“I can see you urging me to go away and leave a job undone.”

“Well, Peter, I’d certainly rather die than make any sort of pretence to you or about you. But I think you’re exaggerating the whole thing. You don’t usually get the wind up like this.”

“I do, though; quite often. But if it’s only my own risk, I can afford to let it blow. When it comes to other people-”

“Your instinct is to clap the women and children under hatches.”

“Well,” he admitted, deprecatingly, “one can’t suppress one’s natural instincts altogether; even if one’s reason and self-interest are all the other way.”

“Peter, it’s a shame. Let me introduce you to some nice little woman who adores being protected.”

“I should be wasted on her. Besides, she would always be deceiving me, in the kindest manner, for my own good; and that I could not stand. I object to being tactfully managed by somebody who ought to be my equal. If I want tactful dependents, I can hire them. And fire them if they get too tactful. I don’t mean Bunter. He braces me by a continual cold shower of silent criticism. I don’t protect him; he protects me, and preserves an independent judgment… However; without presuming to be protective, may I yet suggest that you should use a reasonable caution? I tell you frankly, I don’t like your friend’s preoccupation with knives and strangling.”

“Are you serious?”

“For once.”

Harriet was about to tell him not to be ridiculous; then she remembered Miss Barton’s story about the strong hands that had seized her from behind. It might have been quite true. The thought of perambulating the long corridors by night was suddenly disagreeable.

“Very well; I’ll be careful.”

“I think it would be wise. I’d better push off now. I’ll be round in time to face the High Table at dinner. Seven o’clock?”

She nodded. He had interpreted strictly her injunction to come this morning instead of at six. She went, feeling a little blank, to cope with Miss’ Lydgate’s proofs.

17

You look,” said the Dean, “like a nervous parent whose little boy is about to recite The Wreck of the Hesperus at a School Concert.”

“I feel,” said Harriet, “more like the mother of Daniel.

King Darius said to the lions:-

Bite Daniel. Bite Daniel.

Bite him. Bite him. Bite him.”

“G’rrrrr!” said the Dean.

They were standing at the door of the Senior Common Room, which conveniently overlooked the Jowett Walk Lodge. The Old Quad was animated. Late-comers were hurrying over to change for dinner; others, having changed, were strolling about in groups, waiting for the bell; some were stiff playing tennis; Miss de Vine emerged from the Library Building, still vaguely pushing in hairpins (Harriet had checked up on those hairpins and identified them); an elegant figure paraded towards them from the direction of the New Quadrangle.

“Miss Shaw’s got a new frock,” said Harriet.

“So she has! How posh of her!

And she was as fine as a melon in the cornfield,

Gliding and lovely as a ship upon the sea.

That, my dear, is meant for Daniel.”

“Dean, darling, you’re being a cat.”

“Well, aren’t we all? This early arrival of everybody is exceedingly sinister. Even Miss Hillyard is arrayed in her best black gown with a train to it. We all feel there’s safety in numbers.”

It was not out of the way for the Senior Common Room to collect outside their own door before dinner of a fine summer’s day, but Harriet, glancing round, had to admit that there were more of them there that evening than was usual before 7 o’clock. She thought they all seemed apprehensive and some, even hostile. They tended to avoid one another’s eyes; yet they gathered together as though for protection against a common menace. She suddenly found it absurd that anybody should be alarmed by Peter Wimsey; she saw them as a harmless collection of nervous patients in a dentist’s waiting-room. “We seem,” said Miss Pyke’s harsh voice in her ear, “to be preparing a somewhat formidable reception for our guest. Is he of a timid disposition?”

“I should say he was completely hard-boiled,” said Harriet.

“That reminds me,” said the Dean. “In the matter of shirt-fronts-”

“Hard, of course,” said Harriet, indignantly. “And if he pops or bulges, I will pay you five pounds.”

“I have been meaning to ask you,” said Miss Pyke. “How is the popping sound occasioned? I did not like to ask Dr. Threep so personal a question, but my curiosity was very much aroused.”

“You’d better ask Lord Peter,” said Harriet.

“If you think he will not be offended,” replied Miss Pyke, with perfect seriousness, “I will do so.”

The chimes of New College, rather out of tune, played the four quarters and struck the hour.

“Punctuality,” said the Dean, her eyes turned towards the Lodge, “seems to be one of the gentleman’s virtues. You’d better go and meet him and settle his nerves before the ordeal.”

“Do you think so?” Harriet shook her head. “Ye’ll no fickle Tammas Yownie:”

It may, perhaps, be embarrassing for a solitary man to walk across a wide quadrangle under a fire of glances from a collection of collegiate females, but it is child’s play compared, for example, with the long trek from the pavilion at Lord’s to the far end of the pitch, with five wickets down and ninety needed to save the follow-on. Thousands of people then alive might have recognized that easy and unhurried stride and confident carriage of the head. Harriet let him do three-quarters of the journey alone, and then advanced to meet him. “Have you cleaned your teeth and said your prayers?”

“Yes, mamma; and cut my nails and washed behind the ears and got a clean handkerchief.”

Looking at a bunch of students who happened to pass at the moment, Harriet wished she could have said the same of them. They were grubby and dishevelled and she felt unexpectedly obliged to Miss Shaw for having made an effort in the matter of dress. As for her convoy, from his sleek yellow head to his pumps she distrusted him; his mood of the morning was gone, and he was as ready for mischief as a wilderness of monkeys.

“Come along, then, and behave prettily. Have you seen your nephew?”

“I have seen him. My bankruptcy will probably be announced tomorrow. He asked me to give you his love, no doubt thinking I can still be lavish in that commodity. It all returned from him to you, though it was mine before. That colour is very becoming to you.”

His tone was pleasantly detached and she hoped he was referring to her dress; but she was not sure. She was glad to relinquish him to the Dean, who came forward to claim him and to relieve her of the introductions. Harriet watched in some amusement. Miss Lydgate, far too unselfconscious to have any attitude at all, greeted him exactly as she would have greeted anybody else, and asked eagerly about the situation in Central Europe; Miss Shaw smiled with a graciousness that emphasized Miss Stevens’s brusque “Howd’you do” and immediate retreat into animated discussion of college affairs with Miss Allison; Miss Pyke pounced on him with an intelligent question about the latest murder; Miss Barton, advancing with an evident determination to put him right about capital punishment, was disarmed by the blank amiability of the countenance offered for her inspection and observed instead that it had been a remarkably fine day.