An Oxford Scandal Read online

  ‘Mr Jones,’ said Antrobus, ‘someone told us that Mrs Dora Jardine took a cab from Woodstock Road to Park End Street, down near the railway. Can you recall two people boarding this tram there late on the evening of the thirteenth? Take your time, and try to recall the scene. It was raining heavily. You would not have long left your terminus at the GWR station.’

  ‘It was a terrible business, sir,’ said Bob Jones. ‘Nothing like that had ever happened to Sam and me before. Park End Street… Yes, a couple did get on there, didn’t they, Sam? A man and woman, wrapped up against the rain. The man gave me tuppence for the two of them, and they passed into the saloon. They took the two remaining empty seats near the back on the left-hand side. The tram was full – all twenty-two seats taken – and I put the chain across the entrance.’

  ‘This man – was he wearing a long overcoat and a peaked cap?’

  ‘Well, it’s hard to remember, Inspector. The tram was full, the windows were steamed up, and they were packed in like sardines… But no, I remember that the man wasn’t wearing an overcoat. He had a long buttoned mackintosh, and was wearing one of those new trilby hats. As for the woman… Well, I rather fancy it was the poor lady I found dead later; I suppose it must have been her, though I can’t swear to it.’

  ‘So, gents,’ said Sergeant Maxwell, and his loud, hectoring voice made them both jump, ‘you took your tramcar full of passengers along the usual route from the station. You were hailed in Park End Street, and picked up poor Mrs Jardine and her companion. After that, you’d go along New Road, and up Queen Street, until you came to Carfax. Now, Bob Jones, did anyone get off the tram during that stretch of the journey?’

  ‘No, Mr Maxwell. The car was full, the chain was on, and nobody hailed us. We didn’t stop at Carfax. We drove straight into High Street, and over Magdalen Bridge. Everybody stood up when we reached The Plain, where we stopped, and nearly all the passengers alighted – all but one.’

  Bob stopped speaking, and swallowed hard. He had gone very pale. Poor man, thought Antrobus, to him, murder is a novelty. He has no defence against the fact of slaughter.

  ‘These ceiling lights are very dim, sir,’ said Bob, turning to Antrobus. ‘They’re just a small wick rising from a little oil lamp. But I reckon that the murder was done just before we reached The Plain. The lady was sitting on the inside seat, against the window, as would be natural, with the man – the man in the mackintosh – sitting beside her. He must have stabbed her just as we were coming into The Plain, and then got off with the rest of the passengers. There was a crowd of them, you see, sir, all talking to each other and making their way to their homes through the rain. I went and stood on the platform behind Sam, and started to chat to him. We were only minutes away from the depot, you see, and the end of our shift.

  ‘I did just glance back for a moment and saw a woman huddled up against the window, and sort of half slid down on the seat. God help me, sir, I thought she was drunk, and that I’d have to help her off when we reached the terminus. The Company’s very particular about drunks, aren’t they, Sam?’

  ‘They are,’ said Sam Harper, ‘very particular who they let on to their trams. No drunks, chimney sweeps, flour millers, and no smoking. You know the rest, Inspector. I brought the tram into the sheds, and the grooms came to uncouple the horses. Tom here went down the saloon, pinching out the wicks in the lamps until he reached the poor lady, and realized straight away that she was dead. We both saw the blood, which had poured down between the slats on the seat, and formed a pool in the sawdust on the floor. And then we sent for the police.’

  There was nothing more to be learned from the two tramway employees. When they had gone, the two detectives remained sitting in the empty saloon. Inspector Antrobus took a packet of Richmond ‘Gem’ cigarettes from his overcoat pocket, and lit one with a wax vesta.

  ‘Sir,’ said Sergeant Maxwell, ‘you’re not supposed to smoke on these vehicles. No smoking, no drunks, no millers—’

  ‘There’s an exception to every rule, Sergeant,’ said Antrobus. ‘So mind your place, and button your lip. Have we learnt anything from all this talk of trams and routes?’

  ‘Yes, sir. Mrs Jardine took a cab from Woodstock Road to Park End Street. Why there, I ask myself. And the answer comes: because she was going to meet that man in secret. Very nifty she was, sir, at clandestine assignations of that kind.’

