Lessons for Survivors

by Charlie Cochrane

  “And you call this logical thinking?” Jonty swigged back the remains of his beer. “I hope your inaugural lecture makes more sense, or people will start throwing rotten tomatoes or slide rules or whatever else august mathematicians keep under their gowns.”

  “Please don’t say that, even in jest,” Orlando said, feeling decidedly queasy.

  “Then bypass your system and go onto my suspect number two: Uncle Simon.” Jonty patted his lover’s arm, briefly but with a wealth of affection. “He was said to be in the area, and could be the mysterious man if he looked better preserved than his brother. We know he, or anyone, could have got into the house—”

  “Do we?”

  “Oh, blimey. I’ve not brought you up-to-date.” Jonty rectified his error, relating all his adventures up at Thorpe House.

  “That open conservatory door is just annoying. A locked door would have implied that Peter knew his killer and let him in. Which might have brought us to suspect three, if we’re going out of order. The vicar. Unlike you, I have no qualms about doubting a man of the cloth. Anyway, the Reverend Mitchell seems a bit too good to be true. Or too true to be good, or something.”

  “What are you talking about?” Jonty looked up from the empty glass he’d been contemplating.

  “I’m taking after you, I suspect. Spouting a lot of nonsense. Please God, I don’t do that as well when I’m giving my lecture.” Orlando groaned. “Do you think another beer would help our brains?”

  “Make it a half, or else I’ll be nodding off.” Jonty held out his glass. “And if there’s any more of those rolls, kidnap them.”

  Orlando returned from topping up their troughs and nosebags to find his partner nodding over the table. “Are you having a crafty sleep?”

  Jonty’s eyes flew open. “No just a crafty think.”

  “Hmm,” Orlando snorted, putting the beer and rolls on the table. Maybe witnesses could lie to him, but he could see through Jonty. “And what conclusions did you come to, if any?”

  “That our next suspect, Rosalind Priestland, is a loose cannon, and I’d hate to be within her firing range.”

  Orlando was impressed. That sounded good, especially for what he suspected was spur of the moment.

  Pulling the new glass closer, Jonty seemed to warm to his theme. “And she enjoys acting. We know that now. She’s playing the part of the grieving widow while she tries to get her hands on her mother-in-law’s jewels.”

  “But we have no proof, Dr. Stewart. Not one bit of it.” Orlando looked bleakly into his beer. “Not of murder, nor of intent to profit by Peter’s death. We might as well admit defeat. Have you ever known a case to have so little to offer us?”

  “We must be missing something awfully obvious. It’s such a shame young Billy doesn’t seem to hold the key.”

  “He’s too busy mistaking buzzards for red kites and wondering how many dead soldiers had their faces covered.” Orlando shuddered, sudden memories bubbling up of places and times he’d rather forget.

  “Were these honey buzzards, perchance?” Jonty grinned. “No, you don’t need to answer. I can tell. Poor Billy. He said the flu hit his family badly. If they always covered the faces of their dearly departed, then it was a sight he’d have seen more often than was good for him. No wonder he’s obsessive about it.”

  “He said he’d only seen it happen once, so I’m not sure where that bee came into his bonnet.” Orlando sighed. Even the beer wasn’t helping his mood. “I just wish we could prove Mrs. Hamilton was poorly sighted and somehow missed someone entering the house and smothering her master.”

  Jonty groaned. “Or Rosalind Priestland slipping from her side long enough to commit murder.”

  Orlando’s back hurt. His throat hurt. His feet hurt. He had a suspicion that it would be easier to list the parts of him that didn’t hurt, although that would probably just amount to his eyebrows. Bad timing, to have arranged for guests to come to Forsythia Cottage so hard on the heels of his inaugural lecture, but what with investigating both plagiarism and inheritances, their diaries had become a little overloaded.

  The lecture had been hard work, as all his aches and pains attested, but it was done and by all accounts, it had been a rip-roaring success. The rounds of back slapping and hand shaking he’d had to undergo afterward had added to his aches, but he’d felt too elated, and relieved, to worry about that.

  “Well done, you.” Lavinia, all smiles, had eschewed back slapping in favour of a hearty kiss.

