An Oxford Murder Page 4

  Who took the pictures? Catherine found herself wondering. Did she travel alone or with a companion?

  “Now, my dear, how can I help you?”

  Catherine said, “I am looking into the murder. The Detective Chief Inspector seems to fancy me as a suspect. It’s ludicrous, of course, but I don’t feel I can leave things up to the police. There are probably things I am in the position to find out that he won’t be able to.”

  The dean looked as though she doubted her hearing. “Are you certain you haven’t been reading too many detective novels?”

  “I’m not sure at all. But Dr. Bascombe and I . . .”

  “Dr. Bascombe! He is helping you?”

  “Yes. We have both come under suspicion, you see.”

  “You’re right. It is ludicrous. I will help you, too, of course. What would you like to know?”

  “I don’t know much about Dr. Chenowith except as one of my tutors. I know she was a celebrated poet, that she was involved with the Bloomsbury set, and . . . well, that’s about all. The police are going to take her life apart. She will have no secrets in the end. Have you talked to them, yet?”

  “They just interviewed me last night about the dinner and where I was, that sort of thing. They asked me nothing about poor Agatha, except did I know that she had received death threats. Which I didn’t. Who would send such a thing?”

  “Possibly the murderer. If they don’t find him immediately, they will start digging. Can you tell me anything about what they will find?”

  “She was quite a careful woman,” said the dean. “Careful in her speech and her behavior. Agatha didn’t talk about herself. I have no idea, for example, where she went during the weekends or the Long Vacations. She only lived in her rooms here at Somerville without separate lodgings like most of us have.”

  “So she was secretive?” asked Catherine.

  “No. I would stick with my original adjective—careful, or maybe private. One didn’t have the feeling that she was keeping secrets, just that she kept herself to herself. I don’t know if that’s the way she was with her Bloomsbury friends, though.”

  “Hmm.” Catherine had hoped the dean would be more help.

  “There was that business with Margery Ackerman, of course,” the dean said. “But I expect you know all about that.”

  “Probably not as much as you do.”

  “Lady Margery had already received a publishing contract. She asked Agatha to review the poetry for some material to put on her back cover. I believe she asked Dr. Sargent, as well.”

  “I see.”

  “Well, I’ve never actually understood what her objections were. I thought the poems quite good, myself. But, instead of sending her very unfavorable review to Lady Margery, she sent it to the publisher, who wasted no time in revoking her contract. Her husband, the baronet, was incensed. He sued the publisher. He sued Agatha. All to no purpose, of course. It only made his wife look rather pathetic. Now she will never get a contract from anyone.”

  “The whole thing was most unfortunate. I don’t think Margery has recovered from it,” said Catherine.

  “But she wouldn’t murder Agatha over it, would she?”

  “No, of course not.” Catherine wished she were as positive as she sounded. She had wondered last night what on earth had possessed her friend to come to the dinner where Dr. Chenowith would be.

  “You know, now that I reflect on it, I do believe something was bothering Agatha,” said the dean. “She wasn’t her usual self.”

  Catherine’s pulse quickened. “Could the death threats have accounted for it, do you think?”

  “If she took them seriously, perhaps that was it. She was very short-tempered of late. I did ask her if anything was vexing her, and she turned on me for a moment. Most unlike her. And there was an incident in the last term where she actually made one of her students cry.”

  “Did you ever talk to the student?”

  “No. Most likely, I should have. But I wouldn’t want anyone to think I was going behind my faculty’s back.”

  “And, pardon me, but you never asked Dr. Chenowith about it either?”

  “I did. That was the time she got on her high horse with me. She quickly backed down, however, and said she would handle it.”

  “Perhaps I should have a word with the student. I wouldn’t confront her directly about it. Just talk about Dr. Chenowith and see if she volunteers anything. Would you mind?”

  “You must be careful not to undermine the discipline of the college. That is my only concern.”

  Catherine kept her reaction to herself. Making a student cry was discipline? She hadn’t suspected the dean of such a Victorian attitude.

  “I’ll be circumspect, Dr. Andrews.” Taking out her diary, she asked, “What is her name? And can you give me the names of some of her chums?”

  “On second thought, I would rather you didn’t follow that line of inquiry,” the dean said, her forehead furrowing. “It is likely to lead to rumors among the students.”

  “You don’t think murder is going to lead to rumors? I’d be willing to bet it is the only topic at luncheon.”

  The dean’s chin came up, and she looked displeased. “Well, I won’t have you adding to it.”

  Catherine didn’t know what to make of the drop in atmospheric temperature. “Very well, Dean. Thank you so much for your time. By the way, have I your permission to stay on here for a few days while I look into this?”

  “Very well. I’ll get word to the scouts. And Catherine, I really am thrilled about your new poetry. Tell me about it. Are you carrying over your Impressionist theme?”

  “Thank you, Dr. Andrews.” Catherine accepted the change in topic as a peace offering. “I guess you would say my general theme is Memory. But it does use Impressionist techniques.”

  For the next twenty minutes, they discussed poetry and parted on cordial terms.