  ‘Clandestine? Really, Joe, I don’t know where you find these long words. I suppose it comes of living in a university city. Anyway, go on. She had indeed arranged to meet this man in secret. Dora told Mrs Green that she was going to visit a “friend in town” on the thirteenth. Miss Hillier told me that.’

  ‘Yes, sir. And why? Because she didn’t want her husband to know where she was going. Which makes me think, sir, that the man she met, this “friend in town”, had done the same. For reasons of his own, he didn’t want anyone to know where he came from, either. They both chose a spot to meet which was unconnected with either of them. I think we can forget Park End Street, and look a bit nearer home for our man in the trilby hat.’

  7

  An Antipathy of Prelates

  In the reception room of his ugly barrack of a house in Carlisle Place, Cardinal Herbert Vaughan stood at one of the windows, reading a letter. How extraordinary that he had been told nothing of this! Could what this Jesuit priest had written be true? He glanced out of the window at the busy traffic in the street below, making its way to Victoria. Those drivers of lorries and cabs had a clear set purpose before them. Well, so had he.

  This was not a time for inertia. Dr Benson, the Protestant Archbishop of Canterbury, seemed to be firmly ensconced at Lambeth; but there was a lot of turmoil in the Anglican Church at that moment, so this could be the right time to forward one of his own dearly held projects, and present Benson with a fait accompli before he could move in the matter. Surely this letter was a sign from heaven?

  Edward Benson, he had been told, ruled his flock as though they were a clutch of schoolboys. He had taught at Rugby, and had been Master of Wellington College. To give him his due, he worked hard, as he himself did, and on the few occasions when they had met, Benson had treated him with civility. Benson was no fool, and it would be as well to keep a wary eye upon him.

  He crossed the audience chamber, and stood in front of the great wooden model of his new cathedral, the foundations of which had recently been finished on the site that had been chosen for it near the top of Victoria Street. Bentley had designed it as a gigantic Byzantine basilica, with a towering campanile. He thought it was magnificent; other clergy demurred. Cardinal Vaughan closed his eyes, and imagined for a moment the soaring interior which would now arise, clad in glowing mosaics, and with a tremendous High Altar, and sumptuous side chapels…

  But there were still no relics to enshrine as a focus of devotion. Not so far away stood Westminster Abbey, seized from the Church by Henry VIII, and still enshrining the bones of King Edward the Confessor. They had been there for a thousand years or more, and there they would stay, slighted and un-venerated. Last year, he had tried to obtain the relics of King Edmund, but experts in those matters had pronounced them spurious.

  He pulled the bell beside the fireplace, and in a moment a middle-aged cleric with cropped grey hair came into the room. He wore a black cassock, and the red sash of a monsignor.

  ‘Monsignor Vaux,’ said the Cardinal, ‘what do you make of this letter? It’s from a Jesuit priest at Oxford, a Father Linacre. He claims that the relics of Thomas à Becket have been discovered at Oxford. Do you know anything about it?’

  ‘I don’t, Your Eminence. Let me read this man’s letter, and then I’ll be able to make an informed comment.’

  The Cardinal caught a glimpse of his own reflection in a mirror, and saw a mass of scarlet and gold. Well, why should he not wear the robes and insignia of a Cardinal? Manning, his predecessor, had bee
n too austere in that respect. He knew that he was a handsome, impressive man, and would use those qualities in the service of the Church. The new cathedral would be a vibrant symbol of the Roman Church’s renaissance, and he, too, in his own persona, would embody that great new flowering of Catholic life. The time was nearing for the Conversion of England.

  ‘This Father Linacre writes from St Aloysius church in Oxford,’ said Monsignor Vaux, ‘which is a thriving teaching instrument in the midst of a secular and largely Godless university. He writes to you personally, which shows that he shares your own view of the Church. He, like you, looks to Rome as the fount not just of all wisdom, but of all authority.’

  ‘Then he is to be trusted. As you know, I set great store on your judgement, Vaux. I shall write today to the head of St Gabriel’s, asking him to yield these holy relics to the Church. I do not see how he could possibly fail to oblige me in the matter. Find out his name and title, will you, Monsignor? And bring me my portable writing desk.’

