"Oysters is amorous,
Lobsters is lecherous,
But Shrimps — Christ!" '
Monica laughed and said something close beside the Sheik's ear which Quinn could not follow. How foolish he had been to harbour any hope! And then he was able to follow another brief passage of their conversation, and he knew that the words must certainly have been whispered pianissimo. He felt his heart beat thicker and faster. He must surely have been mistaken. .
Towards midnight the party had dwindled to about a third of its original number. Philip Ogleby, who had drunk more than anyone, seemed the only obviously sober one amongst them; the Martins had left for home some time ago; Monica and Sheik Ahmed suddenly reappeared after an unexplained absence of over half an hour; Bartlett was talking rather too loudly, and his large solicitous wife had already several times reminded him that gin always made him slur his words; one of the Arabs was in earnest negotiation with one of the barmaids; and of the Syndics, only the Dean, Voss, and Roope appeared capable of sustaining the lively pace for very much longer.
At half past midnight Quinn decided that he must go. He felt hot and vaguely sick, and he walked into the Gentlemen's, where he leaned his head against the coolness of the wall mirror. He knew he would feel rough in the morning, and he still had to drive back to his bachelor home in Kidlington. Why hadn't he been sensible and ordered a taxi? He slapped water over his face, turned on the cold tap over his wrists, combed his hair, and felt slightly better. He would say his thank-yous and goodbyes, and be off.
Only a few were left now, and he felt almost an interloper as he re-entered the suite. He tried to catch Bartlett's eye, but the Secretary was deep in conversation with Sheik Ahmed, and Quinn stared rather fecklessly around for a few minutes before finally sitting down and looking again towards his hosts. But still they talked. And then Ogleby joined them; and then Roope walked over, and Bartlett and Ogleby moved away; and men the Dean and Voss went across; and finally Monica. Quinn felt almost mesmerized as he watched the changing groupings and tried to catch the drift of what they were talking about. He felt a simultaneous sense of guilt and fascination as he looked at their lips and followed their conversations, as though he were standing almost immediately beside them. He knew instinctively that some of the words must have been whispered very quietly; but to him most of them were as clear as if they were being shouted through a megaphone. He remembered one occasion (his hearing had been fairly good then) when he had picked up a phone and heard, on a crossed line, a man and his mistress arranging a clandestine rendezvous and anticipating their forthcoming fornication with lascivious delight. .
He felt suddenly frightened as Bartlett caught his eye and walked over, with Sheik Ahmed just behind him.
'Well? You enjoyed yourself, my boy?'
'Yes, indeed. I–I was just waiting to thank you both—'
'That is a great pleasure for us, too, Meester Queen.' Ahmed smiled his white and golden smile and held out his hand. 'We shall be meeting you again, we hope so soon.'
Quinn walked out into St. Giles'. He had not noticed how keenly one of the remaining guests had been watching him for the past few minutes; and it was with considerable surprise that he felt a hand on his shoulder and turned to face the man who had followed him to his car.
'I'd like a word with you, Quinn,' said Philip Ogleby.
At 12.30 the following day, Quinn looked up from the work upon which, with almost no success, he had been trying to concentrate all morning. He had heard no knock, but someone was opening the door. It was Monica.
'Would you like to take me out for a drink, Nicholas?'
CHAPTER FOUR
ON FRIDAY, 21ST NOVEMBER, a man in his early thirties caught the train from Faddington back to Oxford. He found an empty first-class compartment with little difficulty, leaned back in his seat, and lit a cigarette. From his briefcase he took-out a fairly bulky envelope addressed to himself ('If undelivered please return to the Foreign Examinations Syndicate'), and extracted several lengthy reports. He unclipped his ballpoint pen from an inside pocket, and began to make sporadic notes. But he was left-handed, and with an ungenerous margin, and that only on the right of the closely-typed documents, the task was awkward; and progressively so, as the Inter-City train gathered full speed through the northern suburbs. The rain splashed in slanting parallel streaks across the dirty carriage window, and the telegraph poles snatched up the wires ever faster as he found himself staring out abstractedly at the thinning autumn landscape; and even when he managed to drag his attention back to the tedious documents he found it difficult to concentrate. Just before Reading he walked along to the buffet car and bought a Scotch; then another. He felt better.