  As she left the office, she came up with a very different idea about how she would find the answer to her line of inquiry about the girl who cried. But right now, she was late for lunch with Dr. Harry.

  She went out the Woodstock Road exit and, striding with a brisk pace, she made her way down to Cornmarket Street.

  * * *

  “So she turned off the spigot, did she?” Dr. Harry commented. “I wonder why? She was cooperating so nicely!”

  “I think she suddenly realized how intrusive all my questioning was. Frankly, I was surprised she told me as much as she did!”

  “At least she gave the appearance of being open. What she actually told you was that except for the anonymous threats the subject was a closed book, so there was nothing to tell.”

  “Until she got to the last bit. She clammed up in the end. I think she realized she hadn’t handled it as well as she should have.”

  Since it was not term-time, Dr. Harry was not wearing his gown. Instead, he wore a blue oxford cloth shirt and a Christ Church tie under a navy blue blazer. Thus, his eyes looked bluer than ever and intense, causing her to avoid them.

  “You know, you look quite lovely today,” he said.

  “We’ll get along a lot better if you don’t make this personal, Dr. Bascombe,” she said.

  “Yes. After all, it could lead . . . well . . . to canoodling, and we can’t have that.”

  She was suddenly stifling, particularly in the popular pub packed closely with tourists.

  He leaned forward on his elbows. “I’ve spent the morning in the archives of the Oxford Mail. The hullabaloo last year over Lady Margery Wallinghouse’s book of poetry was quite a thing. I copied down the actual review she sent to the publisher as it was given in the paper.”

  He passed his notebook over to her. It appeared to be a black and white cardboard covered exercise book. Lord Harry’s printing was sprawling and idiosyncratic. After struggling to become familiar
with it for a moment, she read:

  Lady Margery Wallinghouse’s attempt at poetry is regrettable. Her images are hackneyed, her similes trite. It reads like a nursery rhyme. It is hard to believe it is the fruit of an Oxford education. Definitely give this one a miss.

  Anger kindled in Catherine’s breast. “How utterly horrid! How could she be so cruel? She knew exactly what she was doing to Margery’s dreams. I have read the poetry. It is a little old-fashioned like I told you. But it is not bad!”

  “Do you think this is a motive for murder?”

  “Margery would never murder anyone. But how could she even bear to come to that dinner last night?”

  “Either she is very thick-skinned, or she did have a motive,” said Dr. Harry.

  Catherine gave a little shrug. “I wouldn’t have called her particularly thick-skinned. Most poets are, as you know, more sensitive than your average person. Particularly when it comes to their work.”

  “Lady Margery is the tall one that looks like a model, yes?”

  Margery wouldn’t like being identified that way. She thought people who judged her by her looks weren’t taking her seriously. She purposely scorned makeup. “Yes.”

  “She was seated at my table. I just remembered she came in late. After the others were seated.”

  This was news. “How late? Could she have been in the ladies’ room?”

  “Probably not, unless she was ill or something. She didn’t come in until the fish course.”

  Dread suffused Catherine’s breast. Could her friend, someone she had known intimately during her university years, really have committed murder?

  “I can’t believe it, Dr. Bascombe. I know her too well to think she could have . . . strangled anyone.”

  “Let’s put it this way,” he said. “You’re a poet. What if Dr. Chenowith had aimed her academic poison at you? What if she had made it her business to see that you never got published?”

  “I wonder . . . What if there were a reason why Dr. Chenowith was so vicious other than her feeling the poetry was without merit? What if she had a personal grudge?”

  Dr. Harry sighed. “Unfortunately, that does happen. It’s one of the curses of academic life. One likes to feel that Oxford dons are above that sort of thing, but a select few are not. You said earlier that you had an idea of how to find out about the student she caused to cry. What are you going to do?”

  Catherine looked around to make certain no one was listening to them, but everyone was completely wrapped up in their own concerns and lively conversations.

  “There is a scout who has offered to help me,” she said, just loud enough for Dr. Harry to hear. “She would know how to find out who it was. There is always heavy drama in the dorms. The scouts know just about everything that goes on, I’m convinced.”

  “Good plan. I, too, have various sources at the different colleges. I’ll try finding out if there’s any dirt on the two male professors.”

  “Good. I need to find out the reason Margery was late to the dinner. She was at the sherry party. Maybe my friend Dot knows something. She may remember what cab she went into The Mitre.”

  “She wasn’t in my group,” said Dr. Harry.

  “It would be a good idea for us to see how each of the guests got to The Mitre. Who was in your group?”

  “I’m not sure that will do us much good. Our cab left after yours. I don’t know how long afterward, but our driver was pretty sharpish for making him wait so long. He charged us extra. There might have been plenty of time to do the deed. But we had Professors Stephenson and Williams and the platinum blonde aboard.”

  “Anne Tomlinson. So that leaves the dean and Margery unaccounted for.”

  “Do you think the dean could have done it?” He grinned. “I say, that would make a wonderful leader in the Mail: ‘Women’s Dean Does Don to Death.’”

  “Don’t even think it!” Catherine said with a shudder.

