Iain Pears - An Instance of the Fingerpost

Knowing that Wallis was safe and sound gave me an opportunity I could scarcely dared have hoped for, as I knew that his room would be open to my attentions. So I crossed the town to New College, and used his key to get through the main gate. Again, the simplicity of the task made me believe that I was under special protection—the door to his room was unlocked, the bureau was easily opened, and the folio of documents—even labeled “Sr Ja—Prestcott”—was in the second drawer; half a dozen sheets of papers all so incomprehensible I assumed they must be the coded missives I sought. These I stuffed under my shirt for safekeeping, and prepared to leave, delighted with my success.

I heard the low but horrible scream when I was on the landing about to descend. Instantly I froze, convinced first that the devils had come for me once again and, when I was reassured on that point, worried that my luck had changed, and that the noise would draw attention and lead to my discovery. Hardly daring to move, I held my breath and waited; but the quadrangle remained as quiet and deserted as it had been before.

I was also perplexed; it was a noise of great pain, and clearly came from Dr. Grove’s room immediately opposite Wallis’s. With some trepidation, I knocked on the inner door—the great outer door was not closed—then quietly pushed it open and peered inside.

Grove was still alive, but only barely so, and the sight tore at my heart and drew anguished protest from my mouth. His face was contorted with the most excruciating pain, his limbs twitching and fluttering, as he thrashed about on the floor like a madman in the throes of an attack. He looked at me as I lit a candle in the grate and held it over him, but I do not think he recognized me. Rather, with an unsteady hand he indicated something on the table in the corner, then, with froth and spittle gurgling from his gaping mouth, he fell back on the floor and expired.

I had never witnessed such an agony, and pray with fervor that such a sight should never again assault my eyes. I was petrified by the sight, and dared not move, half afraid he was dead, and half that he would come back to life again. It was only with the greatest of effort that I stirred myself and looked to see what he had pointed at in that last, pathetic gesture. The bottle and glass on the table still contained a great deal of liquid. I sniffed cautiously and it gave no hint of mortal danger, but it seemed at the very least likely that poison lay behind what I had just witnessed.

Then I heard the footsteps coming up the stairs, and terror gripped my heart as tightly as my hand gripped a knife I saw on Grove’s desk.

Louder and louder they grew, up one pair, pausing on the landing, then the other. It could not be Wallis, surely, I thought. He could not have escaped. And I knew that if any man came into this room, I would have to kill him.

The steps grew louder, and stopped on the landing, and there was a long pause before the thunderous knocking came on the door to Grove’s room. Perhaps it was not; perhaps it was simply the lightest of tapping, but it seemed to me loud enough to waken the dead from their graves. I stood there in darkness, and prayed desperately that the visitor would think that Grove was not there, and go away. But in my nervousness and efforts to be quiet I accomplished the opposite, for I brushed against a book on his table, and sent it crashing to the ground.

All my prayers and wishes were of no avail then; there was a pause, and then I heard the latch of the door moving, the unmistakable sound of the door itself creaking open, then a footfall on one of the loose and creaking oak floorplanks.

When I saw that the visitor had a lantern, and would soon see both myself and Grove’s body, I knew I could hide no longer, so I reached forward and grabbed him by the neck, and pushed him backward out of the room.

My antagonist had little strength, and put up almost no resistance to me in his surprise and terror. It took scarce a second or two to wrestle him to the ground on the landing, stop the lantern from setting fire to the entire building, and then see who he was.

“Thomas!” I cried in the greatest surprise when the feeble light played across his ashen, frightened face.

“Jack?” he whispered hoarsely with even greater astonishment. “What are you doing here?”

I released him quickly, and brushed him down, and apologized for manhandling him. “What I am doing is very simple,” I said. “I am escaping. But I think maybe you have some explaining to do.”

His head fell when I said that, and he looked as though he was about to burst into tears. It was very strange, all this conversation—a priest and a fugitive, huddled close together on the landing, talking in whispers while in the next-door room only feet away there lay a still-warm corpse.

The look on his face, I may say, would have hanged him in any courtroom in the land even had the jury not known the long and bitter story which had led up to this event. “Oh, dear God, help me,” he cried. “What am I to do? You know what I have done?”

“Keep your voice down,” I said testily. “I have not gone to all the trouble of escaping just to be caught by the sound of your wails. What’s done is done. You have been stupid beyond belief, but there is no going back. You cannot undo it now.”

“Why did I do it? I saw the warden standing there, and even before I knew it, I had accosted him, and told him a complete pack of lies about that servant of his.”

“What? Thomas, what are you talking about?”

“Blundy. That girl. I told the warden that Grove had gone back on his word, and that I’d seen her sneaking into his room tonight. Then I realized…”

“Yes, yes. Let’s not get into that. What did you come here for, anyway?”

“I wanted to see him before it was too late.”

“It is too late.”

“But surely, there must be something I can do?”

“Stop being childish,” I snapped back at him. “Of course there isn’t. Neither of us have any choice. I must run; you must go back to your room and sleep.”

Still he sat there on the floor, clutching his knees. “Thomas, do as I say,” I commanded. “Leave it to me.”

“It was his fault,” he moaned. “I couldn’t stand it any more. The way he treated me…”

“He’ll not make that mistake again,” I replied. “And if you keep calm, we’ll both survive to see you with a bishop’s miter. But not if you panic, and not unless you learn how to keep your mouth shut.”

I could not bear to remain there any longer, so I pulled him to his feet. Together we crept down the stairs and at the bottom I pointed him in the direction of his room.

“You go back to your room and sleep as best you can, my friend. Give me your word you will say nothing and do nothing without discussing it with me first.”

Again, the wretch just hung his head like a schoolboy.

“Thomas? Are you listening?”

“Yes,” he said, finally raising his eyes to look at me.

“Repeat after me, and swear you will never mention anything of this evening. Or you will hang us both.”

“I swear,” he said in a dull voice. “But Jack…”

“Enough. Leave everything to me. I know exactly how to deal with this. Do you believe me?”

He nodded.

“You will do as I say?”

Another nod.

“Good. Go away, then. Good-bye, my friend.”

And I pushed him in the back to get him walking, and waited until he was halfway across the quad. Then I went back up to Grove’s room, where I took his key, so I could lock the door, and his signet ring.

The plan that had leaped, fully formed, into my mind was so simple and complete that it must have been due to some inspiration, for I must modestly admit that I could hardly have devised such a perfect solution unaided. What had happened was perfectly clear, and Cola’s document confirms it. For that was the day Lord Maynard had dined, and the great contest for his favor had taken place between Grove and Thomas. As might be expected, Thomas was outwitted, out-thought and humiliated. He had never been one for public dispute, but had prepared himself so much, and worked himself into such a fit of anxiety about the encounter, that he was barely capable of speech. Grove, instead, was ready, for he had encountered Cola and knew that the Italian would be the perfect foil for demonstrating his orthodoxy and robust defense of the church.