Iain Pears - An Instance of the Fingerpost

“In matters of violence, I do.”

“There has been no violence.”

“Perhaps not. But I am obligated by my position to satisfy myself. I have received an official notice that murder may have been done, and I am bound to investigate. You know that as well as I do, Warden.”

A loud murmur went up once the word murder was mentioned. Woodward stood stock still in front of the grave, as though protecting the body from the magistrate. In fact, he was protecting his college.

“There is no question of murder. I am quite satisfied.”

The magistrate was uncomfortable, but determined to stand his ground. “You know that once a complaint is received, then it must be properly investigated. The fact that this death occurred inside the college is of no importance. Your privileges do not extend that far. You cannot exclude me on such a matter, nor can you dispute my writ. I order that this funeral cease until I am satisfied.”

With the eyes of the college, and a good part of the university, upon him, Woodward swayed to and fro as he considered how best to respond to this open challenge. He was not, ordinarily, a man to hesitate for a moment but on this occasion he took his time.

“I will not cede to your authority, sir,” he said eventually. “I do not accept you have any right to enter this place without my consent, nor to interfere with college business. I am satisfied there is no cause for your presence, and that I could in law order you out.”

The audience looked pleased at this statement, and Sir John bridled with indignation. Having thus satisfied the proprieties and made sure he conceded no ground on matters of principle, Woodward submitted, after a fashion. “Yet perhaps you have testimony of which I do not know. If violence has been done, it is the duty of the college to know the truth. I will hear what you have to say and postpone the interment until I have done so. If I find your complaint to be without justification, it will continue, whether you agree or not.”

There was a murmur of appreciation at what Lower later told me was a masterly defensive retreat from an untenable position and, while it continued, Woodward ordered the body to be taken back to the chapel. Then he escorted the magistrate out of the cloisters and to his lodgings.

“Well, well,” Lower said softly as the two men vanished through the narrow archway which led to the main quadrangle beyond. “I wonder who is behind this.”

“What do you mean?”

“A magistrate can only act if someone complains to him that a crime has been committed. Then he must investigate to see whether the complaint is justified. So, who went to see him? It cannot have been Woodward, and who else had an interest? As far as I know the man had no family.”

I shivered. “We are not going to find out standing here,” I pointed out.

“You are right. How about a bottle in my rooms at Christ Church? Then we can see if we can figure it out?”

We made little progress; despite much talk and more wine, the question of who went to see the magistrate was as unresolved when we awoke the next morning as it was when we left New College. The only thing I learned was that the Canary wine the English prefer leaves a wicked remembrance the next morning.

I slept with Lower, being too shaky to return to my own bed by the end of the conversation—which soon left the topic of Grove and ranged widely over the whole field of curiosity. In particular he returned again to the idea of spirit, and whether it was susceptible to investigation—a notion which was of importance for the theory underlying my blood transfusion.

“I suppose,” he said reflectively, “we may posit the existence of your life spirit in the blood from the existence of ghosts, for what are they but the spirit released from the body? And I cannot bring myself to doubt these manifestations, for I have myself seen one.”

“Really? When?” I replied.

“Only a few months ago,” he said. “I was in this very room, and heard a noise outside the door. I opened it up, as I was expecting a visitor, and there was this young man. Very curiously dressed, in velvet, with long, fair hair, and carrying a silken rope. I said hello, and he turned and looked at me. He didn’t reply, but smiled sadly, then walked down the stairs. I didn’t think much of it, but went back inside. My guest arrived a minute or so later. I asked him whether he had seen the strange youth—he could hardly have failed to do so—but he said no, there had been no one on the stairs at all. Later, the dean told me that a young man had killed himself in 1560. He’d left his room on my staircase, walked to a cellar on the other side of the college, and hanged himself with a silken rope.”

“Hmm.”

“Hmm, indeed. I merely point out that this is one of the rare occasions when the best theories of science and practical observation coincide very well. It is why I do not dismiss your a priori notions out of hand. Although I do not rule out the possibility that another explanation might account for Widow Blundy’s improvement.”

“To dismiss an explanation you have in favor of one you do not have seems foolish,” I said. “But I must point out that you are assuming that the spirit which maintains life is the same as that which survives it.”

He sighed. “I suppose I am. Although even Boyle has not yet thought up an experiment to discover what that spirit is, assuming it has some physical existence.”

“It would get him into a great deal of trouble with the theologians,” I said. “And he seems concerned to maintain the best relations with them.”

“Sooner or later that will come,” my friend replied. “Unless we scientists are to confine ourselves solely to material things, and what would be the point of that? But you are right; Boyle is unlikely to take such a risk. I cannot but think it a fault in him. But then your Mr. Galileo has shown the risks of annoying men of the church. What do you think of him?”

Of course, Lower had heard of this celebrated case, and it was much discussed at Padua when I was there, for Galileo had been in the pay of Venice until tempted away to the court of Florence by Medici pomp; he made many enemies thereby, which stood him in no good stead when he came into trouble for saying the earth went round the sun. Even though his fall had occurred almost before I was born, it had frightened many of the curious, and made them think carefully before they spoke. But it annoyed me that Lower should refer to it, for I knew what his opinion would be and that he would twist the facts to attack my church.

“I have the highest respect for him, of course,” I said, “and the episode grieves me. I am a man of science, and count myself a true son of the church. I believe firmly with Mr. Boyle that science can never contradict true religion, and that if they seem at variance, then that is due to our faulty understanding of one or the other. God gave us the Bible and he gave us nature to show his creation; it is absurd to think he might contradict himself. It is man who fails.”

“Someone is wrong in this case, then,” Lower said.

“Clearly,” I replied, “and no one seriously believes the pope’s advisors were anything but misguided. But Signor Galileo was at fault as well, possibly more than they. He was a difficult and arrogant man and erred greatly in neglecting to show how his ideas were in conformity with doctrine. In truth I do not believe there was any contradiction. There was a failure to understand, and that had the direst consequences.”

“Not the intolerance of your church, then?”

“I think not, and would say it is proved that the Catholic church is more open to science than the Protestant. Every significant man of science yet has been raised in the Catholic church. Think of Copernicus, Vesalius, Torricelli, Pascal, Descartes…”