Baumann was stretched face downward on the floor near the writing-table with his head lying in a large pool of blood. Near his right hand I caught the dull gleam of blued steel….

  My first instinct was to go back to my own room. It was only the memory of the Profile on the staircase that made me go on. I loved her. If I had ever doubted it before I knew it now as I stood balancing myself outside Baumann’s window. I was going to do what I could to help her. For, however innocent her presence may have been—if she had been in Baumann’s room that night, she would need my help.

  I climbed in through the window. One glance at the body was sufficient to tell that Baumann was dead. He had been shot just above the mouth and the bullet had caused hideous wreckage in his upper jaw. A revolver was lying on the floor close to his hand and half covered also in the blood. The desk chair had fallen over.

  On the desk I saw to my amazement that, in addition to an open volume of the Idylls of Theocritus and a Greek Lexicon, there was a small tin of the liquid metal polish called Brasso, a cleaning rag and a piece of chamois leather. For a moment I stared uncomprehendingly and then light began to dawn. Every appearance pointed to the fact that Baumann had been cleaning his revolver at the desk when it accidentally went off and shot him in the face. The positions of the body, gun and fallen chair would have forced this conclusion on anyone who had entered the room through the door.

  Now, even at the risk of alienating my reader’s sympathy, I am going to declare frankly that I never was taken in by all these careful arrangements. As soon as I saw Baumann’s dead body through the window, some sixth sense told me that he had been murdered. As soon as I saw the tin of Brasso and the dirty rags I thought to myself, “How clever of somebody. This is a good job. I must keep up the farce.” In short, I shamelessly decided to compound what I believed to be a felony. I do not attempt to excuse myself. I can only repeat that I had seen the features of the girl I loved on the staircase that night and I knew that nothing I could do would bring Baumann back to life. If she did kill Baumann, she probably had good reason and I was not going to betray her until I had heard what she had to say for herself.

  All these thoughts flashed through my head in a very few seconds. Then I suddenly saw, staring me in the face, the most damning piece of evidence in the world—evidence sufficient to prove that what looked like an accidental death was premeditated murder, evidence conclusive enough to send a man to the gallows.

  Now the carpet in Baumann’s room was light red with a motif of large indeterminate flowers in dark crimson. These were arranged in symmetrical design at regular intervals and there were, of course, spaces in which there was no pattern at all. In one of these spaces, about eighteen inches from Baumann’s feet, I noticed that there was a crimson circle which looked, at first glance, like a floating peony or chrysanthemum which had come adrift from its mooring in the carpet’s design. I went over and touched it with my hand. It was sticky and my fingers were red. Blood! If Baumann’s “accident” had occurred while he was seated at his desk, how could there reasonably be an isolated patch of blood several feet away?

  As I stood there trying to puzzle this out, someone banged on the sported oak. Michael’s voice cried out:

  “Anything up, Hilary?”

  “Yes, there’s been an accident.”

  “Let me in for God’s sake.” His voice sounded tense.

  I paused with my hand on the door knob. No. Not even Michael must know my secret. But I must act fast. Now, if ever, was the time for a clear head and rapid thinking.

  “Better not,” I said as calmly as I could. “Go down to Warren’s room and tell him to come up here. It’s pretty serious.”

  As I heard Michael’s footsteps retreating, I turned back into the room. Quick, quick, I thought. I must get some alcohol—something to remove that tell-tale second stain. I ran into Baumann’s bedroom and the first thing that caught my eye was a queer-shaped bottle of what looked like perfume. Veldbloemen, I read on the label, “a distillation of the odoriferous plants that are peculiar to the South African Veld.” If I felt any surprise at finding perfume in the bedroom of an athletic Boer farmer, its South African origin explained it. The smells of home are the comfort and the despair of the homesick.

  I drenched my handkerchief in the perfume and, as I did so, I felt a dull, sickening sensation in the pit of my stomach. This was the scent which I had smelled when the Profile pulled out her handkerchief that morning. This was the odour which had assailed my nostrils on the staircase. The chain of circumstantial evidence seemed satanically conclusive.

