Tell Tale: Short Stories

“Yes, I am,” said Guy.

Manners burst out laughing, while the lawyer added contemptuously, “On what charge, dare I ask?”

“Possession of stolen goods.”

“No doubt you’re able to substantiate your wild claim, Constable,” he said, making no attempt to mask any sarcasm.

“I most certainly can,” said Guy, before he began to climb back up the stairs while his colleagues watched nervously. He stopped halfway, and removed an oil painting from the wall before coming back down to the hall.

“Do you recognize this painting, Mr. Manners?” asked Guy, holding it up in front of him.

Manners just stood there, looking at his lawyer.

“It’s a Cézanne,” said Guy. “He was one of the most influential artists of the early twentieth century.” Guy paused to admire the painting. “Never signed or dated, because the artist considered View of Auvers-sur-Oise unfinished, but more interesting is that the painting was stolen from the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford the night before the Millennium.” Guy turned to face the lawyer. “I wonder if you have any idea of its value, Mr. Carstairs?”

The lawyer didn’t offer an opinion.

“Sotheby’s valued it at a little over three million, but that’s possibly a conservative estimate, as Sir Nicholas Serota, the director of the Tate, described the painting as a national treasure, and irreplaceable.”

The chief superintendent nodded, and two of his senior officers stepped forward, handcuffed Manners, read him his rights, and led him o

ut to a waiting car. Guy reluctantly handed over the painting to the chief superintendent.

As Hendry caught up with Guy on his way back to the van, the chief inspector remarked, “It’s like making love for the first time, lad. A copper never forgets his first arrest.”

A GENTLEMAN AND A SCHOLAR

WHEN SHE ENTERED the lecture theater for the last time, the entire faculty rose and cheered. She progressed up the steps and onto the stage, feigning to be unaffected by their warm reception. She waited for her students to resume their places before she began to deliver her final lecture.

She held her emotions in check as she looked up at the assembled audience for the first time. A lecture theater that held three hundred and was rarely full was now so packed with professors, lecturers, and scholars she had taught over the past four decades, that some of them had spilled out onto the steps at the sides, while others stood hugger-mugger at the back.

Many had traveled from across the nation to sit at her feet and acknowledge the curtain coming down on an illustrious career. But as she stood and looked at them, Professor Burbage couldn’t help recalling it hadn’t always been that way.

* * *

Margaret Alice Burbage had studied English literature at Radcliffe before sailing across the ocean to spend a couple of years at the other Cambridge, where she completed a Ph.D. on Shakespeare’s early sonnets.

Dr. Burbage was offered the chance to remain in Cambridge as a teaching fellow at Girton, but declined as she wished to return to her native land, and like a disciple spreading the Gospel, preach about the Bard of Stratford-upon-Avon to her fellow countrymen.

Although vast areas of America had become emancipated, there still remained a small group of universities who were not quite ready to believe a woman could teach a man—anything. Among the worst examples of these heathens were Yale and Princeton, who did not allow women to darken their doors until 1969.

In 1970, when Dr. Burbage applied for the position of assistant professor at Yale, she told her mother after being interviewed by the all-male panel that she had no hope of being offered the post, and indeed, she expected to return to Amersham, where she would happily teach English at the local girls’ school where she had been educated. But to everyone’s surprise, other than that of the interviewing panel, she was offered the position, albeit at two-thirds of the salary of her male colleagues.

Questions were whispered in the cloisters as to where she would go to the lavatory, who would cover for her when she was having her period, and even who would sit next to her in the dining room.

Several former alumni made their feelings clear to the president of Yale, and some even moved their offspring to other universities lest they be contaminated, while another more active group were already plotting her downfall.

When Dr. Burbage had entered the same theater some forty-two years before to deliver her first lecture, the troops were lined up and ready for battle. As she walked onto that same stage, she was greeted by an eerie silence. She looked up at the 109 students, who were ranged in the amphitheater around her like lions who’d spotted a stray Christian.

Dr. Burbage opened her notebook and began her lecture.

“Gentlemen,” she said, as there weren’t any other ladies in the room, “my name is Margaret Burbage, and I shall be giving twelve lectures this term, covering the canon of William Shakespeare.”

“But did he even write the plays?” said a voice who didn’t attempt to make himself known.

She looked around the tiered benches, but wasn’t able to identify which of the students had addressed her.

“There’s no conclusive proof that anyone else wrote the plays,” she said, abandoning her prepared notes, “and indeed—”