An Oxford Tragedy

by J. C. Masterman

  We were planning to enlarge our library, and a great deal of ink had been spilt in the discussion of new plans. Hargreaves and Shirley had taken a leading part, and had together championed a more extensive alteration than the rest of us desired. They had at length converted a majority of us in principle to their way of thinking, and now the new plans together with a voluminous report from the architects and a mass of suggestions and annotations had arrived for consideration. Hargreaves was an enthusiast for what he called ‘the big plan,’ and I expected him to get up at once, but he was never a person to consider the comfort of others before his own, and now he was thoroughly enjoying Brendel’s reminiscences. Instead of getting up, therefore, he pulled a key from his pocket and gave it to Shirley.

  ‘Here’s the key of my oak,’ he said, ‘all the stuff about the library is on my writing-table. I wish you’d look through it all and compare the different suggestions. I’d like to know if you come independently to the same conclusions as I did. I’ll be with you in less than half an hour.’

  Shirley nodded, and took the key.

  ‘Don’t play with the loaded revolver on my table,’ Hargreaves shouted after him – for my benefit I felt, rather than for Shirley’s.

  But I wasted no time in ruminating over Maurice’s lack of taste. If he liked to make fun of what he called my old-womanliness he could. I was content to sit back in my armchair and give myself up the pleasure of listening to Brendel. Only those, I think, who live the sheltered academic life can enjoy to the full the recital of the events of the world outside.

  But even in the academic world, alarms and excursions must sometimes occur. We had been talking for what seemed to me only a short time when a knock came at the door, and the Head Porter entered.

  ‘If you please, Sir,’ he said, ‘there’s a lot of noise and breaking going on in the Quad, and some of the gentlemen are trying to light a bonfire. Could you come out, Sir?’

  ‘Bother,’ said Maurice. ‘You’d better go, J.D., and drive them home to their beds. I want to hear the end of this.’

  Doyne got up obediently and put on his cap and gown. ‘Right,’ he said, ‘I’ll be back later on, Professor, to hear the end of that story.’ Whitaker and his guest, together with Dixon, left at the same time. They had been plunged for the last half-hour in a scientific discussion and proposed to adjourn to Whitaker’s rooms to consult the work of some scientific pundit to settle their argument. I glanced at the clock and was amazed to see that it was already a quarter to ten.

  Our Common Room did not open directly on the Quadrangle; there was a long passage with a door at either end, and our windows looked out upon a small garden. But in spite of the distance I had been subconsciously aware for some time of shouts of elation and revelry in the distance. I had heard the distant explosion of fireworks, and noises which sounded suspiciously like pistol-shots. No doubt someone was discharging one of those pistols which excited coaches fire off on the tow-path to encourage their crews. With Doyne’s exit all the noise ceased. Discipline at St Thomas’s, if not especially rigid, was undoubtedly efficient, and I could without difficulty visualize the scene outside. On Doyne’s appearance the undergraduates would lose very little time in retreating to the back Quad or to their rooms. Doyne would wait a few minutes, chatting with the porter, then he would stroll into the back Quad to see that no damage was being done, and then, if all was in order, he would return to us in Common Room. Brendel, I noticed with amusement, was taking it all in. Very little indeed, as I now knew, escaped his notice.

  ‘Your Mr Doyne knows how to control young men,’ he said approvingly to Hargreaves, ‘although he looks so young. Englishmen have always had that secret.’

  ‘It’s tradition, I think,’ said Maurice. ‘In some colleges I think the Deans don’t find it quite so easy.’

  As ten o’clock struck Prendergast heaved himself unwillingly out of his arm-chair.

  ‘You must forgive me,’ he said, ‘I must go up to my rooms. I promised to meet a man there at ten, to give him some books.’ Trower and Mitton went out together at the same time.

  Brendel would have gone too, but I stopped him. ‘Another cigar,’ I said, ‘before we break up. It’s early yet, and the fire’s just burning properly. The old open fire has its merits, and you must learn to appreciate them whilst you’re with us.’

  He sat down again, not unwillingly, between Maurice and myself, and lit a fresh cigar with care and appreciation.

