Free The Age of Treachery by Gavin Scott Page B

where deeds are necessary,” the Master finished. “As you are doing for Gordon. Needless to say I’ll do anything I can to help you.” Then he paused, weighing his words. “I ought to make it clear, though, Forrester, that I myself don’t share your view. I simply can’t see any other explanation for the facts as we know them.”
    “I understand that, Master,” said Forrester. “And I appreciate you giving me your support anyway. Here’s what I want to ask you: the police initially told me they believed there was bad blood between Gordon and Lyall because Lyall had been awarded the Rotherfield Lectureship when Gordon believed he’d get it. Now Gordon has told me he didn’t know that had happened. I certainly hadn’t heard of it. Did he know?”
    The Master thought for a moment.
    “I can’t answer that with any certainty. I know
I
didn’t tell him. I don’t believe the official letters have gone out yet. The decision wasn’t mine, of course: it was made by the Special Lectureships Committee. It’s conceivable someone on that committee let the information slip, but who knows? Tell me, if you believe Gordon didn’t do it, who do you think did?”
    Forrester sipped his port.
    “Well, Alan Norton has to be a candidate,” he said carefully. “Everyone heard the row between him and Gordon that night.”
    “Indeed they did,” replied the Master. “Lyall deliberately provoked Norton and Norton is a very prickly character. I’m assuming he must have some sort of alibi which has satisfied the police?”
    “I’m trying to find out about that, but I was wondering if you could tell me anything more about Peter Dorfmann. Apart from the fact that he’s some sort of German politician I don’t know anything about him.”
    “I think of him more as a scholar than a politician,” replied the Master. “He was in the Literature Department of Berlin University, specialising in the Enlightenment – Goethe and so on. Managed to keep his head down during the war, which means he’s eligible as a candidate in the next elections. Social Democrat, I believe.”
    “Why is he here?”
    “As part of some programme run by the Foreign Office to make sure the new German politicians understand what democracy’s all about. He wanted to visit some Oxford contacts and I offered to put him up at the college. As it turns out not a gesture that did much good for the image of British academia.”
    Forrester nodded. If the Foreign Office was involved with the democratisation programme in Germany that explained why Dorfmann and Calthrop had been together in Whitehall the afternoon after the murder.
    “But surely Dorfmann is out of the picture anyway?” asked Winters. “You yourself were in this room with him when Lyall was killed.”
    “I was,” said Forrester, “which I agree makes it unlikely for him to have slipped out, gone up to Clark’s room and killed David Lyall.” The Master smiled.
    “He would have had to be pretty fast on his feet to do that and get back inside the Lodge without anyone noticing. Even if one could come up with a reason for him to do so.”
    “Exactly,” said Forrester. “And I suppose the same thing applies to everyone in the minstrels’ gallery.”
    “I’m afraid my days as an athlete are long past, Forrester,” said Winters, smiling, “and as for the others up there during the reading, I can assure you none of them left his seat until Lady Hilary looked out of the window and raised the alarm.”
    “I know,” said Forrester ruefully. “Otherwise I’d have taken a closer look at them, particularly Haraldson. You know I found him unconscious in Lyall’s rooms?”
    “Yes, that was very odd. Did he explain what he was doing there?”
    “No. But I have a suspicion he was looking for something. Someone had certainly been searching the place.”
    “What on earth for?”
    “I’m afraid I have no idea,” said Forrester.
    Winters brooded on this for a moment. “I don’t know Haraldson