Free Death at the President's Lodging by Michael Innes Page A

rising to reveal themselves on the surface.
    “I can imagine their being put there to incriminate you, Haveland,” Titlow put in. “Pownall, does that not seem possible to you?”
    Pownall, thus dragged in (why drag in Pownall?), responded: “I can imagine an explanation which is at once simpler and odder. Can you not, Haveland?”
    It was as if Barocho had been right and some round game – a round game of which only a fragment of the rules was known to any one player – was in progress in the common-room. But now a venerable and bearded person sitting opposite the fireplace took up the conversation. “I wonder if any of you know the curious Bohemian legend of the Bones of Klattau…?”
    This was Professor Curtis, and to Appleby’s ear and mind his perfectly irrelevant interjection had a curious effect. Its innocence – and, in the circumstances, absurdity – threw into sudden clear relief the animus with which the previous play of conversation had somehow been heavy. Pownall’s “ Can you not, Haveland ?” had had it, and now Haveland, ignoring Curtis and the Bohemian legend, squared himself to reply.
    “Certainly I can imagine another explanation. There is a concatenation of circumstances that comes to my mind at once. Empson, I think you should give some account of a conversation I had with Umpleby in your presence a month or two ago. You know what I mean. And I don’t think anyone else knows of it.”
    “Pownall knows: I told him next day.” Empson had replied impulsively, and seemed to regret it. “I don’t see,” he continued, “that I need give any account of anything here. If you want all that out, out with it yourself.”
    The Dean stirred in his seat – half uneasily, half authoritatively. “Haveland,” he said, “is this expedient? If you insist on telling us something, tell us outright.”
    “I am going to tell you something outright.” The retort was a neat and venomous imitation of the Dean’s slightly magisterial accents. Haveland was certainly not playing for sympathy: the common-room could be felt to shudder at the impropriety of his tone. But he had controlled himself instantly and now continued unmoved. “I am going to tell you – as Empson seems reluctant to do it – of a certain occasion on which I quarrelled with Umpleby – badly.”
    From several quarters there rose protesting murmurs. The Dean, in evident perplexity, half-turned to Appleby. But Appleby seemed lost in absorbed contemplation of the table-edge in front of him. And Haveland continued unchecked.
    “It was a matter, of course, of one of Umpleby’s usual thefts.”
    If there was anything, Appleby decided, to be discerned in the expressions of the late President’s colleagues at this opening, it was comprehension rather than perplexity. The Dean, however, was moved to some attempt at remonstrance. Haveland – and with a trace of unrestraint – thrust it aside.
    “Deighton-Clerk, don’t be a fool. Consider what we are up against. Umpleby, I say, had been stealing again. I needn’t go into it all. Empson was there, and if he were not so uneasy about it could give you a cooler account than I. But I do remember one very definite expression I used.”
    Haveland’s fence, Appleby sensed, was full in front of him now. And the whole room seemed to feel the strain that was in the air.
    “When I taxed him with it he simply would not meet my point. He talked about his own work among the tombs down the Gulf. And I said I would like to see him immured for good in one of his own grisly sepulchres… That is correct, Empson, is it not?”
    Empson made no reply. There was absolute silence. Haveland was impassive still, but even down the candle-lit table Appleby thought he could discern the drops of sweat that stood upon his brow. At length a voice broke the spell.
    “ Haveland, what madman’s trick are you suggesting ?”
    It was Pownall who spoke. And if there had been silence before, there was utter stillness now.