  It was, I suppose, about ten minutes later that Maurice suddenly uttered an ejaculation of dismay.

  ‘Good Heavens,’ he said, ‘I promised Shirley not to keep him waiting for more than half an hour, and it’s an hour or more since he went. I wonder if he’s still there.’

  He jumped up and left us. Brendel and I were alone in the Common Room. As we sat there by the fire, I felt an extraordinary feeling of well-being and contentment. Early in the evening I had been irritated by Maurice, and unpleasantly excited by the discussion on murder and murderers, but now I felt that the world was an agreeable place indeed. My cigar was drawing to perfection; I had mixed myself a whisky and soda; the fire burned brightly and warmly; opposite to me the light twinkled on Brendel’s glasses. Never had I felt more wholly at peace with all mankind. And so we sat for, I suppose, about ten minutes. Then suddenly the door was flung open, and Maurice Hargreaves lurched into the room.

  ‘My God,’ he cried. ‘Come up quickly. Someone’s shot Shirley – in my rooms.’

  As I got to my feet my eyes turned towards Brendel. He had taken off his glasses, and was wiping them very carefully with a silk pocket-handkerchief.

  Chapter Four

  Hargreaves’ rooms were on the first floor of a staircase only some forty or fifty yards from the door of the Common Room, yet I have no clear recollection of how the three of us found our way from one place to the other. I think that I must have run faster than I have run for twenty years, and I have a vague idea that Brendel followed more slowly behind me, but I cannot be sure. I am only certain of the one fact – that at one moment I had been sitting smoking and sipping my whisky and soda in complete contentment, at peace with all the world, and at the next I stood helpless and utterly horrified in the Dean’s inner room.

  Every detail of that set of rooms was familiar to me. Traditionally they were always occupied by the Dean of the college and I had myself lived in them for two short years, when, as a young man, I had been induced against my better judgement to accept the office of Dean. Two short years only, for the enforcement of discipline had irked and worried me, and I had gladly resigned the charge into stronger hands than my own. The set consisted in all of four rooms together with a bathroom and lobby; in front, looking out upon the main quadrangle, were two sitting-rooms. The outer one was inconvenient, in that the oak, or outer door of the set, opened directly into it, and because it was a passage room through to the inner room. Maurice Hargreaves, following the example of his predecessors, used to use the outer room as a dining-room, and the inner as a place in which to live and work. Behind these two rooms, and facing on to a small courtyard, were the bedrooms – Maurice’s which was behind his inner room, and a guest-room which came next to it, and which was rather smaller. There was also a bathroom, a long passagelike lobby, and a servant’s pantry, behind the outer room. Like many sets of rooms in Oxford, the arrangement was in many ways extremely inconvenient. When I had lived there myself I had been constantly annoyed by the number of doors, and by the fact that almost all the rooms led into one another. In addition the lobby was almost pitch-dark, for, except when the electric light was turned on, it was lighted only by means of a skylight at its east end which opened on to the stairs. It was also, as I had found, in the highest degree inconvenient that the only entry to the rest of the rooms, including of course the bedrooms, was through the dining-room, which was consequently itself of very little practical use. A rough sketch will make my meaning plain. In it the doors are clearly shown.

  Yet in spite of
its drawbacks I could not deny that the set of rooms as a whole was redeemed from mediocrity by what I have called the inner room, which, as Maurice Hargreaves had arranged it, I must now describe. Entering by the door from the outer room a visitor would at once notice that the fire-place was situated diagonally opposite to him, and in the corner of the room. This rather curious architectural feature dictated the arrangement of the furniture, for round it were grouped four large leather armchairs, whilst the main part of the floor-space was clear of furniture. The windows, which opened into the main quadrangle, faced almost due south, so that on fine days the room was flooded with sunlight; there were two large and very lofty windows, and between them a beautiful tallboy of which Hargreaves was inordinately proud. Against the west wall, in the corner nearest the quadrangle, stood a handsome writing-table, littered with papers and with a reading-lamp on one corner; the whole of the east wall and a great part of the north wall of the room were covered by bookshelves which ran up almost to the ceiling. I have left to the last what was, to me, the most impressive feature of the room – an octagonal table of beautiful workmanship, which stood almost midway between the door from the outer room and the door into the bedroom. It had been bequeathed to these rooms in perpetuity by a former dean, and stood always in the same place, an object of admiration and pride to one dean after another. Once more I must insert a plan so that the details of the arrangement of the inner room may be absolutely clear.

