The Problem of the Surly Servant Read online

  The Problem of the Surly Servant

  A Charles Dodgson and Arthur Conan Doyle Mystery

  Roberta Rogow

  MYSTERIOUSPRESS.COM

  This book is dedicated to

  Miss Elizabeth Wordsworth

  and

  all those brave women who opened the doors

  to higher education for the rest of us to walk through

  Chapter 1

  Murder was not a part of the curriculum at any of the individual colleges that made up the University of Oxford. It was not considered a fit subject for study, unless it had happened some centuries previously. Even prospective barristers were not expected to discuss contemporary murders as reported by the popular press. An undergraduate might write an essay on the fate of the Little Princes in the Tower; a learned don might formulate a theory as to the precise effects of hemlock on Socrates; but the coarse act of murder was beneath the notice of the eminent scholars and noble students of the University. When it came to brutal facts, those who wore the Gown preferred to look elsewhere.

  While murder in the abstract could be discussed behind the medieval stone walls and Jacobean bricks of Balliol, Trinity, or Christ Church, murder in the more immediate sense was the business of the Town, which was made up of the citizens of Oxford who served the noble youths and distinguished dons. They, on this brilliant May morning, had other things on their collective minds. After a brutal winter of agonizing snow and sleet, followed by freezing winds that tore thatch off ancient cottages and shingles from more modern edifices, the early spring had brought rains that turned the usually placid stretches of the Cherwell and the Isis into raging torrents. On this beautiful May morning, the town of Oxford had to be refurbished in time for the influx of fond parents come to see their offspring attain that highest of achievements, a First in whatever they were reading. Roofs had to be slated, walls had to be painted, even the streets needed paving. Oxford hummed with activity as workmen plied their various trades, making the Town ready to receive its visitors before the Long Vac left the place vacant of all but the most determined of tourists. Up and down St. Aldgates, across the High, in the Broad and the Turl, tradesmen restocked their shelves while workmen made Oxford ready to live up to its reputation as the very hub of intellectual Britain.

  Behind the stone walls, which dated to the days when Oxford had been a collection of churches and ramshackle halls, or the redbrick edifices only recently erected, flowering shrubs sent forth a perfume that attracted bees and butterflies intent on their task of propagating their species. Like everything else in Oxford on that May morning, the insects hummed with their own activities, relishing the warmth of spring after a furious winter. Birds nested in the ancient oaks and willows that hung over the banks of the Holywell Mill Stream and the Cherwell, the two channels that wound their way back to the main stream of the Thames (dubbed the Isis as long as it was within the boundaries of Oxford). Along the Oxford Canal, moles and water rats, toads and other small creatures scrabbled in the undergrowth, going about their business with all the intensity of humanity.

  Of all the creatures in Oxford, the students were the most intense. With Trinity term nearly halfway through and the Long Vac looming ahead, those who had neglected their primary task of memorizing Latin verses or formulating elaborate responses to hypothetical questions realized that they had less than three weeks to make up what they should have been doing for the last nine months. Freshmen scrambled to complete their essays before their tutors could assess their work and make the all-important recommendations that would either permit the student to continue his academic career or condemn him to toil in some mediocre teaching position, forever labeled a failure. Second-year students crammed mercilessly, facing the examinations that would ensure them a place among the third-year men.

  It was those who were about to graduate who uttered the words, “What do I do now?” with the most heartfelt emotion. What, indeed, would they do now that their studies were presumably completed? Would they venture forth into the Church, staunchly preaching the doctrine of the Church of England, slaving away as curates in country parishes until they could achieve the dignity of a living of their own? Would they become one of the many young men who scurried about in Whitehall or Westminster, doing the bidding of politicians and diplomats, learning the ins and outs of running the Empire? Would they “eat their terms” with the aim of claiming a place at the Bar, and the dignity of the initials Q.C. after their names in due course? Would they find posts in India or Africa, as yet another cog in the great wheel of the Foreign Service? Or would they simply do as so many decorative young men did and find a flat in London where they could while away the days and nights, waiting for someone to die and leave them lands and titles?

