Read Online The Age of Treachery by Gavin Scott - Free Book Online

Forrester.
    Clark looked up sharply.
    “At Margaret’s request I didn’t pass on anything you and I spoke about the other day.”
    “Margaret’s request?”
    “She asked to see me last night. She begged me not to reveal anything about her and Lyall.”
    “And you agreed?”
    “I did.”
    Clark considered this for a moment. “I’m sorry,” he said. “She shouldn’t have put you in that position.”
    “Perhaps not,” replied Forrester. “But she did and I agreed. So.”
    There was a pause.
    “Thank you,” said Clark. Then he grinned a death’s-head grin. “But you know they don’t even need that as a motive? They think I killed him because he was going to get the Rotherfield Lectureship.”
    “Yes, they told me. That was a bit of a facer. I’d no idea Lyall had been given it.”
    “The irony is I probably bloody well would have wanted to strangle him if I’d known, but I didn’t.”
    “It’s absurd he was preferred over you,” said Forrester. “Who was behind that?”
    Clark shrugged. “I have to say in my present situation the question isn’t uppermost in my mind.” He turned urgently to Forrester. “But I want to be absolutely clear about one thing: I did not kill David Lyall. I know what I said to you about wanting to – but it wasn’t the literal truth or anything like it. I was furious with him, I was furious with Margaret; but I couldn’t kill anybody over such a thing. I just… couldn’t. Do you believe that?” He turned towards the cheerless fireplace. “I did not kill David Lyall,” he repeated.
    Forrester paused. “Good,” he said at last. “I’m glad to hear that.” He shivered slightly in the cold of the room. “So what the hell
did
happen?”
    “If you’re asking me how come he was in my rooms and who stabbed him and threw him through the window, I haven’t a clue,” said Clark. “I went home after that bloody awful High Table and had a blistering row with Margaret, drank half a bottle of whisky and went to bed. I knew nothing about what had happened until the police came knocking at the door.”
    Forrester sat there, allowing this new version of events to sink in. Despite everything he had heard and seen, he was certain that his friend was telling the truth. “You didn’t speak to Lyall after High Table?”
    “No.”
    “Did you see him?”
    “No.”
    “You didn’t see him with Alan Norton, for example?”
    “Alan Norton?”
    “Remember the row he had with Norton at High Table?”
    “I’d completely forgotten it.”
    “About Norton being a fellow traveller.”
    “Good God, it’d completely gone out of my head. But surely that wouldn’t have been enough for Norton to murder him?”
    “Who knows?” said Forrester.
    “Did you suggest that to the police?”
    “No. I didn’t want to appear to be trying to protect you. There’s plenty of other people who can tell them about Lyall’s row with Norton.”
    “But could Norton really have done it?”
    “I don’t know. He was certainly angry. Did you see him at all, after High Table?”
    “No. As I said, I came straight home.”
    “Alright,” said Forrester. “Let’s try another tack. Have you any idea how Lyall came to be in your rooms?”
    “None.”
    “You hadn’t asked to meet him to discuss Margaret?”
    “I had not,” said Clark. Then a surprised expression came over his face and he leaned towards Forrester. “Listen, I made a mistake just now about Norton; the fact is I did see him after High Table. He was walking away down the South Cloister.”
    “Which leads to your stairs.”
    “Among other places.”
    “Like Lyall’s rooms.”
    “Yes. But Norton couldn’t have—”
    “Perhaps not, but if
you
didn’t kill Lyall, Gordon, someone else must have.”
    “But surely not Norton.”
    “Alright. Here’s another thing you should know: Haraldson was in Lyall’s room that night.”
    “What? The Norwegian?”
    “I found him there myself, knocked out cold.”
    “Good God. So