The Meaning of Night (47 page)

In another moment I had left Evenwood, and Miss Emily Carteret, behind.

After a cold, damp ride, I turned into the High Street in Stamford at a little before

nine o’clock. I returned my nag to the ostler at the George, and then arranged with the

hall-porter for my bags to be carried across to the Town Station in time for the next train

to Peterborough. The ride had cleared my head, lightened my mood, and sharpened my

appetite; and so, having an hour in hand, I cheerily ordered up chops, bacon, and eggs,

and a pot of strong coffee, and settled myself in a box by the fire in one of the public

rooms to read the daily news-papers until it was time to stroll over to the station.

It wanted ten minutes to the time the train was due to arrive when, as I was

walking into the first-class waiting-room, something Dr Daunt had said in passing came

back to me. He had been speaking of an early ambition of his son’s to follow the Law, in

emulation of his closest friend at Cambridge. I had given no further thought to the

Rector’s words; but now, standing in the waiting-room of the Town Station in Stamford,

they returned with a strange force.

Now I am a great believer in the instinctive powers – the ability to reach at truth

without the aid of reason or deliberation. Mine are particularly acute: they have served

me well, and I have learned to trust them whenever they have manifested their presence.

You never know where they may lead you. Here was a case in point. I cannot say why,

but I was instantly seized with the notion that I must find out the name of this companion

of Daunt’s at the University. Acting on this impulse, therefore, I immediately changed

my plans and, after consulting my Bradshaw,? resolved upon a diversion to Cambridge.

By now the train for Yarmouth, which I was to take as far as Ely, had arrived. I

was on the point of picking up my bag, when one of the tap-room servants from the

George came puffing up to me and thrust a thick envelope, almost a small package, into

my hand.

‘What is this?

‘Beg pardon, sir, hall-porter says this has been directed to you.’

Ah, I thought, these are the proofs of Dr Daunt’s translation of Iamblichus,

forwarded to me, as arranged, by Professor Slake, and which I had quite forgotten about.

As it was necessary for me to board the train immediately, I had no time to

reprimand the stupid red-faced fellow for the hotel’s failure to give me the package

earlier; and so I brushed him aside without a word, stuffed the proofs into my great-coat

pocket, and managed to take my seat just as the station-master was blowing his whistle.

To my consternation, the carriage I had chosen was crowded almost to capacity,

and I spent a most uncomfortable two and a quarter hours wedged between a stout, and

exceedingly truculent lady, on one side, a basket containing a spaniel puppy set

precariously on her knees, and a fidgeting boy of about thirteen (much interested in the

puppy) on the other, with my bag between my feet on account of the racks being full.

I disembarked, to my great relief, in Ely, and managed to catch a connecting train

to Cambridge with seconds to spare. Arriving at my destination at last, I took a cab into

the town and was set down before the gates of St Catharine’s College.

28:

Spectemur agendo?

????????????_______________________________________________________

_____________________________

In the year 1846, through the good offices of my former travelling companion, Mr

Bryce Furnivall, of the British Museum, I had begun a correspondence with Dr Simeon

Shakeshaft, a Fellow of St Catharine’s College, who was an authority on the literature of

alchemy, in which I had developed a strong interest while studying at Heidelberg. We

had continued to correspond, and Dr Shakeshaft had been instrumental in helping me

assemble a good library of alchemical and hermetic texts. This gentleman, like the Rector

of Evenwood, was a member of the Roxburghe Club, and I’d recalled Dr Daunt

mentioning that this mutual acquaintance had known his son during the latter’s time at

King’s College.? Dr Shakeshaft had recently written to me on the subject of Barrett’s

Magus,? a curious compendium of occult lore which I’d wished to acquire; and so, as we

had not yet had occasion to meet face to face, I would have the satisfaction of killing two

birds with one stone.

Dr Shakeshaft’s set was at the far end of the charming three-sided red-brick court

which forms the principal feature of St Catharine’s. Having ascended a narrow stair-case

to the first floor, I was welcomed most cordially into Dr Shakeshaft’s book-lined study.

