'Lumme,' Maggie said, 'Lumme Myrt, what's with the Michelin tyre outfit? You been to a rubber lovers' fancy-dress ball or something?'

A very nasty blue eye warned her not to laugh. They drove out of Cambridge on the Barton Road.

Sir Cathcart D'Eath had had a tiring two days. Duck Dinner and the shocking events afterwards had given him a sleepless night and he'd had to be up early the following day to make arrangements for Skullion's hasty removal from the Master's Lodge. It had involved a number of phone calls and awkward questions about covert operations of that kind and the difficulties involved in getting an ambulance with a suitable crew up from London at a moment's notice. But in the end and at considerable personal expense he had prevailed. After the lightest of lunches he rested and prepared himself for a small dinner-party with a number of old and distinguished chums who were coming up for the weekend with their wives. Most importantly, Sir Edmund and Lady Sarah Lazarus-Crouch had been invited. The General was particularly anxious to ingratiate himself with the Lazarus-Crouches because his niece, Katherine D'Eath, was engaged to their son Harry and Sir Cathcart was anxious to avail himself of Sir Edmund's financial acumen which, since he had advised the Queen to sever all connections with at least three merchant ventures which had later collapsed, was considerable. In short the gathering at Coft Castle that evening was of the unostentatiously great and the ostensibly good. Even Sir Cathcart's secretary had been given the weekend off while Kentucky Fry had been sent to a pig farm in Leicestershire for a holiday. And all the time Sir Cathcart had a nagging feeling that he had forgotten, in the horror of Duck Dinner and the distractions of the day, something he ought to have done and hadn't. He very soon discovered what it was.

The General and his guests had just sauntered out into the old Orangerie with their drinks when Myrtle Ransby drove up with Maggie in the battered Cortina. Conversation in the Orangerie came to a sudden halt as Myrtle staggered out of the car and peered horribly at them. Never, in Sir Cathcart's opinion, a pleasant sight, she was cataclysmically awful now. With her leopardskin draped over her shoulders, and with her distorted en bouffant bulging under the hood, she advanced on the little group. In her hand she held the torn notes and even her protruding nipples and swollen thighs had a menace about them Sir Cathcart could not fail to recognize.

'Oh my God, what on earth is that?' Lady Sarah gasped as Myrtle approached.

'There must be some mistake,' Sir Cathcart muttered and then, with a quickness of thought that sprang from desperation, 'Perhaps she's collecting for some charity.'

But before he could usher his guests back into the house Myrtle was through the door. 'You fucking owe me,' she shouted and waved the torn notes. 'Two fucking thousand smackers. And you're going to pay me or else…'

The threat was superfluous. Nothing else could be more disastrous to Sir Cathcart than her appearance now. Purple and speechless, he tried to mouth to her to go away but Myrtle wasn't having any. She had come for her money and her revenge and she was determined to get both. She turned hideously to the guests.

'Says he likes nigger women and he wants me in the old rubber,' she told them. 'He's got this house in Cambridge, see, and he wants me to give him the old oral and I've got to dye my teats. And you know what he does then?' She advanced, with evident social perception, on the Lazarus-Crouches. 'Ties me up so I can't move and leaves me there all night and all day so he can-'

'I did nothing of the sort,' stammered Sir Cathcart most inadvisedly. 'I…'

But it was too late for any escape. Myrtle had backed Lady Sarah against a camellia and was breathing stale brandy in her face. 'He likes the old waterworks, know what I mean?' she mouthed through the hood. 'Really dirty. Disgusting I call it. Know what I mean?'

It was obvious that Lady Sarah had some idea, but would have preferred not to. 'Well, really,' she said.

'Yes, really,' said Myrtle, and waved the torn notes under her nose. 'Why else would he pay two grand? Dirty old men don't pay that sort of money for the old missionary, do they?'

'No, I'm sure they don't,' Lady Sarah murmured weakly.

'I say-' one of Cathcart's chums tried to intervene but Myrtle turned on him with the money. 'Two grand. That's what he owes me,' she growled through the hood. 'I ain't going till I gets it.'

'Oh quite,' said Sir Edmund diplomatically and helped his wife towards the door. Several of the distinguished old chums and their wives followed. Only one remained.

'Now, my good woman, if you'll just excuse us for a moment,' he told Myrtle, and took Sir Cathcart apart. 'For goodness' sake, give her the money,' he said. 'Only decent thing to do.'

Twenty minutes later Sir Cathcart sat slumped in a chair in the library and watched the last of the cars depart. He did not even want a drink. He had been unmasked.

34

The College Council met in plenary session two weeks later to hear the Praelector's report and come to a decision. There had been other more informal meetings and a great many heated arguments. But the Praelector had prepared the ground with a thoroughness that had left the Dean and the Senior Tutor furious but without any reasonable argument. The Praelector no longer relied on his undoubted authority. He had employed power and had done so through the strangest and most unlikely medium, that of Purefoy Osbert.

'This is pure blackmail,' the Dean said lividly when the Praelector told him that Dr Osbert's suspicions were a weapon he was quite prepared to substantiate if the need arose.

'You may call it that if you choose,' the Praelector replied. 'It is the truth and I shall use it if I have to.'

'You would bring the College down if you did. You would destroy the very thing you claim you want to preserve.'

'Again, that is your choice to make. Stand in the way of Hartang's nomination as Master and Porterhouse will be destroyed in any case.'

'But the man is a criminal and a monster.'

'I don't deny it. He is also immensely rich and vulnerable. By providing him with the protection of respectability we will earn far more than his gratitude. We will have him at our mercy.'

The Dean sneered his disbelief.

'I mean it. At our mercy,' the Praelector continued. 'You have not seen the almost ineffable surroundings in which he exists and which the pitiful man supposes must be style. The great glass tables, the long and most uncomfortable sofa in green leather, the wrought-iron chairs, the black leather, the windows of armoured glass. You would shudder at the vulgarity of his minimalism. Thank God he doesn't collect paintings.'

'I can't see that any of this matters,' said the Dean. 'You want to introduce this murderous gangster into the College and you call that having him at our mercy. You are mad.'

But the Praelector merely smiled. 'Charles the Fifth of Spain and Holy Roman Emperor, the most powerful man in Europe at the time and therefore probably more unlikeable than Edgar Hartang, withdrew to a monastery for the last few years of his life. I haven't put that comparison to the new Master-I doubt if he would understand it-but I like to think we can play a similar role in Mr Hartang's life. A quiet period of contemplation combined with the satisfaction of knowing that one is paying compensation for the excesses of one's past by contributing to the cultural achievements of the present. I am sure our future Master will come to view life here in that gentle light. After all he has no family.'

'How do you know? He has probably spawned frightful offspring all over the world.'