“No,” Joseph agreed. “Of course you don’t.” He tried to think of the need to bring Mary Allard toward reality in a way she could manage. He wanted to help, but he could see her fragility, and nothing was going to ease the blow for her if something ugly was exposed in Sebastian. She might even refuse to believe it and blame everyone else for lying. “Try to be patient with your mother,” he added. “There is little on earth that hurts more than disillusion.”
Elwyn gave a twisted smile. Blinking rapidly to fight his emotion, he nodded and walked away, too close to tears to excuse himself.
Joseph went back to St. John’s to look for anyone who could either substantiate or deny what Elwyn had told him. Near the bridge he ran into Rattray.
“Favor him?” Rattray said curiously, looking up from the book he was reading. “I suppose so. Hadn’t thought about it much. I got rather used to everyone thinking Sebastian was the next golden poet and all that.” The wry, almost challenging look in his eyes very much included Joseph within that group, and Joseph felt the heat burn up his face.
“I was thinking of something a bit more definable than a belief,” he said rather tartly.
Rattray sighed. “I suppose he did let Sebastian get away with more than the rest of us,” he conceded. “There were times when I thought it was odd.”
“Didn’t you mind?” Joseph was surprised.
“Of course I minded!” Rattray said hotly. “Once or twice taking advantage of Beecher was clever, and we all thought it would make it easier for the rest of us to skip lectures if we wanted, or turn in stuff late, or whatever. Even came in blotto a couple of times, and poor old Beecher didn’t do a damn thing! Then I began to see it was all rather grubby, and in the end stupid as well. I told Sebastian what I thought of it and that I wasn’t playing anymore, and he told me to go to hell. Sorry. I’m sure that isn’t what you wanted to hear. But your beautiful Sebastian could be a pain in the arse at times.”
Joseph said nothing. Actually it was Beecher he was thinking of, and afraid for.
“When he was good, he was marvelous,” Rattray said hastily, as if he thought he had gone too far. “Nobody was more fun, a better friend, or honestly a better student. I didn’t resent him, if that’s what you think. You don’t when somebody’s really brilliant. You see the good, and you’re happy for it—just that it exists. He just changed a bit lately.”
“When is lately?”
Rattray thought for a moment. “Two or three months, maybe? And then after the Sunday of the assassination in Sarajevo, he got so wound up I thought he was going to snap. Poor devil, he really thought we were going to war.”
“Yes. He talked to me about it.”
“Don’t you think it’s possible, sir?” Rattray looked surprised. “A quick sort of thing, in and out. Settle it?”
“Perhaps,” Joseph said uncertainly. Had Sebastian been killed out of some stupid jealousy here, nothing to do with the document or John Reavley’s death?
Rattray gave a sudden grin. It lit his rather ordinary face and made it vivid and charming. “We don’t owe the Austrians anything, or the Serbs, either. But I wouldn’t find a spell in the army so terrible. Could be a wheeze, actually. Spot of adventure before the grind of real life!”
All kinds of warnings came into Joseph’s mind, but he realized he actually knew no more than Rattray did. They were both speaking in ignorance, fueled only by other men’s experiences.
Before dinner, when he was almost certain to find him alone, Joseph went to Beecher’s rooms, bracing himself for a confrontation that could break a friendship he had long valued.
Beecher was surprised to see him, and evidently pleased.
“Come in,” he invited him warmly, abandoning his book and welcoming Joseph, offering him the better chair. “Have a drink? I’ve got some fairly decent sherry.”
That was typical of Beecher’s understatement. “Fairly decent” actually meant absolutely excellent.
Joseph accepted, embarrassed that he was going to take hospitality in what might prove to be a false understanding.
“I could do with one myself.” Beecher went to the sideboard, took the bottle out of the cupboard, and set two elegant engraved crystal glasses on the table. He was fond of glass and collected it now and then, when he found something quaint or very old. “I feel as if I’ve been dogged by that wretched policeman all week, and God knows the news is bad enough. I can’t see any end to this Irish fiasco. Can you?”
“No,” Joseph admitted honestly, sitting down. The room had grown familiar over the time he had been here. He knew every book on the shelves and had borrowed many of them. He could have described the view out the window with his eyes closed. He could have named the various members of the family in each of the silver-framed photographs. He knew exactly where the different scenic paintings were drawn, which valley in the Lake District, which castle on the Northumberland coast, which stretch of the South Downs. Each held memories they had shared or recounted at one time or another.
“The police are not getting anywhere, are they?” he said aloud.
“Not so far as I know.” Beecher returned with the sherry. “Here’s to an end to the investigation, although I’m not sure if we’ll like what it uncovers.”
“And what might that be?” Joseph asked.
Beecher studied Joseph for some time before replying. “I think we’ll discover that somebody had a thoroughly good motive for killing Sebastian Allard, even though they may be hideously sorry now.”
Suddenly Joseph was cold, and the aftertaste of the sherry was bitter in his mouth. “What do you think a
Beecher must have been watching him and seen his color bleach. He breathed out slowly. “I’d like to let you go on in your belief that he was as good as you wanted him to be, but he wasn’t. He had promise, but he was on the verge of being spoiled. Poor Mary Allard was at least in part responsible.”
Now was the moment. “I know,” Joseph conceded. “I was responsible as well.” He ignored Beecher’s look of amusement and compassion. “Elwyn protected him partly for his own sake, partly for his mother’s,” he went on. “And apparently you let him get away with being rude, late with work, and sometimes sloppy. And yet you didn’t like him. Why did you do that?”
Beecher was silent, but the color had paled from his face and his hand holding the sherry glass was trembling very slightly; the golden liquid in it shimmered. He made an effort to control it and lifted it to his lips to take a sip, perhaps to give himself time.
“It was hardly in your interest,” Joseph went on. “It was bad for your reputation and your ability to be fair to others and maintain any kind of discipline.”
“You favored him yourself!”
“I liked him,” Joseph pointed out. “I admit, my judgment was flawed. But you didn’t like him. You know the rules as well as I do. Why did you break them for him?”
“I didn’t know you had such tenacity,” Beecher said drily. “You’ve changed.”
“Rather past time, isn’t it?” Joseph said with regret. “But as you said, there is no point in dealing with anything less than the truth.”
“No. But I don’t propose to discuss it with you. I did not kill Sebastian, and I don’t know who did. You’ll have to believe that or not, as you wish.”
It was not as Joseph wished. He had liked Beecher profoundly almost since they had met. Everything he knew about him, or thought he knew, was decent. Beecher was the ideal professor, learned without being pompous. He taught for the love of his subject, and his students knew it. His pleasures seemed to be mild: old buildings, especially those with quaint or unusual history, and odd dishes from around the world. He had the courage and the curiosity to try anything: mountain climbing, canoeing, potholing, small-boat sailing. Beecher loved old trees, the more individual the better; he had jeopardized his reputation campaigning to save them, to the great annoyance of local authorities. He liked old people and their memories, and odd irrelevant facts. He had spoken of his family now and then. He was particularly fond of certain aunts, all of whom were marvelously eccentric creatures who espoused lost causes with passion and courage, and invariably a sense of humor.
