Free Maxwell’s Match by M. J. Trow Page B

alert-looking Border Collie sat with him.
    He clicked the intercom. ‘Lynda. Get me Leighford nick, will you. DS Jacquie Carpenter. I’ll wait.’
    Michael Helmseley served a mean brandy. Mean in the sense that Peter Maxwell could barely see the film of it covering the bottom of the glass. Clearly, ‘three fingers’ was a measurement lost on the head of Classics. He was a large man in a shapeless grey suit that looked like an old one of Patrick Moore’s. His glasses were thick and he had the smallest mouth Maxwell had ever seen on a grown man.
    ‘Domineering wives,’ he murmured. ‘That’s what that lot need.’
    ‘Sorry?’ Maxwell was relaxing in the lamp-lit corner of the Senior Common room, which the historian in him knew had been old Jedediah’s master bedroom. Helmseley was lounging in what was clearly ‘his’ chair and probably had been since St Patrick had kicked all the snakes out of Ireland.
    ‘Those arrogant buggers in Upper Five Bee. You know the sort, Maxwell, I’m sure; think they know it all because they learn a bit of Caesar . Caesar !’ he downed his brandy. ‘It’s like reading Noddy Goes To The Toilet . You don’t have Latin, I suppose, where you are?’
    ‘No,’ Maxwell smiled. ‘When I first joined there was an elder statesman on the staff who hand-picked the Oxbridge types and took them through a bit of Virgil, I believe.’ Maxwell smiled to himself. That was a long time ago and he was that elder statesman now.
    ‘Even here, of course,’ Helmseley ruminated, ‘it’s all watered down. Classical civilization. The language and literature element is only a minor part. Might as well pass it all over to Gallow’s department. You’re an historian, aren’t you?’
    ‘So rumour has it,’ Maxwell nodded. ‘Tell me, Michael, how are you going to manage without Bill Pardoe?’
    ‘Lord knows,’ Helmseley sighed. He was leaning back in the huge, leather armchair, his hands clasped across his chest, the brandy balloon stem cradled between his fingers. ‘I expect George will place an advertisement after a suitable period. What possessed him?’ He was shaking his head.
    ‘You’re surprised?’
    Helmseley’s eves flickered behind the bottle-bottomed lenses. ‘No,’ he said. ‘Not really. Would you care for another brandy, Maxwell?’
    The Head of Sixth would, in that he’d barely had a first one, and he held out his balloon. Helmseley struggled over to the drinks cabinet and poured for them both. ‘You know,’ said the Head of Classics, ‘I lived on this stuff at Oxford. Brandy and Mars Bars. No wonder I lost control of my waist years ago. Here’s to happier times,’ and they clinked glasses.
    ‘You were telling me about Bill Pardoe,’ Maxwell settled back on the Chesterfield.
    ‘Was I?’ Helmseley frowned. ‘Oh, yes. Well, I’ve known Bill Pardoe for the best part of sixteen years, man and boy. He wasn’t happy lately.’
    ‘Oh?’
    ‘Little things, you notice. He took to late night walks when the school had gone to bed, down by the lake mostly. Developed an obsession about mail.’
    ‘Mail?’
    ‘Yes.’ Helmseley was still trying to puzzle it out. ‘We get the conventional two deliveries a day here at Grimond’s. He’d be there when he could, waiting for the postman, as if he were perpetually expecting some vital missive.’
    ‘Did it ever come?’ Maxwell asked.
    ‘God knows!’ Helmseley shrugged. ‘Bill was never exactly the demonstrative type. In the life of a boarding school you get to know the House staff pretty well, really. David Gallow now, is an open book; cricket-mad with a nodding awareness of his subject. Tony Graham; keen as mustard and a nice chap to boot. Old Tubbsy … well, enough said, really. You know the names of their first pet hamsters and their invisible childhood friends, which rugger team they support and so on. But Bill … well, he was a charming man and a bloody good Housemaster, but he’d only let you know what he wanted you