oxford’s two main thoroughfares, Broad Street and the High. It was made from the same quarry of yellowish, ancient stone as the other colleges that dated to the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. In fact, it had been founded in 1427 by the Bishop of Lincoln, and it was often said that it looked more like the colleges of that era had than any other place standing, because it was still only three stories high, cozy rather than grand, a home and a haven rather than an impersonal palace. Nobody was allowed to walk on the quad, of course, and its brilliant color, even at this time of the year, was the result of only about twenty men in four and a half centuries treading on it-each generation’s lawn mower, who in his turn was as famous a character in the college as the junior dean or the head porter.

  One of the most notable members of the college had been John Wesley, the religious reformer, who with his brother had held the first meetings of the infamous Holy Club in college rooms. This had all occurred in the 1720s and ’30s, long ago, but even then religious zealotry couldn’t weigh Lincolnites down-they had made a joke of Wesley, naming him and his followers Methodists because of their dull, methodical ways. It was a light-hearted college. Its alumni were famously devoted to it, the mark of the best places in Oxford, places like Lincoln and the Turf.

  Lady Payson arrived a few minutes late. “Do you think he’s alive?” she said without preamble.

  “I certainly hope he is, and I certainly think there’s a good chance,” said Lenox.

  “You don’t know George, Mr. Lenox. Nothing would have made him miss our lunch except a crisis-and no explanation, no note! Some sons might be capable of that, but not George. Only real trouble could have made him leave me like that.”

  “At any rate, I shall try my best to find him. That is what I can promise you. Would you rather I went in alone? Or will you come?”

  “I’ll come,” she said stoutly.

  “Just as you please, though I must ask you not to touch anything. Unless you have already?”

  “No, I left everything as it was. Why?”

  “It may be important to see what George left behind-whether he left in haste or deliberately, for instance, whether there’s any sign of forced access to a window or door.”

  “I see. No, I shan’t touch anything. I only sat in the chair by the window when I was here before. That may be slightly disturbed, but otherwise the rooms are as George left them.”

  Lady Payson nodded to the porter on duty, and she and Lenox walked along the stone path that circled the lawn, toward an entrance at the rear of the Front Quad.

  “Does anybody at the college know of anything amiss?” he asked.

  “I don’t think so.”

  “Best to keep it that way, perhaps. What do the porters think of your coming and going?”

  “I told them I was visiting, and asked if I could have leave to enter the college freely. They said I could, on the word of the master.”

  “And you haven’t spoken to any of his friends?”

  “No.”

  “Have you ever met any of them?”

  “Only very briefly.”

  They reached a slim stone stairwell in which the morning light angled through the mullioned windows on each landing. On the third and top floor, Lady Payson pointed to a door. Lenox took the lead.

  The sitting room looked as familiar as the back of his hand, and immediately Lenox took a liking to the young man who inhabited it. There was a grate just by the door, full of ready coals (a sensible proposition-no use fumbling in the coal with wet hands as you got in), and by it there was a single armchair, maroon and stuffed, accompanied by a medium-sized circular table on which there were several books and a battered sort of walking stick. Walking boots, heavy with mud, sat on their sides in the chair.

  In case of a guest there was a small table and two chairs by the window, which looked out over the Front Quad and had a view of the Radcliffe Camera, the domed library at the center of Oxford. On it were the remains of a breakfast that the scout had yet to remove-from two days before, it would seem, as Lady Annabelle confirmed that it had been a day old the day before. Lenox wondered about this and made a quick note of it on a pad that he whisked from the inner pocket of his jacket.

  There was a bookcase, stacked with old newspapers and bric-a-brac, along with a few volumes on Tudor history. The center of the room was covered by a thick, ornate rug, which Lady Payson explained her l
ate husband had sent back from India. Stooping to examine it, Lenox saw several small artifacts of the missing man’s life: a frayed piece of string about two feet long of the sort you might bind a package with, half of a pulpy fried tomato, which was too far from the breakfast table to have been dropped, a fountain pen, and lastly a card, which said on the front THE SEPTEMBER SOCIETY. Lenox turned it and was surprised to discover on the back two pen lines, one pink, one black, forming an?.

  The September Society-hadn’t been an Oxford club in his day. What was interesting about the items on the rug was that they were all scattered within a few inches of each other, while the rest of the rug was spotless. He stood up. Why this spot? It had but a poor angle on the window: too far from the fire for warmth, and too far from the desk (opposite the bookcase was a desk, which was tidy-in contrast with the mess on the carpet) for glancing over papers. Its only distinguishing mark was that it was in a kind of no-man’s-land in the room.

  He examined the rest of the room and found only one thing that he thought enough of to add to his notebook: a messy line of ash from a pipe, on the floor just beneath the window.

  “Was your son much of a smoker?” he asked Lady Payson, who was lingering in the doorway.

  “No, not that I know of. He didn’t smoke when he came home.”

  “I don’t see a pipe in this room, at any rate. He might have carried it on his person-but why not tap the ash outside the window, within arm’s length, rather than on the floor just by it?”

  “I confess I don’t know, Mr. Lenox. Have you any clue of what happened yet?”

  “Clues-but no clue yet. Still, we shall see. I think I may proceed to the bedroom now, Lady Payson. Would you like to sit in the armchair? I could light a fire.”

  “No, no,” she said. “I’ll come in.”

  Just then, however, there was a clattering on the stairs behind them, and they both turned. A voice said, “Really, I quite assure you that I am expected-really,” while the voice of a porter said, “But sir, we can call up-no problems on that account.” The first voice said, “Ah, but it’s a matter of urgency.” Then there was a brief silence-the coin of the empire changing hands, perhaps?-and the first voice came to the door, found it open, and walked in.