  As I rubbed the sinister patch on the carpet with my sodden handkerchief. I could hear the distant sounds of Dr. Warren’s piano. Suddenly they stopped. Michael had evidently reached the tutor’s rooms. I redoubled my efforts on the stain. The room smelt like a greenhouse. Throwing all the windows wide open, I heard footsteps on the stairs. I stuffed into my pocket the dirty blood-stained handkerchief. There was a soft tap on the still sported oak….

  Dr. Reginald Warren, Tutor of All Saints, was not at all the type of man one would expect to play Chopin during a storm. In fact, no one would expect him to play Chopin at all. He tinkled Bach and Mozart occasionally, but first and last he was a scientist—and a rather lugubrious scientist at that. His nickname, the Merry Monocle, was ironical as far as the adjective was concerned, but exact as to the substantive. He had been a colonel in the British Army during the war and had won the V. C. for gallantry on the field. He had never been known to show emotion of any kind whatsoever. If he had passions he kept them to himself or exorcised them with his music.

  And his face was quite dispassionate as he stood on the threshold. I saw a look of horror and fear on Michael’s countenance.

  “Thank you, Mr. Grayling,” said Dr. Warren as he adjusted his monocle in his left eye. “I must ask you to return to your room and say nothing. Mr. Fenton, will you please stay here with me?”

  He shut the door on Michael. His hands touched the body in various places and then spread in a gesture of finality.

  “Mr. Fenton,” he said, in the same formal tones I had heard him use in discussing the requirements for Littlego, “he is dead, as you have probably observed. I should say offhand only about twenty minutes, half an hour at the most.” He looked at his watch. “It is now ten-fifteen. Did you hear a shot just before ten o’clock?”

  “Well, sir,” I explained, “there was the storm then and the thunder. Four of us were in my room next door. We heard nothing that we recognized as a shot.” I went on to explain about the fuses and my visit to the porter’s lodge.

  “A curious coincidence,” he murmured. “But I suppose it was the sudden darkness that startled Baumann as he was cleaning his revolver. Do you know, by the way, if it belongs to him?”

  “I don’t know for certain, sir. It was rumoured that Baumann had a gun. The bedmaker has complained.”

  “It should have been reported immediately,” said the tutor severely. “The possession of firearms is strictly forbidden by University regulations.” He picked up the tin of Brasso and sniffed at it.

  “There is a strange smell here,” he remarked. Remembering the handkerchief in my pocket, I instinctively moved away from him.

  After a few more questions he said, “Fenton, go to the porter’s lodge and call the police station. Ask for Inspector Horrocks. He served with me during the war. A splendid fellow and a personal friend of mine.”

  “Inspector Horrocks? I know him,” I said with relief. “I report to him under the Aliens’ Act every time I go down to Cambridge. He’s been very decent to me.”

  “So much the better,” he replied drily. “Come back here when you’ve finished. Horrocks will want to question you, I expect.”

  Much as I hated to leave Dr. Warren alone with the telltale stain, I departed to do as I was told. After some difficulty I managed to get hold of my old friend Horrocks. My call was transferred from the police station to the asylum, where I just missed getting him. Finally I located him at his home. He promised to come at once and to make arrangements for a police surgeon to follow him.

  Inspector Horrocks had always been most affable on the not infrequent occasions when I went through the farcical performance of “registering” as a potentially undesirable alien. Many a beer had we consumed together over a discussion of international problems. But his voice over the telephone sounded so stern and official that I could not believe it was my erstwhile jovial companion.

  I reflected that I must dispose of the handkerchief before he arrived on the scene. My hand furtively sought my coat pocket and, as it did so, it came into contact with the letter Bauman had given me that morning.

  This set me thinking. Having done all I could to prevent the avenging of the South African’s death, I felt that the least I could do was to comply with the last request he had made me. Perhaps I was rattled, perhaps I was over-conscientious, but in the excitement of the moment I did something that I was to regret many times later. I pulled the letter from my pocket, tore open the outer envelope and placed the enclosure in the letter box near the lodge. I did not look at the address, but as the envelope fell down the slot, I caught the letters B-R-I-D-G-E-S. Then I saw the porter look inquiringly towards me. I moved quickly away, but not before I had noticed that the outer envelope, which I still held in my hand, was blood-stained from its proximity to my handkerchief.

