Chapter Eight
There were far worse activities than selecting an outfit for sleuthing, but Sidney faced his meager wardrobe with the air of a man before the firing squad.
Ginevra Bishop’s annoyance was too fresh in his mind, the impulse not to muck up his part more pressing than he had anticipated.
Fading into the background was important, but so was making a good first impression.
Ideally, he wanted Dr. Jacqueline Watkins, one of the dons from their suspect list, to approve his admittance into her Roman historians seminar and then forget he was there.
But options that hit this narrow target were limited.
Most of Sidney’s clothes were either too large and outdated from life before the war or threadbare and outdated from the charity shop.
His mum had hoped the army would thicken him up, but it’d had the opposite effect: He was muscled but lean and couldn’t hold weight no matter how hard he tried.
The one nice suit he owned was an extravagant gift from his parents upon returning to Oxford after the year helping them move south, but the dark striped wool filled him with guilt every time he put it on.
It was heavy with his father’s disappointment that Sidney hadn’t stuck with the mines after the war.
He ignored the suit in favor of tweed slacks, a cream button-down and brown tie, and a cardigan of soft sage green.
The first stop of the day was Professor Leland’s Aeneid lecture.
Even fifteen minutes early, most of the chairs that filled the dark-paneled lecture hall were already full, a feature unique to this class as many students were indifferent about attendance.
Leland’s magnetic personality outshone the rest of the quiet Classics tutors.
A sharp tread entered the classroom, and students shifted to attention as Professor Leland strode to the front of the room.
He faced his audience exactly as the hour chimed.
“Incipiamus!” he cried, and there was an answering flutter of pencils and paper.
Leland launched into his lecture with one hand on his hip and the other on the lectern, reminding Sidney of a matador in the ring.
He engaged with the text and ideas like it was a fight.
There were no dusty, dead languages in his classroom.
The hour of dissecting Virgil’s epic was thrilling indeed, but the entire classroom heaved a small sigh of relief when Leland at last lapsed into reminiscing about the war rather than grill anyone further on particular uses of the genitive.
He paced before the windows, a dramatic shadow against the noonday sun.
“The world may seem bright and shiny now, young friends, but never take it for granted. There was a time when I feared I’d never return to England, never walk Swithun’s halls again. Vosburg was my purgatory.”
The guttural name of the German castle transformed into a prisoner-of-war camp made an unpleasant feeling creep down Sidney’s neck.
It had become legendary for its inmates’ audacious escape stories, both those that succeeded and failed.
But the photograph Sidney had once seen in a newspaper reminded him too much of the French chateau requisitioned by the Germans where his own military service had come to an abrupt end.
“You’ll think you can trust people,” Leland continued.
“You’ll think, old Bobby’s not so bad. He’s always had my back.
He’s a good egg. I thought I could trust all my fellow soldiers too, until I realized a trusted confidant had betrayed our escape tunnel to our captors.
I could have called off the plan and blamed the French, but I refused.
Using the original plan as a decoy, we spirited out our men a different way, and I remained behind to cover their tracks.
” He stopped and faced the class. “If the bright and shiny days turn gray, embrace it. Purgatory is where you discover what you’re really made of. ”
A wave of admiration rippled across the students, and Leland looked down as though overwhelmed with emotion. He waved a hand, dismissing them, and Sidney hurried to finish jotting down the notes that had paused for the story as the classroom emptied around him.
The professor sauntered down the aisle and stopped before Sidney, smiling at him in bemusement. “You flatter me, Mr. Braithwaite. There can’t be that much worth recording from my class.”
“I’m a slow writer. I didn’t get down half of what I wanted, I’m afraid.”
Leland laughed and clapped him on the shoulder. “You’re always welcome to see my notes, should you need them, though you’ll find my penmanship is worse than chicken scratching—nothing like yours.” He picked up Sidney’s notebook and tutted. “Where did you learn to write like that?”
“My mother insisted.” Sidney forced a laugh. “I’m left-handed, and it used to be quite bad. Said she wanted to be able to read my letters home—and that she expected them weekly.” In that, at least, he had been faithful.
“God bless insistent mothers. I should have gone mad imprisoned in Vosburg if mine hadn’t sent regular letters inquiring after my health, as though I were merely vacationing in Germany.” Leland smiled and returned the notebook. “Where are you off to now?”