At four o'clock he put the papers back into their envelope, crossed out his own name, C. A. Roope, and wrote 'T. G. Bartlett on the cover. Bartlett, as a man, he disliked (he could not disguise that), but he was honest enough to respect the man's experience, and his flair for administration; and he had promised to leave the papers at the Syndicate that afternoon. Bartlett would never allow a single phrase in the minutes of a Syndicate Council meeting to go forward before the relevant draft had been circulated to every member who had attended. And (Roope had to admit) this meticulous minuting had frequently proved extremely wise. Anyway, the wretched papers were done now, and Roope snapped his briefcase to, and looked out at the rain again. The journey had passed more quickly than he could have hoped, and within a few minutes the drenched grey spires of Oxford came into view on his right, and the train drew into the station.
Roope walked through the subway, waited patiently behind the queue at the ticket barrier, and debated for a second or two whether he should bother. But he knew he would. He took the second-class day-return from his wallet and passed it to the ticket collector. 'I'm afraid I owe you some excess fare. I travelled back first.'
'Didn't the ticket inspector come round?'
'No.'
'We-ll. Doesn't really matter then, does it?'
'You sure?'
'Wish everybody was as honest as you, sir.'
'OK then, if you say so.'
Roope took a taxi and after alighting at the Syndicate tipped the driver liberally. Rectangles of pale-yellow light shone in the upper storeys of nearby office blocks, and the giant shapes of the trees outside the Syndicate building loomed black against the darkening sky. The rain poured down.
Charles Noakes, present incumbent in the key post of caretaker to the Syndicate, was (for the breed) a comparatively young and helpful man, whose soul was yet to be soured by years of cumulative concern about the shutting of windows, the polishing of floors, the management of the boiler, and the setting of the burglar alarm. He was replacing a fluorescent tube in the downstairs corridor when Roope entered the building.
'Hello, Noakes. The Secretary in?'
'No, sir. He's been out all the afternoon.'
'Oh.' Roope knocked on Harriett's door and looked in. The light was on; but then Roope knew that the lights would be on in every room. Bartlett always claimed that the mere switching-on of a fluorescent tube used as much electricity as leaving it on for about four hours, and consequently the lights were left on all day throughout the office—'for reasons of economy'. For a brief second Roope thought he heard a noise inside the room, but there was nothing. Only a note on the desk which read: 'Friday pm. Off to Banbury. May be back about five.'
'Not there, is he, sir?' Noakes had descended the small ladder and was standing outside.
'No. But never mind. I'll have a word with one of the others.'
'Not many of 'em here, I don't think, sir. Shall I see for you?'
'No. Don't worry. I'll do it myself.'
He knocked and put his head round Ogleby's door. No Ogleby.
He tried Martin's room. No Martin.
He was knocking quietly on Monica Height's door, and leaning forward to catch any response from within, when the caretaker reappeared in the well-lit, well-polished corridor. 'Looks as if Mr. Quinn's the only graduate here, sir. His car's still out the back, anyway. I think the others must have gone.'
When the cat's away, thought Roope. . He opened Monica's door and looked inside. The room was tidiness itself, the desk clear, the leather chair neatly pushed beneath it.
It was the caretaker who tried Quinn's room, and Roope came up behind him as he looked in. A green anorak was draped over one of the chairs, and the top drawer of the nearest cabinet gaped open to reveal a row of buff-coloured file cases. On the desk, placed under a cheap paperweight, was a note from Quinn for his typist's attention. But Quinn himself was nowhere to be seen.
Roope had often heard tell of Bartlett's meticulous instructions to his staff not only about their paramount duty for ensuring the strictest security on all matters concerning question papers, but also about the importance of leaving some notification of their whereabouts. 'At least he's left a note for us, Noakes. More than some of the others have.'
'I don't think the Secretary would be very happy about this, though.' Noakes gravely closed the top drawer of the cabinet and pushed in the lock.
'Bit of a stickler about that sort of thing, isn't he, old Bartlett?'
'Bit of a stickler about everything, sir.' Yet somehow Noakes managed to convey the impression that if he were on anyone's side, it would be Bartlett's.
'You don't think he's too much of a fusspot?'
'No, sir. I mean, all sorts of people come into the office, don't they? You can't be too careful in a place like this.'
'No. You're absolutely right.'
Noakes felt pleasantly appeased, and having made his point he conceded a little to Roope's suspicions. 'Mind you, sir, I reckon he might have picked a warmer week for practising the fire drill.'
'Gives you those, does he?' Roope grinned. He hadn't been on a fire drill since he was at school.
'We had one today, sir. Twelve o'clock. He had us all there, standing in the cold for something like a quarter of an hour. Freezing, it was. I know it's a bit too hot in here but. .' Noakes was about to embark on an account of his unequal struggle with the Syndicate's antiquated heating system, but Roope was far more interested in Bartlett, it seemed.