  Here was another piece of evidence to destroy. Well, there is a classical place to dispose of useless paper; and if paper, why not a handkerchief also?

  Nodding goodnight to the porter, I strolled casually towards the one corner of the college where one can go without question at any hour of the day or night. There I tore the envelope and the handkerchief into small pieces and safely dispatched them on their long journey down the Cambridge sewer pipes.

  I breathed a sigh of relief and lit a cigarette in a vain attempt to hide the fact that I still smelled like a lady’s boudoir. Then I washed my hands and returned slowly and thoughtfully to the room where Baumann’s body lay.

  It was not until I saw him still lying there, under the cool scrutiny of Dr. Warren, that I reflected that Michael Grayling’s problems were undoubtedly solved, and that Stuart Somerville would now get his much-coveted cricket blue. It was indeed an ill wind that had blown that night, but it could not fail to bring some good to my friends on “A” staircase.

  CHAPTER V

  I Wrestle with Authority

  Inspector Horrocks of the Cambridge Police always made me doubt that the war was really over. Though I had never seen him in any kind of uniform, I felt that he belonged in the drawings of Bruce Bairnsfather—at least he was the type of Englishman which that eminent cartoonist tried in vain to caricature. But no mere pencil could ever give adequate expression to that plum-and-apple complexion, those guileless china blue eyes or that red walrus moustache. It would require the brush of a Raeburn or a Reynolds to do justice to Inspector Horrocks’ peculiarly English type of—well, not exactly beauty. He was the final epitome of much beef and beer; the glorious, solid result of plain living, military discipline, and no hanky-panky when it came to high thinking.

  But Inspector Horrocks was also a man of infinite resource and sagacity. If, during our not infrequent visits to the “Plumed Cock,” I had underestimated his mental powers, I very soon revised my opinion when he finally reached Baumann’s room at eleven o’clock that Monday night.

  “Well, sir,” he said, turning deferentially to Dr. Warren, who had been explaining his theory of the accident, “if he was cleaning his gun when it went off in his hand there’ll be powder marks on his face to show it was point-blank range, as you might say, sir.”

  Dr. Warren lifted up the mangled head without speaking. Indeed, words were unnecessary, for no powder marks or anything else could be seen on that terrible, blood-stained countenance.

  “Then there’s the bullet, sir. It usually goes right through in such cases. We ought to find it somewhere in the room.”

  “I thought of that,” replied Dr. Warren, “but the bullet didn’t pierce the skull. You can see for yourself there’s no hole in the back of the head. Strange,” he mused, “the cerebrum is as soft as putty. The bullet must have been deflected on passing through one of the frontal bones. Now if it had been a spent bullet, we might have expected—” His voice trailed off.

  Horrocks picked up the revolver and wrapped it in a large pocket handkerchief. As he did so I stole a furtive glance at the isolated blood stain and noticed, to my relief, that it was now almost invisible. “It’s no good even trying to get fingerprints off this gun,” he said in disgust. “I never did see such a mess. Worse than Dunkirk, eh, Colonel?”

  The two old soldiers smiled gravely at each other and, as they did so, I noticed that Horrocks’ eyes looked at Dr. Warren with an almost doglike devotion and admiration. I suspected then, as I afterwards found out to be the truth, that it was by saving Inspector Horrocks’ life that Colonel (then Captain) Warren had won his V. C. Our tutor could do no wrong in the eyes of Cambridge Law as embodied in Inspector Herbert Horrocks.

  After he had washed his hands and taken a careful survey of the room, Horrocks produced his notebook and began to question me. There was hardly any need to be untruthful. No, I could not say that I had definitely heard the shot. Nor had I seen or heard any stranger go into Baumann’s rooms. I knew of no circumstances which should make the South African wish to take his own life. Yes, I had some reason to believe that the gun was his own, and, as Dr. Warren suggested, the sudden extinction of the lights might well have startled him and caused the pistol to go off. It had certainly startled me. When I came to think of it, there had been a crash about that time but, of course, we had all taken it for thunder.

