Free Death's Jest-Book by Reginald Hill Page B

could see the boy still sitting at the table. No audience
to impress now, but somehow he looked more waif and forlorn than
ever.
    Making as little noise as
possible, Wield rode away into the night.

3

The Knight

Letter
Received Mon 17 th PP
    St
Godric’s College

    Cambridge
    Sat
Dec 15th The Quaestor's Lodging

    My
dear Mr Pascoe,

    Honestly,
I really didn't mean to bother you again, but things have been
happening that I need to share and, I don't know why, you seemed the
obvious person.
    Let me tell you about it.
    I got down to the Welcome
Reception in the Senior Common Room, which I found to be already
packed with conference delegates, sipping sherry. Supplies of free
booze are, I gather, finite at these events and the old hands make
sure they're first at the fountain.
    The delegates fall roughly into
two groups. One consists of more senior figures, scholars like Dwight
who have already established their reputations and are in attendance
mainly to protect their turf while attempting to knock others off
their hobby-horses.
    The second group comprises
youngsters on the make, each desperate to clock up the credits you
get for attendance at such do's, some with papers to present, others
hoping to make their mark by engaging in post-paper polemic.
    I suppose that to the casual eye
I fitted into this latter group, with one large difference - they all
had their feet on the academic ladder, even if the rung was a low
one.
    Of course I didn't take all this
in at a glance as you might have done. No, but I related what I saw
and heard to what Sam Johnson had told me in the past and also to the
more recent and even more satirical picture painted by dear old
Charley Penn when he learned I was about to attend what he called my
first 'junket'.
    'Remember this’ he said.
'However domesticated your academic may look, he is by instinct and
training anthropophagous. Whatever else is on the menu, you certainly
are!'
    Anthropophagous. Charley loves
such words. We still play Paronomania, you know, despite the painful
memories it must bring him. But where was I?
    Oh yes, with such forewarning -
and with the experience behind me of having been thrown with even
less preparation into Chapel Syke - I felt quite able to survive in
these new waters. But in fact I didn't even have to work at it.
Unlike at the Syke where I had to seek King Rat out and make myself
useful to him, here at God's he came looking for me.
    As I stood uncertainly just
within the doorway, the only person I could see in that crowded room
that I knew was Dwight Duerden. He was talking to a long skinny
Plantagenet-featured man with a mane of blond hair so bouncy he could
have made a fortune doing shampoo ads. Duerden spotted me, said
something to the man, who immediately broke off his conversation,
turned, smiled like a time-share salesman spotting an almost hooked
client, and swept towards me with the American in close pursuit.
    'Mr Roote!' he said. 'Be welcome,
be welcome. So delighted you could join us. We are honoured,
honoured.'
    Now the temptation is to class
anyone who talks like this, especially if his accent makes the Queen
sound Cockney and his manner is by Irving out of Kemble and he's
wearing a waistcoat by Rennie Mackintosh with matching bow tie, as a
prancing plonker. But Charley's warning still sounded in my mind so I
didn't fall about laughing, which was just as well as Duerden said,
'Franny, meet our conference host, Sir Justinian Albacore.'
    I said, 'Glad to meet you, Sir
Justinian.'
    The plonker flapped a languid
hand and said, 'No titles, please, I'm J. C. Albacore to my readers,
Justinian to my acquaintance, plain Justin to my friends. I hope you
will feel able to call me Justin. May I call you Franny?'
    'Wish I had a title I could
ignore,' said Duerden sardonically.
    'Really,
Dwight? That must be the one thing Cambridge and America have in
common, a love of the antique. When I worked in the sticks, they'd
have thrown stones at me if I'd tried to