Spooner nodded mournfully. "Ah, yes, it's those things I say, isn't it? I can't help myself you know; they just pop out like habbits from a role."
After exchanging a few more courtesies each passenger settled to his own occupation for the journey. Holmes returned to his paper. Spooner spent a considerable time organizing his possessions into some semblance of order and arranging them on the overhead rack, then extracted a slim volume of Ovidian
poetry from the pocket of his surtout, curled himself into the opposite corner and began to read with the page held close to his face. Yet neither was able to concentrate. Holmes was intrigued by the albino and was conscious that Spooner was taking no less interest in him. Several times the younger man glanced surreptitiously across the intervening space only to find that New College's most remarkable resident was staring fixedly at him. Once or twice Spooner opened his mouth as though he would speak but either the words would not come or he thought better of them. At last, however, he did break the silence.
"Mr Holmes, I apologize for disturbing you. I wonder, would you mind if I asked you to discuss a certain matter… delicate, bewildering?"
"If I can be of service, sir."
"It is not the sort of thing I would normally broach with someone upon such short acquaintance but you appear to be a singularly astute young man and it may be that Providence has brought us together."
Holmes waited with carefully suppressed amusement to hear what perplexing problem the eccentric don was about to share.
"I am convinced that the whole thing is an undergraduate prank. It may be that you have heard about it from the perpetrators."
"Heard about what, sir?"
Spooner squinted impatiently through his glasses. "Why the painting, of course – the Dutch Nativity. We've lost it permanently for three weeks."
"Perhaps, sir, if you were to start from the beginning?"
"Ah, yes, well Giddings, you see, our senior fellow, brilliant mind, Renaissance scholar, very gracious, not at all put out over the election."
The story which would have taken any normal narrator ten minutes or so to recite occupied Spooner for the remainder of the journey, involving, as it did, acrobatic leaps from thought to thought and perilous balancing on the high wire of tenuous connections. Holmes was amused as much by the effort of following the disjointed account as by the events to which it referred. Briefly, these were as follows:
Some eleven years previously there had been an election for the wardenship of New College. The contest had been
between the then dean and the senior fellow, Dr Giddings. The fellowship had decided on the dean, for Giddings, though highly respected, was already well smitten in years and did not enjoy robust health. The old don had shown his regard for the college by warmly congratulating the warden elect and donating to the chapel a magnificent Nativity by Rembrandt. It was this painting which, in October 1873, had been stolen.
Holmes asked why the crime had not been reported to the police and received the reply that the fellows were disposed to regard it as an internal university matter. Over the past few months there had been a series of similar incidents in various colleges. Oriel's standard had been removed from its flagpole. A hanging candelabrum had been absconded from the hall at Merton. An ancient sundial had been prised from a quadrangle wall at Magdalen and, more recently someone had walked out of Radcliffe library with a rare incunabulum, deceiving the staff by leaving a superficial fake in its place. The New College authorities attributed these escapades to undergraduate high spirits and were persuing their own enquiries but to Holmes it was evident that Spooner and, probably, his colleagues were more exercised by their loss than they were prepared to admit.
Having heard his fellow passenger's tale, my friend could only express his condolences over New College's loss and regret that he knew nothing which could be of any help in the recovery of the painting. As a new arrival in Oxford he had yet to acquaint himself with the student grapevine, he explained, and, in any case, he was, himself, of a rather solitary and studious disposition.
Having arrived at Oxford the two travellers shared a cab into the city centre, where they parted company. Holmes resolved to put the New College painting from his mind but the curious elements of Spooner's narrative no less than the disjointed mode of its delivery declined to be easily banished. Thus he found himself next morning in the chapel of the nearby college gazing at a large area of empty stone wall. A small card pinned to a stall beneath the space read: "the nativity of our lord by rembrandt van ryn, 1661. This painting has been temporarily removed for restoration."
Holmes climbed onto the wooden seat to inspect the wall more closely. Faint dust marks could be seen where the frame had
touched the stonework and, using the span of his outstretched right hand, which he knew to be nine and a quarter inches in width, he measured the dimensions of the missing painting. It was as he was stretching upwards as far as he could reach to gauge the height of the absent masterpiece that he heard an outraged voice behind him.
"Ere! What d'you think you're a-doing of?"
Calmly Sherlock Holmes stepped down and turned to confront an aged college servant whose faded black gown proclaimed him to be some sort of sexton or verger. "Are you in charge here?" he enquired.
"That I am and right tired of the antics of you young gentlemen. This is a house of God and not a place for your pranks. Now be off with you, before I call the dean."
"Oh, there's no need to disturb him," said Holmes casually. "I'm sure you can tell me all I need to know." He produced a half sovereign from his pocket. "I'm interested in your excellent painting and was very sorry not to be able to see it. Do you know where it has gone to be restored?"
The old man's tone changed at the sight of the gleaming coin. "Yes, sir," he said, holding out his hand for the unexpected gratuity. "I've got a note of the address in my vestry. If you'd care to step this way. I take it you're a student of art, sir."
"That's right," Holmes agreed.
"Well, I don't know as you'll learn much from that painting. Right dark and gloomy it is. You can't scarcely make out any of the figures in it. They say it's very valuable, but I wouldn't give it house room. If you wouldn't mind waiting there a moment, sir." He unlocked a small door and shuffled into a chamber scarcely larger than a broom cupboard. Seconds later he re-emerged bearing a card.
"Ah yes, Simkins and Streeter," Holmes said, nodding approvingly. "I know them well. They'll do a first class job. When did they take it?"
"It was three weeks ago."
"Was it Mr Simkins or Mr Streeter who called to supervise the removal?"
"That I couldn't say, sir. I wasn't here."
"You mean these people came from London and removed this valuable college treasure without your personal supervision?"
Holmes asked with an air of concerned astonishment. "That was not very courteous of them."
The verger visibly warmed to his visitor. "Well, that same thought did strike me, sir. Apparently it was all a rushed job. They was due to come in the afternoon but they never showed up. On the Thursday morning when I came in there was the picture gone. I was a bit worried, I don't mind telling you and I rushed straight to the dean. He set my mind at rest straight away. 'Not to worry, Tavistock,' he said. 'The restorers came for the painting quite late. It seems they'd had some trouble on the road with a lame horse and, by the time they'd changed it over they were running well behind time.' "
"So you never saw the men who collected it?"