  When Vaux had left, the Cardinal turned once more to the great wooden model of the future cathedral of Westminster. Yes, it would have a shrine to attract pilgrims from all Britain, and from Europe too. Bentley could design something magnificent, perhaps with a great porphyry sarcophagus supported on the backs of semi-recumbent angels wrought in Carrara marble; it would be raised in a grand vaulted chapel, with mosaics of the saint’s life and martyrdom, and would blaze with the hundreds of votive candles lit there by the Faithful.

  He roused himself from his reverie. He had little time to stand in idle meditation during the daylight hours. The Bishop of Salford would be arriving soon, and it would be discourteous to keep him waiting.

  As he passed the mirror he caught once again the haze of scarlet and gold. Was all this display mere vanity? Some thought that it was, and whenever he passed the portrait of the austere Manning in the gallery he wondered what his predecessor and friend would have thought of him. Well, he was not a vain man at all. But he lived to proclaim the glory of the Roman Church, and his Cardinal’s robes were part of that proclamation. And Becket’s shrine, restored and venerated in the hub of the Empire, would be another.

  *

  While Cardinal Vaughan, Archbishop of Westminster, was dreaming his dreams, the Archbishop of Canterbury sat in his study at Lambeth Palace, on the other side of the river, talking to one of his chaplains. The Most Reverend and Right Honourable Edward White Benson had been Archbishop since 1883. He was sixty-six years old, but felt no urge to retire. Despite some bouts of chest pain, he felt fully able to carry out his many duties.

  ‘John,’ he said to the young man in a frock coat standing near his desk, ‘I’ve had a letter from the vicar of St Ebbe’s church in Oxford, telling me that the bones of Thomas à Becket have been discovered in a cellar at St Gabriel’s College. He’s concerned lest the more exotic fringe of our Church secures them, in order to indulge in what he calls “vulgar, blasphemous and idolatrous veneration”. What do you think ? Have we been given any formal notice of this?’

  ‘We have not, Your Grace,’ said the Reverend John Syme, a twenty-four year old chaplain with his way to make in the world. ‘If this man from St Ebbe’s vouches for the news, then I suppose it’s true. Do you know the church, Your Grace?’

  ‘I do not, John. Pray enlighten me.’

  ‘It’s run on strictly Protestant principles, adhering fanatically to Cranmer’s Prayer Book of 1549. No candles, a carpet on the Holy Table, no images, no surplice, and the Ten Commandments in the sanctuary. I mention all that, Your Grace, because the minister’s beliefs may colour his depiction of the Ritualist party as idolaters.’

  ‘Hmm… Well, for all that, I’m obliged to him for his letter. Make sure that someone replies to it. A church of his kind poses no threat to us. As for the Ritualists, I’d put nothing past them, John. I try to leave them alone, so that they’ll leave me alone. But we’ll have no worshipping of dead bones. Our Church had long been purged of that kind of gross superstition.’

  ‘So what do you propose to do, Your Grace?’

  ‘I’ll write to the Bishop of Oxford, to alert him about the matter, and ask him to prepare to act as my agent. Then I’ll send a letter to Provost Chalmers at St Gabriel’s, requesting him to surrender the bones to the Bishop, so that he can convey them to me. I mean to secure them before Dr Vaughan inveigles them into the possession of the Papists. I can very easily imagine what he would do with those relics.’

  ‘And what will you do then, Your Grace?’

  ‘I will convey those remains to some quiet little country church in my gift, and have them buried with all due reverence, but anonymously, in the churchyard. That will be the end of the matter. The minister of St Ebbe’s will be satisfied, the Ritualists will say unkind things about me, as is their wont, and our friend Vaughan will have to look elsewhere for old bones to worship. There, see to it, will you, John? How is Margaret, and the baby? You must bring them to tea here at the Palace very soon. I know that Mrs Benson would love to see your little girl.’

  *

  It had been a grand, bright day for Rugger practice out at the Parks. In fact, November had been a decent month all round. Harry Napier was confident that he would make the 1st JCR team to compete in Cuppers next May. Harry, a fair-haired giant of eighteen, knew that he had the strength and speed to make the grade, and he would still be only nineteen in May. Whom would they face? St Edmund Hall were formidable, and so were St John’s.