  One question, however, was not so easy.

  “If you didn’t hear the shot, Mr. Fenton, what made you climb over the roof to get into his room that way?”

  I paused before replying.

  “I wanted to speak to Baumann. I knew he was in since there was a light under his door. I banged and banged. There was no answer. So finally—”

  “I didn’t know Baumann was such a close friend of yours,” interrupted the tutor, looking at me narrowly.

  “Well, sir, we were neighbours,” I commented lamely.

  “But even with neighbours, surely, one respects the sported oak.”

  Before I had time to reply, Horrocks suddenly made a dive towards the fireplace.

  “See here, sir,” he said, holding up a partially consumed match. “Here’s a match.”

  There was indeed no doubt about it. Its significance, however, was not immediately apparent to us two victims of higher education.

  “Well,” explained the inspector, stating the fact as though it was the most obvious thing in the world, “the deceased young gentleman didn’t smoke. Not an ashtray in sight. Not a packet of gaspers, as you might say, sir; and—what’s more—not a match neither. Not even in his pockets.”

  Here was deduction indeed. Dr. Warren and I were flatteringly impressed.

  “And what is one’s first instinct when lights go out?” continued Horrocks sagely. “Why to strike a match, of course. And if Mr. Baumann hadn’t got a match, well, it may mean there was someone else here who had.”

  This was terrible. I could almost feel the colour come and go in my cheeks.

  “Perhaps I can explain that,” I stammered out at length. “I smoked a cigarette in here this morning while I was—er—having a little chat with Baumann. You can see the end of it in the fireplace now. Probably that was the match I used to light it.”

  Horrocks’ little balloon of triumph seemed to have been summarily pricked. He looked almost crestfallen, but I thought I saw a flicker of relief pass over the tutor’s mask-like countenance.

  After Horrocks had asked a few more questions and received generally satisfactory answers, Dr. Warren gravely summed up his own conclusions.

  “I am quite satisfied myself, Horrocks, that this was a case of accidental death. At present I see no reason to suspect otherwise. The position of the body, the wound and the revolver all seem perfectly reasonable to me. Indeed, I sincerely hope that such will be proved the case. One point, however, I feel I ought to mention. When I entered this room I had a distinct impression that a woman had been here. There was a strong smell of perfume.”

  The word “woman” alarmed me so much that I completely lost my head and burst forth into a tissue of half-lies.

  “I think I can explain that, too, sir,” I said in a voice so calm that I was surprised at my own duplicity. “When I saw Baumann lying there, I didn’t realize at first that he was dead. I ran into the bedroom to see if I could find anything to help him. While I was there I upset a bottle of perfume that was on his dressing table and got it all over my sleeve.”

  “Perfume?” The tone was sceptical.

  I went into the bedroom and produced the bottle. Dr. Warren sniffed at it and peered through his monocle.

  “Well,” he said, “that’s certainly the odour I smelled.”

  The arrival of the police surgeon put a stop to all further inquiries that were not strictly medical. Dr. Warren counted the title M. D. amongst his other academic distinctions, and could talk to the medical examiner in his own language. Polysyllabic words such as intercranial pressure, cerebral hemorrhage, medulla oblongata and corpus striatum were tossed lightly to and fro like so many ping-pong balls. Horrocks and I indulged in a lay conversation on the side.

  Finally Dr. Warren turned to me and said, “I think, Mr. Fenton, I must ask you to come with me while I report this matter to the Master. He has guests at the Lodge tonight, but I’m afraid we shall have to trouble him.” He turned to Horrocks. “Will you find your way over there when Dr.—er—Beaverly has made the necessary arrangements?” The inspector nodded.

  Whatever the truth about our Master, the longevity of the Cambridge don is notorious. The excellence of the college cellar is probably responsible, on the principle that the better the preservative the longer the preservation.