We talked for some time about a number of subjects of common interest, and my host

brought out several superb items from his own collection of hermetic writings for my

inspection. This was most pleasant, and it was a relief to expend mental energy on topics

of such absorbing fascination after the difficult events of the past few days.

It was with some unwillingness, therefore, that I wrenched myself back to my

purpose and introduced the subject of Phoebus Daunt.

‘Did Mr Daunt have a wide circle of acquaintance in his College?’ I asked.

Dr Shakeshaft pursed his lips in an effort to remember.

‘Hmm. I would not say wide. He was not popular amongst the sporting men, and,

as I remember, most of his friends, such as they were, came from other Houses.’

‘Was there any particular friend or companion that you can recall?’ was my next

question. This time the response was instantaneous.

‘Indeed there was. A Trinity man. They were very close, always going about

together. I entertained them both myself – young Daunt’s father and I, you know, are old

friends. But wait a moment.’ He thought for a moment. ‘Yes, now I remember. There was

some trouble.’

‘Trouble?’

‘Not involving Daunt. The other gentleman. Young Pettingale.’

I remembered the name from the accounts given to me by John and Lizzie Brine

of the dinner given by Lord Tansor, following which Mr Carteret had accused his

daughter of secretly encouraging the attentions of Phoebus Daunt. He had been Daunt’s

guest on that occasion, and they had been driven to Evenwood by Josiah Pluckrose.

‘May I ask, if you are able to tell me, the nature of the trouble you speak of?’

‘Ah,’ replied Shakeshaft, ‘you’d best talk to Maunder.’

And so I did.

Jacob Maunder, D.D., of Trinity College, occupied a splendid ground-floor set in

Great Court, with a fine view of Nevile’s fountain. Tall and stooping, with a lazy curling

smile and a sardonic eye, he had occupied the position of Senior Proctor in the University

for a period that coincided with Phoebus Daunt’s time at King’s College. The duties of a

Proctor are of a disciplinary nature, and consequently expose the holders of this office to

the more sordid and unpleasant propensities of those in statu pupillari.? ‘When you

perambulate the streets at night,’ as the Provost of King’s, Dr Okes, once memorably

remarked to one of their number, ‘you rarely see the constellation Virgo.’ The post also

required a stout heart, as the unfortunate Wale had famously discovered when he was

pursued by a mob of undergraduates from the Senate House to the gates of his College.?

I could not imagine Jacob Maunder fleeing in the face of intimidation. He

appeared to me fully to deserve his reputation, described to me in brief by Dr Shakeshaft,

as a stern and unyielding upholder of University statute and procedure, and a less than

merciful judge of the follies of youth. Did he, I asked, handing him a note of

recommendation from Shakeshaft, recollect a gentleman by the name of Pettingale?

‘This is a little irregular, Mr — ’

‘Glapthorn.’

‘Quite. I see here that Dr Shakeshaft speaks highly of you, and says you are also

acquainted with my old friend Achilles Daunt.’

‘I have that honour.’

‘Were you up at the University yourself?’

I told him that I had done my studying in Germany. He looked up from his

perusal of Shakeshaft’s note.

‘Heidelberg? Why, then, you will know Professor Pfannnenschmidt, I dare say.’

Of course I knew Johannes Pfannnenschmidt, with whom I had spent many a

wonderful hour in deep conversation concerning the religious mysteries of the Ancients.

This acknowledgement of an acquaintance with the Herr Professor produced a visible

mitigation of Dr Maunder’s raptorial demeanour, and appeared to remove any lingering

scruples he had concerning the propriety of answering my enquiry.

‘Pettingale. Yes, I recollect that gentleman. And his friend.’

‘Mr Phoebus Daunt?’

‘The same. My old friend’s son.’

