'Oh, I'm mucking about trying to revise Romley's _History of Porterhouse,_ which is completely out of date-it was published in 1911-and full of the most dreadful inaccuracies. For instance, he actually goes so far as to claim that Porterhouse predates Peterhouse which was the first college in Cambridge as everyone knows. Not the late Mr Romley. No, he's convinced the original foundation was Porterhouse and that a school for Franciscan monks was established here in 1095.'

'But the Franciscan Order wasn't founded until the thirteenth century,' said Purefoy. 'That can't be right. He must have meant some other Order, like the Benedictines who were founded much earlier.'

'In AD 529, to be precise,' said the Librarian, and immediately won Purefoy's heart. The Librarian was obviously a man who placed a special emphasis on certainties.

'But surely this man Romley must have known that?'

'Heaven alone knows what he knew. From what I've seen of the older Fellows he probably thought Benedictine was only a liqueur.'

'Well, if all his facts are as bad as that I should forget the revision and write your own history of the College, warts and all.'

'I have more or less decided to, though I think I won't mention warts. That's what really brought me here. Warts and eczema and skin diseases in general. Actually I graduated from Glasgow as a medical doctor. It was a great mistake. I wasn't cut out for the contemplation of skin conditions and I wasn't any good in any case. I saw this post advertised and I thought it would be a much pleasanter life and I've always loved reading and I cannot stand inaccuracies. That was another reason for not staying in medicine. Diagnosis is largely guesswork and while the effect is obvious the cause very seldom is. No one really knows what causes eczema and I don't think they understand very much about warts either. Some people can charm the things away. Well, I just wasn't prepared to be a medical water-diviner. Or I suppose I should say a blood-diviner.'

They talked on and Purefoy told him about the work he was supposed to be going to do on the life of the late Master, Sir Godber Evans. 'Actually, I was meaning to ask you if you knew where any of his papers are,' he said.

'I suppose they might be in the archives,' the Librarian said with a derisory laugh. 'Though knowing what the Dean and the Senior Tutor thought of him, it wouldn't surprise me if they had burned them.'

Purefoy was shocked beyond belief. 'What?' he exclaimed. 'But you can't do things like that. It's sacrilege to destroy documents. That's the only stuff of history there is, and the facts…You can't destroy knowledge like that.'

'You can in Porterhouse. You try reading Romley's _History_ and you'll see what he thought about facts. I don't suppose he'd have known one if he'd had it handed him on a plate' He paused and thought for a moment. "Though come to think of it, the only fact he'd be likely to recognize would be on a plate with lots of sautéed potatoes round it and a glass of excellent claret to go with it. Anyway we can go down into the Crypt and have a look.'

'The Crypt? Under the Chapel?'

'No, under here. It's really just an enormous cellar but they call it the Library Crypt. Don't ask me why. They call everything in Porterhouse by some peculiar name. Have you seen the Dossery?'

Purefoy said he hadn't, and had never heard of such a place.

'It was part of the original lodgings where the scholars used to sleep. Now they've split it up into separate rooms but they still call it the Dossery.'

He unlocked a door in the wall and they went down a steep flight of stone steps. The Librarian tried to switch the light on but nothing happened. It's the damp,' he explained. 'The whole place practically drips and the wiring hasn't been replaced since God knows when. That's why I wear rubber-soled shoes and keep those heavy industrial gloves here. It's safer and, if you're going to come down here, I'd advise you to use them. You don't want to get electrocuted.'

He tried the old metal switch several times more and finally the lights came on. They were very dim. 'The Bursar insists on fifteen-watt bulbs to save money but if you need more light I've got some one-fifties in my office, though frankly I don't know what they'd do to the wiring. Probably set it alight and burn the place down.'

But Purefoy was looking in horrified amazement at the enormous pile of old tea-chests with which the cellar was filled. 'These are the archives? These are really the College archives? It's insane, it's criminally insane. Look at the mould.' He pointed to some fungal growth on the side of one of the boxes.

'I know. I've tried to do something about it but every time it rains we get several inches of water down here because some drain is blocked and they won't spend money unblocking it. I've tried putting bricks under some of the boxes but it doesn't seem to help very much.'

They went along the great pile and Purefoy felt inside some of the boxes and touched damp paper. He shook his head in disbelief. Even if the Librarian was right and the Dean and the Senior Tutor had burnt Sir Godber Evans' papers they'd have been wasting their time. All they had to do was leave them down here. The damp would do the rest. Anyway he had found something to do. He would go through these tea-chests and take their contents up into the Library and dry them out one by one. He wasn't going to see facts turn into mould and he'd have something to say to the Bursar and the Dean when he got a chance. He was going to insist that some part of Lady Mary's benefaction was spent creating a proper and dry and temperature-controlled archive for the Porterhouse Papers.

16

In fact the Dean was already on his way back to Cambridge. His visits to Broadbeam and the other OPs had proved fruitless. No one had been able to think of any really wealthy man who might be honoured to be Master of Porterhouse.

'It's this damned recession, you know,' Broadbeam had told the Dean. 'Property prices have tumbled, there's been the Lloyds fiasco and Black Wednesday. I can't think of anyone with the sort of money you're talking about. I don't suppose you want another ex-Minister as Master? No, I can see you don't.' The Dean had gone a very odd colour. 'I daresay you could find some American academic who'd think it great to be called Master of Porterhouse, but you'd have to be pretty careful who you chose. Some of our Transatlantic friends take education very seriously and you don't want to spoil the character of the College by having a Master who is too clever by half.'

It had been the same everywhere he had visited. He had been utterly appalled to find Jeremy Pimpole, who had inherited millions from his South African mother, living in a gamekeeper's cottage on the estate that had been the family home since the middle of the eighteenth century. The house and land had been sold and all Pimpole seemed to be interested in now was his dog, a wall-eyed cross between a bull terrier and a sheepdog, and the local pub, neither of which was to the Dean's taste And Pimpole's addiction to things canine was not limited to the old dog. In the pub he insisted on ordering two large Dog's Noses which, the Dean was horrified to learn, were made up of two parts gin to three of bitter. When he protested that he couldn't possibly drink a pint of the filthy stuff and couldn't he have a half or better still none at all, Pimpole had got quite nasty and had pointed out that it had taken him years to train the pubkeeper to get the proportions right.

'Bloody difficult to get the fellow to understand that a pint has twenty ounces to it and that means you've got to take seven ounces of gin to thirteen of best bitter to get a proper Dog's Nose. Start asking him to make it a half would confuse the poor fellow. Thick as two short planks, don't you know.'