  “Was the lecture acceptable?” Still the nagging doubts. At least Lavinia would tell the truth.

  “It was magnificent. I didn’t really understand every single word of it, so I’ll have to go home and consult the notes I’ve taken in order to clarify one or two points . . . Do behave, pest.” The last part was aimed at Jonty, who’d appeared at her side and started making faces at her explanation. “That lecture was on the whole far better than I’d expected from a talk about numbers. Far better, even, than those roses you gave me.”

  Orlando wasn’t sure he believed that, but he’d smiled, going along with whatever subterfuge was going on. And by the time everyone, including Jonty, had told him they’d enjoyed his talk, he’d begun to believe it.

  The state of his body wasn’t helped by dinner at the University Arms, after which he had barely twelve hours to lick himself into shape before he had to preside over another meal.

  Jonty didn’t seem bothered. Even as the years passed, that little toad still appeared to have the capacity to feast every day of the week, if need be. It was quite sickening at times. However, it was always a pleasure to have the Sheridans at their table, and Matthew Ainslie had proved to be a good friend on the occasions they’d needed one. Orlando would just have to bite the bullet and play the part of host with graciousness and a smile or two.

  Whether it was due to a good dose of Epsom salts, willpower, or sheer schoolboy-like excitement, once the time came round for the much-vaunted and highly anticipated dinner, Orlando felt really quite enthusiastic despite his lingering aches. He leapt out of his chair at the sight of a carriage outside and insisted he be allowed to open the door to the first of their guests.

  Dr. and Mrs. Sheridan were waiting on the step, beautifully turned out in black dinner suit and elegant purple dress. They were both in their sixties, but their sprightliness of gait and mind belied the fact. Seen behatted (to cover the greying locks) and from behind, linked arm in arm and strolling along the Backs, they might have been taken for a married couple just into their thirties, or even a very well-dressed butler out on his afternoon off with some equally respectable housekeeper.

  And if, when she turned, Ariadne Sheridan’s face didn’t quite live up to her figure, just like Marian in The Woman in White—one of Orlando’s favourite books—her intelligence and resourcefulness shone through and enhanced her looks. When animated, and discussing planarian worms, she was almost beautiful.

  “How wonderful, to have the door opened by a real live professor!” Ariadne’s smile lit up the October evening.

  “I shall never tire of the title.” Orlando stepped back to let them in.

  “Neither will St. Bride’s.” Robert Sheridan’s appearance reminded Orlando of Jonty’s late, lamented father. He must have been stunning in his youth and remained handsome now; even Mrs. Ward’s granddaughter gave him an appraising look as she took his hat and coat. The distant but approaching squeak of a bicycle wheel that needed oiling announced the imminent arrival of another guest.

  “Dr. Panesar.” Orlando nodded. “It has to be.”

  “I’d concur. Only one bike in the city makes that particular noise.” Dr. Sheridan cocked his head to one side. “And about twenty yards away, I’d estimate.”

  “Robert!” Ariadne tapped her husband’s arm. “He’s only pretending he can calculate the distance from the noise. We passed Dr. P. on the road so it’s easy enough to guess. See?” she said, as the man in question pulled up by the gate.

  “It’s going
to be quite a party.” Jonty appeared at the door to usher everyone in. Coats were taken, sherries were handed out, and small talk was made until the sound of a motor cab drawing up outside and deep masculine voices emerging from it stung Jonty into action again.

  “It’s like Piccadilly Circus in here!” he said, managing to get out of the room first to let in their next guests. All that could be heard from the sitting room was a lot of loud insults, back slapping, and a deep, pleasant American voice asking where the professor was and if he would be allowed to kiss the hem of his academic gown.

  “Mrs. Sheridan!” Matthew Ainslie came through the door and greeted her with a huge smile and a kiss, just stopping himself short of actually kissing her cheek and settling for her hand instead.

  “Oh, now what’s all this? You should call me Ariadne. All of you, please.” She stood up on tiptoes to kiss Matthew’s cheek, looked as if she’d do the same for Jonty, and then evidently remembered she should be behaving herself. Dr. Sheridan shook hands with the new arrivals, which was a great relief to Orlando, who wasn’t sure he wanted an outbreak of continental-style slobbering.