“I want to sit in on Dr. Watkins’s seminar.
I know it’s mostly postgraduate students, but I’m interested in the histories.
” Or rather, Sidney was interested in observing Dr. Watkins herself.
She was the most recent hire among the Classics tutors and not lecturing that term, and he had been relieved to discover a class that coincided with his schedule.
“A capital idea! Let me escort you over. Dr. Watkins is a brilliant woman—very insightful—and handsome, as well, which is more than I can say for other crones around here.”
He winked at his own joke, and Sidney stiffened with discomfort.
That was the problem with Leland: He was a brilliant lecturer, one of the best at Oxford, but there was an oiliness in his manner that clung to Sidney when they interacted outside class.
Before he could make his excuses and leave, Leland propelled him from the lecture hall and down the corridor.
“I can go on my own,” Sidney protested.
“Nonsense!” Leland brushed this aside with a sweep of his hand. “It will take but a moment.”
He shuttled Sidney to a classroom at the end of the hall where a small knot of students crowded upon the sofas tucked into the corner.
The group would have been impossible for Sidney to join unobserved if alone; with Leland at his side, it was like entering the Roman forum with Cicero announcing his arrival.
“Have you come to fill in for Dr. Watkins, sir?” a girl asked in delight.
“Late again, is she?” Leland tutted with mock disapprobation and sat in the empty chair.
He leaned back, drawing a foot over the opposite knee, and folded his hands over his stomach.
“That woman would be late to her own wedding.” He flashed a bright smile, his gold molar winking in the sunlight streaming through the window, and everyone chuckled.
“Come, Braithwaite. Draw up another chair. Dr. Watkins likely won’t even notice you. ”
This drew a round of smirks from the students, and another girl launched into quizzing Leland about his upcoming book. Sidney wrangled a chair from between a barrister’s bookcase and a potted plant and carried it back to the group.
“There’s room right here,” a man across the circle said.
Sidney was surprised to hear an American accent and even more surprised to see Lewis Hughes seated across from him—the male postgraduate student from the Rook’s suspect list. Polished, gold-rimmed glasses gleamed against the man’s dark brown skin, framing russet-colored eyes that regarded Sidney with amiable curiosity, a trait that marked him as American even easier than the accent.
Sidney tucked the chair into the ring and sat down.
“Thank you,” he said, and Hughes returned to his notes.
The American was a member of Magdalen, and Sidney had planned to loiter about their grounds to discover the best opportunities to observe him.
This arrangement, however, was much more convenient.
It was then Sidney noticed the man seated across from them.
Donald Craddock scowled with such vengeance that Sidney glanced over his shoulder to double-check the young lord’s ire was indeed aimed at him.
Their paths rarely crossed for they belonged to different colleges, but perhaps it was strange they hadn’t bumped into each other before the debate.
They probably frequented the same events and some lectures.
Or perhaps he hadn’t noticed the man before connecting him to Bishop.
Leland clapped his hands and rose. “I must be off, but don’t forget the Damocles Club is hosting a party for my new book. I hope to see you all there!”
There was a chorus of enthusiastic murmurs, but Donald Craddock shifted his annoyed glare from Sidney to Leland.
“Professor,” he interjected, “did you ever see my notes on your manuscript?”
Leland backed toward the door, waving a dismissive hand. “It’s already left the printers, my boy. You worry too much about trivial matters, but I appreciate your diligence. Ah—Dr. Watkins!”
A pale, petite woman with a knot of curly salt-and-pepper hair bustled into the room and stopped. She peered around Leland at the group of students, lips pursed in confusion, and flipped up the fob watch on her jacket lapel. “Sorry, have I got the wrong room again?”
“No, Dr. Watkins,” Leland laughed. “I am the interloper here. I’ve brought a student who wishes to join you. You know Mr. Braithwaite, yes?”
Sidney lifted a hand, and Dr. Watkins tipped her head in acknowledgment. “Yes, yes, of course,” she said. “You’re welcome to join us.”
Leland clapped his hands. “Splendid! Send him back if he grows unruly.” He withdrew from the room with a merry wave and disappeared, his whistle fading down the hall.