At twelve o’clock, however, he departed and I returned to my room to shave, change my tie, and make the best of my rather limited store of natural attractions. I regarded myself critically in the spotted mirror. A poor face, but mine own, and rather worse than usual, I reflected. Not that I am an Adonis at the best of times.

  I can however, boast a set of decent teeth, curly hair, and not one single pimple. Let us be thankful for small mercies.

  But I was not so thankful as I should have been that morning as I sallied forth to my optimistic lunch party. I wanted to be a superman to match a superprofile.

  On the way to meet her at the “Whim” I reflected that, often as I had heard Baumann’s name mentioned, there had been no word of regret from anyone. It is possible that his tutor would miss him as “the only person in Cambridge capable of appreciating at once the spirit and the text of Pindar,” and the Varsity cricket captain would sigh for that famous cut past second slip which was to have played such havoc with the Oxford bowlers.

  But other scholars would come up next term, and other batsmen would take his place on the team. Kindly is our fostering mother, kindly but fickle.

  When I reached the “Whim,” a fine drizzle was moistening the pavements. Instinctively I looked around for the Profile’s mackintosh. There was no sign of it or her; only a sprinkling of elegantly dressed young men absorbing an excess of carbohydrates and all talking. Even as I entered I heard the words, “discovered by a chap called Fenton, an American.” Like Lord Byron I had awakened to find that I had become famous overnight.

  In another corner of the room a girl sat by herself avidly reading a newspaper account of the accident. One glance showed me that her profile was anything but the one I was looking for. I must sit down and wait. I did so. Half an hour passed and no sign of her. I had had no breakfast. Even people in love must eat. I was torn between my desire for food and my longing to see her again—to hear her tell me that there was nothing—

  “Excuse me, but are you by any chance Mr. Hilary Fenton?” The girl from the far corner had come across the room. In her hand she held a letter—my letter. Then she must be bringing me news of the Profile. A thousand awful possibilities flashed through my head. She had been killed—arrested—she had run away—she needed me—

  “Yes, my name is Fenton,” I replied eagerly.

  The girl simpered for a moment and then looked coyly downward.

  “Well, I got your letter,” she giggled, “I’m Dorothy Dupuis!”

  Hell, damnation and all the Furies—it was the prominent girl in spectacles who had been sitting next to the Profile at the lecture. Confound those attendance lists. Confound the Profile. Confound Lady Snorting Lusinger. Confound everyone.

  “Oh—h, so nice of you to come,” I smiled weakly.

  “Well,” she replied primly, “it was rather a sketchy invite. I ought not to have done it but Lady Lusinger is my aunt, so I suppose it was all right. And then I was curious—feminine, I suppose—to see in the flesh the person who discovered the body. I read about it in the papers this morning and called up my fiancé to ask if he minded my lunching with you. He’s an undergrad at Cats—reading theology, you know.”

  I didn’t know, nor did I care. And I loathe the abbreviation undergrad.

  “Well, what about some food,” I suggested hungrily. As we waited for our orders to be served, Dorothy Dupuis bombarded me with questions concerning Baumann, Lady Lusinger, the depression in America and my church membership. Even my appetite had left me by now. I felt cheated and furious with the Profile, but alas! more in love with her than ever. Great is the power of contrast.

  When we got to the horrible English concoction known by the frivolous title of “Trifle,” I decided that I would combine the cunning of the serpent with the softness of the dove. This luncheon should not be wholly wasted.

  “Who was that girl you were sitting next to at the Blake lecture?” I asked as casually as I could. “And have some more trifle, won’t you?”

  “Yes, ta, you mean the one in the mac—” (the girl had a positive genius for odious abbreviations) “or Jean Higginbotham?”

  “Oh, no, her name couldn’t possibly be Higginbotham,” I cried fervently.

  The thick lenses were flashed on me suspiciously, but I parried her unspoken thought. “If you’re a friend of hers, why don’t you tell her to buy a new raincoat. The one she wears is the limit. Is she very poor or something?”

