Charles Snow - The Affair

“What do you mean, incredible?” said Martin, in a conversational tone. “Do you mean it’s incredible that we’ve all been such fools?”

“I should like to be told when we stop being fools,” Francis snapped. Then he tried to collect himself. In a level, reasonable voice, but his face still stern, he said to Skeffington: “Don’t you see that your explanation is very hard to credit?”

Skeffington had become angry too. He answered back: “Then are you prepared to make a better one?”

“From what you’ve told me, I shouldn’t have thought it was beyond the wit of man.”

“If we’d believed that,” said Skeffington, “we shouldn’t have come to waste your time.”

I said something, and Francis was sharp with me: “Lewis, you’re not a scientist, after all.”

“If you studied the evidence, what else do you think you could make of it?” said Skeffington. He had begun his exposition with much deference towards Francis, and now, though he looked angry and baited, the deference had not all gone.

Francis ignored the question and spoke coldly and sensibly: “Don’t you want to realise how this is bound to strike anyone who isn’t committed one way or the other?”

“We not only want to realise that, we’ve got to,” said Martin.

Was he as puzzled as I was by Francis’ response? He did not know him so well: perhaps that made it less mystifying to Martin than to me. But he was certainly at a loss to know how to get on terms with Francis, and was feeling his way.

“Remind me,” Francis said to Skeffington, “who acted as referees on Howard’s work when we elected him?”

“There was one external — old Palairet, naturally. One internal — Nightingale. I was asked to write a note along with Nightingale’s. Of course, I was still a new boy myself.”

“And you and Nightingale reported on his work when we dismissed him. That’s fair enough. But you admit that it isn’t precisely convincing when you suddenly tell us that you and Nightingale have ceased to agree?”

“He’s not got a leg to stand on—”

“That won’t do,” said Francis. “He knew as much as you did about the whole background, didn’t he?”

“Yes.”

“And you showed him the new data and told him your explanation, and he didn’t think there was much in it?”

“He didn’t think there was anything in it,” said Skeffington.

“Well, there it is,” said Francis. “If you’re going to attack the memory of a distinguished old man, you’ll want something firmer than that.”

“The facts are firm,” Skeffington broke out.

Martin spoke quietly and fairly, still trying to persuade Francis to match his tone: “At any rate, they’re as firm as one could expect. If only that photograph weren’t missing.”

“Presuming that there was ever a faked photograph there,” said Francis.

“Presuming that. Given that photograph, I should have thought there was enough evidence to satisfy a court of law. What do you think, Lewis?”

I also set out to be fair.

“It would be a terribly difficult case for an ordinary court, of course. Too much would depend on the technical witnesses. But I think I agree with Martin. I believe that if that photograph weren’t missing, a court would probably see that Howard was cleared. Without it — without it he wouldn’t stand more than an even chance.”

Francis looked from Martin to me, but without any sign that he was willing to talk our language. He said to Skeffington: “I take it Nightingale knows all the facts you know, by now?”

“He’s seen everything.”

“And he still doesn’t admit the facts are firm?”

“I told you right at the beginning. I didn’t want to give you any false impression. Nightingale wouldn’t admit to me — and I hear he said the same a good deal more strongly when these two were at the Lodge — he wouldn’t admit that the facts add up to anything.”

For some instants Francis sat silent. Somewhere in the room a clock gave a lurching, clonking tick: I thought I had noticed it as we came in, tapping out the half-minutes, but I did not look round. I was watching Francis’ expression. Despite his strong will, he hadn’t any of the opacity that I was used to in men of affairs. By their side his nerves were too near the surface. When in the war he was successful among men of affairs, it had been through will and spirit, not through the weight of nature most of them had. As he sat at his desk, faced with a situation that colleagues of mine like Hector Rose would have taken in their stride without a blink, the shadows of his thoughts chased themselves over his face as theirs never would. His expression was upset and strained, out of proportion, much more than Skeffington’s or Martin’s had been at any time in the last few days. As he sat there, his eyes clouded, his lips pulled themselves in as though he had had a new thought more vexing than the rest.

At last he said, putting his hands on the table, making his voice hearty and valedictory: “Well, that seems as far as we can go just now.” He continued, in the same dismissive tone, but deliberately, as though he had been working out the words: “My advice to you” — he was speaking to Skeffington — “is to keep on at Nightingale and see if you can’t convince each other of the points that are still left in the air. By far the best thing would be for the two of you to produce a combined report. The essential thing is that the two of you ought to agree. Then I’m sure nearly all the rest of us would accept your recommendation, whether you wanted us to stay put or take some action. In fact, I’m sure that’s the only satisfactory way out, either for you or the rest of us.”

“Do you think it’s likely?” Martin asked sharply, pressing him for the first time.

“That I don’t know.”

Francis’ thoughts had turned into themselves again. Martin rose to go. He knew they were getting nowhere: it would be a mistake to test Francis any more that day. But Skeffington, although he got up too, was not acquiescing. In an impatient, aggrieved tone, he said to Francis: “When you mentioned me changing my mind about the explanation, you don’t seriously think that’s on the cards, do you? You don’t seriously think that now I’ve had this evidence through my hands, I could possibly change my mind, do you? If you still think I could, why don’t you have a look at the evidence for yourself?”

“No,” said Francis. “I’ve got enough to do without that.”

He had replied bleakly. When he was opening the door for us he said to Skeffington, as though intending to take the edge off the refusal: “You see, these new results of mine are taking up all my time. But if you and Nightingale do a report, either alone or together, then I’ll be glad to have a look at that.”

THAT night, when we were back in our flat in London and the children had gone to bed, Margaret told me that she would like to write to Laura Howard. Just as Skeffington felt on Christmas Day, she wanted them to be sure she was on their side.

“Do you mind?” she asked, her eyes steady and clear. She would take care not to harm me; but she was irking to act, springy on her feet with restlessness. She was more headstrong than the rest of us.

“I’m thinking of writing to her fairly soon,” said Margaret speculatively, as though it might be within the next month, while she was moving with the certainty of a sleep-walker towards her typewriter.

During the weeks which followed, she heard several times from Laura, and it was in that way that I kept an insight into the tactics. Nothing had come of Francis Getliffe’s idea of a combined report. It became common knowledge that both Skeffington and Nightingale were writing to the Master on their own. Before either report was in, the sides were forming. They were still three or four votes short of a majority for re-opening the case. By the end of January Skeffington’s report was known to be complete and in the Master’s hands. It was said to go into minute detail and to run to a hundred pages of typescript. (I wondered how Martin had let that pass.) Nightingale’s, which was delivered a little later, was much shorter. Within the college, these reports were not secret and any Fellow could read them who chose. But it had been agreed, for security reasons, that there should only be three copies of each in existence.