Having finished his research at the Embassy, Stephen took a taxi to the Cunard offices in St. James’s Square and spoke to a booking clerk and from there on to Claridge’s in Brook Street, where he spent a few minutes with the duty manager. A telephone call to Monte Carlo completed his research. He traveled back to Oxford on the 5:15.
Stephen returned to his college rooms. He felt he now knew as much about Harvey Metcalfe as anyone, except perhaps for Arlene and Detective Inspector Clifford Smith of the Fraud Squad. Once again he stayed up into the early hours completing his dossier, which now ran to over forty typewritten pages.
When the dossier was finally completed he went to bed and fell into a deep sleep. He rose again early in the morning, strolled across the Cloisters to a Common Room breakfast and helped himself to eggs, bacon, coffee and toast. He then took his dossier to the Bursar’s office where he made four copies of every document, ending up with five dossiers in all. He strolled back across Magdalen Bridge, admiring as always the trim flower beds of the University Botanic Gardens beneath him on his right, and called in at Maxwell’s Bookshop on the other side of the bridge.
Stephen returned to his rooms with five smart files all of different colors. He then placed the five dossiers in the separate files and put them in a drawer of his desk which he kept locked. Stephen had a tidy and methodical mind, as a mathematician must: a mind the like of which Harvey Metcalfe had never yet come up against.
Stephen then referred to the notes he had written after his interview with Detective Inspector Smith and rang Directory Inquiries, asking for the London addresses and telephone numbers of Dr. Robin Oakley, Jean-Pierre Lamanns and Lord Brigsley. Directory Inquiries refused to give him more than two numbers at any one time. Stephen wondered how the GPO expected to make a profit. In the States the Bell Telephone Company would happily have given him a dozen telephone numbers and still ended with the inevitable “You’re welcome.”
The two he managed to wheedle out of his reluctant informant were Dr. Robin Oakley at 122 Harley Street, London W1, and Jean-Pierre Lamanns at the Lamanns Gallery, 40 New Bond Street, W1. Stephen then dialed Directory Inquiries a second time and requested the number and address of Lord Brigsley.
“No one under Brigsley in Central London,” said the
operator. “Maybe he’s ex-Directory. That is, if he really is a lord,” she sniffed.
Stephen left his study for the Senior Common Room, where he thumbed through the latest copy of Who’s Who and found the noble lord:
BRIGSLEY, Viscount; James Clarence Spencer; b. 11 Oct. 1942; Farmer; s and heir of 5th Earl of Louth, cr 1764, qv. Educ: Harrow; Christ Church, Oxford (BA). Pres. Oxford University Dramatic Society. Lt. Grenadier Guards 1966–68. Recreations: polo (not water), shooting. Address: Tathwell Hall, Louth, Lincs. Clubs: Garrick, Guards.
Stephen then strolled over to Christ Church and asked the secretary in the Treasurer’s office if she had in her records a London address for James Brigsley, matriculated 1963. It was duly supplied as 119 King’s Road, London SW3.
Stephen was beginning to warm to the challenge of Harvey Metcalfe. He left Christ Church by Peckwater and the Canterbury Gate, out into the High and back to Magdalen, hands in pockets, composing a brief letter in his mind. Oxford’s nocturnal slogan-writers had been at work on a college wall again: “Deanz meanz feinz” said one neatly painted graffito. Stephen, the reluctant Junior Dean of Magdalen, responsible for undergraduate discipline, smiled. If they were funny enough he would allow them to remain for one term, if not, he would have the porter scrub them out immediately. Back at his desk, he wrote down what had been in his mind.
Magdalen College,
Oxford.
April 15th
Dear Dr. Oakley,
I am holding a small dinner party in my rooms next Thursday evening for a few carefully selected people.
I would be delighted if you could spare the time to join me, and I think you would find it worth your while to be present.
Yours sincerely,
Stephen Bradley
PS: I am sorry David Kesler is unable to join us. Black Tie. 7:30 for 8 P.M.
Stephen changed the sheet of letter paper in his old Remington typewriter and addressed similar letters to Jean-Pierre Lamanns and Lord Brigsley. Then he sat thinking for a little while before picking up the internal telephone.
“Harry?” he said to the head porter. “If anyone rings the lodge to ask if the college has a fellow called Stephen Bradley, I want you to say, ‘Yes, sir, a new Mathematics Fellow from Harvard, already famous for his dinner parties.’ Is that clear, Harry?”
“Yes, sir,” said Harry Woodley, the head porter. He had never understood Americans—Dr. Bradley was no exception.
All three men did ring and inquire, as Stephen had anticipated they might. He himself would have done the same in the circumstances. Harry remembered his message and repeated it carefully, although the callers still seemed a little baffled.
“No more than me, or is it I?” muttered the head porter.
Stephen received acceptances from all three during the next week, James Brigsley’s arriving last, on the Friday. The crest on his letter paper announced a promising motto: ex nibilo omnia.
The butler to the Senior Common Room and the college chef were consulted, and a meal to loosen the tongues of the most taciturn was planned:
Everything was ready; all Stephen could do now was wait for the appointed hour.
On the stroke of 7:30 P.M. on the appointed Thursday Jean-Pierre arrived. Stephen admired the elegant dinner jacket and large floppy bow tie that his guest wore, while he fingered his own little clip-on, surprised that Jean-Pierre Lamanns, who had such obvious savoir faire, could also have fallen victim to Prospecta Oil. Stephen plunged into a monologue on the significance of the isosceles triangle in modern art while Jean-Pierre stroked his mustache. It was not a subject Stephen would normally have chosen to speak on without a break for five minutes, and he was only saved from the inevitability of more direct questions from Jean-Pierre by the arrival of Dr. Robin Oakley. Robin had lost a few pounds in the past month, but Stephen could see why his practice in Harley Street was a success. He was, in the words of H. H. Munro, a man whose looks made it possible for women to forgive any other trifling inadequacies. Robin studied his shambling host, wondering whether he dared to ask immediately if they had ever met before. No, he decided; he would leave it a little and hope perhaps some clue as to why he had been invited would materialize during dinner. The David Kesler P.S. worried him.