  Every detail of that room was, as I have already said, familiar to me, and a single glance showed it to me as I had always known it – with one ghastly exception – for in the armchair nearest to the writing table sprawled the body of Shirley.

  He sat low in the chair, his head just showing above the back, and half turned to the right as though he had been in the act of turning round when he had been shot. His head had sagged forward on to his chest, and his general appearance was that of a man who had sunk in a dishevelled condition into an arm-chair. The studs in the front of his soft dress shirt were undone, and to me he gave the impression of a man partly intoxicated who had flung himself down to rest. A second glance made it obvious that he was not drunk but dead. On the right side of his head I could just see a tiny hole, not larger than a threepenny bit; on the left side was a much larger hole, a little ragged. There was hardly any blood. Instinctively my eyes turned to the octagonal table; in the middle of it, like some grim emblem of destruction, lay the revolver.

  From the moment that we reached the room, Brendel seemed to take command of the situation. He took one slow comprehensive look at the room as though he would photograph every detail of it upon his mind. Then he spoke with a new note of decision and command in his voice.

  ‘Don’t touch the body, and whatever you do, don’t touch the revolver. Mr Hargreaves, tell me quickly. Is there any back door, any entrance into these rooms except by the way we have come?’

  ‘No, none whatever.’

  ‘Then you, Mr Winn, stand in that outer room, please, by the door, whilst we search the other rooms.’

  Two minutes sufficed to prove that no one was hidden in the bedrooms or the lobby.

  ‘Now,’ said Brendel, as we re-entered the inner room, ‘tell me, as quickly as you can, please, exactly what you did since you left us?’

  For the first time I realized that Maurice had left us a good ten minutes ago. Why ever had he been so long? He seemed to pull himself together, and spoke now with comparative calmness.

  ‘I walked into the Quad,’ he said, ‘and I saw from below that the lights in my room were burning, so I knew that Shirley was still there, waiting for me. I met Pine – Pine is the Head Porter, you know – and had a word with him. I asked him about the noise earlier on in the Quad. And then, well, I thought that Shirley had waited a long time anyhow, and a few more minutes wouldn’t matter – and it was a beautiful night – so I strolled a couple of times round the Quad before I went up. I wanted … I wanted to think what I was going to say to Shirley, I suppose. Then I went up, and oh my God! – I saw him in the chair, like that —’

  He turned his head away from the chair.

  ‘Thank you,’ said Brendel. ‘You touched nothing – not the body, nor the revolver?’

  Hargreaves shook his head. ‘I couldn’t have,’ he said with a kind of shudder.

  Brendel nodded. ‘You have a telephone? Call the police at once, and a doctor.’

  Under the influence of the Professor’s calm efficiency, Maurice was rapidly recovering his poise.

  ‘It would be better,’ he said, ‘to telephone from the Lodge. My line is only an extension, and anyone in the Lodge can hear what is said here.’

  ‘I’ll go,’ I said hastily. I wanted to get out of that room, and I wanted insistently to do something practical.

  ‘All right. Send Pine up here too,’ Maurice replied.

  I hurried across to the Lodge. As I did so I heard a few shouts and a belated firework exploding in the back Quad, a grisly reminder of revels which suddenly seemed to me queerly indecent and misplaced. It is odd how, in moments of crisis, the mind works. I ought, I suppose, to have been filled with thoughts of the tragedy of this life so suddenly and horribly ended, or of the briefness and uncertainty of all human affairs. But I was not. Miserably I was conscious that I could think only of myself. Should I do the right thing? Should I behave in these strange circumstances as befitted a man of character and intelligence, or should I appear, when the inquiries were made, to have lost my head like any other second-rate man? A wretched confession, yet, if this is to be a true story, I cannot conceal it. As I entered the Lodge my doubts and uncertainties took a practical form. Ought I to telephone first to the doctor or to the police? Which was the more important? Why could not I think out clearly even a matter so simple as that? I decided for the police; after all Shirley was indubitably dead, and no doctor could help him now, but the sooner the police were on the scene the better. I got through to the station, and hurriedly and incoherently I told some unknown police officer what had occurred, and implored him to hurry. I shouted to Pine, who was outside, to wait by the gate till the police arrived, and then to take them to the Dean’s room. In answer to his unspoken question I said, ‘Murder, I think,’ in a voice which sounded oddly unlike my own. Then I opened the telephone directory to look up the number of one of the Oxford doctors.

