All the same, the Bursar had been conscious that the College Secretary was taking it all down in shorthand and that the research graduate Gilkes was making copious notes. By the time the questioning was over the Bursar felt very much better. 'You've been very, very kind to me,' he told the Praelector emotionally. 'I don't know how to thank you.'
'There's no need to blub, my dear fellow. And it is our business to thank you. You have no idea what you have done for the College. And you need not worry about Mr Kudzuvine. He's in safe hands.'
'Did you hand him over to the police?' the Bursar asked.
'Of course not. He's in safer hands than that. Now you go home and have a good night's rest. We are going to need you at your intellectual best in the days to come.'
At the time the Bursar hadn't realized the full implications of that remark. He had gone home, hurrying out through the back gate for fear of running into the Senior Tutor on the way to the Main Gate, and had drunk several very stiff whiskies before taking twice the recommended dose of his wife's sleeping pills and going to bed. On Monday he had stayed at home and it was only on Tuesday, on his return to his office in Porterhouse, that he learnt what the Praelector had meant about Kudzuvine being in a pair of very safe hands. 'You mean he's laid up in the Master's Lodge?' he asked Walter in the Porter's Lodge. 'What? With Skullion?'
'I wouldn't put it quite like that, sir. He's more laid out than laid up, if you take my meaning.'
The Bursar didn't. The Master's Lodge at Porterhouse was beginning to sound like a charnel-house rather than any sort of Lodge. First the late Sir Godber and now Kudzuvine. 'What did he die of, for God's sake? Did the Senior Tutor hit him…?'
'No, sir, nothing like that. Senior Tutor wasn't in any condition to hit anything. He'd already hit the bottle and wasn't very well himself. No, the American basta…gentleman had some sort of accident in the Chaplain's rooms and it was felt best if Dr MacKendly attended to him with the Matron. She's there now and Mr Skullion…the Master has been sitting by his bedside just to make sure he doesn't do himself any more mischief. After all, the College doesn't want no bad publicity, does it, sir?'
'No, I'm sure it doesn't,' said the Bursar doubtfully and wondered just how much publicity Transworld Television was going to give the assault-he didn't for a moment believe that Kudzuvine had had an accident-and battery of one of its Vice-Presidents. Presumably as far away as Easter Island they'd be seeing a bandaged Kudzuvine being carried from the College. They were bound to have satellite TV there, and it had just been installed on St Helena. The Bursar went off to his office and found the College Secretary waiting for him.
'Ah, there you are,' she said. 'Feeling better? No? Well, these things take time to get over, don't they? Anyway the Praelector asked me to tell him when you came in. He wants to come down and talk it over.'
'I don't really think I'm up…' the Bursar began but it was too late. Mrs Morestead had gone through to her office and had phoned the Praelector. 'They'll be down in a moment,' she said brightly when she came back and sat down with her pad and pencil.
'They? Who's coming with him?'
'I don't really know, though I did see Mr Retter and Mr Wyve crossing the Court just now.'
'Mr Retter _and_ Mr Wyve?' said the Bursar, with a resurgence of panic. Things must be simply awful for both the College solicitors to have arrived. It had never happened before. Mrs Morestead's next remark increased his dread. 'And yesterday we had the men from the Ancient Monuments Commission up from London and Mr Furness the architect with them. Stayed all day, and the structural engineers have been shoring up the Chapel roof with great girders. They say the whole thing may have to come down.'
The Bursar covered his face with his hands and waited for the worst. It came in the shape of the Senior Tutor, the Praelector, Dr Buscott and the Chaplain. The Senior Tutor was looking particularly ferocious. He still hadn't got over his hangover and the 'hair of the dog' he'd taken in the shape of a glass of neat rum had given an even sharper edge to his temper. All the same, the Praelector remained in charge. He was far older and senior in Porterhouse rank to the Tutor, and with both Mr Retter and Mr Wyve in attendance it seemed unlikely the horsewhip would come into play. 'I don't think this office is large enough to hold us all,' said the Praelector. 'Perhaps we should adjourn to the Fellows' Private Dining Room.'
They trooped out across the Court, Mrs Morestead following with her pad and pencil, and it was only when they were seated round a mahogany table in the Private Dining Room that the Praelector explained the purpose of the meeting. He did so in a decidedly sepulchral manner.
'We are gathered here today,' he said, 'to take measures to deal with what can only be described as a major catastrophe both for the College itself and for the architectural heritage of the entire country. The Porterhouse Chapel is one of the finest examples of late mediaeval neo-Romanesque religious architecture in Britain. Its style is unique in owing very little to the influence of the Gothic. Constructed at a time when the Gothic style was predominant, it speaks volumes for the conservative nature of the College even in those days that our predecessors chose to celebrate the faith in the most traditional fashion. Porterhouse has always prided itself on being, in the truest sense of the expression, "behind the times" or, to be even more precise, to exist in a timeless world. It is therefore supremely important in an age in which change seems all-conquering, and the future seems to hold nothing but the stultification of the human spirit by the endless watching of television and the proliferation of appalling programmes to satisfy man's baser-desires, that we should fight the company that has deliberately and criminally done such terrible damage to our Chapel. It is our bounden duty to extract the maximum in compensation from these people at Transworld Television not only for the physical damage done to the entire fabric of the College but for the mental suffering they have inflicted on members of the College. I for one will never recover from the shock…'
While the Praelector's peroration rambled on the Bursar tried to think what other bits of the College buildings had recently become unsafe and whose condition Transworld Television Productions could be forced to make good. There was a length of gutter behind the Cox Block that had recently dropped into the road, fortunately when no one was underneath. Not that any of those awful young men could have reached it, the pitch of the roof was far too steep for that and they'd have needed ropes, but all the same. Then there was the entire section of the Library that required repointing, and all the chimneys were in a dangerous state…The Bursar occupied himself by making an inventory of repairs needed.
Opposite him Mr Retter and Mr Wyve sat side by side and said nothing. They had inherited their position as legal advisers to Porterhouse with the firm Waxthorne, Libbott and Chaine, when they had joined it. They had been regretting the connection ever since. Waxthorne, Libbott and Chaine had all been dead a great many years before, but Mr Retter and Mr Wyve, being sound legal men, had insisted on keeping their names. It provided them with an adequate cover for their own legal inadequacies by allowing them to say that Mr Waxthorne had given it as his opinion that…Since Mr Waxthorne had been lying in the cemetery on the Newmarket Road for sixty-five years he could be said to act only in a consultancy role, and it was perfectly reasonable and indeed proper for Mr Retter and/or Mr Wyve to explain that he was unable to see any of their clients personally. Exactly the same could be said on behalf of Messrs Libbott and Chaine, the former having chosen to be cremated rather than share the same earth even approximately close to the partner he had loathed for years, and the latter having bequeathed his body to the University Medical Faculty for research purposes and dissection, less out of a desire to advance medical knowledge than to make absolutely sure he was well and truly dead before he went to the crematorium on the Huntingdon Road. Up to a point his wishes had been fulfilled, though his skull was still used as a wine bumper by a rather effete Drinking Club in King's called the Chaine Males. And up to a point Mr Retter and Mr Wyve had prospered. They had always specialized in work for colleges and had never been known to undertake any case that required them to appear in court, although Mr Retter had had to appear once before the magistrates for driving under the influence and had lost his licence for a year. Faced with anything involving litigation they invariably briefed other solicitors in London who in turned briefed counsel.