  The Reverend Mr. Charles Lutwidge Dodgson was not among those worried about his future on this May morning. He stood in Tom Quad, a tall, spare figure in a long, black coat and high, black hat, secure in the knowledge that he would continue, as he had for thirty-four years, as a Senior Student (as the dons are called) at Christ Church. Since he had retired from active teaching and lecturing, he could pursue his eccentric hobbies, write quaint fairy tales or political pamphlets, and rule over the Senior Common Room as curator. His time was not circumscribed by college protocol, and he had the luxury of dining in his own rooms, instead of in Hall, whenever he chose to have a small party of his own.

  It was such an impending dinner party that had led Mr. Dodgson to accost Mr. Telling, the Senior Common Room Steward in Tom Quad. Mr. Telling, as tall as Mr. Dodgson but considerably broader, nodded sympathetically and wished Mr. Dodgson had not decided to confront him in person but had used his usual means of communication—a long and detailed letter. It was much easier to deal with Mr. Dodgson’s endless requests and constant menu changes in writing. Now Mr. Dodgson was going over the arrangements for his visitors again, a young doctor from Portsmouth and his wife. Telling had been in charge of the arrangements for the Senior Common Room for nearly twenty years. He could have done without Mr. Dodgson’s constant nagging. However, like any good butler, he kept his face impassive as he listened to Mr. Dodgson’s shrill orders.

  “Telling, it is most important that the dinner be served quickly and quietly,” Mr. Dodgson said. “Dr. Doyle was kind enough to be my host in Portsmouth, and I feel obliged to return the favor.”

  “Of course, Mr. Dodgson.” Telling did not quite bow. “We must show them the best the House has to offer.”

  “Dr. Doyle and his wife will arrive this afternoon by train.” Mr. Dodgson consulted the flimsy yellow paper in his hand, evidence of Dr. Doyle’s fondness for sending telegrams at every opportunity. “Once they have established themselves at the White Hart across the road, they will present themselves at Tom Gate. I shall meet them myself and show them the grounds, and perhaps also the Cathedral. Dr. Doyle expressed a desire to see the chair where King Charles the First sat. We will have tea at four—”

  “In the Senior Common Room?” Telling asked.

  “Certainly not,” Mr. Dodgson replied. “Mrs. Doyle will wish to refresh herself. We will have tea and cakes in my rooms. Then Dr. Doyle and Mrs. Doyle will return to their rooms at the White Hart and change for dinner. We will dine at seven. I have provided a menu …” He fished a folded piece of paper out of his coat pocket, together with a length of string, a bag of lemon drops, and a large red silk handkerchief.

  Telling took the menu, scanned it, and nodded. “Very good, sir. We will be dining on fowl in Hall, so there will be no difficulty about that. I see you have listed several vegetables …”

  “And do be more careful about the timing of the cookery,” Mr. Dodgson complained. “The potatoes served in
Hall have been inedible, either mealy or raw. And for a sweet, I think we shall have a cherry tart, if cherries are available.”

  “And the wine, sir?” Mr. Telling hinted.

  “Sherry, I think, and port for myself and Dr. Doyle. Is there some difficulty, Telling?” Mr. Dodgson frowned as he bent to hear what Telling was trying to say.

  “We seem to have some shortage of sherry, sir,” Telling said.

  Mr. Dodgson’s frown deepened. “A shortage? Nonsense! I myself catalogued the entire wine cellar when I first took the position of curator. By my own calculations, we had enough sherry at that time to provide a bottle a day for every Fellow at the House for the next three hundred years.”

  “That may have been so then,” Telling said, “but there are considerable gaps in the rows now.”

  “What?” Mr. Dodgson’s voice, heavy with indignation, could be heard all over the quad.

  “If you would care to examine the cellar yourself—,” Telling began.

  “I accept your word for the losses,” Mr. Dodgson said. “Have you checked your findings against the wine list for the Senior Common Room?”

  “I have, sir,” Telling said grimly. “Unless we have a secret tippler among us, those bottles of sherry were not used by the Senior Students.”

