“The Crown,” Gold repeated flatly.
“You don’t sound quite so positive as you were in the Barley Mow, sir. It was the Crown where you stayed, was it? Big hotel at the top of the High Street. Mentioned in Three Men in a Boat.”
“As you say. Chapter Twelve. The way Jerome puts it, you’d think it was beside the bridge.” Gold took off his spectacles and started polishing the good lens with his handkerchief. “I have a confession, Sergeant. A Jew with a confession-what do you say to that? We didn’t stay at the Crown.”
“What made you say that you did?”
He shrugged his shoulders. “Conceit. We meant to stay there. Wanted to do the whole journey according to the book. That was the purpose of our holiday. When you mentioned the Crown, I couldn’t bring myself to admit that we hadn’t even seen it.”
Cribb indicated with a nod that the explanation was plausible. “What prevented you from staying there?”
“The truth of it is that we found a cozy little inn beside the river and by the end of the evening we were in no condition to walk up the hill to the Crown.”
“Where did you put up?”
“Under canvas on our boat.”
“That’s odd,” said Cribb. “Mr. Lucifer told me that you stayed at a private lodging house. He didn’t mention an inn.” “Lucifer wouldn’t,” Gold said with a grin. “He likes to think of himself as a teetotaller, but he lapses, you see, he lapses. I don’t suppose he remembers anything about Tuesday night, the state he was in. Yet to hear him talk, you’d think a drop never passed his lips. Did you question him about this evening? I’d like to have heard his account of that.”
“Never mind this evening,” said Cribb. “Tell me about this morning. You were on the river very early, weren’t you?”
“All night, to be accurate. We slept in the boat, in the backwater above Culham Lock. We were under way before seven this morning. Had breakfast in Oxford. Fried kidneys. Delicious.”
“What time was this?”
“Between half-past eight and nine. We heard Great Tom striking as we finished off the toast. What time was your murder?”
“The doctor who examined the body estimated that death took place shortly after half-past nine. Which hotel served you with breakfast?”
Mr. Gold opened his palms again. “Pity about that. We almost had an alibi, didn’t we? It was the Hotel Humberstone, Sergeant. We cooked the kidneys over an open fire on the edge of Christ Church Meadow.”
CHAPTER 26
As the oldest of Oxford’s colleges, Merton had suffered from the improving zeal of twenty generations of architects. The buildings surrounding its four quadrangles presented an agglomeration of styles that had managed to conserve a sense of dignity until an early Victorian named Blore rede-signed the main gate and the street front, and the notorious Butterfield eclipsed that with his grotesque block at the corner of Merton Grove. Happily, the chapel, conceived on the scale of a cathedral, dominated everything. The choir, dating from the thirteenth century, was in the Decorated style; the tower was Perpendicular. The rough stone on the west wall showed the intended outline of the nave, which had never been built.
So it was in the choir that Harriet sat with Melanie Bonner-Hill for Morning Service. The term not having started, the congregation was sparse. Across the aisle in the front pew was a white-haired, bearded man Mrs. Bonner-Hill pointed out as the Warden. Behind him, at a higher level, were three others-“The Fellows,” she explained in a whisper. “Hear no evil, speak no evil, see no evil.”
“Which one is Mr. Fernandez?” Harriet inquired.
“The third one in, with the glossy hair and moustache.”
Once they had overcome the first awkwardness of their situation, Harriet and Melanie had found no difficulty in making conversation. By the end of dinner the evening before in their hotel, the colour had returned to the widow’s cheeks and Harriet had felt herself buoyed up by the company of one of her own sex. Three days afloat with policemen had been more of an ordeal than she ever would have supposed. It had been a tonic to talk of nothing else but the theatre and Miss Terry’s gowns and Mrs. Langtry’s conquests. By the time the crepes suzette arrived, Harriet had quite forgotten Sergeant Cribb; she had almost forgotten Constable Hardy. And Melanie Bonner-Hill, judging by the sparkle of her conversation, had forgotten she was a widow.
Sunday morning breakfast had been more subdued, but the friendship had blossomed when Melanie had asked Harriet to accompany her to Merton Chapel for Matins. “The Warden invited me yesterday, out of respect for Harry, I presume. It’s an honour, I’m sure, but I’m dreading it, the one woman among all those men. Would you come with me? I’m sure the Warden wouldn’t mind, and it would be such a support. I can point out all the notables, Harriet. Oh, they’re a dreadfully dull old lot! You’ll see exactly what I mean.”
Certainly the Chaplain fitted the description. His voice was pitched on a monotone. When he introduced a note of topicality to the proceedings by prefacing the Collect of the Day with, “In this we also commend the spirit of our brother, Bonner-Hill, so tragically taken from us only yesterday,” the words passed generally unnoticed. So, happily, did the text of his sermon: “Deliver me out of the mire and let me not sink.”
When it was over and they stepped into the sunshine of Mob Quad, a group was waiting to offer its condolences to Melanie. The Warden quite properly made the first approach. Harriet used the opportunity to take two steps backwards-two steps which took her within a yard of Mr. Fernandez. As she had hoped, he needed no bidding to start a conversation. Lifting his top hat, he asked, “Are you also from the theatre, ma’am?”
She turned to face him, and found the interest in his expression flattering, so flattering that she was quite relieved to notice that there was something just a little invidious in his smile. “I am afraid not. I happen to be staying at the same hotel as Mrs. Bonner-Hill. I am a visitor to Oxford.”
“How kind of you, in that case, to have escorted the poor lady to chapel.”
“Not at all, sir. I could not do less. You are a colleague of her late husband’s, I expect?”
“Yes indeed. Knew him well. Better than, er, never mind. And what have you seen of Oxford on your visit?”
The river and the mortuary, Harriet wryly thought, but answered, “Very little, sir. The college barges are beautiful. Like wedding cakes.”
“So they are, my dear, so they are. A pretty notion. I didn’t catch your name …”
“Harriet Shaw. I am a student teacher. My college is farther down the river, the other side of Henley.”
“A teacher. And what do you propose to teach?”
She smiled. “ ‘Who’ would be a better question. I am training to teach in elementary school, so I have to get a grounding in all the subjects.”
“Quite properly.” Fernandez nodded with high seriousness. “But I expect you favour one subject more than the others.”
“Geography is my favourite, Mr….?”
“I do apologize. John Fernandez. Geography! That really is remarkable. I am a modern historian myself, but geography is my secret passion. I tell you, if it were ever recognized in Oxford as a subject worthy of proper study, I should abandon history overnight. I say, wouldn’t it be grand to-”
Whatever Fernandez might have suggested was cut short by a tall, nervous man on his left. “The Warden’s moving, Fernandez. Are you going to speak next, or shall I?”
“Very well.” Fernandez doffed his hat to Harriet and moved to Melanie’s side.