  He smoothed his mustache, the piratical glint in his eye. “By your account, she did behave a bit suspiciously.”

  “That had nothing to do with the murder. She was protecting one of the students.”

  “Joking aside. How do you want to proceed?” he asked, leaning forward on his forearms.

  Catherine forked some pork pie into her mouth as she thought as she chewed. “It only now occurs to me, that the reason the dean was protecting that student was that she might have thought she had a motive for the murder. I must find out who she is. I’ll set my spy to work.”

  “And talk to Dot about Margery.”

  “Yes. And you’re going to dig for dirt on the professors.”

  He took a notebook out of his breast pocket. “I’ll write down the names of those who drove with me plus the dean and Lady Margery. I’ll check with my university gossips. Shall we meet tomorrow morning and compare notes?”

  “That would be good. I don’t want to miss services at the Christ Church Cathedral. After that?”

  “Sure. Let’s take a walk this time. The Botanic Gardens? I could meet you outside the Cathedral.”

  “That sounds lovely.”

  “I do come up with the lovely idea occasionally.”

  Catherine smiled and left him in the pub, sipping his second pint.

  * * *

  Catherine found Dot in the Senior Commons Room drinking coffee.

  “I’m sorry I’ve been so elusive,” Catherine said. “I had a pub lunch with Dr. Harry.”

  “Really? Yum,” teased Dot.

  “We really are trying to work this case. I’ve already spoken with the dean this morning. Not much help there, but did you know that Margery was late to the dinner last night? I don’t think she strangled Dr. Chenowith, but that’s motive and opportunity. The police are going to look at her pretty thoroughly. Do you know why on earth she came to the party? You couldn’t have paid me to come if Chenowith had put me through the wringer like she did poor Margery.”

  Dot lit a cigarette. “She did tell me she’s seeing an alienist. Maybe she’s being told to face up to things.”

  Catherine made a face. “Poor Margery. How abysmal.”

  “Her husband is rather like a boxer’s trainer if what I hear is true. He thinks she’s is a good writer and Chenowith be damned.”

  Catherine began pacing. “Do you have any idea why she took so much longer than anyone else to get to The Mitre from here?”

  “Sorry. I haven’t the slightest. She was at my table. She just joined us with a ‘sorry,’ as I remember. No explanation. Have you seen the Mail this morning?”

  “No. Is there a copy here?

  “Anne gave me this before she went off. Dot handed her the newspaper, folded with the story about the murder face up on the front page:

  Oxford Don Found Strangled in Somerville College Chapel

  Dr. Agatha Chenowith, a member of Mrs. Virginia Woolf’s Bloomsbury set, was killed last night at approximately 8:00 pm. She is thought to have been on her way to a college dinner honoring Dr. Sarah Sargent at The Mitre in Oxford.

  Police speculate that the murderer was someone known to her, possibly another guest at the function.

  There followed a list of their names. Catherine was described as a former student of the victim. If the police had found anything concrete, they weren’t sharing it with the press.

  Dot ground out her cigarette in her saucer and leaped to her feet. “Well, I’m off to ring my boss. He won’t be happy about me being detained here over a murder investigation.”

  “Before you take off, any idea where Anne went?”

  “Blackwell’s. We may not see her for hours.”

  “Thanks.” Catherine bade her friend good-bye and went back upstairs to find Jennie. The scout was in the room Margery had used, changing the bed linens.

  “I see as you’ll be stopping here a few days, then,” s
aid the scout.

  “Yes,” said Catherine. “You said you wanted to help me. I have a question for you.”

  The scout stood up straight, a gleam in her eye. “What is it, miss? I’ll help you any way I can.”

  “I know you scouts are the heartbeat of the college. You know everything that goes on.”

  “Well, I don’t know about heartbeat, miss. But we get to hearing a fair lot of things.”

  Catherine sat in the room’s armchair. “Do you recall an incident where one of the students was made to cry over something that Dr. Chenowith said to her? It might have been something to do with her poetry.”

  “It doesn’t come to mind, miss, but I’ll think on it. And I’ll ask Susan and Mary. They’re the other scouts that are here during the Long Vacation.”

  “Thank you. Have you done Miss Tomlinson’s room yet?”

  “Did Miss Tomlinson’s before yours. You know Lady Margery’s husband’s come, and they’ve moved to the Randolph.”

  “Do you mind if I have a look around?”

  “Do you think you might find a clue?” The scout brightened.

  “I don’t know what I’ll find, honestly,” said Catherine over her shoulder.

  There was nothing to find, unfortunately. She studied the desk blotter, hoping to find an impression of a letter Margery might have written. No joy there. She looked through the dust bin. Nothing. Also, nothing in the cupboard or under the bed. So much for an amateur sleuth’s luck!

  She was leaving the room when she ran into a policeman no doubt bent upon the same errand. He was a stout individual wearing a trench coat. Catherine was surprised the police had not been there already that morning. Wouldn’t they know the scouts had done the rooms?

  “I’m with the Oxford Police. If you’ve been in Lady Margery Wallinghouse’s room snooping,” he declared, “I’ll have to ask you to turn over anything you found, miss.”