  Harry and his two fellow enthusiasts, George Blackwell and Arthur Goddard, stepped through the lodge gate and into the first quadrangle of St Gabriel’s. The great clock began its complex preparations to strike twelve, but the three young men were used to its particular glories, and continued to talk Rugby until they reached Harry’s rooms at the top of Staircase V.

  ‘You fellows had better come in,’ said Harry. ‘Pa send me a half dozen bottles of Madeira, and now’s the time to sample one of them.’ Harry Napier’s sitting room was dominated by a pair of crossed oars over the mantelpiece, because he had already acquitted himself well in the college second boat. They were flanked by framed photographs of college teams. There were some books, but not enough to give the impression that Harry was a swot. They flung themselves into battered armchairs near the blazing fire. Soon, they were enjoying a bottle of the wine sent up from Sussex by Harry Napier’s father.

  ‘I saw old Jardine yesterday,’ said George Blackwell. ‘At a tutorial, you know. He’s bearing up very well, as far as I can see. He was as interesting as ever. It must be rotten to have your wife murdered. He buried her only last Saturday. I wanted to say something, but I just couldn’t find the words. In any case, he might have thought it impertinent.’

  ‘I believe he’s a very decent man,’ said Arthur Goddard. ‘Straight as a die, you know, and all that.’

  ‘He is,’ George Blackwell agreed. ‘He’s fiendishly learned, but he wears his learning lightly.’ George was one of Anthony Jardine’s first-year students. He was an outstanding scholar for his age, but like all young men at the Varsity, he considered it a point of honour to appear irredeemably dense to his friends.

  ‘Now, you fellows,’ said Harry Napier, ‘how would you like to get away from college for a few days, and come down for the weekend to our place in the country? Meet Pa and Ma, you know, do a spot of fly fishing, and bag a few rabbits. Ma’s not too well at the moment, and old Chalmers has written me an exeat. You know how good natured he is. If you ask him nicely, and tell him where you’re going, he’ll give you one each, too.’

  ‘That’s very decent of you, Napier,’ said George Blackwell. ‘Isn’t your place terribly out of the way? Several days’ trek through the tundra? I seem to remember you telling us that it’s buried deep in the countryside. This Madeira’s excellent. Do you mind if I have another drop?’

  ‘Help yourself. Shenstone Hall lies in its own wooded valley
in far-off Sussex,’ said Harry, ‘but there are fast trains, as they say in the railway guides, from Victoria or London Bridge. But look, it’s time I was off. I have to see a man about a boat.’

  ‘Why did you choose to read Geography, Napier?’ asked George. ‘It seems an odd subject for someone like you to study.’

  ‘Well, it has its uses, and Mr Boyd is quite happy to talk about estate management – Geography in miniature, so to speak. I must go.’

  ‘Wasn’t Jardine connected with that business of Becket’s bones?’ asked Arthur Goddard as the three friends prepared to disperse. ‘The Provost discovered them – or at least, one of the workmen did – but it was Jardine who deciphered some Latin inscription, which clinched the matter. Perhaps someone put a curse on anyone who disturbed those bones, like they did with Shakespeare. Perhaps that’s why—’

  ‘Oh, stow it, will you, Goddard?’ said Harry Napier. ‘Don’t you dare suggest that Mrs Jardine’s death was due to a curse. She was murdered, poor woman – murdered in a tramcar by some demented lunatic, I’ve no doubt.’

  ‘Did you see those candles burning on the steps of Staircase XII?’ asked George Blackwell. ‘Somebody said that all kinds of Papists have been sneaking in here to say prayers and light candles. It’s a bit much, that sort of thing. One of the scouts swept the whole lot up and dumped them in the midden.’

  ‘I say, Blackwell,’ whispered Arthur Goddard, ‘don’t go on about Papists while Harry Napier’s about. He’s one of them, you know, though he doesn’t make a song and dance about it. And he’s going to be our host this weekend.’

  ‘Oh, gosh! I didn’t know. Are you sure? Harry Napier’s one of the truest and soundest fellows I know.’