‘There are too many people about this evening for my liking, and some of them I recognise,’ Perry said, as he virtually bundled her up the step into the vehicle. He gave the most cursory of nods in the direction of some gentlemen who had raised their hands in greeting
Laura sat down with a bump as he began pulling down the blinds. ‘Why are you two looking so gloomy this evening? Don’t you want to spend time with your old friend?’
‘And watch him flirt with you while he torments us with hilarious anecdotes of our misspent youth?’ Theo said.
‘Theo! Did you really have a misspent youth?’
‘All men have,’ Theo said. ‘We had the misfortune to spend our university days with Redfern at his wildest.’
‘I will wager you enjoyed it at the time,’ Laura said.
‘Parts of it,’ Perry said darkly.
The meal proved to be superb, not over-elaborate but well-cooked and interesting and accompanied by excellent wines. Taken with what she had seen of Mr Redfern’s wardrobe, Laura concluded that his legal practice must be a flourishing one. She felt slightly less guilty about accepting his decision not to charge her fees.
To her surprise he did not twit her companions about their university days until Perry said something about his sea-crossing to Ireland and how alarmed he had been to see the sailors taking in sail so high overhead.
‘And you such a good climber, Perry!’
‘Perry? What do you climb?’
‘We used to have a night-time climbing club at university,’ Theo said reluctantly. ‘We would take bets on which buildings we’d scale.’
‘You too? What was the worst thing?’
‘Oh, the Senate House pediment,’ Perry said. ‘I ended up dangling from that with the Watch just underneath. Of course, Theo had the most traumatic experience of all of us.’
‘Do not remind me.’ Theo shuddered.
‘The Master’s Lodge,’ Redfern said with a crack of laughter. ‘A dreadful old building, Miss Darke, all turrets and crennelations and crumbling balconies. We wagered that Theo could not climb up to the Master’s bedchamber window, steal one of his wigs and then put it on the statue of Academic Virtue in the quadrangle.’
‘And did you?’
‘I got up there after a pretty hair-raising climb,’ Theo said with a wry grin. ‘There was one of those false balconies outside the window – you know, about six inches wide, just there for show – and I had just landed on it when the foothold I had stepped from fell away. My only route to safety was through the window, but as I was reaching for it, it swung open.’
‘The Master was inside?’
‘With his mistress. And they proceeded to be exceedingly friendly for all of half an hour while I clung to the ledge unable to put my fingers in my ears. She shrieked with, I assume, joy throughout. He sounded like a wild boar in agony. These two,’ he waved one hand at his grinning friends, ‘and the rest of the group were doubled up with hysterics below. When the lovebirds finally left the room I was almost too shaken to climb in and sneak down to safety.’
‘Did you get the wig?’ Laura wanted to know.
‘Of course.’
‘So if Mr Redfern was Crow, what were you two called?’ she asked.
‘Perry was Pigeon. He would flap about, land on things with a thud, but was as fast as lightening when the authorities came into sight, like a pigeon with a sparrow hawk on its tail,’ said Theo with a grin for Perry’s red face.
‘And Theo was Cat. He could climb like one when he wanted to, was devilish stub
born about anything he didn’t want to do, could sit staring into space for minutes at a time but would then come up with just the way around something tricky,’ Redfern explained.
‘I like problems,’ Theo said mildly and promptly fell silent with an abstracted look on his face.
Now what is he brooding about, she wondered. The tomb, the gold coin? Me? Some problems you cannot solve by wishing.
They arrived back at the Grange on Tuesday in time for a late luncheon and then spent the day in suspense waiting, as Perry put it, for the explosion from either the Rectory or Swinburn Manor.
‘But where’s Will?’ Laura wondered when there was still no word by dinner time.