  “Heavens, no! Camilla Lathrop is as rich as Croesus. But her father is in the clothes business, so I suppose she thinks it’s too much of an advertisement to dress well. You know Lathrop and Lathrop of Bristol. Besides Camilla affects to despise men, but I think she only does it to make herself more mysterious and intriguing.”

  (Apparently the theological fiance was not the only? link which this young lady had with Cats!)

  “But why are you so interested?”

  “I thought I saw her last night,” I replied indifferently, “somewhere around ten o’clock.”

  “It’s quite poss. We all went to a debate in Sidney on the subject of Woman in Politics.’ It ended at nine forty-five punc. Camilla didn’t speak though I’d asked her to second me. She is always so unpredictable. In fact she was down in the papers to be presented at Court this year, then flatly refused to meet their majesties. Just as if they weren’t good enough for her—” Here she gave a snort that was worthy of her august aunt. “Ridic, I call it. All this posing as a blue stocking and turning up one’s nose at society? and men and dances and other things. When all’s said and done a woman’s a woman and—”

  At this juncture the complement of her womanhood appeared on the scene wearing a St. Catherine’s blazer and a rather vacuous smile which was meant to be jealous, ferocious and protective all at once.

  “Oh, Perce, this is Mr. Fenton of Saints. A great friend of my aunt, Lady Lusinger.” Miss Dupuis removed what I am sure she would have called her “specs” and wiped them.

  My hand was seized in a clammy, lifeless clasp. I murmured polite banalities and finally surrendered Lady Lusinger’s niece to her budding bishop. Then I went on my lonely celibate way, reflecting sadly that there are approximately four hundred women students in Cambridge to about five thousand males.

  What chance was there for me with a girl like Camilla Lathrop, especially when she didn’t much care for my sex in general, and didn’t care enough for me in particular to rescue me from the ghastly mistake I had made through a foolish misinterpretation of the attendance list?

  I was rather depressed. My lunch had got me nowhere at all, unless it was a place in the bad graces of Miss Dupuis. True, I knew the Profile’s name at last, but I did not know whether she had been on the staircase last night. Her feline friend had not established an alibi for her. I must do some detecting on my own account.

  A brilliant idea struck me. I purchased a small handbag and unblushingly fitted it with lipstick, powder and a few coins of the realm. Armed with this feminine paraphernalia, I approached the Porter’s Lodge, where Hank and the porter were engaged in conversation on the all-engrossing subject of Baumann.

  “I picked this up at the foot of ‘A’ last night, Porter,” I said casually. “Just after I had told you about the fuses. Has anyone been enquiring for it? I should say it belonged to a young lady, judging by its cosmetic contents.”

  The porter took it in his hand and peered inside.

  “You can’t tell these days,” the porter said gloomily.

  “Well, were there any young ladies in the college last night who might have dropped it?”

  The porter turned to Hank.

  “No, Mr. Fenton,” replied the gyp, “there was no ladies went through the gate while I was on duty.”

  “It must have been dropped around ten o’clock,” I insisted mildly. “Didn’t any women leave around that time?”

  “No, sir,” replied Hank, “leastways there weren’t no ladies, sir. There was a bunch of bedmakers and the maid from the Master’s lodge—” here a faint blush tinged Hank’s countenance. “They left shortly after ten, sir. But that bag wouldn’t belong to none of them. That’s a real expensive bag, sir.”

  “Then there was the Master’s lady guests,” continued the porter reminiscently, “but it couldn’t of been any of them. They left around eleven in a body, sir, and they didn’t go near ‘A’ staircase. I saw them walk across the lawn with me own eyes, Mr. Fenton. Right across the lawn they walked and them not fellows.”

  “Oh, all right, keep the bag and see if anyone claims it,” I said airily. “And be discreet, Hankin. You’re a lady’s man yourself, you know—and—”

  But Hankin was now blushing so violently that I did not finish my sentence. Instead I winked knowingly at the porter and departed to my own room.