  At once I felt that I had been wrong. Of course it should have been the doctor first. Could not a skilful doctor tell, if he arrived in time, how long a man had been dead? Was it not of paramount importance that the time of the murder should be settled beyond possibility of mistake so that the criminal might be discovered? How many times had I not read that in works of fiction? Desperately I tried to think which of the doctors lived nearest to St Thomas’s. All of them of whom I could think lived in Holywell or St Giles’s or even farther away. Almost at random I chose one, looked up his number and dialled him on the automatic exchange. After a long interval a female voice answered me. No, the doctor was out. He had dined with friends to play bridge, he might be back fairly soon. Would I … Savagely I cut off and looked up another number. This time the wait seemed an eternity. At last a reply came. ‘Do you want Mr Fleming? … No, I’m sorry, he’s in London till to-morrow.’ Would this never end? Miserably it crossed my mind that Maurice, had he come down, would have made no such mistake. He would have called the doctor before the police, and whatever doctor he had called would by a law of nature have been at home. But now at last my third call was answered. ‘Yes, it is Mr Kershaw speaking. Yes – yes, good Lord … Right. Yes. I’ll come at once.’ I put down the receiver, and stood waiting anxiously at the gate to meet Dr Kershaw and to take him to the scene of the tragedy.

  It must have been about half past ten when I had run down to the Lodge; it was nearly eleven when Kershaw, a young but well-known surgeon who lived at the far end of Holywell, and I joined the little party which had gathered in the Dean’s rooms. They stood talking in the outer room when we arrived; an insp
ector and two policemen, Brendel and Maurice Hargreaves, Pine and, to my surprise, Prendergast and Mitton. Pine, I gathered, had been to their rooms and told them. He felt, apparently, that if a murder had been committed it was the business of our Chaplain and our lawyer to be present, though what they could do was not very obvious to me. Kershaw went straight into the inner room and began to examine the body. The Inspector was obviously appalled by a situation outside his official experience; he glanced at the notes which he had made, and began to question Maurice again about the finding of the body. Meanwhile Brendel in a few brief phrases told me what little had been learned in my absence. Poor Shirley had been shot through the head, probably from a distance of not more than two or three paces; he had apparently been sitting in the arm-chair with his back turned almost, but not quite, towards the murderer. He must, of course, have died instantaneously. Three chambers of the revolver on the table were still loaded; one had just been fired. The bullet had passed through his head, and had lodged in the wall behind the writing-table. The police, assisted by Hargreaves and Brendel himself, had made a searching examination of the rooms, but they had found no trace whatever of the murderer. At first sight, at any rate, it seemed impossible that he could have escaped, for example, by climbing out of one of the back windows. Apart from the fact that there was a sheer drop of some eighteen feet below, he could hardly have got out without leaving some marks. By daylight, no doubt, the police would go over every foot of the ground to confirm or amend this view, but for the time being it seemed almost certain that the murderer must have walked in and out by the ordinary door.

  Kershaw’s examination did not take long, for the case was only too clear. He could only confirm what we already knew. Suicide, of course, was out of the question. ‘If a man shoots himself,’ Brendel explained in my ear, ‘there is always some charring, because he has to hold the revolver so near to himself. Besides, of course, he couldn’t have put the revolver back on the table. He seems to have been shot from a distance of two or three yards; the tiny little hole is where the bullet went in – the other much larger is where it came out. It’s just a trifle ragged because of the resistance to its passage inside the head – bone and so forth.’