  Mr. Dodgson looked around the quad. Windows had been raised to catch whatever fitful breeze might find its way past the walls erected by Cardinal Wolsey some three hundred years previously. He lowered his voice, suddenly aware that there might be listeners behind those open windows.

  “Could some of the undergraduates have been pilfering?” he asked. “One does not like to think it, but young men can be quite ingenious, and there have always been unruly students.”

  Telling considered the possibility, then shook his head. “I don’t see how,” he said. “For one thing, they’d have to get by the stewards, and for another, they’d have to get rid of the bottles afterward. One of the scouts would have noticed, even if the scout on a particular staircase had been, ah—”

  “Bribed,” Mr. Dodgson said. “I am all too aware that scouts are as human as the next man, and that some of our undergraduates are capable of playing on another person’s weaknesses, but I would not like to think of the House as a hotbed of corruption. I shall look into the matter, Telling.”

  “And while you’re at it, sir, could you look into another matter?” Telling pressed his advantage before Mr. Dodgson had time to move on.

  “Eh?”

  “There have been complaints,” Telling said. “Certain small items have, er, gone missing.”

  “This is most distressing,” Mr. Dodgson said. “What sort of small items? In which staircase?”

  “Small things, sir. Watches, shirtstuds, a tiepin or two.” Telling took a deep breath and carried on as Mr. Dodgson’s frown creased his usually unlined face. “From Tom Quad principally. Mr. Duckworth mentioned the loss of a broach given to him by his dear mother, now deceased. I realize that this is not, strictly speaking, part of your commission as curator, but I thought you would wish to deal with this matter yourself.”

  “Quite so. One would not like to bring in the police,” Mr. Dodgson said. “I shall look into this also, Telling. Thank you for bringing it to my attention.”

  “Better you than the Dean,” Telling said, with a meaningful glance at the door to the deanery, at the far end of the quad.

  “In this case, I agree that Dean Liddell should not be disturbed with so minor a matter.” Mr. Dodgson settled his tall hat more firmly on his head.

  Telling suddenly asked, “You haven’t missed anything yourself, sir?”

  “I don’t think I have,” Mr. Dodgson said. “I shall go to my rooms and make an inventory. If someone has been so thoughtless as to remove something, I shall track him down, and he will regret it.” He strode off, across the quad, a tall figure in black, made taller by the old-fashioned high silk hat he insisted on wearing.

  “And I wouldn’t like to be the one who did it,” Telling said to himself as he headed for the stewards’ closet, where he would conduct a small investigation of his own. Undergraduates were notoriously untidy, and it would be all too easy for a light-fingered servant to abstract a small piece of jewelry here and there, but not on his patch and not on his watch!

  Mr. Dodgson headed toward the corner suite that he had held for the past fifteen years, four rooms that looked out on St. Aldgates from the northeast corner of Tom Quad, where he had settled into a comfortable sort of domesticity. His rooms, provided by Christ Church, were cleaned at regular intervals by one scout or another. He took his breakfast in his room, his meager luncheon wherever he found himself, his tea in the Senior Common Room, and his dinner in Hall, unless, as on this particular evening, he had arranged to give a private dinner party. His duties no longer included active instruction, although he occasionally obliged a colleague by lecturing on logic and mathematics. It could be said that the Reverend Mr. Charles Lutwidge Dodgson led an easy life, in good health and spirits, with few physical ailments and less mental stress than the average householder in England.

  Nevertheless, Mr. Dodgson fretted over this meeting with the young man from Portsmouth. Their last encounter had been hectic, to say the least, involving a labor riot, a violent fall of snow, and several deaths. He had not had time to do much more than encourage the nephew of his old friend, Dicky Doyle, in his literary endeavors. Since then, Dr. Doyle had informed him that he had written something quite new, something that he wished to show Mr. Dodgson before sending it off to his usual publishers. Mr. Dodgson sincerely hoped that this time he would not be embroiled in some nasty police matter, as had happened every time he and Dr. Doyle had met since their first encounter the previous August. It would be pleasant to show the young man and his charming wife the glories of Oxford without the interference of murder and mayhem.

