‘Dandridge has written verse himself,’ Fields went on, in a tone of voice that suggested this was a scarcely credible activity for any sane man to undertake.
‘I have rested in the groves of Helicon in my youth,’ the other man acknowledged, with noticeable self-satisfaction. He nodded his head repeatedly as if to confirm to himself that he had indeed done what the professor claimed he had. ‘I think I can say that I tasted briefly of the fountain of Hippocrene.’
‘And no doubt it was like sweet wine to your lips, Dandridge,’ Fields said dismissively, scarcely bothering to hide his contempt for his colleague. ‘But we can spend no time on reminiscences of our gilded youth. Adam here has a mystery to solve. Men have died and he needs to know why.’
‘Must he know why?’ Dandridge asked mildly, his round red face still wreathed in smiles. ‘Perhaps the dead should be left undisturbed by such enquiries. Remember what Palladas says. “Weep not then for him who departs from life, for after death there is no other accident.” ’
Fields snorted derisively. ‘It’s difficult to believe that either victim would have been so philosophical as he saw his own death approaching. But I cannot stay to argue the point, Dandridge. Adam and I will leave you to the contemplation of mortality.’
Fields turned and strode off. Adam stayed briefly to raise his hat politely to the other don. Then he followed him.
‘The man’s a fool,’ the professor hissed as they made their way towards where Quint stood. ‘As an undergraduate, he published a volume of execrable verse. Hexameters to make Virgil turn in his grave. And more than a hint of that unspeakable vice that so sullied life in Plato’s Athens.’
‘But you chose to speak to him of Euphorion.’
‘He is well-read in the lesser Greek poets,’ the professor conceded. ‘Ass though he is. I thought it might be of benefit to ask him about the versifier you mentioned. I will tell you later the little I learned from him.’
Adam wondered how the professor could have learned anything, however little, from Dandridge since he had appeared to allow his fellow don no opportunity to speak, but he said nothing.
As they approached the gate leading out of the Fellows’ Garden, Adam’s manservant, who had been slouching against it, stood up straighter and watched them warily. He looked to be wondering whether or not the professor might still be harbouring a grudge against him for the loss of his tobacco two years earlier.
‘Ah, the valiant and faithful Quintus is with you still, I see. Fidus Achates, indeed,’ Fields said. ‘How are you, my good man?’
The valiant and faithful Quintus, looking far from pleased to be so described, acknowledged Fields’s condescending nod with a grunt. The incident with the tobacco was, it seemed, forgotten. Fields returned his attention to Adam.
‘I have learned something more of Euphorion.’
‘What have you learned of him?’
‘You must be patient, Adam. I shall tell you all I know this evening, after we have dined.’
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
In the evening, Quint was banished to take his food with the college servants. The meal was a cheerless affair. The servants ate on benches lining a long table in a dank and ill-lit room off the kitchens. The bill of fare consisted of a watery soup made from pea or possibly green cabbage, a plate of grey, stringy meat of uncertain origin, and a cold, collapsed fruit pie. Pints of weak beer provided the only liquid accompaniment to the repast. Few of his fellow diners bothered to address Quint and those that did spoke in a thick Cambridgeshire accent he could barely understand. After several failed attempts at communication, Quint fell into sullen silence. The college servants soon chose to ignore him. He watched them morosely, while struggling to separate the small amounts of meat from the large amounts of gristle on his plate. They were a pretty poor crew, these porters and kitchen staff, he decided. Anyone with a bit of bounce in him, he thought, would long since have left this dead-and-alive hole in the Fens and headed for London. Yet here were these benighted sods cheerily gobbling up tough meat and downing horse piss they called beer as if there was nothing better anywhere in the world. Not for the first time, Quint despaired of his fellow man.
Meanwhile, Adam and Fields had joined the academic throng in the hall. Unsurprisingly, they fared rather better than Quint — not least in terms of drink, since the college possessed one of the university’s finest wine cellars — and it was only after several strenuous hours of eating and imbibing and exchanging Cambridge gossip that they were able to escape to the professor’s rooms. Fields’s servant had ensured that a fire was waiting for them and they sank gratefully into the comforting depths of two decrepit leather armchairs which stood one on each side of the hearth. Clutching tumblers of brandy and water, they were now ready to discuss what had brought Adam back to Cambridge.
Fields began with characteristic briskness.
‘So, young Carver, to return at last to your letter. I understand that, since our meeting at the British Museum, you have been involving yourself in the most thrilling of adventures in the great metropolis. Mysterious men importuning you to help them. Corpses littering the pathways where you tread. We can only dream of such excitement here by the waters of the Cam. Here we lead lives of almost monastic quiet. Dullness, some might say.’
‘Nonetheless, sir, you may be able to throw some light on at least one of the mysteries which now surround me.’
Fields’s angular face, illuminated by the glow of the fire, wore an expression which was hard to interpret. Was he genuinely eager to hear more? Or was he being no more than ironically indulgent towards a young man who had recently been a favourite student? Adam was unsure, but continued with what he had to say.
‘I think I described in my letter how I followed the enquiry agent Jinkinson out to a pub in Wapping. How I stumbled across him only moments after he had been shot.’
The professor nodded.
‘As I wrote in my letter, I found this on the man’s body.’ Adam held out the visiting card. ‘As you can see, the word “Euphorion” is inscribed on it.’
‘But, if I understand you correctly, this was not the first time you had come across it.’
‘No, indeed. I found the same word, in Greek characters, in a journal belonging to Creech, the man who was so interested in our travels in Macedonia. I thought I recalled a Greek poet of that name.’
Fields took the card and examined it briefly before returning it. ‘As I said to you this afternoon, I have been looking into the question of Euphorion, with some small assistance from Dandridge.’ The professor put considerable emphasis on the word ‘small’. ‘There are several writers of the name. Euphorion, son of Aeschylus, son of the great Aeschylus, is recorded as having taken first prize in the Athenian Dionysia in 431 bc. But none of his work survives. Better known — and probably the man that you have been struggling to pluck from the waters of Lethe — is Euphorion of Chalcis, third century bc. Meineke published fragments of his verse in Germany some thirty years ago.’
‘I was correct in my recollection, then. There was a poet of that name.’
‘Your memory served you well. Much better than time has served Euphorion of Chalcis. He raised no monumentum aere perennius, no monument longer lasting than bronze. His poetry is either lost or all but forgotten.’ Fields sipped at his brandy. ‘I cannot see why this man Creech would have noted down the name of an obscure Greek poet.’
‘No, he did not seem a very poetic soul.’ Adam stared into his own glass, as if looking for the answers to his questions in its contents. He found only a further question. ‘But there are others by the name of Euphorion, you say?’