  “Might I present my business partner, Rex Prefontaine?” Matthew presided over the introduction with a particular look of pride in his eye. If Ariadne had worked out just why there seemed to be such affection in a commercial relationship, she was too well-bred to suggest it in her glance.

  Once the orgy of hand shaking and back slapping and general small talk had stopped, Jonty proposed a toast to the college, even if it wasn’t strictly form to do it at this point in the evening. Rex followed up with a toast to Orlando’s newly acquired status. Then, thank goodness, Mrs. Ward announced that dinner was about to be served, or they might all have been toasted out—and half-cut—before the evening had barely begun.

  Talk over the meal inevitably started with college matters, but then, in deference to Matthew and Rex, swiftly turned to more general things. And, in an unprecedented move, one no doubt fired by all the preprandial sherry, Jonty proposed that they use Christian names; the world was changing and maybe it was time for them to all change with it. In an even more unprecedented move, Orlando seconded the proposal.

  Rex turned to Maurice Panesar, a bright look of curiosity on his face. “Now, would it be improper of me to ask if you’re the chap who wants to build a time machine? Jonty keeps telling me you’re brilliant.”

  Maurice smoothed his luxurious black beard with evident pleasure at the compliment, then bowed to his hosts. “Knowing Dr. Stewart—sorry, knowing Jonty—he followed that up with the words ‘but eccentric.’ No!” He raised his hand to stifle any argument. “You don’t need to either deny it or apologise. I’m proud of the fact that I’m unconventional. And yes, I would like to build a time machine, although that’s just one of the things I have in mind. Calculating machines and Orlando’s computable numbers interest me, as do means of communication. I have this vision of a device that would allow people to communicate instantaneously all over the world.”

  “But we have that,” Rex said, bewildered. “It’s called a telephone.”

  “And don’t forget the telegraph,” Jonty chipped in.

  “Ah, but that can be so slow, especially when the telegram boy dawdles on his bicycle or the operator takes too long to put a trunk call through. When I say instant, I mean it.” Maurice’s eyes were now alight with enthusiasm.

  “That sounds even more far-fetched than a time machine.” Rex raised an eyebrow at Matthew, who shook his head.

  “Gentlemen!” Ariadne looked around the company, shaking her head. “I remember the idea of man taking to the air being thought of as far-fetched, yet now it seems almost commonplace.”

  “Hear, hear.” Orlando had been keeping his powder dry but now he had to leap to his friends’ defence. “We’ve barely begun to explore the capabilities of technology.”

  The conversation flowed down the river of scientific and engineering advances for better and worse, until the dinner plates were cleared and Jonty could turn the talk to things he always valued a lot more than matters technical.

  “I wonder what there is for pudding?”

  Mrs. Ward and her granddaughter had laid on a feast: good reliable beef Wellington with heaps of vegetables. Not likely to leave room for any sort of sizeable pudding, although a man had to show stoicism and valour in these circumstances, the latter if something suety and substantial turned up and the former if it was replaced by fruit salad.

  “Don’t you know?” Rex seemed shocked at such a poorly ordered household.

  “Usually not. I want an element of surprise. Papa never used to specify the sweet part of the nosebag and what was good enough for him is good enough for me. Maybe it’ll be jam roly-poly.” The opening of the door made Jonty look up expectantly, like a little boy at Christmas.

  “That smells like toffee pudding.” Matthew beamed, equally childlike in delighted anticipation.

  “I think you’re right.” Jonty eyed the plates with evident relish as they appeared on the table, the great steaming jug of custard reverenced as if it contained holy water. “If there isn’t toffee pudding in heaven, I’m not sure I want to go.”

  “We should eat this with due respect, as befitting,” Matthew pronounced, like a priest making a blessing. Everyone obeyed, not insulting the noble dessert with talk of machinery. They returned to everyday subjects over coffee in the sitting room.

  “Now, considering the brain power we have gathered here,” Jonty said, waving his coffee spoon like a magician’s wand, “it’s a shame we’re unlikely to be able to solve some of the frustrating bits of our current case.”