  Meanwhile, there was the problem before him. Several solutions presented themselves, but only one would be the correct one. Mr. Dodgson loped across the quad, a tall black figure against the gray stones, yet another of the Great Monuments of Oxford.

  At the same time, the object of his thoughts was moving toward Oxford on the afternoon train. The railway had come relatively late to Oxford, over the objections of those who preferred to keep the lure of the fleshpots of London out of the way of susceptible undergraduates and even more susceptible dons. Nevertheless, the Town would have its railway station, and the Town got it, albeit as far away as was legally possible from the colleges that clustered around High Street, Broad Street, and St. Giles.

  Dr. Doyle, the muscular young doctor from Southsea, peered out the window of their compartment as the train slowed down at the Oxford railway station. His blue eyes sparkled; his red hair and mustache fairly crackled with delight. “I can’t tell you how much I am looking forward to this,” Dr. Doyle enthused.

  Touie, his sweetly pretty wife, sensibly refrained from reminding her husband that he had been telling her exactly that ever since the decision had been made to break their journey north at Oxford for a day.

  “It will give me the opportunity to see the scene at firsthand,” he assured her. “I’ve already thought of several scenes to set in the Oxford country.”

  “I’m sure you will be inspired, Arthur. Do you have the portmanteau?” Touie took over, as her husband continued to wax rhapsodically about their destination.

  “I’ll be doing a bit of walking about, but you can shop for something for the Ma’am.” Dr. Doyle made sure he had his portfolio, with its precious manuscript, tucked under his arm.

  “Your mother is so self-sufficient, Arthur. It is difficult to buy something for her.” Touie gathered up her shawl, a small reticule, and a larger net bag that held her husband’s newspaper and two books they had brought with them to while away the time spent on the train. Her husband opened the door to their compartment.

  Dr. Doyle continued to chatter as he handed his wife onto the platform. “Not to worry, Touie. She likes books, of co
urse, and Oxford is full of quaint shops. And you will like the Cathedral.” He looked about him. “Where is my hat?”

  “On your head, Arthur.”

  “Where is my manuscript?”

  “Under your arm,” Touie pointed out. “And I do hope Mr. Dodgson will find the time to read your new story. I think it is quite the best thing you have ever done.”

  Dr. Doyle shifted the bulky portfolio from his right arm to his left, so that he might carry the portmanteau that held their modest wardrobes for the trip. “This is going to be wonderful!” Dr. Doyle crowed.

  Touie sincerely hoped that Oxford would live up to her volatile husband’s expectations and that all would go well. She was not particularly looking forward to their final destination. The Ma’am, as Arthur called his mother, could be prickly, and there had been some sort of distress about his father. Touie kept her fears to herself and followed her husband to the platform.

  Dr. Doyle eyed the various vehicles lined up before them as they left the railway station. How should they approach their host? Should they take the omnibus? Should he hire one of the bath chairs for Touie, to be pushed along by one of the lugubrious chairmen, while he walked beside it?

  “We shall go in style,” he decided, imperiously beckoning a cab. “The White Hart,” he ordered. He grinned happily at his wife. The Great Oxford Adventure had officially begun!

  Chapter 2

  What do we do now?”

  The Big Question hung almost visibly over the two young men now lounging after an ample luncheon served in their upper-story rooms on the west side of Tom Quad, overlooking St. Aldgates.

  Lord Nevil Farlow, the ostensible host, was a tall young man, with biceps well developed from three years of rowing, long legs that were needed on the cricket field, and a head hard enough to sustain various knocks and falls from horses during hunting season. His fair hair was worn short, as if to announce to the world that he was no Aesthete but a Hearty, one of those who achieved more acclaim on the playing field than in his tutor’s study. In the course of time he would be the fifth Viscount Berwick, inheriting whatever his eccentric father had left of a once sizeable fortune. One would think that such a young man would have no cares, but his blue eyes were troubled as he stared out the window that faced St. Aldgates.