Free Oxford Blood by Antonia Fraser Page A

- my famous instinct rears its head here - that it's not altogether a coincidence that Bim Marcus died on Saffron's staircase, as a result of a quite unforeseen association with Saffron. They weren't even friends. Tiggie pushed Bim into the party. The police won't buy it - evidence not instinct is what we are after, my dear, as Detective Chief Inspector Gary Harwood of the Oxford CID informed me - but I'm privately wondering whether the right man actually fell down that winding staircase. Let's just suppose someone thought Saffron was lurching down to his room, and instead got the wretched Bim in the darkness - the two men were quite alike in an odd way, the same height and build - then we have to think of anyone who would wish Saffron ill. Quite a few in Oxford no doubt, though murder is perhaps going a bit far. What is more, if Saffron is or rather was the target, that brings us back to Nurse Elsie's death bed revelation,' concluded Jemima triumphantly.
    'I follow your argument about Bim and Saffron on the stairs. You mean, no one could have expected Bim to be up at that time? But I still don't get the Nurse Elsie connection.'
    'Don't you see, darling? I know you think I'm obsessed with Nurse Elsie - instinct again, and you feel about my instinct roughly as does Detective Chief Inspector Harwood—'
    'Not all your instincts,' interposed Cass mildly.
    Jemima paid no attention but swept enthusiastically on. 'Don't you see that Nurse Elsie revealed Saffron to be a kind of changeling, the happy accident, whose appearance, late in his parents' life, did horrible Andrew Iverstone and horrible Daphne Iverstone out of their inheritance? And by implication, that nice fellow Jack, I have to admit. That's a lot of enemies. Saffron is not married, has no children; if he died on that staircase, Andrew, and in the course of time Jack, would still inherit Saffron Ivy.'
    'That's true whether Saffron is a changeling or not,' pointed out Cass.
    Jemima sighed.
    'I know. I have to say that I still don't get the connection. I just think there is a connection between Nurse Elsie and the Rochester College death. For one thing, there were so many of the Iverstone family at the Hospice those last days - quite out of the blue. Saffron himself revealed that he'd been there, and Daphne Iverstone, she was there too. From what Sister Imelda said, I think she came on the last day of all. She referred to another old friend, "One of Nurse Elsie's ladies", and that could have been Daphne. Then there were the Iverstone brother and sister.'
    'So what is the next step, Jemima Shore Investigator?'
    'Oh, to forget it all,' responded Jemima. 'What else?'
    Jemima Shore, while she was as good as her word for the rest of the evening and night, found herself rapidly reminded of Rochester College at Megalith Television the next morning. This was because she received a letter. The envelope was fairly undistinguished other than that it bore the crest of Rochester College, Oxford; this revealed the foundation to be something vaguely episcopal and not, as Jemima had romantically supposed, connected to the poet Rochester. The quality of the envelope was thin and white. The writing paper within was, on the other hand, nothing if not distinguished.
    To begin with, the paper was so thick as to give the momentary illusion of parchment, and its very thickness brought a glow in the tint of the ivory. Then there were great curly black swirls in the address, which was so heavily engraved that the letters positively stood out from the paper. Luckily the address itself could afford to be inscribed in this lavish fashion since it scarcely constituted a space problem. The address read simply: saffron ivy . There was no mention of a neighbouring town, not even a county, let alone anything as common as a postal code (or telephone number).
    Jemima read on with interest. That very morning a conference had taken place at Megalith in which she had utterly failed to shift Cy Fredericks from