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Authors: Charles Finch
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was small and strong-looking—an ex-jockey orbantamweight boxer, perhaps. A little pile of peanuts that marked their debts to each other sat between the two men.
“Could I have a word?” Lenox asked Scratch.
“Certainly. What are you drinking?”
“Oh—a half of bitter, please. Thanks.”
Scratch nodded at the bartender. “Do you mind, Bob?” The bartender went down to the tap, and the lad said, “How can I help you?”
“It’s about George Payson and Bill Dabney. They’re missing.”
“Dabs and George? Never! I saw them in hall only two evenings ago!”
Hall at Oxford, no matter the college, was always a pleasure; it was what everyone who had been there thought of first when Oxford came up. Students sat at the lower tables, eating, drinking, and mostly laughing, while the fellows gazed on sternly from the high table. There was a long-winded Latin grace, always a great deal of wine, and the nostalgic sparkle of candlelight and crystal. At Balliol, Lenox had sat with the same people for three years, many of them to this day his dearest friends. There was one tradition of hall that was universal in Oxford and Cambridge: pennying. If one could surreptitiously bounce or drop a queen’s-head penny into a tablemate’s wineglass, the glass’s owner would have to drink its entire contents in one go to “save the Queen from drowning.” As a result, much of supper was spent with one’s hand covering one’s wineglass …
Lenox again outlined the situation. The young man was amiable enough, and the half pint went quickly, but he wasn’t able to offer much help. Lenox asked him to keep an eye out for his friends and thanked him for the drink.
As the detective was parting, though, he said, “By the way, do you know what the September Society is?”
“Of course I do,” said the young man. “My father was a military man himself.”
CHAPTER ELEVEN
L enox sat at the Turf Tavern, sipping a pint of stout. He was in a small window seat near the bar that had once been famous for belonging to Jack Farrior, the noted professor of maths at Merton. Every morning at eleven, old Farrior came to the Turf to work on his great theorem of prime numbers, which he said would build on Gauss’s work. He knew he had done enough for the day when there were six empty glasses on the table—he asked the bartender to leave them there so that he could tell. Wrestling with the great mathematical problems of the day and unable to count to six without assistance, as Edmund had always joked.
Farrior had once caught Lenox and his friend Christopher Compton invading Merton to steal the fellows’ Christmas pudding. The pudding took a month to make and spent most of that time buried underground in a patch of earth on Christ Church Meadow, to absorb the earth’s dampness. Stealing it was Lenox’s third-year practical joke. The two lads had glided silently down the river on a stolen punt to come toward the meadow from its other end, disembarked, and begun digging. Things were going perfectly until Farrior stumbledupon them. It was an incriminating scene. They were both covered with dirt and had shovels in their hands and dark clothes on.
He stared for a moment. “What’s two plus five?” he had said, chewing on the end of his pipe.
“Seven,” Compton had said. “Last I checked.”
“How about three plus four?”
“Also seven, I should say.”
With a twinkle in his eyes, Farrior had said, “I myself hate Christmas pudding. Have since I was a boy. Tastes of ashes.” Then he had walked away, leaving Lenox and his friend in fits of laughter as they finished the job. It was still part of Balliol lore, passed down to each incoming class along with the theft of the Wadham chandelier and the transfer of several deer from Magdalen’s deer park to the Brasenose courtyard.
There was such a multitude of memories and associations here! He loved this little, many-roomed tavern, its low ceilings and smell of barley, its black casks of
“Could I have a word?” Lenox asked Scratch.
“Certainly. What are you drinking?”
“Oh—a half of bitter, please. Thanks.”
Scratch nodded at the bartender. “Do you mind, Bob?” The bartender went down to the tap, and the lad said, “How can I help you?”
“It’s about George Payson and Bill Dabney. They’re missing.”
“Dabs and George? Never! I saw them in hall only two evenings ago!”
Hall at Oxford, no matter the college, was always a pleasure; it was what everyone who had been there thought of first when Oxford came up. Students sat at the lower tables, eating, drinking, and mostly laughing, while the fellows gazed on sternly from the high table. There was a long-winded Latin grace, always a great deal of wine, and the nostalgic sparkle of candlelight and crystal. At Balliol, Lenox had sat with the same people for three years, many of them to this day his dearest friends. There was one tradition of hall that was universal in Oxford and Cambridge: pennying. If one could surreptitiously bounce or drop a queen’s-head penny into a tablemate’s wineglass, the glass’s owner would have to drink its entire contents in one go to “save the Queen from drowning.” As a result, much of supper was spent with one’s hand covering one’s wineglass …
Lenox again outlined the situation. The young man was amiable enough, and the half pint went quickly, but he wasn’t able to offer much help. Lenox asked him to keep an eye out for his friends and thanked him for the drink.
As the detective was parting, though, he said, “By the way, do you know what the September Society is?”
“Of course I do,” said the young man. “My father was a military man himself.”
CHAPTER ELEVEN
L enox sat at the Turf Tavern, sipping a pint of stout. He was in a small window seat near the bar that had once been famous for belonging to Jack Farrior, the noted professor of maths at Merton. Every morning at eleven, old Farrior came to the Turf to work on his great theorem of prime numbers, which he said would build on Gauss’s work. He knew he had done enough for the day when there were six empty glasses on the table—he asked the bartender to leave them there so that he could tell. Wrestling with the great mathematical problems of the day and unable to count to six without assistance, as Edmund had always joked.
Farrior had once caught Lenox and his friend Christopher Compton invading Merton to steal the fellows’ Christmas pudding. The pudding took a month to make and spent most of that time buried underground in a patch of earth on Christ Church Meadow, to absorb the earth’s dampness. Stealing it was Lenox’s third-year practical joke. The two lads had glided silently down the river on a stolen punt to come toward the meadow from its other end, disembarked, and begun digging. Things were going perfectly until Farrior stumbledupon them. It was an incriminating scene. They were both covered with dirt and had shovels in their hands and dark clothes on.
He stared for a moment. “What’s two plus five?” he had said, chewing on the end of his pipe.
“Seven,” Compton had said. “Last I checked.”
“How about three plus four?”
“Also seven, I should say.”
With a twinkle in his eyes, Farrior had said, “I myself hate Christmas pudding. Have since I was a boy. Tastes of ashes.” Then he had walked away, leaving Lenox and his friend in fits of laughter as they finished the job. It was still part of Balliol lore, passed down to each incoming class along with the theft of the Wadham chandelier and the transfer of several deer from Magdalen’s deer park to the Brasenose courtyard.
There was such a multitude of memories and associations here! He loved this little, many-roomed tavern, its low ceilings and smell of barley, its black casks of
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