‘Dr Shakeshaft mentioned some trouble concerning Mr Pettingale. It would assist

me greatly, in the prosecution of a highly confidential matter, if you were able to inform

me, in a little more detail, of its nature and consequences.’

‘Nicely put, Mr Glapthorn,’ he said. ‘I will not enquire further into your reasons

for seeking this information. But insofar as the matter, in its general outline, is one of

public record, I am willing to give you some account of the business.

‘I first came across Mr Lewis Pettingale when I apprehended him in a house of

ill-fame – a not uncommon occurrence, I am afraid to say, amongst the undergraduate

population of this University. Youth can be a little lax in point of moral resolve.’ He

smiled. ‘He was disciplined, of course, and put on notice that, if it happened again, he

would be rusticated.? But the affair Dr Shakeshaft has in mind was altogether more

serious, though its conclusion appeared to exonerate Mr Pettingale of any taint of guilt or

censure.

‘It began, from my point of view, when I was called upon, in my capacity as

Senior Proctor, by a police inspector from London who wished to question Mr Pettingale

in connexion with a serious case of forgery. It appears that the young man had gone to a

firm of London solicitors for assistance in the matter of an outstanding debt. He had taken

with him a promissory note for the amount of a hundred pounds signed by a Mr Leonard

Verdant. The solicitors undertook to write to this Mr Verdant forthwith and demand

payment of the sum in question, on pain of legal proceedings immediately being taken

out against him. Within twenty-four hours, a messenger had appeared at the solicitors’

office with the outstanding debt in cash, and a request from Mr Verdant for a signed

receipt.

‘On being informed that the debt had been paid, Mr Pettingale went again to the

solicitors to receive his money, which was paid to him with a cheque drawn on the firm’s

bankers – also my own, as it so happened, Dimsdale & Co., Cornhill. Well, the cheque

was duly presented, and the matter was concluded to the satisfaction of all parties.

‘But then, a week or so later, a clerk in the solicitors’ office noticed that three

cheques, totalling eight hundred pounds, had been drawn on the firm’s account without, it

appeared, any authorization. The alarm was duly raised and the police were contacted. A

few days later, a man by the name of Hensby was apprehended on the premises of the

firm’s bank attempting to present a further forged cheque, this time for seven hundred

pounds.

‘Suspicion immediately fell on this Mr Verdant, and so naturally the police

wished to question Mr Pettingale. I accompanied the inspector to his rooms. He could not

deny, of course, that he had sought payment of the original debt from Mr Leonard

Verdant, but vehemently denied all knowledge of the subsequent forgeries. When asked

by the inspector why the money was owed to him, he replied that he had lent the money

to this Verdant, whom he said he had met several times at the Newmarket races, for the

settlement of a debt.’

‘And was there any reason to doubt his account?’ I asked.

Dr Maunder gave me a somewhat skeptical smile.

‘None the police, or I, could uncover. Mr Pettingale was required to go with the

officers to London, and was called as a witness at the subsequent trial; but he could not

be identified by the man Hensby, who claimed he had been casually employed by a

gentleman – not Mr Pettingale – he had met in a coffee-house in Change-alley to run

various errands, one of which was to present the forged cheques at Dimsdale & Co. and

bring the proceeds back, at a pre-arranged time, to the coffee-house.’

‘This gentleman: was Hensby able to identify him?’

‘Unfortunately, no. He provided only a rather indistinct description, which

rendered identification of this person by the police virtually impossible. As for Mr

Verdant, when the police called at his address in the Minories he had vanished, and was

of course never seen again. The poor dupe Hensby, for such I deem him to have been,

was prosecuted, found guilty, and transported for life. A travesty, of course. The fellow

could hardly write his name, let alone demonstrate the skill to carry out what were, by all

accounts, most convincing forgeries of the necessary signature.’

He ceased his account and looked at me, as if in expectation of further

questioning.

‘From your most informative account, Dr Maunder, it certainly seems clear that

the perpetrator was the mysterious Mr Verdant. Mr Pettingale appears to have been a