Peter Lovesey - Swing, Swing Together

In the hour and few minutes they spent there, Harriet began to understand what it might mean to study at a great university with a tutor to guide her, not a Miss Plummer reciting her Notes for Teachers in Training Colleges on each topic decreed by the inspectors, but an authority with the ability to bring her close enough to a subject to apprehend its purpose and feel its power to inspire. Interestingly, Fernandez spoke without the tendency to arrogance she had noticed before in his statements. Instead of airing his expertise, he spoke with reserve, in terms calculated more to clarify than impress.

He ended by showing her one of the treasures of the Bodleian, Marco Polo’s Les Livres du Graunt Caam, with its lavishly illustrated pages. “The first of the illustrated travel books, and still the best, I think,” said Fernandez, as he returned it to its box. “And now, Miss Harriet-if I may call you that-I should be honoured if you would join me for luncheon.”

“For luncheon?” Harriet blanched. She had not been taken to luncheon by a gentleman in her life. She doubted whether it was proper. “I was not expecting such a thing. Of course, it is exceedingly generous of you. You have already been uncommonly kind to me-”

“Then it is settled!” said Fernandez. “The least you can do to repay my kindness is grace my table at the Clarendon.”

“A hotel?” said Harriet, hardly able to voice the word.

“The best in Oxford, my dear. Frequently patronized by royalty. Ah,” said Fernandez, touching his fingers on the back of her gloved hand, “I should have realized. You are concerned about the propriety of visiting a hotel in the company of a gentleman. I shall take you instead to Mr. Stanford’s Restaurant in the High.”

It seemed unmannerly to refuse after he had been so considerate as to alter his arrangement on her behalf, so Harriet presently found herself sipping Chianti and telling Fernandez about the geographical excursion with the gardener and his son last summer, while a waiter helped her to an escalope de veau au romarin. Nobody at Elfrida would believe this was happening to her. On Monday they always had cold beef and boiled potatoes.

“I was thinking how remarkable it is that I should have met the one person in Oxford who could show me the books I saw this morning,” Harriet told him. “I suppose all the important moments in our lives are governed by chance. If I had not met Melanie-Mrs. Bonner-Hill-and offered to accompany her to Merton College Chapel yesterday, I should never have learned what treasures the Bodleian contains.”

Fernandez smiled. “And if I, in my turn, had not recovered from a bout of laryngitis, I should not have been at Morning Service, nor had the delight of your company now. A rationalist-and we have a number of those at Oxford-would tell you that these are chance occurrences, that life is a sequence of unpredestined events to which we are too often tempted to ascribe a significance. I prefer to think that such meetings as ours are governed by more than mere chance.”

“I am sure you are right.” Harriet blushed at the truth of this, thinking of the ways she had manipulated mere chance. She hoped Fernandez would suppose the wine was making her warm.

“To pursue the point,” he went on, “if I had not had my laryngitis, I should have gone out with Bonner-Hill on Saturday morning as I invariably do-”

“And you might have been murdered!” said Harriet.

“I had not thought of anything quite so dramatic. I was projecting that poor Bonner-Hill might not have suffered the fate he did, because two of us would presumably have been better able to defend ourselves from attack. But then the chain of events which led to my meeting you would not have been forged. Even the death of a close friend has brought its compensation. Won’t you have some more asparagus?”

Harriet remembered why she was there, realized that an opportunity was about to slip through her fingers. “No, thank you. Forgive me for suggesting such a thing, but has it not crossed your mind that whoever killed Mr. Bonner-Hill may have intended to murder you?”

Fernandez put down his knife and fork. “A chilling thought, my dear. What put it into your head?” He refilled Harriet’s glass.

“Melanie told me about your custom of going fishing on Saturday mornings. She said her husband had only recently taken to going with you. He had not been out on the river alone before. It seemed to me that if that were the case, nobody could have expected to find him alone. If, on the other hand, they did not know Mr. Bonner-Hill had started accompanying you, they would expect to find you alone. It suggests to me that they must have mistaken him for you.” She tipped a large amount of wine down her throat. “Had it not occurred to you, Mr. Fernandez?”

“I should be happier, my dear, if you used my first name, which is John. I am sometimes called Jack in Merton, but I prefer the name my parents gave me.”

“Then you must call me Harriet.”

“That will be a special pleasure. Well, Harriet, your perspicacity is remarkable. Of course, you are absolutely right. Mine is the body that should be undergoing a post-mortem examination this morning. Bonner-Hill, unfortunate fellow, was murdered, as you correctly surmised, because he was mistaken for me.”

“But why, John? Why did somebody wish to murder you?”

Fernandez emptied the last of the wine into their glasses. “That I shall explain, Harriet, but it is a story I should prefer not to relate in a public restaurant. With your permission I shall take you after lunch to Magdalen Bridge, where we can hire a punt and take it up the Cherwell to a place I know where a man might speak in confidence.”

“I’m not sure whether that is-”

“First, we’ll have coffee with liqueurs. Have you tried Benedictine? Then you must.”

After Cribb’s eulogy on the convenience of the telephone, there was a chastening wait for it to ring. Privately, Thackeray and Hardy would have been happier doing something active towards an arrest, but Cribb’s faith in modern technology was unshakeable. “I have issued a description of the two suspects to each of the lockkeepers,” he said over the third mug of cocoa that morning. “I have men posted at every railway station within ten miles, and a watch is being kept on all the roads out of Oxford. As soon as they are seen, a message will be conveyed over the wires to the telephone set in the Chief Inspector’s office and we shall be in pursuit within seconds.”

“Suppose they cleared off yesterday, Sarge,” Thackeray injudiciously suggested.

“Sunday?” said Cribb, shaking his head. “Too risky travelling on Sunday. People would notice. They’ll have waited for today, when everyone’s moving about the country.”

“What about Saturday?” Thackeray persisted.

“If you recollect,” said Cribb with a glare, “there were uniformed police all over Oxford looking for Humberstone and his friends. Mark my words, the ones we’re after will have gone to earth until today.”

“I suppose,” he said an hour later, “they could be lying low until tomorrow.”

At noon, he found a pretext for going into the Chief Inspector’s room to make sure the telephone receiver was on its hook. At one, Thackeray persuaded him to think about lunch. Hardy was sent for a cold chicken from the shop next door. “I could fetch some beer from a pub,” Thackeray volunteered. “Cocoa doesn’t really go with chicken.”

“You’ll stay here,” growled Cribb. “The call could come at any minute.”

The only call in the next hour was not from the telephone. Melanie Bonner-Hill was shown in, plainly in an agitated state. “I know how busy you are,” she told Cribb, “and you will probably think I am being hysterical, but I am dreadfully concerned for the well-being of Miss Shaw.”