Read Online Death of an Old Goat by Robert Barnard - Free Book Online Page B

intellectually, but then they never would. How was one to attract sparkling intellects to a cultural Golgotha like Drummondale? Only to someone with the mental level of Guy Turberville could his staff appear like brilliant minds. Still, all in all, he had known worse. Much worse.
    He got rid of them at ten to eleven, and went to borrow a cigarette from one of his staff. He always chose one of the most junior members, and they regarded the supplying him with cigarettes during work hours in the light of a payment of tithes. They knew why it was, and in a way forgave him. Lucy was a very expensive wife. To their minds she didn’t pay very handsome dividends, but then she might have talents they knew nothing of. As he let Merv Raines hand him two Peter Stuyvesants (‘one for after the lecture’), and then let him light one, Professor Wickham inclined towards expansiveness.
    â€˜I hope you enjoyed the party,’ he said.
    â€˜Real nice do,’ said Merv, in his surly way.
    â€˜We must do it more often,’ said Wickham, with a mental shudder in the direction of Lucy.
    â€˜Beaut idea,’ said Merv.
    There was silence. Somehow they never found much to say to each other.
    â€˜Better be getting up the hill for the lecture,’ said Wickham, dragging heavily on his cigarette.
    He fetched his gown, and started up to the lecture-room, chatting with such members of his staff as were around about the previous evening. He was, as always, completely unembarrassed about his own or Lucy’s delinquencies as hosts. Probably they had already passed completely out of his mind. Quite a short period of time enabled him to throw a haze of conviviality over the dreariest or most disastrous occasions. So he chatted on quite unself-consciously as he walked with Merv and Bill Bascomb up the hill. It wasonly when he stood in the doorway to the lecture-theatre and surveyed the rather thin assembly there that a thought struck him. He turned around to his little band of followers:
    â€˜Where’s Belville-Smith?’
    Everyone looked at him.
    â€˜Didn’t anyone go and get him?’ asked Wickham, with his familiar gesture of banging his fist against his forehead.
    â€˜We thought naturally you’d be doing that on your way in,’ said Bill Bascomb.
    â€˜I had a tute. Oh Christ in Hell. Stand at the door, and don’t let any of these students out.’ And throwing a glare at all his staff, as if the negligence was entirely theirs, he hared off down the hill.
    â€˜Mrs McArthur,’ he shouted to the secretary as he went past the office. ‘Phone for a taxi to go to the Yarumba Motel. Why do I have to think of everything?’
    He picked up the phone in his room and dialled the motel. He’d have to make it right with the old man. Again.
    â€˜Yarumba Motel? I want to speak to Professor Belville-Smith. At once, please.’
    The genteel voice at the other end answered calmly: ‘I’m awfully sorry; Professor Belville-Smith has been found with his throat cut. Is there any message?’
    â€¢Â â€¢Â â€¢
    On the little shelf by the outside wall in the room at the Yarumba Motel occupied by Professor Belville-Smith stood a large and well-filled breakfast tray. Coffee in a little jug, with another little jug of milk and two little paper pouches with sugar; three pieces of toast made from pre-sliced bread, with plastic-packaged portions of butter and marmalade. And a large plate of steak, bacon, sausages and kidneys, with two overdone fried eggs on top. It was not the breakfast Professor Belville-Smith had ordered, but he would never now get a chance to tell them so.
    On the bed, pyjamaed, lay the body of the distinguished visiting literary figure. His throat had been cut from ear to ear, and there was a great deal of blood, red blood, over the sheets and the pillows. There was a large red stain on the wall, and another pool on the floor, quite spoiling the nondescript beige