  Detective Fenton, I reflected, had established at least one fact by this little subterfuge. If the Profile was in All Saints last night she had managed to get out without being seen. There is one and only one exit to a Cambridge college at night time, and that is through the main gateway past the vigilant eye of the porter or his subsidiary.

  It could safely be presumed that my dark and mysterious lady was not a cat burglar who could climb over spiked fences twenty feet high or slide down drain pipes like the members of the Cambridge Alpine Club.

  But even for the Alpine Club this was a tough proposition. All Saints had this much in common with Heaven—it was almost impossible of entrance by unauthorized persons at unseasonable hours. And as for getting out—well, to keep up my simile, it was as difficult as Hell.

  And I know, because I have tried both.

  CHAPTER VII

  Kind Hearts and Coroners

  The rest of Tuesday and all of Wednesday were a complete blank so far as really interesting developments were concerned. In the first place I had hardly a moment to myself. The publicity given me by the newspapers quickly brought every American in Cambridge to call on me, and whenever I sought security behind my sported oak, Sergeant Rollings, would come and bang on it and ask me a lot more foolish questions. And Comstock, who hovered around me all the time, was no help; he took a malicious delight in showing me off to all and sundry.

  Michael Grayling and Stuart Somerville kept out of my way. The one was doing a last hour rush of work for the examination on Thursday and the other spent all of Tuesday practicing at “the nets,” whatever they were. And on Wednesday the match against the M. C. C. started. Stuart had been given Baumann’s place on the Varsity team and was grimly determined to deserve his vicarious laurels.

  Each day I scanned the papers for news of the recapture of William North. Apparently he was still at large. So far Horrocks’ trip to London had not been successful.

  Once or twice I ventured out into the streets, and once I went to a lecture in the vain hope of seeing the Profile. She seemed to have gone out of my life as mysteriously as she had come. The idea persisted, however, that I should see her at the inquest, which I had been summoned to attend on Thursday at 2:30PM.

  But I was doomed to disappointment, for when I reached the coroner’s court she was nowhere to be seen. The newly returned Inspector Horrocks was chatting informally with Dr. Warren as I entered.

  The small room seemed running over with people and, despite the fact that there was a Varsity match in progress at Fenners, I noticed a fairly large proportion of undergraduates. A shudder passed through me as I reflected how that shrouded form in the back room was one of the undergraduates who ought now to be engrossed in cricket rather than in this gruesome game of death.

  A roll was called, and a number of rather seedy-looking individuals segregated themselves with little smirks of self-importance. These were the jurors. I watched the simple proceedings, fascinated. Though I am the son of a judge, I have always been very vague about courtroom ceremonies and coroners’ inquests in particular. In fact, I had rather imagined that in England they were endowed with the pomp and ceremony—the wigs and robes—of a murder trial at the Old Bailey. But this was almost as informal as a breakfast party with the Dean.

  The coroner, a sleek man of middle age, reminded me of a croupier at Monte Carlo. When he gave a little rap with his gavel and announced, “I declare this court open in the King’s name,” it was as if he had cried, “Faites vos jeux, messieurs et ’dames. ”

  The wheel of the inquest had now started to spin. The jurors were asked if they had viewed the body. They nodded. The witnesses were then called. Aloysius Hilarion Fenton—

  I flatter myself that for a normally truthful young man I gave my evidence in the calm, cool manner of an accomplished prevaricator. There was, however, no occasion for me to tell a direct lie. What I should have done if the temptation had arisen, I cannot say.

  As it was, I merely described how I had banged on Baumann’s door and, receiving no answer, had climbed in by the roof. I went on to tell about the position of the body and the cleaning materials.

  I repeated for the hundredth time that I was not a close friend of the deceased. I knew of no reason why he should wish to commit suicide and certainty knew of no one who might wish to take the South African’s life. The coroner thanked me for my evidence as though I had just put a hundred-franc note in the croupier’s box.

