The Medieval Murderers - The First Murder

Drabble shook his head, his jowls flapping above his spotted bow tie.

‘No, no! I came across something new quite recently.’

He reached across his paper-strewn desk and picked up a few pages of foolscap, pinned together in one corner. ‘I was in Oxford the other day, as an external examiner for a dissertation, and took the opportunity to call into the Bodleian to look up a few references.’

He looked at the fifth member of his captive audience, who were all seated on hard chairs around the other side of his desk. This was Blanche Fitzwilliam, the assistant librarian, a short, dumpy lady with a pleasant manner.

‘As you know only too well, our own library is woefully short of many historical journals,’ he said heavily.

Blanche was a war widow, having lost her RAF husband in the Battle of Britain, and was not going to be brow-beaten by the likes of Harry Drabble

‘And it will remain woefully short until the war is over!’ she said spiritedly. ‘We lost half our stock when that incendiary bomb came through the roof three years ago.’

The Reader raised a hand in surrender. ‘Of course, dear lady! I’m not blaming anyone, apart from Adolf Hitler – just stating a fact. Anyway, I found one of the papers I was looking for in an 1894 volume of the Quarterly Journal of Historical Research , but serendipitously noticed another title on the Contents Page that was of even more interest!’

He waited for an excited reaction, but there was a sullen silence.

‘It was a translation and a commentary by Austin Dudley Price of something he found in the London Library archives the previous year. An Early Middle English script – the twelfth-century original and a Jacobean translation of The Play of Adam .’

This time, Loftus Maltravers showed some reaction, albeit negative.

‘ The Play of Adam ? Never heard of it. Not in any of the well-known Cycles, is it?’

Christina chipped in, ‘Couldn’t be, it’s too early. Where did it come from originally?’

‘Oseney Abbey, according to Dudley Price,’ said Drabble. ‘It’s got the usual subjects in it – the Creation, the Fall of Lucifer, Cain and Abel, the Flood.’

They all pondered this for a moment.

‘How much of it do you propose doing? Some of these went on for hours, even days,’ objected Agatha WoodTurner.

‘About an hour would suffice, I think,’ replied Harry. ‘Just to show people that even five years of war can’t abolish academic scholarship.’

‘And to impress the Dean of the Faculty with his genius!’ murmured Peter Partridge under his breath.

The pages that Drabble had copied out from the journal in Oxford were passed around and after a quick scan, no one could think of any valid objection, if the boss was really set on this idea. The Open Day was an annual event as inescapable as Christmas, and something had to fill in the time to divert the few dozen people who felt obliged to attend. A discussion developed and, with it, mild enthusiasm for the project.

‘It looks as if three of these short sections would fill the hour,’ suggested Agatha. “The Creation”, “The Fall of Lucifer” and “Cain and Abel” seem most suitable.’

‘Great!’ said Loftus with relief. ‘That means I don’t have to make another damned Ark.’

Hieronymus leaned back in his chair, put his thumbs in his waistcoat pockets and nodded his agreement. ‘I’ll get this typed up and make half a dozen stencilled copies for you all. We can get some of the post-graduate students to help with scenery and take a few of the parts.’

‘Where are we going to do it?’ asked Maltravers. ‘Not on the back of a cart again, I hope.’

The last attempt at medieval authenticity several years earlier had been a disaster due to a sudden thunderstorm soaking the outdoor audience, making them run for cover just as Noah had announced the start of the Deluge.

There was a discussion about the best venue and eventually all agreed that the Large Lecture Theatre would be most suitable. Though as with the SCR, the title suggested serried ranks of polished benches climbing a curved auditorium, it was actually a First World War military hut that had been erected in 1917 when Waverley House had been commandeered on a previous occasion. A rectangular wooden structure similar to a small parish hall, it stood in the yard at the back of the main college building, whose red brick formed a U-shaped embrace around the hut. It had a raised platform at one end, ten rows of chairs and very little else.

‘Who’s going to organise the casting?’ asked Blanche Fitzwilliam.

With no sign of embarrassment, Hieronymus produced a sheet of paper. ‘I took the liberty of drawing up the dramatis personae. I thought Mr Partridge, being in the prime of life, could play Adam, and also portray Cain, alongside Doctor Maltravers as Abel.’

‘So who will be Eve?’ demanded Agatha, clipping on her pince-nez to glare at Drabble.

‘Perhaps Miss Ullswater would oblige,’ said Drabble in his most oily voice. ‘It would be more consistent with the age of Adam.’

‘And who’s going to be God?’ wondered Peter aloud, silently adding, As if I didn’t know!

‘I think that part would best suit me,’ said Hieronymus brazenly. After some more wrangling, they agreed that Agatha Wood-Turner, Christina and Blanche would make suitable angels.

Hieronymus made some notes on a pad as they went on with their plans.

‘Dr Maltravers, would you dragoon a few senior students to fill the other roles? We need the Devil, the Serpent and few extras to stand around and look either sinister or beatific.’

Loftus also grudgingly agreed to knock together some simple scenery, pointing out that the materials were almost impossible to obtain in these hard times. The meeting broke up after half an hour and the members drifted away. Peter Partridge and Maltravers went back to the Common Room to put the kettle on, and by the time they had brewed another pot and started an argument about Christopher Marlowe’s death, Christina had arrived.

As they sat drinking their rationed tea, she handed them each a chocolate biscuit, with ‘US Army’ printed on the wrapper. The blonde offered no explanation, but the treat was accepted graciously. But she did have something to say about the meeting they had just left.

‘I’m sure I’ve read something about this play somewhere, not all that long ago.’

‘Harry said it was in the Q. J. Hist ,’ said Peter. ‘We all read that; perhaps what you saw was in there?’

She shook her golden curls. ‘I’ve never looked at any issues from half a century ago. He said it was in the 1890s. No, I’ve read a much shorter piece somewhere else. I think it was a commentary on medieval writings that had some stigma attached. I’m sure there was a reference to The Play of Adam . The name stuck in my memory.’

Loftus shrugged. ‘As Blanche said, half our library was destroyed, so it would be a devil of a job to follow that up.’

Christina agreed. ‘It doesn’t matter, anyway, but I was just curious. Next time I go up to town, I’ll call in at the London Library to have a root around.’

‘Take your tin hat and gas mask, then,’ advised Peter. ‘Though these days, it’s probably more dangerous down here than in the City!’

The following week, the attractive Miss Ullswater took the train up to Waterloo. Looking through the carriage windows at the hundreds of bombed-out buildings on the way through South London, she could only be thankful that the History, Language and Theology Departments had been evacuated early in the war to Waverley, even if the old Victorian mansion was gloomy and inconvenient.

After her business at the surviving part of the mother college in Lambeth was done, she went across to St James’s Square in the heart of the West End, to what was left of the venerable London Library, for which she had a personal subscription at four guineas a year. Founded as an independent institution in 1841, it had been bombed earlier that year and much of the most precious material had been evacuated to safety deep in the countryside. However, many of the periodicals from recent years were still there and as her speciality was quite circumscribed, she knew which journals she would have been combing for her thesis in the past eighteen months. Going down into the dank subterranean chambers that held the stacks of past issues, too deep for even the air-raid sirens to penetrate, she scanned the shelves for her familiar old favourites.