Reluctantly, she reached for the telephone and put a call through to Oxford. While she waited for it, she thought the matter over in this new light. The Dean had given no details about the poison letters, except that they suggested a grudge against the S.C.R. and that the culprit appeared to belong to the college. It was natural enough to attribute destructive ragging to the undergraduates; but then, the Dean did not know what Harriet knew. The warped and repressed mind is apt enough to turn and wound itself. “Soured virginity”-“unnatural life” -“semi-demented spinsters” -“starved appetites and oppressed impulses” -“unwholesome atmosphere”-she could think of whole sets of epithets, ready-minted for circulation. Was this what lived in the tower set on the hill? Would it turn out to be like Lady Athaliah’s tower in Frolic Wind, the home of frustration and perversion and madness? “If the eye be single, the whole body is full of light”-but was it physically possible to have the single eye? “What are you to do with the people who are cursed with both hearts and brains?” For them, stereoscopic vision was probably a necessity; as for whom was it not? (This was a foolish play on words, but it meant something.) Well, then, what about this business of choosing one way of life? Must one, after all, seek a compromise, merely to preserve one’s sanity? Then one was doomed for ever to this miserable inner warfare, with confused noise and garments rolled in blood-and, she reflected drearily with the usual war aftermath of a debased coinage, a lowered efficiency and unstable conditions of government.
At this point the Oxford call came through, with the Dean’s voice sounding full of agitation. Harriet, after hurriedly disclaiming all pretence to detective ability in real life, expressed concern and sympathy and then asked the question that, to her, was of prime importance.
“How are the letter’s written?”
“That’s just the difficulty. They’re mostly done by pasting together bits out of newspapers. So, you see, there’s no handwriting to identify.”
That seemed to settle it; there were not two anonymous correspondents, but only one. Very well, then:
“Are they merely obscene, or are they abusive or threatening too?”
“All three. Calling people names that poor Miss Lydgate didn’t know existed-the worst she knows being Restoration Drama-and threatening everything from public exposure to the gallows.”
Then the tower was Lady Athaliah’s tower.
“Are they sent to anybody besides the S.C.R.?”
“It’s difficult to say, because people don’t always come and tell you things. But I believe one or two of the students here have had them.”
“And they come sometimes by post and sometimes to the Lodge?”
“Yes. And they are beginning to come out on the walls now, and lately they’ve been pushed under people’s doors at night. So it looks as though it must be somebody in college.”
“When did you get the first one?”
“The first one I definitely know about was sent to Miss de Vine last Michaelmas Term. That was her first term here, and of course, she thought it must be somebody who had a personal grudge against her. But several people got them shortly afterwards, so we decided it couldn’t be that. We’d never had anything of that sort happening before, so just at present we’re inclined to check up on the First Year students.”
The one set of people that it can’t possibly be, thought Harriet. She only said however:
“It doesn’t do to take too much for granted. People may go on quite all right for a time, till something sets them off. The whole difficulty with these things is that the person generally behaves quite normally in other respects. It might be anybody.”
“That’s true. I suppose it might even be one of ourselves. That’s what’s so horrible. Yes, I know-elderly virgins, and all that. It’s awful to know that at any minute one may be sitting cheek by jowl with somebody who feels like that. Do you think the poor creature knows that she does it herself? I’ve been waking up with nightmares, wondering whether I didn’t perhaps go round in my sleep, spitting at people. And, my dear! I’m so terrified about next week! Poor Lord Oakapple, coming to open the Library, with venomous asps simply dripping poison over his boots! Suppose they send him something!”
“Well,” said Harriet, “I think I’ll come along next week. There’s a very good reason why I’m not quite the right person to handle this, but on the other hand, I think I ought to come. I’ll tell you why when we meet.”
“It’s terribly good of you. I’m sure you’ll be able to suggest something. I suppose you’ll want to see all the specimens there are. Yes? Very well. Every fragment shall be cherished next our hearts. Do we handle them with the tongs for the better preservation of fingerprints?”
Harriet doubted whether finger-prints would be of much service, but advised that precautions should be taken on principle. When she had rung off with the Dean’s reiterated thanks still echoing from the other end of the line, she sat for a few moments with the receiver in her hand. Was there any quarter to which she might usefully turn for advice? There was; but she was not eager to discuss the subject of anonymous letters, still less the question of what lived in academic towers. She hung up resolutely, and pushed the instrument away.
She woke next morning with a change of heart. She had said that personal feeling ought not to stand in the way of public utility. And it should not. If Wimsey could be made useful to Shrewsbury College, she would use him. Whether she liked it or not, whether or not she had to put up with his saying “I told you so,” she would put her pride in her pocket and ask him the best way to go about the job. She had her bath and dressed, glowing all the time with a consciousness other own disinterested devotion to the cause of truth. She came into the sitting-room and enjoyed a good breakfast, still congratulating herself. As she was finishing her toast and marmalade, the secretary arrived, bringing in the morning’s post. It contained a hurried note from Peter, sent off the previous evening from Victoria.
Hauled off abroad again at a moment’s notice. Paris first, then Rome. Then God knows. If you should want me-per impossible-you can get me through the Embassies, or the post-office will forward letters from the Piccadilly address. In any case, you will hear from me on April 1st.
P.D.B.W.
Post occasio calva. One could scarcely bombard the Embassies with letters about an obscure and complicated little affair in an Oxford college, especially when one’s correspondent was urgently engaged in investigating something else all over Europe. The call must have been urgent, for the note was very ill and hastily written, and looked, in fact as though it had been scribbled at the last moment in a taxi. Harriet amused herself with wondering whether the Prince of Ruritania had been shot, or the Master-Crook of the continent had brought off a fresh coup, or whether this was the International Conspiracy to Wreck Civilization with a Death Ray-all those situations being frequent in her kind of fiction. Whatever it was all about, she would have to carry on unaided and find consolation in a proper independence of spirit.