  He then gave the wheel another turn and produced Inspector Horrocks. His evidence dealt chiefly with the fingerprints, or rather the lack of fingerprints, on the pistol. He was soon followed by Dr. Warren, who did little besides corroborating my testimony. The tutor added a brief summary of Baumann’s position in the college, his enviable record in South Africa. The jurors looked slightly bored.

  Dr. Beaverly was much more interesting. He described almost dramatically how he had been sent for at about ten-thirty pm on Monday night to examine the dead body of a young man about twenty-four years old. Death had been caused by a bullet from a .32 calibre revolver which had entered the head in the region of the superior maxilla, been deflected by one of the frontal bones and finally lodged in the cerebrum, whence it had been extracted at the autopsy.

  Death had not been instantaneous—but must have occurred very shortly. This, he opined, probably accounted for the fact that the revolver lay by the side of the dead man and was not clasped in his hand.

  Here the coroner interrupted with what seemed to be a very sensible question: “Would you say that the shot was fired at point-blank range, Doctor Beaverly? If so, were there any powder marks on the face of the deceased?”

  The police doctor hesitated a moment. Finally he said, “In my opinion, the bullet was fired at very close range. There were no discoverable powder marks, however, since the skin around the wound became obscured by clotted blood. If, however, the gun had been fired at a distance of two or three inches, as might have happened in the case of suicide, there would be traces of burnt skin around the wound. Such traces were not found, and it is my opinion that the pistol was at least a foot away from the deceased’s face when it was discharged.”

  At this point one of the jurors, who was obviously a medical man, asked whether it was significant that the bullet had lodged in the head without passing through the skull, as might have been expected.

  Dr. Beaverly looked very judicial when this question was propounded. “Of course,” he finally elucidated, “the cerebrum and the medulla are well known to be very soft. In seven cases out of ten a bullet fired at close range will pass right through the cranium, but in some instances, when deflected by a bone, it follows the course of the bone and finally drops downward.

  “That, in my opinion, is what happened in this present case. I do not think that we must necessarily argue that the bullet was fired from some distance on this account. A few yards or a few inches make very little difference; the bullet might have acted as it did if fired from anywhere in the room.”

  Everyone seemed completely satisfied and I noticed that Dr. Warren regarded the police surgeon with cold approval.

  The next witness was a complete stranger. He gave his name as Johann Van der Walt, lawyer, and head of the London branch of the South African law firm who had handled Baumann’s affairs. His evidence dealt with the family life and financial status of Julius Baumann.

  The deceased, he explained, was the adopted son of Heinrich Baumann (bachelor), deceased, of Bloemfontein, Orange Free State. When he came of age, Julius had inherited ten thousand morgen of farm land in the Orange Free State, and several thousand pounds in cash. Now that he was dead the property reverted automatically to a nephew of the late Heinrich Baumann, also of the Orange Free State.

  The money, however, over which Julius had complete control, could have been willed in any way the deceased wished. In this connection the lawyer added that the young man had withdrawn money fairly heavily of late and only about eighteen hundred pounds remained to his credit. This would normally have been supplemented in due course by revenue from the farm.

  Mr. Van der Walt was not prepared to say what Julius had done with the sums he had withdrawn lately, though he had every reason to believe that he had a considerable amount of cash by him at the time of his death. The estate would be settled as soon as it was definitely established that the deceased had left no will.

  Sergeant Rollings was called next and gave some routine information with regard to the revolver found by Baumann’s side. It was made by Hinder and Dapp, of Cape Town, and carried a .32 calibre bullet such as had been extracted from the dead man’s brain. Nor, indeed, was there any doubt as to its ownership since the name Julius Baumann had been engraved on the handle.

  A search through the dead man’s personal belongings had revealed nothing of any significance.

  There was no more testimony to be called.

  The coroner looked amiably around him, twiddled his thumbs, and then rose to make his summing up. “Rien ne va plus.” … The jury was whisked off to consider the verdict and returned in a very few minutes with the only possible decision according to the evidence presented—Death by Misadventure.