  Matthew grinned. “Not like you two not to be able to sort it out on your own.”

  “I’m not sure we’ve had a case before where every time we get to the bottom of one piece, another bit appears.” Jonty wrinkled his nose, looking less like a fellow in Tudor literature than a puzzled little boy.

  “Like Hercules’s hydra?” Rex, like a sailor who’s heard the drum beating him to quarters, seemed ready for the fray.

  “Perhaps. I actually had Ariadne’s planarian worms in mind.” Jonty smiled, nodding at his guest. “Perhaps I’d better elucidate. Planaria are most remarkable things. If you bisect their tails, each part will grow an entirely new one. Clever little blighters, eh?”

  “Absolutely,” Ariadne confirmed. “The same with their other ends, so you can create little monsters with a whole handful of heads. I have some remarkable photographs at the lodge if anyone would like to come along tomorrow and view them?” She looked hopefully at Matthew and Rex, but only Maurice cheerfully piped up and booked himself a private viewing.

  “Exactly that.” Jonty brought the conversation back to mysteries as opposed to slithery things. “Every little incision produces a new direction to take. We have a woman accused by her brother-in-law of murdering her husband—or maybe her brother-in-law was actually the one who murdered him, despite the finger pointing. Or possibly it was the nephew, although he called us in. And that’s just the start.”

  “And some sort of complication in the form of who was born first,” Orlando added, muddying the waters further. “I’d better explain. Logically.” Orlando clearly aimed the last word at Jonty. He took his guests through the whole story as he and Jonty had learned it, so that the layers of the case unfolded as he spoke. “We have no concrete evidence from back then. Collingwood’s hounds confirm that nobody found any signs on the body to suggest poisoning or violent suffocation or the like. We may not even have a murder. What we do have is more suspects and leads than we know what to do with, but we don’t have enough time to chase them all. We need to make some assumptions. We have to focus on Rosalind alone and her possible guilt. That’s our brief from the client, after all.”

  Ariadne narrowed her eyes. “And if you can’t establish this one way or the other by the time the inheritance falls due . . .?”

  “Then she gets the money, while we have all the time in the world t
o pursue the case,” Jonty cut in. “And we’ll carry on down every avenue, dead end or short cut, until we discover the truth and ensure justice is done, if it needs to be.”

  “That’s all I wanted to hear.” Ariadne nodded, as though giving her benediction. “No shoddy thinking.”

  “Heaven forbid,” Orlando said, maybe a touch too quickly.

  “Now,” Rex said, “if mathematical logic and Shakespearean inspired intuition can’t move us forward, what a shame science can’t come to our aid. We could do with one of Maurice’s time machines to take us back and see what went on in the conservatory.”

  “And what happened to that baby. I’d hate to think he was just thrown out with the rubbish.” Jonty grimaced. “I wouldn’t suggest we would actually witness any of the actual . . . you know . . . confinement, just be stationed outside and count the little blighters, keeping a record of them on a slate.”

  Ariadne smiled, indulgently. “I never thought for a moment you would. Maurice’s machine would hover gracefully by the door while I—if you would permit me the pleasure of accompanying you—could enquire of the midwife.”

  “How extraordinary, my dear. You speak of this as if it’s real.” Dr. Sheridan shook his head. “Making minute plans for the execution of the scheme.”

  “And why not? It may never happen in reality but it could take place in here.” Ariadne tapped her forehead. “Which is almost as good.”

  “We could all employ our imaginations until the cows come home, but we’d be no further forward. I never thought I’d say I simply wanted some good, solid facts, but that’s exactly what we’re lacking,” Jonty said, staring into his coffee cup. “Or a nice solid witness for the prosecution.”

  “But you have a witness. You’ve told us about him, twice.” Maurice raised his hand, perhaps to stop anyone sneaking in and stealing his thunder. “That grocer’s boy.”

  “He was there, and he saw what we presume is either Simon or the Reverend Bresnan lurking around, but he and his boss were gone by the time Peter died.” Orlando tapped the notebook he’d been referring to when describing the case. “I verified that when we were last at Downlea.”